Sunset and Sawdust (29 page)

“Yeah. I hear you. Loud and clear.”

“That’s good. That’s damn good. Now let me tell you what you’re gonna do, and at this stage of our association, you ain’t got no say anymore, hear me?”

“Yeah.”

Two slid over and put his arm around Hillbilly’s shoulders. When Hillbilly turned, Two was real close, his white teeth grinning, his green eyes bright as emeralds.

He turned back to McBride, and McBride began to talk.

While Sunset and Clyde were gone, Lee and Goose and Karen, using Clyde’s pickup, had moved the tent and all the belongings, making four or five trips, to Clyde’s place.

When Sunset and Henry and Clyde pulled up at Clyde’s place, the tent was up, and out to one side of it was the tarp Clyde had erected, and to the other side, the house he had burned down. Out front of the tent a large post had been cut and there was a thick chain fastened around the post, fixed so that it ran through a place drilled in the center. The chain was pretty long and Ben was fastened to the chain by means of a collar made out of an old belt. Lee and Goose and Karen came out of the tent and Lee was carrying a chair with him.

“What in hell are you doing?” Henry said.

“Jail,” Sunset said. “You’re going to jail.”

“What jail?”

Sunset put the car in gear and pulled up the hand brake, turned in the seat to look at Henry, who sat in the back with Clyde. Clyde had used a short piece of rope to tie Henry’s hands together, and Henry looked as mad as a hornet in a fruit jar.

“That’s exactly what I got to thinking,” Sunset said. “What jail? I need a jail for Henry, but I haven’t got one. And I got to thinking too, you got friends, and I take you to my place, leave you there, they might come and see me. So, we’ve moved. People know where I live, that’s got around, but Clyde, they might not think of his place, and if they do, well, Clyde, he’s lived out here pretty much by himself for years. Right, Clyde?”

“Oh, yeah. And except for Hillbilly for a while, I ain’t had any visitors, so anyone might matter to you, I doubt they know where I live. It could be found out, but that’s what shotguns are for, nosy bastards.”

“You’re gonna regret this, girlie,” Henry said.

“I already regret it,” Sunset said. “Regret the day I took this job and found out anything about you.”

Henry looked puzzled. “Then let me go. Drop the job. Take off. Hell, the money offer is still open. We can toss Clyde in too.”

“I regret the day, all right,” Sunset said, “but there’s this thing about having a center, and damn it, I got one, and I don’t want it to shift.”

“Do what?” Henry said.

“You wouldn’t understand,” Sunset said.

They took Henry out of the car. When they got to the post in front of the tent, Sunset spoke to Lee, said, “Well, Daddy, is the post in solid?”

“Ben thinks so. He tugged for a while, then laid down.”

“All right, then.”

Clyde went in the tent, came out with a pair of handcuffs and a padlock. He used a knife to cut Henry loose, then put the handcuffs on him.

Sunset took the collar off Ben, who came over and sniffed Henry’s crotch like he might like to bite it off.

“What in hell are you doing?” Henry said.

“Putting you in jail,” Sunset said. She looped the chain through the cuffs and used the small padlock to stick between links.

Lee put the chair up against the post.

“This is your jail,” Sunset said.

“Out here?” Henry said.

“It’s kind of shaded,” Sunset said.

“You can’t do this.”

“Sure I can. Just hope I haven’t lost the keys to the cuffs or the padlock. Sit down, or I’ll have Clyde sit you down. Karen, go get Henry some water, would you?”

“You are going from bad to worse,” Henry said.

“Sit down, Henry.”

“How long you going to keep me here?”

“I don’t know. I got to figure what to do with you, which lawman will not let you go, which ones aren’t with the Klan or got Klan connections, or who won’t change their minds by letting money touch their hands.”

“You may find that a difficult person to find,” Henry said.

“Not everyone’s crooked,” Sunset said.

“I believe they are,” Henry said. “I believe, it comes to push or shove, everyone’s crooked, or at least willing to compromise. It’s the way of the world, girlie.”

“Sir,” Lee said, “call my daughter girlie one more time, and we’ll see how many times I can chase you around that post before the chain seizes up.”

Henry sat in silence. Karen came with a cup of water. Henry took it and threw it on the ground.

“Damn, Henry, and that’s all you get until nightfall,” Clyde said.

“Can I sic Ben on him?” Goose said.

“Not just yet, honey,” Sunset said.

