Sunset and Sawdust

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Sunset stayed with a farm couple for a couple of years, but they primarily wanted a farmhand. She wore out on that. Dug and picked up so many potatoes she had more dirt under her fingernails than a mole had in its fur. The man who owned the farm had also taken a liking to her. He never touched her, but she felt the way he was looking at her would lead to trouble. Anytime she was bent in the potato field, she had a sense that an arrow was pointed at her ass. But when she turned, instead of an arrow, it was the farmer’s eyes.

  She moved out. Or to be more precise, ran off. Got up in the middle of the night, threw what little she had in a canvas tote bag, and hit the road, way her mama had, but without the banjo and the shoe salesman.

  Got a job in the cotton gin just outside of Holiday. Lived in the back of a dress shop for a month, sleeping on a pallet next to a widow woman and her three kids. Then she took up with Pete, who was tall and lean with coils of muscles knotting under his dark skin, shiny black hair, and a smile that made her heart melt like candle wax. One day he filled her belly with Karen.

  She and Pete were married right away. He was twenty, and at that time working in the cotton gin. His beatings didn’t start until after marriage. It must have been a Jones tradition. No beating your woman until the wedding vows were taken.

  She lay there thinking about all this until she was as lonesome as an adolescent’s first pubic hair.

  She sighed, got out of bed, went outside barefoot and in her night-gown, strapping on her holster.

  It wasn’t a full moon, but it was pretty bright and the air was clean and a little cool. The night was full of fireflies. It looked as if all the stars had fallen to earth and were bouncing about.

  As she stood there watching the fireflies circle her head, she heard a growl. She pulled the revolver and looked, saw a big black-and-white dog with one ear that stood up and one that hung down, squatting in the road, dropping a pile.

  “Easy, boy,” she said. “I’m not going to shoot you.”

  But the dog growled and ran away, leaving the faint aroma of fresh dog shit behind.

  “My reputation gets around,” Sunset said. She decided one of the first things she wanted was a box of ammunition. She felt safer with the gun than without it. She wanted enough bullets to shoot up the world.

  She stood outside for a while, but the mosquitoes began to flock. She swatted a few of them, went inside, strapped down the tent flap, went to bed.

  But she couldn’t sleep. She thought about how she and Karen were just a few feet from where she had put the gun to Pete’s head.

  Boy, was he surprised.

  The sonofabitch.

  Still, having Karen here, near where her father had been shot, maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. Wasn’t really good mothering. Another place might have been better.

  But where?

  She couldn’t stay with her mother-in-law. Forgiven or not, it just didn’t feel right.

  Sunset sat on the edge of the mattress, went over to the business side of the tent, seated herself at the table, pushed a pencil and a blank notebook around. Bored of that, she lit a lantern and carried it to the file cabinet, pulled up a chair for herself and one for the lantern.

  There was a pile of loose files on top of the cabinet. She took the first folder and prepared to file it.

  On the front was written: MURDERS.

  Sunset turned up the wick on the lantern and opened the file. There was a list of murders that had happened over the years Pete had been constable.

  She thought it would be a good idea to familiarize herself with what had gone before. If she was going to play constable, she might as well know how to play.

  One file said COLORED MURDERS.

  She opened the file and read a bit. What it mostly amounted to was so-and-so shot so-and-so and so what?

  Wasn’t a lot of concern in there for the colored community. No intense sleuthing to find out who did what to whom.

  There was one interesting situation that Pete had written about. A colored man named Zendo had found a buried clay jar with a baby in it while plowing his field. Scared he would be blamed for the baby’s death, he moved the jar and its contents to the woods and left it there.

  Since Zendo had the richest soil around, through heavy application of animal manures and leaves, his land had turned black as a raven in a coal mine. This dirt clung to the jar and was inside of it, along with the baby.

  Pete tracked Zendo by using the dirt. He knew where the jar had come from, no matter where it had been found.

