Sunset and Sawdust

14

The big truck rumbled along and now and then coughed black smoke. The hood rattled where it was tied down with a strand of baling wire and the body listed to one side where the shocks were wore out. It had big side boards and inside the bed were five men and three women and a kid, a boy about thirteen. The man driving was a red-faced guy with a cigar growing out of his teeth. He didn’t have anyone sitting in the truck beside him, and wouldn’t let anyone ride there, not even one of the wore-out women.

He had picked them all up earlier that day at the cotton gin in Holiday. Folks gathered there regularly looking for work, usually not finding it, and he knew he could pick up day labor by just showing up and promising a dollar a day to work his fields, which were way out of town, out in the low, damp lands between the trees.

Now that his crew was finished working, were hot and sweaty and worn out, he was supposed to take them on into Camp Rapture so they could look for work at the sawmill, and it was time to pay up.

He let out the clutch as he shifted to a lower speed to take a hill, didn’t feed it any gas. The truck bunny-hopped and died. He pulled on the parking brake, got out, went around to the rear.

“I got some trouble,” he said.

There was a slight groan from the folks in the truck, and one of them, wearing an old suit coat that was so damn thin you could almost see the green stripes on his shirt through it, sat up, took hold of the side boards and looked through them.

He was a big fellow, strong-looking, gone a little to fat. His hair had that look red hair gets when it goes gray.

“You just worked the clutch wrong,” the man in the coat said.

“Well, it was that, but there’s something wrong with it. I’ve had it happen before. I want everyone to get out and give me a push and maybe I can jump the clutch and start it.”

“Get in and try it again. It’ll catch.”

“Naw, you’d think that, but it won’t. It don’t run right. I’ve had it happen before. Y’all get out now and push.”

“When are we going to get paid?”

“When we get to Camp Rapture.”

“Why don’t we do it right now? I don’t know why we got to go there to get paid. We want to go there to look for work. We don’t have to go there to get paid. You can pay us right now.”

“That sounds like a good idea,” said another of the men.

“I hear you,” said the driver, “but I want to get the truck going first. That’s not much to ask. I got to go there to get the money.”

“Why?” said the man in the suit coat.

“I don’t, you don’t get paid, cause that’s where I got my money.”

“A place like that got a bank?”

“No. But the store there, they keep some money for people. They ain’t like a bank. They’re better’n a bank. They hold it and you got to buy some things there for holding it, but they don’t bust like a bank and they don’t have interest, just something you got to buy now and then, something you’d buy anyway. Flour, maybe.”

“They’re not going to be open time we get there.”

“I think they will, and if they ain’t, I know the owner. It ain’t a problem.”

Slowly, everyone piled out. The red-faced man tongued his cigar to the other side of his mouth, said, “Now, y’all get at the back, and when I tell you, push. Stand kind of to the sides, so if it rolls back, it won’t run over you.”

“Let me give it a try,” said the big man with the suit coat.

“I don’t let no one drive my truck but me.”

“Maybe you ought to,” said the boy, “way you drive.”

The boy was feisty-looking, with a shock of hay-colored hair hanging out from under his tweed cap.

“You ought not talk to your elders like that. You do again, and I’ll backhand you.”

“No you won’t,” said the man in the suit coat.

“Look here,” said the red-faced man, “just help me get it going. We get into Camp Rapture and I can get you all paid.”

“Let’s just do it,” said one of the women. She was tired and pregnant and had put in a full day. There was dust in her hair from the fields, and she had teeth missing. She looked as if at any moment she would dry up and blow away, leaving only her plump belly and the kid inside of it.

“All right,” said the man in the suit coat.

They went to the rear of the truck, and the red-faced man got behind the wheel. He stuck his head out the window, said, “Get ready to push.”

They split into two groups, four on one side, five on the other, near the rear, ready to push. The red-faced man said, “Y’all ready?”

“We’re ready,” said one of the men.

“Here we go,” said the red-faced fellow. He started it up, worked the clutch and drove off a ways, began picking up speed.

“Hey! Hey!” yelled the boy, running after him. “Come back.”

An arm stuck out the window and waved.

“Come back,” the boy said again.

“I’ll be damned,” said the man in the suit coat. “I knew better than to let that happen.”

“No you didn’t,” said one of the men.

Suit Coat looked at him. The man was thin and as tired and worn-out-looking as the pregnant woman, who was his wife.

“Goddamn it, we worked all day for nothing,” said the boy.

“Reckon so,” said Suit Coat, and they all started walking.

“Maybe we can catch him in Camp Rapture,” said the pregnant woman. “Make him pay up.”

“I catch him,” said the thin man, “he’ll lose more than his money. He’ll lose some teeth, maybe some other parts of him.”

“I doubt he’s going to Camp Rapture,” said another of the men. “That’s just something he said.”

“I guess we could go out to his field and look him up,” said another man.

“It’s a lot closer to Camp Rapture than his fields,” said Suit Coat. “Figure I’ll take the loss, just hope me and him cross paths.”

