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Sam had come to stand beside him. “What is it?”
Bill felt the world fall away. “Ghosts on the road.”
GHOSTS ON THE ROAD
Bill and Sam hurried back to the others just as the caravan pulled up the dirt road and parked down the drive from the old farmhouse. The men stepped out of their cars with a mean confidence. There were ten, Sam counted, and two carried rifles.
One m
an marched forward and perched on the front of one of the cars, resting his foot on the grille. Another man with a rifle slung over his shoulder stood beside him.
“We’re looking for Mrs. Roy Stoughton,” the man with the rifle said.
“There’s nobody here by that name,” Evie said. She wished Mr. Olson were there now to tell these men to leave his property. And Isaiah. Oh, where was Isaiah?
“That farmer turned us in,” Ling whispered to Henry.
“We don’t know that,” Henry said. He hoped it wasn’t true.
“That’s not what we heard,” the man shouted. “See, we heard y’all are all Diviners. The ones they’ve been looking for. You’re worth a lot of money. But first, there’s a little lady needs to be returned to her husband.”
“He’s not my husband anymore,” Theta yelled back. “And nobody’s returning me. I’m not a bad Christmas present.”
The man sitting on the car rose. He climbed the steps with swagger, coming right up to her. Memphis came forward, but Theta waved him back. The man in front of Theta removed his hood. The scar on his face was particularly red today.
“Hello, Betty Sue,” Roy said. “Get in the truck.”
“No,” Theta said. Memphis was beside her. All of them were beside her.
“You know what I can do, Betty Sue,” Roy said with a sneering smile.
“And you know what I can do, Roy. And I don’t need nine other fellas in bedsheets to do it.”
The two men with rifles trained their guns on Memphis and Sam.
“I don’t think you better do it, Betty.” Whip-quick, Roy snaked a chain around Theta’s neck. “Mr. Marlowe’s fellas told me this was the way to keep you cool. You won’t be doing any of your magic today.”
Jericho yanked the screen door free of its hinges. “I can do worse.”
Roy laughed. “Not against two guns.”
On cue, the Klansmen fired. The bullets nicked the tree.
“Roy, you don’t know what you’re doing,” Theta said.
“Sure I do. Collecting my wife and a reward at the same time. I’ll be a hero. We’ll all be heroes.”
“You’re not heroes, pal,” Sam said.
One of the Klansmen shot his rifle, narrowly missing Sam’s feet.
“Next time I’ll shoot straight,” the man called, and the others laughed.
Men with guns. Shooting in the village. Her mother bleeding in the snow. Fire spreading from house to house until her entire past had been erased. No. Not completely. Theta was from fire. She had swallowed it down her entire life, until it had become as much a part of her as her heart and lungs. She’d tried for so long to be rid of it. Now she knew that no one could take it from her.
“You know what goes up real quick in a fire?” Theta said, staring down the men. The familiar heat slithered through her veins like gasoline. The iron at her neck was no match for it. She did not try to stop it.
“What, Betty?”