  Pete finished his report with:

  Talked to Zendo about the dead baby. Known Zendo for a while. Not a bad nigger. Don’t believe he killed anyone. Probably some nigger gal had a kid she wasn’t supposed to have, and it died, or she killed it, and buried it in Zendo’s field because the ground is easy to work.

  Can’t tell if the baby was black or white cause it’s all rotted up and ants have been at it. But I figure Zendo found it and didn’t have nothing to do with it. He’s a good enough nigger and I haven’t never known him to steal nothing or do nothing bad. He even works hard. I think he hid it to keep from getting in trouble. I had it buried in the colored graveyard on suspect of it being a nigger baby.

  There was nothing else written. End of case. It was dated a couple weeks earlier. It didn’t mention who found the jar in the woods, which seemed a bad bit of investigative work. Sunset thought that sort of information might be more than a little important.

  She wondered too how Pete could see such a thing and not even mention it to her. Then again, he didn’t mention much of anything to her if it didn’t have to do with cooking his meals or taking her clothes off. He spent the rest of his time being constable or shacking up with other women, especially Jimmie Jo French, the cheap slut.

  Sunset looked through the other murder cases for a while, grew tired, stashed the murder files, put out the lantern and went to bed.

  Next morning, sitting at the table with Clyde and Hillbilly, Sunset had their first meeting. Clyde had let Hillbilly stay at his house and had given him a lift.

  Sunset noted that Hillbilly looked fresh, shaved, his hair combed and oiled. It even looked that way after wearing a cap.

  Clyde, on the other hand, looked as if he had rolled out of bed, pulled on his pants and someone else’s shirt. It was about a size too small and one of the bottom buttons was unfastened. For that matter, his pants were high-water, ending about two inches above his socks and shoes. He still wore his hat, and his hair stuck out from under it like porcupine quills. He needed a shave.

  Clyde said, “You see that big old black-and-white dog out there?”

  “Saw him last night,” Sunset said.

  “Belonged to the Burton family. Old Man Burton moved off to look for some kind of work. Got too old for the sawmill. Had a relative up in Oklahoma said there was work. So he left the dog. Think they called him Ben. Ain’t that something? Going off and leaving your dog cause you’re moving. Like the dog don’t get its feelings hurt.”

  “It’s a dog,” Hillbilly said.

  “Yeah, but a dog’s got feelings.”

  Clyde and Hillbilly argued this for a while.

  Sunset said, “You know, this job ain’t as exciting as I thought it might be.”

  “That’s good,” Hillbilly said. “Way I want it. I’m getting paid for sitting here, same as if I wasn’t sitting here. I like it not exciting.”

  “I’m not complaining,” Sunset said. “Just surprised. Pete was always gone doing something. Or doing someone. Now that I think about it, I think it was mostly the last part.”

  “Jimmie Jo French,” Clyde said, then turned red. “Damn. I ain’t got no sense.”

  “It’s okay,” Sunset said. “That’s the truth, ain’t it? I know it and everyone else knows it.”

  “I used to not talk so much,” Clyde said.

  “Fact is,” Sunset said, “you was kind of known for that.”

  “Out at his house he didn’t say no more than
two words,” Hillbilly said.

  “Told you where the soap and such was,” Clyde said.

  “All right. Four words. I had to clean up out at the water pump, fight off mean chickens while I washed.”

  “They just don’t know you,” Clyde said.

  “If we’re gonna talk about baths and chickens,” Sunset said, “this job is more boring than I thought.”

  “It’ll take time to get into a routine,” Clyde said. “You wouldn’t think much goes on in Camp Rapture and round about. But it does. And you’re supposed to help Sheriff Knowles over in Holiday if he needs it. Come Saturday night, it can get busy over there, with them honky-tonks and whorehouses and such.”

  “I’m supposed to help Sheriff Knowles?” Sunset said. “I thought we just arrested chicken thieves and asked drunks to shut up.”

  “Knowles don’t usually need help,” Clyde said. “Knows where the trouble is and who starts it. So it’s not like he has to do any big detective work. Just sometimes there’s more going on than he can handle. What with all them oil field people moving in. Did you know they got a picture show over there in Holiday now?”

