A white man makes unwanted advances on a white woman who rejects him. Later, when he finds out she's in a relationship with a black man (this section of the novel being set in the 1800s in Texas, meaning interracial relationships are illegal), he leads a lynch mob and murders the woman's lover. When the woman initially realizes her lover is in danger, she goes to the sheriff for help. He only agrees to have her lover's life spared if she kisses him, which she refuses to do, so in retaliation, he allows her lover to be murdered. In another section of the novel, also set sometime in the 1800s, a 15 year old girl is married to a man old enough to be her father. She does not seem to care, but was also given little say in the matter.