Walker Taylor stood imperious as a schoolmaster. Rountree consulted his watch again. Clawson rocked on his heels. Hugh MacRae waited. The boat drifted south on the current, under the railroad bridge. The pall of smoke floated farther and farther astern, hanging over the brown water. Kenan’s armed crew stood facing the black men, hands on pistol butts. Kenan slapped in a new magazine and looped his arm casually over the gun.

MacRae flipped the tails of his coat back offhandedly, so that his pistol in its black leather shoulder rig was visible. He started speaking, but, at first, Sam couldn’t hear anything but the ringing in his ears.

“This little beauty here,” Hugh MacRae said, pointing, “is an insurance policy.” Walker Taylor, the insurance man, smiled. “It insures against a whole host of evil things.” He waited, as if for someone to dare an interruption. “Nigrahs with Winchester rifles, for instance. Rabble-rousers and outside agitators. Civil disorder.”

The Negroes stood silent, hats in hands, looking up. One of them had a growing dark stain at the crotch of his pants. He covered it with his hat.

MacRae said, “We mean to have order—do you understand?”

Slowly, reluctantly, the Negroes nodded. Sam wanted to protest, but he kept his mouth shut. Hugh had a look in his eyes that promised no mercy. He is a bully, Sam thought, but he is not bluffing. Then Sam was a bully, too, for doing nothing. For not objecting. For standing there with a loaded pistol in his pocket.

They already blamed him for nearly getting Alex Manly lynched. He was also the one who had written the Winchester piece. Now, he was a part of this, too. They would remember his face. They already knew his name.

But that was his job: watch, then write the story. What was the story? he thought. The man behind that gun is invincible. And the men behind the man behind that gun control this city. That was one story.

The seventeen thousand Negroes they were afraid of, that was another.

Kenan and his crew covered the gun with the tarpaulin. The city was coming up on the port bow. The captain ordered the engine put into gear. Rountree, Clawson, Walker Taylor, and Sam went back inside the pilothouse. Hugh MacRae remained where he was until the boat nudged the bumpers of the wharf and the crewmen looped lines over the bollards.

As the Negro men filed silently ashore, MacRae called out to them, “Tell your people what you witnessed today, hear?”

The eight black men vanished into the crowd of stevedores and sailors. MacRae flicked his cigar away into the river and dusted his hands against each other, as if they were soiled. He put an arm around Sam. “Write it up, Sam. No names. You understand.”

“Military personnel,” Sam said. “Or a company of militia officers.”

MacRae smiled. “Exactly. I knew we could count on you. Being family and all.”