Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale Read Free Book Online Page B

the mules to a halt.
    “Excuse me,” Hillbilly said, “but I’m looking for work.”
    “We ain’t the ones to talk to,” Bill said.
    “Do you know who to talk to?”
    “The Captain,” Don said. “But now ain’t a good time.”
    “When will be?”
    “Ain’t certain. His boy, Pete, got killed yesterday.”
    “Accident?”
    “Not unless you call getting shot in the head an accident,” Bill said. “Boy’s wife shot him. Pete was the constable.”
    “Why’d she do it?”
    “I hear he was beating on her.”
    “Can’t say I blame her then,” Hillbilly said. “I don’t like a hand laid on me in anger.”
    “She was his wife,” Bill said.
    “Don’t give him no call for that,” Hillbilly said.
    “What I been saying,” Don said. “Been telling Bill just that.”
    “This woman shot him,” Hillbilly said. “She wouldn’t be a redhead, would she?”
    “Hair don’t get no redder than hers,” Bill said. “How’d you know?”
    “Just a guess,” Hillbilly said. “Redheads are known for shooting husbands.”
    “I know a redhead that was known for other things,” Bill said. “Talk about fire in the hole.”
    “All your goats got black or white or gray fur,” Don said. “Ain’t seen no redheaded ones, so you don’t know nothing there.”
    “Keep telling you,” Bill said, “you ought to get on radio you’re so funny.” Bill turned back to Hillbilly, said, “Good luck, young man. Maybe the Captain will talk to you. We did lose a man last week.”
    “Tree fell on him,” Don said. “Me and Bill had bets on how long before that ignorant sonofabitch got a tree on him. He’d cut and kind of saunter away when the tree was coming down. He sauntered a little slow last time. Tree jumped back on him. They’ll do that. Jump back. Drove that fella into the ground. Said the stuffing popped out of him like a Christmas turkey.”
    “You got to be quick working here,” Bill said. “Not get no vines or limbs caught under your feet. I think that fella got some berry vines wrapped around his ankles. Get hired and don’t mind your work, you’ll be dead as him.”
    “Thanks for the advice, gentlemen,” Hillbilly said. “If I was to talk to this Captain, where would I find him?”
    “He ain’t staying at his house no more,” Bill said. “His wife done run him off and took sides with the daughter-in-law. He was in the mill house this morning, wearing the same old nasty clothes he had on yesterday. I don’t know that he’s really working. When you’re one of the big men, you can coast, your boy’s dead or not. You might have to talk to someone else about a job, though. There’s others can hire.
    “It’s all a crying shame. Captain with his boy dead, his wife putting him out. He’s a nice guy too. He loaned me considerable money I ain’t paid back—”
    “And don’t intend to pay back,” Don said.
    “You don’t know that,” Bill said.
    “You ain’t paid me the dollar you owe me.”
    “I’m gonna. But I tell you, I owed his old lady, I don’t know. She didn’t want him to loan it to me. Said I was a bad risk.”
    “You are,” Don said. “I want my dollar. I know that.”
    “She said that right in front of me. A bad risk. Tell you, with this Sunset killing her husband, and him a law too, we don’t put an end to it, every woman in the camp and hereabouts is gonna feel they got the right to tell their men what-for over most anything they take a mind to. If it’s loaning money or holding out with the hot wet kitty.”
    “Sunset,” Hillbilly said. “That’s what they call her?”
    “On account of her long red hair,” Don said. “Before Pete whacked on her, she was a pretty good looker. Now she looks like Three-Fingered Jack looked.”
    “Who?”
    “Man took a beating from Pete,” Bill said. “But he died from it. They called him that cause he had three fingers.”
    Hillbilly thought: No shit.
    “This time it was Pete done the dying,” Don said. “I ain’t one