They helped her onto the porch as she used her hands to tug down the back of the shirt and not give a free show.

Jones followed her up the steps, took a look down the front of her shirt himself, said, “What you doing like this? Get hurt in the storm?”

“Something like that.” Sunset turned and called to Uncle Riley. “Thank you for being such a gentleman, Uncle Riley.”

“You welcome, Miss Sunset.”

“I’ll give you your shirt later. For reasons you can see, I got to hang on to it just now.”

“Yes, ma’am. That’s quite all right. You keep it you got a mind to. Reckon I better run along, get these fishes home before they go bad.”

Riley let loose the wheel brake, clucked to the mules, and the crowd parted.

One of the men in the crowd, Don Walker, said to the man next to him, “You can bet that nigger enjoyed him a peek.”

“Just hate it wasn’t me,” said the other, Bill Martin. “Even with her face all beat up like that, I’d take her.”

“Hell, Bill, you’d take a hole in the dirt.”

“Shit, I’d fuck a duck if it winked and bent over.”

“I don’t think you’d care if it winked or not.”

In the Jones house, Sunset sat down in a cane chair next to the radio and watched shadows run down the hill and over the house like spilled oil.

Sunset said, “I shot him.” She held up the gun. “With this gun. His gun. He had me on the floor hitting me. He tried to rape me. He’d raped me before. I couldn’t have it no more.”