Sunset and Sawdust

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 go

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 ru

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 ru

“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 ru

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 stu

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, ru

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 ru

The trail came to an end. They stood on the bank of the creek, and here the bank was high up with lots of trees growing out from it, their roots exposed, and Clyde grabbed Karen’s arm, said, “I’m going to lower you down.”

She took his hand and he leaned out and lifted her as if she were a doll, eased her over the edge, and lowered her, said, “Take hold of that limb, and swing under there. There’s a place.”

It was a washout under the roots, and from where they had stood on the bank, you couldn’t see it. It was pretty big, and as Clyde lowered her down she got hold of one of the roots, let go of his hand and swung herself out of view. He thought: Hope there ain’t no moccasins in there.

When she was out of sight, Clyde bent down close to the bank, called softly, “Can you hear me?”

“Yes,” Karen said.

“I’m handing the shotgun down. Be careful. Reach out and take it. I’ll swing it on my belt.”

“Okay,” Karen said.

Clyde took off his belt, fastened it around the stock of the shotgun, bent down close again, swung it out and back into the hole. Karen grabbed it and he let go of the belt.

He got hold of a root and swung out and down, got hold of another, lowered himself so he could swing inside the wash with Karen. He had to bend his head slightly to fit, but it was the way he remembered. One time he had gone fishing and had waded out in the creek to get his line untangled, and he had seen the wash. It was almost half as tall as a man and very wide and pretty deep. The only difference now was that the creek had been high a few times and it had washed it out even more.

When he felt Karen close to him, squatting, leaning against him, he reached in his pocket, got a matchbox, took a match out and struck it.

A beaver was at the far side of the indention, and it hissed at them and bared its teeth. It looked like a big hairy rat there in the light of the wavering match.

Karen huddled closer to him.

“Hold this match,” Clyde said, took the shotgun and used it to poke at the beaver until it sprang past them, made Karen squeak slightly, leaped into the water and swam away.

The match went out.

“Be quiet now,” Clyde said. “Up against the back of the wash, and be quiet.”

“I’m scared,” Karen said.

“Then we’re scared together.”

“Goose?”

“We can’t think about that now. Be quiet, I said.”

They eased back until they were as far as they could go, and quit squatting, sat down, waiting, listening.

At the front of the trail Clyde and Karen had taken, Two could see blackberry vines had been ripped and disturbed where they had once grown tight on either side of the trail.

As he stood there looking, Hillbilly and Plug came up, Plug pushing his revolver into its holster.

“You’re slow,” Two said.

“You done killed everybody?” Plug said. “We seen that boy. He wasn’t nothing but a kid.”

“Silence,” the Other Two said. “They went this way.”

“Sunset?” Hillbilly asked.