Henry looked at Sunset, said, "No one really cares about a nigger's land, Sunset. Not really. We could cut you in for a share of it. Hell, you're such a nigger lover, you can give Zendo part of your share, all of it. The truth is, a nigger ain't got the sense to run a piece of oil land, and don't deserve the money."

"But you do?"

"Oh, yeah."

"How much does he get?"

"I'm a full partner," McBride said.

"Did you start that way?" Sunset said. "You a full partner from the start? Bet not. Bet you got the mayor's share. Where is the mayor, McBride?"

McBride grinned at her. "All I know, he gave up his job when he disappeared. I think Henry here is going to be running for that position."

"That's right," Henry said. "They got the town council filling in until the emergency election, next month. Then I'll run. I think I've got a good chance."

"Not if the council knows about this."

"Frankly, you're just a fly on the end of my dick, Sunset. A third of the council is Klan, and I don't know any of the others got much love for niggers."

"Thing is," Sunset said, "bet they'll all want their little share, though, won't they? That'll split up your prize considerable, won't it?"

Sunset was fishing, but she could tell from the look on Henry's face he had thought about that, and didn't like the idea. McBride looked like he had before. A happy green-eyed guy. A guy used to things turning out his way.

"Rooster in on this?" Sunset asked.

"He was," McBride said. "But he left town today."

"Way the mayor did?"

"Rooster seems to have caught a train," McBride said. "Sheriff's car was found out by the tracks just before we come here."

"Listen here, girlie," Henry said. "Let me lay it out even clearer. I won't remove you from office. You play constable, run around with your gun and badge until the term runs out, then you give it up. Do that, I'll give you a cut of the oil money. A good cut. There's a little house on that land Pete built for his whore. Think about that. He built her a house and was going to make her rich on that oil money, and you, you weren't going to get a thing out of the deal. That was part of his little blackmail scheme. A house, a piece of land, a slice of the oil money. He was gonna shake you loose, honey, and keep the whore. I'll give you the deal he wanted, one I wasn't going to give him or Jimmie Jo. How's that? Better than living in that tent, ain't it?"

"I wouldn't trust you as far as two grown men could throw you," Sunset said. "And by the way, did it occur to you, I tell Marilyn what you've done, you'll be out at the sawmill?"

Henry pursed his lips, shook his head and grinned.

"Well, Marilyn is looking for an excuse, now that she drove her old man to suicide and she's got the purse strings. I've known her a long time. I think Jones kept her in line. I think she's got a conniving streak herself. Tell that old sow to let 'er rip. I've put back money, and I'm going to make new money, and I got a little inheritance from the wife, her having a piece of the sawmill and all. Thing for you to worry about is not how to get me but how to not get got yourself."

"Gonna send your white-sheeted monkeys? I ain't scared of them. One of them puts a foot on my property, comes near me or mine, I'll arrest him. And if I can't arrest him, I'll bloody up his sheet."

McBride made with his chuckle, the one that made Sunset's ass clench and her skin crawl.

"Something needs to be taken care of, I like to have people knows how," McBride said. "Or do it myself, I got to. Not a bunch of crackers playing dress up, passing signs and symbols between themselves.

"Now, sweetie, you don't know me. But I'll tell you this. I think the Bible will back me up. A woman, she's got a function. And it's important. That's how a man stays satisfied, how babies come into the world and pickles get canned. But a slut wearing a badge, talking to men like she's a man, that ain't one of her functions. Me, I'm a business partner with Mr. Shelby here. And I'll get my share. I don't give a hot turd in a hog's ass about councils and mayors and maps and who knows what. You hear? You don't want to rile me. You don't want to even make me a little irritated. You might want to stroke my weary brow, you know what's good for you, lay back, let me take some tension out of you, cause I can do that. Thing that's getting you by now, this minute, is you're cute. That's gonna get you through this meeting today. It ain't good for another day. Hear me?"

"Think you're scaring me?" Sunset said, feeling very scared, letting her hand rest on the butt of her gun, because McBride, he'd shifted in the pew and his coat had fallen back and she could see there was one big pistol hanging from a holster under his arm. She knew he knew she could see it, meant for her to. He shifted again, let the coat close. She kept her hand on her gun, casual, but ready, determined not to show how scared she was, keeping a calm smile on her face, holding her legs stiff so her knees wouldn't knock.

Then she saw something behind the closed curtain at the back, where the choir gathered and the curtain was pulled open when they sang. Feet sticking out from under the curtain. She said, "Who's back there?"

"Believe me," McBride said, "you don't want to know."

"Tell him to step out."

McBride grinned. "All right. Two."

Two stepped out. He was partially hidden in shadow, but there was light from the door, and it gave enough she could see him. At first he looked short, but Sunset realized he was over six feet and thick and built like an oak. He was black as wet licorice and the whites of his eyes were very white. He smiled. His gums were dark. Blue gums, they called colored people like that. He wore a bowler hat like McBride, but it fit lower. He had on regular clothes but his jacket was black and silky and had long tails. There was something about him that made her skin try and turn itself inside out.

"What's he supposed to be?" Sunset said.

"He's a big nigger," McBride said.

"Why's he here?"

"I told you," McBride said. "You don't want to know."

