“Your hair sure is red,” Tommy said.

“Damn, boy,” Uncle Riley said. “Miss Sunset don’t need you talking about her hair right now. Get on back there and sort them fish out or something.”

“They all the same.”

“Well, count them, boy.”

“It’s all right, Uncle Riley. Yeah, Tommy. It’s red. My mama used to say red as sunset, so that’s what people call me.”

“That ain’t your name?” Tommy asked.

“It is now. In the Bible they wrote Carrie Lynn Beck. But everyone called me Sunset. Got married I became Jones.”

Sunset burst into tears.

“Go on back there now and sit down,” Uncle Riley told Tommy.

“I didn’t do nothing,” Tommy said.

“Boy, you want your ass shined? Go back there.”

Tommy moved back a ways, sat down amidst the fish. They were still damp and wet against his pants and he didn’t like it, but he sat. He knew he had pushed about as far as he could push, and the next push the wagon would stop and he’d have his daddy’s hand across the seat of his pants, or worse, he’d have to go break off his own switch for his daddy to use.

As they went the day died, the woods thinned on either side and you could hear the scream of the saw from the mill, could hear movement of men and mules and oxen and dragged trees, the rattle and gunning of lumber trucks.

“They see me and you, it gonna be bad,” Uncle Riley said.

“It’ll be all right,” Sunset said.

“Tommy, you get on out of the wagon, go off in them trees. I’ll come back for you.”