  “No shit?” Hillbilly said.

  “No shit,” Clyde said. “On bank night you can win money.”

  “Bank night?” Hillbilly said.

  “Yeah. They got a contest. You can do a drawing. You win, you get cash money. Sometimes they don’t give money, they give dishes.”

  “Can you sell the dishes back?”

  “I don’t know. I guess you might.”

  “I don’t need dishes.”

  “First you got to win them.”

  Sunset listened to this exchange, said, “You know, I don’t know about picture shows, or bank nights, or dishes, but I thought I was constable of Camp Rapture, not Holiday.”

  “You are,” Clyde said. “But Knowles helps here, and you help there. How it’s done.”

  “But I don’t have jurisdiction there.”

  “Knowles don’t have it here,” Clyde said.

  “Exactly,” Sunset said.

  “No one cares because most folks don’t know about jurisdiction,” Clyde said. “Hell, they can’t even spell it. Fact is, I can’t spell it. Half the colored around here ain’t never even heard the word. You got a badge. Sheriff Knowles has a badge. That’s the sum of it. You’re the law, Sunset.”

  “That’s a relief,” Sunset said, “but what if he does need me, and I end up with someone who’s kind of rowdy, ain’t for being arrested? What then?”

  “Then we’ll appeal to their human side,” Clyde said, and pulled a slap jack out from under his shirt and struck the table with it. It sounded like a gunshot and made Sunset and Hillbilly jump.

  “Damn, Clyde,” Hillbilly said. “I near messed myself.”

  “This little buddy,” Clyde said, shaking the slap jack, “is a real persuader. Make a woolly booger into a lamb, that’s what it’ll do. Make a bear pick you flowers.”

  Sunset looked at the slap jack. It was about a foot long, a folded piece of thick leather. It was flexible, but it had seasoned out hard.

  “That don’t work, you buffalo him,” Clyde said.

  “Buffalo him?” Sunset said.

  “Means you take that pistol you got there, bring it up alongside his body so he can’t see it, and clip him with a backward move, so’s the barrel catches him below the ear where the jaw hinges. You do that, back to front, when he wakes up, his wife will be remarried and his kids will be grown.”

  “What if he’s looking?” Sunset said.

  “Then you tell him, ‘Goddamnit, that woman’s done got naked over there.’ When he turns, you bring that pistol out and drop all hundred and so pounds you got on the back of his noggin. Hit him like you’re trying to drive a nail. That won’t do him any good, but it’ll do you plenty. If there’s more than one of us, and there ought to be, cause that’s how you do police work, we all hit him from different directions.”

  “If that doesn’t work?”

  “Then we shoot him. The leg if you got time. If not, just pop him somewhere. Hell, you’re the law.”

  “Guess we’ve covered arrest techniques,” Sunset said.

  “Some of them,” Clyde said.

  “Hillbilly,” Sunset said, “you have a comment?”

  “Not really. Well, I think I stepped in something. I’m going to go outside and clean off my boot. I’ll clean up the floor here when I get done.”

  Hillbilly lifted his foot, looked at the bottom of his boot.

  “Dog, I reckon.”

  “Suppose that makes you our tracker,” Clyde said. “Way you recognized which kind of shit it is right off.”

  Hillbilly took off his boot and stood up.

  “Before you go outside with that,” Sunset said, “and believe me, I want you to, I want to thank you fellas. I don’t know how much I know about this—well, I don’t know anything. Not really. A thing picked up here and there from Pete. But I’m going to take it seriously and do the best I can.”

  “Wouldn’t be here if I didn’t think you were,” Clyde said.

  “How come you men did this?” she asked.

  “I’m saving up for a guitar,” Hillbilly said. “That’s the truth and the long and the short of it. Other than not liking to work at that goddamn sawmill.”

  “I thought, hell, give the lady a chance,” Clyde said. “Besides, I don’t like working at the sawmill neither.”

  Clyde, with his own tools and Hillbilly’s reluctant help, spent the morning building an outhouse out of lumber they found among the remains of the house. They had to climb a couple of trees to get at some of it.

