Fiction | June 01, 2001

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Leighton Shay Morkan’s negress Judith wanted to gossip about a local hanging, but she could not keep his attention.  It was a scandal in a nearby town much bandied in the papers, and he was leery of talk about it.  Sitting in the mudroom of his farmhouse in Galloway, Missouri, he dug two fingers through lime paste mixed in a spittoon.  On a cedar bench knee-to-knee across from him sat his negro hand Isaac, tense as a hound.

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