There is no such thing as black and white. One person may say ‘that man is black, and therefore is not permitted the same rights and freedoms as this man, who is white’. But that by no means makes it the truth. A man may say ‘I love you more than all the world,’ but it is as likely as not that he lies.

And so it was with me. My name is Rosalie J Cotton, but I have been known for over a decade by another, the name that you know me by. I am the Rose Bandit. In the right hand of every man I kill, I leave a single red rose, without thorns or even a leaf. And I have killed many men.

For near to twenty years, I have been tracking these men. I knew them when I was young, and they knew me. When I left a single rose in that first’s hand, the others heard and understood. They knew what was coming and scattered.
But not far enough. I still found them.

No one knows my story, the whole story, save myself. I have never shared it, choosing instead to allow others to think what they will of me.

But the time has come to tell all. My mission is finished. I must leave some person on this earth who knows the truth. My story is not like others. It begins in a small Colorado town of Get, the town where I grew up.

In that town, there were two rich families, while the rest were not. One family, Hale, owned near to three-quarters of the town, as well as the lake it was built by. My family owned the rest of it, my elder brother Cole to inherit. We were a mixed town, blacks and whites, though the whites were considerably better off. The blacks were forbidden from many things, something I had never understood.

The Hales had a son the same age as Cole, eight years older than I, who would follow me around constantly. He was small for his age, with a thin, pinched face and a serious stutter. I hated him; he would pull my hair and snatch at my ribbons.

But I loved my life. I was the jewel of the town. My hair was the color of pale spun gold and ripe wheat, and I always kept it plaited into a braid behind my head. Many of the town would stroke my head and tell me how enchanting I was. I was pampered, I admit, but somehow not arrogant about my advantages. In school, I was the smartest and cleverest student, smarter even that most of the boys. I was the pet of the town, loved by everyone, but loved especially by the schoolteacher, Katherine.

When Cole was sixteen, our parents sent him to school in Philadelphia. He never returned, marrying at the age of nineteen and starting his own family there. His wife, Lottie, soon gave birth to a son. Later, she also birthed twin daughters.

When I was fifteen, Katherine told my parents that I ought to go to Philadelphia, too, and learn to be a teacher. It took a year of begging, cajoling, and negotiations for them to agree to it. The final tip of the scale was when Miss Katherine told them that she was planning to marry, and she thought I was the only one who could take over for her. “If you work hard, you could be back here in two years,” she told me.

By that time, I was sixteen, grown to womanhood. I no longer plaited my hair behind my head, but left it flowing free or held it back with silver combs. My skin was fair and clear, but often blushed a fair pink when I found myself embarrassed. I was a normal young woman, enthralled to be seeing the world.

A few days after my parents agreed, Katherine accompanied me to the city by train, where we were met by my brother and several servants. We spent the week with him while Katherine piloted me around Sunstar Academy for Teaching, the very school where she earned her own teaching education. In between visits there, she attempted to coax me into the city to see the sights. But I had no wish to wander the city, only to learn.

I saw her onto the train at the end of the week with a tearful smile and two small tokens- a strand of blue pearls to wear at her wedding and the promise to return before then. She then proffered a gift of her own: a set of three pearl-and-ebony pens with assorted screwable nibs. “You will do well, my Rosa,” she said. She had always looked on me as a sort of protégé, or apprentice to her. “When you walk down that aisle and take your diploma, I will be right there, smiling and clapping the hardest. I believe in you, my dear.”

After she left, I began to settle into life at the Quince House, as Cole called his home. Already, just five years after they had married, Lottie had her hands full with a son, Walter, and two daughters, Virginia and Tally. As a result, there were a number of servants living there, all- as those in my hometown would say- “colored”. Among them was Aunt Betsy, the children’s nursemaid, and her son, Sam.

Being just a year older than I, it was expected that Sam and I would connect easily, despite our different backgrounds. But, to everyone’s surprise, we didn’t. I preferred to concentrate on my education, and that included a good deal of hard work and dedication. It left no time for socializing.

That was until I discovered that Sam was even smarter than me, with an abundant knowledge of every subject I knew of. It began one day when there was a storm brewing outside the city. I was still at the Academy when the headmistress informed us that we should all return home or to our dorms (many of the girls lived on the campus) because there was a slight danger of being snowed in. When I walked out of the building, there was Sam, holding my coat in one hand and a lantern in the other.

