Sunset and Sawdust (30 page)

“Go left,” Clyde said, knowing a trail was coming up. “Go left.”

And Karen did. It was a narrow trail through the woods and the moonlight was not as bright there. Karen was wearing a dress and blackberry vines tore at it and Clyde could hear it rip and hear her grunt as the blackberry thorns tore her flesh.

Goose fell behind Clyde as they ran, and Clyde turned to look for him.

Goose wasn’t there.

Goose thought: Sunset told me to watch after things, and I ain’t done it. I just turned and ran. We all turned and ran.

And with the big pistol hanging heavy in his hand, Goose started running back toward Two, thinking: I will surprise him. I will shoot his ass before he realizes I’m on him.

And just as Goose was turning the trail, lifting his pistol, ready to surprise Two, the big colored man surprised him by being there suddenly, as if he had sprung up from the ground like a giant grasshopper.

And Goose stopped and pointed the pistol with both hands, pulled the trigger, thought: How can I miss? I’m close. But he did miss.

Two didn’t. The blast lifted up Goose and knocked him back and slapped him to the ground. Goose tried to lift the pistol, but found he wasn’t holding it anymore. He wasn’t holding anything anymore. In fact, the shot had cut off his right thumb and some of his fingers and had gone on and hit him in the stomach. He didn’t feel pain. He just felt hot and stunned and breathless.

Now the big man in the bowler was standing over him. He dropped to his knees beside Goose. The man took off the bowler and put it on the ground. “You’re real fresh, son,” he said. “Real fresh.”

“That’s the way we like them,” said the Other Two.

Goose tried to figure that, the two voices, the one man, but he couldn’t, and he couldn’t think of anything but what an idiot he had been, running back like that, and he was dying now, and he knew it, and he hadn’t never had any pussy or done much of anything but work hard, and it was all over now, and then the man had his mouth over Goose’s mouth, sucking, and Goose tried to fight but his hands wouldn’t lift and he tried to bite, but he couldn’t have chewed snow, weak as he was, and he didn’t feel hot anymore, he felt cold, and now he felt pain, but that didn’t last, cause a moment later, he didn’t feel anything.

Clyde wanted to go back, started to, but he had Karen to protect, and Goose, maybe he’d taken another trail, though Clyde couldn’t think of one, knowing these woods like he did, but he kept running after Karen.

The trail came to an end. They stood on the bank of the creek, and here the bank was high up with lots of trees growing out from it, their roots exposed, and Clyde grabbed Karen’s arm, said, “I’m going to lower you down.”

She took his hand and he leaned out and lifted her as if she were a doll, eased her over the edge, and lowered her, said, “Take hold of that limb, and swing under there. There’s a place.”

It was a washout under the roots, and from where they had stood on the bank, you couldn’t see it. It was pretty big, and as Clyde lowered her down she got hold of one of the roots, let go of his hand and swung herself out of view. He thought: Hope there ain’t no moccasins in there.

When she was out of sight, Clyde bent down close to the bank, called softly, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Karen said.

“I’m handing the shotgun down. Be careful. Reach out and take it. I’ll swing it on my belt.”

“Okay,” Karen said.

Clyde took off his belt, fastened it around the stock of the shotgun, bent down close again, swung it out and back into the hole. Karen grabbed it and he let go of the belt.

He got hold of a root and swung out and down, got hold of another, lowered himself so he could swing inside the wash with Karen. He had to bend his head slightly to fit, but it was the way he remembered. One time he had gone fishing and had waded out in the creek to get his line untangled, and he had seen the wash. It was almost half as tall as a man and very wide and pretty deep. The only difference now was that the creek had been high a few times and it had washed it out even more.

When he felt Karen close to him, squatting, leaning against him, he reached in his pocket, got a matchbox, took a match out and struck it.

A beaver was at the far side of the indention, and it hissed at them and bared its teeth. It looked like a big hairy rat there in the light of the wavering match.

Karen huddled closer to him.

“Hold this match,” Clyde said, took the shotgun and used it to poke at the beaver until it sprang past them, made Karen squeak slightly, leaped into the water and swam away.