  Clyde seemed to have a real knack with tools, and Hillbilly was an adequate board holder. He had attempted, at Clyde’s request, to nail a board or two, but had only succeeded in getting the work crooked and hitting himself in the thumb with the hammer, causing Clyde to demote him to board holder.

  Sunset, who watched this as she levered water from the pump, found Hillbilly kind of endearing, like a little boy. Another thing was, though hot and sweaty, Hillbilly still managed to appear sweet and clean.

  Clyde, on the other hand, had taken on the appearance of a man dragged through a berry patch by a runaway mule. When he wasn’t hammering and measuring and sawing, he was wiping back his wet black hair and scratching parts of his body that were best left to dark rooms and private attention.

  About noon Karen got up, having spent all morning in bed. She got up complaining about how the outhouse construction, all the hammering and nailing, had woke her.

  “It’s darn near one o’clock,” Sunset said. “Normally you’d be doing chores.”

  “Normally, I’d have a daddy,” Karen said.

  Sunset had nothing to say to that, and Karen turned pouty.

  Two in the afternoon and the outhouse was finished. Clyde and Hillbilly found a tree to sit under, where they could enjoy the shade. Sunset brought them out sandwiches, sat down by Hillbilly with her own sandwich, and they ate. Karen stayed in the tent.

  When they finished eating, Clyde said, “I think I’m going to be the first ass in that outhouse. I feel it coming.”

  “I don’t need to hear that,” Hillbilly said.

  “It’s just a natural process,” Clyde said.

  “Boys,” Sunset said, “interesting as Clyde’s outhouse habits are, I been thinking, and I believe it’s time we start earning our pay.”

  9

  Clyde knew Zendo and where he lived. Unlike many negroes, Zendo owned his own land and was not a sharecropper. He had worked in the sawmill for years, putting back every available dollar. Growing crops on the side while he sharecropped, feeding himself and selling the excess.

  When he had the money, he bought at an inflated price, because he was a negro and in no position to quibble, a fine piece of bottomland near the creek, cleared a large chunk with an axe, a mule, and a strong back, and started growing vegetables. Used terracing and water channeling from the creek, stak
ed tomatoes, fought bugs.

  Fifteen years later, much to the dismay of many white farmers, his farm was the most productive in the county. People drove by just to look at it, lying there in its man-made black dirt, bordered at all four corners by massive compost piles contained within log structures.

  Sunset and her deputy constables, and Karen, rattled out to Zendo’s farm in Clyde’s pickup. When they got there, they went by Zendo’s house, which was in better condition than most houses in the area. The tar-paper roof was nailed down tight and there wasn’t any cardboard in the windows.

  They found Zendo’s wife out in the yard. She was a big coffee-colored woman in a bright sack dress with a toddler clutching her leg. She had a pan of shelled corn in one hand and with the other she was tossing it to the chickens that gathered around her like servants before the queen.

  Sunset got out of the truck and walked up to the lady, passing a small pig that was rolling in a damp depression in the yard, grunting, turning its head as if hoping for some sort of positive comment.

  Nearby, a dog lay in the middle of a flower bed that had died out. The dog looked dead himself, but when Sunset walked up, his tail beat a few beats, then went still.

  “Not a watchdog,” Sunset said to Zendo’s wife.

  “Naw he ain’t,” the lady said. “I used to have a pig that would bite you, but we eating on him. Can I help you?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “How come you got that badge on? You some kind of farm inspector?”

  “I’m the constable.”

  “Naw you ain’t.”

  “Yes, I am.”

  “Really? You the constable? How’d that happen? Thought Mister Pete was the constable.”

  “No. I shot him.”

  “That’s funny,” the lady said. “You done shot him and took his badge. You funny, miss.”

  “Yeah, well, I really am the constable. And I really did shoot him. And he really is dead. And once again, I really am the constable.”

  “Oh,” she said. “Well, no offense.”

  “Like to talk to your husband. Could you tell me where I might find him?”