Sunset and Sawdust (18 page)

20

Lee and Marilyn sat on the edge of Uncle Riley’s porch, sweated, dangled their feet and drank lemonade Aunt Cary had made. Aunt Cary had gone back to the woods to gather roots and such, and Uncle Riley was plucking a chicken in the backyard while Tommy climbed a tree.

“Reckon he’s gonna be all right now,” Marilyn said.

“I think so. Glad you came along.”

“Me too. You looking for work?”

“I am.”

“The mill’s pretty full, and there ain’t much else in Camp Rapture. You might try Holiday. They’re hiring a lot over there because of the oil business. It’s booming.”

“Heard tell of it. But I got some things to do in Camp Rapture first.”

“Is it a secret?”

“Guess not, though I don’t know I want to scream it from the rooftops. Haven’t really talked to anyone about it before ’cept God, and he didn’t seem interested. You interested?”

“I asked, didn’t I?”

“All right. Long time ago, when I was a young man, twenty or so, I got the calling. Lord come to me one morning and I knew I had to preach.”

“I’ve always wondered. How does the Lord come to a preacher? Did you see him?”

“No. And it wasn’t no burning bush neither. My family tried to settle some land in Oklahoma, but it didn’t work out. There was some Indians felt it was their land, and I reckon it was. Government had cut it all up and given it to white folks wanted to settle, but these Indians, four or five of them, they thought it was theirs.”

“You mean, like they were on the warpath?”

“Not like no cowboy movie. These were civilized Indians. Had suit coats and hats and forty-fives. But they was less civilized when they killed my mom and pa. Murdered them in our home and left me there with the bodies. I don’t know why they didn’t kill me, but they didn’t. One of them put a pistol right to my forehead, and cocked it, but he didn’t pull on me. He just looked at me for a minute, then he and the bunch of them run off. For a few days I wished they’d killed me, but after a while I was glad they didn’t, cause I set out to hunt them down.”

“How old were you?”

“Fourteen. This was in ninety-four or so.”

“Did you hunt them down?”

“Law got one of them, and he was hung. I got after two myself. Chased them all the way into Kansas. They split up there and I settled on one of them. Laid for him outside a whorehouse in Leavenworth, and when he come out, I jumped on him from behind and cut his throat.”

“Jesus.”

“Yeah. Pretty horrible. But it didn’t faze me then. I went on the lookout for the other one, finally found him, and shot him in the back. Hid up in a tree where I knew he’d ride by, and when he did I used a rifle I’d stole, and shot him. You know I learned later a colored man was hung for that rifle I stole. I didn’t know about it until years later, but he was hung cause it was thought he done it, even though they didn’t find the rifle. He rode through same place I had not long after I’d come by. Imagine that, hanging a man for stealing a rifle. And on top of that, he didn’t steal it. I had a mind, once I found out about it, to say something, but I didn’t, because I figured I might get hung myself, and my telling the truth wasn’t going to bring that man back.

“Anyway, after I killed the second man, I figured on finding the other ones, and I was lying out in a field somewhere in Kansas, in the open, at night, trying to sleep, looking up at the stars, and the vengeance went out of me. Felt like the Lord reached down and got hold of my heart and pulled the blackness out of it and filled me up with a light. Decided I was gonna be a preacher right then. Ended up in Camp Rapture about 1900.”

“My God. You’re the Reverend.”

“Not anymore. Name’s Lee Beck. But, yeah, I was the Reverend then. And I came to what you now call Camp Rapture, and I done some good. I done some baptizing and civilizing. And then, like David, I lost my way. I took advantage of a young woman. Her name was Bunny Ann.”

“I knew her.”

“You did?”

“Yes. Not well. But I knew her.”

“I had my way with her and run off. I don’t know if she’s married now, or around, or what, and I don’t want to disturb her life. I just want to come and apologize to her. Set things right.”

“What about your daughter?”

“What’s that?”

“You didn’t know she got pregnant, had a daughter?”

Lee’s shoulders sagged under his coat.

“A daughter. She had a daughter?”

“Your daughter, if Bunny told it right. She gave her your last name. And you want to know something else?”

“I’m not sure.”

“She’s my daughter-in-law.”

“My God.”

“It gets a mite more complicated.”

