For a handful of days, it almost felt like hope might outrun the fear. Silas Pratt set up in Reverend Paulson's church office, his Charleston letterhead spreading through Alcolu like sparks in dry grass. Men and women from the colored quarters slipped in after sundown, whispering stories they'd once kept nailed behind their teeth: what they'd seen, what they'd heard, who they'd feared too much to name.
Elijah spent every waking hour stitching these scraps together — statements, signed affidavits, motions thick enough now to weigh down the sheriff's lies.
But Hammond wasn't a man to sit back and watch the truth march through his town like a second sermon. He liked his threats sharp, fast — and always at night, when decent folks kept their doors bolted.
---
It started with the smell.
Caleb woke just past midnight to a sharp tang drifting through the cracked window. He sat up fast — the old creak of the cot barely masking the sound of snapping wood outside.
Then he heard the roar — soft at first, like a giant beast clearing its throat. By the time he stumbled to the front door, flames licked the edge of the small shed beside the house — the one where he kept spare tools, dry firewood, old pieces of lumber too good to throw away.
Anna's voice cut through the night like a blade. "Caleb!"
He grabbed the battered bucket by the steps, already half empty from yesterday's wash. He flung the water anyway, useless against the yellow tongue already chewing through the shed's roof.
---
Neighbors rushed out barefoot in nightshirts, passing buckets hand to hand in a desperate chain. But the fire was faster — snapping, spitting sparks onto the yard, charring the small garden Anna coaxed to life each spring.
Amie cried behind Anna's skirts while Anna soaked an old quilt to beat down stray embers near the porch. Caleb's hands blistered, raw from clawing aside scorched timber. By the time the blaze sputtered out, the shed was a black husk, a warning written in ash.
---
Silas and Elijah arrived before dawn. They found Caleb sitting on a stump, shirt soaked with sweat and soot, Anna perched beside him, arms wrapped tight around his shoulders.
"It was him," Caleb said without looking up. "Sheriff Hammond. Don't matter who struck the match — he gave 'em the light."
Silas crouched down, picking through the charred debris with careful fingers. He held up a scrap of cloth — burlap, twisted and blackened at the end. A torch. Homemade and crude, but good enough.
"They wanted you scared," Silas said, voice level. "Wanted you to pack up, run. You gonna run, Caleb?"
Caleb's eyes flicked to Amie, who peeked out from behind Anna's skirts, hair smelling like smoke and soap.
He shook his head. "Ain't runnin'. Let him come."
---
By sunrise, word spread down the line: the Raya family's shed burned. No one doubted who did it. Some men at the mill grumbled louder now, shoulders squaring when they passed the sheriff's deputies on the road. Women stood at their gates at dusk, eyes sharp, oil lamps burning later than usual.
Truth wasn't the only thing alive now. So was anger.
---
At the jailhouse, Sheriff Hammond sat with his boots on his desk, watching the sun rise over Alcolu's thin roofs. Croft lingered near the door, hat twisting in his hands.
"You burn their shed?" Croft asked, voice soft as a prayer.
Hammond didn't look at him. "I didn't burn nothin'. I reminded 'em whose name's on the law 'round here."
Croft's knuckles whitened around his hat. "They're gonna stand harder now."
Hammond's grin was slow, mean. "Then we push harder. I told you — boy's gonna swing. This town'll stay quiet if I have to drown it myself."
---
And back at the Raya house, as the embers cooled, Anna swept the yard clean. Caleb stood by the fence, eyes scanning the pines for the next shadow, the next torch. And Amie, small and barefoot in the dawn, found one unburned patch of garden where a single green shoot poked through the blackened dirt.
She pointed. "Mama — look."
Anna dropped to her knees beside her daughter, brushing soot away with trembling fingers until the tiny sprout stood clear.
"See that?" Anna whispered. "You can't burn up everything. Some things come back."