Sunset and Sawdust (16 page)

“You’d have me arrested?”

“I would.”

“Oh, hell,” Bill said, as if he were being magnanimous. “Take the damn car.”

When Bill crutched the keys out to them, along with the title, which he signed over, Marilyn handed the keys to Sunset.

“It’s yours,” Marilyn said.

“You didn’t tell me the car was for her.”

“Didn’t need to,” Marilyn said.

“Are you sure, Marilyn?” Sunset said. “I mean, it’s a good car.”

“It sure is,” Bill said.

“That’s why I want you to have it,” Marilyn said. “You need it. You can’t be depending on someone else all the time. What if Clyde quit?”

“I don’t know what to say.”

“Say thanks.”

“Thanks, Marilyn.”

“I don’t want her to have it,” Bill said.

“Why’s that?” Marilyn said.

“Well, I know she’s constable, but she ain’t really.”

“Yes, I am,” Sunset said. “Really. And if you hadn’t paid your debt to Mrs. Jones, I’d have arrested you.”

Bill looked as if he could eat glass.

“It really bothers you a woman has this job, doesn’t it?” Sunset said.

Bill crutched back to his porch and his rocking chair. When he settled into it he began to rock furiously, as if he might rock himself off the porch and on out of East Texas, a place where women became the law and hoodwinked him out of cars for money owed.

“Good enough,” Marilyn said. “You drive it home, Sunset. Tell Karen I’m going to come get her soon, take her to the picture show over in Holiday.”

“Sunset’s done been there,” Bill said from the porch. “That’s where she saved that nigger.”

“You’ll be happy to know he was lynched,” Sunset said.

“Already heard. And you’d have saved a lot of trouble if you’d done let them go ahead and do it while he was in Holiday. I reckon he ate some meals over in Tyler. He wasn’t worth that, even if he only got bread and water.”

“I’d shut up if I were you,” Sunset said. “Don’t forget you’re talking to the law.”

“I ain’t talking law business. I’m just talking. Y’all go on, now. You got what you wanted.”

Bill rose from the rocker, stood tall on his crutches, worked his way into the house, let the door bang.

Sunset had learned to drive when she was a kid working on the farm, before she got the sniff on what her male foster parent had in mind for her. Then she ran off and didn’t drive much after that. She drove for Pete once in a while, but not often, just when he really needed something done. He didn’t like to see a woman drive, especially his woman, and the idea that she could drive, that she might drive away, was not a comfort to him. He liked her handy, as he liked to say, which meant under his roof and under his thumb, trapped like a rat in a shoe box, no air holes.

So as she drove, the window down, the wind blowing her red hair as if fanning a blaze, she felt a kind of glory rise up in her. The flesh on her neck and cheeks flared as if bellows were beneath her skin, pumping up heat from coals she thought dead, and her skin seemed to lick at the air, and the taste of it was sweet, and she felt strong, her bones suddenly of iron, and along she drove, the dust rising up, some of it coming through the window, making her cough, sticking to the sweat on her face, but she didn’t mind. Didn’t mind at all, because there was a fine fire in her and it made her comfortably warm even in the not so comfortable East Texas heat, and out the window she saw the world no longer in the dusty whites and grays of the road, but in the bright greens of the pines and the cedars of the forest and the blues of the sky and the bouquets of Indian paint-brushes and bluebonnets and buttercups and sunflowers and all manner of wildflowers that fled out of the woods and stopped at the edge of the road as if on parade, saw all this as the roar of the car startled bright bursts of birds when she made curves too fast, and in that good moment she felt as if she was the queen of all she surveyed.

Sunset drove the black Ford to her tent, and when Clyde, who was still sitting in a chair out front, saw her, he stood up, walked out to the car to greet her.

“You steal it?” Clyde said through the open driver’s window.

“No, I let a drunk man feel my tittie for it.”

Clyde gave her a shocked look, and she laughed, told him how she had come by the car, telling it while she sat with her hands on the wheel, her head against the seat, turned slightly so she could speak to Clyde, doing it that way so she could feel her car.

“Hell, you can fire me now you got a ride.”

Sunset climbed out of the car and closed the door. “Don’t be silly, Clyde. I couldn’t do without you. You’re my right-hand man. And speaking of my left-hand man, where is he?”

Karen came out of the tent. Her hair was combed and she looked way too neat and clean for just getting up. She said, “Whose car?”

“Ours. Courtesy of your grandma.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Oh, heavens,” Karen said. “Our very own car.”

