Old Byron looked frightened, his eyes wide, and Luther put an arm around him and tried to calm the old man’s fear with idle talk. “What’s your brother’s name?”

Old Byron cocked his head like he didn’t understand the question.

“I said what’s—?”

“Carnell,” Old Byron said. “Yeah.” He gave Luther a shaky smile and nodded. “His name’s Carnell.”

Luther smiled back. He hoped it was a comforting smile, and he kept his arm around Old Byron, even though he feared the blade or the pistol he now knew the man had on his person somewhere.

It was the “Yeah” that got him. The way Old Byron said it like he was confirming it to himself, answering a question on a test he’d over-prepared for.

Another window exploded, this time on their right. And then another. A fat white man pushed them hard to the left as he made his charge for Peter Rabbit Hats. The windows kept dropping—Sal Myer’s Gents’ Furnishings, Lewis Shoes, the Princeton Clothing Company, Drake’s Dry Goods. Sharp, dry explosions. Glass glittering against the walls, crunching underfoot, spitting through the air. A few feet ahead of them, a soldier swung a chair leg into the head of a sailor, the wood already dark with blood.

Carnell. Yeah. His name’s Carnell.

Luther removed his arm from Old Byron’s shoulders.

“What’s Cornell do for work?” Luther said as a sailor with arms slashed to bits by a window pushed through them, bleeding all over everything he touched.

“Luther, we got to get out of here.”

“What’s Cornell do?” Luther said.

“He a meat packer,” Old Byron said.

“Cornell’s a meat packer.”

“Yeah,” Old Byron shouted. “Luther, we got to get free of this.”

“Thought you said his name was Carnell,” Luther said.

Old Byron’s mouth opened but he didn’t say anything. He gave Luther a helpless, hopeless look, his lips moving slightly as he tried to find the words.

Luther shook his head slowly. “Old Byron,” he said. “Old Byron.”

“I can explain.” Old Byron worked a sad smile onto his face.

Luther nodded, as if ready to listen, and then shoved him into the nearest group to his right and quick-pivoted between two men who looked whiter than white and scareder than scared. He slid between two more men with their backs to each other. Someone broke another window, and then a few someones began firing guns in the air. One of the bullets came back down and hit the arm of a guy beside Luther and the blood spouted and the guy yelped. Luther reached the opposite sidewalk and slipped on some glass pebbles. He almost went down, but he righted himself at the last second and risked a look back across the street. He spotted Old Byron, his back pressed to a brick wall, eyes darting, as a man wrestled the carcass of a sow over a butcher’s window frame, the sow’s belly dragging across the broken glass. The man wrenched it to the sidewalk where he took several punches to the head from three men who kept swinging until they’d knocked him back through the open window. They availed themselves of his bloodied sow and carried it over their heads down Tremont.