“Before you tell me, what about Bunny Ann? Is she still here?”

“No. She run off with a shoe salesman.”

“A shoe salesman?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, I guess I should have took her with me. Or not run off. Just wasn’t ready to settle down and I’d had my way with her, and me a Reverend, and I guess I thought I ought to run, like I could actually hide out from God.”

“I will say this. A shoe salesman, in my book, is a lot lower than a preacher.”

“Guess that’s some comfort. How are things more complicated?”

“Has to do with my son, and what happened to him. Your daughter’s husband. She’s called Sunset, by the way, though her mama named her Carrie Lynn.”

“What happened?”

Marilyn told him. She told him about Pete and what Sunset had done, told him about her husband and how he had rode on a log into the saw, all of it.

When she finished, Lee said, “I’ve set off a chain reaction. I’ve made all kinds of things happen, and none of them good. It’s a thing you don’t count on when you’re young, how you can do something and have it turn into all kinds of things. My God, how is Carrie Lynn—Sunset?”

“She’s all right.”

“After what she done? What about you? How are you taking it?”

“She had to do it.”

“I believe that. But Pete was your son. Surely—”

“Like I told her, I got my moments. Moments when I hate her. But they’re moments. And another thing, you have a granddaughter.”

“Jesus.”

“Name’s Karen. She’s hurting right now, as you can guess. I was you, I’d quit chasing Bunny Ann. She’s made her life and moved on, and maybe got some shoes out of the deal. She had as much to do with creating that girl as you. You ran out on her and Bunny ran out on Sunset, and now you got this daughter and granddaughter. Could be that’s where you ought to put your time. With them two.”

“I feel like I been poleaxed.”

“I can imagine. After you was a Reverend, where did you go?”

“I had all kinds of jobs, all over the country. Finally, I felt the need to come back here and see Bunny Ann. Now, I don’t know I want to find her anymore. It’s like you said. I got a better place to put my time. If they’ll have me. Do you think they will?”

“I can’t answer that for you, Lee.”

They sat in silence after that, drinking lemonade, and would have continued in silence if Goose hadn’t called out from inside the house.

“I got to go see to him,” Lee said.

In the bedroom he found the boy trying to sit up.

“Here, let me help you.”

Lee folded a pillow over and let Goose rest his head on it.

“I don’t feel so good,” Goose said.

“Feel a lot worse if we hadn’t got some help.”

“Where are we?”

Lee told him about Marilyn, about Aunt Cary, Uncle Riley and Tommy.

“This here is their own bed they done put you in,” Lee said.

“Colored folks?”

“You ain’t going to get funny about that, are you?”

“I ain’t got nothing against colored. I ain’t got nothing against nobody. ’Cept maybe that snake. Lee?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m gonna get well?”

“Looks like it.”

The boy looked at his bandaged hand.

“Case I don’t, I ought to tell you something, especially since you’re a preacher.”

“I ain’t a preacher no more. I been a Pinkerton Man too, and a lot of other things, but no one thinks to call me those. Just Preacher. And I ain’t one. God done long gone from me. And you’re gonna be all right. You don’t need to confess nothing to me.”

“I ain’t never had no pussy, Lee. I lied about that. I just wanted to sound big.”

“That’s all right.”

“I want some, but I ain’t never had none.”

“You’ll have your chance someday. I think we ought to talk about something else, and if I was you, I’d drop that line of talk and thinking until I was about sixteen or so, then I’d wait until I got married.”

“Did you?”

“No.”

“Hard to wait, ain’t it? And you got to do it with a bad girl you ain’t gonna marry.”

“Don’t believe that. Ain’t no girl or woman any badder than you make them. I ain’t your daddy, and I ain’t no preacher, but trust me, lead the good life. Things you do, they set off a line of events that can be good or bad. I was just telling Marilyn that.”

“The woman picked us up?”

“Yeah.”

“Is she pretty?”

“She’s old as me. But yeah, I think she’s pretty.”

“You ain’t had none while I was sleeping, have you?”

Lee lightly slapped Goose’s head. “You can stop that talk. Lay down and shut up. I’ll see what we’re gonna do next.”

“You ain’t gonna leave, are you?”

“No. I ain’t gonna leave you.”

“Like you said, you ain’t kin. You don’t owe me nothing. You don’t have to stay.”

