Jessup, Tibido, Judge Theo, Sheriff DVO, Duplantis and Arseno were the only knights left. They knew that the federal government had left them behind. They were alone, up against an enemy they couldn’t see or find.

And all they had to protect them was their own resources and fading courage. They made their homes into strongholds. They hired more guards, bought more weapons and only went out when they had to. They always travelled in groups, never alone and never weak.

They looked back on their pasts to see which of their many crimes might have made them targets and which victims’ families might have wanted revenge.

They waited for the next death, which came sooner than they thought it would.

William Duplantis died on October 1 during the day at his plantation home, which was thought to be safe. Three armed guards were patrolling the grounds outside while he was alone in his study going over accounts.

Someone cut his throat while he was sitting at his desk, and the killer got away through a window that had been unlocked from the inside, which makes it seem like someone had planned the escape ahead of time.

The note on his body talked about the Christmas massacre of 1868 when Duplantis led a night raid on a settlement of freed men, burning homes and killing five men who were trying to get people to register to vote.

At the time, the federal investigators couldn’t prove Duplantis’ involvement, even though there were many witnesses. This was because the witnesses had changed their stories after being visited by masked men.

Charles Arseno was next, killed two weeks later in the warehouse where he kept his cotton. He and Sheriff DVO and two deputies went there to check out a reported break-in. In the chaos of looking for the dark building, Arseno somehow got separated from the group.

Minutes later, they found him with his throat cut and blood pooling on the cotton bales he had collected by making men work for him without paying them fair wages.

The note said, “Don’t forget the theft you called business. Seven people are dead. Four people lived and the other nights were starting to break down under the stress.

Marcus Tibido stopped publishing his newspaper, saying he was sick. But really, he was hiding out in his house, drinking a lot and jumping at every sound.

Judge Theat moved his family out of the parish completely and started doing business from Baton Rouge. He only went back to Bro Bridge for court sessions and never stayed the night.

Harold Jessup had to close his hotel because he couldn’t keep it open when no travellers would stay in a building where several murders had happened.

Sheriff DVA was the only one who kept up with his normal schedule. He now travelled with four armed deputies at all times and slept in the parish jail instead of his own home. He felt like he had to keep some order as the nominal head of law enforcement even though he knew he couldn’t stop the killings.

Everyone else missed the pattern. But DVO saw it. He was going over the dates of the murders and marking them on a calendar when he realised they weren’t random. There was a strict schedule for each death with each one happening exactly two weeks after the last one.

This made it seem like the killer was planning and controlling the deaths instead of taking advantage of them. The next death would happen on October 29 if the pattern held. He told the rest of the knights’ leaders about this. Just himself, Jessup, Tibido and Judge Theat.

They met in jail in a cell with bars on the windows and guards at the door. It was the only place they felt a little safe, Jessup said.

She’s playing with us, his voice rough from whiskey and not sleeping.

She wants us to know when it’s coming.

She’s trying to drive us mad with waiting.

Then we use it, DVO said.

We know the date.

We get ready.

All four of us stay together in a safe place with armed guards.

We make ourselves impossible targets.

We break the pattern.

They came up with a plan.

They would meet in the parish courthouse on October 28. The courthouse was built like a fortress with thick walls and few ways to get in. They would bring food and supplies for a few days and enough armed men to keep the area safe. They would wait until the deadline together.

And when November came and no one else died, the killer would lose his psychological edge. It seemed like a good idea, a way to get some control back. They didn’t know they were doing exactly what the killer wanted them to do.

While the knights were making plans for their defence, something else was happening in the freed men’s community. Women came together in the church, supposedly for prayer meetings. Men gathered tools and materials that they said they needed to fix buildings.

Young people came and went, bringing messages, moving supplies and making a communication network that white authorities couldn’t see. In the little house behind the church, Celeste, if that was still her name, met with a group of people who had been helping her from the start.

Marie, the hotel maid, had heard the night’s plans and told them to her. Charlotte was the woman who pretended to be Celeste on the steamboat. Isaiah, the deacon who had sent Marshall Hullbrook’s investigation in the wrong direction, was there.

And there were others, men and women who had lost family members to the night’s violence and were still hurting and carrying their own scars. They had been waiting for this moment for years.

They think they’re going to hide out in the courthouse, Celeste said.

They think they can wait us out.

They don’t get that this was never about timing or opportunity. This was always about justice. And justice doesn’t stop just because they hide behind walls. She opened up a map of Bro Bridge and marked places and roots.

 The courthouse has one weakness they’ve forgotten about. When they renovated it in 1867, they added a coal shoot for the heating system. It runs from the basement to the street, covered by a grate that can be opened from outside. It’s barely wide enough for a person, but it’s enough.

