Sunset lifted her head, tried to put McBride in her sights, but what she saw was his amazed face. He had broken the gun open, having fired both barrels, was ready to reload, but his expression caused Sunset to turn her head, look over her shoulder.
The flames on the wall were licking out to taste the air and the grasshoppers flooding in were catching fire. They washed in a burning wave toward McBride.
McBride dropped the shotgun, covered his face as they hit him, a mass of bugs aflame. His wig burst alight, and he tried to dive to the floor, but the grasshoppers followed him down, were all over him. He rose up screaming, batting at the air, his apron on fire, and Sunset thought: You dumb sonofabitch, just roll. You ain’t on fire, it’s your apron, that stupid wig.
But he didn’t roll. The wig had become a fool’s cap of fire. He snatched it off his shiny bald head, tossed it and ran. Ran straight at Sunset. Sunset was so amazed, she didn’t shoot, and he kept going, running hard, went right past her and through what was left of the window, flames flapping behind him like a cape, insects on fire, whizzing around his head like a halo. Then the cape of fire dropped through the window and was gone and the air crackled with flames and exploding grasshoppers.
Clyde appeared to her left. He had Hillbilly with his hands tied behind his back with a twisted pillowcase. Hillbilly looked bloody and bowed, but not too bad off.
“You okay?” Clyde called.
“Almost,” she said. “He hurt bad?”
“Got some pieces in him, mostly wood from the wall. He’ll live.”
The entire wall behind Sunset was on fire and the fire was spreading. She said, “Out the front.”
“Is that all of them?” Clyde said. “Did we get them all?”
“God, I hope so.”
Sunset stood, slapped flames off her skirt where the kerosene had splattered and caught. Clyde kicked Hillbilly in the ass, said, “Move it, songbird.”
When Sunset got to the doorway, she stopped and bent over Bull. She said, “Bull?”
“Is he gone?” Bull said.
“Who?”
“That big nigger in the bowler?”
“I don’t see him anywhere.”
“That’s good.”
“I’m sorry, Bull.”
“Don’t let the peckerwoods have my body.”
“You’re gonna be all right.”
“Got a knife in my back. My legs, everything from my pickle down, gone cold, won’t move no more. We on fire? I smell smoke.”
Clyde was there with Hillbilly now. He said, “Yeah. There’s fire, Bull.”
“Let me burn,” Bull said.
“You ain’t gonna burn. Clyde, go down and put Hillbilly in the car. There’s rope in the trunk, you need it. Use it to tie his legs to his arms, throw him in the backseat, better yet, the trunk. Come back and help me with Bull-Jesus, where’s Daddy? Bull, can you hear me? Where’s Daddy?”
But Bull didn’t answer.
A moment later, Clyde came back in with Hillbilly. “There ain’t no car. Your daddy, he’s hurt.”
“Hurt?”
“Yeah. Leg is broke.” Clyde looked down at Bull. He wasn’t moving and his eyes were closed. “Bull?”
“Bull’s gone,” Sunset said, coughing at the smoke.
“Yeah, and so is this place,” Hillbilly said.
The far wall was fire, and the fire, fed by kerosene on the floor, was creeping toward them.
“Leave him,” Clyde said.
Sunset thought about that, about how he lived and what he told her, said, “Reckon so.”
Sunset took Hillbilly down, her shotgun in his back, and Clyde picked up Lee, carried him.
When they were at the bottom of the steps, Hillbilly said, “I didn’t mean for it to go this way, Sunset.”
“I have a feeling you don’t never mean for nothing to happen, but it always does.”
“I’m kind of cursed.”
“Hell, you are the curse.”
The flames were licking at the apartment and smoke was pouring out the open door and the drugstore below was starting to catch fire. The flames were so hot and bright, the grasshoppers had finally started to recede. Sunset looked up, saw them like a dark rainbow against the sky, going south, and fast, dimming the sun.
When Clyde came down the steps carrying Lee like a baby, Sunset said, “Watch this piece of dung a minute,” and left him with Hillbilly. She went around back, looking for McBride, still cautious, the shotgun at the ready.
She found McBride face forward against the overhang. There were burn marks on the ground where he had dragged himself. He was a blackened shape now, his hands like claws where he had scooped out some clay as if trying to climb up the overhang to God knows where, or maybe burrow through it.
They went across the street to the jail, Sunset with her gun at Hillbilly’s back, prodding, and Clyde carrying Lee. They put Hillbilly in the cell with Plug, and Clyde laid Lee on the bunk in the other cell, called up the town doctor, who came and looked at Lee and said he was bad.
“He’s gonna need a hospital,” the doctor said. “That leg. It might have to come off. I ain’t up for that kind of thing.”
“I got use for this leg,” Lee said, his face covered in sweat.
The doctor, who was a short fat man wearing a plaid shirt and pants that looked as if they could use a wash, said, “Yeah, but it might not have any use for you anymore. I’m gonna do my best to set it, but we got to get you over to Tyler. There’s people there better at this kind of thing than me. This ain’t no simple break. This one’s all twisted up.”
“We’ll get you to the doctor, Daddy,” Sunset said. “He don’t know that’s what will happen for sure.”
“If I mess with it much, it is,” the doctor said.
“Can you take him to Tyler?” Sunset said.
“I can,” said the doctor, “but it’ll cost.”
“He’s a deputy constable.”
“He’s your daddy.”
“And he’s still a deputy constable. You see he gets there. You bill Camp Rapture-better yet, you bill Holiday. And give him something for pain.”
“For Christ sakes, yes,” Lee said. “Knock me out. Give me some dope. Something.”
“Daddy,” Sunset said, liking the sound of calling him that better and better, “still believe what you said, about the union of everything in the universe, us and everything in it all being part of one big thing?”
“Not so much,” Lee said.
“What about these two?” Clyde said, nodding toward Hillbilly and Plug.
“They’re for the law,” Sunset said.
“There ain’t no law,” Clyde said.
“Today there is. And you’re it. Stay till we figure something out. I’m gonna check on Karen.”
“What then?”
“We’ll cross that bridge when we get to it.”
When it was done and Lee was on his way to Tyler, courtesy of the doctor and his car, Sunset got the keys to the sheriff’s car, went out and cleaned the windshield free of bugs and got in. She sat there and thought about the fact that she and Clyde were unhurt, her dad was the worst off and he hadn’t even gotten inside the apartment. And Bull. Poor Bull. He was dead, and all she had was a few bangs and cuts and some little shotgun pellets in the back of her heels, pellets she could pick out with tweezers.
She sat and looked at what was left of the fire across the way. The fire department, such as it was, was trying to put it away, but mostly they were running around the fire truck and cursing. They had succeeded in flushing the building with a lot of water from their big red engine, and what was left of the apartment and the drugstore was nothing but some charred timbers you could stir with a stick.
She thought about Bull, burned up in there, and it made her think of the story she’d heard about Greek heroes, how they put them on piles of lumber and burned them up and sent their souls up in smoke and flames.
On the way home, Sunset saw the sky had cleared and it was full of nothing but a crow. The trees, grass, anything that had been green, was gone. It was as if green had been a dream. Now that the storm of wings and legs had departed, there was only desolation. Even the bark had been stripped off the hardwoods. All about were dead grasshoppers, victims of collisions and fights with their hungry partners.