Sunset and Sawdust

32

Back in bed, upstairs, the whore nursed him, but Hillbilly didn’t like it none, because she had seen him get his ass beat. And handily. And by an old man. And he wasn’t looking so good right now. When he checked himself in the mirror, he saw a guy he didn’t know. Guy with glass cuts all over him, like some kind of pox, a broken nose, fat lips, swollen right eye and a cheek that looked like something a chipmunk ought to have, all stuffed up with nuts. But it was just a swelling where a back tooth had come out. His balls weren’t peachy either. All black from being kicked, like rotten plums about to drop off. The fall made him hurt all over. His knees were banged and so were his elbows. He couldn’t believe he hadn’t broken something. He felt a little shook up inside, like something big and fast had run through him, gut to gill.

The blonde pulled a glass sliver out of his penis with her fingernails, put it on a handkerchief on the end table by the bed.

“You can go,” Hillbilly said, as she placed a damp cloth on his business, making him wince.

“Honey, you sure?”

“Yeah. I want you to.”

“That fall was bad. You could be broke up inside. Maybe you ought not be alone.”

“No. You can go.”

“You gonna come see me?”

“Sure.”

“It won’t cost you nothing. You didn’t finish, you know.”

“I know. You go on, now.”

She got up, put on her clothes. When she was at the door, she said, “I’m sorry about your guitar.”

“Okay.”

“You still got the harmonica.”

Hillbilly snatched the damp rag off his crotch and threw it at her. “I said get out.”

The rag struck her on the shoulder. She opened the door and went out quickly.

Hillbilly lay there and thought about what he would do next. Besides move slowly.

Then it came to him. Rooster had given him an idea. It wasn’t the one Rooster had, the one he wanted him to do, it was another.

He thought about the red apartment over the drugstore, where McBride stayed. He had to go over there, talk to the man, see was there a place for him in this operation McBride and Henry had going.

One thing he prided himself on was he took the easy path on everything, unless it had to do with getting even. The easy path wasn’t necessary then. He’d crawl over sharp rocks and kiss a mule’s shitty ass to get back at someone did him wrong, especially some old man made him look and feel foolish in front of a goddamn whore.

He thought he’d get up right then, get dressed, go over and see McBride, but his body thought different.

It said: Lay down, boy. You ain’t doing so good.

Hillbilly listened. Let his body have its way. But his mind raced, and his mind had ideas, and his mind was mean.

After they finished eating, and the ass whipping Lee had given Hillbilly was told another time, and everyone was sitting around inside the tent drinking coffee, Sunset slipped outside with a strip of white cloth she had torn from an old towel. She tied it to a limb on the back of the big oak tree.

Ben trotted up, watched her tie it. When she finished, she knelt down and gave him a pat.

All she could do now was see if Bull showed.

She hoped he would.

She needed him.

And she was pretty sure, Zendo, though he didn’t know it, needed him as well.