The road was muddy, the going slow. Ruts the tires fell into bounced them so hard Sunset thought her insides were going to jump out of her mouth.
Clyde said, “Hope all that wiring I’ve done to hold the engine don’t give… hey, right over there, down that little road, there’s an overhang. It ain’t real high, but it hangs over part of Holiday. Gal jumped off it once, tried to kill herself, but all she did was hit where it widens and roll all the way down. Ended up lying up against the back side of the drugstore. She had stripped off naked to jump. Friend of mine was out back of the store letting water out, seen her roll down the hill. Said he’d just gone to church that morning for the first time in ten years, thought maybe it was a gift from God. It wasn’t. She was mad as a hornet and cussing everything and everybody, including him. Said what he had out wasn’t big enough to drain water, let alone use for anything else. She come out of it with some grass stains and some sticker burrs in her ass. My friend Lonnie never did go to church again. But it’s good up there at night. Nice with all them lights shining up at you.”
As they neared Holiday, alongside the road they saw oil wells poking up, and through gaps in the woods they could see more. The closer they came to the town the more wells they saw, some of them right in the city limits, even in the midst of town. There were so many they made a kind of metal forest.
“It ain’t been no time that this here wasn’t nothing but a burg, now it’s got ten thousand people,” Clyde said. “Wildcatters, roughnecks, gamblers, thugs and whores. Oil makes people crazy, same way as gold- Damn. Ruts are near up to the axle. This ain’t so much a street as a goddamn mud hole.”
“See a hat on the ground,” Hillbilly said, “most likely you’ll find a man under it. Sitting on a horse.”
A few mules and cars were slogging through the mud-rutted street, but for the most part traffic had stopped, and a crowd, whites and coloreds, had gathered near the new picture show. The white folks were in front, the coloreds lingered back a ways, lest they somehow be considered part of the problem. Folks hid themselves behind cars or poked their heads around the edges of buildings. A number of them were armed.
“I don’t think you ought to drive up there,” Sunset said.
“Don’t know I can,” Clyde said. “Go much farther, we might never get out of the mud. Be hard enough just to turn it around.”
Clyde managed the truck onto a patch of solid ground, off the road, parked a pretty good distance away. They got out and walked along the wooden sidewalk opposite the picture show. Hillbilly was carrying the shotgun, and Clyde had the revolver in his hand, letting it dangle by his side.
The crowd turned to look at them.
“They’re trying to figure that badge on your shirt,” Hillbilly said. “Or in the case of the men, the hill on which it rests.”
“Just keep walking,” Sunset said.
They could see Morgan over there, and the other deputy. They were behind a parked truck. A dead mule lay halfway in the muddy street and halfway on the sidewalk. Its head was a mess and it had passed a pile of turds. They were still steaming.
“Shot the doodie out of him,” Clyde said.
At the mouth of the picture show, they could see a door was partly open, and what was keeping it that way was a man’s leg. There was blood all around the door and a white hat was upside down on the sidewalk. Sunset concluded the body was the sheriff.
When they got even with the picture show there wasn’t any way to get across other than to go through the mud.
“I can tote you if you want,” Clyde said.
Sunset considered this, concluded the constable being carried across mud like a child wasn’t the impression she wanted to make.
She said, “I’m the constable, I ought to act like one.”
“You ain’t the constable in this town,” Hillbilly said.
“They asked for me, so I got to look the part.”
“Who said the constable has to be muddy?” Clyde said.
Sunset hiked her dress to her thighs. Hillbilly grinned, said, “Damn. Reckon you’re right. Walk across on your own.”
As they crossed, she glanced repeatedly at the theater, but no one came out to take a shot at her. The sign on the theater said THE STRAND, and the marquee said “ANIMAL CRACKERS starring the Marx Brothers.”
When they got to the other side, mud was caked on Sunset’s calves. She hated to lower her skirt into the mud, but decided she wouldn’t be as handy if she had to walk around holding it up. She also noted that men who had been worried about the man in the theater had stopped to pay attention to her. As had some women, who looked on, disapproving from the sidelines.
