“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.

Dowling cocked his head, as though a beam of light had just lit up the inside of his skull. “Oh, I get it! You’ve got your own blessed plans! And you don’t want us poor-bockers fucking it all up!” He grinned, showing broken front teeth.

Walker Taylor said, “Ride away. Now.”

Dowling grinned. Then he noticed that Walker Taylor had his hand wrapped around the grip of a .45-caliber Colt, hidden under the flap of his jacket. He heard a wet click as Taylor let the hammer down and shoved the revolver back into his waistband. “Just so you know,” Walker Taylor said, practically whispering. “There’s nothing we’re not prepared to do.”

Dowling jerked upright in his saddle and whistled a clear, piercing note. “The nigger’s gone to New Jersey!” he shouted. “We told him we’d drive him out, and we did! Leave these darkies to their supper!”

The mob began to bleed away by twos and threes. Dowling saluted Walker Taylor, still grinning, and then galloped up Seventh Street, scattering those on foot before him like barnyard chickens. He had some drinking to do. Things were turning out better than he could have hoped.

From the second floor of Free Love Hall, Alex Manly peered out cautiously onto the dispersing mob. Beside him, back against the wall, hunkered his brother Frank, a Winchester rifle cradled across his knees. Saffron King James was fetching them glasses of lemonade. She moved toward them from the stairs across the room, crouching, quiet as a breeze, careful to keep her silhouette out of the window.