Sunset and Sawdust (9 page)

10

That night, before Sunset and Karen went to bed, it came a rain not too unlike the one that pissed on Noah’s ark, but it didn’t last long. Just wetted up the place, churned the creeks, made them rise, then moved on. The tent had been set up on top of the flooring of the old house, so they didn’t get wet, but they could feel it against the floorboards, begging to come in.

The rain cooled off things, and when she and Karen lay down that night to sleep, it was comfortable and there were no mosquitoes.

Sunset lay in bed listening to the rain move south with a vengeance, thinking about the baby in the jar coated in oil, about how Pete had gone to the trouble to bury it and carve the word BABY on the cross.

It was a kind gesture.

And not like him at all. Especially if he thought the baby might be colored.

It was a side of Pete she hadn’t known existed, and it was a side of him she wished she had known. It was also a side of him that confused her and of which she was suspicious.

Later on she heard the tent flap being thrown back. She sat up in bed and saw a man’s shape standing there. He pushed the flap back farther and moonlight spilled in over him. It was Pete. Grave dirt was dropping off of his body and he looked mad enough to pee vinegar.

He pointed his finger at Sunset and opened his mouth to speak. Dirt fell out. Then he screamed.

Sunset sat up in bed.

She looked at the tent flap.

It was closed and tied. Outside she could hear crickets and frogs. The rain had passed. She had fallen asleep thinking she was awake.

Suddenly, once again, there was a scream.

It wasn’t Pete. It was a panther, roaming the bottomland. They could scream like a woman. The sound of the panther had awakened her, not a dead Pete.

She looked over at Karen.

Still asleep. She gently pulled the covers up to Karen’s neck.

“I love you,” she said softly.

Lying down, she dozed uneasily, dreamed again. But she knew it was a dream this time, and it wasn’t so bad. It was a dream about her putting the pistol to Pete’s head, pulling the trigger, and in her dream the sound of the gun was sharp and sweet and it cut through her thoughts like a bright light and the light opened a gap somewhere down deep in the dark insides of her, and out of that gap came all the answers to questions long asked, and in that moment, that fine and wonderful moment, she knew things.

She came awake.

“Damn,” she said. Thought: Almost had the answers. They were about to be revealed, all the goddamn perplexities of the universe, and I had to wake up.

The tent flap moved.

She reached over and pulled the gun from the holster where it lay on the floor and pointed it.

It was the black-and-white dog. It had stuck its head under the tent flap. It was soaking wet.

“Easy, boy,” she said, but the dog bolted at the sound of her voice.

She put the gun away, lay there waiting to see if the dog would return, but it didn’t.

Next morning, before daybreak, to the sound of birds singing loud in the trees and somewhere an agitated squirrel fussing, Karen got up along with Sunset. Karen started a fire in the woodstove and cooked a breakfast of eggs and toasted some bread on top of the burner for the both of them.

Sunset eyed all this suspiciously. It was the first time in days Karen had shown interest in doing anything.

Karen walked buckets of water from the water pump and heated them in a larger bucket on the stove and poured the hot water into a number ten washtub. By the time she had enough buckets to fill the tub, much of the water had cooled, but it was still warm enough for a bath with minted lye soap and special attention to her hair.

When Karen finished, Sunset went through the same ritual, washing her hair and combing it out. As Sunset dressed in her skirt and shirt, she saw that Karen was already dressed and had put her hair up in a kind of bun. She had on one of the few good dresses she owned, one her grandmother gave her before they had moved into the tent, and she had on her only good pair of shoes.

Sunset noted that Karen had even applied a bit of lipstick, not something she normally bothered with. She was also wearing perfume, and she had put on too much.

While Sunset was pulling on her boots and lacing them, Karen said, “Those boots aren’t very feminine. They look like something someone ought to wear at the sawmill or to shovel horse mess.”

“I’m a constable right now, not a New York fashion model.”

“You ought to put your hair up,” Karen said.

“I see you have. How come you’re putting on the dog?”

“No reason. Just felt like it.”

Sunset went to the dressing table they had rigged, held up a hand mirror. She thought: Maybe I could put my hair up.

