One thing he prided himself on was he took the easy path on everything, unless it had to do with getting even. The easy path wasn’t necessary then. He’d crawl over sharp rocks and kiss a mule’s shitty ass to get back at someone did him wrong, especially some old man made him look and feel foolish in front of a goddamn whore.
He thought he’d get up right then, get dressed, go over and see McBride, but his body thought different.
It said: Lay down, boy. You ain’t doing so good.
Hillbilly listened. Let his body have its way. But his mind raced, and his mind had ideas, and his mind was mean.
After they finished eating, and the ass whipping Lee had given Hillbilly was told another time, and everyone was sitting around inside the tent drinking coffee, Sunset slipped outside with a strip of white cloth she had torn from an old towel. She tied it to a limb on the back of the big oak tree.
Ben trotted up, watched her tie it. When she finished, she knelt down and gave him a pat.
All she could do now was see if Bull showed.
She hoped he would.
She needed him.
And she was pretty sure, Zendo, though he didn’t know it, needed him as well.
33
Couple of days went by and the white strip hung from the oak limb and the weather turned deadly hot and the trees sagged as if the sky were leaning its weight on them. Grasshoppers were everywhere, nibbling at what greenery they could find.
Walking about was like trudging through invisible bread dough and breathing was like sucking up dried leaves. At night, Sunset came out and sat by the oak. Clyde had taken to sleeping in his truck in the yard, and Lee was sleeping on the business side of the tent, with Goose, and she and Karen were sharing the other side.
But when everyone was sleeping, Sunset went out, found Ben, pulled a chair next to the oak, waited for Bull to show up. Sat there petting the dog until he tired of that business and lay down at her feet.
After a couple of nights, she was starting to have doubts Bull would show. He didn’t really owe her anything, and what goodwill he felt for her may have passed. He might never come this way again, never even know a rag was hanging.
She thought about Hillbilly, remembered how he had touched her and cooed to her and made her feel. She thought about Karen, what he must have said to her to have his way. Maybe he said the same things to Karen he said to her. Though, now that she thought about it, she couldn’t remember him making her a promise at all. Not with words, anyway, but his hands and lips and eyes spoke volumes, and those were all lies.
She was glad her daddy had kicked his ass.
And yet she hoped he wasn’t hurt bad.
Hoped his looks weren’t spoiled.
She didn’t like him, but didn’t like to think of him messed up, ruined. The kind of beauty he had ought not be ruined. Fact was, it shouldn’t age, never change one teeny bit.
And what about Henry and McBride and the one called Two? What of them? What should she do?
She was thinking on this when Lee came out holding a cup of coffee in either hand. She looked up as he came over. “I thought you were asleep.”
“You think I’m asleep every night when you come out here. Besides, Goose snores.” He handed her a cup of coffee. “Thought you might want this.”
She smiled at him. “Sure.”
Lee had her hold both cups while he dragged the other chair over, sat down, took a cup and sipped it.
“Daddy, I’m in kind of a mess. I ain’t sure what to do about things.”
“You saying you want to tell me?”
“Yes.”
And she did. Told him all of it, about Zendo and Zendo’s land, about Henry Shelby and McBride and Two, about her talk with them in the church. And for the first time she told someone about Bull, about the rag she had tied to the oak.
She ended saying, “I think maybe they’ll take it out on Zendo. I decided just now I’m going to have Clyde go there, maybe be a lookout, in case they send someone around. Have him go over there with a shotgun. And then there’s Bull. He said he’d help.”
“People say lots of things.”
“Believe me, I know.”
“I’ve said some things myself, but there’s not a thing I say now I don’t mean. Do you believe that?”
“I’m trying. I want to believe. But that’s the story of my life, believing the wrong people.”
“All right then, for what it’s worth. You can look at this two ways. It ain’t really your problem. You didn’t cheat Zendo. It’s not your fault someone might want him killed. You could just warn him, move on, let it go.
“Course, if he’s out of the way, a little nifty work with a pen, that land could end up theirs. With him alive, they could do it anyway, but he might could make enough of a stink to prove it’s his. So either way, you’re taking a chance with his life.”
“I want answers, not choices.”
“I might have been able to give you some years ago, during my preacher days, cause I thought I knew everything. What I do know is you got to have a kind of center, Sunset. You follow me? You got to work out of that center, and you don’t let that center shift. You may fail it, but you don’t let it shift.”
“All right, that’s all well and good. But what do I do? I thought about telling Zendo, but I’ve been afraid to tell him. Thought that might be worse for him. He might say or do something he shouldn’t.”
Lee sipped coffee slowly, said, “In other words, you’re not treating him like a man. You’re treating him like a slave that needs tending, and you’re his massa.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“I’m saying how it seems to me.”
“People here, a lot of them, they see it that way. That a colored ain’t supposed to make too many decisions. I try and treat Zendo like he’s not colored, and he thinks he can make some choices like everyone else, I could get him killed.”
“You could treat him like a man, go to him, tell him the truth, say, hey, I don’t know what I can do for you. There’s just me, and Clyde, and my run-down old man, and these guys, they’re professionals and serious. Cheating and killing, that’s what they do. So you’re on your own. Then you’ve warned him. It’s up to him to take care of himself. You could do that.”
“And my center wouldn’t have shifted?”
“You have to decide that. I can’t tell you that. You got to feel you’ve done the right thing, what you could.”
“Or?”
“You do the job you signed on for. Most of the time this job isn’t anything much, but sometimes it might be. And when it is, do you decide then to not do it because it’s hard? Could be you’re not up to it, and if you’re not, that’s no shame, that’s just the way it is. But if you’re up to it and not willing, that’s a whole different thing.”
“How do you know you’re up to it?”
