or whatever he is. All of you.”
“But you’re not the law in Holiday,” Henry said. “The map’s not your concern, and as the law is sort of under my jurisdiction over there, well, I suppose I’m the law.”
“Zendo’s land is under my jurisdiction,” Sunset said. “You boys say your prayers and leave. I don’t want to find you here within the hour. I do, I’ll arrest you.”
“For what?” Henry said.
“For being ugly in church.”
Now was the time for an exit, Sunset thought, while she was one up. Sunset started down the aisle, for the open door.
Henry called out to her. “Have we got a deal, you and me?”
She kept walking.
Outside she held out her hands and looked at them. They were shaking.
Henry said, “Think she’ll go with us? Take the deal?”
“Not that one. I hope she doesn’t. Me and her, we need to get close, and I like a reason to be mad.”
“I think she’ll take the deal. She’s tough now, but she’ll think about it. She’ll take it.”
“She’ll pass.”
Henry looked up, studied Two.
“Did you have to bring the shine with you? Bring him here?”
“He does what he wants.”
“I don’t get it. I hired you, but you brought this guy down.”
“It cost you a train ticket. Get over it. He had to ride back with the niggers. It wasn’t no easy thing for him.”
“He is a nigger.”
“Two ain’t got the same way of thinking niggers got around here.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means he ain’t no shine boy.”
“Why’s he stand around like that? In the shadows. He gives me the willies.”
McBride grinned. “He likes it dark. He thinks he’s some kind of shadow. Come here, Two.”
Two came over, stood in front of the pew, his hands dangling by his sides. Up close Henry took note of Two’s blazing green eyes.
“Two,” McBride said, “show him your head. Tell Henry what happened.”
Two took off his bowler. At the top of his forehead, the hair, which was cut short elsewhere, was gone and there was a scar, a horseshoe shape. It was deep and purple and had ridges.
“Jesus,” Henry said. “A mule kicked you?”
“God gave me this,” said Two, and his voice had a kind of gush to it, like a shovel slipping into fresh mud. “I was struck by a bolt of God’s lightning, and God made me Two. Made me hungry.”
“He got kicked in the head, right?” Henry asked McBride.
“He just told you what happened.”
“God have a mule?”
“He’s a piece of work, ain’t he?”
“How’d you come by him?”
“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
