The Thicket Read online

  “You’ve enjoyed it with other men?” I said.

  “You think I been just living here waiting on you, Red?”

  “I guess not,” I said, but my confidence was a bit stepped on. I was thinking I had been so good with her my first time out she was ready to quit the whoring business and go off with me. But she mainly just wanted to quit the whoring business.

  “I just met you, and now you want me to be the love of your life?” she said.

  “No, but—”

  “Listen here,” she said. “I like you. I do. But all I’m asking is you get me by Steve and out of here, and I’ll try to show you the fat man if he’s here. I’ll go with you for a while, and you can have all of me you want, except if I’m having a mood. I can get out of a bad mood if I’m getting paid, but if I’m not being paid, and it’s one of those dark times, I’m not as friendly as I ought to be. I thought I’d warn you ahead of time.”

  I was discovering that Jimmie Sue was quite the chatterbox. I decided to get right to the point, or at least the point I was now the most concerned with.

  “Won’t Steve shoot me if I try and take you away?”

  “He will, and several times if he catches us,” she said. “He thinks he owns all of us, like we’re sheep or something. Some of the other girls, they’re all right with that. But me, I want to leave. I can do it, now that I’ve got someone to help me.”

  “I didn’t agree to that,” I said.

  “But you want to, don’t you?”

  “I suppose,” I said. “But I don’t like that part about getting shot.”

  “Then there it is. You’re going to help me, and we’re going to try and make sure you don’t get shot.”

  “Try?”

  “You think life ain’t got a risk or two, hon?”

  “Yeah, but this is one I don’t have to take.”

  “But you will, won’t you?”

  I didn’t say anything, but she acted as if I agreed. When she was dressed, she picked up a little handbag that had a drawstring, put the four bits I had given her into it, and looped the bag over her wrist. She said, “Way we can tell if he’s still here is his boots.”

  “Steve?” I said.

  “No, hon. Fatty.”

  Out in the hallway I looked both ways and saw the boots. I didn’t know one pair of boots from the other. But Jimmie Sue did. She pointed. “That’s his, the ones with the silver toes. He’s got them that way to kick people. He brags about it to some of the girls, how’s he’s kicked men in the knees and balls. Katy, his cousin, she thinks it’s funny.”

  “I haven’t met her,” I said. “But I can tell you right now, hers is not an opinion I would hold highly on anything, especially family relations. You’re sure those are his boots?”

  “Pretty sure.”

  “How can you be completely sure?”

  She crept down the hall and picked up the boots and held them head height, whispered to me. “Look, you see they got little blades under the toes.”

  I went over and looked. There were indeed little blades that fit right under the toes and stuck out about an inch.

  “It’s him, then?” I said.

  “It is,” she said. We crept back down the hall and stood in front of her room. “If you break in the room and shoot him, that’ll cause a ruckus, and we won’t be going anywhere. So you want me to go with you, it’ll have to be another plan.”

  “I need information from him,” I said. “We intend to interrogate him.”

  “Interrogate him?” she said. “That sounds like something I do in the bedroom.”

  “According to Shorty, it means we’ll pistol-whip the shit out of him until he talks. Those are his words.”

  “Why didn’t you just say so, Red? I know what that means.”

  I was thinking about a lot of things all of a sudden. Fatty, of course, and Grandpa, who had been a danged liar and a cheater on Grandma, before and after the cow incident. And from the way it sounded, them cow hooves hadn’t long been on Grandma’s head and her in the ground when he was here doing what he had been doing all along, only more regular.

  If those thoughts weren’t bad enough, now I had Jimmie Sue to worry about, and pretty soon I’d have to explain her to Shorty and Eustace. I was also thinking about that boy lying in a ditch, and of course my sister out there in the wilds of somewhere, and here I was wasting time with a whore and not hating it too much. I was, in fact, wrapped up in a kind of cloud, having finally experienced what I’d heard men talk about. From my point of view, they hadn’t been exaggerating.

  Back in Jimmie Sue’s room, we got the sheets and tore them and tied them together, making knots that could be grabbed on to. We fastened the sheets to the bedstead on one end and dropped the other end out the window. It was two stories down. The sheet rope wasn’t as long as we had hoped. I used my pocketknife to cut up a blanket, and we worked that in with the sheet. Now we had something that would almost reach the ground, leaving Jimmie Sue with only a short drop.

  Plan was she’d go out that way and I’d go out the way I came, another satisfied customer. I helped Jimmie Sue out the window, and, clutching the sheet-and-blanket rope we had made, she started down. She was about halfway there when a knot slipped and she fell the rest of the way. It wasn’t a terrible drop, but she landed hard, on her butt, let out with a charge of air that at that moment seemed loud enough to be heard at the other end of town and maybe on up at the cotton gin.

  She glanced up, gulped in some air, and got up. She waved me on.

  I went out then, down the stairs, started out the door. I waved at Steve and his shotgun. He didn’t wave back. He just glared at me. I thought if I were him I would consider that sort of attitude bad for business. I went on out.