At least, she thought, it takes them away from looking at my bruised face.
Driven up on the sidewalk was one of the city’s two police cars. The other they had passed coming into town, parked behind a pickup where Morgan had left it.
Behind the car was Morgan and a badged man she assumed was Rooster. Rooster was long and lanky and wore a tall brown hat with a wide brim. His clothes hung on him like he was made of sticks, and his pants were stuffed into boots with big red eagles stitched on the toes. His ears looked as if they could flap and carry him away. His face was blushed all over, like he had just been scalded.
“He told me you was a woman,” Rooster said.
“Was a woman when he saw me, still am now,” Sunset said.
“I ain’t complaining. Need all the help I can get.”
“What happened?” Hillbilly said.
“Don’t rightly know it all,” Rooster said. “Lillian, she’s the one takes the tickets, said this here colored fella, everyone calls him Smoky, come up to the window, said he wanted to buy a ticket. She wouldn’t sell him one, of course.”
“You got day features?” Clyde asked.
“Now and then,” Rooster said. “With so many loafers around town now, they can bring in the day trade.”
“Damn,” Clyde said. “Going to a movie in the middle of the day. Ain’t that something?”
“Forget the day features,” Sunset said. “Go on. Tell it.”
Rooster nodded. “Lillian told him this wasn’t no colored theater. He said something about didn’t it have a colored section, and she said no, and he went home and got a shotgun. She seen him coming and she ducked down in the ticket booth. He went inside and Lillian run for it. She come and got us. Smoky run everybody out of the show, and when we come over with the sheriff, and the sheriff went up there to talk to him, he got as far as the door, as you can see, and Smoky cut down on him.”
“Sheriff knew Smoky,” Morgan said. “Thought he’d be okay. I told him you can’t tell nothing about a nigger. They can turn on you like a cottonmouth. I knew of one once got mad at his wife and cut his own throat with a butter knife. Had to saw through for about five minutes before it killed him. But he did it.”
“Still,” Rooster said, “I ain’t never heard of nobody wanting to see a picture show that bad, have you?”
“Can’t say I have,” Sunset said. “But I guess now that picture show has a colored section.”
“Reckon so.”
“He might have really wanted to win them dishes,” Clyde said.
“Thing is,” Rooster said, “if Smoky ain’t a big enough problem, couple times the crowd has threatened to burn down the picture show. I ain’t been to the show yet. And neither have a lot of folks in this town, and we don’t want to see it burned. And there’s the colored fella. They want to lynch him. I reckon he’s got it coming, but I’m the law, and the law is supposed to do these things-the arresting-not a bunch of thugs, and a judge and a jury are supposed to do the killing if he needs it. And he needs it.”
“What about the grocer?” Sunset asked.
“Tried to go in there like a bad man, got his leg shot off. Didn’t get as far as the sheriff. Wasn’t six feet from the car here when Smoky poked that shotgun out and cut down on him. Told him not to try it, but did he listen? No. Ain’t no one listens to me. He got toted off to the doctor over in Tyler. One we got here’s all right if you got a cold. But don’t get shot. Dumb bastard, going in like that. From now on he’s gonna have to hop to work.”
“What happened to the mule?” Hillbilly asked.
“Smoky took a second shot at the grocer, who was crawling behind the car here, mule got frightened from all the noise, broke from its owner, run up here and Smoky shot it.”
“Why?”
“Beats me.”
“What kind of shotgun he got?” Clyde asked. “A pump?”
“That’s it,” Rooster said.
“Damn,” Clyde said.
“Is Smoky still there at the door?”
“Don’t know. Don’t want to go find out. Oh, hell. Here comes Phillip Macavee.”
Sunset turned. A short man with a tall black hat and a belly that could have used a wheelbarrow under it was crossing the street, moving through the mud as if doing a high-step march. The crowd was getting braver as well. They moved out from behind cars and stood as if waiting for Macavee to give them the word to follow.
“Who’s Macavee?” Sunset asked.
“Owns a well, thinks cause he’s got money that makes his dick not stink-oh, sorry, miss.”