The match went out.

“Be quiet now,” Clyde said. “Up against the back of the wash, and be quiet.”

“I’m scared,” Karen said.

“Then we’re scared together.”

“Goose?”

“We can’t think about that now. Be quiet, I said.”

They eased back until they were as far as they could go, and quit squatting, sat down, waiting, listening.

At the front of the trail Clyde and Karen had taken, Two could see blackberry vines had been ripped and disturbed where they had once grown tight on either side of the trail.

As he stood there looking, Hillbilly and Plug came up, Plug pushing his revolver into its holster.

“You’re slow,” Two said.

“You done killed everybody?” Plug said. “We seen that boy. He wasn’t nothing but a kid.”

“Silence,” the Other Two said. “They went this way.”

“Sunset?” Hillbilly asked.

“A big man and a girl,” Two said.

“Probably Clyde and Karen,” Hillbilly said.

“Henry, you shot him too,” Plug said. “I thought we just come to get him.”

“We got him all right,” the Other Two said.

“You got him, and Tootie. What’s to keep you from getting us?” Plug asked. “You might want to suck our faces too. Did you suck the dog?”

“No soul,” Two said. “God didn’t give animals souls.”

“What about you?” Plug asked. “You got one?”

Two grabbed Plug by the shirt and shoved him back. Plug dropped his hand to his gun, but didn’t pull it. He said, “All right. All right.”

“No more,” Two said. “Not a word.”

Plug nodded.

Two started trotting down the trail, Hillbilly and Plug behind him.

Clyde and Karen sat in the wash and listened to an owl hoot and the creek water run. They saw a coon cross in the moonlight, splashing water, clambering to the other bank, melting into the brush and trees. Grasshoppers were rattling and rustling through the brush and they could see hundreds of dead ones in the water, washing by.

After a while they heard the crunching of leaves and such and the sound of running feet coming nearer. Karen tensed and grabbed hold of Clyde. Clyde sat with his legs crossed, the shotgun lying across one thigh, listening. It was hot in the wash and sweat ran down his face and stuck to the inside of his shirt, and he could feel dampness from Karen and he could smell something too. Fear.

The running stopped above them and there was the sound of someone breathing heavy. Clyde guessed Plug. Thought: They stopped right here? Why? They see some sign?

No. No sign. These guys, they wouldn’t know sign.

Or would they?

Could they read where they left the trail, dropped over the side into the creek?

And if they could, would they know there was a wash here? Maybe they’d come down into the creek, and from here, he would have a shot.

Still, there were three of them. And he had the girl.

But they could have stopped because the trail widened here, there was room to spread out, take a breather. Maybe—

“There ain’t no use,” he heard Hillbilly say. “Clyde, he knows these woods good as a goddamn squirrel.”

Then Clyde heard someone, the big colored man, he figured, though he sounded very educated, very smooth, a Yankee colored, say, “Brother McBride isn’t going to be happy.”

“We should go back and wait on them,” another voice said, and Clyde didn’t know who it was. He didn’t sound colored or Southern either. Was there a fourth person? Someone he hadn’t seen?

“No,” said the first voice, the one he thought must be the colored man. “They won’t come back. They won’t do that.”

Then there was movement, followed by silence, and they sat for a long time listening to nothing. Then there was an explosion. So loud Karen made a little yip.

She put her hand over her mouth, bent double. Clyde reached out and patted her gently on the shoulders.

Clyde found that he was breathing heavy. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose.

Easy, now, he told himself.

Easy, now. It didn’t sound that close. It was just loud. It might have been a gun, but it didn’t sound like one. No. It wasn’t a gun. The more he thought on it, the more certain he was it wasn’t a gun.

But what was it?

They waited about five more minutes, Clyde counting out what he thought was five minutes in his head.

Clyde thought: No, don’t go up there. That could be just what they’re waiting for. Us to show our faces. Maybe that’s what they’re doing. Lying in wait.

But the explosion? What was that?