Her face was no longer puffy and the bruises were starting to fade. She was beginning to look like herself, with a touch of raccoon styling.

About nine o’clock, Clyde’s truck pulled up. Karen heard it, smoothed her dress, opened the tent flap.

Through the opening, Sunset could see Clyde climbing out of the truck, and on the other side, Hillbilly. She stood up, strapped on the holster and gun, stood in the opening.

A black car with white doors and a gold-and-black police insignia pulled up behind Clyde’s truck. A man wearing a big white hat and khaki clothes, a gun and badge, got out of the car and walked over to Clyde and shook his hand, then Hillbilly’s. He looked agitated. He spoke to Clyde.

Clyde said something, pointed toward the tent.

The man with the badge did a double take.

Clyde said something else. The man took off his hat, and with Clyde and Hillbilly trailing, he hustled over to the tent as Sunset stepped outside, Karen following.

“Miss,” the man said, “I’m the deputy over at Holiday. Name’s Morgan. I was sent here to get the constable for help. We heard Pete got killed by his wife, but I didn’t know it was a woman took his place. I can take these here men with me—”

“I’m the constable. And I’m the wife . . . or was.”

The deputy raised his eyebrows. “I’ll be damned.”

“Why do you need us?”

“Nigger’s gone on a rampage. Killed the sheriff.”

“Oh,” Sunset said.

“Knowing that,” Morgan said, “maybe you ought to stay here.”

“What’s the situation?” Sunset said. She had heard Pete say just those words.

“Well, I come over here cause me and Rooster are the only deputies, and this nigger, well, he done blowed the sheriff’s head off and holed himself up in the picture show and won’t come out.”

“The picture show,” Clyde said. “He didn’t ruin it or nothing, did he?”

“I think he broke some of them giveaway dishes,” Morgan said. “Some of the townsfolk wanted a piece of him, and the grocer brought out a gun and tried to go in there, and that nigger cut him off at the knee. I figure they’ll be pulling that grocer around on a wheeled board now. Thing is, it’s a nigger done it, and the town wants to lynch him. Sheriff didn’t go in for that sort of thing, though I ain’t really against a lynching when it’s deserved. They’re gonna want to rush the picture show, get that nigger and string him up and set him on fire, or burn down the picture show with him in it. Frankly, it’s Rooster who’s against it. He’s got the nigger pinned in the show, and he’s got them townsfolk pushing in on him, wanting him to get out of the way. He’s between a rock and a hard place. I didn’t know nothing else to do but to go to the nearest law for help. But I didn’t count on no woman, and I ain’t sure we ought not just let them have him.”

“We’ll follow in the truck,” Sunset said. “Karen, you stay here. Clyde. Hillbilly. You got guns?”

“Not on us,” Clyde said. “We got to go by my house.”

“Reckon I gotta get back,” Morgan said. “Wouldn’t have come here it hadn’t been so close, and you being the law and all. And well, Rooster sent me and he’s head deputy. Still, I knew Pete was dead, but I didn’t know you was no woman.”

“We’ll be there,” Sunset said. “You go on back and help Rooster.”

“I’ll do that,” Morgan said, “but it gets too much out of hand, I’d rather it be that nigger than me. Gets that far, I’ll hold the goddamn rope for them.”

“You’re a sworn officer of the law,” Sunset said. “You’ll do what you’re supposed to do.”

“Who the hell are you to talk to me that way?” Morgan said. “You’re just a constable. Hell, you’re just a woman. And wearing a skirt made out of some kind of man’s pants.”

“Let me put this where you can understand it, Morgan,” Clyde said. “Give her any more mouth, and I’ll hit you so hard, the mud flaps on your car will blow up. You hear me?”

Morgan’s face muscles twitched. “You ain’t got to say that. You and me have worked together before. That kind of talk ain’t necessary. I just didn’t know she was a woman.”

“We’ll see you in Holiday,” Sunset said.

Clyde’s place was on the way, off the main road, down a washed-out forest-lined path spotted with holes deep enough to lose a feed wagon.

They stopped there to get Hillbilly a shotgun and Clyde a pistol. At first, Sunset thought Clyde’s weathered shack had been hit by the tornado, but the more she looked at it, the more she realized this was its common state.

