Sunset and Sawdust (26 page)

McBride grinned. “He likes it dark. He thinks he’s some kind of shadow. Come here, Two.”

Two came over, stood in front of the pew, his hands dangling by his sides. Up close Henry took note of Two’s blazing green eyes.

“Two,” McBride said, “show him your head. Tell Henry what happened.”

Two took off his bowler. At the top of his forehead, the hair, which was cut short elsewhere, was gone and there was a scar, a horseshoe shape. It was deep and purple and had ridges.

“Jesus,” Henry said. “A mule kicked you?”

“God gave me this,” said Two, and his voice had a kind of gush to it, like a shovel slipping into fresh mud. “I was struck by a bolt of God’s lightning, and God made me Two. Made me hungry.”

“He got kicked in the head, right?” Henry asked McBride.

“He just told you what happened.”

“God have a mule?”

“He’s a piece of work, ain’t he?”

“How’d you come by him?”

“That’s a long story.”

“What’s he mean there’s two of him?”

“That’s why he’s called Two. Used to just be Cecil, but that ain’t good enough no more. Now he’s Two. There’s him, then there’s the other one, but they’re both inside of him. He’s so goddamn special has to be two of him. Am I right, Two?”

Two nodded.

“Sometimes they got to talk to one another, figure things out. Ain’t that right, Two?”

“This is giving me the crawls, McBride. We got to have him around?”

“He’s good in a spot. I been in some places where me and him had to ride high, and we did.”

“He does what you say?”

“Only if he wants to. Most of the time, he wants to. We got a connection.”

“Is he dangerous?”

“Of course he’s dangerous.”

Henry studied Two, standing there, still as a board, a smile on his face, the green eyes looking down like the eyes of some kind of feral animal. The same kind of eyes McBride had, only more so.

“Took the urge, he’d bite your face off, Henry. Eat it. Niggers got that cannibal thing in them, you know.”

Henry snapped a glance at McBride, and McBride laughed.

“Don’t worry. He ain’t gonna eat you. Not just yet. Will you, Two?”

“I think not,” Two said.

“He don’t talk like a nigger.”

“Two was educated, weren’t you, Two?”

Two nodded.

“He learned things some white men never get to learn, but Two, he got to. He can do higher mathematics, Henry. He can read any goddamn book ever written without moving his lips, and he’s read a lot of them. Ain’t that right, Two? He’s got a pretty special life. Here he is, half nigger, half white, black as the goddamn ace of spades, and his father and his nigger mother, they took care of him, treated him good, like a white man. And the father, a white man, he went off and left his other son, a white boy, to his mother, a white mother, and the mother left the son to the nuns. But the boy, he come out of it. He was tough. Made his way. He’s done all right. But he didn’t get no education. Didn’t get a thing he didn’t scratch in the dirt for. And Cecil here—Two—he got it all given to him like that black skin of his was white as snow. God smote him for being an uppity nigger, didn’t he, Two? That’s the real reason you got smote.”

“He gave me powers.”

“See, Two figures it different. Thinks God blessed him. He won’t accept a horse kicked him, knocked his brain around. That ain’t the story is it, Two?”

“God struck me with a thunderbolt, gave me powers.”

“What do you have to do in return, Two?” McBride said. “What do you have to do to put a smile on God’s face?”

“Suck souls.”

“Suck souls?” Henry said.

“Yeah. Ain’t that some shit? Likes to put his mouth over the face of a dying man or woman, and suck. He’ll do it if they’re fresh dead, too. They don’t have to be on the boat, they can done be off and on the other side, and old Two, he goes to sucking.”

“You’re pulling my dick?”

“Nope. He sucks souls. Or thinks he does.”

“I do,” Two said.

“You seen him do it?”

“I have. He helped me with that gal, he sucked her face, helped me hold her down in the oil, and then he sucked her face. Got oil all over him. It’s horseshit, though, ain’t it, Two? You’re not sucking any souls. You’re just sucking, right?”

“You know the truth, brother,” Two said. “You know I tell the truth and that I am here to assist you so that my need, God’s need for souls, can be satisfied.”

“Wait a minute,” Henry said, just getting it. “Is he . . . your half brother? A nigger?”