And once you’re inside, Isaiah asked, “Then I do what I’ve always done,” Celeste said.

“I tell them that there are some crimes that the law can’t touch and some debts that can only be paid in blood.

I also make sure that the last four know exactly why this is happening and whose daughter I am before they die. The meeting went on late into the night, going over the details, giving people their parts and getting ready for what would be the last act of a four-year long performance.

Celeste had changed since she got to Bro Bridge. Madame Defrain’s polished persona had faded away, leaving behind a person who was harder, colder and shaped by grief and anger into a tool of revenge. But she had also changed in ways she didn’t expect.

She had made friends with people who had protected her and inspired the community to do more than just get back at her. She had become a symbol of Noir, the black widow who attacked the power structure that had kept them down for generations.

No matter what happened next, whether she lived or died trying to escape, she had already done something very important. She had shown that the knights were not invincible, that justice could find them even when the law couldn’t and that there were consequences for being cruel, even in a world built to protect the cruel.

On October 28, the four knights who were still alive met at the parish courthouse with eight armed guards. They brought food, water, guns, and lights. They locked up every entrance and posted guards at key points to check windows and doors.

Judge Theat looked at the building structure and saw that the walls were thick and there weren’t many ways to get in. Sheriff DVO put his deputies in a circle around the building.

He said, “We’re as safe here as we’ll ever be.”

Now we wait. The heat and humidity of a Louisiana October came with the night over Bro Bridge. The courthouse was on a small hill in the middle of town.

Its windows glowed with light from lamps.

And behind the glass, you could see the shadows of armed men.

The town around it was strangely quiet, as if everyone had decided to stay inside and wait for whatever was going to happen without seeing it.

People in the coloured section got together in small groups and talked in low voices, prayed and sang hymns that floated through the still air. They were getting ready for something.

People who heard the sounds couldn’t say exactly what they were, but it felt like the night before a storm. When the air gets thick, the sky turns green and all the animals know to find shelter.

Celeste came out of the house behind the church at midnight. She was now wearing dark, practical clothes that let her move around freely. They were nothing like the fancy dresses Madame Defrain wore. She had a small bag with the tools she would need.

Her hair was pulled back tightly and her face was set in a determined look that made her look both younger and older than her years. She was a woman who had lost her childhood to violence and had spent her adult life getting ready to answer it.

Isaiah walked with her for a while along with three other men who were keeping an eye on things. They stayed away from main streets and took back alleys and yards, following the paths that black people had learned over the years to avoid white people. Isaiah held her arm tightly when they got to the edge of the town square.

“You don’t have to do this,” he said. “You’ve already done more than anyone could ask. You’ve shown them they’re not above justice. Let that be enough.”

Celeste looked at him with eyes that showed no mercy, no forgiveness and no doubt.

“My mother died begging them for mercy,” Celeste replied. “Did they show her any? Did they think about whether revenge against her was enough or did they take everything? Her husband, her home, her life, her daughter’s future. This ends when they’re all dead. Isaiah, not before.”

She pulled away and moved into the darkness toward the courthouse that loomed against the night sky like a monument to the very injustice she’d spent four years trying to correct.

It was surprisingly easy to take off the coal shoot great, as if someone had already loosened the bolts. Celeste slipped through the hole and fell quietly into the basement of the courthouse. The room was dark and full of old furniture and records. The air was thick with coal dust and dust.

She waited, letting her eyes adjust, and listened for any sign that someone had seen her come in. Nothing. The guards were all watching the main entrances, which were the most obvious places to get in. No one was thinking about the coal shoot, which hadn’t been used much since the renovation.

She moved quietly through the basement, knowing where the stairs to the first floor were. This was the risky part.

The layout of the courthouse didn’t have many good hiding spots, and the guards were on the lookout for trouble. But Celeste had some advantages that they didn’t see coming.

She knew exactly where every squeak in the floorboards was, which hallways had the darkest shadows, and where the guards would be based on standard security procedures because she had talked to Marie and other people who cleaned the building.

More importantly, she knew that the knights would be together, probably in the main courtroom or Judge Theat’s chambers, where they would stay together to keep each other safe.

There would be guards at the doors, but they probably wouldn’t think that someone would attack from inside the building. They thought the threat would come from outside, like a mob of angry freed men or a direct attack.

They weren’t ready for someone who was already inside their fortress. She stopped on the first floor and listened to the voices coming from down the hall. Men were talking. People were nervously laughing. And people were trying to convince themselves they were safe.

The sound led her to the courtroom where lamp lights shone through the closed doors. Celeste looked in her bag to make sure everything she needed was still there.

The knife, which was sharp enough to cut through leather in one stroke, the four notes she’d already written, each one about a different crime. The small bottle of chloroform and cloth in case she needed to quietly silence someone. And the photograph, which was wrinkled and faded, that she’d carried for four years.