Clyde rested the shotgun across his knees, wiped his damp hands on his shirt. He used his hand to wipe sweat from his eyes, dried his hands on his shirtfront again.

They waited. Twenty minutes or so went by. Again, Clyde figuring it in his head, deciding maybe twenty or so was long enough.

Clyde leaned over and put his mouth over Karen’s ear.

“You take the shotgun. I’m going to slip out and into the creek. Go up a ways.”

“No,” Karen said.

“I’m going to go up a ways and cut back, see if anyone is up there. If not, I’m going to call down to you. If I don’t call, if anyone shows their face over the edge, starts to come into the wash, you shoot to kill.”

“Clyde.”

“Keep it soft,” he said.

Karen lowered her voice again. “Just wait. I’m scared. Just wait.”

“We’ll wait a while longer, but just a while,” he said.

They did wait, and it was a long wait, and finally Clyde slipped out of the wash and dangled off the roots and down into the water. He was quiet about it, but still the water splashed as he waded through it, the dead grasshoppers washing along as he waded. He took to the bank on the side the wash was on, climbed up and flipped open his knife.

He was down some distance from the wash, and he could see along the moonlit trail, could see where they had been standing, but they weren’t there anymore. He crept down that way, and through a gap in the trees, high up, he could see a lick of brightness as if the sun had risen early and blown up.

It was a fire.

He went over to the bank, got down on one knee, said, “It’s me, Karen. Hand up the shotgun if you can.”

Karen’s hand poked out and took hold of a root, and she swung out with her back to the water, one hand holding her up, and she extended the shotgun to him with the other. He took it, and Karen swung out on the root and got her feet on other roots, started working up the bank. Clyde grabbed her wrist and helped pull her the rest of the way up.

“Are they gone?” she said.

“From here. They’ve gone back to the tent.”

He pointed toward the brightness shining through the trees.

“Lord—what about Goose?”

Clyde shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They crept back the way they had come and found Goose lying in the trail. His mauled hand lay close to his chest and the revolver he had tried to shoot Two with lay busted by his side.

Karen got down on her knees and touched his head and cried softly. “They didn’t have to do that. They didn’t have to do none of this. Why?”

“Money, dear,” Clyde said. “I’ll take care of him later. Leave him.”

Karen bent forward and kissed Goose’s cold forehead.

They waited out in the woods for a time, and Clyde finally slipped back by himself. He saw there was a terrific blaze, and he realized now what the explosion had been. They had set fire to his truck, probably a rag in the gas tank, and that had blown it up. They had set fire to the tent and his tarp as well. One thing about them, they didn’t just do a thing halfway.

He eased up that way, the shotgun ready, but there was nothing to shoot. Henry’s body still lay by the post, and Ben’s nearby.

Clyde went back to find Karen and when they came back they got the well bucket, some pans from under the tarp, and went about trying to wet the ground down around the fire, keep it from spreading to the kindling-dry woods beyond.

36

The house in the woods that had been Pete and Jimmie Jo’s was small but much nicer than the one Zendo and his family had lived in.

“You trying to tell me this is our house,” Zendo said to Sunset.

“I’m saying when it all works out, it will be,” Sunset said. “Ain’t no one else using it now, and no one would expect you to be here, so it’s safer than your place. And I’d stay out of the fields for a couple days. You can afford that, can’t you?”

“I suppose.”

“Just a couple of days,” Lee said.

“And Bull will be with you,” Sunset said. “Right, Bull?”

“Right,” Bull said, and he found a chair and sat, the ten-gauge across his lap.

“I just feel funny being in someone else’s house,” Zendo said.

“Your dog’s on the front porch and he’s happy,” Lee said. “He knows it’s home. And the pig, he’s here in the room with you.”

The pig lay on its back on the floor, its feet in the air, happy because it didn’t know what its future was, couldn’t foresee itself as bacon.

“Look here,” Sunset said, “they built this place on land that’s yours. All that oil under the ground on this land, it’s yours, Zendo. You’re rich.”

“I’ll be dead, that’s what I’ll be,” Zendo said. “Rich don’t do a man no good if he’s dead.”

