Joe Lansdale - Sunset and Sawdust

“Just tell me, Marilyn. Why?”

Marilyn was silent for a long time. The grandfather clock chimed noon.

“I didn’t do what you think I did,” she said.

“What did you do?”

“Pete was upset about you. He cried about you. He didn’t think you were the kind of wife you could be, and he’d met that woman, that whore, Jimmie Jo-I was protecting you. And him. But I didn’t-it isn’t what it seems.”

“What is it, then?”

“My plant, the one that was in the pot on the back porch. It died. Everyone knows Zendo has the best soil around. I thought I’d take the back road, the one that’s on the oil land, the one I thought was someone else’s. Just forgotten land. Thought I’d go out there, see if I could get some of that dirt. I meant to ask Zendo, but if he wasn’t around, figured I’d just take some. I got out there, saw the house, the one Pete built for his whore. He told me about it, but when I seen it, I was sick. It was better than the one you lived in, Sunset. I was mad, and I went up there to see her, but she wasn’t there. And when I left, driving home-I’d forgot about the soil, you see-well, I seen her. There was an oil pool and she was lying out there beside it. She had on an orange and green dress. A gaudy whore’s dress. I could see it good, the part wasn’t covered in oil. You couldn’t miss her lying there. I pulled over for a look. She was lying there, and she was just the same as dead. She had drowned, like. Her brain was dead, but her body was still moving. She had been drowned but wasn’t all of her dead. Whoever done it, they’d left her for dead, but she wasn’t. And she was having the baby, Sunset. Even after she was by all reason dead, her body was giving that baby life.

“I had seen Aunt Cary deliver a baby, and I knew whose baby that was. My grandchild. And I delivered it, cutting it out of her cause she wasn’t alive enough to worry about doing it the right way, did it best I could remember how, but it was born dead, Sunset. Dead baby from a dead mother. I just made sure she was all dead. I didn’t do her any harm wasn’t already done. Shooting her like that, it was merciful.

“I took the baby then, put it in the jar. I had posthole diggers with me to get dirt at Zendo’s, and I stuck the baby in the jar and buried it over there on his land.”

“Why, Marilyn?”

“The child was gone. Wasn’t anything gonna bring it back, and it wasn’t something you needed to know. I was trying to protect you, Sunset. Really. I buried Jimmie Jo too, using the diggers. I just wanted them out of the way. I thought maybe Pete did it-I thought that then. I know now it was that other man-McBride, you called him. But I thought if Pete killed her, and the baby died because of it, and people heard, then no matter how much he was liked, that was too much. And you and Karen, you’d suffer. I made a mistake, though. I left my posthole diggers. I carried them back to the truck, leaned them against it, then I forgot-upset, you see. Drove off and they just fell to the ground. Pete knew who they belonged to. He came and asked me about it, brought the diggers with him. He asked me about Jimmie Jo. I think he thought I killed her.”

“You did,” Sunset said. “When you shot her, you killed her. Figure that’s why Pete wrote out the file the way he did, buried the baby as a colored. To protect you.”

“Jimmie Jo was already dead. That McBride, or one of them working for him, they drowned her.”

“McBride wasn’t as good at killing people as he thought. In the long run, he couldn’t even fight grasshoppers. If he’d been good, you wouldn’t have had to finish the job.”

“Why would I kill the baby?”

“Maybe you wouldn’t. Maybe you didn’t want Pete having a baby by some whore he wasn’t married to. I don’t know.”

“It was perfect, Sunset. Really. She was out of your way, out of Pete’s life, and out of my life. The baby-I don’t know, maybe it’s like Karen’s baby-it was best. The way it ought to be. Way God wanted it. Pete, I told him where they were buried. Zendo found the baby first, moved it, and Pete found it, moved it to the colored graveyard. Guess he did that until he could put it in a white cemetery. I don’t know. We never got the chance to talk about it. You killed him.”

“He hid the land business with the body,” Sunset said. “Marilyn, you didn’t mind me taking the blame for killing Jimmie Jo and the baby.”

“I did mind. I just couldn’t say anything.”

“You know what I think?” Sunset said, standing. “In the long run, you thought it would work out fine, me taking the blame. You knew Pete wouldn’t end up taking it, not the way everyone felt about me. That way, you had me too, for killing Pete. And you could stay in good graces with Karen.”

“I done a lot of good by you, Sunset. I got you that car. I helped you.”

“Maybe so. Maybe you really did it all for Karen. And yourself. Thing is, I’m nervous around you, Marilyn. You might get moody. I might wake up sewed to my bed, you standing over me with a rake. A shotgun. That thirty-eight.”

“You did some things yourself.”

“I defended myself against your son. I went to arrest some men who were breaking the law and who tried to kill my daughter and my deputy and killed a boy I cared about. A dog I liked. They would have killed me, Daddy. My conscience is clear. What about yours, Marilyn?”

Sunset started out the door.

“You gonna arrest me?”

“I’m not wearing my badge. Or my gun. I don’t intend to put them on again. I don’t need them anymore.”

Sunset pushed the screen door open and let it fly back. Marilyn came out and stood on the steps as Sunset reached her car.

“You’re quitting?”

“I am.”

“You’re not going to arrest me, then?”

Sunset shook her head.

“What are you gonna do?” Marilyn said, and she had to strain to hear Sunset over the buzz of the great saw that had started up again.

“I’m gonna pick up Karen, say good-bye to Clyde, go get Daddy, then-I don’t know. Maybe just keep going.”

“Do you believe me, Sunset?”

“I don’t know. Don’t know it matters anymore. Not enough, anyway. But I got some doubt, and that much is too much. Important thing is, I got my center.”

“Do what?”

“So long, Marilyn.”

Sunset got in her car and drove away and Marilyn stood on the front porch and watched until she was out of sight and all that was left to see was the road and the dust from the passing of the car.

Joe R. Lansdale has written more than a dozen novels in the suspense, horror, and Western genres. He has also edited several anthologies. He has received the British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, six Bram Stoker Awards, and the 2001 Edgar Award for best novel from the Mystery Writers of America. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his family.