35

The tan Plymouth hummed through the darkness like a bee, and though it was hot, the windows were mostly rolled up because of the grasshoppers. The grasshoppers were everywhere. Even now, at night, they were hopping in front of the lights and making little messes against the front of the car.

Plug pulled the car to the side of the road and picked up the bottle on the seat, twisted off the cap and took a sip and the smell of whisky filled the air. Hillbilly, sitting on the front passenger side, said, “You don’t need none of that.”

“I’ve already had plenty.”

“That’s what I’m saying. You don’t need any more.”

“I don’t get why you’re sheriff. Never even heard of you before, and now with Rooster gone, they make you sheriff. Just seen you once, with the redhead, and now you’re sheriff.”

“For one thing,” Hillbilly said, “I’m not stupid.”

“You better watch it,” Plug said. “You don’t want me on your ass.”

Hillbilly laughed.

Tootie, who was sitting in the backseat, shifted the shotgun on his lap, said, “I think we all ought to have some. We’re gonna need it. I could get out right now and start walking, and that’s what I ought to do, start walking, but if I’m gonna stay, gonna do this thing, I’m gonna need some of that. We all ought to have some.”

Two, sitting beside him, a shotgun across his lap, said, “No one walks anywhere.”

“That’s right,” Two’s other self answered. “We all stay. Get the car moving.”

“I want a drink,” Tootie said. “I don’t think a brain-kicked nigger talks to himself ought to tell me I can’t have a drink. A nigger ought not tell a white man anything.”

Two lifted the shotgun in his lap casually and put it to Tootie’s right ear and pulled the trigger. The blast took off the top of Tootie’s head and took out the window and peppered the inside of the car with shot. There was blood all over the back of Hillbilly’s neck, all over the backseat, all over Two and his black jacket and his black bowler hat and the inside of the car smelled like sulphur.

Plug jerked open the door and leaped out. He raced around to the front of the car and put both hands on the hood. He said, “Goddamn. Goddamn.”

Hillbilly hadn’t moved. He felt Tootie’s blood running down the back of his neck.

“I don’t like people who don’t want to finish what they start,” Two said.

“Me neither,” said the Other Two.

“No,” Hillbilly said, his hands trembling on the shotgun in his lap. “I don’t like them either.”

“Open the back door,” Two said. “Drag him out.”

Hillbilly placed the shotgun carefully and slowly on the seat. He couldn’t have been more slow and careful if it was an egg that already had a crack in it. He didn’t look back at Two. He got out and opened the back door. When he did, Two said, “Stand back,” and lying with his back against his door, he put both feet on Tootie and kicked him out. Tootie fell to the side of the road in a sitting position. Grasshoppers were everywhere, and soon they were all over the body.

Two got out and came around and laid his shotgun on the ground. He lifted Tootie’s head, fanned at grasshoppers with his big hand, leaned forward until his mouth was close to Tootie’s. Two reached behind Tootie’s head, his long thumb and longer forefinger locking into the hinges of Tootie’s jaw. He squeezed and Tootie’s already open mouth went wider and Two bent close and put his mouth over Tootie’s mouth.

“Good God,” Hillbilly said, “what in God’s name are you doing?”

Two sucked at Tootie’s mouth for a moment. Then he dropped Tootie in the dust.

“What God wants,” said Two.

“I ate his soul,” the Other Two said. “Ate it and it was sweet.”

“Good God,” Plug said from the front of the car.

Two picked up the shotgun and stood, said to Hillbilly, “Drag him off.”

The Other Two said, “Pull him in the woods there.”

Hillbilly did as he was told, and promptly. As he dragged Tootie away, grasshoppers leaped in all directions and when he got to the edge of the woods he saw the foliage was all eaten away by the hoppers and the brush was just sticks. Hillbilly pulled Tootie through the bare brush, back where there were some big trees, and left him lying on some pine needles.

Two walked over to Plug, said, “You got trouble doing what you’re supposed to do?”

“Wasn’t no cause for that,” Plug said. “He was just talking. We all got second thoughts. He didn’t mean nothing by it. Wasn’t no need in that. We ain’t like you—either of you. We ain’t done this kind of thing before.”

The big man stood silent, the shotgun cradled in his arms. He tilted his head to one side.

Plug said, “I’m over it. I ain’t got no second thoughts.”

Hillbilly cut off a piece of Tootie’s shirt, used it to wipe the blood off the back of his neck. He dropped the cloth on the ground, went back, got in the car. The sound of the shot going off had not been right in his ear, but he had a ringing in it. Everything he heard, he heard well enough to understand, but it was as if the words were being called up to him from inside a cave.