Karen came over to look at the car and Sunset went to the water pump and washed the dust off of her sweaty face. She pulled her hair back to do it, and when she turned her head to let the water run over her face, she saw Clyde looking at her, and the way he looked, it was so sweet, and she thought, Oh, hell, don’t fall for me, Clyde, because I can’t do it, and then she turned her head the other way to wash that side of her face, and she saw Hillbilly coming down the road, walking in that cool, collected way he had, and she thought it odd he seemed free of sweat and dust, and the way the sun hit his cap, it looked like some kind of dark halo.

In that moment, a heat like she had felt driving the car, maybe even hotter, rose up in her, but it wasn’t just her face this time, it was her loins as well.

“Hi, Hillbilly,” Karen said.

“Hi, darlin’,” he said.

17

Lee, dreaming he was Tarzan asleep in a tree with Jane in his arms, awoke to the sound of a moan.

For a moment, upon realizing he was not Tarzan, he was confused, had no idea where he was, and when he looked above and saw the limbs of the tree, he decided maybe he was in fact Tarzan, and that the moan belonged to Jane. Since no Jane was present and he was fully dressed, he determined it was not a moan of ecstasy or even a moan connected to backache, but it was a moan, perhaps from falling from the tree, because trees, for all their romance, really weren’t that good to sleep in unless you were a monkey.

Then he came full awake. He was in a tree, but not in Africa, and below him lay Goose.

He rolled over and looked down. Goose was sitting up with his back against the tree. Goose said, “Goddamn it. I done been snakebit.”

“What?”

“Snakebit. Copperhead.”

“You sure?”

“Course I’m sure. Woke up when it bit me. It weren’t no chicken snake. I know them copperhead sonsabitches are poison. I know that much. Saw it crawl in the leaves there. Got me on the hand. It was a little one. Don’t hurt much.”

“Where exactly did the snake go?”

“Well, he didn’t tell me where he was planning on finishing out,” Goose said. “But in them leaves, over there.”

Goose pointed.

Lee dropped down from his limb and looked around and found a heavy stick.

“He done bit me,” Goose said. “I ain’t gonna get better cause you hit him with a stick.”

Lee tossed the stick down. “You’re right. We got to get you to a doctor. Can you walk?”

“Bit me on the hand, not the leg.”

“Thing to do is to walk slow and careful, not hurry. Poison gets het up and runs right through you that way.”

“Am I gonna be okay?”

“Sure. But we got to get you to a doctor.”

They went out on the road and started walking. It was good and morning now, already starting to turn hot. Lee hoped Camp Rapture was not too far away, and that a doctor was there, and that they wouldn’t be too late. He looked about, hoping to remember the place better, get some idea of where they were, but he might as well have been in Romania.

As they walked, Goose said, “Hand’s starting to hurt like fire now, and get heavy.”

Lee looked at the boy’s hand. It was swollen up huge and turning dark.

“Put it inside your shirt. Unbutton a couple buttons. Put it in there Napoleon style, so you don’t let it dangle by your side.”

“Oh, Jesus. It hurts.”

“I know, son. Just keep going.”

They went a ways, then Goose fell to his knees. “My head’s all whirly. I’m hotter in the head than a jacked-off mad dog.”

“It’ll be all right.”

Goose hit face forward in the dust.

Lee picked him up and carried him in his arms. This was hard work and he didn’t get too far before he had to put the boy down. He picked him up again, but this time he threw him over his shoulder. This was hard, but not as hard as carrying him in his arms. He went twice as far this time, stopped, and with great difficulty, shifted the boy to his other shoulder.

Goose wasn’t talking anymore. He wasn’t making a sound. He felt hot to the touch. Nonetheless, Lee talked to him. “We’re gonna make it, son. Can’t be that damn far. I been here before, long time ago, and it don’t seem it’s that far.”

But they walked on and the road kept stretching. Lee wanted to stop, lie down. He was exhausted with the weight and the heat, but he kept plodding. He thought: I’m damn glad Goose ain’t a fat boy or I’d go straight down and never get up. But then, if he was a fat boy, he probably wouldn’t run like a goose and the name Goose wouldn’t fit him. They’d call him Pig, something like that.

His legs grew heavy and his arms grew tired, but he tried to focus on the road ahead, thinking that around each far ahead curve he would see Camp Rapture. He wondered what Camp Rapture was like now. When he left it, it had just become a camp and it had the name all fresh and new and it wasn’t much to see. Goddamn. How long ago was that? Thirty? Thirty-three years? He couldn’t really remember. He was in his early twenties then. He was in his early fifties now. No. What was he thinking? Time had slipped by him. He was fifty-four. Was that early or middle fifties? Oh, Christ, this boy is heavy. And it’s hot, so goddamn hot, and the boy is hot. So hot.

