Sunset and Sawdust

“A big man and a girl,” Two said.

“Probably Clyde and Karen,” Hillbilly said.

“Henry, you shot him too,” Plug said. “I thought we just come to get him.”

“We got him all right,” the Other Two said.

“You got him, and Tootie. What’s to keep you from getting us?” Plug asked. “You might want to suck our faces too. Did you suck the dog?”

“No soul,” Two said. “God didn’t give animals souls.”

“What about you?” Plug asked. “You got one?”

Two grabbed Plug by the shirt and shoved him back. Plug dropped his hand to his gun, but didn’t pull it. He said, “All right. All right.”

“No more,” Two said. “Not a word.”

Plug nodded.

Two started trotting down the trail, Hillbilly and Plug behind him.

Clyde and Karen sat in the wash and listened to an owl hoot and the creek water run. They saw a coon cross in the moonlight, splashing water, clambering to the other bank, melting into the brush and trees. Grasshoppers were rattling and rustling through the brush and they could see hundreds of dead ones in the water, washing by.

After a while they heard the crunching of leaves and such and the sound of ru

The ru

No. No sign. These guys, they wouldn’t know sign.

Or would they?

Could they read where they left the trail, dropped over the side into the creek?

And if they could, would they know there was a wash here? Maybe they’d come down into the creek, and from here, he would have a shot.

Still, there were three of them. And he had the girl.

But they could have stopped because the trail widened here, there was room to spread out, take a breather. Maybe-

“There ain’t no use,” he heard Hillbilly say. “Clyde, he knows these woods good as a goddamn squirrel.”

Then Clyde heard someone, the big colored man, he figured, though he sounded very educated, very smooth, a Yankee colored, say, “Brother McBride isn’t going to be happy.”

“We should go back and wait on them,” another voice said, and Clyde didn’t know who it was. He didn’t sound colored or Southern either. Was there a fourth person? Someone he hadn’t seen?

“No,” said the first voice, the one he thought must be the colored man. “They won’t come back. They won’t do that.”

Then there was movement, followed by silence, and they sat for a long time listening to nothing. Then there was an explosion. So loud Karen made a little yip.

She put her hand over her mouth, bent double. Clyde reached out and patted her gently on the shoulders.

Clyde found that he was breathing heavy. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly through his nose.

Easy, now, he told himself.

Easy, now. It didn’t sound that close. It was just loud. It might have been a gun, but it didn’t sound like one. No. It wasn’t a gun. The more he thought on it, the more certain he was it wasn’t a gun.

But what was it?

They waited about five more minutes, Clyde counting out what he thought was five minutes in his head.

Clyde thought: No, don’t go up there. That could be just what they’re waiting for. Us to show our faces. Maybe that’s what they’re doing. Lying in wait.

But the explosion? What was that?

Clyde rested the shotgun across his knees, wiped his damp hands on his shirt. He used his hand to wipe sweat from his eyes, dried his hands on his shirtfront again.

They waited. Twenty minutes or so went by. Again, Clyde figuring it in his head, deciding maybe twenty or so was long enough.

Clyde leaned over and put his mouth over Karen’s ear.

“You take the shotgun. I’m going to slip out and into the creek. Go up a ways.”

“No,” Karen said.

“I’m going to go up a ways and cut back, see if anyone is up there. If not, I’m going to call down to you. If I don’t call, if anyone shows their face over the edge, starts to come into the wash, you shoot to kill.”

“Clyde.”

“Keep it soft,” he said.

Karen lowered her voice again. “Just wait. I’m scared. Just wait.”

“We’ll wait a while longer, but just a while,” he said.

They did wait, and it was a long wait, and finally Clyde slipped out of the wash and dangled off the roots and down into the water. He was quiet about it, but still the water splashed as he waded through it, the dead grasshoppers washing along as he waded. He took to the bank on the side the wash was on, climbed up and flipped open his knife.

He was down some distance from the wash, and he could see along the moonlit trail, could see where they had been standing, but they weren’t there anymore. He crept down that way, and through a gap in the trees, high up, he could see a lick of brightness as if the sun had risen early and blown up.

It was a fire.

He went over to the bank, got down on one knee, said, “It’s me, Karen. Hand up the shotgun if you can.”

Karen’s hand poked out and took hold of a root, and she swung out with her back to the water, one hand holding her up, and she extended the shotgun to him with the other. He took it, and Karen swung out on the root and got her feet on other roots, started working up the bank. Clyde grabbed her wrist and helped pull her the rest of the way up.

“Are they gone?” she said.

“From here. They’ve gone back to the tent.”

He pointed toward the brightness shining through the trees.

“Lord-what about Goose?”

Clyde shook his head. “I don’t know.”

They crept back the way they had come and found Goose lying in the trail. His mauled hand lay close to his chest and the revolver he had tried to shoot Two with lay busted by his side.

Karen got down on her knees and touched his head and cried softly. “They didn’t have to do that. They didn’t have to do none of this. Why?”

“Money, dear,” Clyde said. “I’ll take care of him later. Leave him.”

Karen bent forward and kissed Goose’s cold forehead.

They waited out in the woods for a time, and Clyde finally slipped back by himself. He saw there was a terrific blaze, and he realized now what the explosion had been. They had set fire to his truck, probably a rag in the gas tank, and that had blown it up. They had set fire to the tent and his tarp as well. One thing about them, they didn’t just do a thing halfway.

He eased up that way, the shotgun ready, but there was nothing to shoot. Henry’s body still lay by the post, and Ben’s nearby.

Clyde went back to find Karen and when they came back they got the well bucket, some pans from under the tarp, and went about trying to wet the ground down around the fire, keep it from spreading to the kindling-dry woods beyond.