“Ain’t got nothing better to do for the moment. Reckon I’ll keep up with you for a while. You rest now. Aunt Cary and Uncle Riley are gonna fry some chicken in a bit. You can eat, can’t you?”

“Like an old wolf.”

21

The freedom of the car was exhilarating, and because of it, as well as because it seemed a commonsense plan—and if it had not been she would have convinced herself it was—Sunset decided to drive to Holiday the next morning, take a look over at the courthouse, see if she could figure out something about the maps in the grave.

She had looked over the ledger, and decided it wasn’t connected. The ledger had notes from cases, and not many of them, as it was pretty new, and she figured Pete had just stuck the maps in it, then buried it all together, maybe to help protect the maps. Yeah, that was it, she was pretty sure.

Thing to do was go to Holiday, look at the courthouse, see what was there. And she planned to take Hillbilly with her, send Clyde out to look at the land next to Zendo’s, talk to Zendo, see if he knew anything about who owned that stretch. She knew she was doing it too because she wanted to be alone with Hillbilly, and that irked her. She was letting her loins make decisions for her. It was always said that men thought with the little head and not the big head, but something other than her head was certainly doing some of her thinking, and she didn’t like it, but couldn’t resist it. In fact, thought of it made her a little light-headed.

As for Karen, she would drive her over to Camp Rapture first thing in the morning to spend the day with Marilyn. Marilyn would like that, and she thought Karen would too, and maybe they’d go to Holiday, see a picture show.

Hell. She might see a picture show herself. Or go to the Oil Festival that was being held in honor of what oil had done for Holiday. Which was turn a nice peaceful burg into a mud hole full of thugs and noise and tall metal derricks and too many people rubbing shoulders and no telling what all else against one another.

The whole idea of having a car made Sunset feel as powerful as the gun made her feel. Only better. Free. Was that how men felt all the time?

Or most of them, anyway?

And she had two men who wanted her.

Clyde. Who she didn’t want.

And Hillbilly. Who she sure as hell did want.

But it was great to be wanted after being locked away so much of the time in the house, and when she was wanted by Pete, it was as a punching bag. Punching with his fists. Punching with his penis. No love there and no true want of the sort she cared about.

Things were maybe not wonderful, but they were better than they were when Pete was alive.

If it wasn’t for what it did to Karen, what she was having to deal with, she’d maybe consider shooting a husband every day. It had certainly opened some doors.

Sunset was thinking about all this as she fed Ben out by the big oak beside the road in the near darkness. There was still light but it was fading fast and the light that was there held dust motes in strands so that they looked like tresses of fine blond hair hanging amidst the trees.

Sunset took in a deep breath and savored the taste of the air.

Karen was inside the tent, reading a book. Clyde had relented and given Hillbilly a ride somewhere, then probably gone home to his burned-down house to lie under his tarp.

Sunset was enjoying this time. Just her and the dog. Even being away from Hillbilly and thinking about being with him was in this moment better than being with him. She could let her imagination work overtime.

“Howdy,” said a voice.

Sunset wheeled, dropping the pan in front of Ben, and began pulling her gun from its holster.

Before she could pull it clean, a hand went over hers, a hand larger than both of hers put together, multiplied by two, and with that movement, quicker than sight, the gun was out of her grasp and a colored man with an explosion of head hair and a heavy beard, a man no wider than a log wagon and no taller than a pine, was standing in front of her, holding the gun in the palm of his hand.

Ben wheeled, growling.

“Easy, boy,” the big man said.

Ben stopped growling, whimpered, pushed up against the man’s leg like a cat.

“You ain’t got no cause to worry,” said the colored man. “I ain’t here to hurt you. I come to talk.”

“Bull?”

“That’s right.”

He gave her back her gun. She looked down at Ben. “Some watchdog.”

“Dogs like me,” Bull said. “ ’Specially since I been coming up nights making friends with him. Dog is loyal ’less he likes to eat rabbit entrails. Then he only loyal long as it takes to get him used to eatin’ some every night.”

“So that’s what’s been wrong with his appetite.”

“Me and him are friends now,” Bull said, leaning over to pet Ben on the head. “But he’s a good dog. And a good watchdog for you. I hadn’t had a good heart, he’d have known, and rabbit guts wouldn’t have got him to be friends. Not all dogs know that. Some like rabbit guts no matter who gives them out, but this one ain’t that way.”

