Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

Lee worked at getting turned better, so he could get off another shot. He could feel the bone in his leg jamming against the inside of his skin. He heard the car start. He got turned around, but the doing of it was so painful, he spat out the belt, screamed, blacked out for a moment.

When he came to, he had dropped the shotgun to the ground below, and the car was driving off with Two at the wheel. Lee ducked his head, passed out.

Just inside the back door, Sunset and Clyde heard Bull’s pistol bark, then the shotgun blast. Sunset’s whole body was shaking. She said, “Go left, I’ll go right.”

“I’ll go where the shot was,” Clyde said.

“I’m the constable, you’re the deputy. You do as I say.”

Clyde nodded, went left, down the long room. As he passed the windows, the light from them wavered and heaved with the blocking and unblocking of the morning sun by waves of grasshoppers.

When he got to the end of the hall there was a door there, and he went through it, the back of his neck feeling as if someone had laid an ice-cold towel there.

Sunset went right, and as she came to the end of the short wall, there was enough light from the windows she could see Bull lying there, not moving, and she could see to the left of that a shelf, and on the shelf all manner of things, but among them a silver platter next to a kerosene lantern, and in that platter, which was tilted slightly, she could see a shape coming down the hall, on the other side of the wall. Even seen in the platter, from that distance and with the bad light, she knew it was McBride. He was wearing what at first she thought was a dress, then decided was an apron. Clyde moved through the dining room with its chandelier and well-set table, and there was plenty of light in there, but it was a funny kind of light, like he was looking at it from the inside of an egg yoke. Clyde slipped along, listening. He heard the floor creak.

Clyde stopped.

The blond whore stumbled into view, out from an open doorway in the back. She was half dressed.

“Don’t shoot,” she said. “He’s behind the wall. He don’t want a shoot-out.”

“Who?” Clyde said.

“Hillbilly.”

“You sent a woman out, Hillbilly?”

“You ain’t got no cause to shoot her,” Hillbilly said from behind the wall. “You’d have come right in on me and I didn’t want her shot.”

“He don’t care about me,” said the whore. “He’s just buying time… Hillbilly, it’s one of those men whipped your ass.”

Clyde motioned her over to him. “Get behind me,” he said, then to Hillbilly, “Throw out your gun.”

“Ain’t got one.”

The blonde shook her head.

Clyde nodded.

“I ain’t wanting to get killed over all this,” Hillbilly said.

“You go on out the back way,” Clyde said to the whore.

“McBride, he went through that door there, down the hall,” she said.

“Go on out the back way,” Clyde said again. “And thanks.”

She went away and Clyde said, “I know you got a gun, Hillbilly. Throw it out.”

“Naw. I do that, you might shoot me.”

“I’m gonna shoot you for sure, you don’t.”

“Let me think on it.”

Clyde slid forward, stood near the wall, Hillbilly on the other side.

“Last chance,” Clyde said.

“Or what?” Hillbilly said. “I watch myself pretty good. You come get me.”

Clyde lifted the shotgun and pointed at the wall, where he thought he heard Hillbilly, and fired, pumped another round into the chamber, dropped low, waited.

“Goddamn,” Hillbilly said.

Clyde slid around to the doorway, staying low, poked his head and gun around on the other side. Hillbilly lay on his back, a pistol nearby. He wasn’t hurt bad, but the shot had surprised him and he had been peppered with pellets. A piece of the wall, a splinter, had gone back and into Hillbilly’s shoulder.

“You ain’t bad off,” Clyde said, picking up Hillbilly’s pistol, sticking it in his belt.

Hillbilly took hold of the splinter and pulled it out of his shoulder, took a breath, turned his head toward Clyde. “Guess you can get even now.”

Sunset heard the shotgun blast to her left, in the rooms beyond. The blonde came through a door stepping lively, saw her, waved at her, went out the back way, into the grasshoppers, closed the battered door.

Sunset turned, looked back at the wall where McBride was. She could see him in the platter, still easing forward. She slipped backward until she was between the windows, her back against the wall. She let her ass slide to the floor, pulled her knees together, propped the shotgun on them, braced the stock against her shoulder.

McBride poked his head around the corner, poked it so fast the stupid black wig he was wearing shifted dramatically.

Sunset cut down on him.

Most of the shot hit the wall, but stray pellets lit into McBride’s face and he let out a yell, disappeared back behind the barrier.

Sunset pumped up another load, braced herself again. Thought: He hasn’t figured I can see him in the platter. She could see him leaning against the wall, picking at the pellets in his face.

“You damn bitch,” he said. “You hit me some.”

“I was trying to hit you a lot,” Sunset said. “Surrender, and it’ll go better.”

“Ha.”

“You always wear an apron?”

“You messed up my breakfast, bitch. I’m gonna shoot you until you can’t be made out for a person.”

Sunset was trying to decide what to do, like maybe break and run, because here she was, just sitting, nothing to protect her but hopefully being quicker than McBride, and she was thinking this when McBride stepped out quickly from behind the wall, took hold of the lantern and stepped back.

She fired.

But it was too late. Her shot hit the far wall and the silver platter fell, hit on its edge, came rolling toward her, whirled and fell flat.

Goddamn, Sunset thought. I was looking at him in the platter, and he still beat me to the punch.

The lantern, lit, appeared on McBride’s arm from behind the wall and was tossed at her. Sunset leaped away. The lantern hit behind her. A burst of flame ran up the wall, ate the wallpaper like cotton candy. Sunset felt its heat, felt her hair crinkle. She rolled away from it as McBride stepped out from behind the wall. He had a double-barrel shotgun, and when he cut loose, Sunset, already rolling, threw herself flat. The shot tore above her. She felt some of it nip at her heels and heard the window behind her blow. Then there was a sound like something growling from beyond the grave.

Sunset lifted her head, tried to put McBride in her sights, but what she saw was his amazed face. He had broken the gun open, having fired both barrels, was ready to reload, but his expression caused Sunset to turn her head, look over her shoulder.

The flames on the wall were licking out to taste the air and the grasshoppers flooding in were catching fire. They washed in a burning wave toward McBride.

McBride dropped the shotgun, covered his face as they hit him, a mass of bugs aflame. His wig burst alight, and he tried to dive to the floor, but the grasshoppers followed him down, were all over him. He rose up screaming, batting at the air, his apron on fire, and Sunset thought: You dumb sonofabitch, just roll. You ain’t on fire, it’s your apron, that stupid wig.

But he didn’t roll. The wig had become a fool’s cap of fire. He snatched it off his shiny bald head, tossed it and ran. Ran straight at Sunset. Sunset was so amazed, she didn’t shoot, and he kept going, running hard, went right past her and through what was left of the window, flames flapping behind him like a cape, insects on fire, whizzing around his head like a halo. Then the cape of fire dropped through the window and was gone and the air crackled with flames and exploding grasshoppers.