“That’s all right.”
“Used to drive a pickup truck and gather up garbage. But he got lucky with a well. Been stirring everybody up. He’s the main one says we ought to burn the place down. He’s the one got the grocer worked up. The idea of a nigger hung up or on fire is just the sort of thing that would make him sleep good.”
Just before Macavee reached them, Rooster said, “That nigger is gonna shoot anybody, wish he’d do it now, clip that Macavee one.”
Macavee kept coming until he stood in front of Sunset.
He studied Sunset a moment, said, “Listen here, young lady. You ought to take that badge off. Ought to be home with some children, or some dolls. This ain’t no place for play. Me and some of the boys think we ought to drive a car right up to the front door there, blazing away, and have some others come in the back. If we can’t get close enough to shoot the nigger, we could toss some gasoline, get a fire going. Burn that picture show and that burr head both to the ground.”
Sunset jerked the revolver out of the holster, and with a motion quicker than she’d’ve thought she could muster, fanned the barrel alongside Macavee’s body, over his shoulder, and back behind his jaw toward her.
It was a good blow. There was a meaty noise and Macavee’s head jerked up and his hat leaped away. He seemed to focus on Sunset a second, then fell straight toward her.
Sunset moved just in time to let his face hit the mud. His forehead banged the edge of the board sidewalk.
There was a moment of silence.
Sunset looked at the crowd. There were a lot of open mouths. “Any of them decide they’re coming for me,” she said, “shoot above their heads first. Second time, shoot to wound.”
“Is blowing off a leg considered a wound?” Clyde said.
“I’ll be damned,” Rooster said, looking at Macavee. “Wish to hell I’d thought of that. I just asked him to shut up.”
Morgan flipped Macavee over. His forehead had a strip of blood where he had hit the board sidewalk and his face was coated in mud.
“I didn’t kill him, did I?” Sunset said.
“Nope,” Clyde said. “But he wakes up, you could tell him he’s a waitress on a gambling boat and he’d believe it.”
“I took your advice.”
“You sure did. That’s what Pete used to do.”
The crowd, which had been following Macavee, moved back a step.
Sunset said, “Go on, folks. All Smoky would have to do is point and pull, and about half of you would be in the rest of you folks’ pockets.”
The crowed grumbled, backed up, found places behind cars or where they thought they were out of scattergun range.
Sunset put the revolver back in the holster, turned to Rooster, said, “Well, Smoky needs arresting.”
“We done figured that,” Morgan said. “Sheriff thought so too. But that didn’t work out.”
“Guess I’ll have to go in and get him.”
“You’re kidding us, right?” Morgan said.
“I don’t think so.”
“You’re here to help,” Clyde said. “You ain’t the one to do no arresting.”
Sunset smiled at him, started around the front of the car, onto the sidewalk.
“Miss,” Rooster said, “you ought not do that.”
“You going in there to get him?” Sunset asked.
“No, I ain’t,” Rooster said.
“Morgan?”
“Ain’t planning on it.”
She looked at Clyde. “I think we’re just about out of law enforcement. So that leaves it to me.”
“And me,” Clyde said.
“I guess I have to chime in on that, too,” Hillbilly said. “But I want someone to note that I said I thought this was a damn bad idea.”
“Noted,” Sunset said.
“I want someone to note it ain’t gonna get killed, so they’ll remember I said it.”
“Got you covered,” Rooster said. “On the note part, and with a gun. But I ain’t getting around in front of that car, and I advise you to step on back this way, ma’am.”
“I’ll do it,” Clyde said.
“No, you won’t,” Sunset said. “Last time I looked, I was the boss. Give me that slap jack.”
She unbuttoned the top two buttons on her shirt and took the slap jack from Clyde and slipped it inside her shirt so that it hung under her bra and under her left arm.
Sunset started walking toward the theater.
“Now’s the time for me to tell you I ain’t much of a shot,” Rooster said.
Sunset paused. “Can any of you hit anything?”
“I couldn’t hit an elephant in the ass with a two-by-four if I was standing behind him,” Hillbilly said.
