Joey shrugged. “We’ll find out.” He pulled Harley Paton’s hand away and went out into the hall, which was still and empty. “I remember something a general once wrote down,” he said. “He wrote, ‘You can lose a lot of battles and still win the war.’ What happens now isn’t too important, Mr. Paton. We’re going to win.”

Joey smiled at the thin man, turned, and walked quickly down the hall, toward the door.

Adam Cramer looked at the fifty men and women behind him and at the hundreds of children pressed against the windows of the school, peering, then he glanced down at his watch and called, “One minute, Paton!”

The Reverend Lorenzo Niesen nodded. His hands were on his hips, and his eyes were glittering under their narrow leather slits, blackly.

Bart Carey stood with his feet planted wide apart on the lawn. He held his new glasses in one hand and wiped them rhythmically with the tail of his shirt.

Abner West and Phil Dongen had stationed themselves directly behind Verne Shipman, who stood proud and full of proud fury, his face composed into an expression of quiet determination.

Adam Cramer studied the eyes of these people around him and said, “Remember, there must be no violence. We gave the sheriff our promise to bring him to jail. We aren’t a mob. We’re a citizens’ committee. All we want to do is make sure this nigger doesn’t slip away. Understood?”

No one answered.

“Tell them, Carey,” he whispered.

Bart Carey continued to wipe his glasses.

“No violence. That is strictly out,” Adam Cramer said.

The murmur of the crowd began to swell as the seconds passed.

“Don’t worry,” Verne Shipman said. “They’ll see what they caused. And they’ll see how we take care of it. Don’t worry.”

Niesen slapped his hands together suddenly. “Come on,” he yelled. “Let’s get the nigger!”

The crowd broke; the people began to move toward the wide concrete steps.

Then the main door opened, and Joey Green stepped out.

He was alone.

Lorenzo Niesen stopped, and the others stopped also, and stood frozen.

Very slowly, Joey Green walked down the steps.

“Did you people want to talk to me?” he said, looking at Adam Cramer.

For a long while, there was no reply.

Then Verne Shipman stepped forward and said, “Are you Joseph Green?”

“That’s right.”

“You admit that you tried to rape one of our white girls today?”

“No.”

“What do you mean, no?”

“I mean I didn’t try to rape anyone.” Joey looked up and scanned the windows carefully and saw the faces of Clarence Jones and Joseph Dupuy and Laura Lee Cook.

“That’s a lie, nigger!” Lorenzo Niesen yelled.

Shipman jerked his head around sternly. “You be still,” he commanded. “We’re going to listen to what this boy has to say for himself.”

Niesen’s eyes snapped angrily, but he said no more.

“Now,” Shipman said, turning again to face Joey. “You claim you’re innocent, is that it?”

“That’s right.”