  Outside, I moved carefully but briskly to the rear of the whorehouse, met Jimmie Sue coming around the corner.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “I think my ass is flat,” she said. “Can’t you tie a goddamn knot?”

  “I did the best I could,” I said. “Way I remember it, it wasn’t me tied all the knots.”

  “I can tie a knot,” she said. “I bet you a dollar to a bull’s nuts it was you who tied the knot that slipped.”

  “It doesn’t matter now,” I said.

  We went wide of the place, behind a couple of buildings, and came up behind the livery, where Shorty and Eustace were to sell the borrowed horse and have our mounts fed, watered, and rested.

  We went around to the front of the livery and were about to go in so I could ask if the liveryman might know where Shorty and Eustace were, when I saw them coming toward us, Eustace with a tow sack slung over his shoulder, carrying the four-gauge in his other hand. Shorty seemed to bounce as he walked. Hog was with them, having reappeared from wherever he had been visiting. Even from a distance he looked a mess, with all manner of mud and greenery twisted up in his short, bristly hair.

  “They have a hog with them,” she said.

  “Noticed that, did you?”

  “Why is a hog with them?”

  “He’s a friend of Eustace’s,” I said.

  “A friend.”

  “Yep.”

  “My God, that porker looks wild.”

  “He is said to be,” I said.

  As they got within earshot, Eustace said, “Is that your sister?”

  “If I am,” Jimmie Sue said, “then we are going to be in deep trouble with the law and a whole bunch of preachers.”

  “She’s not,” I said. “She told me where Fatty is.”

  “So he’s the one that come here,” Eustace said.

  We were all standing in front of the livery now, grouped up. “How did you come by her and that information?” Shorty asked.

  “We met at the whorehouse,” Jimmie Sue said, watching Hog as she talked. “He’s helping me run away.”

  “I suppose you work there,” Shorty said.

  “I have decided to remove myself from the work,” she said. “It has long hours, can be
smelly, and is short on any kind of benefits, outside of an indoor toilet and electric lights.” She stared at Shorty. “Aren’t you precious?”

  “You think so?” Shorty said. “If you believe that, maybe you could return yourself to your previous business for five minutes up in the hayloft. I have four bits.”

  “No,” Jimmie Sue said, running her arm through mine. “I’ve completely got myself out of that business. I’ve gone off here with Red. He’s my knight in shining armor.”

  “Cousin,” Eustace said to me, “I’m guessing I’m short that four bits, and she’s what got your armor polished.”

  “Afraid so,” I said.

  “No—you did what I told you to do, and I’m glad you did it.”

  “He’s glad, too,” Jimmie Sue said. “Aren’t you, hon?”

  I nodded.

  “I used to fuck his grandfather,” she said.

  I winced, and Shorty laughed a deep chuckle that made my pride hurt.

  “Is not your grandfather the one who was a preacher?”

  “Don’t go and try and make him feel bad,” Jimmie Sue said. “Like I was telling him, Jesus forgives, and he’s bound to understand a fella has to get his pipes cleaned from time to time.”

  “I am in total agreement,” Shorty said.

  “Does that hog bite?” Jimmie Sue asked, as Hog had always been her main point of interest.

  “Yes ma’am,” Eustace said. “And really hard. He wanted to, he could tear your leg off, though he’d have to work on it a bit and pull some.”

  “You ought to comb that muddy mess out of his hair,” she said.

  “I don’t think he’d like that,” Eustace said.

  “All right, then,” Shorty said. “Where is this Fatty bastard?”

  I told him.

  Eustace put the sack on the ground and leaned the four-gauge against the side of the livery. About that time the liveryman came out wearing overalls and no shirt. His work boots had a coating of horse manure and hay on the bottom so thick it stuck out on the sides and at the toes and heel. He was fat and bald and squinted behind some thick glasses. One lens was cracked, and the earpieces had string tied to the ends so that the glasses were bound to his head. He was carrying a horseshoe hammer.

  “I thought I heard you two,” he said to Eustace and Shorty. “Are these friends of yours?” said the liveryman, and then his eyes nestled on Hog. “What’s that hog doing there?”

  “We include the hog in our organization, such as it is,” Shorty said. “Have you met our secretary?” He motioned at Jimmie Sue. “What is your name?”

  She said it.

  “The hog is our troubleshooter,” Shorty said.

  “Say he is?” the liveryman said. “Does he bite?”

  “A common question,” said Shorty. “And the answer is yes, he does.”

  “Hard,” said Eustace.

  The liveryman lifted the hammer slightly.

  “Do not appear threatening,” said Shorty. “Hog has a hair-trigger temper.”

  I glanced at Hog. He didn’t seem all that angry to me. He seemed distracted by a fly on his nose.

  Before the liveryman could process this information about Hog, Jimmie Sue looked at me, said, “Shorty talks funny. Is that because he’s a midget?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think that comes with being a midget.”