“I can,” Clyde said.
“Then drape over the hood there, and keep a bead on the door.”
Clyde leaned over the hood and pointed the pistol. “Don’t walk in front of me,” he said. “Sticks his head out, ain’t asking questions. He gets popped. And watch it. You’re about to step in mule shit.”
Gun drawn, Sunset came to the open door and didn’t find Smoky behind it. She stepped over the sheriff’s body. Blood was on the floor and drying and it stuck to her shoes like gum. Nearby, a box of yellow giveaway dishes lay overturned and broken.
She made bloody tracks to the dark entrance, where she could hear movie voices. She stuck her head inside. It took a moment for her eyes to adjust, but pretty soon she could see Smoky’s head. He was sitting in an aisle seat, the shotgun propped against his shoulder like a sentry.
Sunset didn’t know how good a shot she was. She might hit him from where she was, but if she missed, well, there would be a blazing gun battle. She figured that happened, she would wind up on the bad end of the program. Already Smoky had one man dead, one man crippled, one mule harvested. A redheaded woman wearing a constable’s badge wouldn’t be much of a reach.
She put her gun away, said, “Smoky.”
Smoky turned his head slowly, like it didn’t matter. She couldn’t see his features, just a black face in shadows and screen flickers.
“My name is Sunset. I’m the constable over at Camp Rapture.”
“That the sawmill place?” Smoky said.
“Yes.”
“You’re a woman.”
“Everyone seems to notice.”
“You sure you the sheriff?”
“Constable. Almost the same thing. I’m supposed to bring you out and they’re going to arrest you. That’s the way it has to be.”
“They’re gonna hang me. Cut my balls off first, make me suffer. I seen it done once. They even set the man on fire before they hanged him.”
“I’m not going to let that happen.”
“That’s what you say.”
“I got some men out there will help me see it don’t happen.”
“They gonna give me the ’lectric chair.”
“You’ll get a fair trial.”
“Colored don’t get fair trials.”
“You killed a man, Smoky.”
“Didn’t have nothing against that sheriff. He was a good man. Just wanted to watch a picture show. Ain’t never seen one. Ought to be able to watch a picture show. They could have a colored section. They could put a curtain up between us and them or something. Wouldn’t have to see our faces.”
“You don’t go with me, do it my way, Smoky, you will be lynched.”
“They’ll kill me anyway. Nice and legal.”
“Not with your pants down, cut up and tortured. Everyone seeing you humiliated. You want that?”
Smoky turned back to the movie. “I don’t regret that ole grocer none. And I don’t like mules either.”
Sunset eased forward, slipped into the seat behind Smoky.
“You let me finish the picture show?” Smoky asked.
“I can arrange that.”
“I’ll keep the shotgun till then.”
“I’ll tell them outside,” Sunset said.
“That ain’t a real mustache, is it?”
“What?”
“Not you. That fella, in the movie, he ain’t got a real mustache, does he?”
Sunset looked at the screen. “I think it’s painted on.”
“That’s what I thought. That’s supposed to be funny, ain’t it?”
“I’ll go out now, talk to them.”
“I had to start that thing up there, what’s it called, a camera?”
“Projector, I think.”
“Had to do that so I could see it from the first. Figured it out. I was always good figuring stuff like that out. I could have worked here.”
“I’ll be going out now, Smoky.”
“I rubbed my ass around in this seat real good, gave it a real dose of nigger butt, that’s what I did. Don’t tell them which seat. That way someone’s got to sit in it.”
“We’ll keep it between me and you.”
Sunset stood up slowly and walked out of the theater.
Rooster said, “Really think he’s gonna let you take him when that picture’s over? Whatever he’s been drinking, you been drinking some of it too.”
“Why don’t we have you get him a little picnic lunch when you go back in,” Morgan said. “Some chicken and light bread. Maybe some pie.”
“Might not be a bad idea,” Sunset said. “Hillbilly, go over to the cafe, see can you rustle up something already cooked. Tell them the law will pay for it. Have them sign a receipt or something.”
