JESSE STOPS DIGGING AND SITS. JOHONA’S GRAVE IS ONLY TWO feet deep, but all the strength drains out of his arms, and he can’t keep hold of the shovel. Edgar takes his place in the hole, though, and he and the black man who showed up at Beaumont’s, Charles Sanders, keep working, so the dirt keeps piling up. Sanders didn’t kick when Jesse made him pull over to bury Johona. “I’m a Christian,” he said, “I understand,” and even picked up a shovel and pitched in.
Johona’s body lies next to Jesse, blood seeping through the blanket he wrapped her in. He touches the bundle, finds her corpse has gone cold, and feels sick to his stomach thinking how twelve hours ago she was resting in his arms. She was like some small, soft thing that got torn apart between two dogs. He should’ve taken better care of her.
“My brother’s the best gravedigger there is,” Edgar tells Sanders. “And I’m second.”
“Is that right?” Sanders says.
Jesse makes himself stand. “You two take a break,” he says. “I’ll finish up.”
When the hole is deep enough, they lower Johona into it. Sanders asks Jesse if he wants to say anything. He doesn’t, doesn’t have the words.
“I’ll do it,” Edgar says.
“Leave it be,” Jesse snaps. He’s had enough of his brother’s jabber for tonight, enough for a lifetime.
He and Sanders fill the grave while Edgar sulks.
Sanders drives the truck back into town. Jesse keeps the .45 he took off the man pointed at his belly. No more mistakes.
“Where are you staying?” he asks Sanders.
“A motel near the Strip,” Sanders replies.
“Me and Edgar will be holing up with you for today.”
Sanders frowns but doesn’t protest. A while later he says, “How will you find the bikers?”
“The Fiends,” Jesse says. “They call themselves the Fiends.”
“Do you have a line on them?”
“I’ve got Beaumont. He knows where they are.”
“Then what? You and me and your brother go after them?”
“He’d be no help.”
“I can fight good as you,” Edgar says.
“Shut up.”
“So it’ll be two against four,” Sanders says.
“We did all right against seven.”
“That was luck,” Sanders says. His face is swollen from the beating he took at Beaumont’s, and there’s a cut on his forehead. He dabs at it with a rag. “If I get shot, I die.”
“I’ll turn you, if you want,” Jesse says. “Then they can shoot you ten times, and you’ll keep coming back.”
“I guess you think that’s funny,” Sanders says.
Jesse doesn’t reply. He has the man stop a few blocks from the motel where he, Edgar, and Johona have been staying.
“Give me the keys and your wallet,” he says.
Sanders hands the items over. Jesse opens the wallet and sees a photograph of a woman holding a child. “Is this your family?” he says.
“My wife, my son,” Sanders says.
Jesse points at the address on the driver’s license. “And this is where they live?”
Sanders turns to stone, doesn’t answer.
“If you’re not here when I get back, I’ll go to this address and kill everyone there,” Jesse says. “You understand?”
“I’ll be here.”
“Where you going?” Edgar says.
“Stay with Mr. Sanders. You’ll be fine.”
It’s past 4 a.m. The street is deserted. Jesse hurries along, but not so quickly he’ll attract attention. When he reaches the motel, he scans for Fiends. There doesn’t appear to be a lookout, so he jogs to the room, unlocks the door, and pushes it open. Drawing the .45, he steps inside and checks the bathroom. All clear.
He gathers his and Edgar’s belongings and shoves them into their suitcases. He has one grip, Edgar two, the second for his toys and other junk. Jesse can only carry two bags, so he leaves most of the toys behind, fitting what he can—Matchbox cars, a few picture books, a deck of cards—into the case with Edgar’s clothes. Then there’s Abby to deal with.
The cat hisses and recoils when he reaches for her. He considers leaving her, but Edgar will already be upset about the other missing items. He strips the case off one of the pillows and, after a battle that leaves him bitten and scratched, manages to shove the animal inside it.
The sunglasses Johona bought him are on the table. All the strength goes out of him again when he sees them, and he sits on the bed while he pulls himself together. He’s got to be tougher. If he’s going to get revenge for the girl, he’s got to ball up his grief and bury it, can’t have it blindsiding him. So he should leave the glasses. But he can’t. He slips them into his pocket and peeks out the door.