“You trying to make a point, Henry?”

“No . . . No. I’ve seen some nigger gals I’d have done, got the chance. It could happen. Could happen to any man, diddling a nigger. There’s half-white children all over East Texas. It don’t mean a thing outside of getting your wick dipped.”

“My daddy lived with Two’s mother. Lived with her like he was proud. Must have caught hell for it, but he done it anyway. I guess that’s what they call love, whatever it is. Figure when that nigger died, Two’s mother, that’s what drove Daddy to drink. He loved that nigger in a way he didn’t love my mother, and her white.”

Two made a sound in his throat like someone tasting something good and sweet. McBride looked up at him.

“Go back to your place,” McBride said.

Two grinned at him and sat in the pew next to McBride.

“See,” McBride said, “he don’t always do what I ask.”

30

Sunset drove away, her mind on McBride, those eyes of his, the way he moved, as if he might suddenly turn into something liquid and molten, flow over her and burn her to death. And the one called Two. Jesus. Two gave her the jumps.

Hillbilly, she thought of him too, what he had done to Karen. Hell, what he had done to her. The lying silver-tongued sonofabitch. She had given him everything and showed him everywhere, and he had played her like a fish on the line, landed her, gutted her, devoured her, gone on his way, ready to cast again.

Goddamn that Hillbilly.

It was all her fault, dealing with and trusting Hillbilly.

Her knack for picking men had not changed. It was the same. She could still pick them. As long as they were bad.

And now she had a father. After all these years, a father, and maybe, just maybe, he was okay. Still, she had to keep her guard up. Her luck, he’d probably leave one morning with her car packed full of her belongings, maybe take Ben too.

She drove by the cutoff to her tent, went on toward Holiday. Drove to the spot where Hillbilly had enjoyed her, parked there, looked out over the town, down on the blood-red apartment and the drugstore, the courthouse, looked across to the sheriff’s office, all the places of business, Main Street dotted with people and automobiles, animals and wagons, the oil wells sticking up. In the day, without the lights, it wasn’t so pretty. She heard a man say once that at night, with the light just right, any whore that wasn’t big as a house could look pretty, but in the light of the day, a whore was a whore and looked that way. Holiday was a whore.

She took the pistol from its holster, checked it for loads. It had five. She put in another. Six now. She spun the cylinder. Sat for a while. Backed the car around, drove on into town.

She went along the streets slow, hoping to see him, but no sign. She stopped, went into the cafe. No Hillbilly. She tried a number of other spots but didn’t find him. People on the street, they saw her face, they stepped aside.

Walked all over, but didn’t find him. Finally, she felt weak, as if she were recovering from some kind of disease. The Hillbilly disease. The fever was breaking.

She knew then she couldn’t find him. Must not find him. Couldn’t let that happen. Not right now. Not the way she felt. Not with six loads in her gun. She did, she’d do what she wanted to do, and she couldn’t do that. She was the law. She had Karen to take care of. That old abandoned dog, Ben, who she’d promised not to leave. She had to watch after him. And now she had her father, and there was that silly kid too, the one they called Goose. He probably came with the package. Maybe he had a goddamn dog somewhere, with three or four pups perhaps, a sister with a cat.

No. She couldn’t do what she wanted. She had to do something, but shooting Hillbilly in the head wasn’t it, fine as the thought seemed right then. She’d be crucified. Not only because she’d be guilty as homemade sin, but because, as Henry said, so many hated her. An uppity woman. Almost as bad as an uppity nigger. No. Worse. She was not only a woman and uppity, she was a nigger lover, way they saw it. A woman with a badge and a gun, her husband dead by her hand. She ought to be bent over a stove, cooking, her dress hiked up with a husband entering her from behind while she used one foot to turn a butter churn, the other to rock a cradle.

She walked back to her car like she was stomping ants, drove away.

The day was falling off now, getting toward afternoon. The horizon looked as if it had been slashed with a razor.

When she reached home, Marilyn was out to one side of the property with posthole diggers, digging away. Clyde’s truck was gone. She didn’t see anyone else.

She walked up to Marilyn.

“Where is everybody?”