  “I can hear you, you know,” Shorty said. “I am standing right here. And let me assure you there are midgets who talk in the same backwoods, ignorant manner that you do, but I am not one of them.”

  “You know a lot of midgets?” she said.

  “None currently,” Shorty said.

  “Then you don’t know,” she said. “They may all talk like assholes.”

  “I knew several in the past,” Shorty said. “Come to think of, some of them did talk like assholes.”

  “Who cares?” Eustace said.

  “Well, I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” said the liveryman, “any of you, but your horses are all fed and watered. Did you find your friend?”

  “No,” Shorty said. “Not yet. We are still looking for him.”

  “Well, he was the only fat guy came in on a horse with a nicked shoe, and I’ve fixed that for him. You tell him that, you see him.”

  “Sure,” Shorty said.

  “And the borrowed horse?” I said, looking directly at Shorty.

  Eustace and Shorty looked askance.

  “Borrowed horse?” the liveryman said.

  “The spare horse,” I said, correcting myself. “Sorry. Slip of the tongue.”

  “I bought him,” said the liveryman.

  “That’s how I got this bag of goods,” Eustace said. “And there’s money left over.”

  “I give a fair price when it’s a fair horse,” said the liveryman. He seemed proud of himself. Like a rooster that’s just dismounted a hen.

  “I assure you,” said Shorty, “that if anyone should ask, or if it should come up, we will make sure you are known for just that virtue.”

  “Why, thank you, midget,” said the liveryman, and I saw one of Shorty’s eyes twitch.

  He calmed himself, though, said to the liveryman, “I would like to ask that you maintain our horses awhile longer, a service we will pay for, of course.”

  “Of course you will,” said the liveryman.

  “We have a bit of business to attend to,” said Shorty. “Something that we thought might arise and now has.”

  “You take care of your business,” said the liveryman. “Come back and get them when you’re ready. You got the money, I got your horses. By the way, you want to sell that hog? He would hang comfortably in my smokehouse.”

  “Anything dead hangs comfortably,” Shorty said. “But he is not for sale, as he is not owned.”

  “Then he’s a free agent, so to speak,” said the liveryman.

  “Free, but under our protection, as we are under his,” said Shorty.

  “You’re an odd congregation,” said the liveryman.

  “I suppose it is all in perspective,” said Shorty. “We will return for our horses.”

  The liveryman went back inside, and we walked off down the street in the direction of the whorehouse.

  Shorty said, “We thought we might have to leave and find the old trail if you didn’t come across your man. But now that you have, we can find him, have a nice talk, and have some better idea where we are going.”

  We came to the whorehouse and stopped in the street and looked at it.

  “Where in there is he?” Eustace said.

  I explained as best I could where the room was, and what the boots looked like that identified him.

  “He’s in there with Katy,” Jimmie Sue said. “She’s got a little gun she keeps just under the bed, on a little stool there. So if you’re going inside you might want to keep that in mind. And you might want to keep Steve in mind, too. He’s near the door with a .410.”

  “I think our best course of action would be to wait him out,” Shorty said. He turned and looked across the street at the old abandoned house there. “We can go there and wait, and when he comes out, we can take him.”

  “What about me?” Jimmie Sue said.

  “What about you?” Shorty said. “When we get this done, you go back to either whoring or moving along. You are not our concern.”

  “He finds out I told where he was, he’ll kill me,” Jimmie Sue said. “Either him or his cousin Katy. She’s mean as a snake. Fact is, I’m taking a chance standing here. Someone in there will see me, and then I’m in for it. Pretty soon, they’re going to figure out I’m gone, and Steve don’t like his whores taking a mind of their own.”

  “That still is not our concern,” Shorty said.

  “Yes, it is,” I said. “I promised her protection.”

  “She is a whore,” Shorty said. “She was merely looking for a way out of a mess she was in, and you were it. Just because you lowered your rope in her well does not make y
ou her protector.”

  Jimmie Sue let go of my arm, which she had continued to clutch on our walk to the whorehouse.

  “I’ll slap your face,” Jimmie Sue said to Shorty. “Even if I have to dig a hole to stand in so I don’t have to bend over.”

  “Oh, that is clever,” Shorty said. “You try and slap my face, you will wake up with your arm up your nose. I can promise you that.”

  “I said I’d help her, and I plan to do just that,” I said. “And you aren’t going to slap anyone.”

  Shorty turned his head and looked at me. Eustace laid his hand on Shorty’s shoulder, said, “You asked me if I thought he had sand, and I said he did. You said he didn’t. What now, Shorty?”

  “I suppose there is a trace of sand in him,” Shorty said. “But there may be just enough there to cover him in a grave.”

  “Well, it’s all right for the moment,” Eustace said. “Let my cousin Jack have his girl. She ain’t in the way right now.”

  “She will be,” Shorty said. “Come on, we do not need to be seen staring at the whorehouse anyway. Let us move along.”

  “Yeah,” Eustace said. “They’re gonna wonder what a big nigger, a midget, a kid, a whore, and a nasty hog are considering out here.”