The heat of summer had left them, and now the crisp, cool nights of fall were upon them. Louella and William were lying in bed; he had an arm around her as he slept. The nights had taken on a chill, so Louella snuggled closer to the heat of her husband. Lying in William’s arms warmed her like the heat coming off the hearth. Even as he slept, she still saw strain on her husband’s face. She wanted to trace the crow’s-feet around his eyes but didn’t want to wake him.
Turning over in bed, she felt her eyes droop. A mountain load of work would greet her in the morning. Not only was she teaching the children, but she also had her night class for adults learning to read and write. She would welcome a good night’s sleep. But as her eyes were closing, she heard a noise outside, like hooves beating on the ground.
It was too dark for the crew to be getting the wagons loaded. She sniffed the air. Was that fire? She turned back to William and shoved his shoulder. “Wake up. I hear something outside.”
“H-huh?” William wiped the corner of his mouth and sat up. He stretched. “What’s going on?”
She whispered, “Someone’s outside. I smell fire.”
He sniffed the air, then jumped out of bed. It was dark in the room. He fumbled around until he found his pants. Louella lit the lantern next to her bed. “Blow that out,” William whispered.
“I need to check on the boys.”
“Not right now. Stay here.” William put on his pants and slid into his slippers.
“Come on out, boy!”
Louella jumped. Her hands fisted the covers. “Oh, my Jesus!”
William headed for the door.
“No!” she screamed. “You can’t go out there.”
“Can’t let them come in here.”
Louella got out of bed. She rushed into the living room and peeked out the window. She blinked, refocused her eyes. A burning cross was in their yard. A ghostlike man sat on a horse. He held the burning ember that must’ve been used to light the cross.
A man directly behind the ghost wore the face of an animal with horns, another had a potato sack on his head, and another sat perched on his horse with his face painted black. She recognized the man wearing blackface. It was Mr. Morris from the general store. Louella didn’t understand why he was in front of their home with the man who’d burned a cross in their yard. What devilment had gotten into him?
“Boy, if you don’t get out here, I’m going to drag you out by your ears,” the man holding the ember hollered.
William cracked open the door. Louella’s eyes went wild. In the back of her mind, she was seeing William hanging from one of them oak trees on Mrs. Serepta’s property. “Close that door, William. Those men mean you no good.”
William’s lips tightened. “I can’t let them take you and the kids.”
“If you’re dead, you won’t know any different. At least take the rifle out there with you.”
But he shook his head, opened the door, and stepped onto the porch with his hands up as if he was surrendering to the sheriff. “It’s late. You men should go on home. If there’s a matter we need to discuss, we can do it tomorrow.”
Mama Sue came into the living room. Pulling on her robe, she said, “What’s going on out there?”
“The Klan, Mama. Go sit with the boys for me,” Louella whispered.
“What you gon’ do?”
Louella hunched her shoulders, then she heard one of the men say, “Your time is up here. You darkies won’t steal another piece of land from poor old misguided Serepta.”
“I can assure you we didn’t steal any land. We’ve paid for every piece of land we own.” William tried to reason with them.
But then the man in the white sheet took a rope with a noose off the back of his horse. “We brought this for you.” Then two of the men dismounted and started walking toward William.
Louella’s eyes flashed with the memory of her father hanging from that tree. She rushed back to their bedroom and pulled the rifle from under the bed. She wouldn’t stand by and let them string her husband up, not without putting a bullet in one of them first.
“Louella, think of your children,” Mama Sue called after her as she went out the door.
One of the men walking toward William had a rifle in his hand. Louella pointed hers in his face. “Don’t come no closer, or I’ll put a bullet in you.”
“You’re not going to shoot me,” the man with the rifle said. He puffed out his chest, brash and cocky.
“Try me.” Louella shot the rifle in the air and then pointed it toward the brash man’s head.
“Go back in the house, Louella. I’ll not allow you to tangle with these men.”
Louella saw a few doors open as people in the Happy Land came out and stood on their porches. One of them called out, “We’re watching, and we’ll be sure to tell the sheriff everything we see.”
The man with the white sheet over his head laughed. “The next time we have lunch, I’ll tell him for you.”
“You won’t be telling the sheriff nothing if you don’t get off our property.” Louella’s heart filled with rage as it had the night Overseer Brown burned down their church. She could pull the trigger over and over again, until all of them lay dead in her yard.
“Who do you think you are?” White Sheet asked.
“They call me Queen Louella.”
A sudden explosion rattled the horses. A dust cloud formed, drifting into the air. Louella didn’t know from whence the explosion came, but a couple of the horses took off running down the hill like they’d been spooked. Then Femi and Harold came and stood on the porch with her and William. Both Femi and Harold had rifles in their hands.
“Who wants to die tonight?” Femi asked, a crazed look in his eyes.
The men started backing up while a few residents came out with buckets of water and began putting out the fire.
“This ain’t over,” the man with the white sheet said as he swung his horse around.
“You come back here, and we’ll bury you so deep no one’ll ever find you,” Harold told them.
William took the rifle out of Louella’s hand. He glared at her as if her presence offended him. “You see, the menfolk have settled this matter.”
She didn’t see that at all. If she hadn’t come out here with her rifle, those men would’ve hog-tied her husband and dragged him off to the nearest tree. But as her head swiveled from Femi to Harold, seeing them stand on her porch with their rifles at the ready, and then remembering the explosion, she wondered whether some plan had already been put in place that she was not privy to.
Louella went back inside the house and paced the floor, her cheeks puffing in and out as William talked with Harold and Femi.
When William came into the house, he placed the rifle against the door and then approached her. “Don’t ever do that again. You could’ve been shot.”
“Let me ask you something.” She took a deep breath, calming her temper. “Do you think I could stand idly by and let you get hung as if your life meant nothing?”
He expelled a gust of air. “No. I don’t suppose you could.”
“Then why in God’s name didn’t you tell me you had already talked to Femi and Harold about protecting our land? If I had known that they’d come to your rescue, I wouldn’t’ve put myself in jeopardy when we got children that need a mama to look after them.”
“Robert talked to Femi and Harold. I didn’t think to tell you. Hoped we wouldn’t need to deploy them.”
Folding her arms across her chest, Louella tapped her foot. Took a deep breath. “So am I no longer to be consulted about matters of concern for our kingdom? Do you and Robert now lead our people—without me?”
William shook his head. “Not trying to shut you out, Louella. Just didn’t want to trouble your mind with such things.”
She nodded and unfolded her arms. “Okay, then. I think we should call a meeting with the council in the morning.”
“Council?” William’s brow lifted.
“Of course,” she told her husband. “We shall have a council to advise and protect our kingdom. I read all about it in one of the books Mrs. Serepta donated to our school.”
“So we have a council now, do we?”
Louella nodded. “But I need y’all to understand that as queen of the Happy Land, I’m a part of this council, and I’ll not stand for being kept in the dark about matters of import in this kingdom.”
After saying her piece, she went back to their bedroom, but sleep still wasn’t in her. Louella got on her knees and prayed for God to guide them. Scaring those evil men off tonight wouldn’t stop them from coming back. How on earth would they protect their people?
She also prayed for God to open William’s eyes to the truth of who was with him and who was not.