“I nearly messed myself, dear, way you came up.”

“Sorry.”

“Karen is in the tent. Goose borrowed a shotgun, went squirrel hunting. Lee and Clyde said they were going into Holiday on business.”

“What business?”

“They just said business.”

“Probably a beer.”

“Maybe,” Marilyn said. “Hillbilly, he beat hell out of Clyde.”

“Hillbilly?”

“Whipped him like a galley slave.”

“I can’t believe it.”

“Believe it. He looked any worse you’d have to bury him. I think Lee went with him to cheer him up.”

Sunset nodded, said, “What are you doing?”

Marilyn smiled at her. “Digging a hole.”

“What for?”

“A clothesline. Karen said you hang clothes over bushes.”

“That’s right.”

“It’ll be easier with a clothesline.”

“I was going to dig holes and cut posts myself. Just haven’t gotten around to it. I hate shoveling. I hate chopping too. Come to think of it, I hate work.”

“Posthole diggers are better than a shovel. I can work these all day. Easier to dig a hole straight down, and deep, and you can widen it with the diggers pretty quick. A woman can handle these good. It’s kind of fun, good for you, out here in the fresh air. And from the looks of your face, maybe I ought to loan you my posthole diggers.”

“Henry won’t be with the sawmill much longer.”

“How’s that?”

Sunset told her all she knew. It came out first like a hole in the dike, a trickle, then more, till finally the dike collapsed and it flooded out.

When it was over, Sunset said, “I’m not going to cry. I’ve cried too much. All I’m doing lately is crying. I’m the constable. I’m not supposed to cry.”

“Who says?”

“I say. Except I am going to cry.”

Marilyn slammed the posthole diggers in the dirt so that they stood up, then she hugged Sunset, and Sunset cried. The gray sky had gone black and now it was night and the stars were slipping out as if being squeezed from a bag, and Sunset, she was crying.

“Hell,” Sunset said, “I ain’t supposed to cry. I’m the constable. I cried on my daddy just a bit back, and I don’t even know him. I cry all the goddamn time.”

“I hope it’s not because Henry’s quitting.”

Sunset guffawed. “No.”

“I was going to let him go anyway, soon as I looked the books over good. Figure he’s been stealing for years. Jones wouldn’t believe me when I said it, and that’s why Henry hates me. He knows I know. He knows too, deep down, I’m pretty vengeful. I can put up with a lot, like Jones, but when I’ve had enough, I let loose. Jones found that out.”

Sunset wiped her tears away with the back of her arm.

Marilyn said, “Pete come to me sometimes and cried.”

“Really? What about?”

“I don’t know. Really don’t. He’d come see me, I’d fix him something to eat, then he’d tear up.”

“All the time?”

“Now and then. But he cried about something. Cried on my shoulder like when he was little, and it was nice. He seemed like my boy then, not like the man he’d become, a man like his father.”

“I wonder if he was crying about me? Not being like he wanted, however that was.”

“I don’t know.”

“He could have cried for me. Just once. I would have liked it, same as you.”

Sunset took a deep breath, steeled herself for what she had to say next. “Daddy told me Karen is pregnant. You told him.”

“I should have told you. But when I found out Lee was your father, thought maybe he was the one to do it. Are you mad?”

“No.”

“Come on, dear. Let’s you and me go in, see what we can find for supper. I’ll finish this another time. And maybe you can talk easy to Karen. She needs support right now, like you did when you was ripe with her.”

“She ain’t all that ripe. She could get rid of it, she took a mind to.”

“I don’t think that’s the way she’ll go.”

“All right,” Sunset said. “It’s her choice, and whatever choice she makes, I’m here for her.”

“We both are.”

31

Hillbilly lay with his back propped against the headboard, smoking a rolled cigarette. He had one hand on the sleeping whore’s ass, was thinking about waking her again. She was supposed to cost, but so far she hadn’t. He had smooth-tongued her, not only in the ass, but in the ear, told her how she deserved better than the life she had, how she was pretty, and she was, except for the scar where someone had hooked a knife in her nose and cut her. But the rest of her made the scar look small. When she got naked, the scar seemed like nothing at all.

