“Whew.” I wiped off the beads of sweat that had bubbled up on my forehead. “I’m glad to hear that. But I had to bring it up,” I said with a sheepish grin. “Now that that’s out of the way, let me go on. I’ll tell you one thing, I won’t rest easy again until we chastise the devil that got us in trouble. When we find out who they is, we should break some limbs or give them a acid facial. I just might throw in a few knife wounds, and a death threat to boot.”

Willie Frank was as anxious to get his hands on the culprit as we was. The look on his face now was so scrunched up in anger, it made me cringe. I hoped me and Yvonne never ended up on his bad side. Losing Willie Frank as a friend was the least of my worries. I couldn’t figure out why such a farfetched thought even entered my mind in the first place. I couldn’t think of nobody who looked out for us the way he done. As far as I was concerned, he was more like family than our real families was.

“Y’all know I’m ready, willing, and able to help,” Willie Frank said. “We hillbillies believe in mountain justice. I suggest something more severe and permanent, like a shotgun blast to the head.”

Yvonne gasped and sat up ramrod straight, with her eyes as big as pinecones. “Willie Frank, honest to God, you think we should kill somebody?” she asked.

He answered right away. “Yup. As long as that person can still breathe, he’d still be a threat. Now if y’all don’t want to take a chance on something else happening, take my advice.”

Yvonne looked at me with a curious expression on her face. When she raised her eyebrows, I nodded. And all three of us smiled.

CHAPTER 2 - YVONNE

CHAPTER 2

YVONNE

I NEVER THOUGHT I’D BE DISCUSSING MURDERING ANOTHER HUMAN being. There was a few I’d locked horns with over the years that I would have loved to bump off, though. Like them three nasty dogs that got me pregnant and left me to fend for myself. But the person who had lied about me and Milton setting up a white girl to get raped had crossed a line. He deserved to die. Whatever Milton wanted to do, I’d go along with it.

After I thought a little more about Willie Frank’s suggestion, I said in a flat tone, “If we going to kill somebody, I don’t want to do it on no Sunday. That would be sacrilegious. I don’t even cuss on the Sabbath.”