“And how do you know?”

“Cause my heart, like his, is good and true.”

“My God. You’re the biggest man I’ve ever seen.”

“My brother was bigger when we was kids. I think he’d have grown to be bigger if he’d growed up, but he got drowned, swimming in the Sabine. I’m seven foot, just so you know. I don’t know what I weigh, but you wouldn’t want me to fall on you.”

“Why have you been making friends with my dog?”

“I been leading him out in the woods a piece. Didn’t want to just come up and have him go at me and didn’t want to frighten you none.”

“Too late for that. You frightened me plenty.”

“You done good by Smoky.”

“I got your note.”

“My talking is a lot better than my writing. I never got no learning or spelling, except what I picked up, so I got to guess at things. Wasn’t even sure I told you what I wanted to tell you—Smoky and me, for a long time, we was like brothers. Then he got a little tetched. He wasn’t bad tetched, but he was tetched. You doing what you did, it ain’t often any whitey does a thing for me or mine, but you did, and I appreciate it. Because of it, I come to tell you something.”

“All right.”

“Brought a jug of shine. It’s on the other side of the tree there, where I been waiting. You up for any?”

“Ain’t never drank any.”

“Can be powerful bad for you, don’t treat it right. But treat it right, it’ll treat you right.”

“Let me get some glasses.”

When Sunset went in the tent, Karen was by the flap.

“Who is that, Mama?”

“A friend.”

“A colored friend?”

“He’s colored and he seems friendly.”

“Are you sure it’s safe? He looks like a giant.”

“He is.”

“He might hurt you.”

“He took my gun away from me and gave it back, so I don’t reckon he’s got plans to hurt me. Bring out a couple chairs so we can sit a spell, and you come on back in the tent.”

“I’m scared with that big man around.”

“There’s a shotgun right there, courtesy of Clyde. You can sit with it if you like.”

Sunset got the glasses and Karen carried two chairs out. Bull was leaning against the oak, holding a small white jug.

“How do you do?” Bull said to Karen.

“I’m fine,” Karen said, and hustled back to the tent.

“She think the big nigger is gonna rape and slaughter y’all, set fire to the tent and eat the dog?”

“Something like that.”

They sat in the chairs and Bull poured them each a little dose of his poison. The dog lay down between them.

Sunset sipped.

“Oh, Jesus,” she said. “It’s like drinking coal oil on fire.”

“But with a sweet smooth aftertaste,” Bull said.

Sunset laughed, held the glass and didn’t sip. Bull, on the other hand, pulled deeply. When he brought the glass down, he said, “There’s all sorts of talk cause you helped Smoky, and it’s white people talk.”

“It’s just talk.”

“Some of it’s Klan talk.”

“I know half the people in the Klan.”

“They talking about correcting you.”

“How do you know?”

“Colored people can be almost like they invisible. Workers, maids, laundry women. They hear things, and it all gets back to Bull.”

“Why do they tell you?”

“Don’t know. Maybe because I ain’t afraid of no white man. Actually, I am, there’s enough of them, but they don’t know that.”

Bull grinned at her. Sunset thought his grin looked a little like a bear baring its teeth.

“Tell you true, missy, ain’t got much use for white folks. Hate them cause they hate me, and I didn’t reckon there was one good one among you.”

“Can I suppose I’m a good one?”

Bull grinned. “You can. And maybe, if you’re good, there’s two good ones. Even three. I won’t figure to think there might be four.”

“There’s really a lot of us.”

“I’m not here cause I’m wanting to suck on whitey’s tit, and I don’t mean yours. I’m here cause I owe you cause of what you done. You may have done it cause of the law, but you done it. That’s something. Go on. Have another sip. It’ll lighten your load.”

Sunset took another sip. It was as if a blazing mothball were flowing down her throat.

“Wow,” she said.