“Your brother sent me as soon as he heard about the storm,” he said. “Here, take your coat. We should go now.” He glanced up at the sky. “We have perhaps a half-hour at most.”

“How do you know?” I asked as he helped me into my coat. It was growing dark, and a strong, cold wind was blowing.

“The clouds,” he explained as we began walking. “The way they are drifting, the speed of the wind. And I can almost smell the snow on the air. It’s a scent of rain, but sharper and colder.”

I looked at him in wonder. I had never realized that he could have such depth to him. My parents were not against blacks, but they had raised me to think of them as under us, as less than us. These few sentences he spoke proved them wrong.

“What else do you know about the weather?” I asked, wanting to hear more. “Can you tell when a tornado is coming?”

“Of course,” he answered. “The sky looks green, and everything just sort of goes silent. It’s like all the animals know what’s coming. Watch out!” As he spoke, I nearly toppled onto the pavement. He caught me easily and set me up straight.

“Oh!” I said in surprise. He instantly let go and snapped his hands back to his side. “Thank you. That was very- uh- kind of you.”

“Kind is my middle name,” he said with a small smile. “Besides, someone has to take care of you. You’re unusually clumsy. Your brother led me to believe that you were a remarkably sure-footed young woman, but I have found it to be quite the opposite.” I blushed and looked down at my feet. I didn’t know why I was always tripping nowadays, only that I did.

This somehow began a ritual. Each day, after my classes, Sam would be patiently waiting outside with some interesting subject swimming inside his mind. We discussed language, botany, geology, religion, even math and music. Talking with him became a balm, a way to calm down after a trying day.

One day, I was stressing over a report I had due at the end of the week. He took my hand- his was so warm compared to my own!- and patted it. “Don’t worry,” he told me. “You’re doing amazing. You can finish that report easily. Would you like my help on it tonight?”

That night, he and I sat in the corner of the sitting room and talked over the report. He gave me ideas for my thesis, my introduction, and just about every paragraph I would write. When we were finished that night, it was late and we were both tired, but I felt better about the paper than I had about any other I had written, before it was even finished.

I wrote back to Katherine as often as I could, much more often than I wrote to my parents. By the end of that school year, I had very few school friends. We were all serious, studious girls, more concerned about learning than about friends, save a few who could somehow juggle it all. She seemed concerned about this in her letters, worried that I did not have a very social life. What I deliberately left out of my letters was my acquaintance with Sam. I didn’t want her to take our relationship the way Cole seemed to.

Cole was furious when he first heard that Sam and I had become friends. One thing he learned from our parents was their disgust for the “colored” (as they were called at home). He didn’t want me to have anything to do with Sam except to ask him for help with heavy lifting. But I resisted, and Cole gave up.

But when Katherine visited in the summer, I knew that was over. No doubt, she would disapprove even more than Cole. Nonetheless, I was happy that she would be visiting. She would be bringing her fiancé, Horace (the constable), with her. I had never known him well, and she wanted to be sure I did. For all her talk of students staying students, she was more like a mother to me.

“You were very close to this Sam, were you not?” the man interrupted. He wiggled in his chair and peered at the woman impatiently.

“Patience, Captain, is a virtue,” she replied. Her tone was not annoyed, merely amused. “You shall hear the full tale, do not worry yourself over that.”

“Of course. My apologies, madam. Continue,” he told her as he set pen to paper again. “I shall do my best not to interrupt.”

“Thank you. Now, where was I? Ah, yes…


Sam and I went together to meet Katherine and Horace at the station. We were waiting silently when Katherine and Horace stepped from the train. At the same moment, she and I both looked up and stopped talking. I broke into a grin and skipped into her arms.

“Little Rosa,” she sighed. “You’ve grown so much! And your hair! It is so long!” She ran her long fingers through my silky locks.

I laughed and kissed her cheek. “I’ve missed you, Miss Katherine. Are you well?”

“Very well, Rosa, I thank you,” she answered. “But who is this young man? Has your brother taken on some new servants since last I was here?”

I smiled. “This is Sam. He is Aunt Betsy’s son. Sam, this is my beloved teacher, Miss Katherine.”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you, Sam.” Katherine shook his hand and looked up at Horace. “This is my fiancé, Horace.”

The two men shook hands and glanced over at me. It seemed that it was my responsibility to propel our party forward. “Well, I suppose we ought to go on to the house. Unless there are any sights you think the rest of us would enjoy, Sam.” She looked questioningly at him.

