His face aggrieved, Hampton said, "Seen enough?"
"Yes, General." The two men fled up the steps to the gallery doors. ''The old saying's come true, hasn't it? The bottom rail is on the top."
Hampton paused in the corridor to say, "What transpires in there is a travesty and a tragedy. I am persuaded that we must redeem South Carolina from such men or face extinction of everything we value."
"I concur," Cooper said. "Whatever it takes, I'm willing to do."
August, 1868. Old Stevens is dead at 76. A greatly hated man in Carolina — but I cannot share that feeling. He lies in state with an honor guard of Negro Zouaves. There is already furor over his burial place in Pennsylvania. ...
Virgilia saw her old friend three hours before the end. She sat holding his hand under the watchful eyes of Sister Loretta and Sister Genevieve, two nuns from one of the old man's favorite charities, the Protestant Hospital for Colored People.
She and Scipio took the train to Lancaster to attend the funeral. On the trip they endured the angry stares and insulting remarks of other passengers. When they reached their destination, Virgilia struggled to contain her grief. She succeeded until they got to the graveyard where her friend was to lie.
Stevens had carefully considered his resting place during his last days. Because there were no prominent Lancaster cemeteries that accepted the bodies of blacks, he chose a small and poor Negro burying ground. He ordered that his stone be engraved with the reason:
I HAVE CHOSEN THIS THAT I MIGHT
ILLUSTRATE IN MY DEATH
THE PRINCIPLES WHICH I ADVOCATED
THROUGH A LONG LIFE:
EQUALITY OF MAN BEFORE HIS CREATOR
When she saw that, Virgilia cried, great surging sobs, of the kind that had torn from her long ago when she went along to Grady's grave near Harper's Ferry. Scipio put his arms around her. It comforted her. So did his quiet words:
"Only a very few can say they died as they lived, testifying before the world. He was a great man."
Virgilia pressed against him. His hand clasped tightly on her shoulder, and neither paid attention to the startled looks they drew. She was glad his hand was there. She hoped it would always be.
How brazen they are — the "Klan." Gettys's Thunderbolt carries a notice saying they will show themselves in a parade Friday night at Summerton. All who oppose them are warned to stay away or risk punishment
Andy declared that he would go have a look. I said no. He replied that I was not in charge of his decisions. I said I was concerned for his safety, and begged him to promise me he would remain at M.R. I took his silence for assent.
The humid dark of a Low Country summer sapped strength and shortened tempers. At the old table in their tabby house, Jane pointed to the paper Andy had been reading and smoothing over and over with nervous strokes of his palm while he chewed his lip.
"Andy, it says right there, 'All disloyal white men and Leaguers are warned away.' What's to be gained?"
"I want a look at them. In the war, the generals on both sides always scouted the enemy."
"You gave Madeline your word."
"I kept quiet. That wasn't a promise. I'll be careful. And back soon."
He kissed her and slipped out. She touched her cheek. How cold his lips felt. She stared at the paper lying beside the candle that was attracting a whirl of tiny gnats. The black-bordered announcement repeated the same pattern of asterisks several times:
***
Asterisks were substituted wherever the name of the organization should have appeared. It seemed the only matter about which the Klan members were secretive. Their threats, their hatreds, were fully displayed in Mr. Gettys's copy. All disloyal white men and Leaguers are warned away.
Jane clasped her hands together and pressed them hard against her mouth. She closed her eyes. "Andy — Andy." There was dread in her whisper.
He circled toward Summerton in a wide arc, traveling through the marsh, trusting his memory of the usable footpaths. He slipped knee-deep in salty water only once.
It was a cloudless night, with no wind stirring. A thick haze dimmed the moon. The air was full of mosquitoes and tinier insects that flew near his ear with a sound like the steam saw cutting. As he approached Summerton from behind Gettys's store, he heard voices and laughter.
He crouched amid the underbrush growing in heavy woods at the rear of the Dixie Store. At the end of the front porch visible to him, some slatternly white women lounged. One had the front of her dress undone. A scrawny baby suckled at her left nipple. The conversation of the women was loud and profane.
On the other side of the dirt road Andy saw children seated in dust, along with a couple of the poorer sharecroppers from the district. All at once the talking stopped. The white people turned their attention to something out of sight beyond the store.
Sweating, he decided to move closer and observe from behind a huge live oak that stood about ten feet from the porch. To reach it he would have to cross open ground directly in front of him, weaving through a clump of foot-high yucca plants with rigid leaves sharp as spears. The open space was brightly lighted — a row of oil lanterns glowed on the porch, and a cropper's boy stood nearby with a blazing torch — but the people in the clearing were all looking the other say, up the road. He counted to three and moved.
He dodged among the yuccas, running with barefoot stealth. A woman on the porch heard him, but before she turned around he was crushed against the back of the tree, the bark rough against his shirt. He heard the woman grunt. "Just some animal, I reckon."
After a period of silence, he heard a faint rhythmic thudding. Horses or mules, walking down the dusty river road. In the crossroads clearing, someone cried, "Hurrah! Here they come."
Andy slid his face to the left behind the tree trunk, until one eye cleared the edge, giving him a good view of the crossroads, brilliantly lit now; half of the new arrivals carried smoking torches.
He knew they were men, and only that. Yet the sight of them struck him hard. They wore robes and hoods with eyeholes. The costumes were sewn of some shiny stuff the color of blood. It shimmered with highlights from the torches. He clutched the trunk and watched with his left eye, holding his breath.
In single file they paraded into the crossroads. The right side of the lead rider's robe was pulled up and tucked behind a belt gleaming with metal cartridges. The butt of his holstered pistol hung free. Among the other riders Andy spied old squirrel rifles, an ancient spontoon, even a saber or two.
Dust puffed up where the hooves fell. Round and round the clearing they rode, somehow all the more frightening because of their silence. Even the white slatterns and the croppers looked cowed.
The leader reined his horse in front of the Dixie Store. Andy noticed something he hadn't seen before. The second man carried some kind of wood box on his saddle, partly concealed under his robe. The box appeared to be rectangular, about two feet long, and made of unpainted pine.
The leader raised an old ear trumpet of the kind used by deaf people. He spoke through it. The trumpet made his voice tinny and gravelly, disguising it somewhat.
"The knights of the Invisible Empire gather. Enemies of white chivalry beware. Your days are numbered, Your deaths are certain."