Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

Plug jerked open the door and leaped out. He raced around to the front of the car and put both hands on the hood. He said, “Goddamn. Goddamn.”

Hillbilly hadn’t moved. He felt Tootie’s blood running down the back of his neck.

“I don’t like people who don’t want to finish what they start,” Two said.

“Me neither,” said the Other Two.

“No,” Hillbilly said, his hands trembling on the shotgun in his lap. “I don’t like them either.”

“Open the back door,” Two said. “Drag him out.”

Hillbilly placed the shotgun carefully and slowly on the seat. He couldn’t have been more slow and careful if it was an egg that already had a crack in it. He didn’t look back at Two. He got out and opened the back door. When he did, Two said, “Stand back,” and lying with his back against his door, he put both feet on Tootie and kicked him out. Tootie fell to the side of the road in a sitting position. Grasshoppers were everywhere, and soon they were all over the body.

Two got out and came around and laid his shotgun on the ground. He lifted Tootie’s head, fanned at grasshoppers with his big hand, leaned forward until his mouth was close to Tootie’s. Two reached behind Tootie’s head, his long thumb and longer forefinger locking into the hinges of Tootie’s jaw. He squeezed and Tootie’s already open mouth went wider and Two bent close and put his mouth over Tootie’s mouth.

“Good God,” Hillbilly said, “what in God’s name are you doing?”

Two sucked at Tootie’s mouth for a moment. Then he dropped Tootie in the dust.

“What God wants,” said Two.

“I ate his soul,” the Other Two said. “Ate it and it was sweet.”

“Good God,” Plug said from the front of the car.

Two picked up the shotgun and stood, said to Hillbilly, “Drag him off.”

The Other Two said, “Pull him in the woods there.”

Hillbilly did as he was told, and promptly. As he dragged Tootie away, grasshoppers leaped in all directions and when he got to the edge of the woods he saw the foliage was all eaten away by the hoppers and the brush was just sticks. Hillbilly pulled Tootie through the bare brush, back where there were some big trees, and left him lying on some pine needles.

Two walked over to Plug, said, “You got trouble doing what you’re supposed to do?”

“Wasn’t no cause for that,” Plug said. “He was just talking. We all got second thoughts. He didn’t mean nothing by it. Wasn’t no need in that. We ain’t like you-either of you. We ain’t done this kind of thing before.”

The big man stood silent, the shotgun cradled in his arms. He tilted his head to one side.

Plug said, “I’m over it. I ain’t got no second thoughts.”

Hillbilly cut off a piece of Tootie’s shirt, used it to wipe the blood off the back of his neck. He dropped the cloth on the ground, went back, got in the car. The sound of the shot going off had not been right in his ear, but he had a ringing in it. Everything he heard, he heard well enough to understand, but it was as if the words were being called up to him from inside a cave.

Plug started the engine, said, “All I’m saying, Two, is you didn’t have to do that. He didn’t mean nothing. He was just nervous. He’s got a wife, a kid.”

“You think these others don’t?” Two said. “Think he’s any better than them? There’s no need to put good or bad or wives and kids into it. That sort of thing doesn’t matter. It’s not in God’s universe. Babies die all the time. Old folks die all the time. God isn’t concerned with dying. He’s concerned with souls.”

And the Other Two said, “You think it matters to me? You think anything matters to me? Wives and kids, they die like anyone else. We hold all the souls we can, and when God calls us, we give them to him. Our death will be worth more than the multitude, because we are the multitude.”

“I can see that,” Hillbilly said, and cocked an eye at Plug.

Two said, “When we get through, this car is gonna take some real cleaning.”

“And we got to order a glass,” the Other Two said. “And get some paint. Brother McBride likes this car and he’ll want it fixed.”

When they came to the place where Sunset lived there was only the floor of the house where the tent had been and the outhouse and the tall post where Marilyn had started a clothesline.

“They done run off,” Plug said. “We ain’t gonna have to kill nobody.”

“I don’t think they run off,” Hillbilly said.

“Sure they run off,” Plug said. “They didn’t, where are they?”

“They don’t know I’m with you,” Hillbilly said. “They don’t know I got some ideas about where they are. They’re hiding all right, but not the way you mean.”

“Tell us,” Two said.

“I think we should try Clyde’s,” Hillbilly said. “I was them, that’s where I’d go, take my tent with me, start over.”

“Clyde?” Two said.

“Deputy,” Hillbilly said.

“What about Henry?” Two said. “Brother McBride said he was arrested today. Said some maid told someone and someone told another someone, and then Brother McBride got the news.”

The Other Two said, “That’s what this is all about, you know. Henry. And the woman.”

“And the others?” Plug said. “It about them?”

“It is,” said Two. “It’s about them and this Zendo.”

“But Zendo, he don’t know nothing,” Plug said.

“He may know something now,” the Other Two said. “But what about Henry?”

“He’s with them,” Hillbilly said. “Ain’t nobody around here gonna help them. They got to have him with them. If they’re at Clyde’s, he’ll be there too. They got to be at Clyde’s, or Marilyn’s, Sunset’s mother-in-law, and I don’t think they’d go there. Too obvious, too easy. But Clyde’s, that would be the place.”

“That’s good,” said Two. “And the mother-in-law?”

“I don’t know she’s a problem,” Hillbilly said.

The Other Two said, “We’ll consider on that. I’ll tell Brother McBride, and he’ll consider on it. Hillbilly, you direct us. And Plug, drive us, please.”

“I ought to have to do something important,” Goose said. “Good as you been to me, miss. Good as Lee’s been.”

“What I want you to do,” Sunset said, “is help Clyde out. Me and Daddy, we’re going over to Zendo’s, see how it’s going with Bull. I’ve had an idea I think might be good.”

“I just want to help,” Goose said.

“I know, and thanks for asking. Stay with Clyde and Karen and Ben, watch old Henry here and the tent. That’s your job and it’s important.”

They were standing outside the tent, near the post where Henry was chained, sitting in his chair in the moonlight.

A plate he had eaten off of was on the ground and Ben was licking it.

“Can’t you make this dog go on?” Henry said. “He peed on the post a while ago. I don’t like having him around. He keeps sniffing me.”

“If I wanted to do something about him, guess I could,” Sunset said.

Lee came out of the tent. Sunset and Lee got in Sunset’s car. Lee said, “Sure we should leave them here?”

“No one knows about this place, not even people that know Clyde. He doesn’t have visitors. It’s a good idea, being here.”

“Living under a tarp, I can see that he doesn’t have visitors,” Lee said.

“Actually,” Sunset said, “it’s nicer than the house he burned down. And now, there’s the tent.”

“That tent is getting pretty crowded,” Lee said. “When this is over, back on your land, we ought to build a house, help Clyde build one here.”

“We’ll see,” Sunset said.

After they hit the main road the lights were full of grasshoppers and a tan Plymouth passing them.