“No, none,” he answered. “Though I wouldn’t mind showing you the sights some other day.” He leant down and picked up Katherine’s bags. “Please, allow me, miss.”

“Katherine,” she said crisply. The rest of us looked up in confusion. “My name is Katherine. I’d prefer that you use it.”

“Yes, Miss Katherine,” he replied as we began walking. “I’ll do as you ask.”

“Well, I was hoping for simply Katherine,” she said with a smile. “But I suppose ‘Miss Katherine’ shall have to be our compromise. So, tell me, Sam, why didn’t I see you last year?”

“My mother sent me to New York to work with my uncle,” he answered. “He teaches at a school in the Lower West Side.”

“He teaches?” Horace spoke up for the first time. Belatedly, I remembered that he was one of those at Get who did not approve of blacks. I winced, wishing that I had remembered sooner. “So, you are part white.”

“No, sir. Black through and through. My uncle is one of the many Africans to recently earn teaching educations. They’re much more open in Now York.”

Horace glared darkly, but Katherine’s quelling hand on his arm silenced his words. “That is very interesting, Sam. What about you? Would you like to teach?”

“Perhaps someday,” he answered uncomfortably. “I do love sharing my knowledge with others. I learned a lot during my stay in New York.”

“Oh, really?” Katherine asked sedately, still touching Horace’s arm. “Such as what? Did you learn about the ancient Egyptians?”

“Yes, indeed, Miss Katherine,” he replied. “I found it fascinating to hear how they bury their dead.” His eyes began to grow brighter.

“And what of the Greeks and Romans?” she asked. “What did you learn of them, Sam? Were you fascinated by their history, as well?”

“I heard of the stories of many of their gods. But I especially loved Homer’s writings of Odysseus,” Sam answered. “I would have to say Shakespeare is my favorite, though.”

“ ‘But soft! What light through yonder window breaks?’ ” I broke in. “ ‘It is the East, and Juliet is the sun.’ ”

Katherine cast me a sidelong glance. “Rosa’s, as well. Our school read Romeo and Juliet a few years ago. She loved it. As I recall, her favorite scene was when Juliet awoke to find her Romeo dead. I can’t understand why.”

I blushed deeply, opening my mouth to explain, but Sam came to my rescue. “And she need not tell us now, if she has no wish to,” he said. “We do not command from her an explanation, do we?” he asked doubtfully. “I do not.”

“Of course we do not,” Katherine replied, ending the conversation. We did not speak much more the rest of the walk (only a few minutes more). But later that night, while we sat on the porch sharing hot chocolate and memories, Katherine quietly informed me that she approved of our friendship.

I was shocked. I had never even penned a word about him in my letters to home. “How did you know?” I asked.

She smiled in satisfaction. “Rosa, I have known you for over ten years. In all those years, I have never known you to tell me something of importance. I have always had to wring such things from you.” She smiled softly. “I knew that, had he been unimportant, you would have mentioned him. But you did not.”

“You are a very smart woman, Miss Katherine,” I told her. “How you can stand being so crafty is truly beyond me.”

“I have to be, dealing with sneaky children all day long,” she answered. “If I weren’t, your brother would have ruined me within an hour.”

I laughed softly and patted her hand. “Well, it’s best if I sleep now. I plan to rise early tomorrow. Goodnight, Miss Katherine.”

“Goodnight, dear Rosa,” she answered. As I silently closed the door, I turned and saw her stroking the solitary ring on her finger.


The next day, Cole and Lottie insisted on taking our guests to a concert performed by Philadelphia’s finest orchestra. A few days later, we attended a party given by Cole’s superior and his wife. In between parties, concerts, and picnics, Katherine called on many of her friends and former instructors at Sunstar. Horace was with her constantly, like a honeysuckle vine. I did not have any chance to speak to her alone until the morning of her departure.

There had been a party the night before, and most of the servants were helping to set the lower floor of the house to rights. The others were running errands or sleeping off the night’s activities- the same as Cole and Lottie were doing. Aunt Betsy was awake and tending to the children.

I woke early and dressed without sound; even the children did not hear me stir. When I knocked on a chamber door a half-hour later, I was greeted by the voice I sought most. “Enter.” Katherine sounded calm, sure, and unsurprised, as she always was. “Rosa, you are late.”

“I apologize, Miss Katherine. I am afraid that last night’s festivities have tired me.” I slipped through the door and shut it quietly.

