The Thicket Read online

  I left out and looked in the other two saloons, but still didn’t see anyone I recognized. I saw a fistfight in an alley between two big men, and one man finally knocked the other one down and was kicking him when I went on by. I came to where the bright buildings ended and saw above them on the hill a different batch that were whitewashed and simple-built. There was beyond that a few houses with white fences around them, flowers in the yard, struggling against the heat, as by this time of day it had warmed up considerable. I also saw in the distance a cotton gin and wagons of cotton being brought to it. The air was starting to fill with the lint of cotton from the gin, and in the sunlight the lint was yellow, not white, and I could smell it being ginned.

  Further up the street, I saw the sheriff’s office. It was located between the brightly colored buildings and the whitewashed ones. Up the hill, in the less brightly painted part of town, was where the more orderly citizens lived, perhaps with families and jobs. I thought then of going to see the sheriff, but hesitated. If I let him know the bank robber was in town, he might think I had come to kill him and would want to pull me off the search. I figured it might be best if I found the man first and then told the sheriff. I stood there looking at the sheriff’s office for a long time, thinking not only about that but also about the boy in the ditch. At some point, I had to let the sheriff know about the kid with the cut throat and give some idea as to the body’s location. Maybe the boy’s family could be found. But not right then.

  I turned around and started walking back into the brightly painted section of town. When I got to the whorehouse there wasn’t a lot of activity, but the main door was open, and there was a closed screen door behind it. I looked through the screen. There was a man sitting in a chair in the hallway facing the door, and he had an old .410 lever-action shotgun across his knees. I had only seen a gun like that once. Pa had one when I was younger, and he had swapped it for something with the same peddler who had most likely carried the pox to him.

  I took off my hat and went in, the screen squeaking like a nervous bird. It was exactly the kind of place Grandpa would have hated. The man with the shotgun looked at me, said, “They’re mostly sleeping, except for Jimmie Sue.”

  My plan had been to come in and look about, hope to spot someone from the ferry, but now that I was inside I realized just how stupid that idea was. If the man were here he would probably have taken a room with one of the whores. I considered coming back at night, when there might be more activity, but I feared I could miss my man, as he could move on. I decided to think on it.

  I said, “You know what? I’m going to think about it and come back later. I’m not sure I have enough money.”

  The man with the shotgun eyed me like I was the pox myself. “Think about it?” he said. “You either want pussy or you don’t.”

  “A man can change his mind,” I said.

  “I wouldn’t change my mind,” he said.

  “I guess that’s where me and you differ,” I said. Then I heard the stairs creak and saw a woman in her bloomers coming down the stairs. The only time I’d ever seen such a thing before was in the Sears, Roebuck catalog, which I would look through before tearing a page loose to use to wipe in the outhouse, and though I had thought some of those women looked pretty good in that catalog, this was an altogether different thing, and better.

  She had hair dark as Eustace’s skin. It fell all the way down to her shoulders. Even from a distance I could tell her eyes were greener than the outside walls of the opry house, and it was also clear she had some very nice structure beneath those underclothes. She didn’t look any older than me.

  “Ain’t you the redhead?” she said, as if I might not have noted it yet.

  “Ma’am,” I said, and since I had my hat off, I kind of nodded.

  “Ma’am?” she said. “Now, ain’t that cute? And all mannered, like a real gentleman.”

  “I seen him,” said the man with the shotgun. “And right off I thought, now ain’t he cute and redheaded and all. I want to fuck him myself.”

  “Oh, shut up, Steve,” she said.

  He laughed a little.

  I said, “I was just about to leave.”

  “You ain’t even got here good yet,” she said. “You ain’t even all the way inside the door.”

  I stepped forward a little.

  “Would you like a nice ride?” she said. “It being a hot and miserable day.”

  I just stood there.

  Steve said, “She don’t mean a pony ride, son, and you don’t need to have brought a saddle.”

  “I know that,” I said.

  “Do you, now?” he said. “You look to me like a man that’s mostly worked his knob with his fist.”

  I gave him a hard look.