Hillbilly started slogging across the mud.
“Which law is gonna pay for it?” Rooster asked.
“Your town, your bill,” Sunset said.
“Can’t believe you’re gonna go back in there,” Morgan said. “And with a goddamn picnic lunch.”
“Beats a shoot-out,” Sunset said.
“I’ll go back in with you,” Clyde said.
“I don’t want to scare him, make him think I’m going back on my word.”
“Why don’t we show him an extra picture, maybe a cartoon,” Morgan said. “Hell, woman, why don’t you offer him a piece?”
Before Sunset could respond to that, Clyde hit Morgan on the jaw with his fist. Morgan did a kind of hop, twisted, fell face forward into the pile of mule dung, next to the dead mule’s ass.
“He was building up to that,” Clyde said, “and finally he got there.”
“Give him about half a minute,” Sunset said. “Then pull him out so he can breathe.”
“People seen you do that,” Rooster said. “They seen you hit an officer of the law, Clyde.”
“Yeah,” Clyde said. “Think they did. But since I’m kind of an officer of the law, maybe that evens it out.”
Hillbilly came hustling across the mud with a plate covered with a red-and-white-check napkin.
“I had to get this off of a fella’s plate. He didn’t like it none. I didn’t get nothing to drink. It’s just chicken and biscuits.”
“Let me have it,” Sunset said, and started back inside.
“What happened to Morgan there?” Hillbilly asked.
“Fainted,” Clyde said.
When Sunset disappeared into the theater, Rooster said, “I think Morgan has been in that mule shit for a whole minute or two now.”
“Reckon you’re right,” Clyde said.
“We ought to turn him,” Rooster said.
“I’m studying on it.”
Inside, Sunset gave Smoky the chicken and biscuits. He took it and ate, watched the picture. She looked at the movie but couldn’t hear it. Her ears wouldn’t listen. All she could think about was Smoky and the shotgun. She quietly pulled the pistol and laid it in her lap, her hand on it.
When the movie was over Smoky set the plate on the floor in the aisle, stood up and gave Sunset the shotgun.
“It ain’t loaded nohow,” Smoky said. “Was, I’d have shot myself. I just had them shells I used. I shouldn’t have shot the sheriff.”
“Let’s go on out, Smoky.”
“I did get to see me a picture show.”
“You did,” Sunset said.
“Maybe I ought to shut the projector off.”
“That’s all right. Someone else will do it.”
They went up the aisle, and when they got to the door, Smoky paused at the sheriff’s body.
“Happened so fast,” he said. “Brought the gun up and shot him. I didn’t even think about it.”
While they were pausing at the door, Sunset said, “Clyde. Hillbilly. Y’all come and help me.”
With Smoky between Clyde and Hillbilly, they walked him to the police car where Rooster stood, pistol drawn. Morgan was up, sitting on the sidewalk. There was mule shit on his face. Macavee was in the back of the police car, face caked with mud.
Smoky said, “They look like they come out of a minstrel show, their faces all darked up like that.”
“We’re taking Smoky with us,” Sunset said.
“Okay by me,” Rooster said.
Sunset reached inside her shirt, pulled out the slap jack, gave it to Clyde, said, “Okay, Smoky, start moving.”
They plodded through the mud, past the grumbling white crowd and the quietly observing negroes.
“Them peckerwoods just gonna break me out of jail and kill me,” Smoky said.
“You’re not going to this jail,” Sunset said.
They walked him to the truck, sat him in the truck bed with Clyde and his shotgun. Hillbilly drove them out of there with only the slightest grinding of gears.
Hillbilly said, “That was a brave thing you done.”
“Maybe.”
“Where we taking him?”
“Tyler.”
Hillbilly reached over, touched Sunset’s hand. “You are one brave woman,” he said.
It was a good distance to Tyler, and by the time they got Smoky delivered to the jail, it was dark.
Clyde drove on the way back, not liking Hillbilly’s motoring style. When they pulled into the yard, the truck lights shone on the big black-and-white dog standing near the water pump. It darted into the woods.
