There were no telephones, but word spread quickly through the small town. By the end of the day, everyone in Green Lake had heard that the schoolteacher had kissed the onion picker.
Not one child showed up for school the next morning.
Miss Katherine sat alone in the classroom and wondered if she had lost track of the day of the week. Perhaps it was Saturday. It wouldn’t have surprised her. Her brain and heart had been spinning ever since Sam kissed her.
She heard a noise outside the door, then suddenly a mob of men and women came storming into the school building. They were led by Trout Walker.
“There she is!” Trout shouted. “The Devil Woman!”
The mob was turning over desks and ripping down bulletin boards.
“She’s been poisoning your children’s brains with books,” Trout declared.
They began piling all the books in the center of the room. “Think about what you are doing!” cried Miss Katherine.
Someone made a grab for her, tearing her dress, but she managed to get out of the building. She ran to the sheriff’s o ce.
The sheriff had his feet up on his desk and was drinking from a bottle of whiskey. “Mornin’, Miss Katherine,” he said.
“They’re destroying the schoolhouse,” she said, gasping for breath. “They’ll burn it to the ground if someone doesn’t stop them!”
“tust calm your pretty self down a second,” the sheriff said in a slow drawl. “And tell me what you’re talking about.” He got up from his desk and walked over to her.
“Trout Walker has—”
“Now don’t go saying nothing bad about Charles Walker,” said the sheriff.
“We don’t have much time!” urged Katherine. “You’ve got to stop them.”
“You’re sure pretty,” said the sheriff. Miss Katherine stared at him in horror. “Kiss me,” said the sheriff.
She slapped him across the face.
He laughed. “You kissed the onion picker. Why won’t you kiss me?”
She tried to slap him again, but he caught her by the hand. She tried to wriggle free. “You’re drunk!” she yelled.
“I always get drunk before a hanging.” “A hanging? Who—”
“It’s against the law for a Negro to kiss a white woman.”
“Well, then you’ll have to hang me, too,” said Katherine. “Because I kissed him back.”
“It ain’t against the law for you to kiss him,” the sheriff explained. “tust for him to kiss you.”
“We’re all equal under the eyes of God,” she declared.
The sheriff laughed. “Then if Sam and I are equal, why won’t you kiss me?” He laughed again. “I’ll make you a deal. One sweet kiss, and I won’t hang your boyfriend. I’ll just run him out of town.”
Miss Katherine jerked her hand free. As she hurried to the door, she heard the sheriff say, “The law will punish Sam. And God will punish you.”
She stepped back into the street and saw smoke rising from the schoolhouse. She ran down to the lakefront, where Sam was hitching Mary Lou to the onion cart.
“Thank God, I found you,” she sighed, hugging him. “We’ve got to get out of here. Now!”
“What—”
“Someone must have seen us kissing yesterday,” she said. “They set fire to the schoolhouse. The sheriff said he’s going to hang you!”
Sam hesitated for a moment, as if he couldn’t quite believe it. He didn’t want to believe it. “C’mon, Mary Lou.”
“We have to leave Mary Lou behind,” said Katherine.
Sam stared at her a moment. There were tears in his eyes. “Okay.” Sam’s boat was in the water, tied to a tree by a long rope. He untied it, and they waded through the water and climbed aboard.
His powerful arms rowed them away from the shore.
But his powerful arms were no match for Trout Walker’s motorized boat. They were little more than halfway across the lake when Miss Katherine heard the loud roar of the engine. Then she saw the ugly black smoke…
These are the facts:
The Walker boat smashed into Sam’s boat. Sam was shot and killed in the water. Katherine Barlow was rescued against her wishes. When they returned to the shore, she saw Mary Lou’s body lying on the ground. The donkey had been shot in the head.
That all happened one hundred and ten years ago. Since then, not one drop of rain has fallen on Green Lake.
You make the decision: Whom did God punish?
Three days after Sam’s death, Miss Katherine shot the sheriff while he was sitting in his chair drinking a cup of coffee. Then she carefully applied a fresh coat of red lipstick and gave him the kiss he had asked for.
For the next twenty years Kissin’ Kate Barlow was one of the most feared outlaws in all the West.