“I get told all kind of things,” Bull said. “Cause I’m the man supplies the drink for the colored folks, and they like to drink, and talk, and drink helps them talk . . . whatever the reason, it’s a fact. So I’m telling you, watch yourself. There’s people don’t like you cause you’re a woman, same way they don’t like me cause I’m colored. It ain’t got no rhyme or reason. You and me, we got our place and we ain’t staying in it, and there’s plenty don’t like that. They like things where, and in a way, they can count on them. Colored does this, woman does this. We ain’t doing it, and it ain’t going down well. Way they may come for you, cause I think they will, is the Klan. Maybe not. But maybe so. You see someone in a sheet you shoot their sheeted head off. I tell you one thing, them sheets make good targets.”

“Did you really have them come for you?”

“I did.”

“What happened?”

“Didn’t work out for them. Like I said, them sheets make good targets. Just don’t shoot too high. Might think that pointed cap ought to have their head in it, but it don’t. Not unless you’re aiming kind of low into it.”

Sunset had to think about that a moment, then she got it.

“You’re quick, Bull.”

“More ways than one. What I know, though, is I die, my body gets found, I don’t know any colored will care enough to do anything with it, which is okay, but I fear peckerwoods might get me. Old boy over in Sacul. They hung him and cut him up and sold his bones for keepsakes. Come and get your nigger bones, two cents. I die, I’d like someone to just burn me up, leave nothing but ashes.”

“That business with Smoky,” Sunset said. “The thing you’re giving me credit for. It didn’t work out too well. You know that?”

Bull nodded.

“That wouldn’t be your fault, gal. You done what you could. You got more brains than your husband, and I’m glad you killed him.”

“Did Pete ever bother you?”

“Just once.”

“I suppose that didn’t work out well for him.”

“No. It didn’t. I sort of relieved him of the same gun I just took from you and slapped him a bit and sent him home. I figured he wouldn’t mention much about it, having a nigger take his gun, give him a slapping, empty out the bullets, and give it back to him.”

“What did he come see you about?”

“You’re drinking it.”

“Heavens. I’m breaking the law, drinking illegal-made whisky.”

Bull grinned. He had a lot of fine white teeth. “Now I got something on you.

“He wanted to see I paid him to run my business. A little cut of the pie. But I ain’t really all that big on business partners. Especially white constables.”

“I’m a white constable.”

“So you is. Another thing. Always thought white women, small like they was in the ass and such, not powerful in the face, with them little old skinny noses and that funky hair, was ugly. But you don’t look bad for a white woman.”

“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or not.”

“It’ll have to do.”

“Would you like to eat? I was about to fix dinner.”

“You don’t want to seem too cozy with a nigger. Got enough folks mad at you. Killing Pete. Being a woman constable, then helping out Smoky. But I’ll be watching for you some. I ain’t got nothing else to do but dangle at home. It’s not like I get to go to too many church socials.”

“Do you want to?”

“Not really. My days, girl, are numbered. Starting to get rheumatiz. Slowing down. Them whites that hate me, they gonna get me in time. I know that. So I ain’t afraid. Once you know you’re done for, you ain’t afraid no more. Well, a little. But what’s gonna happen is gonna happen . . . I’ll check on you now and then. Something comes up where I can pay back what you done for Smoky, I will.”

“What I did was get him to Tyler to be lynched.”

“You tried. Listen here now. Need me, hang a strip of white cloth on the other side of that oak there. I’ll see it. Maybe not right away, but soon. And I’ll come. You know, it’s kind of good to be out of them deep woods a bit. I forget the real color of the sky, seeing only bits of it through the trees, and some of it looking green cause of the sun on the leaves. Kind of tired of staying back there in them woods, pretending to be a booger bear.”

“Got a feeling you might be a booger bear, Bull.”

Bull smiled, corked the jug, reached down and gave the dog a pat. “I’ll be gone now.”

Bull rose, walked behind the oak, and when Sunset stood to see him off he wasn’t there. He had blended into the brush and trees. Once she thought she heard him moving through the undergrowth, but when she looked there was nothing. Then the last strands of light were gone and there was darkness, falling like a curtain. The wind picked up and brought the damp dirt smell of the creek to her nostrils, a night bird called, a fistful of crickets started up as if they had just punched the clock, and within moments a few lightning bugs appeared.

Sunset took another sip of the shine and shivered. She poured the rest on the ground. Ben came over and sniffed the shine in the dirt, jerked his head back and went away.

“Good dog,” Sunset said. “Believe me, you don’t want to drink that. Pickle something in it maybe, but drink it, uh-uh.”