The men looked at one another. Sam could read the bewilderment on their faces. Walker Taylor clasped his hands behind his back and rocked back on his legs, chest puffed out. Clawson stood out of the way.

Standing behind MacRae, George Rountree looked at his railroad watch and muttered gruffly, “Get on with it. This isn’t a stage play at the Thalian.”

MacRae turned on him with a shining intensity in his eyes. “But that’s exactly what it is,” he told Rountree, his voice a loud whisper.

“Just get on with it. I’ve got a full calendar this morning.”

MacRae turned back and called to Kenan. “Captain. If you please.”

In one hard pull, Kenan and his two men yanked off the tarpaulin. It was the first time Sam had seen a Gatling gun since Cuba. The sunlight glinted off the brass crank and receiver, gleamed dully off the ten blued revolving barrels. It was mounted on a steel tripod bolted to the deck. One of Kenan’s assistants reached into a crate beneath the tripod and extracted a black-and-brass sleeve as long as his arm. He clicked it upright into the receiver, and Kenan swiveled the muzzle 180 degrees, sweeping it past the eight Negroes. They ducked and cowered, shielded their faces with their arms. Their mouths dropped open, but, if they said anything, their words were blown away on the breeze.

As Kenan steadied the muzzle over the starboard rail, they backed away from the gun, moving as far as they could toward the stern rail without going overboard. Sam stared off to starboard, where Nigger Head Point was coming abeam. What were those six posts near the water—a dock? As the boat drifted closer to the point, Sam realized what he was seeing: six large pumpkins impaled on poles.

Without further preliminaries, Captain Kenan cranked the gun. With the sudden burst of concussions, the black men fell against the rail, and one had to be grabbed before he toppled overboard. Kenan cranked off a hundred rounds, two hundred, five hundred, raking the shoreline while he found the range. The din was incredible, interrupted only for a split second as Kenan’s crew changed magazines. They had practiced this.

On the shore, willows whipped as if caught by hurricane gusts. Mud spouted up in geysers. Deadfall logs were whittled into sawdust. Trees were splintered in half, foliage shredded. The pumpkins burst in quick, bright splashes. The poles disintegrated.

An old bull gator lifted his gray muzzle from the mud and disappeared in a spray of blood and hide.

Kenan had been shooting for a whole minute.

A thick fog of blue smoke drifted across the huddle of Negroes at the stern, floated up the river behind them on the breeze. Anybody watching from shore, Sam realized, would think the boat was on fire. He had forgotten that a Gatling gun made so much smoke. The Negroes were all doubled over, coughing.