“I’m kind of getting used to getting the shitty end of the stick,” said the thin man. “I’m starting to kind of like it, think that’s the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Don’t say no more,” said his wife. “Just don’t mention it.”

It was night, and cloudy and dark as the inside of an intestine when a car drove up in front of the tent. Hillbilly had walked off on his own and Clyde had walked back to the remains of his home. When Sunset heard the car, for some reason it struck her as an omen.

Ben growled furiously. Sunset, who was never far from her gun, though maybe not quite as welded to it as before, adjusted the holster on her hip, got up and went outside in time to see the lights of the car go dead. Ben ran up to the driver’s side of the car barking. A man was sitting on the passenger side, but there was too much shadow for her to tell right off who it was.

Sunset called the dog a couple of times, and he surprised her by complying. He came and sat down beside her and went silent.

She remembered Pete had once said the scariest kind of dog is the one that stops barking and just goes to watching. She reached down and scratched Ben’s head.

A man got out of the car, putting on his hat. He came around in front of the car, stepping lightly. He looked ready at any moment to jump up on the hood.

“Dog won’t bite, will he?”

It was Preacher Willie.

“He don’t bite me.”

“I’ll just talk from here.”

“Go ahead.”

Karen came out of the tent then. She still smelled sweet and her dark clothes and long black hair hung around her shoulders and blended with the night in such a way that she seemed to be little more than a white face floating in the void.

“It’s that body you brought in,” Preacher Willie said.

“Figured as much. Who you got with you?”

The man on the passenger side stuck his arm out the window, then his head. She still couldn’t see him well. He said, “It’s Henry, Sunset.”

Sunset felt a sinking sensation. She had never really known Henry, but that day at the meeting, she had certainly seen where his thinking was. She also knew he was a man of power in Camp Rapture. His being there meant the preacher hadn’t kept the discovery of the body quiet. She wasn’t surprised. Hillbilly’s little blowup had probably hurt his pride. And her, a woman in a position of power, asking him to be quiet probably hadn’t helped either. And frankly, he was an asshole and might have done it anyway.

“Hello, Henry,” Sunset said. “And, Willie, I see you did just what I told you not to do.”

“I think I know why you didn’t want to spread the news around,” Willie said.

“That so.”

“I know who it is.”

“Tell me.”

“She was wearing a necklace. You couldn’t see it cause it had fallen inside of her, where she had rotted. And it was buried in her neck where it had gone to bad meat. It had her name on it.”

“And?”

“Jimmie Jo French.”

“My God. I knew her.”

“Guess so. You knocked her around.”

“I was upset about her and Pete.”

“Her being dead would have made a difference for you and Pete, wouldn’t it?” Henry said.

“Pete’s dead too, so what difference would it make?”

“You might have thought of a difference then,” Henry said.

“Then?”

“She’s been dead a while. Most likely she’s been soaking in oil, then she was buried. You do that, bury her in that field?”

“I was mad. Not crazy.”

“Just talking here, Sunset.”

“Sure you are.”

“Mama,” Karen said, “what are they talking about?”

“I’ll explain later, hon,” Sunset said, patting Karen on the arm.

“Jimmie Jo had a baby inside her,” Willie said. “Baby had been cut out of her. Not in a doctor way. Someone slashed her open and jerked it out of her. I could tell that way she was cut.”

“Jesus,” Sunset said.

“Don’t use the Lord’s name in vain.”

“I said Jesus, Willie. Not to hell with Jesus.”

“Now that’s enough.”

“Keep talking, Willie. You come to me, so keep talking. You and Henry, say what you got to say.”

Willie took a deep breath.

“What killed her was a thirty-eight slug in the back of her head. I dug it out.”

“That gun you got,” Henry said, “it’s a thirty-eight, ain’t it?”

“You saying I killed her?”

“I’m saying it could look like you did.”

“Only if you wanted to say it, Henry. Why would I put her in oil?”

“To preserve her?”

“Why would I do that?”

“If you wanted to hide the body, get rid of it later.”

“Ridiculous. I got rid of it once, why would I want to get rid of it twice. And there are lots of thirty-eights. I never had this one until after Pete’s death.”

“That’s what you say,” Henry said. “Ain’t saying it ain’t true, but I am saying it looks bad, Sunset. I don’t know we can prove it, but I think I can make a pretty good case for it, and unless you want to go through a bunch of rigamarole, maybe get yourself in jail, maybe you should just turn in the job, let a man take it over.”

“Someone you pick?”

“Someone the council picks.”

“Hell,” Sunset said. “You are the council.”

“Mama would never do such a thing,” Karen said.

“Think she’d shoot your pa?” Willie said. “Did you think that?”

Karen went silent.

“That’s enough, Willie,” Sunset said.

“Even if you didn’t kill the woman,” Henry said, “it all comes back to who’s to say the business with Pete happened like you claim. Law ain’t even looked into it. You just killed him and took his job. And if you didn’t kill Pete’s girlfriend, it sure looks bad. And what happened to the baby? A vengeful woman might even go so far as to cut it out of a woman.”