The shingles had been flapped up, and some of them tossed around the yard. From the looks of them, way they were half buried in the dirt, they had been there for a long time. The chimney was held up by a board, and she could see inside the place through a gap between chimney and house. What she could see looked filthy and greasy and piled. Most of the windows had cardboard in place of glass. The yard was cluttered with pieces of wood and chunks of car parts and renegade chickens. A rooster charged at them with a business attitude, flapped his wings and pecked at one of Sunset’s boots, then charged off, mission accomplished.

“That rooster was mine,” Sunset said, “he’d be in the cooking pot tonight.”

“That’s George,” Clyde said. “He’s all right. He thinks he’s protecting the hens.”

Stepping over yard junk, fending off chickens, tiptoeing through a narrow garden path with bug-eaten vegetables, they moved cautiously over the creaking porch, avoiding gaps where the lumber had cracked.

The inside was cluttered with magazines and newspapers, car parts, broken dishes, cardboard boxes and apple crates full of who knows what. There were buckets arranged on the floor and on top of boxes and crates. Water was dripping from the roof into them.

Clyde wandered off to get the guns, threading his way through debris.

Hillbilly looked at Sunset, said, “Home, sweet home.”

“Don’t know what’s sweet about it.”

“He spilt some syrup over there by the stove, probably about, oh, I don’t know, ten years ago would be my guess from the looks of it. But it’s still sweet. I know, cause flies gather in it and get stuck. Want to see?”

“No thanks.”

Clyde came back with a shotgun and a revolver. They looked much cleaner than anything else in the house.

“Is there anything you don’t save?” Sunset said.

“Money,” Clyde said. “I’m hungry. Had time I’d make me a little sandwich to take with me.”

“Well, you don’t have time,” Sunset said, “but we could probably manage a little backfire through this place before we leave, and by the time you get back, things would be cleaned up real good.”

“At least I know where everything is,” Clyde said.

“No, he don’t,” Hillbilly said.

“I knew where these guns were,” Clyde said, and gave the shotgun to Hillbilly. He handed him a fistful of shells as well.

“Where do you sleep?” Sunset asked Hillbilly.

“Not sure. Place never looks the same.”

“You didn’t ask where I sleep,” Clyde said.

“This is your house. I figure you have a place. I was wondering about the houseguest.”

As they climbed in the truck, Sunset said, “From now on, you boys need to be armed at all times. We can’t be stopping off at Clyde’s house for weapons when we need them.”

“Just don’t seem necessary most of the time,” Clyde said, shifting gears. “This slap jack,” he patted his shirt where it lay inside, “is usually enough.”

“Well, you’re full-time now, not part-time,” Sunset said. “We’re professionals and we got to act and look like professionals.”

“Is that what we are?” Clyde said. “Professionals?”

Hillbilly patted Sunset’s leg below the holster, said, “I see you’re armed.”

Sunset knew Hillbilly’s pat on the leg and remark were unnecessary and an excuse to touch her thigh, but she couldn’t bring herself to say anything against it.

She wished she could say, “Put your hand here, your mouth there, twist one of my legs behind my head and make me say calf rope,” but instead she said, “I got the gun, but I don’t have many bullets. Just what’s in it.”

“Things go well,” Clyde said, “maybe you won’t have to shoot any more people than you got shells. Some police officers, even in big cities, go a whole day without shooting anybody, including dogs with the hydrophobia. Hell, Pete didn’t never shoot but one man, and I think he hit him by accident. Course, he sure beat a lot of them up, and Three-Fingered Jack died from a whupping, so maybe that evens out the score.”

11

The road was muddy, the going slow. Ruts the tires fell into bounced them so hard Sunset thought her insides were going to jump out of her mouth.

