Sunset and Sawdust Read Free Page B

cranked open. Sunset could see the potted plants her mother-in-law loved in big clay jars.
    Parked in the yard was a black company truck with mud-caked tires and weathered wooden slats all around the bed. The sides of the truck were scraped from hard work and it was lightly coated in sawdust. On the side of it, with a finger, someone had written in dust: I’M DIRTY AS SIN.
    As they neared the house, Uncle Riley turned the wagon so it came between the water pump and the house. He pulled alongside the front porch and the wide steps that led up to it. He yanked back on the wheel brake and loosely held the reins.
    “You’re gonna have to come around and help me down, Uncle Riley,” Sunset said. “I help myself, I’ll fall face first in the dirt and show my butt under this shirt.”
    “Oh, Miss Sunset, can’t you wait for one of them white men?”
    “All right.”
    Men, both white and black, gathered around the wagon. Sunset knew most of them, but she wasn’t sure with her face like this they’d know her. Then she remembered her hair. No one around had hair like hers. Not as long and flame-red and thick as hers. And unlike most women, she always wore it down.
    “What the hell’s going on here?” one of the men said. It was Sunset’s father-in-law. He was big and looked like his son, Pete, only thinner of hair and bigger of belly.
    His khaki shirt had wet swells beneath the arms and there were sweat frames around his collar and along his shirtfront. He cocked back his stained hat, said, “Goddamn, Sunset, is that you?”
    “It’s me, Mr. Jones.”
    “What in hell happened to you? And what are you doing with this nigger in his undershirt? He do this? Is that Pete’s pistol?”
    The black men in the crowd faded back carefully, using practiced methods of sidestepping and eye misdirection. In a matter of moments they had managed themselves to the rear of the swarm, hands in pockets, watching cautiously, ready to “yas suh” or bolt.
    “I ain’t got nothing on underneath this shirt and I’m weak, so help me down, but be careful.”
    Jones helped her down. Sunset said, “Uncle Riley here found me after the storm and helped me. I didn’t have no clothes on, and he gave me his shirt.”
    “Well, I thank you for that, Uncle Riley,” Jones said.
    “You welcome, Mr. Jones. Just out gathering these here fishes, and along she come. I put my head down and gave her my shirt.”
    “That’s exactly what he did,” Sunset said, and leaned back against the wagon. “I can’t hardly stand. I’m gonna need help up on the porch there.”
    Two men eagerly stepped from the crowd to give her a hand. Sunset thought they were holding her just a little too warmly. Their eyes were playing to the front of her shirt where she had misbuttoned it and she knew they were peeking at her breasts. She was too weary to worry about it. Besides those peeks, more men were seeing her freckled legs this day than had seen them when she was a little girl in short pants.
    They helped her onto the porch as she used her hands to tug down the back of the shirt and not give a free show.
    Jones followed her up the steps, took a look down the front of her shirt himself, said, “What you doing like this? Get hurt in the storm?”
    “Something like that.” Sunset turned and called to Uncle Riley. “Thank you for being such a gentleman, Uncle Riley.”
    “You welcome, Miss Sunset.”
    “I’ll give you your shirt later. For reasons you can see, I got to hang on to it just now.”
    “Yes, ma’am. That’s quite all right. You keep it you got a mind to. Reckon I better run along, get these fishes home before they go bad.”
    Riley let loose the wheel brake, clucked to the mules, and the crowd parted.
    One of the men in the crowd, Don Walker, said to the man next to him, “You can bet that nigger enjoyed him a peek.”
    “Just hate it wasn’t me,” said the other, Bill Martin. “Even with her face all beat up like that, I’d take