  “That part about it being hot and miserable ain’t that big a calling card,” Jimmie Sue said. “But if you’re going to be hot, you might as well be hot and bothered and end up with your ashes hauled and me with four bits in my poke.”

  “Four bits?” I said.

  “You got four bits, don’t you?” said Steve. “You ain’t, then we can end this pleasant conversation now. You can put your hat on your cute little red head and go.”

  “I’ve got four bits,” I said, determined not to be made a low dog by Steve and his shotgun.

  “Well, come on up,” Jimmie Sue said. She turned and started up the stairs.

  I considered for a moment, and then followed. Steve said, “Don’t fall off, Red, or get bucked. You got to really get your spurs latched into that one.”

  “Ignore him,” she said as we went up the stairs. “He’s an asshole.”

  At the top of the stairs was a long hallway, and there were doors along it, and outside the doors were men’s boots. As I followed Jimmie Sue, the floor creaked and groaned. No one stuck their heads out of the doors, and I hitched along to where Jimmie Sue went through an open door. I went inside and stood by it.

  “You can close it,” she said, “unless you like other people to watch. There’s some that do.”

  I closed the door. I said, “First off, I’m going to give you the four bits. Eustace’s four bits. But it ain’t like you think.”

  “Eustace? Is your name Eustace?”

  “No. That’s the man who gave me the four bits.”

  “Is he coming here, too?” she asked.

  “No.”

  “That’s good, because I don’t do two men for four bits. You’d both need four bits apiece, and if me and you and Eustace all get in bed at the same time, it’s extra.”

  “Forget Eustace,” I said. “I got off on a different train track there. What I mean—”

  “You are red as fire,” she said. “You’re all blushed, and you got cotton lint stuck to your face. That is so cute.”

  “I don’t mean to be cute,” I said.

  “That’s what makes it so cute. You ain’t never had any pussy, have you?”

  “I’m not here to discuss that,” I said.

  “There’s no discussing to do,” she said, and started taking her clothes off.

  “You don’t have to do that.”

  “If you want you a little, I do. You see, the hole is under the clothes.”

  I could feel myself blushing. It was like hot water was rising up from inside me, boiling to the top of my head. Before I could say anything more, she had shucked her drawers and was standing there in her birthday suit. It was the first time I had ever seen a woman naked. My heart soared like a hawk. She looked so natural there, her small, round breasts riding high and the dark patch between her legs. All I could say was, “I’m actually looking for someone.”

  “I’m the only one awake. You got someone else in mind, you’re shit out of luck.”

  “It’s not that.”

  She studied me, tilted her head, said, “And I don’t reckon you ever been here before to have someone in mind. You are a virgin, aren’t you?”

  “That’s not important,” I said.

  “Then you are one,�
� she said. “You might as well be waving a flag that says you are. I can tell. Come here, honey.”

  I didn’t move.

  She came over to me. She said, “I’ve taken a bath. There ain’t any other men on me or anything of theirs in me.”

  “God, I hope not,” I said.

  She took my hand. “Come here to bed.”

  “I just want to talk, ask some questions.”

  “I’ll teach you whatever you need to know. It ain’t like there’s a line of customers around the block, so I got time.”

  “I want to know about a man,” I said.

  She paused and let go of my hand. “You like men?” she said.

  I had to figure on that a moment. “No. I’m looking for someone I think might be staying here.”

  “Well, who is it?”

  “I don’t know exactly.”

  “You are perplexing, Red.”

  “I don’t mean to be. I’m looking for someone who was involved in killing my grandfather and stole my sister.”

  “So you don’t want me?”

  I wanted to say no right out, but the word wouldn’t form in my mouth. Instead I said, “I didn’t say that. I mean, it’s natural, I guess.”

  “It sure is. Can I see the four bits?”

  I dug the four bits out of my pocket and opened my hand and showed it to her. “There it is,” I said. “And if you can help me find who I’m looking for, it’s yours.”

  She ran a hand over my face. “You are so damn cute. I was going to leave this life, it would be for someone like you. I can tell you’re kind, too.”

  “How can you tell that?” I said.