He had a lantern lit on the little table by the window, and it gave just enough light. He liked a little light when he was having sex, not just to see the woman, but so she could see him. He knew women liked to see him, way he looked. He glanced across the room, saw the guitar he had bought. It was propped in the corner. It sure beat the harmonica and the Jew’s harp. They were all right to carry a tune, but not much for making real music. A guitar, that was the instrument.

Hillbilly felt a pang of regret, remembered the colored man who had owned the harmonica, the Jew’s harp, the hobos with him. It wasn’t a thing he was proud of, cutting their throats while they slept, but he needed stuff. The harmonica and the Jew’s harp, what little money they had, a few odds and ends he wanted. Way he saw it, he did what he had to do. It was easier to cut them all while they slept.

He’d tried to rob one, made a tussle of it, he’d have had a fight, and though he was handy in a fight, he didn’t want to fight three. He learned long ago the easy way was the best way.

The hobos had been good to him, shared their food and music, but he did what he did because that was the way of the world.

Sunset had been good to him too. And one night, out on the overhang, she had been real good to him. He had hoped to carry that on longer, get the real juice out of the deal, but he couldn’t resist the daughter. He knew that would come down on him eventually, poking her.

Maybe it was time to move on, forget hanging around Holiday. Go to the next town, work some honky-tonks. Made enough money, he could live a better life. Not just more goods, but a better life. Less lying and cheating, and killing. Maybe he could do that. For a little bit, he thought he could do it with Sunset. But there was the daughter, sweet and ripe and ready to go. Seemed every time he found what he wanted, there was always something nice on the other side of the fence, and he had to reach for it.

He put his cigarette in the saucer beside the bed, rubbed the whore’s butt. She woke up and turned over. She grinned at him in the lantern light. “You’re a mighty, mighty man, Hillbilly.”

“I’m glad you seen that.”

“I don’t think you mean to pay me, do you?”

“Ain’t got no money to pay with. Spent it all renting this place for the week, buying a guitar. Wasn’t that song I sang payment enough? Hell, Jimmy Rodgers couldn’t have done no better.”

The whore laughed. “A song don’t pay nothing I got to pay, but it was nice. And I don’t know Jimmy Rodgers could do better or not. I ain’t had Jimmy Rodgers.”

“I can sing a song for another round.”

“Baby, you don’t need to. Come here.”

Clyde said, pointing the flashlight on the number painted at the top of the stairs, “This here is the place. This is the address he give me.”

Lee nodded.

It wasn’t high up there, a short run of stairs on the outside of the building, and you were there. They could see light through the window. Below the window was an alley, some garbage cans.

“He’s tougher than you think,” Clyde said. “He whupped my ass like I was standing still and about half retarded. I’d done about as good against him if I’d went in there with a blindfold on, my dick fastened to a chain and anvil.”

“What you do,” Lee said, “is you stay where you are, and I’ll go up.”

“Didn’t say I was afraid, just saying he’s mean as a boar hog with turpentine on his balls. He ain’t no big man, and he beat me like I was a cripple. You got to know, this guy is the devil, he wants to be.”

“I know you’re not afraid, just want you to stay here.”

“I got a slap jack, you want it.”

“No, you keep it.”

“Take the flashlight, then. It’s a heavy one.”

“No. You keep that too. I can see all right.”

“Heavy ain’t got nothing to do with seeing. I was talking about scrambling his brains with it.”

“I know, but you keep it.”

“We ought to go up together. Together, we got a chance. You don’t understand, this fella, he knows how to fight. He’s got some moves.”

“I got one or two myself.”

“I think he’s got three or four. Maybe five.”

Lee grinned at Clyde. “I’ll be careful. What I want you to do, is stand down here, that slap jack ready. See that window, you stand under it. But not directly under it. You’ll get a signal of sorts. It comes, you lay down on Hillbilly’s head.”

“With me down here, him up there? I better go up.”

“No. You stay.”

“Watch your teeth.”

Lee went up the stairs. They were solid and didn’t creak much. When he got to the door at the top, he stood back on the landing, took a deep breath, kicked the door with all his might. The lock sprang and the door swung open and slapped back against the wall.

