The Sinner in Mississippi by D.L. Lane

Author:D.L. Lane
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Inspirational, Depression Era
Publisher: By Faith Publishing
Published: 2020-04-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-One

As still as the dead

October 13, 1936

Thayer

Standing at the end of the drive, Mr. LaCroix and I were discussing the need to remove a few fallen trees while I waited for Charles to bring the car down. A rusty Plymouth sedan stopped at the gate, catching my attention. Though I wasn’t expecting him, I wasn’t surprised when the eldest of the Singleton siblings came out from behind the wheel, instead, taken aback over his condition. Blood covered him from head to toe.

“James Henry?” I opened the gates and stepped out. “Haven’t you been”—running from the law, but I opted for—“away? Why are—”

Everything came to a dead stop, even my heart, after he went to the rear driver’s side door, bent, and then straightened up—Mississippi cradled in his arms covered in a sheet just as bloody as he was, as still as the dead.

“No,” I muttered, wasting no more time to get to them. “What happened?”

“She’s hurt, Mr. King. Real bad.”

“How?” I reached for her face, so battered, she looked as though she’d been in the ring with a prizefighter. Dried blood under her nose and swollen, busted lip...a knot twisting so tight in my gut it almost took me to my knees. I shouldn’t have allowed my mother to delay me from looking for Mississippi after I found her note lying on my desk the day before. “Tell me what happened.”

“Dudley McCoy and Blevins,” he said.

“They did this to her?”

“Had her tied up and were doing things.” He locked his eyes with mine. “Abusing her in ways beyond their fists.”

Bile rose in my throat. If I’d gone to find her when I wanted to, Mississippi wouldn’t have suffered such atrocities, but on the heels of overwhelming guilt, balls of white-hot anger zipped up my spine and exploded from my mouth. “Rene, run to the house and have Ms. Bauman call the authorities now!”

“Might as well tell her to send them to my daddy’s place—that’s where they’ll find ’em, but they won’t be breathin’.” His blue eyes shifted to the bundle in his arms. “I sent both those men to the fiery pits.”

Hearing what he said, but not taking the time to consider, I ordered, “Give her to me!”

Once he’d slipped his sister into my arms, I checked for a pulse—a tidal wave of relief as the thrum, thrum, thrum beneath my fingertips registered.

“We need to get her inside,” I said.

“I can’t stick around.” James Henry backed away.

“What?”

“I’ve done all I can, you take care of her now,” he said before he slipped back into the beat-up car.

No time to worry about him, I hurried for the house, trying not to jostle Mississippi on the way there.

Heart pounding, foot on the bottom step, Ms. Bauman came out, hand over her mouth. Ms. Bonny followed. “Is that, Mississippi?”

“Yes.” Scooting them aside, I strode into the foyer, giving orders as I went. “Ms. Bauman, we need the doctor.”

“I’ll call him right away.”

“Tell him it is a dire emergency. Then when he arrives, bring him up to my room, I’m putting Mississippi in there.

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