“That’s what we’re going to change,” Sunset said. “You getting dead and this land not being yours. We’ve got Henry arrested, and when I figure how to go from there, we’ll do the rest. In the meantime, I think you’re safer here. And it’s built on your land, and that makes it yours as far as I’m concerned.”

“And she’s the constable,” Bull said.

Zendo’s wife, the toddler clinging to her leg, said, “We didn’t know about all this, we wouldn’t be hiding. We wouldn’t have no oil, but we wouldn’t be hiding.”

“Eventually, they would come for you,” Sunset said, “you knew about it or not.”

“I don’t like it none,” Zendo said.

“I’m sorry it’s this way,” Sunset said. “But that’s how it is. Me and Daddy, we got to go back now. I got to figure what to do with Henry, who to go to so I can be backed up. Bull, you need anything?”

“Outside of being twenty years younger,” Bull said, “I don’t reckon so.”

The first thing Sunset saw through her bug-splattered window were roaring flames licking high at the sky and the shapes of high-flying grasshoppers. Then she saw Clyde’s truck, or the blazing skeleton of it; the windows had blown out, the doors had been knocked open by the blast, and the truck bed was torn off; the remains of the bed lay nearby, the ass end of it pointed toward the sky.

“Jesus,” Sunset said. “Karen.”

She drove faster and would have driven right up on the blaze had Lee not yelled at her to stop. She slammed on the brake, leaped out of the car and started running, screaming Karen’s name. Lee slid over and took the rolling car out of gear and pulled the hand brake, got out.

He began to call. First for Karen, then for Clyde. He saw Sunset bent over something on the ground. When he got close, he saw it was Ben and where Sunset had put her hands on the dog, they came away red.

They found Henry. The blaze had gotten to him and burned off one of his legs and it was working its way up. Lee stamped on him until the flames went out. They walked around the blaze that was the tent, and Sunset, seeing there was nothing left of it but fire, lost the strength in her legs. She sagged and Lee caught her.

“It don’t mean she was in there,” Lee said.

There was movement, shapes seen through the fire. Then the shapes came around the fire, one carrying a syrup bucket, the other a large pan.

Karen and Clyde.

“It was Hillbilly,” Clyde said.

They all went to Sunset’s car and she drove it away from there, down the road a piece, and pulled over on a narrow logging road.

“I knew he was a piece of shit,” Sunset said. “But this—Jesus. It’s all my fault. Everything is all my fault.”

“It’s that sonofabitch’s fault,” Clyde said. “He brought Plug here, and that big colored man. Big as Bull. The one you told me about.”

“Two,” Sunset said.

“Poor Goose,” Lee said. “I was more than fond of him.”

“Me too,” Karen said. “Oh, Mama, I can hardly breathe.”

“I’ve got to go back and bury him,” Lee said. “I got to do that now. I got to see him.”

“No,” Sunset said.

“What do you mean, no?” Lee said.

“I’ve tried to go about this slow,” Sunset said, staring into the fire. “Tried to put all my ducks in a row. Like arresting Henry. But they killed him. And they killed Goose and Ben and they tried to kill Clyde. That’s my fault. I shouldn’t have thought we were safe. It’s time we end this. It’s time we arrest them. You saw them, Clyde. You’re not only a witness, you’re a deputy constable. And you saw them, Karen. We know who they are, and what they did. I have to arrest them. I got the right. They were in my jurisdiction.”

“This colored fella,” Clyde said. “He don’t look like no pushover. And Hillbilly, I found out he wasn’t neither.”

“Daddy whipped his ass,” Sunset said.

“He certainly did,” Clyde said.

“We’re going to get Bull, and we’re going to go into town and we’re going to arrest them.”

“Goose?” Lee said.

“He’d understand a bit of a wait,” Sunset said. “He’d want us to get them. And McBride, his bunch, they won’t expect us to come so soon. We go get Bull, make them open up the company store, and get some guns and ammunition, go get McBride and Two and Plug, and especially Hillbilly.”