It was the only picture she had of her mother, taken by a travelling photographer in 1866, when things were still hopeful, and freedom seemed like the start of a better world instead of the start of a new kind of hell.

She looked at the picture in the dim light that came in through the hallway windows. Her mother smiled at the camera. She was young, beautiful and full of determination.

Sarah Budro had faith in the law, in justice and in the idea that the US government would keep its newly freed citizens safe.

She had testified against her attackers, believing that the system would work, but it killed her for that trust. Celeste carefully folded the picture and put it back in the bag.

Then she walked up to the doors of the courtroom with her knife ready and her heart steady, even though she knew that what she was about to do would probably kill her. Years ago, she had accepted that could happen.

This was never about staying alive. This was about keeping things in balance, making sure that evil didn’t go unpunished and making sure that her mother’s death had consequences. She reached for the door handle and found that it was locked from the inside.

She had thought this would happen. She went to a window nearby and quietly worked the latch free with her knife. The window opened with a soft creek that sounded like thunder in the quiet building, but it didn’t seem to carry to the courtroom.

She slipped through the door and into a small clerk’s office that was connected to the main room by an interior door. This door was open. She opened it just enough to look inside. The judge’s bench was surrounded by the four knights who had their weapons ready.

Three of the guards were near the main doors and the others were probably patrolling outside. Jessup was drinking from a silver cup.

Even though it was cool outside, Tibido kept wiping sweat off his face.

It looked like Judge Theat was able to focus on his normal work when he read the papers.

Sheriff DVO stood by the window and looked out at the dark town.

Jessup’s voice was slurred as he asked, “How much longer? Five hours until dawn.”

DVO said, “Then we’re past the deadline. Then we know she can’t keep her schedule.”

“Unless she’s already in the building,” Tibido said, and the others looked at him with irritation, born of fear.

“I’m serious.”

“What if she got in somehow? What if she’s waiting for us to let our guard down?” Judge Theat said firmly. “The building is safe. We looked at every door and window. The only way in is through the doors, and they’re all guarded. We’re safe here. We just need to stay disciplined until morning.”

Celeste thought it was funny how ironic it was. They had looked at every entrance except the one they had forgotten about. The one that servants and people of colour used, the one that was out of sight. It was the best way to describe how they saw the world.

They only saw what they thought they should see, what fit with what they thought they knew about how the world worked. They had never thought that justice might come from below.

Through the forgotten channels and invisible people they had spent their whole lives ignoring. She waited as patiently as death itself, watching their routines and making a note of when the guards changed positions, when they stopped paying attention and when someone turned their back.

She said that Jessup’s drinking was making him careless. That Tibido’s fear made him jumpy but also predictable, that the judge’s attempt to be normal meant he was focused on his papers instead of what was going on around him, and that the sheriff’s watchfulness was directed outward instead of inward.

When the guards were getting used to their routine watchfulness and Celeste was starting to feel tired, she made her move. She walked into the courtroom through the clerk’s office door and shut it quietly behind her.

And just before anyone noticed her, she weighed her options with the cold calculation of someone who had planned for this exact situation.

“Good evening, gentlemen,” she said in a low voice.

Heads turned to look at her. The guards at the doors turned and raised their guns. For a moment, everyone just stared as if they couldn’t believe what they were seeing.

“Madame Defrain,” Sheriff DVO said at last.

“Or should I call you something else?” My name, Celeste said, is Josephine Budro.

I am the daughter of Sarah and Marcus Budro, who you murdered in 1868. I have come to collect the debt you owe my family. She said it calmly without rage or drama, simply stating a fact.

At that moment, the other knights knew they had seriously underestimated this woman. She wasn’t crazy or hysterical. She was focused, planned and completely in charge.

She had walked into their stronghold, past their guards, and into the middle of their defensive position. She stood in front of them, unarmed and not scared. Because she had already won. She had already done what she wanted to do.

Whether she killed them tonight or not, whether she got away or was caught, she had scared them. She had shown them that justice would find them. Even if it took a long time.

Guards, Judge Theat said, “Arrest her. Take her into custody.”

But the guards didn’t move right away. The woman in front of them was so sure of herself and not afraid that they didn’t want to go near her.

She looked like she could blow up if you touched her, like she could turn into something even more dangerous than she already was.

Josephine said, “You can try to take me. You can shoot me, arrest me or drag me to a cell. But before you do, you should know that I’m not alone. I never have been. Everyone in the coloured section of this town knows where you are tonight and what I’m doing.

“If I don’t walk out of this courthouse alive, if I don’t give the signal that everything went according to plan, they have orders to burn this building down with all of you inside it.”

It was a lie, but not a full one.

• A Tell Media report/ Source: Family Times