Sunset and Sawdust

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.”