Present at a Hanging and Other Ghost Stories-Ambrose Bierce

Although slavery was abolished in the United States with the ratification of the 13th Amendment on December 6, 1865, its cancerous tendrils have permanently woven themselves into the fabric of this nation, and persist malevolently even in the 21st century. One of these insidious branches is known as the "color line." In The Vengeance of the Gods, Pickens investigates this particular legacy of slavery through a series of four short stories that span the era beginning in the decade after the demise of Reconstruction through America's involvement in World War I. - Summary by James K. White