But Cora did not move.

“Ah-a-a-a, Lawd hab mercy!” Sam cried.

“To hell with the licker, Charlie,” the undertaker said nervously. “Let’s start back to town. We want to get in on some of that excitement, too. They should’ve found that nigger by now—and I want to see ’em drag him out here.”

“All right, Jim,” the other agreed. Then, to Cora, “But don’t you darkies go to bed until you see the bonfire. You all are gettin’ beside yourselves around Polk County. We’ll burn a few more of you if you don’t watch out.”

The men left and the wheels of the wagon turned on the drive. Sam began to cry.

“Hab mercy! Lawd Jesus, hab mercy! Cora, is you a fool? Is you? Then why didn’t you give de mens de licker, riled as these white folks is? In ma old age, is I gonna be burnt by de crackers? Lawd, is I sinned? Lawd, what has I done?” He looked at Cora. “I sho ain’t gonna stay heah tonight. I’s gwine.”

“Go on,” she said. “The Colonel can get his own drinks when he comes back.”

“Lawd God Jesus!” Sam, his eyes bucking from their sockets, bolted from the room fast as his old legs could carry him. Cora heard him running blindly through the house, moaning.

She went to the kitchen where pots were still boiling on the stove, but Livonia had fled, the biscuits burnt in the oven. She looked out the back door, but no lights were visible anywhere. The cabins were quiet.

“I reckon they all gone,” she said to herself. “Even ma boy, Willie. I reckon he gone, too. You see, Colonel Tom, everybody’s scared o’ you. They know you done gone with de mob again, like you did that time they hung Luke Jordan and you went to help ’em. Now you’s out chasin’ ma boy, too. I hears you hollerin’.”

And sure enough, all around the Big House in the dark, in a wide far-off circle, men and dog-cries and auto-horns sounded in the night. Nearer they came even as Cora stood at the back door, listening. She closed the door, bolted it, put out the light, and went back to the parlor. “He’ll come in by de front,” she said. “Back from de swamp way. He wont’ let ’em stop him from gettin’ home to me agin, just once. Po’ little boy, he ain’t got no place to go, no how. Po’ boy, what growed up with such pride in his heart. Just like you, Colonel Tom. Spittin’ image o’ you…. Proud!…And got no place to go.”

Nearer and nearer the man-hunt came, the cries and the horns and the dogs. Headlights began to flash in the dark down the road. Off through the trees, Cora heard men screaming. And suddenly feet running, running, running. Nearer, nearer. She knew it was him. She knew they had seen him, too.

Then there were voices shouting very near the house.