Sunset and Sawdust

“My leg. Goddamn it! It’s gone, Bull. It’s gone.”

Bull knelt down, said, “Sunset, she’s go

“Oh, Jesus, it hurts. Go on. Do it, Bull.”

And as Bull went away from him, Lee jerked off his belt and stuck it in his mouth and bit down, trying not to scream again.

Bull went up and didn’t knock. Knocking was out. He went at the door with his foot and hit it hard and it flapped back like a nag’s tongue. He went in and it was dark in there as the door swung back in place, and there was nothing to see, but suddenly he felt something, something hot and at his spine, low down, and it took him a piece of a second to realize there was a knife sliding into him from behind.

Clyde hit the door with his body, but it was a good door, and it knocked Clyde back and almost made him fall down the stairs.

“Damn,” Clyde said, and he went at it again.

This time the door frame gave, but not completely, and Clyde hit it again, and Sunset hit it with him, and it went back, throwing splinters, and they went in, pushing the door closed to keep out the rush of grasshoppers.

Bull swung his shotgun butt back and around and caught something. The pressure on the knife went away. But the knife stayed with him, and he thought: Goddamn, taken from behind, that’s not right, not me, I’m always ready, but goddamn, I feel it, a knife in my back, tight as a bull’s dick in a chicken’s ass.

Now he turned toward his attacker and was grabbed by the front of his legs, and he knew, there in the dark, he had hit someone with the shotgun stock, knocked them down and they had hold of his legs and he was going to fall on the knife.

Bull twisted his body as he went down, tried to hit on his side, and did. Mostly. But the hilt of the knife caught some of it, and he felt it go in, like John Henry driving a railroad spike. Inside of him was all the fire of the world, then someone… or something… was crawling up him like a cockroach. And now with his eyes adjusted, light from outside coming in through the edges of the door where it had not quite closed, the light of morning filtered through the bodies of millions of locusts, he saw a black face, a head wearing a bowler hat. Then powerful hands were at his throat. He tried to bring the shotgun around, but the cockroach slapped at it so hard it was knocked from his hands, and the cockroach dropped all its body weight on him (one big roach) and it drove him down and onto the hilt of the knife and he let out a scream and there were black dots swimming in front of him and the light from the doorway went dim, then he was back, but not fully, seeing everything now as if through a piece of gauze. He tried to reach out and grab the cockroach by the throat, but all he did was knock the bowler hat off. He grabbed at the man’s head, trying to push him back. His thumb ran over something there. A scar. And now he was going weak, and he could feel something warm beneath him, his blood, ru

Two leaped back and Bull reached at his belt, pulled his pistol and fired. The pistol kicked and flew out of Bull’s weak hand, but the shot hit Two in the stomach.

Two stood up.

Bull thought: Goddamn, and I thought I was tough. He had lifted his head a bit, but now he let it lie down, closed his eyes, thought: What’s go

Two put one hand on his stomach, stepped over Bull, toward the door, shoved it open. Insects hummed into the room. He stepped out on the stairway landing, and closed the door behind him, did it softly, like there was nothing the matter with him. He saw Lee on the top steps, his leg twisted up under him as if it were rubber, a belt in his mouth.

“We’ve been shot,” Two said.

Lee lifted his shotgun and let off a round. It hit Two and knocked him back and Two slammed against the railing and the boards cracked and went away and he went through, fell the long drop to the ground. Using one hand, Lee flicked another load into the shotgun, crawled over to look down, the belt clamped in his mouth like a hawk with a snake.

Two wasn’t there.

Lee wheeled as best he could, the pain in his leg making his vision waver, saw from his new vantage point that Two was up and walking down there, staggering up against Sunset’s car, holding his bowler in his hand. He opened the door, put on his bowler, got in behind the wheel.

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 ma

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.