“It’s strange really. Sometimes I look at a tree, or a bush, or whatever, and I see it for what it is. Something dying. Everything that lives is just something dying. It’s not a wonderful revelation. I no longer feel the need to bathe or to even clean my surroundings. I want them as foul as I feel. Does that make sense to you?”
“I suppose,” I said.
“I am bathed not in the blood of Christ, but in the darkness of lost revelations. A pompous way of saying there is nothing to my life but emptiness. Do you ever feel that way?”
“Sometimes,” I said. “But it passes. As Leonard has pointed out, I’m like the guy goes out in the yard and steps in a pile of horse shit, and where he or someone else would say, goddamn, I’ve stepped in horse shit, me, I’m looking for the pony.”
Silence for a while. Then: “What I will do,” Herman said, “is I’ll take you to find this girl. I’ll help you find her and take her away.”
“Brett will appreciate that,” I said.
“I will appreciate it myself,” Herman said. “Perhaps I’m no less selfish than before. I’m not doing this for Brett. Or you. Or even to save my little brother. I’m doing it for me.”
20
Next morning I rode with Herman in his truck to drop his prairie dogs at his distributor’s ranch. Money changed hands, the dogs were unloaded, and we drove back.
When we got to the church and parked, we saw Brett out back of the place running a water hose over her naked body. In the rosy morning sunlight, her wet red hair cascading over her pale freckled shoulders, the thin line of fiery hair on her pubic mound, her breasts swaying as she bent beneath the water hose, I had a feeling I had just glimpsed what heaven must offer twenty-four hours a day. With maybe a fifteen-minute break for some kind of tonic.
With the water running hard, Brett hadn’t noticed us. She swished, turned and bent and showed us her bottom, then turned and saw us. She frowned, shrugged her shoulders and went back to it.
We just sat in the truck, not knowing what to do. Finally, I opened the door and got out and Herman did the same. We walked around to the front of the church.
Herman said, “I just remembered why I like women.”
“Yep,” I said. “Me too.”
“She’s your woman, isn’t she?”
“She’s her own woman, but she lets me hang out with her.”
“For the first time in a while, I want to take a bath.”
“Just a few kinds words, Herman,” I said. “You need it.”
The door to the church was open, and when we looked in Red was tied up and gagged and lying where Brett had been. Herman went inside and began untying him. I didn’t try to stop him.
When the gag was removed, Red began to sputter. “That nigger did this.”
“Ixnay on the iggernay,” I said. “I don’t like it, and Leonard, he likes it less.”
“He tied me up for talking too much,” Red said. “He said I was a nuisance.”
“You are a nuisance,” Herman said.
“Et tu Brute?” Red said.
“Where is Leonard?” I asked.
“I don’t care,” Red said. “I can’t believe this. He tied me up like a prize pig and left me here. He’ll pay for that. My mother used to put me in the closet, lock me in when she wanted to be rid of me. I told myself I would never allow another person to do what she did.”
“We’ve been doing it for days,” I said.
“That’s right,” Red said, “you have. And I promise there will be reprisal.”
“I’m going to help them,” Herman said.
“What?” Red said.
Herman nodded. “That’s right. I haven’t done much with my life, Red, and you’ve done nothing with yours. Let’s do something constructive for a change.”
“Rescuing a whore?” Red said. “Are we saving her from a fate worse than death? I have news for all you knights, Tillie’s cherry has long been removed from the box and the cherry’s consumed and the box is trampled, if you get my meaning.”
“That has nothing to do with it,” I said. “We’re not rescuing her from sex. We’re trying to rescue her from abuse.”
“She’s been abused so long she thinks it’s foreplay,” Red said.
“I think perhaps one day she figured out it wasn’t,” I said. “That’s why she wants to come home.”
Brett appeared in the doorway wrapped in a towel that didn’t cover too much. Another towel was wound around her head and hair. She was carrying a bar of soap. “It’s hard to have privacy here,” she said.
“Wow!” Red said. “Lady, may I say you could be serious money on the hoof if you wanted to trade professions.”
“No thanks,” Brett said. “I borrowed some soap and some shampoo, Herman. My suggestion is you take advantage of it as well. And these towels could use some soap themselves.”
“Herman and I were just discussing his body odor,” I said.
“I hope you weren’t discussing anything else,” she said.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “We had no idea what you were doing.”
“And you spent a while making sure you had no idea,” she said.
“We couldn’t move,” Herman said. “The blood had sunk to our lower extremities.”
“I know where it sunk to,” Brett said. “Leonard tied the turd here up so I could shower and he could nap in the car.”
“Herman is going to help find Tillie,” I said.
“That right?” Brett said, and for the first time in days she looked excited.
“Yes,” Herman said.
Brett walked over to the end of the pew where her clothes lay. She took hold of her panties, and very deftly put them on without losing the towel or giving us a sideshow.
“When do we start?” she asked.
“Today,” Herman said. “The sooner the better.”
Brett slipped on her jeans. It was like the reverse of a snake wiggling out of its skin. “That’s good,” she said. “That’s real good.” She turned, pulled the towel from her body, tossed it on a pew. With her naked back to us she pulled on her shirt while we held our breath. She removed the towel from her head, shook her hair, and when she turned the shirt was half buttoned and her hair fell against it and dampened her breasts. She pulled a long comb from her back pants pocket and began carefully dragging it through her wet hair.
“How long after you three get through looking at my titties are we going to do this thing?” Brett asked.
“We could look a long time,” Red said.
“But we won’t,” Herman said. “We’ll do this soon as the three of you are ready.”
We talked briefly and made some general plans. Brett recovered her revolver where she had hidden it outside under an overturned bucket, stuffed it in her pants, and while Herman stripped off out back and bathed, we went out to see Leonard.
I opened the back seat door and tapped him on the leg. He squirmed, and I tapped him again. When he rolled over, he had a pistol in his hand.
I said, “Howdy.”
He put the gun away, mumbled something and sat up. He rubbed his neck and the back of his head and finally said, “First thing I want to do when I can is jack off, take a good shower, and sleep in a good bed. Maybe eat a steak and a bag of vanilla cookies. I need some cheering up.”
“I don’t feel so spiffy myself,” I said.
“Me neither,” Brett said.
“Sorry about that masturbation line,” Leonard said.
“That’s all right,” Brett said. “I’d like a good fingering myself.”
“Herman is going to help Brett find Tillie,” I said.
Leonard nodded, got out of the car and leaned against it. He said, “That’s good. I’m glad. When are we going?”
“Pretty quick,” I said.
“Those two,” Leonard said. “Can we trust them?”
“Herman, maybe,” I said. “Red, not at all. There’s other problems. We got to go to Mexico sneaky like. We can’t just walk across the border with our guns and enough ammunition to start a revolution.”