“Poor thing,” Sunset said. “I’ll put some food out.”
“You’ll have a dog you do,” Clyde said.
“That’s not so bad,” Sunset said.
Hillbilly got out, held out his hand, helped Sunset down.
“Guess I’ll see you tomorrow,” Hillbilly said.
“Good night, Sunset,” Clyde said.
“I’m not much of a law having to depend on a borrowed truck,” she said. “What happens things go wrong at night?”
“Hope they don’t,” Clyde said. “Come on, Hillbilly. Let’s go. I got to get some sleep. And you hold on to her hand too long, it’s likely to come off.”
“See you tomorrow,” Hillbilly said again.
Clyde drove them away.
Sunset noticed the dog lying under a big oak, his head on his paws, looking at her.
“Come on, boy,” she said. “Come on.” But the dog didn’t budge.
She walked toward him slowly, and he still didn’t move. But when she was within ten feet of him, he jumped up and growled, then scampered into the woods.
Sunset sighed, stopped to study the stars she could see through the tall tops of the trees. Now that the rain had passed the sky was void of clouds and the stars stood out clear and bright as the eyes of a newborn. She could see shapes in the sky made by the stars and she tried to find the Big Dipper, but there were too many trees. She could only see a small pattern of stars and none of them seemed to be the Big Dipper, or the Little Dipper, for that matter.
Inside the tent, Karen was sleeping. Her breathing was loud and even. The dress she had put on that morning was draped over the back of a chair. She lay on the mattress with the covers pulled over her head, the lantern sitting on the floor, glowing with what kerosene was left.
Sunset hated to see the kerosene wasted when not needed. Too expensive. But she made a mental note not to say anything about it. Not unless it happened again.
She pulled off her shirt and skirt, tossed them on the chair with Karen’s clothes. She had quit wearing slips and girdles, a real scandal in these parts. She thought as constable she might need to move fast, and too many undergarments hindered that. It was comfortable to sit on the edge of the mattress on the floor in her bra and panties.
Thinking about the day, she trembled, thought: Good Lord, woman, when did you get so bold? What if Smoky had had another shell for his shotgun and decided not to use it on himself? What then?
She blew out the lamp, climbed under the covers, tried to sleep, but sleep wouldn’t come.
She lay there for a time, heard movement outside, around the tent. She suspected the dog.
She slipped on her skirt and blouse, picked up her pistol, eased to the opening, gently untied the flap. She took several deep breaths, then flipped the flap back and stepped barefoot into the night.
The dog wasn’t there, but she did see a figure moving into the woods, quickly. A man. A very large man. She yelled, “Who is it?” but there was no answer, just the buzz of a mosquito in her ear.
Looking down, she saw an empty milk bottle next to the tent opening. Inside it was a rolled piece of paper.
Sunset studied the woods for a while, finally picked up the bottle, went inside, tied the flap shut. She went to the business side of the tent, behind the curtain of blankets and quilts, put the pistol on the table, lit the lamp there, shook the rolled paper from the bottle.
She spread the paper on the tabletop.
smokey my cuzin-got tole whad yew did-yew dun rite-yew wuz rite by Smokey-he’z goner git whad he dun got fer hisself bud you dun dun good by hem and i have you no i hep you any tym yew needs it i is yers to cal on fer any kines of thangs-ther all kines of thangs i no.
Bull
Bull. She had heard of Bull. If it was the same man, and surely it was. How many Bulls were there? His name was Bull Thomas, and he was a big black man that lived deep in the woods. Said to be well over six foot tall and over three foot wide, and when you found his footprints in the woods, the size boot he wore had to be at least a twenty-two. Because of that, it was said he made his own boots. She had even heard rumor that the boots were made out of a white man’s ass. Guy wandered onto his property, and Bull shot him and made those boots.
Sunset smiled as she thought about that. Who had survived to tell this tale? Was it the white man? Wounded, his ass cut off, crawling out of the woods to tell the tale?
