Gladys nodded her head. “That jury wont convict,” she said.

“Not a Justice County jury,” agreed the waitress. “Yall need anything else? I’ll bring some more coffee.”

Albion cut his eggs into tiny pieces. The yellow yolk ran into the red-eye gravy and he sopped it all up with a biscuit.

“Aint this nice?” he said. “I dreamed of fresh eggs for months now.”

“We got to thank your daddy,” I said.

“Didn’t want your belly to growl in court,” Isom said.

The waitress poured fresh coffee. Isom studied his watch. “Half an hour yet,” he said and winked. “We dont have to worry about no crowd. We got seats saved.”

When we stepped outside it was already hot. “I hope they got paper fans,” Gladys said.

We crossed the street and walked alongside the high courthouse wall. The gray stone building with its single tower crowned the top of the hill. A flight of steep steps led up to the lawn, where a crowd of men stood about.

“They’s some aint got seats yet,” Gladys said. “Law, I’m commencing to git nervous.”

“A lot of them fellers hanging around up there is Baldwins,” Albion said. “I seen some of them before.”

There was something about the way they stood that marked them—hands on hips and dark suit jackets pulled back, legs apart like they stood in the camps. Albion’s hand was moist in mine. “Here’s where it starts,” he said.

Isom stopped, looked up at the men. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Then his face cleared. “Oh, what the hell,” he said. “Come on.”

He pulled Gladys along with him. She looked over her shoulder at me, worried. She had a folded pink parasol clutched tightly in one gloved hand and held across her waist instead of down at her side, and when she turned to climb the steps, she poked Isom in the side with it.

“Damnation!” he exclaimed. “Them bastards try to git smart I’ll just let you stab one of them.”

We must have climbed two dozen steps and I was breathless at the top. The Baldwin men stared at us. Albion took my hand, placed it in the crook of his arm like we were at a dance. Isom spied someone he knew, raised his hand, grinned. The Baldwins stepped forward, pulling guns from inside their vests. When I cried a warning, the guns grew larger, the noise they made filled the whole world.

A wet spray struck my cheek. Albion’s arm stiffened beneath my hand and he stumbled and fell. I tried to hold him up by the arm but he fell away so the arm was twisted behind him and I feared I had broken it. Each time I screamed another crimson gash ripped through his chest. In the ringing silence that followed I cried out for help. People ran from the courthouse, but they stopped short when they spied us and turned away with their hands over their faces.