Lee stumbled, went down. The boy slipped off his shoulder and struck the road.

“Jesus, son, I’m sorry,” Lee said. But the boy was unaware of the fall or the fact that he was being spoken to.

With the effort of Atlas lifting the world, Lee managed the boy up again, switching this time to holding one leg and one arm and slinging the boy across his back. This was better for a while, but soon his arm ached and his leg ached and he thought: I must lay down a while. But no. Can’t do that. Every second counts. He glanced at the boy’s hand, which was now dangling. It was black and large and didn’t look like a hand at all. It looked like some kind of creature.

“We’ll make it, Goose,” he said, and wondered if they would or even if the boy was still alive. As he plodded on, he relaxed, tried to feel the boy breathing, and could. Could feel the slight and strained movement of the boy’s body as his lungs labored.

“For God sakes, Jesus,” Lee said. “I know I done some wrong. But don’t take it out on this boy. Help me help him.”

Jesus didn’t reach out of the heavens to offer a hand.

God didn’t provide a chariot or a doctor.

The Holy Ghost didn’t cheer him on.

Lee pushed on, stumbled, went to a knee, got up, kept going, said to God and Jesus and the Holy Ghost, “You sonsofbitches. All three of you.”

Then he heard the sound.

He turned, almost falling as he did.

Coming down the road was a truck with side boards. Lee stepped to the center of the road.The truck swerved and pulled to the left side of the road, something clattered in the truck bed as it came to a stop. A woman was driving. She looked about his age. Nice looking with a gray stripe down the center of her hair. She had eyes like icy blue fire. She reached over and rolled down the window.

“What’s wrong?” she said.

“Boy got snakebit.”

“Poisonous snake?”

“His hand is swole up big as my head. He said it was a copperhead.”

“Get in.”

Lee got in, laying the boy across his legs. He removed the boy’s tightfitting cap and wiped his hair out of his eyes, used the cap to wipe the sweat from his face. He laid the bitten hand across the boy’s chest. The hand was black and very huge. It looked as if if it were tapped lightly it might explode. Lee rolled up the boy’s sleeves. There were runs of red and blue lines going up his snakebit arm.

“See how it’s done him,” Lee said.

Marilyn glanced at the boy’s arm and hand, started onto the road.

“Thought I could get him to Camp Rupture, to a doctor, he’d have a chance,” Lee said.

“He’s got a better chance we go see Aunt Cary. She’s a midwife, but she knows about snakebites and all manner of things a doctor don’t. Guess she’s a kind of a doctor herself.”

“Hope you’re right.”

“She’s closer.”

“Camp Rapture ain’t as close as I remember it.”

“When do you remember it? How long ago?”

He told her.

“There used to be a straighter road to it,” she said, “but it kept getting washed out from the creek, so they reworked it. This one winds a mite, but it don’t get flooded as much.”

“You sure about this Aunt Cary?”

“Done a lot of people good,” Marilyn said. “Seen her do all manner of things. Seen her come into Camp Rapture once and deliver a baby by cutting the mother’s belly open. Baby lived, and so did the mother. Aunt Cary sewed her up with fishing line and she got all right. Something like that, or something like this, I trust her more than a doctor. Besides, she’s closer, and this boy needs whatever he’s gonna get right now.”

They took a turn off of the main road, down a narrow trail. The truck bumped and thumped along, the junk in the bed clattered. Lee looked over his shoulder through the back window. Saw posthole diggers and a shovel and axe leaping about back there.

He wished they would bounce out. The noise was giving him a headache.

At first Marilyn drove fast, but the trail was too bad for that kind of driving, so she slowed.

“He’s breathing funny,” Lee said.

“Snakebite affects the lungs,” Marilyn said. “All kinds of things, but the lungs is one thing. Get so you can’t breathe, then it pumps poisons to the heart.”

The woods grew denser. There were long vines hanging from dark twisty trees with thorns. They bounced along a path even more narrow than the one they had been on and pulled into a clearing where an old house set. The house was small and the porch sagged. The yard was littered with wagon parts, plows, a chopping block with an axe in it, and assorted chicken feathers.

Marilyn parked near the porch, got out, called to the house: “Aunt Cary. You in there? It’s Marilyn Jones. You in there? Got us an emergency.”

The door opened and Uncle Riley came out on the porch, followed by his son, Tommy.

“That’s her husband, Uncle Riley,” Marilyn said. “And that’s their son, Tommy.”

