her.
She was hoping the woman who had killed her son was fine.
5
As the sun rose, pink and oozing through the woods like a leaky blood blister, Sunset discovered she too was bleeding. Not only from the wounds Pete had given her, but also from the fresh ones she’d gotten from her daughter, scratches and bites, additional damage from mosquitoes and ants. Sleeping on the ground had gotten dirt in the wounds and made them itch. Her side and stomach hurt, and she didn’t even remember being hit there. Maybe had, maybe hadn’t, might have just rolled on something, a root or rock.
She was sitting on the bank of Sawmill Creek, where she and Karen had spent the night beneath a big elm tree. She was sitting there feeling the morning sun, looking at her daughter, lying where she had finally cried herself to sleep, angry and confused, her hands clenched, her face squeezed up like a fist, damp leaves mashed against her cheeks and overalls.
Sunset turned away from Karen, studied the creek, watched as black button-sized bugs skirted over the water and some long-legged spider things ran over its surface as if imitating Jesus in a hurry.
The water was clay red from the storm, looked like blood, and it was flowing fast and loud along the new lines of the bank. The tornado had knocked all manner of stuff ass-over-heels, torn up trees, caused the old high line of the embankment to break up. When the warm wind blew, Sunset could smell fish rotting.
She tried to concentrate on the water and not think about Pete, but she couldn’t do it. She repeated the events over and over in her mind, trying to find a place where she might have done something different. Kept thinking she’d wake up and it would be a bad dream. But that didn’t happen. She was wide awake, sitting on the bank of Sawmill Creek sticky with sweat.
She lifted her hand to wipe her face, discovered she was still holding the gun. She had held it while she was telling her daughter what happened, held it while her daughter, in a moment of savage confusion, had hit her with her fists, clawed her with her nails, and bit her.
When Karen wore out, fell to the ground crying, Sunset tried to comfort her, tried to explain, but Karen put her hands over her ears and made a noise so she wouldn’t have to hear it.
Finally, Karen fell asleep to hide from Sunset and the world, and Sunset lay down and slept a little, her finger off the trigger, but the gun still in her hand, the smell of the powder still in her nose, the sound of the shot still in her head.
She put the pistol in the pocket of her mother-in-law’s loose housedress, and having it out of her hand, even if it was close, made her nervous.
She was suddenly glad she hadn’t had it with her the day she fought Pete’s girlfriend, Jimmie Jo French. She found out Pete was running around on her and blamed it on Jimmie Jo. Confronted her out front of the company store at Camp Rapture, went at her like a tiger. If she’d had the pistol with her then, the undertaker might have been wiping Jimmie Jo’s ass and that wouldn’t have been something she could have lived with, killing Jimmie Jo in a fit of jealousy.
She realized now Jimmie Jo was no more to blame than Pete. What she had been really angry about at the time was she had heard rumor Pete bought Jimmie Jo nice things. Clothes, even jewelry. Pete never bought her anything. She thought for a while she might not be good in bed, and had done her all to fix the problem, thinking she’d make it so he’d like how he was getting it at home and get over Jimmie Jo, but that hadn’t changed things. He stayed angry all the time, slapping her, punching her, forcing her legs apart while he rammed her like he was trying to poke a hole through a concrete wall, and if he liked it, she couldn’t tell, it was just a thing he did, finishing up, getting off her like he was disgusted.
And he hadn’t given up Jimmie Jo. Sometimes he came in smelling of her, not even bothering to clean the smell off before coming home, not caring if she knew, maybe happy she did. Sunset could never figure for what crime she was being punished.
Sunset wondered where Jimmie Jo was now. If she’d heard about Pete being killed, and how she felt about it. “Howdy.”
Sunset looked up. A man was standing nearby. Sunset stood, felt like wires were being pulled inside of her and the wires had hooks and the hooks were hitched to her vitals.
She studied him. He didn’t look like trouble. They never look like trouble, she thought. Pete hadn’t looked like trouble when he started courting her when she was sixteen. He seemed fine enough and a good choice when they first married, until two weeks later, the night she had a cold and didn’t want to bed him and he made her, and made her many times thereafter.
She put her hand in her pocket. She was glad she had the gun.
“You two hoboing?” the man said. “Don’t see many women on the road.”
Sunset said, “We’re not on the road.”
“That’s good. You’re a good bit away from the rails.”
“So are you,” she said.
“Guess I am.”
The man wore a crumpled wool hat. It looked too big for him. He took it off and smiled at her. She noted he was nice-looking and maybe not as young as he first appeared. He had a little sack tied to his belt. Over one eye was a small black bruise.
“I’m looking for work. Some bo’s told me there was a sawmill hiring.”
“I don’t know if they’re hiring,” Sunset said, “but you follow the creek west a ways, and you’ll see it.”
She started to say he would have to talk to her father-in-law, Mr. Jones, or the Captain, but she couldn’t make the words come out. He wasn’t her father-in-law now. She didn’t have anyone but Karen and Karen hated her. Well, maybe she had Marilyn. The whole thing with Marilyn hitting her, then hugging her, had not quite registered yet.
“That girl,” he said, “she ain’t dead, is she? You didn’t shoot her? I seen you put that gun in your pocket. You ain’t gonna shoot me, are you?”
“That’s my daughter. She’s sleeping. We had a storm come through. Tore up our home.”
“Reckon I caught the tail end of that one. I was in a boxcar at the time. Kind of scared me. Thought the damn thing was gonna turn over. You hunting? A pistol ain’t the best for squirrels.”
“No. I’m not hunting.”
“Well, nice to meet you. If your daughter was awake I’d say nice to meet her. Storm bang you up like that?”
“It was a storm, all right.”
“My name’s Hillbilly.”
“Mine’s Sunset. Daughter’s name is Karen.”
“You sure got pretty hair. Your daughter’s got pretty hair too, but it ain’t the same as yours. Yours is fire, hers is a raven’s wing.”
“She got her daddy’s hair,” Sunset said.
“Reckon I’ll go on now, see if I can get that job.”
“You don’t look like a sawmill hand.”
“Ain’t. Just need work. I’m a musician. I sing and play guitar.”
“Where’s your guitar?”
“Got broken. I’m trying to make enough to buy me one.”
“Good luck.”
“Thanks. See you around?”
Sunset thought a moment. She really wasn’t sure about anything, but she said, “Yeah. I’ll be around. See me again, hope I’ll look better than I look now. I’m not normally this ugly.”