Lantern light lay across the bed, and when Lee stepped into the room, Hillbilly, or the man he hoped was Hillbilly, sat up in bed, the sheet falling away from him. He had come out from between a woman’s wish-boned legs, his manhood poking up like a tent peg.

Lee said, “You Hillbilly?”

“What of it? Who the hell are you? What the hell you think you’re doing.”

“Why I’m the angel of the Lord.”

“You’re fucked up, is what you’re gonna be.”

“I got a daughter named Sunset. A granddaughter named Karen. I think you know them.”

For a moment Hillbilly was quiet, then he said, “Yeah. I know them. Real well.”

“That’s what I thought. Well, I’m here to beat your sorry ass.”

“There’s plenty tried,” Hillbilly said, rolling out of bed, his tent peg turning into a limp little hose.

“I think you’re a little too proud, son. I’m going to take some pride out of you. By the handfuls.”

“Old man, I’m warning you. You don’t know what you’re stepping into. You look way past it.”

Lee went for him. The whore screamed.

Hillbilly moved. He really moved. It was so fast he hardly seemed to move. One moment he was in front of Lee, the next he was gone.

Hillbilly knew he was fast, damn fast, knew too he had the old man, and when he slid to the side, twisted to come around and hit the old man in the back of the head, he was already grinning.

But the old man wasn’t there. The old man leaned, and Hillbilly’s fist went past and the old man snapped out a right and hit Hillbilly and took the grin away. It was a good shot. A damn good shot. Hillbilly hadn’t felt one like that in a long time. But he took it. Took it good. He was still standing.

He ducked, went for the old man’s knees, but the old man did a kind of backward hop, the grab missed, and the next thing Hillbilly knew, the old man had a forearm under his neck, had latched on like a dog tick in a hound’s ear, and now the old man was falling onto his back, bringing his leg up between Hillbilly’s bare legs, kicking him in the plums, carrying him over.

Hillbilly hit the floor on his back, so hard the lamp on the table jumped. He twisted around and came up, tried to come back on the old man, but the old man rolled to his feet and was facing him. Then Hillbilly felt the delayed pain in his balls, like someone had put them in a vise and tightened the crank. He bent forward, sick.

The old man came at him then, and it was fast. Real fast. As fast as Hillbilly thought he was. Faster. And the old man brought with him friends from hell. A left and a right. Followed it with a left hook that shook the inside of Hillbilly’s mouth and something came loose in there, then the old man had him by the waist, was lifting him up, rushing him backwards to the window, slamming him through it.

The whore bellowed throughout the whole thing, but she screamed loudest when Hillbilly went through the window, glass flying, blood drops spraying.

“You killed him,” the blonde yelled.

“Well, I was trying,” Lee said.

Clyde heard the racket, thought, I better go up, and was about to, when out the busted window came Hillbilly, hair, dick and balls flapping in the wind. It was a damn good drop, and Hillbilly hit hard. Still, the sonofabitch was trying to get up.

Clyde thought: Well, I guess that’s the goddamn signal.

Clyde went over there, and Hillbilly, spotted with glass cuts, his mouth dripping blood, on his hands and knees, looked up.

“You,” Hillbilly said.

“Howdy,” Clyde said, and swung the slap jack as hard as he could. The first blow caught Hillbilly on the side of the face, and he dropped, tried to rise again. The second blow caught him on the back of the head, and Clyde laughed as he delivered it. This time Hillbilly went down, stayed there.

Clyde turned, saw Lee coming down the stairs. He looked fine, his hair a little ruffled, his suit coat twisted. He was carrying a guitar. There was a woman at the top of the stairs wearing a sheet, cussing and yelling. Some lights in the downstairs apartment went on.

Lee walked over to where Hillbilly lay face down, studied him a moment, put the base of the guitar on the ground, rested one hand on the neck, leaned on it like it was a crutch. With his other hand he unfastened his pants, got out his Johnson, let piss fly. He wetted up Hillbilly’s head and the side of his face real good.

He said, “Here’s a message from the big dog.”

Hillbilly stirred, raised his head slightly.

“Sonofabitch,” Hillbilly said.

