When the truth of the matter sank in, Mrs. Jones, a tall, handsome woman with mounded hair skunk-striped with gray, let out a noise so shrill and pitiful, Sunset could feel it in her bones. It made her flex her right foot so hard her shoe came off.

“You shot him?” Jones said. “You shot my boy?”

“Right upside the head.”

“My God,” he said.

“Didn’t have no choice. He was raping me.”

“Man can’t rape his wife,” Jones said.

“Sure seemed like rape to me,” Sunset said.

Jones drew back his hand, and as he did, Sunset lifted the pistol. “I ain’t gonna have no man beat on me again, I can help it.”

“You’re on a spree, that’s what you are,” Jones said. “You and that nigger. A spree.”

“Uncle Riley don’t have nothing to do with it. And if we were on a spree, you think we’d have come here? I didn’t know no other place to go. I come for Karen.”

“But why did you do it?” Jones said.

“Pete come home drunk. Guess one of his girlfriends over in Holiday, probably that whore Jimmie Jo French, didn’t give him what he wanted. So he decided he wanted it from me. Even if I was second, or maybe third, choice. And he wanted it rough. He started beating on me, ripped off my clothes, and the storm come and blew the house away. Just took it out of there like it was made out of newspaper. I got hold of his gun and shot him. Walked off without no clothes on. Just these shoes and a curtain I found. Uncle Riley gave me his shirt.”