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.
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
