Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

“Course, if he’s out of the way, a little nifty work with a pen, that land could end up theirs. With him alive, they could do it anyway, but he might could make enough of a stink to prove it’s his. So either way, you’re taking a chance with his life.”

“I want answers, not choices.”

“I might have been able to give you some years ago, during my preacher days, cause I thought I knew everything. What I do know is you got to have a kind of center, Sunset. You follow me? You got to work out of that center, and you don’t let that center shift. You may fail it, but you don’t let it shift.”

“All right, that’s all well and good. But what do I do? I thought about telling Zendo, but I’ve been afraid to tell him. Thought that might be worse for him. He might say or do something he shouldn’t.”

Lee sipped coffee slowly, said, “In other words, you’re not treating him like a man. You’re treating him like a slave that needs tending, and you’re his massa.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“I’m saying how it seems to me.”

“People here, a lot of them, they see it that way. That a colored ain’t supposed to make too many decisions. I try and treat Zendo like he’s not colored, and he thinks he can make some choices like everyone else, I could get him killed.”

“You could treat him like a man, go to him, tell him the truth, say, hey, I don’t know what I can do for you. There’s just me, and Clyde, and my run-down old man, and these guys, they’re professionals and serious. Cheating and killing, that’s what they do. So you’re on your own. Then you’ve warned him. It’s up to him to take care of himself. You could do that.”

“And my center wouldn’t have shifted?”

“You have to decide that. I can’t tell you that. You got to feel you’ve done the right thing, what you could.”

“Or?”

“You do the job you signed on for. Most of the time this job isn’t anything much, but sometimes it might be. And when it is, do you decide then to not do it because it’s hard? Could be you’re not up to it, and if you’re not, that’s no shame, that’s just the way it is. But if you’re up to it and not willing, that’s a whole different thing.”

“How do you know you’re up to it?”

“You don’t. But you got to want to be up to it.”

“And if I decide I want to be?”

“Plan. And count me in.”

“Howdy.”

Sunset and Lee jumped.

Ben sat up, looked embarrassed, like, man, I’m the goddamn dog here, and I didn’t hear this fella, didn’t see him.

Standing behind them, one hand on the back of Sunset’s chair, was Bull. The air seemed charged with electricity, and it was full of an earthy smell that bit at their nostrils.

“Don’t you ever come up normal?” Sunset said.

“I don’t know normal,” Bull said.

“Daddy, this is Bull.”

“Hello, Bull,” Lee said. “You damn near made me load my pants.”

Bull grinned, gestured at the white strip hanging from the limb. “See you done hung the rag out. Need me?”

“I do,” Sunset said.

“What way?”

“Zendo, a colored fella. He needs a protector.”

“You mean the farmer?” Bull asked.

“Yeah. You know him?”

“Know who he is. Everyone knows who he is, cause of the way he farms, way his soil is, like it’s magic or something. He can grow big old tomatoes in the hottest of weather, corn higher than two of me. He’s the best there is. He’s got a name for it.”

“That’s right,” Sunset said. “Even while we’re talking, it could have already happened, someone getting to him, hurting him and his family.”

“Why would anyone do that?” Bull asked.

Sunset explained. When she finished, Bull went over and sat down with his back against the oak, considering. After a moment he said, “So you waited on me for this? Ain’t there plenty of white men around? Your daddy looks ready enough. Little long in the tooth, like me, but them’s the ones you got to watch, ain’t that right, dad?”

“That’s right,” Lee said.

“You kind of waited a while to decide maybe Zendo needs help, didn’t you?” Bull said.

“I don’t think I really knew what I wanted until tonight,” Sunset said. “I don’t think he was in any real trouble till just lately, after I talked with Henry and McBride. But even then, I didn’t really know what to do. Then tonight, I talked to Daddy, and well, he said some things, and it come together. I think. And frankly, this watching Zendo, I think you’re better able to do it than me, or Clyde or Dad.”

“Say you do?” Bull said.

“Don’t you?” Sunset said.

“Maybe. But I do this. Zendo wants the help. You got to do something else. You got to stop these men want his land. Ain’t that your law job?”

“It is.”

“It would please me big to see a colored make big money, and that oil could do it.”

“And it could make him a target,” Lee said. “You can’t spend money in the grave.”

“Yeah, well, there’s that,” Bull said. “White folks can’t hardly stand a nigger if he’s gonna have money, especially if he might get more than them.”

“We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it,” Sunset said.

“Lady,” Bull said, “you can trust me to do what you want, but I got to trust you to do what I’m saying. You got to go after them bad men and take them down. Arrest them, whatever it is needs doing, you got to do it.”

“All right,” Sunset said.

“You got a gun, Bull?” Lee said. “Cause I figure you might need it.”

Bull pulled up his shirt. A little pistol was in his waistband. “This just for close up. Leaning against a gum tree in the woods there, got me a pump ten-gauge. Thought maybe you’d take better to me I didn’t stroll in with it in my hand.”

“Ten-gauge will do,” Lee said.

“You’re telling me,” Bull said.

“Sunset, is there anyone else you can go to for help?” Lee said. “More the merrier, something like this.”

“Problem is,” Sunset said, “I don’t know who’s in Henry’s pocket, and who isn’t. Don’t know all who’s Klan. I could take a chance here and there, but I’m thinking more people know about this, bigger we might make the problem. I could be lining up people I think are on my side, and they could be on Henry’s.”

Lee nodded. “That sounds right.”

“What about you, girl?” Bull said. “Your family? You think on that?”

“All the time. I thought about sending Karen to her grandmother’s, but that would just put Marilyn into it too. Wouldn’t be any safer. Goose, course he don’t know. Guess he ought to, so he’ll have a choice to leave or stay. And Clyde, he knows everything, except he don’t know about you.”

“That him over there with his foot on the dash of that truck?” Bull asked, pointing to Clyde’s old battered truck in the drive.

“That’s him,” Sunset said.

“All right, then,” Bull said, “I know what needs to be. I’m gonna see Zendo, talk to him.”

“When?” Sunset asked.

“Figure since I don’t sleep much nohow, I’ll go over there now, stay near till morning, watching. Zendo comes out tomorrow for work, I’ll talk to him.”

“Is Zendo’s place close by?” Lee asked.

“No,” Bull said. “But I can go through the woods, cut down on some distance.”

“Better yet, I can drive you there, drop you off near the place,” Lee said. “That is, if Sunset will loan me her car, and you’ll show me the way.”

After Bull recovered his ten-gauge and Lee drove off with him, Sunset walked by the truck where Clyde lay, peeked in. A flashlight shone in her face. She flinched, put her hand to her eyes.