Lee noted that Uncle Riley looked younger than he was, hardly like an uncle. He was a big, powerful man with a shaved head. He was wearing too short pants and a too tight, stained white T-shirt. The boy was barefoot, wearing overalls. His hair was long and the kinks went up in the air like springs that had sprung.

“How are you, Miss Marilyn?” Uncle Riley said. “Can I help you?”

“We got a boy snakebit, Uncle Riley. Copperhead. He’s swole up good. We need Aunt Cary.”

“She out gathering some roots. Tommy, go find her, tell her get back here quick as she can.”

Tommy darted back into the house and out the back. They heard the back screen door slam as he went, snappy as a rifle shot.

“Let’s get him on in here,” Uncle Riley said.

Lee and Uncle Riley carried Goose into the one bedroom and laid him on the bed. Uncle Riley put a pillow under Goose’s head and looked at the hand.

Lee looked around. There were a number of shelves and on the shelves were jars and sacks, and in the jars he could see roots and what looked like dirt and some colorful powders and in one jar he saw several water moccasin heads floating in a liquid the color of urine. Some of the jars with snake heads had streaks of red in them like sticky runs of blood.

Uncle Riley bent over Goose, looked at the hand. “He was bit good.”

“Said it was a small snake,” Lee said.

“If it was a young’n, them’s the worst kind. They all hot with sap.”

The back door slammed, and a moment later a very pretty, slightly heavy woman with reddish skin and little black freckles on her cheeks entered the room. She had a red-and-black-checkered rag tied around her head. She didn’t pay any attention to Lee or Marilyn, but bent directly over the boy, looked at his hand, poked it with her finger.

“Tommy,” she said, “go in there and get me the little sharp knife. One I use on them pears. Bring it here with some of my medicine and a glass.”

Tommy left, came back momentarily with a glass, a pocketknife, and a jug.

Aunt Cary laid the glass and knife on the edge of the bed and used her fine white teeth to pull the cork from the jug. She poured a bit of what was in the jug into the glass.

“This here is some of Mr. Bull’s best,” she said.

Lee could smell that it was white lightning. Aunt Cary took a swig from the glass, poured a little more into the glass, set it on the floor and knelt down by it. She opened the pocketknife, dipped it into the booze and drank what was in the glass after she did. She sat on the side of the bed and took hold of the boy’s hand and poked the wound with the knife. She didn’t cut across or make slashes, just poked straight into the bite marks. Dark pus squirted out. She picked up the jug, splashed some of its contents onto the punctures.

“Get me my stone,” she said.

Tommy scrambled away, came back carrying a white knotty stone that filled his fist. Aunt Cary took it, pressed it against the wound.

Lee watched as the stone darkened.

“Is it sucking out the poison?” he said.

“It is.”

“That’s a rock?”

“I call it a milk stone. Tommy, go pull the milk jug up from the well.”

Tommy darted away. While he was gone, the stone became darker yet.

“I don’t know it’s really a stone,” she said, “but it sucks that poison out all right.”

Tommy came back with the damp milk jug. It had been hung down the well on a rope and the jug and the milk were cool. Aunt Cary poured the glass half full of milk. She set the glass on the floor, said, “Look at this.”

She dropped the stone in the milk and the milk turned dark as a thundercloud.

“Comes out best in milk. I done it in water some, but it don’t work as good. Seems to get sucked out by that milk.”

When the glass was so dark with poison and pus you couldn’t see the rock, Cary gave the glass to Tommy, said, “Pour that out and don’t get it on your hands. Bring it back to me. Mind you don’t pour it near the vegetable garden, you hear me?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Once again, Tommy disappeared. He came back with the glass empty of milk and full of stone. The stone looked larger, like a sponge that had swollen, but now it was as white as in the beginning.

Aunt Cary poured white lightning into the glass, shook it gently, plucked out the stone and put it back on the bite. It filled with poison again.

Aunt Cary pulled a Bible off a shelf, flipped it open, rapidly found what she wanted. She read a couple verses aloud. When she finished, she said, “Them’s healing verses.”

“I recognize them,” Lee said. He reached out and touched the boy’s head. It was sweaty and hot, but not as hot as before.

“I’m gonna fix him up something to drink now,” Aunt Cary said. “It’ll cut that fever down some.”

“Will he be all right?” Marilyn asked.

“That’s up to the Lord,” Aunt Cary said. “But I think he will. Yes, ma’am. I think he will.”

Lee noted another surprising thing. The swelling in Goose’s hand had gone down and it was no longer black. It had turned a light blue and the lines that had been running up his arm had lost length. The punctures were oozing blood now, not poison.