Only a couple of people had been in the store, and only one within earshot of the trial with no jury: Missus Baxter, one of Darlene’s mother’s friends, on a mission for nutmeg for the lady she worked for. Darlene was so broken up that she totally walked by Missus Baxter, a sympathetic Black face under a tiny white head scarf, hoping the girl’s gaze would meet her and offer even momentary reassurance. The bells above the front door that announced customers were jingling when Missus Baxter uttered, “You ain’t gotsta worry ’bout me tellin’ yo’ mama,” but the chimes were too loud for Darlene to hear what she had said.

So it started on a Thursday with a simple model train gone missing, and it would end on a Saturday dawn with an odd constellation of bodies hanging from a massive oak bordering a massive Mississippi swamp. Friday night, each and every shack on the jagged, crooked streets of New Africa was ambushed by the mob of men defending their property, pride, and honor. The women were left out of the violence and instead tarried at the Baptist church, not asking God to forgive them but rather to forgive those who had trespassed against them. They could have let it go, surely, but then no statement would have been made. The looting could have continued, the robbers could go unpunished, the order of things could be upset, the world as they knew it would end. Some walked and some rode high on stallions, holding the Black fathers and mothers at bay with rifles as they snatched up the New Africa boys. There was no father in Darlene’s home, and not even a mother holding on to a captor’s ankle could get them to turn loose her daughter. There hadn’t been the proper warning for escape, though one boy was found several miles away, days later, shivering in a cluster of pussy willows, and he was given the blessing of being shot on the spot. A group of men arrived afterward, most of them wearing ties as if they were on their way to church or the office, to stare at the boy and his empty eyes and mouth locked tight. One of them got the idea to burn the body, and the charred sculpture that resulted lay there for days before his family mustered the courage to claim him. A photographer had been among those who witnessed the burning, promising photos to all who wanted to forever preserve their glorious moment of upholding justice.