Katherine sat in front of a tall vanity mirror. Her long fingers were busy at the back of her head, intricately braiding her long, silky hair. “You have come to talk, have you not?”

“Yes, Miss Katherine,” I answered timidly, not moving. I watched her rapid fingers with admiration. They moved evenly and smoothly, without hesitation.

“Speak, Rosa,” she ordered calmly. One tiny braid came undone and she quickly move4d her fingers to correct it, looking at me in the mirror as she did so.

“What do you think of my relationship with Sam? I mean, what do you think it is?” I sighed, feeling much relieved.

Katherine was silent, twisting her braids up and pinning them in place. She gave the elaborate updoe one last pat before turning to face me. “A relationship is what you make it,” she answered simply.

“But I do not know what that is,” I protested. “How can I? Miss Katherine, please! You must help me!”

“Oh, child, that is where you are wrong,” Katherine chuckled. “I must not.” Upon seeing the shocked expression on my face, she laughed again. “Child, did you think I had it all figured out just because I am now intended? I do not, not at all. Even now, I have my doubts.

“Rosa, we must each struggle through life along our own path. Our elders will help us as they can, but they cannot simply give us all the answers. We must discover them for ourselves.”

I sighed deeply, knowing when I was beaten. “Then what advice can you offer me? What light can you bring to this darkness?”

At that moment, little Walter burst in the door. “Aunt Rosie, why are you crying?” he asked clearly. His little face peeked up at me in concern.

I reached one finger to my cheek and was surprised to find it wet. I wiped my eyes with my handkerchief and bent to pick up the child. “I am sad for Miss Katherine to go, Walter. I will miss her.” Katherine smiled at me and nodded. “Come, let’s go find Aunt Betsy.” As I carried him away, I met Katherine’s eyes. “We will talk later.”

For the rest of the morning, I was stuck playing Seeker with Walter while Aunt Betsy looked after the girls. Just before Katherine left, Sam found me in the hall. “You go see Miss Katherine off,” he told me. “I’ll take care of Walter.”

I smiled with sudden warmth. “Oh, thank you, Sam. Thank you so much.” I squeezed his hand briefly and then fairly flew down the hallway.

When we arrived at the station, Horace left me and Katherine on the platform while he loaded the luggage. “I can only tell you that life is difficult,” Katherine said to me. “You may think it should be easy, but quite the opposite. Rosa, remember: you cannot give up.” As she spoke, Horace appeared and began to return. Her words sped up rapidly.

“As for Sam… I have only one piece of advice.” She took me in her arms and kissed my cheek. “Follow your heart,” she whispered into my ear before stepping back. “I support any choice you make.”

“Goodbye, Miss Katherine. I will see you next summer.”

“Katherine,” she corrected before drifting away. “Call me Katherine, Rosa.”

“Do we need to take a rest, madam?” the Captain asked quietly. “You are weeping.” He made as though to take her hand in comfort and pulled it back.

“No, Captain. While memories are very powerful, many have lost their hold over me through the years. The tears will halt soon enough. Now…

The year which followed is a haze, punctuated with bright pinpoints of light blazing through the fog. I remember only a handful of days clearly: the first day returning to classes after the long summer; Christmas, when Sam and I exchanged gifts; New Year’s, alone in my rooms but incandescently happy; the Saturday in May when Sam took me through the entire city, dawn until dusk; the day I received my diploma, Katherine, Cole, and Sam there to cheer me on. And the day that Katherine suggested that Sam accompany us home and assist me with my first year of teaching.

We arrived at my hometown station late on the twenty-third day of June. We were met by my parents, my nine-year-old sister, Grace, and Horace. When the three of us stepped off the train, they all took a surprised step back. I saw Horace’s expression darken instantly.

My mother sedately waited by my father’s side, her composure returned. I saw a slight crinkle in her brow; the only sign of her anger. “He had better be a servant,” she hissed in my ear before pulling away. “Katherine, thank you so much for bringing my daughter home safely!” she said brightly in a louder voice.

“It was my pleasure, Patience,” Katherine answered. “If you will excuse me, I would like to return home.” With that, she picked up her bag and walked away with Horace.

“Who are you?” Grace asked Sam in her high, piping voice. She stared up at him enchantingly, shaving the rudeness from her question.

“My name is Sam,” he answered, leaning down to be level with the young girl. “And you must be Grace.” I grinned at him and he nodded knowingly. “Your sister has told me quite a bit about you.”

