Early one morning before sunrise, Reesa is awakened by the sound of the family’s neighbor, Luther Cully, who is Black, giving his distinctive knock on the door. Sensing something is wrong, Reesa’s mother and father, Elizabeth, or Lizbeth, and Warren, leap from their bed. Reesa learns that Luther’s son, her close friend Marvin, has not yet come home from seeing a girl the night before.

Luther informs Warren that the Ku Klux Klan has been seen cruising the “Trail” around Joe’s jook joint, a nightclub popular with the Black community. Luther suggests they take a look at the Valencia grove; while doing so, they take a look around the lake, near the Klan headquarters. They worry that Marvin has been taken to the Casbah Groves that belong to Emmett Casselton who is known as an “ignorant damn cracker.” The Casbah is where Klan members take Black people to torture or kill them.

Worried about Marvin, Reesa is directed by her mother to make up the bed of her grandmother, who is visiting from Chicago. Later, Reesa’s father and Luther arrive home and call for blankets and towels for the hurt and bleeding Marvin lying in the back of Luther’s truck.