Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

“Slow here,” Hillbilly said. “It ain’t so easy to see the place in the dark. Right there. Turn there. Road ends at his place.”

“How far?” Two asked.

“Not real far,” Hillbilly said. “A piece. But not far.”

“Go down a ways, pull over and park,” said Two. “We’ll walk down and see them.”

“We’ll take what God needs,” the Other Two said.

Plug took the turn and the road was dusty and the dust rose up as they went, like a heavy mist, and grasshoppers jumped out of it, splattered against the windshield, which was already greasy with them. Plug drove a short piece, pulled in where there was a stretch of clearing, turned off the lights and parked.

Hillbilly and Two had twelve-gauge pumps. Plug had a.45 revolver. Two said, “We’ll say what and when and how.”

“Yeah,” Hillbilly said, “you fellas are the boss.”

“You say we, you mean, you, right?” Plug said.

“I mean the both of us,” Two said.

Plug nodded. “All right. I see that-I think.”

They got out of the car, walked down the road a ways, then Two stopped them.

“We’ll go ahead,” Two said. “You come down the road walking. When you hear us cut down, you come running.”

“Why don’t we just sneak up on them?” Plug said.

Two turned his head slowly. He took off his bowler and shook out the sweat. The horseshoe scar looked raw in the moonlight. “We’ll sneak.”

“We as in… you two?” Plug asked.

“Correct,” the Other Two said. “Understand?”

“Sure,” Plug said.

Two nodded, went down the road quickly, then went into the woods and was gone.

Plug said, “I say we go back to the car, drive away and keep driving.”

“There’s lots of money in this,” Hillbilly said.

“Wasn’t saying there wasn’t money in it. I’m saying I don’t care anymore. Tootie was supposed to get money too, wasn’t he? He ain’t getting no money now. So what’s money to him?”

“Nothing to him,” Hillbilly said, “but maybe it’s more for us. We could ask McBride about Tootie’s share. We could maybe split it.”

Plug looked at the dirt road. “Don’t know I want to kill no woman. Don’t know I want to kill nobody. Tootie… dying like that, that was bad enough. I once shot a deer and got sick.”

“You can’t think of them as people. Got to think of them as targets. That’s the way you do it, Plug.”

“You was her friend,” Plug said.

“I don’t feel any different about her now than I did before. I don’t care for her daddy, or Clyde, cause of what they done, but her, I don’t feel any different. It hasn’t got anything to do with the way you feel.”

“The hell it doesn’t.”

“You going in, or not?”

About that time they heard a shotgun blast, and Hillbilly said, “That’s Two. Means it’s time for us.”

Hillbilly started trotting down the road, and Plug, after a moment’s hesitation, went after him.

Way it went down was Two came up on the left side of Clyde’s place, came through the woods with his shotgun ready, quiet as a dead mouse in a cotton ball, moving toe heel, and when he got where he could see Henry chained to the post, he thought about what McBride had said. He said, “Brother, Henry ain’t no good to us. He’s got too big a mouth, and he ain’t ever gonna be happy having a nigger get part of it. Henry don’t need the money he’s supposed to get. Me and you, we do. Henry, he’s played his string and he’s just another soul for you to gather.”

Two went out of the woods and started walking toward Henry. Henry looked up, smiled, said softly, “Good to see you, Two.”

“Good to see you,” Two said, lifted the shotgun and fired, knocked Henry out of his chair, drove him back against the post.

Two pumped up another load as Ben came running, growling. He shot Ben and Ben’s legs went out from under him. Ben skidded in the dirt, yelped and fell, his side puffing up and down in big motions.

Inside the tent, the first shot caused Clyde to poke his head out, then pull it back in as the second shot was fired and Ben went down. Clyde wasn’t near a gun when the shots went off, and when he pulled his head back in, he grabbed his shotgun. When he looked back out the colored assassin was much closer, putting the finishing touches on Henry, shooting him a second time in the body, leaning over him, putting his face close to Henry’s face. Clyde was about to shoot, looked up, saw trotting down the dusty road Hillbilly and Plug, Hillbilly with a shotgun, Plug with pistol drawn, and he knew then how they had found them.

“Out the back,” Clyde said, and pushed Goose, who was trying to come forward with one of Clyde’s pistols, toward Karen, who was already at the back of the tent.

Clyde pulled out his clasp knife and flipped it open. Just before Two lifted the front tent flap, he cut the back of the tent open and they all three went out and started running through the woods, grasshoppers exploding all around them with a beat of wings. Behind them they could hear running, and when Clyde looked over his shoulder he saw the big colored man in the bowler was gaining, running fast for a big man, so smooth it was like he was part of the night itself.

“Go left,” Clyde said, knowing a trail was coming up. “Go left.”

And Karen did. It was a narrow trail through the woods and the moonlight was not as bright there. Karen was wearing a dress and blackberry vines tore at it and Clyde could hear it rip and hear her grunt as the blackberry thorns tore her flesh.

Goose fell behind Clyde as they ran, and Clyde turned to look for him.

Goose wasn’t there.

Goose thought: Sunset told me to watch after things, and I ain’t done it. I just turned and ran. We all turned and ran.

And with the big pistol hanging heavy in his hand, Goose started running back toward Two, thinking: I will surprise him. I will shoot his ass before he realizes I’m on him.

And just as Goose was turning the trail, lifting his pistol, ready to surprise Two, the big colored man surprised him by being there suddenly, as if he had sprung up from the ground like a giant grasshopper.

And Goose stopped and pointed the pistol with both hands, pulled the trigger, thought: How can I miss? I’m close. But he did miss.

Two didn’t. The blast lifted up Goose and knocked him back and slapped him to the ground. Goose tried to lift the pistol, but found he wasn’t holding it anymore. He wasn’t holding anything anymore. In fact, the shot had cut off his right thumb and some of his fingers and had gone on and hit him in the stomach. He didn’t feel pain. He just felt hot and stunned and breathless.

Now the big man in the bowler was standing over him. He dropped to his knees beside Goose. The man took off the bowler and put it on the ground. “You’re real fresh, son,” he said. “Real fresh.”

“That’s the way we like them,” said the Other Two.

Goose tried to figure that, the two voices, the one man, but he couldn’t, and he couldn’t think of anything but what an idiot he had been, running back like that, and he was dying now, and he knew it, and he hadn’t never had any pussy or done much of anything but work hard, and it was all over now, and then the man had his mouth over Goose’s mouth, sucking, and Goose tried to fight but his hands wouldn’t lift and he tried to bite, but he couldn’t have chewed snow, weak as he was, and he didn’t feel hot anymore, he felt cold, and now he felt pain, but that didn’t last, cause a moment later, he didn’t feel anything.

Clyde wanted to go back, started to, but he had Karen to protect, and Goose, maybe he’d taken another trail, though Clyde couldn’t think of one, knowing these woods like he did, but he kept running after Karen.