“Here’s a good-night tune,” Lee said, took the guitar by the neck and swung it. It was a beautiful swing. It whistled in the night, and when it struck Hillbilly, it made a sound like a rifle shot, then there was a ping and a sad throb of strings.

Hillbilly was down again, not out, just lying there, fragments of guitar all around, strings wobbling in the air like insect antennae. He got to his knees, cocked his ass in the air, as if ready to take it from the rear, froze there, not able to move, blacked out.

Lee put a foot on him and pushed and Hillbilly rolled over on his side and didn’t move. Lee fastened his pants, took Clyde by the elbow, said, “Let’s go. I need a drink. I don’t drink nothing alcohol, but a big bracer of cold milk will do me.”

Goose and Karen were out behind the oak, sitting on the ground with a pan of water and some knives, a kerosene lamp on the ground. Goose was skinning and gutting the four squirrels he had shot. Karen put them in the pan of water and used her hands to rub any loose hair off of them.

“Four squirrel, four shots,” Goose said.

“You were using a shotgun.”

“They weren’t sitting on the end of it.”

“Did you know them and rats is kin?” Karen said.

“Naw, they ain’t.”

“They are. They’re like in the same family or something.”

“They don’t look like rats—well, maybe they do a bit. Suppose they could be kinfolks. I got kinfolks might be rats, the way they look, so I guess any family can have rats in it.”

“Maybe we ought not think on that too much.”

“Sounds like a good idea to me. I ain’t much on thinking I’m eating a rat’s cousin.”

“All four of them are nice and fat,” Karen said.

“I love squirrel. Ain’t had one in ages.”

“Well, you shot them, so you get the first pick of the meat.”

“How do you like them fixed?”

“Fried. Squirrel and dumplings. I like them all kind of ways.”

“Me too . . . you sure are pretty.”

Karen smiled at him.

“You sure are blunt.”

“Just think you ought to tell a girl something like that.”

“You’re pretty young, aren’t you, Goose?”

“You’re young too.”

“I ain’t as young as you.”

“Well, I ain’t so young I don’t know a pretty girl when I see one. A girl like you, you was my girl, I’d take care of you. Anything you needed or wanted, I’d get it.”

“How about a million dollars?”

“It might take some time, but I’d get it. I’d rob somebody I had to.”

“That’s not what a girl wants to hear. Least it ain’t what I want to hear.”

“What do you want to hear? I’ll say it.”

“That ain’t the way either, Goose. Like that, it don’t have no meaning.”

“I can’t say nothing right, can I?”

“Not much.”

“I still think you’re pretty.”

“Thanks.”

“That was my baby in you, I wouldn’t run off. I’d make sure it had a home.”

Karen teared up. Goose said, “I didn’t mean to mention that. I didn’t mean to make you sad.”

“That’s how it is, ain’t it? Got myself knocked up, didn’t I? Listened to Hillbilly. Told me I was pretty, just like you did. Told me lots of things. I ought to known he was just talking. Just wanted under my dress. I’m just a chippie.”

“Naw, you ain’t. You just got tricked, that’s all. Anyone can get tricked.”

Ben came up, sat down, tried to look polite. Goose gave him the squirrel innards to eat.

“You finished, Goose?”

“Got them all done.”

“Why don’t we take them to the tent and I’ll fry them. You can help me.”

“I’m for that.”

When Lee and Clyde drove up, got out of the pickup, Sunset came out of the tent wiping her face with a napkin, wiping away the grease left from the squirrel she had been eating. She watched as Lee and Clyde came toward the tent. They looked happy.

“You two fellas look like you just ate the canary,” she said.

“Naw,” Clyde said, “but we busted his ass. He tried to fly like a canary, but the ground got in the way.”

“Yeah,” Lee said. “He was lucky the ground stopped his fall.”

Clyde let out a hoot.

Sunset studied them for a long moment, thought maybe they were drunk after all.

Lee said, “I don’t know how you’ll feel about it, Sunset. Maybe it wasn’t the thing to do. Childish, perhaps, but we went to see Hillbilly.”

“Had a come-to-Jesus meeting with him,” Clyde said. “Well, Lee here, he was the preacher, I was just in the amen corner.”