“She spoke about me?” Grace asked, her eyes wider than silver dollars and her small mouth spreading into a smile. “How much? Every day?”

“Every hour,” he corrected. “She just couldn’t say enough about her little sister Gracie.” He winked at me behind her head. I had barely mentioned Grace at all, only once when he asked if I had any siblings apart from my brother. I was shocked to find that he remembered.

“Come along, Gracie,” I said, taking her hand. “You will have plenty of time to interrogate Sam. He is going to stay with us for the year.”

Grace squealed in delight. “Really?” she asked. “Really, truly? Really?” She loved visitors so much. I had forgotten how much.

“Yes, really,” I laughed. “Really, truly, really.” I glanced at my parents and bit my lip. They were both glaring at me; my mother looked pale.

“Shall we return to the house?” my father asked breezily. “Ladies?” He herded my mother and sister forward, but I paused to take my bags.

“Let me, Rose,” Sam said, swooping down and gathering them for me. “It is the least I can do.” We hung back from the others; Sam was dragging. “I thought they knew I was coming,” he whispered.

I winced. Truly, they had known, and that was the crux of the matter. In my request to my parents to bring Sam, I had left out one important detail: his nationality. If I had mentioned that he was black in any of my letters, he would never have been allowed to come. “They did,” I whispered back. “I just neglected to mention one tiny detail to them.”

He grunted and glared at me sidelong. “I think I can guess what that ‘one tiny detail’ was,” he said darkly. “I am black. You neglected to tell them that I am black.” His voice was flat and expressionless.

I opened my mouth to protest, but no sound came out. “You are correct,” I said at length. “My parents do not care for those who are dark of skin, Sam, as I warned you.”

“Madam, are you quite sure you are well?” the man wiggled in his seat and leant very far forward. “You seem unwell.”

“Allow me to finish my tale, I pray you,” she snapped harshly. Her voice was strained and hoarse; the lap of her dress was wet with tears. Her voice dropped to a whisper. “I beg your forgiveness, Captain. There was no need for my anger.”

“You are forgiven, madam, and I beg a pardon of you in return. I should not have interrupted you. I am afraid my excitement overcame my manners.”

“You, too, are forgiven, Captain. Please, do not act so again. Now, I believe I was speaking of a conversation between myself and Sam…


Sam said nothing, and at that time, we reached the house. Before I could say anything more, he left me on the porch. “Sam!” I called helplessly after him.

He avoided me for the next week. Every time I tried to speak with him about what had been said, he made an excuse and left. Finally, I cornered him at the schoolhouse.

“So,” he said angrily. “You have me here. What more do you want? What words shall you say?” He stood not two feet away, legs spread and eyebrows knitted together.

I stared at him, completely helpless. His eyes, dark, rich chocolate, were filled with a myriad of emotions, but I could only discern one: betrayal. I did not understand it. “I want to understand,” I whispered. My voice resonated through the schoolhouse.

Sam had been looking at the ground. When I spoke, his head snapped up and his eyes bored through mine. “You want to understand?” he hissed. “If you can’t figure it out for yourself, then the past two years of your life have been wasted.”

I flinched and turned away from him. Bright, fat drops pricked my eyes and fell to the smooth hardwood floors in a steady stream. “You do not mean that,” I whispered. “You do not mean that.”

He shook his head. “But I do,” he answered. “But I do.” And he walked away. He did not turn, not even once.

“That was a very dark time of my life,” the woman said. “Sam and I did not speak to each other, not even in company. Jasper Hale visited often, and my parents pushed me to ‘reconnect’ with him.”

“And did you?” the Captain asked. “Surely, you parents insisted upon it.”

The woman met his eyes coldly and nodded. “They did,” she answered simply. “But I would not. Not even to spite Sam. Jasper was constantly angered by my slighting of him. A month of this passed before Katherine and Horace wed. Katherine begged me to be her maid of honor, but I refused.”

There was a knock on the door, and a man entered with a tray. He set the tray upon the table and left.

“Please, madam, allow me to pour some tea,” the Captain requested. “Your throat must be sore after so much talking.”

Once the tea was poured, the woman added several spoons of sugar and stirred the cup before setting it to her lips. “Two weeks after the wedding, I began my first day as a teacher. In the meantime, Katherine visited me often… but her visits became less and less frequent. By the winter, I hardly ever saw her. Or her husband…


And Sam would not speak with me. That year was the very worst of my life. In the middle of winter, my mother was struck by a wasting sickness which quickly claimed her life. This happened only a week after my father suffered an attack on his heart. They died within days of each other.

