Sunset and Sawdust Read Free

nigger, you don’t need to have your head on my shoulder.”
    Sunset dipped her head and the feeling passed. When she sat back up and started to wipe her forehead with the back of her hand, she realized the gun was still in it.
    “Maybe I ought to leave this with you?”
    “No, ma’am. You don’t want to leave that gun with me. Next thing I know, I’m the one done shot him.”
    “I’ll explain.”
    “White folks find him dead, then see me, they gonna want a nigger anyhow. They see Mr. Pete’s gun in my wagon, and him being a lawman and all, me and this boy be strung up faster than you can say, ‘Let’s get us a nigger.’ ”
    “All right,” Sunset said. “I thank you and Tommy, I truly do.”
    “Besides, you might need that gun when you tell Miss Marilyn what you done did. And you don’t need it for her, you might need it for her husband, Mr. Jones.”
    “When I tell my daughter, I might want to use it on myself.”
    “Don’t talk like that now.”
    “I can’t believe I did it.”
    “He beat on you like that, Miss Sunset, he deserved killing. I ain’t got no truck with a man beats on a woman. You done what you had to do.”
    “I could have just shot him in the leg or the foot, I guess.”
    “You done what you had to do.” Uncle Riley studied her face. “Damn, Miss Sunset, ain’t seen a beating that bad since he whupped up on Three-Fingered Jack. You remember that?”
    “I do.”
    “Boy, he beat that man like he stole something.”
    “He did. My husband’s girlfriend.”
    “Guess I ought not to have brought that up.”
    “He taught me how to shoot, Uncle Riley. Can you believe that? Taught me how to shoot a pistol, shotgun and rifle. Taught me until he thought maybe I was getting too good. After we married, he didn’t want me to do nothing . . . I can’t believe I shot him. I could have just got hit and he’d have got what he wanted and it’d been over. Wouldn’t have been the first time. Karen would have a daddy. Thing is, though, he could have had what he wanted without all that, Uncle Riley. I’d have given in without all that. All he’d have to have done was talk sweet. But he liked it rough, even if he didn’t have to. I think he was sweet to his girlfriends, but me, he beat.”
    “Don’t talk to me about that, girl. I don’t need to hear about it.”
    “He was bad enough about such, but when he drank, he was mean as a cottonmouth.”
    “Your hair sure is red,” Tommy said.
    “Damn, boy,” Uncle Riley said. “Miss Sunset don’t need you talking about her hair right now. Get on back there and sort them fish out or something.”
    “They all the same.”
    “Well, count them, boy.”
    “It’s all right, Uncle Riley. Yeah, Tommy. It’s red. My mama used to say red as sunset, so that’s what people call me.”
    “That ain’t your name?” Tommy asked.
    “It is now. In the Bible they wrote Carrie Lynn Beck. But everyone called me Sunset. Got married I became Jones.”
    Sunset burst into tears.
    “Go on back there now and sit down,” Uncle Riley told Tommy.
    “I didn’t do nothing,” Tommy said.
    “Boy, you want your ass shined? Go back there.”
    Tommy moved back a ways, sat down amidst the fish. They were still damp and wet against his pants and he didn’t like it, but he sat. He knew he had pushed about as far as he could push, and the next push the wagon would stop and he’d have his daddy’s hand across the seat of his pants, or worse, he’d have to go break off his own switch for his daddy to use.
    As they went the day died, the woods thinned on either side and you could hear the scream of the saw from the mill, could hear movement of men and mules and oxen and dragged trees, the rattle and gunning of lumber trucks.
    “They see me and you, it gonna be bad,” Uncle Riley said.
    “It’ll be all right,” Sunset said.
    “Tommy, you get on out of the wagon, go off in them trees. I’ll come back for you.”
    Tommy dropped over the side, wandered into