Nobody’s waiting, nobody raises an alarm. Carrying the suitcases and cat, he makes his way back to the truck by a different route. Sanders is there like he said he’d be. Jesse stows the grips in the camper and hands the pillowcase to Edgar when he returns to the cab.
“Keep her in there,” he says.
Edgar reaches inside to stroke Abby.
Sanders drives to his motel, parks, and gives Jesse the keys.
“Take Edgar inside,” Jesse says and goes to the camper for the grips. He leans in and bangs on the crate that Beaumont’s locked up in. “It’s gonna be a hundred and ten today,” he says. “I hope you fucking roast in there.”
He locks the camper and carries the grips to the room.
“Where’s the other?” Edgar says when Jesse hands him the single suitcase.
“You’ve only got one now,” Jesse says.
Edgar sits on a bed and opens the case. He unpacks it and separates his clothes from his other things, then turns on Jesse in a fury.
“Where’s my seashells? Where’s my sword?”
“I couldn’t bring that and Abby too.”
“I need my stuff!”
“And I need you to be a help and not a burden.”
“It’s your fault I got shot. It’s your fault that man near cut my ear off.”
“And it’s your fault Johona’s dead,” Jesse says.
It’s been eating at him since Beaumont’s, the notion that if he hadn’t been hurt trying to help Edgar, he might have been able to get to the Fiend before he cut the girl’s throat. His anger boils over, and he storms into the bathroom and turns on the shower. “Get your ass in here!” he barks. “Wash that blood off.”
“I need my stuff.”
“Now!”
Edgar pops up and lurches toward him, maybe to take a swing, Jesse thinks, but he pushes past into the bathroom and slams the door.
Embarrassed about squabbling in front of Sanders, Jesse says, “Excuse me for that.”
“It’s been a long night,” Sanders says. He pulls the rag away and touches the cut on his head.
“Looks like the bleeding’s stopped,” Jesse says.
“Will you let me put a bandage on it?”
“Go on ahead.”
Sanders roots in a duffel bag and comes up with a small first aid kit. He wets a washcloth in the room’s sink and cleans the gash.
“You haven’t been at this long, have you?” Jesse says.
“What? Bleeding?” Sanders says.
“Killing rovers.”
“I didn’t even know there was such a thing until a few days ago, and I wish I’d stayed ignorant,” Sanders says. He dabs antibiotic ointment on the cut and fashions a dressing out of cotton balls and tape.
“What brought you to it?” Jesse says.
“One of you devils killed my son.”
“And killing us makes you feel better?”
“Not yet.”
Sanders presses the bandage into place and checks it in the mirror. “How many people have you murdered?” he asks Jesse.
“One or a thousand, it’s all the same, isn’t it?” Jesse replies.
“I suppose so,” Sanders says. “You were damned after the first.” He lies on one of the beds with a Bible. Jesse sits at the table, the .45 close at hand.
Morning has come up, the room’s drapes barely holding it back, by the time Edgar emerges from the bathroom and stretches out on the second bed with Abby.
“I’m hungry,” he says.
“You can hold off until dark,” Jesse says.
Edgar points at Sanders and says, “Send this boy out for something.”
“That’s Mr. Sanders,” Jesse says. “He’s not your boy.”
“I have bread and lunch meat,” Sanders says. “You’re welcome to it.”
“Thank you,” Jesse says.
Sanders lays out a loaf of Wonder Bread, a jar of mustard, and a package of salami. Jesse tells Edgar to get up and make his own sandwich. Sanders makes one for himself when Edgar finishes.
“You want me to leave this out for you?” he asks Jesse.
Food is the furthest thing from Jesse’s mind. Now that they’re settled, he’s focused on going after the Fiends.
“What kind of weapons have you got?” he asks Sanders when the man comes out of the bathroom after taking a shower.
Sanders runs down the items in his arsenal: the .45 Jesse took from him, a new shotgun, and ammo for both; a knife; a few ice picks; a hacksaw. Jesse’s got two pistols he picked up at Beaumont’s, a .38 revolver and a 9mm automatic, and his hunting knife. That should be enough. In the end it won’t come down to which side is better armed anyway, it’ll be who fights hardest.