When my brother heard of this, he sent a letter, written by his lawyer, dictating that I was to inherit all of the family holdings. He wrote that he did not intend to return to Get, and it was best that I take his claim.

So I continued to live in our home, and I hired a woman to clean for me during the day. Gracie stayed with me, though she was more harm than help. She was constantly in tears over the deaths of our parents. Sam also remained, despite his letters to his mother asking to return home. I hardly ever saw him. I spent my days teaching and grading papers, while he spent his elsewhere. During the evenings, at the request of the schoolboard, Sam would help to repair the schoolhouse along with many other black men of the town.

It was the very last week of school before summer. I was holed up in the schoolhouse, grading and planning the end-of-year play. I had sent Gracie home as soon as I had dismissed the class. I was poring over the plans and trying to make the play a success while still catering to the needs of every student. I found myself in tears over the whole mess, after what seemed like mere minutes.

I lay my head on the desk and wept like a child. I wept for my parents, I wept for Gracie, I wept for the play, I wept for my first year of teaching. But most of all, I wept for what I had lost in Sam.

I was still weeping an hour later, when I heard the slight creak of the schoolhouse door opening. Before I could speak, I heard a voice and felt a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Rose,” the voice said.

And I looked up to find Sam, my Sam, with a pained face and tearful eyes of his own. Behind him, I saw the darkness of the outdoors through the window and I knew it was very late. My face crumpled. “Oh, Sam. I am so sorry. Sam, can you ever grant me forgiveness? I have been so stupid, like a child!”

Sam smiled and his big, dark hand cupped my cheek. “I can help with that,” he whispered as his face drew closer to mine.

And then his lips were on mine, soft and warm, and he was kissing me. His hands cupped my face; I stood and he led me away from the desk and to the darkened window. I wrapped my arms around him and buried my face in his chest when we broke contact. I still wept, but they were tears of relief and joy. No long of grief.

“You were married?” the Captain asked quietly. “You and Sam were married then, yes?”

The woman blinked at him, startled from her reverie. As she returned to where she was, she shook her head slowly. “You forget one important factor, Captain,” she told him. “You forget the hatred the whites of Get harbored for the blacks.

“That night, we decided to leave Get forever. I would sell or give away what property I owned there, and we would return to Philadelphia to be married before we set off to explore the world. Perhaps we would even settle where we could both teach together…


But we never had the chance. The next morning, I was woken by the smell of burning wood. When I looked out the window, I saw that the schoolhouse was in flames. I saw a group of men gathered around it, and at first hoped they were trying to save it. But then I saw one man light a torch and toss it into an open window.

I was shocked. I could not think. I could not understand. They were burning the schoolhouse. Quickly stepping into my dress, I ran to the Hale house. Surely, they would stop the mob. Surely, they did not know of this.

On the porch was Vere, Jasper’s father. When he saw me, he rose from his chair and stumbled down the steps. “Rosalie!” he bellowed, holding out his arms to me. A bottle sloshed in his hand.

“Vere!” I said, breathless. “They are burning the schoolhouse! Please, stop them!” He was silent, coming ever closer. When he stopped, his face was a mere hand’s-breadth from mine.

“Why should I?” The smell of liquor washed over me, and my heart plummeted in my chest. “Rosalie, have you ever kissed a man? I mean, a real man?” And his mouth came towards mine.

I took several quick steps back and slapped him across the face with all my strength. “You are drunk,” I said quietly.

He took a long drink from his bottle and spread his arms wide once more. “So what if I am?” he asked, grinning. “It’s not against the law for a white man to have a few pints and decide to get frisky with a white woman. A black man, though…” His tone turned dark. “A black man would be hung for kissin’ a white woman.” He grinned again, showing his rotting teeth. “And I always get drunk before a killin’.”

My eyes widened in fear. Someone had seen me with Sam. “Then you will have to kill me, too,” I told him as my voice trembled. “Because I kissed him back.”

His grin widened. “Not against the law for you to kiss him,” he said. “Only for him to kiss you. Takin’ advantage, as it were.”

I turned and fled to my home, to Sam, but I was too late. As I stood in the road, I watched as Sam was dragged onto the porch and shot twice. Horace pulled the trigger.