twice roberta had gone to eat and nurse the babies , bringing back biscuits and fried ham for the girls and news from the all-knowing neighbor lady : one of the young negro women had come looking for her husband who was killed last night at the commissary and had been raped and beaten to death ; another negro woman , one of the old gray ones , had sneaked out of the woods looking for food at her house and was shot standing addled in the ashes of her kitchen ; a sniper had fired a shot at the sheriff and he had gone to folkston to telegraph for the state militia .