“That’s a long story.”
“What’s he mean there’s two of him?”
“That’s why he’s called Two. Used to just be Cecil, but that ain’t good enough no more. Now he’s Two. There’s him, then there’s the other one, but they’re both inside of him. He’s so goddamn special has to be two of him. Am I right, Two?”
Two nodded.
“Sometimes they got to talk to one another, figure things out. Ain’t that right, Two?”
“This is giving me the crawls, McBride. We got to have him around?”
“He’s good in a spot. I been in some places where me and him had to ride high, and we did.”
“He does what you say?”
“Only if he wants to. Most of the time, he wants to. We got a connection.”
“Is he dangerous?”
“Of course he’s dangerous.”
Henry studied Two, standing there, still as a board, a smile on his face, the green eyes looking down like the eyes of some kind of feral animal. The same kind of eyes McBride had, only more so.
“Took the urge, he’d bite your face off, Henry. Eat it. Niggers got that cannibal thing in them, you know.”
Henry snapped a glance at McBride, and McBride laughed.
“Don’t worry. He ain’t gonna eat you. Not just yet. Will you, Two?”
“I think not,” Two said.
“He don’t talk like a nigger.”
“Two was educated, weren’t you, Two?”
Two nodded.
“He learned things some white men never get to learn, but Two, he got to. He can do higher mathematics, Henry. He can read any goddamn book ever written without moving his lips, and he’s read a lot of them. Ain’t that right, Two? He’s got a pretty special life. Here he is, half nigger, half white, black as the goddamn ace of spades, and his father and his nigger mother, they took care of him, treated him good, like a white man. And the father, a white man, he went off and left his other son, a white boy, to his mother, a white mother, and the mother left the son to the nuns. But the boy, he come out of it. He was tough. Made his way. He’s done all right. But he didn’t get no education. Didn’t get a thing he didn’t scratch in the dirt for. And Cecil here-Two-he got it all given to him like that black skin of his was white as snow. God smote him for being an uppity nigger, didn’t he, Two? That’s the real reason you got smote.”
“He gave me powers.”
“See, Two figures it different. Thinks God blessed him. He won’t accept a horse kicked him, knocked his brain around. That ain’t the story is it, Two?”
“God struck me with a thunderbolt, gave me powers.”
“What do you have to do in return, Two?” McBride said. “What do you have to do to put a smile on God’s face?”
“Suck souls.”
“Suck souls?” Henry said.
“Yeah. Ain’t that some shit? Likes to put his mouth over the face of a dying man or woman, and suck. He’ll do it if they’re fresh dead, too. They don’t have to be on the boat, they can done be off and on the other side, and old Two, he goes to sucking.”
“You’re pulling my dick?”
“Nope. He sucks souls. Or thinks he does.”
“I do,” Two said.
“You seen him do it?”
“I have. He helped me with that gal, he sucked her face, helped me hold her down in the oil, and then he sucked her face. Got oil all over him. It’s horseshit, though, ain’t it, Two? You’re not sucking any souls. You’re just sucking, right?”
“You know the truth, brother,” Two said. “You know I tell the truth and that I am here to assist you so that my need, God’s need for souls, can be satisfied.”
“Wait a minute,” Henry said, just getting it. “Is he… your half brother? A nigger?”
“You trying to make a point, Henry?”
“No… No. I’ve seen some nigger gals I’d have done, got the chance. It could happen. Could happen to any man, diddling a nigger. There’s half-white children all over East Texas. It don’t mean a thing outside of getting your wick dipped.”
“My daddy lived with Two’s mother. Lived with her like he was proud. Must have caught hell for it, but he done it anyway. I guess that’s what they call love, whatever it is. Figure when that nigger died, Two’s mother, that’s what drove Daddy to drink. He loved that nigger in a way he didn’t love my mother, and her white.”
Two made a sound in his throat like someone tasting something good and sweet. McBride looked up at him.
“Go back to your place,” McBride said.
Two grinned at him and sat in the pew next to McBride.
“See,” McBride said, “he don’t always do what I ask.”
30
Sunset drove away, her mind on McBride, those eyes of his, the way he moved, as if he might suddenly turn into something liquid and molten, flow over her and burn her to death. And the one called Two. Jesus. Two gave her the jumps.
Hillbilly, she thought of him too, what he had done to Karen. Hell, what he had done to her. The lying silver-tongued sonofabitch. She had given him everything and showed him everywhere, and he had played her like a fish on the line, landed her, gutted her, devoured her, gone on his way, ready to cast again.
Goddamn that Hillbilly.
It was all her fault, dealing with and trusting Hillbilly.
Her knack for picking men had not changed. It was the same. She could still pick them. As long as they were bad.
And now she had a father. After all these years, a father, and maybe, just maybe, he was okay. Still, she had to keep her guard up. Her luck, he’d probably leave one morning with her car packed full of her belongings, maybe take Ben too.
She drove by the cutoff to her tent, went on toward Holiday. Drove to the spot where Hillbilly had enjoyed her, parked there, looked out over the town, down on the blood-red apartment and the drugstore, the courthouse, looked across to the sheriff’s office, all the places of business, Main Street dotted with people and automobiles, animals and wagons, the oil wells sticking up. In the day, without the lights, it wasn’t so pretty. She heard a man say once that at night, with the light just right, any whore that wasn’t big as a house could look pretty, but in the light of the day, a whore was a whore and looked that way. Holiday was a whore.
She took the pistol from its holster, checked it for loads. It had five. She put in another. Six now. She spun the cylinder. Sat for a while. Backed the car around, drove on into town.
She went along the streets slow, hoping to see him, but no sign. She stopped, went into the cafe. No Hillbilly. She tried a number of other spots but didn’t find him. People on the street, they saw her face, they stepped aside.
Walked all over, but didn’t find him. Finally, she felt weak, as if she were recovering from some kind of disease. The Hillbilly disease. The fever was breaking.
She knew then she couldn’t find him. Must not find him. Couldn’t let that happen. Not right now. Not the way she felt. Not with six loads in her gun. She did, she’d do what she wanted to do, and she couldn’t do that. She was the law. She had Karen to take care of. That old abandoned dog, Ben, who she’d promised not to leave. She had to watch after him. And now she had her father, and there was that silly kid too, the one they called Goose. He probably came with the package. Maybe he had a goddamn dog somewhere, with three or four pups perhaps, a sister with a cat.
No. She couldn’t do what she wanted. She had to do something, but shooting Hillbilly in the head wasn’t it, fine as the thought seemed right then. She’d be crucified. Not only because she’d be guilty as homemade sin, but because, as Henry said, so many hated her. An uppity woman. Almost as bad as an uppity nigger. No. Worse. She was not only a woman and uppity, she was a nigger lover, way they saw it. A woman with a badge and a gun, her husband dead by her hand. She ought to be bent over a stove, cooking, her dress hiked up with a husband entering her from behind while she used one foot to turn a butter churn, the other to rock a cradle.
She walked back to her car like she was stomping ants, drove away.