Sunset studied McBride, said, "You got your ugly little hat screwed on too tight. Don't you know it ought to come off in church? Or will your head come off with it?"

McBride's face collapsed like a sail without wind, and Sunset realized she had hit home. The hat? No. His head? That was it-sonofabitch was bald. And vain about it. She gave him a slow smile. McBride's features remained the same; the sail had not regained the wind.

"You're in my jurisdiction now, Henry," Sunset said. "You and your thug and your thug's thug, or whatever he is. All of you."

"But you're not the law in Holiday," Henry said. "The map's not your concern, and as the law is sort of under my jurisdiction over there, well, I suppose I'm the law."

"Zendo's land is under my jurisdiction," Sunset said. "You boys say your prayers and leave. I don't want to find you here within the hour. I do, I'll arrest you."

"For what?" Henry said.

"For being ugly in church."

Now was the time for an exit, Sunset thought, while she was one up. Sunset started down the aisle, for the open door.

Henry called out to her. "Have we got a deal, you and me?"

She kept walking.

Outside she held out her hands and looked at them. They were shaking.

Henry said, "Think she'll go with us? Take the deal?"

"Not that one. I hope she doesn't. Me and her, we need to get close, and I like a reason to be mad."

"I think she'll take the deal. She's tough now, but she'll think about it. She'll take it."

"She'll pass."

Henry looked up, studied Two.

"Did you have to bring the shine with you? Bring him here?"

"He does what he wants."

"I don't get it. I hired you, but you brought this guy down."

"It cost you a train ticket. Get over it. He had to ride back with the niggers. It wasn't no easy thing for him."

"He is a nigger."

"Two ain't got the same way of thinking niggers got around here."

"What's that mean?"

"It means he ain't no shine boy."

"Why's he stand around like that? In the shadows. He gives me the willies."

McBride grinned. "He likes it dark. He thinks he's some kind of shadow. Come here, Two."

Two came over, stood in front of the pew, his hands dangling by his sides. Up close Henry took note of Two's blazing green eyes.

"Two," McBride said, "show him your head. Tell Henry what happened."

Two took off his bowler. At the top of his forehead, the hair, which was cut short elsewhere, was gone and there was a scar, a horseshoe shape. It was deep and purple and had ridges.

"Jesus," Henry said. "A mule kicked you?"

"God gave me this," said Two, and his voice had a kind of gush to it, like a shovel slipping into fresh mud. "I was struck by a bolt of God's lightning, and God made me Two. Made me hungry."

"He got kicked in the head, right?" Henry asked McBride.

"He just told you what happened."

"God have a mule?"

"He's a piece of work, ain't he?"

"How'd you come by him?"

"That's a long story."

"What's he mean there's two of him?"

"That's why he's called Two. Used to just be Cecil, but that ain't good enough no more. Now he's Two. There's him, then there's the other one, but they're both inside of him. He's so goddamn special has to be two of him. Am I right, Two?"

Two nodded.

"Sometimes they got to talk to one another, figure things out. Ain't that right, Two?"

"This is giving me the crawls, McBride. We got to have him around?"

"He's good in a spot. I been in some places where me and him had to ride high, and we did."

"He does what you say?"

"Only if he wants to. Most of the time, he wants to. We got a connection."

"Is he dangerous?"

"Of course he's dangerous."

Henry studied Two, standing there, still as a board, a smile on his face, the green eyes looking down like the eyes of some kind of feral animal. The same kind of eyes McBride had, only more so.

"Took the urge, he'd bite your face off, Henry. Eat it. Niggers got that cannibal thing in them, you know."

Henry snapped a glance at McBride, and McBride laughed.

"Don't worry. He ain't gonna eat you. Not just yet. Will you, Two?"

"I think not," Two said.

"He don't talk like a nigger."

"Two was educated, weren't you, Two?"

Two nodded.

"He learned things some white men never get to learn, but Two, he got to. He can do higher mathematics, Henry. He can read any goddamn book ever written without moving his lips, and he's read a lot of them. Ain't that right, Two? He's got a pretty special life. Here he is, half nigger, half white, black as the goddamn ace of spades, and his father and his nigger mother, they took care of him, treated him good, like a white man. And the father, a white man, he went off and left his other son, a white boy, to his mother, a white mother, and the mother left the son to the nuns. But the boy, he come out of it. He was tough. Made his way. He's done all right. But he didn't get no education. Didn't get a thing he didn't scratch in the dirt for. And Cecil here-Two-he got it all given to him like that black skin of his was white as snow. God smote him for being an uppity nigger, didn't he, Two? That's the real reason you got smote."

"He gave me powers."

"See, Two figures it different. Thinks God blessed him. He won't accept a horse kicked him, knocked his brain around. That ain't the story is it, Two?"

"God struck me with a thunderbolt, gave me powers."

"What do you have to do in return, Two?" McBride said. "What do you have to do to put a smile on God's face?"

"Suck souls."

"Suck souls?" Henry said.

"Yeah. Ain't that some shit? Likes to put his mouth over the face of a dying man or woman, and suck. He'll do it if they're fresh dead, too. They don't have to be on the boat, they can done be off and on the other side, and old Two, he goes to sucking."

"You're pulling my dick?"

"Nope. He sucks souls. Or thinks he does."

"I do," Two said.