Clyde said, “Hope all that wiring I’ve done to hold the engine don’t give . . . hey, right over there, down that little road, there’s an overhang. It ain’t real high, but it hangs over part of Holiday. Gal jumped off it once, tried to kill herself, but all she did was hit where it widens and roll all the way down. Ended up lying up against the back side of the drugstore. She had stripped off naked to jump. Friend of mine was out back of the store letting water out, seen her roll down the hill. Said he’d just gone to church that morning for the first time in ten years, thought maybe it was a gift from God. It wasn’t. She was mad as a hornet and cussing everything and everybody, including him. Said what he had out wasn’t big enough to drain water, let alone use for anything else. She come out of it with some grass stains and some sticker burrs in her ass. My friend Lonnie never did go to church again. But it’s good up there at night. Nice with all them lights shining up at you.”

As they neared Holiday, alongside the road they saw oil wells poking up, and through gaps in the woods they could see more. The closer they came to the town the more wells they saw, some of them right in the city limits, even in the midst of town. There were so many they made a kind of metal forest.

“It ain’t been no time that this here wasn’t nothing but a burg, now it’s got ten thousand people,” Clyde said. “Wildcatters, roughnecks, gamblers, thugs and whores. Oil makes people crazy, same way as gold— Damn. Ruts are near up to the axle. This ain’t so much a street as a goddamn mud hole.”

“See a hat on the ground,” Hillbilly said, “most likely you’ll find a man under it. Sitting on a horse.”

A few mules and cars were slogging through the mud-rutted street, but for the most part traffic had stopped, and a crowd, whites and coloreds, had gathered near the new picture show. The white folks were in front, the coloreds lingered back a ways, lest they somehow be considered part of the problem. Folks hid themselves behind cars or poked their heads around the edges of buildings. A number of them were armed.

“I don’t think you ought to drive up there,” Sunset said.

“Don’t know I can,” Clyde said. “Go much farther, we might never get out of the mud. Be hard enough just to turn it around.”

Clyde managed the truck onto a patch of solid ground, off the road, parked a pretty good distance away. They got out and walked along the wooden sidewalk opposite the picture show. Hillbilly was carrying the shotgun, and Clyde had the revolver in his hand, letting it dangle by his side.

The crowd turned to look at them.

“They’re trying to figure that badge on your shirt,” Hillbilly said. “Or in the case of the men, the hill on which it rests.”

“Just keep walking,” Sunset said.

They could see Morgan over there, and the other deputy. They were behind a parked truck. A dead mule lay halfway in the muddy street and halfway on the sidewalk. Its head was a mess and it had passed a pile of turds. They were still steaming.

“Shot the doodie out of him,” Clyde said.

At the mouth of the picture show, they could see a door was partly open, and what was keeping it that way was a man’s leg. There was blood all around the door and a white hat was upside down on the sidewalk. Sunset concluded the body was the sheriff.

When they got even with the picture show there wasn’t any way to get across other than to go through the mud.

“I can tote you if you want,” Clyde said.

Sunset considered this, concluded the constable being carried across mud like a child wasn’t the impression she wanted to make.

She said, “I’m the constable, I ought to act like one.”

“You ain’t the constable in this town,” Hillbilly said.

“They asked for me, so I got to look the part.”

“Who said the constable has to be muddy?” Clyde said.

Sunset hiked her dress to her thighs. Hillbilly grinned, said, “Damn. Reckon you’re right. Walk across on your own.”

As they crossed, she glanced repeatedly at the theater, but no one came out to take a shot at her. The sign on the theater said THE STRAND, and the marquee said “ANIMAL CRACKERS starring the Marx Brothers.”

When they got to the other side, mud was caked on Sunset’s calves. She hated to lower her skirt into the mud, but decided she wouldn’t be as handy if she had to walk around holding it up. She also noted that men who had been worried about the man in the theater had stopped to pay attention to her. As had some women, who looked on, disapproving from the sidelines.

At least, she thought, it takes them away from looking at my bruised face.

Driven up on the sidewalk was one of the city’s two police cars. The other they had passed coming into town, parked behind a pickup where Morgan had left it.

Behind the car was Morgan and a badged man she assumed was Rooster. Rooster was long and lanky and wore a tall brown hat with a wide brim. His clothes hung on him like he was made of sticks, and his pants were stuffed into boots with big red eagles stitched on the toes. His ears looked as if they could flap and carry him away. His face was blushed all over, like he had just been scalded.

“He told me you was a woman,” Rooster said.

