Sheriff Potts narrowed his eyes and shook his fist in the air. “Be glad it ain’t no more than that. But don’t y’all worry none, I’ll straighten out this mess.”

“I sure hope so,” I mumbled.

“Now everybody relax and be patient. I got everything under control. Lock the doors and keep your eyes open in case the same maniac decides to come back. Hear me? Y’all have a nice day now.” Sheriff Potts tipped his hat and shuffled back out the door, whistling like he didn’t have a care in the world.

CHAPTER 44 - JOYCE

CHAPTER 44

JOYCE

THE REST OF SATURDAY MORNING WENT BY IN A BLUR FOR ME. THE queasiness and other minor discomforts I’d recently started experiencing, were more frequent now. I threw up three times in less than two hours. Neighbors and friends came to the house to check on me. But I was so miserable, physically and mentally, I didn’t want to have company so I holed up in my room for a while.

After Odell’s body was removed, a few minutes before noon, Mama and a lady from our church started cleaning up his blood. There was so much, some had seeped through the cracks in the wooden floor. Even after the area had been scrubbed, I could still see traces of blood. When Mama covered the spot with a blanket, I ran to the bathroom to throw up again. After that, I went back to bed. I cried some more and eventually went to sleep.

Three hours later, I got up and returned to the living room. Mama was in the kitchen cooking supper. Daddy was stretched out on the couch. I went to the window and saw the same hearse that had transported Odell’s body to the morgue parked in front of Yvonne and Milton’s house. Mama walked up behind me. “They took Yvonne’s body while you was sleeping,” she told me. “They just came back for Milton’s. I don’t remember the last time three people died in Branson at the same time.”

“I do,” Daddy said with a groan. “During the War Between the States, when them Yankee soldiers tore through here, they killed dozens of folks at the same time. Some of them soldiers was used-to-be slaves that had run away to the North and joined the Union Army. I was a little bitty boy, but I remember it all like it happened yesterday. But they was killing white folks. It’s a shame all this had to happen now to colored folks, with Christmas right around the corner.” He sat up ramrod straight and coughed before he spoke again. “Baby, you can’t stay in this house tonight. Go pack a few things and come home with us.”

“Okay. Daddy, somebody needs to go out to Odell’s daddy’s house to let him and his wife know what’s going on,” I said.