He spied Sergeant Lockamy facing down the white crowd. “Are you just going to let this happen?” he said.

“I’ve got six men. You tell me.”

Walker Taylor rode up on a horse that looked too small to carry him. He had three men with him, also mounted. “Walk, can’t we get that Mick under control?” MacRae said.

“Exactly,” Walker Taylor said, wheeling his horse dramatically, “what I propose to do.”

The Negroes weren’t advancing. They remained in a defensive posture. Walker Taylor noted that and admired it. Inside Free Love Hall, three or four riflemen could shoot over the heads of their own people and decimate the white mob. Somebody was thinking. Because the white mob was disorganized, Walker Taylor knew that if he could turn the Red Shirts back, he could stop the whole thing. Mobs were stupid creatures. But after a certain stage, they could be dangerous. Some threshold would be crossed, and then nobody could claim control anymore—events would be propelled by sheer momentum. The thing would start to want to happen, and then it would. He had seen it happen in South Carolina once.

Luckily, this mob was still brewing. He could sense its half-heartedness. These men were out for mischief, not murder. Some were just starting on a drunk, while others were just sobering up.

Walker Taylor found Mike Dowling—disheveled, red shirt unbuttoned nearly to his waist—and two of his lieutenants on farm horses. They were passing a bottle.

“You’re messing where you have no business, Mr. Dowling,” Walker Taylor said.

“You country-club people really thrill me, and that’s the truth.” Dowling swigged on the bottle and then tossed it away, toward the Negro crowd.

Walker Taylor watched it thump into the sand and hoped to God nobody would use it as an excuse to shoot in his direction—he was a pretty broad target.

“These swamp niggers is keeping good men out of work, and you’re siding with them,” Dowling said. “Well, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!”

“This isn’t the way,” Walker Taylor said quietly. “I’m telling you to call it off.”

“You’re telling me!”

Walker Taylor leaned as close as he could. “There’s riflemen on the second floor. You might as well paint a bull’s-eye on your fat Irish kitchen.”

Dowling looked uncertainly at the second story. “I ain’t scared of no darky with a gun.”

“There are five double-barreled shotguns in the front rank,” Walker Taylor said coolly, making an automatic military appraisal. “Twelve-gauge, I think. They will blow you out of the saddle and take the saddle, too.”

“Mike,” one of the lieutenants said, “maybe this ain’t a good idea.”

“You going to let that nigger Manly get away with this?”

Walker Taylor said, “My Lord, you are thick! Manly’s not even here. Don’t you get any news at all in Dry Pond? Manly went back to New Jersey.”

“Well, Jesus, Mike, that tears it.”

“What do I have to do to persuade you?” Walker Taylor was running out of patience.