“Was a woman when he saw me, still am now,” Sunset said.

“I ain’t complaining. Need all the help I can get.”

“What happened?” Hillbilly said.

“Don’t rightly know it all,” Rooster said. “Lillian, she’s the one takes the tickets, said this here colored fella, everyone calls him Smoky, come up to the window, said he wanted to buy a ticket. She wouldn’t sell him one, of course.”

“You got day features?” Clyde asked.

“Now and then,” Rooster said. “With so many loafers around town now, they can bring in the day trade.”

“Damn,” Clyde said. “Going to a movie in the middle of the day. Ain’t that something?”

“Forget the day features,” Sunset said. “Go on. Tell it.”

Rooster nodded. “Lillian told him this wasn’t no colored theater. He said something about didn’t it have a colored section, and she said no, and he went home and got a shotgun. She seen him coming and she ducked down in the ticket booth. He went inside and Lillian run for it. She come and got us. Smoky run everybody out of the show, and when we come over with the sheriff, and the sheriff went up there to talk to him, he got as far as the door, as you can see, and Smoky cut down on him.”

“Sheriff knew Smoky,” Morgan said. “Thought he’d be okay. I told him you can’t tell nothing about a nigger. They can turn on you like a cottonmouth. I knew of one once got mad at his wife and cut his own throat with a butter knife. Had to saw through for about five minutes before it killed him. But he did it.”

“Still,” Rooster said, “I ain’t never heard of nobody wanting to see a picture show that bad, have you?”

“Can’t say I have,” Sunset said. “But I guess now that picture show has a colored section.”

“Reckon so.”

“He might have really wanted to win them dishes,” Clyde said.

“Thing is,” Rooster said, “if Smoky ain’t a big enough problem, couple times the crowd has threatened to burn down the picture show. I ain’t been to the show yet. And neither have a lot of folks in this town, and we don’t want to see it burned. And there’s the colored fella. They want to lynch him. I reckon he’s got it coming, but I’m the law, and the law is supposed to do these things—the arresting—not a bunch of thugs, and a judge and a jury are supposed to do the killing if he needs it. And he needs it.”

“What about the grocer?” Sunset asked.

“Tried to go in there like a bad man, got his leg shot off. Didn’t get as far as the sheriff. Wasn’t six feet from the car here when Smoky poked that shotgun out and cut down on him. Told him not to try it, but did he listen? No. Ain’t no one listens to me. He got toted off to the doctor over in Tyler. One we got here’s all right if you got a cold. But don’t get shot. Dumb bastard, going in like that. From now on he’s gonna have to hop to work.”

“What happened to the mule?” Hillbilly asked.

“Smoky took a second shot at the grocer, who was crawling behind the car here, mule got frightened from all the noise, broke from its owner, run up here and Smoky shot it.”

“Why?”

“Beats me.”

“What kind of shotgun he got?” Clyde asked. “A pump?”

“That’s it,” Rooster said.

“Damn,” Clyde said.

“Is Smoky still there at the door?”

“Don’t know. Don’t want to go find out. Oh, hell. Here comes Phillip Macavee.”

Sunset turned. A short man with a tall black hat and a belly that could have used a wheelbarrow under it was crossing the street, moving through the mud as if doing a high-step march. The crowd was getting braver as well. They moved out from behind cars and stood as if waiting for Macavee to give them the word to follow.

“Who’s Macavee?” Sunset asked.

“Owns a well, thinks cause he’s got money that makes his dick not stink—oh, sorry, miss.”

“That’s all right.”

“Used to drive a pickup truck and gather up garbage. But he got lucky with a well. Been stirring everybody up. He’s the main one says we ought to burn the place down. He’s the one got the grocer worked up. The idea of a nigger hung up or on fire is just the sort of thing that would make him sleep good.”

Just before Macavee reached them, Rooster said, “That nigger is gonna shoot anybody, wish he’d do it now, clip that Macavee one.”

Macavee kept coming until he stood in front of Sunset.

