“Charles,” Mary said in a hushed whisper to her husband, “turn us around.” The fear was plain on her face and clear in her voice. “We need to leave. Now.” She pulled Maura, who was twelve, and Charles Junior, who was six, closer.

“I’ll not be buffaloed by Cottonmouth Quincy’s hired thugs,” Hoskins declared. “You’re blocking our way,” he said to the riders. “Yield the road and let us pass.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to voluntarily agree to stop sermonizin’ against the railroad,” the man said, “and stirrin’ up all the workin’ folks, are you?”

“I certainly am not.”

“Mr. Quincy figured you was gonna say that,” the man said, drawing his revolver. He nodded to his men, who also drew theirs.

One of riders guided his horse close enough to the team pulling Hoskins’s wagon to seize the harness. Mary stifled a scream and covered both her children’s eyes as they huddled together.

“Step down outa that rig, Reverend,” the man ordered, “and bring your family with you.”

“We will not,” Hoskins said. “I’m not afraid of your guns.”

“Maybe not,” the man said, aiming his Remington at Mary Hoskins and cocking the hammer back, “but I’ll wager your wife is.”

“All right,” Hoskins said, clambering out of the buggy. “Don’t shoot.” He helped his wife and children disembark.

As soon as the Hoskinses left the wagon, the Quincy men dismounted. One climbed into the driver’s seat the reverend vacated.

Hoskins stood protectively in front of his family. It did him no good. The leader holstered his pistol, nodded again, and another of the men clubbed the reverend in the kidney with the butt of his gun. The thin pastor fell gasping to all fours. Mary Hoskins began to cry, along with both of her children.

“Today we’re gonna preach you a sermon,” the leader said, “and it ain’t even Sunday. The topic of this sermon is wrath and retribution. Put your right hand under the wagon wheel.”

“What?”

The man kicked Hoskins in the ribs, dropping him from all fours to his stomach. “You heard me, Reverend. Put your hand under the wheel.”

“Please,” Reverend Hoskins pleaded. “Don’t do this.”

“Either your hand goes under that wheel, or your daughter’s head. Which’ll it be?”

The terrified Hoskins hesitated. The leader gave another silent signal, and one of the men roughly snatched twelve-year-old Maura from her mother’s arms. Another simultaneously grabbed Mary and Charles Junior by the hair and held them in place.

Maura was dragged, also by her hair, screaming and flailing in terror, and forced to the ground with her head under one of the wagon’s rear wheels. The Quincy man in the wagon’s seat held up his whip, awaiting the order to start the team of horses.