Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

“All those guns,” Clyde said. “That doesn’t much sound like an arrest.”

“We got to persuade them,” Sunset said. “Way they are, they might need a lot of persuading. But we’ll arrest them if we can. We ain’t like them. First, we got to try and make sure this fire don’t spread.”

The fire burned itself out and they damped all around it using pans filled with water from the well. Then they drove to Camp Rapture first, to the sawmill store. Sunset didn’t bother with finding the store manager to open it. She took a tire tool out of the trunk of her car and jimmied the back door and they went in. By flashlight, they got what they needed- ammunition, guns, all shotguns. They went over and got Marilyn out of bed, then they all stuffed into the car. They drove over to where Bull and Zendo’s family were.

“But you said Bull would be with us,” Zendo said.

“I know what I said,” Sunset said. “But things have changed.”

She told them what happened, said, “They won’t be thinking about you. They do, they don’t know you’re here. If you want, you can hide out in the woods. But I got to have Bull. Some reason you don’t hear from us, say by tonight, you ought to leave.”

“And go where?” Zendo’s wife asked.

“I don’t know,” Sunset said.

Bull stood up, said, “Keep the ten-gauge, Zendo. That’ll be good company. I think the constable’s right. We take it to them. It was me, I’d have done that from the start. Then again, I ain’t no law.”

“They’ll be so busy with us,” Lee said, “they won’t be thinking about you, Zendo.”

“If I didn’t feel you were safe, I wouldn’t ask you to keep Karen with you,” Sunset said. “But again, we don’t come back, go, and take Karen away from here too.”

“Oh, Mama,” Karen said.

“We’ll be back,” Sunset said. “I’m just saying.”

“Goose, he ain’t gonna be back, now, is he?” Karen said.

“You got to be strong,” Sunset said.

“I’m scared,” Zendo said. “I won’t lie to you none.”

“We’re all scared,” Sunset said. “And I’m tired of being scared and confused, accused of things I didn’t do. Tired of bigwigs and tough guys cheating and stealing and killing, and I’m tired of my not knowing one of my own constables was a liar and a bastard. They killed a boy, Goose. A good boy. They killed one of their own, shot him while he was chained to a post. And they killed my dog.”

They gathered round and passed out guns. All of them took twelve-gauge pumps and a box of shells. They took some of the shells and loaded the guns and put spare shells in their pockets.

Sunset made sure her.38 had six shells in it. She and Bull were the only ones with handguns. Sunset gave hers to Karen, said, “Don’t shoot yourself.”

Sunset turned to Bull and Lee, said, “Bull, Daddy, by the power invested in me, you are now deputy constables.”

“Damn, that count for a colored?” Bull asked.

“Does today,” Sunset said.

The pig grunted. Clyde said, “That is one swell pig. I was you, I wouldn’t eat it.”

When they came out of the little house to get in the car, there was a sound in the air like a great sigh. Looking up, they could see the moon was hidden by a flow of grasshoppers, and the sound of them grew louder, from a sigh to a buzz to a hum that reminded them of the great saw up on the hill in Camp Rapture. They couldn’t know it at the time, but the grasshoppers had already descended on Zendo’s field. There would be no need for him to work it again this summer, for in a matter of minutes, the dark wave of insects had come down with the moonlight and eaten out the field, leaving nothing but roots and dirt. Then they had moved on, filling the sky above Sunset and her posse.

Sunset drove, Clyde beside her; in the backseat were Bull and Lee. Daylight was coming and the black sky was lightening, and as they drove the windshield became so littered with bugs Sunset had to stop and get a stick and scrape them off. She used a rag she had in the glove box to wipe the glass, but all it did was smear. As she cleaned the windshield, bugs hit her, stinging her flesh. They had to stop three times so they could clean the windshield, taking turns, Clyde next, then Lee.

When the sky became lighter they saw an amazing sight.

The landscape had changed and the world was void of greenery. The trees were like the skeletons of giants that had fallen from heaven, poking bones every which way. Low down was the same. Green had gone to gray and brown and the song of the hoppers ebbed and flowed as they ate their way through the dry summer morning and the bugs struck the car so hard Sunset could see paint chip off.

They fought the road and fought the bugs and drove on slowly into Holiday, where the first strong light of morning showed the streets and buildings were entwined with waves of insects, and up on the hill, the overhang above the drugstore, even as they watched, the greenery disappeared, like some kind of conjurer’s trick.

They drove past the apartment, over to the sheriff’s office, jumped out. They ran a gauntlet of bugs that was like an ocean wave. The wave knocked Sunset down and staggered the others, except for Bull. They went in the front door of the sheriff’s office, one at a time, guns ready.

Plug sat behind his desk, as if waiting on them. His hands were in plain sight, resting on the desktop. Sunset yelled and stuck the shotgun under his chin.

Plug said, “Go on. Do it. I didn’t hurt nobody, but do it.”

“I saw you,” Clyde said.

“But I didn’t want no part of it. I got away from them when we got back to town. But I didn’t know nowhere to come but here. I don’t got nowhere to go. And I didn’t shoot nobody. Nobody at all.”

“Consider yourself under arrest,” Sunset said. “I’m the law now. And be damn glad of it.”

Plug got up, lifted by the shotgun barrel at his throat. Sunset pushed him backward toward the cells.

“Where are the keys?” she asked.

“In the drawer,” he said.

Lee got them. They put Plug inside and locked the cell door. Sunset said, “I want to just cut down on you. I want to kill you, Plug. Goose, he wasn’t nothing but a boy.”

“I didn’t kill nobody and didn’t want to,” Plug said, sitting down heavily on a bunk. “I thought I did, but I couldn’t. I didn’t shoot nobody. The nigger done it. He done it all. That Hillbilly, he would have, but he never got the chance. The nigger, he’s crazy. He blew Tootie’s head off. Almost blew mine off. No money’s worth that. But I couldn’t get away from them. I had to stay with them. They threatened to kill me.”

“So did I,” Sunset said.

“Go on ahead. I don’t mind if you do it. I just didn’t want that nigger sucking on me. He shoots you, then he sucks on you. He thinks he’s taking your soul out of your mouth,” Plug said. “He got kicked in the head by a horse. He’s got the mark. It made him crazy. He thinks he’s two people. Maybe he is. Jesus, he’s one crazy nigger.”

“Where’s Hillbilly?” Sunset said.

“I think he’s up at the red place,” Plug said. “I think he’s with the nigger and McBride. They got a whore over there. I was gonna run off, but the bugs came. I thought they passed on, I’d run off. But I don’t know what I’d have done, where I’d have gone.”

“You aren’t going anywhere, Plug,” Sunset said. “What’s the red place?”

“Apartment over the drugstore. Just across the street there.”

“All right, then,” Sunset said. “We go get them. The whore, we don’t want to hurt her. She’s not in on this.”

“There’s a front way and a little back stairs,” Plug said. “Remember I tried to help you. Remember that.”