“All those guns,” Clyde said. “That doesn’t much sound like an arrest.”

“We got to persuade them,” Sunset said. “Way they are, they might need a lot of persuading. But we’ll arrest them if we can. We ain’t like them. First, we got to try and make sure this fire don’t spread.”

The fire burned itself out and they damped all around it using pans filled with water from the well. Then they drove to Camp Rapture first, to the sawmill store. Sunset didn’t bother with finding the store manager to open it. She took a tire tool out of the trunk of her car and jimmied the back door and they went in. By flashlight, they got what they needed— ammunition, guns, all shotguns. They went over and got Marilyn out of bed, then they all stuffed into the car. They drove over to where Bull and Zendo’s family were.

“But you said Bull would be with us,” Zendo said.

“I know what I said,” Sunset said. “But things have changed.”

She told them what happened, said, “They won’t be thinking about you. They do, they don’t know you’re here. If you want, you can hide out in the woods. But I got to have Bull. Some reason you don’t hear from us, say by tonight, you ought to leave.”

“And go where?” Zendo’s wife asked.

“I don’t know,” Sunset said.

Bull stood up, said, “Keep the ten-gauge, Zendo. That’ll be good company. I think the constable’s right. We take it to them. It was me, I’d have done that from the start. Then again, I ain’t no law.”

“They’ll be so busy with us,” Lee said, “they won’t be thinking about you, Zendo.”

“If I didn’t feel you were safe, I wouldn’t ask you to keep Karen with you,” Sunset said. “But again, we don’t come back, go, and take Karen away from here too.”

“Oh, Mama,” Karen said.

“We’ll be back,” Sunset said. “I’m just saying.”

“Goose, he ain’t gonna be back, now, is he?” Karen said.

“You got to be strong,” Sunset said.

“I’m scared,” Zendo said. “I won’t lie to you none.”

“We’re all scared,” Sunset said. “And I’m tired of being scared and confused, accused of things I didn’t do. Tired of bigwigs and tough guys cheating and stealing and killing, and I’m tired of my not knowing one of my own constables was a liar and a bastard. They killed a boy, Goose. A good boy. They killed one of their own, shot him while he was chained to a post. And they killed my dog.”

They gathered round and passed out guns. All of them took twelve-gauge pumps and a box of shells. They took some of the shells and loaded the guns and put spare shells in their pockets.

Sunset made sure her .38 had six shells in it. She and Bull were the only ones with handguns. Sunset gave hers to Karen, said, “Don’t shoot yourself.”

Sunset turned to Bull and Lee, said, “Bull, Daddy, by the power invested in me, you are now deputy constables.”

“Damn, that count for a colored?” Bull asked.

“Does today,” Sunset said.

The pig grunted. Clyde said, “That is one swell pig. I was you, I wouldn’t eat it.”

When they came out of the little house to get in the car, there was a sound in the air like a great sigh. Looking up, they could see the moon was hidden by a flow of grasshoppers, and the sound of them grew louder, from a sigh to a buzz to a hum that reminded them of the great saw up on the hill in Camp Rapture. They couldn’t know it at the time, but the grasshoppers had already descended on Zendo’s field. There would be no need for him to work it again this summer, for in a matter of minutes, the dark wave of insects had come down with the moonlight and eaten out the field, leaving nothing but roots and dirt. Then they had moved on, filling the sky above Sunset and her posse.

Sunset drove, Clyde beside her; in the backseat were Bull and Lee. Daylight was coming and the black sky was lightening, and as they drove the windshield became so littered with bugs Sunset had to stop and get a stick and scrape them off. She used a rag she had in the glove box to wipe the glass, but all it did was smear. As she cleaned the windshield, bugs hit her, stinging her flesh. They had to stop three times so they could clean the windshield, taking turns, Clyde next, then Lee.

When the sky became lighter they saw an amazing sight.

The landscape had changed and the world was void of greenery. The trees were like the skeletons of giants that had fallen from heaven, poking bones every which way. Low down was the same. Green had gone to gray and brown and the song of the hoppers ebbed and flowed as they ate their way through the dry summer morning and the bugs struck the car so hard Sunset could see paint chip off.

