“I don’t think they run off,” Hillbilly said.
“Sure they run off,” Plug said. “They didn’t, where are they?”
“They don’t know I’m with you,” Hillbilly said. “They don’t know I got some ideas about where they are. They’re hiding all right, but not the way you mean.”
“Tell us,” Two said.
“I think we should try Clyde’s,” Hillbilly said. “I was them, that’s where I’d go, take my tent with me, start over.”
“Clyde?” Two said.
“Deputy,” Hillbilly said.
“What about Henry?” Two said. “Brother McBride said he was arrested today. Said some maid told someone and someone told another someone, and then Brother McBride got the news.”
The Other Two said, “That’s what this is all about, you know. Henry. And the woman.”
“And the others?” Plug said. “It about them?”
“It is,” said Two. “It’s about them and this Zendo.”
“But Zendo, he don’t know nothing,” Plug said.
“He may know something now,” the Other Two said. “But what about Henry?”
“He’s with them,” Hillbilly said. “Ain’t nobody around here gonna help them. They got to have him with them. If they’re at Clyde’s, he’ll be there too. They got to be at Clyde’s, or Marilyn’s, Sunset’s mother-in-law, and I don’t think they’d go there. Too obvious, too easy. But Clyde’s, that would be the place.”
“That’s good,” said Two. “And the mother-in-law?”
“I don’t know she’s a problem,” Hillbilly said.
The Other Two said, “We’ll consider on that. I’ll tell Brother McBride, and he’ll consider on it. Hillbilly, you direct us. And Plug, drive us, please.”
“I ought to have to do something important,” Goose said. “Good as you been to me, miss. Good as Lee’s been.”
“What I want you to do,” Sunset said, “is help Clyde out. Me and Daddy, we’re going over to Zendo’s, see how it’s going with Bull. I’ve had an idea I think might be good.”
“I just want to help,” Goose said.
“I know, and thanks for asking. Stay with Clyde and Karen and Ben, watch old Henry here and the tent. That’s your job and it’s important.”
They were standing outside the tent, near the post where Henry was chained, sitting in his chair in the moonlight.
A plate he had eaten off of was on the ground and Ben was licking it.
“Can’t you make this dog go on?” Henry said. “He peed on the post a while ago. I don’t like having him around. He keeps sniffing me.”
“If I wanted to do something about him, guess I could,” Sunset said.
Lee came out of the tent. Sunset and Lee got in Sunset’s car. Lee said, “Sure we should leave them here?”
“No one knows about this place, not even people that know Clyde. He doesn’t have visitors. It’s a good idea, being here.”
“Living under a tarp, I can see that he doesn’t have visitors,” Lee said.
“Actually,” Sunset said, “it’s nicer than the house he burned down. And now, there’s the tent.”
“That tent is getting pretty crowded,” Lee said. “When this is over, back on your land, we ought to build a house, help Clyde build one here.”
“We’ll see,” Sunset said.
After they hit the main road the lights were full of grasshoppers and a tan Plymouth passing them.
“Slow here,” Hillbilly said. “It ain’t so easy to see the place in the dark. Right there. Turn there. Road ends at his place.”
“How far?” Two asked.
“Not real far,” Hillbilly said. “A piece. But not far.”
“Go down a ways, pull over and park,” said Two. “We’ll walk down and see them.”
“We’ll take what God needs,” the Other Two said.
Plug took the turn and the road was dusty and the dust rose up as they went, like a heavy mist, and grasshoppers jumped out of it, splattered against the windshield, which was already greasy with them. Plug drove a short piece, pulled in where there was a stretch of clearing, turned off the lights and parked.
Hillbilly and Two had twelve-gauge pumps. Plug had a.45 revolver. Two said, “We’ll say what and when and how.”
“Yeah,” Hillbilly said, “you fellas are the boss.”
“You say we, you mean, you, right?” Plug said.
“I mean the both of us,” Two said.
Plug nodded. “All right. I see that-I think.”
They got out of the car, walked down the road a ways, then Two stopped them.
“We’ll go ahead,” Two said. “You come down the road walking. When you hear us cut down, you come running.”
“Why don’t we just sneak up on them?” Plug said.
Two turned his head slowly. He took off his bowler and shook out the sweat. The horseshoe scar looked raw in the moonlight. “We’ll sneak.”
“We as in… you two?” Plug asked.
“Correct,” the Other Two said. “Understand?”
“Sure,” Plug said.
Two nodded, went down the road quickly, then went into the woods and was gone.
Plug said, “I say we go back to the car, drive away and keep driving.”
“There’s lots of money in this,” Hillbilly said.
“Wasn’t saying there wasn’t money in it. I’m saying I don’t care anymore. Tootie was supposed to get money too, wasn’t he? He ain’t getting no money now. So what’s money to him?”
“Nothing to him,” Hillbilly said, “but maybe it’s more for us. We could ask McBride about Tootie’s share. We could maybe split it.”
Plug looked at the dirt road. “Don’t know I want to kill no woman. Don’t know I want to kill nobody. Tootie… dying like that, that was bad enough. I once shot a deer and got sick.”
“You can’t think of them as people. Got to think of them as targets. That’s the way you do it, Plug.”
“You was her friend,” Plug said.
“I don’t feel any different about her now than I did before. I don’t care for her daddy, or Clyde, cause of what they done, but her, I don’t feel any different. It hasn’t got anything to do with the way you feel.”
“The hell it doesn’t.”
“You going in, or not?”
About that time they heard a shotgun blast, and Hillbilly said, “That’s Two. Means it’s time for us.”
Hillbilly started trotting down the road, and Plug, after a moment’s hesitation, went after him.
Way it went down was Two came up on the left side of Clyde’s place, came through the woods with his shotgun ready, quiet as a dead mouse in a cotton ball, moving toe heel, and when he got where he could see Henry chained to the post, he thought about what McBride had said. He said, “Brother, Henry ain’t no good to us. He’s got too big a mouth, and he ain’t ever gonna be happy having a nigger get part of it. Henry don’t need the money he’s supposed to get. Me and you, we do. Henry, he’s played his string and he’s just another soul for you to gather.”