Story was, Bull’s land was booby-trapped, and so was his house. He had set it up that way some years ago when Klan members decided he was too uppity. They had rode horseback through the dense woods out to his place to teach him a lesson. One of the horses got in a bear trap and had to be shot on the spot. One of the Knights of the White Carnation fell in a pit and broke his leg, and Bull shot another one in the arm.
The Klan decided that Bull was more than they wanted, and had since let bygones be bygones because Bull had put out the word if he ever saw them again he’d shoot to kill, that he wasn’t impressed by their sheets, had sheets himself, but was smart enough to know they went on the bed, not over your head.
Bull was the only colored man Sunset knew of who could talk that way to white men and get away with it. Partly because he stayed back in the deeper parts of the woods on his booby-trapped property, and partly because he wasn’t frightened of much of anything and was willing to fight back, and partly because a lot of whites wanted to keep him happy and healthy because he was said to make the best whisky in these parts.
Sunset rolled the note up, shoved it back in the bottle. She found a flashlight, blew out the lantern, went to the other side of the tent and looked through her supplies. She found some hardened corn dodgers she had cooked up, took them outside and walked over to the oak where she had last seen the dog.
She put the corn dodgers on the ground, called for the dog. He didn’t come and she didn’t see or hear him. She gathered up the dodgers, went back and undressed, went to bed, the gun by her side.
It was a long time before she finally drifted off, dreaming about the poor baby, about Pete, and why he bothered to bury the child. She dreamed about the Marx Brothers movie, Smoky and the shotgun, the poor dead sheriff, the poor dead mule. Over and over, she could see herself pulling her pistol, really fast, fanning it against the back of Macavee’s jaw, and him going down face first in the mud, then Morgan getting punched by Clyde, falling face forward in what that mule had left.
In her sleep she shivered a little, then chuckled.
Sunset rolled over in bed about daybreak and saw the dog was lying with his head just inside the tent flap. He had his paws under his chin and was watching her.
She slowly got out of bed.
The dog raised his head.
“Easy, boy,” she said.
She inched toward him, her hand extended. As she neared, the dog backed out of the tent.
Sunset gathered up the corn dodgers from the night before, unfastened the flap, went outside. The dog was lying down again, paws under his chin.
Sunset held out her right hand with a corn dodger in it. She held the other dodgers in her left hand.
“It’s okay,” she said. “I know what it’s like to lose family. Have em run off. Course, you ain’t never shot any of yours, have you?”
The dog looked at her, turned his head from side to side, eased forward, grabbed the dodger, stepped back, gulped it down.
Sunset held out another dodger. The dog inched over and took it. This time he did not move away. She gave him another. And another. By the time she fed him the last corn dodger she was able to put out her hand and stroke his head.
“Want to be my dog? I ain’t ever gonna run off and leave you. I promise.”
The dog licked her hand.
When Karen awoke, Sunset was dressed and cooking breakfast. Pancakes. She had also poured some molasses syrup into a pan and was heating it on the stove.
The big dog was lying on the floor near Sunset’s feet.
Sunset turned, saw Karen rise up, said, “Be easy. He’s still a little skiddish.”
“Will he bite?”
“Any dog will bite sometimes.”
“Will he bite me?”
“Not if you’re nice. Don’t scare him.”
“He don’t look scared to me.”
Sunset smiled. “Didn’t have no butter. But the syrup is warm. It’ll be on the table in a minute.”
“Are we gonna keep him?”
“Yeah. I promised him. Reckon he’s had enough promises broken.”
“What’s his name?”
“I think it’s Ben. Think Clyde said Ben. I’m gonna call him Ben, anyway. Your daddy never would let me have a dog.”
“I always wanted one too.”
“He’s a big old pretty thing, ain’t he?”
Karen nodded, got up slowly, eased out of bed.
Sunset said, “Stick out your hand, easy like, and come toward him slowly.”
Karen did that.
The dog stood up and licked her hand.
“He likes me,” Karen said.
“There’s a lot to like.”
Karen bent down and hugged the dog. The dog licked her ear.
“Hello, Ben,” Karen said.
“Wash your hands before you eat,” Sunset said.