He studied Sunset a moment, said, “Listen here, young lady. You ought to take that badge off. Ought to be home with some children, or some dolls. This ain’t no place for play. Me and some of the boys think we ought to drive a car right up to the front door there, blazing away, and have some others come in the back. If we can’t get close enough to shoot the nigger, we could toss some gasoline, get a fire going. Burn that picture show and that burr head both to the ground.”

Sunset jerked the revolver out of the holster, and with a motion quicker than she’d’ve thought she could muster, fanned the barrel alongside Macavee’s body, over his shoulder, and back behind his jaw toward her.

It was a good blow. There was a meaty noise and Macavee’s head jerked up and his hat leaped away. He seemed to focus on Sunset a second, then fell straight toward her.

Sunset moved just in time to let his face hit the mud. His forehead banged the edge of the board sidewalk.

There was a moment of silence.

Sunset looked at the crowd. There were a lot of open mouths. “Any of them decide they’re coming for me,” she said, “shoot above their heads first. Second time, shoot to wound.”

“Is blowing off a leg considered a wound?” Clyde said.

“I’ll be damned,” Rooster said, looking at Macavee. “Wish to hell I’d thought of that. I just asked him to shut up.”

Morgan flipped Macavee over. His forehead had a strip of blood where he had hit the board sidewalk and his face was coated in mud.

“I didn’t kill him, did I?” Sunset said.

“Nope,” Clyde said. “But he wakes up, you could tell him he’s a waitress on a gambling boat and he’d believe it.”

“I took your advice.”

“You sure did. That’s what Pete used to do.”

The crowd, which had been following Macavee, moved back a step.

Sunset said, “Go on, folks. All Smoky would have to do is point and pull, and about half of you would be in the rest of you folks’ pockets.”

The crowed grumbled, backed up, found places behind cars or where they thought they were out of scattergun range.

Sunset put the revolver back in the holster, turned to Rooster, said, “Well, Smoky needs arresting.”

“We done figured that,” Morgan said. “Sheriff thought so too. But that didn’t work out.”

“Guess I’ll have to go in and get him.”

“You’re kidding us, right?” Morgan said.

“I don’t think so.”

“You’re here to help,” Clyde said. “You ain’t the one to do no arresting.”

Sunset smiled at him, started around the front of the car, onto the sidewalk.

“Miss,” Rooster said, “you ought not do that.”

“You going in there to get him?” Sunset asked.

“No, I ain’t,” Rooster said.

“Morgan?”

“Ain’t planning on it.”

She looked at Clyde. “I think we’re just about out of law enforcement. So that leaves it to me.”

“And me,” Clyde said.

“I guess I have to chime in on that, too,” Hillbilly said. “But I want someone to note that I said I thought this was a damn bad idea.”

“Noted,” Sunset said.

“I want someone to note it ain’t gonna get killed, so they’ll remember I said it.”

“Got you covered,” Rooster said. “On the note part, and with a gun. But I ain’t getting around in front of that car, and I advise you to step on back this way, ma’am.”

“I’ll do it,” Clyde said.

“No, you won’t,” Sunset said. “Last time I looked, I was the boss. Give me that slap jack.”

She unbuttoned the top two buttons on her shirt and took the slap jack from Clyde and slipped it inside her shirt so that it hung under her bra and under her left arm.

Sunset started walking toward the theater.

“Now’s the time for me to tell you I ain’t much of a shot,” Rooster said.

Sunset paused. “Can any of you hit anything?”

“I couldn’t hit an elephant in the ass with a two-by-four if I was standing behind him,” Hillbilly said.

“I can,” Clyde said.

“Then drape over the hood there, and keep a bead on the door.”

Clyde leaned over the hood and pointed the pistol. “Don’t walk in front of me,” he said. “Sticks his head out, ain’t asking questions. He gets popped. And watch it. You’re about to step in mule shit.”

Gun drawn, Sunset came to the open door and didn’t find Smoky behind it. She stepped over the sheriff’s body. Blood was on the floor and drying and it stuck to her shoes like gum. Nearby, a box of yellow giveaway dishes lay overturned and broken.

She made bloody tracks to the dark entrance, where she could hear movie voices. She stuck her head inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but pretty soon she could see Smoky’s head. He was sitting in an aisle seat, the shotgun propped against his shoulder like a sentry.