The day was falling off now, getting toward afternoon. The horizon looked as if it had been slashed with a razor.
When she reached home, Marilyn was out to one side of the property with posthole diggers, digging away. Clyde’s truck was gone. She didn’t see anyone else.
She walked up to Marilyn.
“Where is everybody?”
“I nearly messed myself, dear, way you came up.”
“Sorry.”
“Karen is in the tent. Goose borrowed a shotgun, went squirrel hunting. Lee and Clyde said they were going into Holiday on business.”
“What business?”
“They just said business.”
“Probably a beer.”
“Maybe,” Marilyn said. “Hillbilly, he beat hell out of Clyde.”
“Hillbilly?”
“Whipped him like a galley slave.”
“I can’t believe it.”
“Believe it. He looked any worse you’d have to bury him. I think Lee went with him to cheer him up.”
Sunset nodded, said, “What are you doing?”
Marilyn smiled at her. “Digging a hole.”
“What for?”
“A clothesline. Karen said you hang clothes over bushes.”
“That’s right.”
“It’ll be easier with a clothesline.”
“I was going to dig holes and cut posts myself. Just haven’t gotten around to it. I hate shoveling. I hate chopping too. Come to think of it, I hate work.”
“Posthole diggers are better than a shovel. I can work these all day. Easier to dig a hole straight down, and deep, and you can widen it with the diggers pretty quick. A woman can handle these good. It’s kind of fun, good for you, out here in the fresh air. And from the looks of your face, maybe I ought to loan you my posthole diggers.”
“Henry won’t be with the sawmill much longer.”
“How’s that?”
Sunset told her all she knew. It came out first like a hole in the dike, a trickle, then more, till finally the dike collapsed and it flooded out.
When it was over, Sunset said, “I’m not going to cry. I’ve cried too much. All I’m doing lately is crying. I’m the constable. I’m not supposed to cry.”
“Who says?”
“I say. Except I am going to cry.”
Marilyn slammed the posthole diggers in the dirt so that they stood up, then she hugged Sunset, and Sunset cried. The gray sky had gone black and now it was night and the stars were slipping out as if being squeezed from a bag, and Sunset, she was crying.
“Hell,” Sunset said, “I ain’t supposed to cry. I’m the constable. I cried on my daddy just a bit back, and I don’t even know him. I cry all the goddamn time.”
“I hope it’s not because Henry’s quitting.”
Sunset guffawed. “No.”
“I was going to let him go anyway, soon as I looked the books over good. Figure he’s been stealing for years. Jones wouldn’t believe me when I said it, and that’s why Henry hates me. He knows I know. He knows too, deep down, I’m pretty vengeful. I can put up with a lot, like Jones, but when I’ve had enough, I let loose. Jones found that out.”
Sunset wiped her tears away with the back of her arm.
Marilyn said, “Pete come to me sometimes and cried.”
“Really? What about?”
“I don’t know. Really don’t. He’d come see me, I’d fix him something to eat, then he’d tear up.”
“All the time?”
“Now and then. But he cried about something. Cried on my shoulder like when he was little, and it was nice. He seemed like my boy then, not like the man he’d become, a man like his father.”
“I wonder if he was crying about me? Not being like he wanted, however that was.”
“I don’t know.”
“He could have cried for me. Just once. I would have liked it, same as you.”
Sunset took a deep breath, steeled herself for what she had to say next. “Daddy told me Karen is pregnant. You told him.”
“I should have told you. But when I found out Lee was your father, thought maybe he was the one to do it. Are you mad?”
“No.”
“Come on, dear. Let’s you and me go in, see what we can find for supper. I’ll finish this another time. And maybe you can talk easy to Karen. She needs support right now, like you did when you was ripe with her.”
“She ain’t all that ripe. She could get rid of it, she took a mind to.”
“I don’t think that’s the way she’ll go.”
“All right,” Sunset said. “It’s her choice, and whatever choice she makes, I’m here for her.”
“We both are.”
31
Hillbilly lay with his back propped against the headboard, smoking a rolled cigarette. He had one hand on the sleeping whore’s ass, was thinking about waking her again. She was supposed to cost, but so far she hadn’t. He had smooth-tongued her, not only in the ass, but in the ear, told her how she deserved better than the life she had, how she was pretty, and she was, except for the scar where someone had hooked a knife in her nose and cut her. But the rest of her made the scar look small. When she got naked, the scar seemed like nothing at all.
He had a lantern lit on the little table by the window, and it gave just enough light. He liked a little light when he was having sex, not just to see the woman, but so she could see him. He knew women liked to see him, way he looked. He glanced across the room, saw the guitar he had bought. It was propped in the corner. It sure beat the harmonica and the Jew’s harp. They were all right to carry a tune, but not much for making real music. A guitar, that was the instrument.
Hillbilly felt a pang of regret, remembered the colored man who had owned the harmonica, the Jew’s harp, the hobos with him. It wasn’t a thing he was proud of, cutting their throats while they slept, but he needed stuff. The harmonica and the Jew’s harp, what little money they had, a few odds and ends he wanted. Way he saw it, he did what he had to do. It was easier to cut them all while they slept.
He’d tried to rob one, made a tussle of it, he’d have had a fight, and though he was handy in a fight, he didn’t want to fight three. He learned long ago the easy way was the best way.
The hobos had been good to him, shared their food and music, but he did what he did because that was the way of the world.
Sunset had been good to him too. And one night, out on the overhang, she had been real good to him. He had hoped to carry that on longer, get the real juice out of the deal, but he couldn’t resist the daughter. He knew that would come down on him eventually, poking her.
Maybe it was time to move on, forget hanging around Holiday. Go to the next town, work some honky-tonks. Made enough money, he could live a better life. Not just more goods, but a better life. Less lying and cheating, and killing. Maybe he could do that. For a little bit, he thought he could do it with Sunset. But there was the daughter, sweet and ripe and ready to go. Seemed every time he found what he wanted, there was always something nice on the other side of the fence, and he had to reach for it.
He put his cigarette in the saucer beside the bed, rubbed the whore’s butt. She woke up and turned over. She grinned at him in the lantern light. “You’re a mighty, mighty man, Hillbilly.”
“I’m glad you seen that.”
“I don’t think you mean to pay me, do you?”
“Ain’t got no money to pay with. Spent it all renting this place for the week, buying a guitar. Wasn’t that song I sang payment enough? Hell, Jimmy Rodgers couldn’t have done no better.”
The whore laughed. “A song don’t pay nothing I got to pay, but it was nice. And I don’t know Jimmy Rodgers could do better or not. I ain’t had Jimmy Rodgers.”
“I can sing a song for another round.”
“Baby, you don’t need to. Come here.”
Clyde said, pointing the flashlight on the number painted at the top of the stairs, “This here is the place. This is the address he give me.”
Lee nodded.
It wasn’t high up there, a short run of stairs on the outside of the building, and you were there. They could see light through the window. Below the window was an alley, some garbage cans.