  “In this job you get so you can tell a lot of things,” she said. “You get so you can read people pretty quick. Men especially. Come here, honey. Let’s go over here and lay on the bed, and then I’ll see I can straighten things out. I’ll go ahead and take the four bits now.”

  I don’t even know exactly how it happened, but pretty soon I was naked and in bed with her, and she said, “I like that you’ve got red hair down there,” and then she started teaching me some things.

  I caught on right away. When we were done, I was weak with delight. Some of the sin Grandpa warned me about had got hold of me, and hadn’t been near as unpleasant, disappointing, and soul-sapping as he had described it.

  I lay there wishing for another four bits. It took me longer than it should have for me to realize why I was really there and that time was wasting, but before I could do anything about it, sin got hold of me again in the name of a free one, as she called it, and I did the deed once more. It was long and sweet, and the warm wind through the window fluttered the curtains and the bedsprings squeaked like mice and the cotton lint drifted in and settled over everything, including our sweaty bodies. Jimmie Sue moaned in a way that didn’t make me think she was wounded, and being a fellow who cared about his money, I thought: I am actually only paying two bits apiece here, and it’s Eustace’s money, and this way he will not be driven to drink. The last part was something I was proud of. I was protecting Eustace from himself.

  “By the way,” she said, snuggling up to me when we were finished, “what’s your name?”

  “Jack Parker,” I said.

  She said, “Parker. I know some Parkers.”

  “I doubt there’s a connection,” I said. “It’s a common name.”

  “You ain’t any kin to Old Caleb Parker, are you?”

  “That’s my grandfather,” I said, surprised she might know of him.

  “Why, that old fart,” she said. “You and him are kin. Now, that’s a coincidence.”

  “How’s that?” I said.

  “Why, now I’ve diddled you both.”

  5

  I started questioning her like she was on trial. She told me about Grandpa, and she described him right, said he liked to leave his union suit on and just unbutton the fly. She said, “If I’d known he was religious, I wouldn’t have told on him. Religious people like to keep this part of their life quiet, that and their drinking. Way I figure it, Jesus forgives, so why not enjoy yourself? He’ll understand.”

  “I don’t know it works exactly that way,” I said.

  “Well, it ought to,” she said.

  I was stunned to find out Grandfather and I had shared more than the hole in the outhouse and the water dipper at the well. It was like finding out your face belonged to someone else. But I couldn’t dwell on it.

  “I’m really here to find my sister,” I said.

  “You could have fooled me,” she said. “Does she work here?”

  “Nothing like that,” I said. “She’s a decent girl.”

  Soon as I said it, I wished the words had not come out of my mouth. I could feel Jimmie Sue tense beside me. “Ain’t that something?” she said. “You rode me like I was the Rock Island Line, and now you want to say I ain’t decent.”

  “I didn’t mean it like that.”

  “I think you did.”

  “All right,” I said. “I did. But I was wrong. I shouldn’t have said that.”

  “I let you have it twice,” she said.

  “And I’m grateful.”

  “You ain’t going to be like your grandpa, now, are you? Make me kneel by the bed and say a prayer and promise how I’m going to give up the life, and then him tell me he’ll see me next month on the first Tuesday?”

  “He came that often?”

  “When his wife was alive he came to see the other girls, or so they’ve told me. I don’t know how long ago that was, but I was told when she died he came here more often, and…if you don’t mind me asking, how did she die?”

  “She got run over by a cow,” I said.

  Jimmie Sue almost spit. “A cow? She got run over by a goddamn cow? I ain’t never heard of that. Now, that is some shit, that is. A fucking cow.”

  “Happens more than you might think,” I said. “Out in the country.”

  “Well, I’ll be goddamn. A cow. It must have took some work to make a cow mad. It wasn’t a bull?”

  “It was a milk cow,” I said.

  “That is something,” she said. “Sorry. But that is just funny, that’s what that is. He never said a thing about it. I guess that isn’t something you go around spouting. My wife got murdered by a milk cow. Was the cow armed?”

  “It’s not that funny,” I said.