They fought the road and fought the bugs and drove on slowly into Holiday, where the first strong light of morning showed the streets and buildings were entwined with waves of insects, and up on the hill, the overhang above the drugstore, even as they watched, the greenery disappeared, like some kind of conjurer’s trick.

They drove past the apartment, over to the sheriff’s office, jumped out. They ran a gauntlet of bugs that was like an ocean wave. The wave knocked Sunset down and staggered the others, except for Bull. They went in the front door of the sheriff’s office, one at a time, guns ready.

Plug sat behind his desk, as if waiting on them. His hands were in plain sight, resting on the desktop. Sunset yelled and stuck the shotgun under his chin.

Plug said, “Go on. Do it. I didn’t hurt nobody, but do it.”

“I saw you,” Clyde said.

“But I didn’t want no part of it. I got away from them when we got back to town. But I didn’t know nowhere to come but here. I don’t got nowhere to go. And I didn’t shoot nobody. Nobody at all.”

“Consider yourself under arrest,” Sunset said. “I’m the law now. And be damn glad of it.”

Plug got up, lifted by the shotgun barrel at his throat. Sunset pushed him backward toward the cells.

“Where are the keys?” she asked.

“In the drawer,” he said.

Lee got them. They put Plug inside and locked the cell door. Sunset said, “I want to just cut down on you. I want to kill you, Plug. Goose, he wasn’t nothing but a boy.”

“I didn’t kill nobody and didn’t want to,” Plug said, sitting down heavily on a bunk. “I thought I did, but I couldn’t. I didn’t shoot nobody. The nigger done it. He done it all. That Hillbilly, he would have, but he never got the chance. The nigger, he’s crazy. He blew Tootie’s head off. Almost blew mine off. No money’s worth that. But I couldn’t get away from them. I had to stay with them. They threatened to kill me.”

“So did I,” Sunset said.

“Go on ahead. I don’t mind if you do it. I just didn’t want that nigger sucking on me. He shoots you, then he sucks on you. He thinks he’s taking your soul out of your mouth,” Plug said. “He got kicked in the head by a horse. He’s got the mark. It made him crazy. He thinks he’s two people. Maybe he is. Jesus, he’s one crazy nigger.”

“Where’s Hillbilly?” Sunset said.

“I think he’s up at the red place,” Plug said. “I think he’s with the nigger and McBride. They got a whore over there. I was gonna run off, but the bugs came. I thought they passed on, I’d run off. But I don’t know what I’d have done, where I’d have gone.”

“You aren’t going anywhere, Plug,” Sunset said. “What’s the red place?”

“Apartment over the drugstore. Just across the street there.”

“All right, then,” Sunset said. “We go get them. The whore, we don’t want to hurt her. She’s not in on this.”

“There’s a front way and a little back stairs,” Plug said. “Remember I tried to help you. Remember that.”

They fought bugs and got in the car and sat. They could see the apartment across the way. Close enough to walk to, but in this storm of bugs, not a good idea.

Sunset said, “I’m gonna drive right up close. Daddy, you and Bull, you take the front. Me and Clyde, we’ll take the back. We surprise them, away from their guns, we got a good chance. Much as I know you’d like to, don’t shoot you don’t have to. Try to arrest them. But they try and hurt you, then shoot to kill.”

“What do we do?” Clyde said. “Knock?”

“That’s one way,” Sunset said.

Sunset drove across the street. The insects were rising and falling in waves. The grasshoppers were so close together they looked like a great speckled ribbon of green and brown and gray and black. They wound around the town, the buildings, the cars, the oil derricks that poked up willy-nilly here and there.

No one was on the streets except them and the bugs.

Sunset drove them right up to the front stairs, then she took a ribbon from her shirt pocket and tied her hair back.

“I don’t know what more to say,” she said. “You’re through the front, we’re through the back.”

“That’s all I need,” Bull said.

“Personally,” Lee said, “I’d like something a little more specific.”