Plug started the engine, said, “All I’m saying, Two, is you didn’t have to do that. He didn’t mean nothing. He was just nervous. He’s got a wife, a kid.”

“You think these others don’t?” Two said. “Think he’s any better than them? There’s no need to put good or bad or wives and kids into it. That sort of thing doesn’t matter. It’s not in God’s universe. Babies die all the time. Old folks die all the time. God isn’t concerned with dying. He’s concerned with souls.”

And the Other Two said, “You think it matters to me? You think anything matters to me? Wives and kids, they die like anyone else. We hold all the souls we can, and when God calls us, we give them to him. Our death will be worth more than the multitude, because we are the multitude.”

“I can see that,” Hillbilly said, and cocked an eye at Plug.

Two said, “When we get through, this car is gonna take some real cleaning.”

“And we got to order a glass,” the Other Two said. “And get some paint. Brother McBride likes this car and he’ll want it fixed.”

When they came to the place where Sunset lived there was only the floor of the house where the tent had been and the outhouse and the tall post where Marilyn had started a clothesline.

“They done run off,” Plug said. “We ain’t gonna have to kill nobody.”

“I don’t think they run off,” Hillbilly said.

“Sure they run off,” Plug said. “They didn’t, where are they?”

“They don’t know I’m with you,” Hillbilly said. “They don’t know I got some ideas about where they are. They’re hiding all right, but not the way you mean.”

“Tell us,” Two said.

“I think we should try Clyde’s,” Hillbilly said. “I was them, that’s where I’d go, take my tent with me, start over.”

“Clyde?” Two said.

“Deputy,” Hillbilly said.

“What about Henry?” Two said. “Brother McBride said he was arrested today. Said some maid told someone and someone told another someone, and then Brother McBride got the news.”

The Other Two said, “That’s what this is all about, you know. Henry. And the woman.”

“And the others?” Plug said. “It about them?”

“It is,” said Two. “It’s about them and this Zendo.”

“But Zendo, he don’t know nothing,” Plug said.

“He may know something now,” the Other Two said. “But what about Henry?”

“He’s with them,” Hillbilly said. “Ain’t nobody around here gonna help them. They got to have him with them. If they’re at Clyde’s, he’ll be there too. They got to be at Clyde’s, or Marilyn’s, Sunset’s mother-in-law, and I don’t think they’d go there. Too obvious, too easy. But Clyde’s, that would be the place.”

“That’s good,” said Two. “And the mother-in-law?”

“I don’t know she’s a problem,” Hillbilly said.

The Other Two said, “We’ll consider on that. I’ll tell Brother McBride, and he’ll consider on it. Hillbilly, you direct us. And Plug, drive us, please.”

“I ought to have to do something important,” Goose said. “Good as you been to me, miss. Good as Lee’s been.”

“What I want you to do,” Sunset said, “is help Clyde out. Me and Daddy, we’re going over to Zendo’s, see how it’s going with Bull. I’ve had an idea I think might be good.”

“I just want to help,” Goose said.

“I know, and thanks for asking. Stay with Clyde and Karen and Ben, watch old Henry here and the tent. That’s your job and it’s important.”

They were standing outside the tent, near the post where Henry was chained, sitting in his chair in the moonlight.

A plate he had eaten off of was on the ground and Ben was licking it.

“Can’t you make this dog go on?” Henry said. “He peed on the post a while ago. I don’t like having him around. He keeps sniffing me.”

“If I wanted to do something about him, guess I could,” Sunset said.

Lee came out of the tent. Sunset and Lee got in Sunset’s car. Lee said, “Sure we should leave them here?”

“No one knows about this place, not even people that know Clyde. He doesn’t have visitors. It’s a good idea, being here.”

“Living under a tarp, I can see that he doesn’t have visitors,” Lee said.

“Actually,” Sunset said, “it’s nicer than the house he burned down. And now, there’s the tent.”

“That tent is getting pretty crowded,” Lee said. “When this is over, back on your land, we ought to build a house, help Clyde build one here.”

“We’ll see,” Sunset said.

After they hit the main road the lights were full of grasshoppers and a tan Plymouth passing them.

“Slow here,” Hillbilly said. “It ain’t so easy to see the place in the dark. Right there. Turn there. Road ends at his place.”

“How far?” Two asked.

“Not real far,” Hillbilly said. “A piece. But not far.”

