"Go to hell, Charles Main. You just go to hell! No —" She shook her head, a violent movement. "You're already there, as low as anybody can get."
Enraged, he grabbed for her. She dashed by. "Willa!" A fleeting look back showed Charles her tear-streaked face. "Go ahead, run. Run!"
RUNRUNRUNRUN — it went echoing over the river. She was gone in the blowing clouds of leaves and dust.
"Miss Willa, you just got here."
"A mistake, Maureen. A huge mistake. Take care of that poor youngster. His father won't."
She walked all the way into Leavenworth City, the dust caking on her lids and lips and hands. A kindly ticket agent found her a basin of water and a piece of clean rag. She left on the four o'clock steamer for St. Louis.
When she walked back into Trump's Playhouse, filthy from travel, the old actor was astonished at the brightness of her manner. "Call a rehearsal, Sam. I'm eager to get back to work. I'll not be seeing Mr. Main again, if I'm lucky."
MADELINE'S JOURNAL
September, 1868. Klan activity much increased in the state with elections less than two months away. York County, up near the N. Carolina border, is a hotbed The Klan has seized the public fancy in a bizarre, faddish way. Visiting Marie-Louise here, Theo brought and displayed a tin of "Ku Klux Smoking Tobacco." He saw for sale in C'ston sheet music of a song written in the Klan's honor. In Columbia a baseball team called "Pale-Faces" openly pays homage to the organization.
The Summerton "den" remains visible but has not moved against us. Sometimes cannot decide whether to laugh at this blight of pretentiously costumed bigots, or tremble. ...
The muscular young black man, Ridley, put his arm around his wife. May was a slight, frail girl. She was in her third month, beginning to show.
Ridley had come home tired from digging and hauling all day in the Mont Royal phosphate fields. But the weather was so agreeable, he'd persuaded May to delay their supper and come enjoy the air with him. He felt good these days. He was earning a decent wage, and starting to build his own two-room house of tabby with help from his friend Andy Sherman and some tools loaned by Mr. Heely, the white foreman of the Mont Royal work force. Ridley was proud to be able to do all these things, and go wherever he wished as a free man. That included Summerton, where he intended to vote for General U. S. Grant for president, as Mr. Klawdell of the League suggested.
The last redness of the day was fading behind the thick woods bordering the river road. Walking together, Ridley and his wife heard a low hooting. May huddled close against him. "Sun's gone. We walked too far."
"Felt so peaceful, I lost all track," Ridley said, all at once aware of the lowering darkness. He gripped her hand and lengthened his stride; he couldn't hurry her too much because of her condition. Suddenly, behind them, they heard horses.
Ridley and May turned to look. They saw glowing lights floating above the road, and a red shimmer. They heard the jingle of bridles. Robed riders, carrying torches.
"May, we got to run. It's them Klan men."
She turned without a word and sprinted toward Mont Royal, her bare feet flying. He caught up with her and, side by side, they sped away from the trotting horses. Their bare feet thumped the sandy road. Ridley's breathing quickened; soon he was gasping. May let out a groan. The exertion was too much for her.
The four riders broke into a gallop. They quickly overtook the black couple. Ridley and May saw the shadows of the Klansmen appear on the road as they drew up close behind with their torches.
Two of the riders booted their mounts past the fleeing couple. Ridley smelled the animals as they dashed by, raising dust. The horsemen wheeled back in the center of the road. Ridley and May were encircled.
"Nigger, you know you're not s'posed to be out after dark," one of the riders said. All four were robed and hooded in scarlet cloth that rippled and gleamed when they moved. Ridley clutched May's shoulder, angry but not wanting to provoke them; they might hurt her.
"We were just on our way home, gentlemen."
"Gentlemen," another of them guffawed. "We're not gentlemen, we're hell's devils come to haunt rebellious darkies." The speaker dismounted and slouched forward. Ridley saw blue behind the eyeholes of the hood, but he didn't recognize the man by his build or his voice. The man thrust a Leech and Rigdon revolver under Ridley's nose. "Where you from, boy? Answer me respectfully."
"From down the road. From Mont Royal."
"Oh, then you're one of them Union League coons who expects he's going to vote come November. Going to try to put that goddamn Grant in the White House, are you, nigger-boy?"
May's dark eyes flashed with fury. "He is. He's a citizen and just as good as any of —"
"May, stop," Ridley begged.
"We are the devil's agents and we demand respect," the man said, raising his revolver to strike the pregnant girl.
Ridley jumped between them. "Run, May," he shouted. His hands darted to the throat of the robed man. The man fired a round. The sound of it was thunderous.
"Jesus, Jack," another of the riders protested. Ridley dropped to his knees, a wound just above his belt pouring blood onto his shirt. May screamed and leaped at the man with the revolver. Instead of shooting her, he drove his elbow into her round stomach. She cried out and fell on her back in the road, holding herself and weeping.
Her faded dress was twisted around her hips. She wore clean cotton drawers that suddenly showed a dot of blood. Jack Jolly pulled off his mask and gazed at May with repugnance. Another of the men said, "She's just a girl, Jolly."
Jolly pointed the Leech and Rigdon between the eyeholes of the man's hood. "You ain't got a goddamn word to say about it, Gettys." Ridley slowly rolled onto his side, quivered, lay still. Jolly gave a satisfied grunt, cocked the revolver, aimed at May's head, and fired another round.
Her body jerked. The sound boomed through the woods, rousing unseen birds that napped away in alarm. Jolly laughed and wiped his damp chin with the hem of his hood.
"That's one nigger vote we'll never have to worry about. Two if she was carryin' a boy."
"No violence," said Devin Heely, the small, red-bearded Irishman who had been hired in Charleston by the mine operators. "The Beaufort Phosphate Company's dead set against violence. It's my job as foreman —"
"They killed two innocent people," Madeline exclaimed. "How do you propose we deal with mad dogs like that? Invite them to tea to discuss the issue?"
Silence. Heely chewed on the stem of his cob pipe. It was dusk, twenty-four hours after the double murder on the road. Every available lantern was lit outside the whitewashed house, and every black man employed in the phosphate fields was standing or kneeling there in a great semicircle. They'd brought their wives, and all their children, too. A baby fretted. The mother rocked the bundled infant.