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closed his eyes and dozed off.
Soon he was dreaming that he was standing just a few yards away
from an unpainted cabin. The world was sparsely furnished and
small. He felt like he was on an old, cheaply designed movie set.
Trees were bare-limbed silhouettes painted on canvas.
    A family of black sharecroppers loaded up a
mule-drawn wagon as a mounted gang of masked men watched them from
under a spreading oak tree. The nightriders held reins in one hand,
rifles and shotguns in the other, all aimed at heaven. Their
skittish horses danced to crashing thunder that sounded like sticks
hitting tin pans. The scene was illuminated by handheld torches.
Charlie suspected that there was a Cutchins in the mob when he saw
beady eyes glinting through holes in a makeshift white hood.
    The children tearfully protested being
dragged from bed in the middle of the night. Their mother, her body
wrecked by childbirth and field work, snapped: “Get goin’, ain’t
time to dawdle.”
    The father, wearing a look of utter defeat,
knew his life depended on bowing before the hooded men. He said
“Yassuh, yassuh,” as he threw his meager belongings into the
wagon.
    Charlie knew what the sharecropper was
thinking: Get to Hall County by nightfall tomorrow, got a cousin
there, figure out what to do.
    The wagon lurched off with the cotton still
in the field. It was a scam: Drive them off at harvest time and
take their crops. Affirmative action for white folks. A big,
cruel-hearted swindle you couldn’t perpetrate on humans and call
yourself a moral being. But there was an easy solution: Make the
victims less than human. That family became no more important or
deserving of reparation than a steer from which you’d carve a
steak.
    Charlie had to stop this outrage, but how?
The book he held in his hand had something to do with it, but when
he looked at it, the cover was blank.

Chapter Two
     
     
    “Darling, you’ve been working too hard on the
book. Come to bed.” Charlie opened his eyes and looked up at the
ancient woman gazing amorously upon him. Her hair dangled loosely,
and the curtain’s shadow formed phantom grizzle on her face. For a
moment, in the soft glow of reflected streetlight, Kathleen looked
like country singer Willie Nelson.
    “Mrs. Talton? It’s me. Charlie Sherman.”
    “Oh.” She let out a woeful little moan and
stood up straight. “I thought you were … I’ve been diagnosed with
Alzheimer’s, you know.”
    “Yes ma’am, you told me. Do you know why I’m
here?”
    She brightened. “You’re the man he brought to
finish the book.” She went to the desk and turned on the lamp.
“How’s it going?”
    Charlie sat up and rubbed his face with both
hands. “I passed out.”
    “That’s all right. I hope it’s not boring. I
see you read to page one hundred and one.” She emphasized those
last few words, making it sound like the most fascinating number in
the universe.
    “Oh, no. It’s … interesting. I just … just …
had a rough day.”
    “I understand. I’ll make you breakfast and we
can talk about how we’re going to proceed.”
    He thought he should proceed out the door. On
the other hand: food. “OK.”
    Kathleen left to putter in the kitchen.
Charlie looked at the clock and groaned. It was 4:05. He’d slept
less than an hour and had a miserable, hungover feeling without
having experienced the joy of drunkenness—a vice he’d sworn off the
day Beck was born. (The morning after, actually.)
    The dream had seemed so real; the events were
etched in his mind. Maybe editing the book was possible, after all.
Charlie returned to the manuscript, but he was tired and the words
made no sense. They were just scratches on paper. He put his head
on the desk.
    “Breakfast is ready!” Kathleen called out.
Charlie glanced at Momo’s picture on the wall, muttered an
expletive, and padded into the kitchen in muskrat-scented crew
socks.
    “What’s wrong?” Kathleen set a plate of
scrambled eggs and toast on the table.