“Anyway, after I killed the second man, I figured on finding the other ones, and I was lying out in a field somewhere in Kansas, in the open, at night, trying to sleep, looking up at the stars, and the vengeance went out of me. Felt like the Lord reached down and got hold of my heart and pulled the blackness out of it and filled me up with a light. Decided I was gonna be a preacher right then. Ended up in Camp Rapture about 1900.”
“My God. You’re the Reverend.”
“Not anymore. Name’s Lee Beck. But, yeah, I was the Reverend then. And I came to what you now call Camp Rapture, and I done some good. I done some baptizing and civilizing. And then, like David, I lost my way. I took advantage of a young woman. Her name was Bunny Ann.”
“I knew her.”
“You did?”
“Yes. Not well. But I knew her.”
“I had my way with her and run off. I don’t know if she’s married now, or around, or what, and I don’t want to disturb her life. I just want to come and apologize to her. Set things right.”
“What about your daughter?”
“What’s that?”
“You didn’t know she got pregnant, had a daughter?”
Lee’s shoulders sagged under his coat.
“A daughter. She had a daughter?”
“Your daughter, if Bunny told it right. She gave her your last name. And you want to know something else?”
“I’m not sure.”
“She’s my daughter-in-law.”
“My God.”
“It gets a mite more complicated.”
“Before you tell me, what about Bunny Ann? Is she still here?”
“No. She run off with a shoe salesman.”
“A shoe salesman?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, I guess I should have took her with me. Or not run off. Just wasn’t ready to settle down and I’d had my way with her, and me a Reverend, and I guess I thought I ought to run, like I could actually hide out from God.”
“I will say this. A shoe salesman, in my book, is a lot lower than a preacher.”
“Guess that’s some comfort. How are things more complicated?”
“Has to do with my son, and what happened to him. Your daughter’s husband. She’s called Sunset, by the way, though her mama named her Carrie Lynn.”
“What happened?”
Marilyn told him. She told him about Pete and what Sunset had done, told him about her husband and how he had rode on a log into the saw, all of it.
When she finished, Lee said, “I’ve set off a chain reaction. I’ve made all kinds of things happen, and none of them good. It’s a thing you don’t count on when you’re young, how you can do something and have it turn into all kinds of things. My God, how is Carrie Lynn-Sunset?”
“She’s all right.”
“After what she done? What about you? How are you taking it?”
“She had to do it.”
“I believe that. But Pete was your son. Surely-”
“Like I told her, I got my moments. Moments when I hate her. But they’re moments. And another thing, you have a granddaughter.”
“Jesus.”
“Name’s Karen. She’s hurting right now, as you can guess. I was you, I’d quit chasing Bunny Ann. She’s made her life and moved on, and maybe got some shoes out of the deal. She had as much to do with creating that girl as you. You ran out on her and Bunny ran out on Sunset, and now you got this daughter and granddaughter. Could be that’s where you ought to put your time. With them two.”
“I feel like I been poleaxed.”
“I can imagine. After you was a Reverend, where did you go?”
“I had all kinds of jobs, all over the country. Finally, I felt the need to come back here and see Bunny Ann. Now, I don’t know I want to find her anymore. It’s like you said. I got a better place to put my time. If they’ll have me. Do you think they will?”
“I can’t answer that for you, Lee.”
They sat in silence after that, drinking lemonade, and would have continued in silence if Goose hadn’t called out from inside the house.
“I got to go see to him,” Lee said.
In the bedroom he found the boy trying to sit up.
“Here, let me help you.”
Lee folded a pillow over and let Goose rest his head on it.
“I don’t feel so good,” Goose said.
“Feel a lot worse if we hadn’t got some help.”
“Where are we?”
Lee told him about Marilyn, about Aunt Cary, Uncle Riley and Tommy.
“This here is their own bed they done put you in,” Lee said.
“Colored folks?”
“You ain’t going to get funny about that, are you?”
“I ain’t got nothing against colored. I ain’t got nothing against nobody. ’Cept maybe that snake. Lee?”
“Yeah.”
“I’m gonna get well?”
“Looks like it.”
The boy looked at his bandaged hand.
“Case I don’t, I ought to tell you something, especially since you’re a preacher.”
“I ain’t a preacher no more. I been a Pinkerton Man too, and a lot of other things, but no one thinks to call me those. Just Preacher. And I ain’t one. God done long gone from me. And you’re gonna be all right. You don’t need to confess nothing to me.”
“I ain’t never had no pussy, Lee. I lied about that. I just wanted to sound big.”
“That’s all right.”
“I want some, but I ain’t never had none.”
“You’ll have your chance someday. I think we ought to talk about something else, and if I was you, I’d drop that line of talk and thinking until I was about sixteen or so, then I’d wait until I got married.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
“Hard to wait, ain’t it? And you got to do it with a bad girl you ain’t gonna marry.”
“Don’t believe that. Ain’t no girl or woman any badder than you make them. I ain’t your daddy, and I ain’t no preacher, but trust me, lead the good life. Things you do, they set off a line of events that can be good or bad. I was just telling Marilyn that.”
“The woman picked us up?”
“Yeah.”
“Is she pretty?”
“She’s old as me. But yeah, I think she’s pretty.”
“You ain’t had none while I was sleeping, have you?”
Lee lightly slapped Goose’s head. “You can stop that talk. Lay down and shut up. I’ll see what we’re gonna do next.”
“You ain’t gonna leave, are you?”
“No. I ain’t gonna leave you.”
“Like you said, you ain’t kin. You don’t owe me nothing. You don’t have to stay.”
“Ain’t got nothing better to do for the moment. Reckon I’ll keep up with you for a while. You rest now. Aunt Cary and Uncle Riley are gonna fry some chicken in a bit. You can eat, can’t you?”
“Like an old wolf.”
21
The freedom of the car was exhilarating, and because of it, as well as because it seemed a commonsense plan-and if it had not been she would have convinced herself it was-Sunset decided to drive to Holiday the next morning, take a look over at the courthouse, see if she could figure out something about the maps in the grave.
She had looked over the ledger, and decided it wasn’t connected. The ledger had notes from cases, and not many of them, as it was pretty new, and she figured Pete had just stuck the maps in it, then buried it all together, maybe to help protect the maps. Yeah, that was it, she was pretty sure.
Thing to do was go to Holiday, look at the courthouse, see what was there. And she planned to take Hillbilly with her, send Clyde out to look at the land next to Zendo’s, talk to Zendo, see if he knew anything about who owned that stretch. She knew she was doing it too because she wanted to be alone with Hillbilly, and that irked her. She was letting her loins make decisions for her. It was always said that men thought with the little head and not the big head, but something other than her head was certainly doing some of her thinking, and she didn’t like it, but couldn’t resist it. In fact, thought of it made her a little light-headed.
As for Karen, she would drive her over to Camp Rapture first thing in the morning to spend the day with Marilyn. Marilyn would like that, and she thought Karen would too, and maybe they’d go to Holiday, see a picture show.