The horseman in the center of the line raised his old squirrel rifle. A man on his right saw the signal, scraped a match on the heel of his plow shoe, and touched it to an oil-soaked torch. The light blazed up, illuminating the half-dozen riders.
"Call her out," said the man at the extreme right of the line. He sat his horse near the lowest limbs of a huge gnarled live oak. The upper portion of the oak's trunk was all but hidden by Spanish moss. Some bird or squirrel moved there, a faint rattling. The rider on the end peered upward, saw nothing.
The man at the center of the line raised an old speaking trumpet. Suddenly the front door flew back and Madeline stepped out, her left hand rising toward the rope of the ship's bell.
"Stay," ordered the man with the trumpet and squirrel rifle. Madeline looked pale as she clutched the front of a man's cotton robe worn thin at the elbows. Behind her, the stout schoolteacher peered out, and then Marie-Louise.
"We are the knights of the Invisible Empire assembled," said the man in the center. His nervous horse shied.
Madeline startled them all by laughing. "You're little boys hiding your faces because you're cowards. I recognize your long legs, Mr. LaMotte. At least have the decency to remove that hood and act like a man."
A Klansman at the left of the line hiked up both sides of his robe and put his hands on the matched butts of revolvers. "Let's kill the damn bitch. I ain't here to debate a nigger."
The man in the center raised the squirrel rifle to quiet the speaker. To Madeline he said, "You have twenty-four hours to leave the district." The torch hissed. There was a clicking sound, a lever action putting a cartridge into a chamber, and a voice behind and to the right of the line boomed out:
"No, sir. Not just yet."
They all turned as Madeline's glance flashed to the mossy tree. A burly, round-faced black had crept into sight on a thick limb that bent under his weight. He braced his shoulders against a limb above, freeing both hands for his rifle. Madeline recognized gentle, reticent Foote; she hadn't known who was standing guard tonight.
"I think you gen'men had just better turn 'round and ride off," Foote said.
"Jesus, it's only one nigger," protested the man with twin revolvers.
"One nigger with a repeating rifle," said another of the Klansmen. "I wouldn't be hasty, Jack."
"No names," the man in the center exclaimed. Marie-Louise whispered at Madeline's shoulder:
"It is Mrs. Allwick's dancing teacher. I know his voice."
Madeline nodded, her lips compressed. The man in the center of the line began, "Madam —" Madeline leaped forward, shot her hand upward, and tried to snatch his hood.
His horse danced and sidestepped. He batted at Madeline with the squirrel rifle but she wouldn't be driven back. She jumped and clawed at the hood again. This time, she pulled it off. Des LaMotte's face was red with fury.
"Well. At last. The notorious Mr. LaMotte. And I have a souvenir of your visit." She held up the hood.
All of them watched her — the other two women and the Klansmen and Foote on the sagging limb. During the struggle for the hood, the Klansman with the two revolvers had drawn both of them. Still unnoticed, with everyone's attention on Madeline, he bent his right arm, laid the muzzle of his left-hand gun on it, and squeezed the trigger.
The revolver roared. The horses whinnied and bucked. Foote took the bullet in his left thigh, blown back off the limb and out of sight behind the Spanish moss. "Foote," Madeline cried, running past the horses to reach him. Before she could, the rider nearest the tree raced his mount under the lowest branches. Another roar reverberated. Madeline jerked to a halt. "Foote!"
"Stop that other one," shouted the Klansman with the twin revolvers. Jack Jolly tore off his hood and aimed at Prudence, who had dashed outside after the second shot. The disfiguring scar showed white on his face.
Jolly was momentarily hesitant about putting a bullet in a white woman. His hesitation allowed Prudence to seize the bell rope. LaMotte's shout went unheard in the clangorous ringing. Another man cried, "That's done it. Let's go."
Eyes glassy with confusion, LaMotte shouted at Madeline: "You have twenty-four hours. Clear out. Everything. This teacher, your nigger militia —"
Something inside Madeline broke. She ran at LaMotte's horse again, caught hold of the headstall, and yelled at him in the voice of a dock hand. "The hell I will. This is my land. My home. You're nothing but a pack of cowards dressed for a music hall. If you want me off Mont Royal, kill me. That's the only way you can get rid of me."
The horse of the Klansman at the left of the line began to stamp. LaMotte threw anxious looks at his men. Jolly was enraged. "If you're scared to kill a nigger woman, I'm not." He pointed both Leech and Rigdon's at Madeline, grinning. "Here's a one-way ticket to Hell Station on the devil's railroad."
The hooded man next to him grabbed and lifted Jolly's arms an instant before the revolvers went off. One bullet tore into the shakes of the roof. The other sped high in the dark. The Klansmen were now in panic, but scarcely more frightened than Madeline, who'd flung herself back against the whitewashed house, certain that one of the bullets would find her.
"I'll not have it," said the man who'd interfered with Jolly.
Hearing him for the first time, Madeline registered astonishment "Father Lovewell? My God."
''I’ll not sink to this," he said. Jolly turned the pistols on him. Undeterred, the hooded priest grabbed his arms again. "Stop it, Jolly. I'll not condone murdering women, even a colored —"
"You pious fucker," Jolly cried, wrenching one arm free. He aimed at Father Lovewell's hood. Again the Episcopal priest struck Jolly's arm before the revolver discharged. The bullet plowed under the belly of Father Lovewell's mare, raising a spurt of dust. Out in the dark, answering the bell, men were shouting.
Father Lovewell snatched a revolver away from Jolly. Jolly aimed his remaining gun. His skittish horse reared, forcing him to delay his shot. With both hands steadying the piece he held, Father Lovewell pulled the trigger.
Jack Jolly stood up in his saddle, then slumped forward. Blood darkened the front of his sateen robe and leaked down his mount's flank. The other Klansmen were totally disorganized; freedmen could be heard running and hallooing.
Des LaMotte looked bilious as he backed his horse and yanked its head toward the end of the house. He raced away. The other Klansmen jostled each other trying to follow. Jolly's horse galloped off last, its dead rider wobbling and bouncing and threatening to fall.
Madeline's legs felt weak. She pressed her hands against the whitewashed wall to support herself. Bitter powder smoke choked her. The torchlight faded as the Klansmen galloped down the lane.
"Are you all right? Who fired shots?" That was Andy, charging in from the road to the slave cabins.
Madeline's nerve collapsed suddenly; shock shook her. Hair straggled in her eyes as she ran toward the darkness under the tree. "Foote. Oh, poor Foote —"
Before she reached him, she had to turn away, violently sick.
At the edge of the dark marsh, by torchlight, they weighted Jack Jolly's body with stones and slid it under the water.
"They shot him, and he fell right by the house. That's the story," LaMotte said, hoarse. "We couldn't bring him out because they were swarming all over us. Don't worry, his kin will never go to Mont Royal to collect the body,"
"And we aren't going back either," Father Lovewell said.
"Oh yes we are," LaMotte said. "I take the blame for what happened. I never imagined she'd have a guard posted. But I won't be whipped by a woman. A nigger woman at that. She shamed my cousins. Destroyed them —"
"Des, give it up. Father Lovewell's right." It was the first time Randall Gettys had spoken.