“And now you’re cavorting with that Hillbilly fella,” said Willie. “That don’t look good neither. And I saw you kiss him, out the window, I seen it.”

“Mama?” Karen said.

“It wasn’t nothing,” Sunset said.

“It looked like something to me,” Willie said.

“That’s enough. You’ve upset my daughter, and you’re upsetting me, and it’s just wind. You’re just blowing wind.”

Karen ran inside the tent, crying.

“Happy?” Sunset asked.

“No,” Willie said. “Just saying it looks bad, that’s all.”

“I don’t think that’s what either of you are saying. And as for Hillbilly, he just works for me.”

“I bet he does some work, all right,” said Willie.

“Sure you’re a preacher?” Sunset said.

“You know I am.”

“Can preachers run from dogs? Are they fast?”

“What?”

“Ben. Get him.”

Ben barked and leaped forward. Willie let out a yelp, turned and darted around the car, made it inside before the dog caught him, but in the rush, he lost his hat. Ben leaped on it, held it down with one paw and ripped at it with his teeth. It came apart like damp newspaper.

“That wasn’t funny, Sunset,” Willie said.

“It was for me,” Sunset said.

“That was a good hat.”

“Was,” Sunset said. “I can give it back to you if you want it.”

Ben darted around to the passenger side, began leaping up and down on his hind legs, snapping at the open window, tossing froth.

Henry rolled up the window. Ben bounced against the glass repeatedly, snapping, growling and biting the air. The glass grew wet with foam.

Willie started the car, stabbed the night with its lights, drove out of there at a high rate of speed.

“Bye now,” Sunset said.

Ben ran after the car for a good distance before he turned around and came back, and Sunset took him into the tent and gave him water and food and petted him and kissed him on his hard old head.

When she finished that, she let him outside, turned her attention to Karen.

“You okay?” Sunset asked.

Karen was sitting on the mattress on the floor, her knees pulled up, clutching them with her arms. Even in the lantern light Sunset could see she was holding so tight her hands were turning white.

“Did you kill her, Mama?”

“What kind of question is that?”

“Did you kill her because of Daddy? Did you kill Daddy because of her?”

“I wouldn’t do that. I didn’t mean to kill your daddy. Not really. He was hurting me. Bad. And I reached for the gun.”

“But you got over being hit. You’re well. You’d have got just as well if you hadn’t shot him.”

“Unless he killed me.”

“The baby. One in that colored graveyard. Is that my sister or brother?”

“Honey, we don’t even know if the baby and the woman are connected, and if they are, that don’t mean it was your daddy’s baby.”

“They said she was Daddy’s girlfriend. Isn’t that what they were saying, and that you killed her on account of that? Was she really Daddy’s girlfriend?”

“That’s what they were saying. And yes, she was Daddy’s girlfriend. One of many, honey.”

“I thought Daddy loved you.”

“So did I. Once.”

“Do you like Hillbilly?”

“I like him. Yeah.”

“You know what I mean.”

“I don’t know, baby. I don’t know anything for sure right now.”

“You kissed him?”

“I did.”

Karen was quiet for a long moment. Finally she said, “Why were those men so mean?”

“Henry wants me out of this job so he can put in who he wants. I don’t know why he’s so determined, other than I’m a woman and he doesn’t like the idea. And he doesn’t like your grandma much. She has more power at the mill than him. She could fire him, she took a mind to, and she might take one, now that your grandpa is gone. I think Henry wants to run for some kind of office. Thinks Holiday and Camp Rapture are going to unite into one town.”

“Are they?”

“I don’t know. Probably. I don’t know why he’s so sweated up over me.”

Karen rolled over on the mattress and lay down, without letting go of her knees. She lay in bed like that and cried so hard Sunset thought she might come apart.

Sunset moved to the mattress, sat down, reached out slowly and touched Karen’s hair, began stroking it.

Karen didn’t resist.

After a while, giving out a loud wail, Karen turned to Sunset and climbed into her lap like a child and clung to her neck.

Sunset held her, kissed her, and a half hour later Karen fell asleep in her arms.

When Karen was asleep, Sunset maneuvered her onto the mattress, covered her, returned to the business side of the tent to put away what she had been writing.

Sadness squatted down on her like a tired elephant. She sat down at the table and put her head in her hands and thought about what Henry and Preacher Willie had said.

Maybe she should just turn in the badge. That would make things easier. She hadn’t killed Jimmie Jo, but Henry and Willie sure wanted to make it look that way, and they wanted to make it look like she killed the baby too, cut it out of its mother’s belly for meanness.

How ridiculous.

They can have their damn badge, she thought. They can have their damn job. And I’ll…

I’ll what?

I won’t have any money.

Then people will feel certain I did it.

And even if Henry and Willie don’t tell-and that was unlikely- they’ll have their way.

No. I’m sticking.

I’m sticking and I’m going to find out who killed that woman and the baby, which has to be the baby in the colored graveyard. She hadn’t told Willie about that. Only she, Karen, Hillbilly and Clyde knew. Provided they hadn’t told anyone.

They want this job, they’ll have to take it from me, and I won’t give it up without a fight.