  “It’s kind of funny,” she said, and laughed a lot to prove it. When she laughed she looked even better, her teeth all firm and white and shiny, her face damp with sweat, her grass-green eyes so wide and deep I wanted to fall into them.

  When she got hold of herself, she said, “About your grandfather. When I went to work here six months ago, he came to see me more than any once a month on Tuesday. He always says that, about being here once a month on Tuesday, because he likes to go to prayer meeting or some such thing on Wednesday, but he’s been coming to see me twice a month easy. How is the old prayer-spouting bastard?”

  “Dead,” I said.

  She sat up in bed. “Oh, I am sorry.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “A cow didn’t get him, did it?”

  I looked at her.

  “Sorry,” she said. “That wasn’t very nice. I just couldn’t resist. Was it a goat? Or a sheep, maybe?”

  “That’s enough of that.”

  “Sorry,” she said.

  “I’m out to avenge him, actually. Well, I don’t really want to hurt anyone. I want to see them that killed him locked up. Mostly, though, I just want my sister back,” and then, without even knowing I was going to do it, I told her everything that had happened, and in a pretty detailed way, and when I was finished, I knew why it was supposed to be that generals and kings talked to their mistresses too much. Diddling, as she called it, makes you weak in both legs and mind.

  “The one you said was fat, and missing some teeth,” Jimmie Sue said. “That’s Fatty.”

  “Yeah, that’s what they called him,” I said.

  �
�He was here last night, and still might be. I’ve seen him two or three times before, though he ain’t never been with me. I know it’s not good business sense, but there’s some so ugly or smelly I try to draw the line, as long as there’s someone else willing to take them on. And he’s got a cousin here who will.”

  “A cousin?”

  “Way Katy looks at it, it’s her business to take care of men, and he’s one, and they ain’t close cousins or nothing. Cousins marry all the time.”

  “Not in my family,” I said, then I was up and pulling on my clothes. “So he’s here?”

  “I don’t know if he’s left or not,” she said. Her face turned sour, or as sour as that sweet face could look. “Now I see what it was you really wanted. I misunderstood and have led you off your mission.”

  “To be honest, I think what I got was what I really wanted,” I said.

  “That’s kind of sweet.”

  “I just didn’t know I wanted it.”

  “It’s like finding out about chocolate cake. Once you’ve had it, from then on you crave it. Look, I can point Fatty out to you, but keep me out of it.” And then I could clearly see a thought land on her head, surely as if it were an eagle. “No. Better yet, Red, take me with you.”

  “Why would I do that?”

  “We can do what we were doing here for free if I go with you. I’m a good traveling companion. I’ve learned a lot of jokes working here. Don’t ask me to cook none, though. I can’t boil water without setting it on fire.”

  “You can’t set boiling water on fire if you wanted to,” I said.

  “That’s one of my jokes.”

  “It isn’t a good one. It doesn’t make any sense.”

  “You can damn sure boil it down until the pan catches on fire,” she said. “I’ve seen me do it.”

  “You really want to run away with me?” I said.

  “I want to get away from Steve,” she said. “He told me this was a fun life, but it ain’t. There’s some perks. There’s that whole thing about the place here having electric lights and a gas burner for cooking, but like I said, I don’t cook very well. And we got shitters inside. They’re down the hall in a room right here in the house. You can do your business in them and pull a chain and water will wash the mess away. Only place in town that’s got indoor shitters is this whorehouse. I like that plenty, cause you don’t have to go outside in the night and worry about some bug or snake crawling up your bare ass in the outdoor convenience. But as I was saying, this ain’t no fun life. That was a goddamn lie Steve told me. He found me at the train station in Austin when I got off. I had run away from home because Mama wanted me to be a goddamn seamstress like her, and I didn’t want to spend a life with needle pricks in my thumb. I wish now I was back there wearing a thimble. Course, I wrote her once and she wrote me back, but there wasn’t any invitation back home. She said not to write her anymore. And Steve, he said he loved me, and he’d take me away to better things, and the next thing I knew I’m here flat-backing, and this ain’t better than nothing except for what I was saying about gas and electricity and the shitter. And now and again there’s a man who is not bad to do it with.”