Edgar wants to watch television. All that’s on are Sunday-morning church services and Bicentennial specials. Today’s the Fourth of July, the 200th anniversary of the USA, but Jesse couldn’t give two shits. His country has no flag, no anthem, no chorus girls dressed in red, white, and blue. It’s a wasteland where lost souls prey on other lost souls. It’s the hunger, the hunt, and the blood that comes after.
Edgar and Sanders are asleep before long. Jesse is exhausted too, but doesn’t trust Sanders not to make a move if he naps. He sits at the table, and the hours crawl past. To keep away thoughts of Claudine and Johona, he concentrates on the faint pop pop pop of distant firecrackers and the rumble of the maid’s laundry cart on the walkway outside, on the twitching of Abby’s tail and the fluttering of the pages of Sanders’s Bible in the breeze from the air conditioner.
Despite his best efforts, he dozes off. When he jerks back to wakefulness, Bob Hope is on television, dressed like George Washington. Jesse turns off the set and paces the room to get his blood flowing.
Sanders wakes and spends some time writing in a notebook.
“What’s that?” Jesse asks him.
“A letter to my wife,” Sanders replies.
“How long’s it been since you’ve seen her?”
“Too long,” Sanders says. He closes the book and puts it in his bag. “This room’s given me a chill,” he says. “Can I go sit by the pool?”
“I can’t let you do that,” Jesse says.
“You’ve got the keys to the truck, my wallet, and Beaumont. I’m not going to run off. I give you my word.”
“What’s that worth to me?”
“It’s everything to me.”
Jesse stares at Sanders long and hard, trying to read his mind. Sanders stares right back.
“Don’t be gone long,” Jesse says.
“I thank you,” Sanders says.
“Just so you know,” Jesse says before he steps outside. “I called a friend. If he doesn’t hear from me in twenty-four hours, he’ll go to your house in my stead.” This is a lie, but even if Sanders doubts it, Jesse figures it’ll make him think twice about trying anything.
Edgar sits up.
“Jesse.”
“What?”
“I pissed myself.”
“Goddamn it,” Jesse says. His patience has been worn down to nothing. “Take the fucking sheets off.”
“You,” Edgar says.
“I’m through doing for you. From here on in, if you piss, you clean it up yourself. Get moving.”
“No,” Edgar says.
Jesse yanks his arm, pulling him to his feet. “Strip the bed and put the sheets in the tub.”
“I’m wet,” Edgar wails. “I don’t want Mr. Sanders to see me.”
“Then you best finish before he gets back. You can wash up afterward.”
Edgar tugs half-heartedly at the top sheet. It brushes against him, and he recoils and drops it to the floor.
“What are you, scared of your own water?” Jesse says.
“I hate you,” Edgar says.
“I don’t care.”
“I hate you for throwing my things away, I hate you for getting me hurt last night, and I hate you for putting the Little Devil in me.”
“You must hate Mama too, then, because she’s the one who made me turn you.”
“She didn’t know how it’d be.”
“She knew,” Jesse says. “And she hears everything you’re saying, up in heaven.”
Edgar shouts at the ceiling. “He don’t care nothing about me, Mama, only his little whore Miss Johona.”
Jesse pushes him, sprawling him across the bed. “Shut your mouth, or I’ll rub your nose in your mess.”
“You should never have brought that bitch along,” Edgar says. “It was bad luck. Now I ain’t got my sword, I ain’t got my soldiers, and my best shirt’s ruint.”
Jesse’s anger gets the better of him again. He leaps at Edgar and slaps him across the face.
“You fucking idiot,” he says. “You’d forget to wipe your own ass if I didn’t remind you. I’ve kept you alive for fifty years, but if not for promising Mama, I’d have ended this a long time ago. I’d be at peace, and Johona would be alive.”
“That girl’s cunny made you cuckoo,” Edgar says. “I’m glad she got killed.”
Jesse grabs his brother by the throat and squeezes. Edgar puts up a fight, but Jesse’s hands are wolves’ jaws, his arms iron bars. Edgar’s eyes bulge, and his face flushes crimson as Jesse forces him onto his back. His grip on Jesse’s wrists weakens, and Jesse watches life leaving him like he’s watched it leave hundreds of others. He’s so goddamned tired of death. Right before his brother’s spark goes out, he releases him, and Edgar draws a rattling breath.
