“Damn straight, she aint,” Talcott said. “I had a little talk with her on the way over here. Was her daddy put her up to it. She didnt even mind to tell me, long as she saved her own ass.”

Albion said, “You aint going to hurt nobody, are you?”

Talcott laughed again. “Tell him, brother. Would I hurt anybody?”

“We aint got time for this jabbering,” Ermel interrupted. “We got to git this boy out on the nine-thirty.”

The nine-thirty freight always ran slow with an open boxcar between Annadel and the camp, because the crew members were union sympathizers.

Rondal turned to me. “What do you say, Carrie? Should I leave?”

“I dont care what you do,” I said coldly.

Isom handed him his coat. He took it and left so abruptly the others had to hurry to catch up with him. Albion wrapped me in my coat and walked with me down to the tracks. When we arrived, Rondal was standing apart from the others, refusing to speak to them. The freight rumbled through, rocking slowly and screeching. Ermel waved a lantern, and by its light I saw a red bandana dangling from someone’s hand as the engine passed. Rondal ran alongside, leaped, and the dark doorway swallowed him. The train picked up speed, whined and disappeared.

“I hate him for what he said to you,” I said fiercely to fight off the emptiness I felt.

“You know that aint so.” Albion rubbed the back of my neck. “That poor feller lost everything tonight. Still yet, I’m glad he’s gone. God forgive me, but I cant help it.”

The next morning, Ruby Day found her father, Everett, slumped in a rocking chair on the porch of their house. He was shot once through the head from long range.

I tried not to miss Rondal. He was gone, he was safe, and it was easier to forget about him. I had Albion to fret over. Then Talcott brought Rondal’s banjo to our tent.

“I got a message from Rondal. ‘Give Carrie the banjo’ was all he said. Reckon he meant it.”

I laid the banjo beneath my cot so neither of us would have to look at it.

The first we knew that the governor declared martial law was when hundreds of state policemen swarmed through the tent colony in the early morning. Screams startled me out of sleep, feet pounded past the tent. Albion leaped up, struggling into his coat, and rushed outside. By the time I followed he had been wrestled to the ground by three policemen, his arms twisted and handcuffed behind his back.

“Run for Annadel!” he yelled as they dragged him away.