“Go down a ways, pull over and park,” said Two. “We’ll walk down and see them.”

“We’ll take what God needs,” the Other Two said.

Plug took the turn and the road was dusty and the dust rose up as they went, like a heavy mist, and grasshoppers jumped out of it, splattered against the windshield, which was already greasy with them. Plug drove a short piece, pulled in where there was a stretch of clearing, turned off the lights and parked.

Hillbilly and Two had twelve-gauge pumps. Plug had a .45 revolver. Two said, “We’ll say what and when and how.”

“Yeah,” Hillbilly said, “you fellas are the boss.”

“You say we, you mean, you, right?” Plug said.

“I mean the both of us,” Two said.

Plug nodded. “All right. I see that—I think.”

They got out of the car, walked down the road a ways, then Two stopped them.

“We’ll go ahead,” Two said. “You come down the road walking. When you hear us cut down, you come running.”

“Why don’t we just sneak up on them?” Plug said.

Two turned his head slowly. He took off his bowler and shook out the sweat. The horseshoe scar looked raw in the moonlight. “We’ll sneak.”

“We as in . . . you two?” Plug asked.

“Correct,” the Other Two said. “Understand?”

“Sure,” Plug said.

Two nodded, went down the road quickly, then went into the woods and was gone.

Plug said, “I say we go back to the car, drive away and keep driving.”

“There’s lots of money in this,” Hillbilly said.

“Wasn’t saying there wasn’t money in it. I’m saying I don’t care anymore. Tootie was supposed to get money too, wasn’t he? He ain’t getting no money now. So what’s money to him?”

“Nothing to him,” Hillbilly said, “but maybe it’s more for us. We could ask McBride about Tootie’s share. We could maybe split it.”

Plug looked at the dirt road. “Don’t know I want to kill no woman. Don’t know I want to kill nobody. Tootie . . . dying like that, that was bad enough. I once shot a deer and got sick.”

“You can’t think of them as people. Got to think of them as targets. That’s the way you do it, Plug.”

“You was her friend,” Plug said.

“I don’t feel any different about her now than I did before. I don’t care for her daddy, or Clyde, cause of what they done, but her, I don’t feel any different. It hasn’t got anything to do with the way you feel.”

“The hell it doesn’t.”

“You going in, or not?”

About that time they heard a shotgun blast, and Hillbilly said, “That’s Two. Means it’s time for us.”

Hillbilly started trotting down the road, and Plug, after a moment’s hesitation, went after him.

Way it went down was Two came up on the left side of Clyde’s place, came through the woods with his shotgun ready, quiet as a dead mouse in a cotton ball, moving toe heel, and when he got where he could see Henry chained to the post, he thought about what McBride had said. He said, “Brother, Henry ain’t no good to us. He’s got too big a mouth, and he ain’t ever gonna be happy having a nigger get part of it. Henry don’t need the money he’s supposed to get. Me and you, we do. Henry, he’s played his string and he’s just another soul for you to gather.”

Two went out of the woods and started walking toward Henry. Henry looked up, smiled, said softly, “Good to see you, Two.”

“Good to see you,” Two said, lifted the shotgun and fired, knocked Henry out of his chair, drove him back against the post.

Two pumped up another load as Ben came running, growling. He shot Ben and Ben’s legs went out from under him. Ben skidded in the dirt, yelped and fell, his side puffing up and down in big motions.

Inside the tent, the first shot caused Clyde to poke his head out, then pull it back in as the second shot was fired and Ben went down. Clyde wasn’t near a gun when the shots went off, and when he pulled his head back in, he grabbed his shotgun. When he looked back out the colored assassin was much closer, putting the finishing touches on Henry, shooting him a second time in the body, leaning over him, putting his face close to Henry’s face. Clyde was about to shoot, looked up, saw trotting down the dusty road Hillbilly and Plug, Hillbilly with a shotgun, Plug with pistol drawn, and he knew then how they had found them.

“Out the back,” Clyde said, and pushed Goose, who was trying to come forward with one of Clyde’s pistols, toward Karen, who was already at the back of the tent.

Clyde pulled out his clasp knife and flipped it open. Just before Two lifted the front tent flap, he cut the back of the tent open and they all three went out and started running through the woods, grasshoppers exploding all around them with a beat of wings. Behind them they could hear running, and when Clyde looked over his shoulder he saw the big colored man in the bowler was gaining, running fast for a big man, so smooth it was like he was part of the night itself.