Jesse spies Abby sitting in a corner. He scrambles off the bed, gets the cat by the scruff, and carries it to the door.
“No!” Edgar shouts.
Jesse grimaces against the blast of sunlight when he opens the door. He tosses the cat out onto the hot asphalt of the parking lot, where it spins like a dog chasing its tail, yowls and spits, then collapses into a heap of gray dust.
Jesse steps back into the room, face and hands scorched. Edgar tries to push past, but he wrestles him to the floor and kicks the door closed. Edgar’s panting, sweating, blubbering. Good. Jesse wants him to suffer. He wants him to wake up, reach for Abby, and have her not be there. He wants him to know loss, the only wound that scars a rover.
He holds his brother down until he stops thrashing, then says, “If you ever speak of Johona again, I’ll dust you. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” Edgar says.
“Now, finish cleaning up.”
Edgar carries the soiled sheets to the bathroom. Jesse stands over him, giving instructions. Fill the tub. Pour in shampoo. Squeeze the sheets and swish them. When the bedding has been hung on the towel rod to dry, Jesse lets Edgar shower. He brings in britches and undershorts and leaves them next to the tub and flips the mattress himself.
Edgar comes out and lies on the bed without a word. Jesse sits at the table and plays Klondike.
There’s a knock at the door. Sanders. If he saw what happened to Abby, he doesn’t say anything. He goes into the bathroom, comes out a few minutes later, and says, “Doing laundry?”
“My brother wet the bed,” Jesse says.
Sanders takes a bag of potato chips out of his food box. “You want some of these?”
“No, thank you.”
“I believe I’ll lie down.”
“Suit yourself.”
Jesse plays cards through the rest of the afternoon. When he feels the sun set, it’s like coming up for air after being underwater. Edgar is asleep, and Sanders is back at his Bible.
“Get me one of your ice picks,” Jesse says to him.
Sanders pulls a pick from his duffel and hands it over.
“I’m going out to talk to Beaumont,” Jesse says. “You’re coming with me.”
Sanders puts his Bible away. He and Jesse walk out to the truck. It’s barely dusk, but already rockets are booming and crackling.
“I never could wait either,” Sanders says. “The Fourth, man, that was a big one.”
Jesse gives him the keys and has him unlock the camper. The air inside is hot and rank. Beaumont glares up at them when Sanders opens the crate. His face glistens with sweat. Jesse sticks the point of the ice pick into his ear.
“I’m only asking once,” he says. “Where are the Fiends?”
He slips the bandana Sanders gagged the man with off Beaumont’s mouth. “A motel on the road to Lake Mead,” Beaumont says. He licks his lips and swallows hard. “I need water. Please.”
Sanders points to a jug on the counter.
“Not yet,” Jesse says. He pushes the pick in deeper, tickling Beaumont’s eardrum. “Where on the road? How far out?”
“I’m not certain, but I know it by sight,” Beaumont says. “I’ll take you there.”
Jesse jiggles the pick to scare him before withdrawing it. He nods to Sanders, who puts the jug to Beaumont’s mouth and holds it while he drinks.
“Thank you, brother,” Beaumont says when he’s had his fill.
“I’m not your brother,” Sanders says.
A fly lands on Beaumont’s cheek and laps at the blood smeared there. Beaumont shakes his head, but the fly just hops to a new spot.
“May I use a toilet?” Beaumont says.
“Not until you take me to the motel,” Jesse says.
“Some food?”
“No. Nothing.”
Jesse slides the gag back and closes the crate. He checks the padlocks after Sanders snaps them shut.
The men leave the camper. Children are playing with sparklers in the motel’s parking lot, twirling them, tossing them, fighting fiery duels.
“God bless America,” a girl sings, marching like she’s in a parade. “Land that I love.”
“We’re going after them tonight,” Jesse says to Sanders.
“Do you have a plan?” Sanders asks.
“Dust them all,” Jesse replies.
A bottle rocket explodes, loosing a swarm of sparks. The last of the sunlight is draining from an orange cloud becalmed above Charleston Peak, and the sky is getting darker by the second.