The Ranger

by Ace Atkins

  “Your uncle kept newspaper clippings about you in his family Bible.”

  Quinn nodded and sliced off some of the thick, salty ham and placed it between a split biscuit.

  “You check on that dog of his?” she asked.

  “Didn’t know he had one.”

  “Dog’s name is Hondo,” she said. “Got one blue eye and one yellow.”

  “You want the dog?”

  “Me and Hamp were not cohabitating.”

  “Sorry,” he said. “Just figured you might want him.”

  “He’s a good dog,” she said. “I sure like that dog.”

  “I’ll keep an eye out.”

  “You want a refill?” She walked away, looking as if she might cry.

  Old photographs of Little League teams and old football champs, dead city leaders with their obits attached, and publicity photos of celebrities who’d once stumbled into Jericho hung on the old paneled wood. People his father would’ve known, most local country music singers or television anchormen. But he’d heard Johnny Cash had once stopped in town, back when the town diner had been on the Square, before the meeting spot became the Fillin’ Station. Quinn didn’t even realize he’d stood up as he searched for Cash’s photo, following that long wall of the town history, some of it his own: the story from the Memphis paper about the ten-year-old boy who’d survived two weeks alone in the woods after being separated during a hunt, the headline reading COUNTRY BOY DID SURVIVE. Quinn saw a younger version of himself standing between his father and his uncle. Uncle Hamp being the one who’d searched for him in what had seemed like a thousand miles of forest where Quinn had fished and hunted and made fires and for a long while thought the whole world had caved in on itself and this was all there was left. A second yellowed newspaper from 1990 read LOST LOCAL BOY FOUND.

  Mary returned and found a pack of cigarettes in her apron, quickly lighting one with a pink Bic. She waved the smoke out of the way and watched Quinn sit back down, having an almost motherly look about her as she saw him grip another ham biscuit. “You get his guns?”

  “Not yet.”

  “What about his .44?”

  “I imagine the sheriff’s office has that.”

  “Wish you’d get it melted. Would you do that for me?”

  “I will.”

  Mary looked over her shoulder, and the old men stared back at her, knowing she should head back to the kitchen and bring back their damn free coffee. But she finished the cigarette, seeming to not give a damn, her face seeming like it just might break but then suddenly finding composure.

  “You see this comin’?” Quinn asked.

  “No, sir, I did not.”

  “Was he drinking again?”

  “I didn’t know he’d stopped,” she said. “That man sure liked his whiskey.”

  “But it hadn’t gotten worse?”

  She shook her head. “What he done shocked me probably about as much it shocked y’all. Did you know he promised to take me on a cruise to Mexico? We used to go down to Biloxi and Tunica all the time.”

  “He hadn’t mentioned any troubles?”

  “We didn’t talk about private matters,” she said, shaking her head. “We just had sex.”

  “Not while cohabitating?”

  “We helped each other along.”

  “Is there anything of his you wanted?”

  She shook her head and gave a weak smile, stubbing out the cigarette. “That house is gonna be more trouble than it’s worth. You do know about the note he owed?”

  “Come again?”

  “Your uncle borrowed some money against the land.”

  “He was broke?”

  She shrugged.

  An elderly coupled shuffled in through the glass door, the bell jingling above them, and found a place by a propane space heater where they could warm their old bones. The old man helped his wife take off her wool jacket and waited until she’d sat down. Mary punched out the cigarette in a tin tray and glanced back to the kitchen. Order up.

  “Which bank?”

  “Wasn’t no bank,” she said. “He borrowed from Johnny Stagg. You know ole Johnny?”

  “You know, that’s the second time I’ve heard that son of a bitch’s name since I got to town.”

  “Quinn Colson.”

  “Wesley Ruth.”

  “Don’t I still have a warrant ’round here for you?”

  “Statute of limitations.”

  “You did steal that fire truck, didn’t you?” Wesley said, grinning. “Just between us?”

  “I think I had some help,” Quinn said and gripped his friend’s hand.

  Wesley kept on pressure-washing mud off the tires of the sheriff’s truck, the truck that still bore Quinn’s uncle’s name on the front doors. He then lifted each boot, hitting the mud off the soles, telling Quinn he’d spent the last four hours looking for some teenagers who’d broke into Mr. Varner’s store overnight and stole ten pounds of hamburger meat, some buns, ketchup, and four gallons of sweet tea. “I just drove around till I smelled the burgers and walked back into the woods, where they were having a cookout. Even invited me to join ’em.”

  “You charge them?”

  “I got ’em in a cell to scare the shit out them,” Wesley said. “It’s up to Mr. Varner what to do. They didn’t do much damage to the door. I think one of them boys is half retarded or high on dope. Maybe both.”

  “I hear you’re acting sheriff.”

  “Can you believe that shit?”

  “You’ll do fine.”

  “You like being in charge?” Wesley asked. “’Cause I sure as shit don’t.”

  “I’m a platoon sergeant. I got forty teenagers who think I’m an old man. I’m the one they call when they get hauled in for drunk driving or beating someone up.”

  “Never thought either one of us would make thirty,” Wesley said, giving a slight smile.

  “Hamp said I’d never make twenty if I didn’t change my ways.”

  “Mama Tried,” Wesley said. “Your uncle was a good man, Quinn. I sure am sorry.”

  “You know anything about him having a dog?”

  Wesley finished up on the last wheel and roped up the hose and turned off the motor, pushed the washer back to the department garage, and locked the gate. He nodded and said, “I hadn’t seen Hondo all week. Went out last night trying to call him.”

  “You making much headway with this?”

  “With what?”

  “Finding out what happened.”

  Wesley, tall and as thick-necked as when he’d played football with Quinn in high school and then for two years at Ole Miss, wrapped his arm around his buddy and steered him on into the sheriff’s office. “There ain’t much to find out.”

  “No chance something went wrong?”

  “He wasn’t exactly a hated man, Quinn.”

  “He was sheriff. People can hold a grudge.”

  “You’re welcome to look for them. But I was there, Quinn. He’d planned the damn thing out. I know you saw Lillie and I know she got her mind chewing on things.”

  “Was there a note?”

  “He got his point across.”

  Quinn nodded before they stepped inside, where he could see people walking around, deputies and a secretary tending to the business of drinking coffee and taking phone calls. He saw Leonard and George, two of his uncle’s deputies who were there when Quinn had left a decade ago. Leonard, square-headed with a buzz cut, looked up from across a desk and gave Quinn a two-fingered salute.

  “How’s Meg?” Quinn asked.

  “Left me for an insurance man in Jackson.”

  “And your son?”

  “See him on the weekends.”

  “You look fit.”

  “Hell, I look fat,” Wesley Ruth said, rubbing his shaved head. “You look like you don’t weigh a hundred pounds.”

  “Y’all running tests on all this?”

  “We are.”

  “What a mess.”

  “It’s good
to see you, Quinn,” Wesley said, wrapping his arm around him again and gripping his neck. “How ’bout we get shit-house drunk tonight?”

  “I got lots to tend to. I just learned that my uncle borrowed some money from Johnny Stagg.”

  “That doesn’t sound good.”

  “And put up the farm against it.”

  “Forget that shit. Let’s go out to the bottomland and shoot armadillos.”

  “I heard he was broke. Does that sound right?”

  “When the man wasn’t here, he was hitting every casino in Tunica,” Wesley said. “Let’s leave it at that.”

  Quinn nodded. “I’ll call you.”

  “You see Anna Lee?” Wesley said, smiling like he had the punch line to some dirty joke.

  “High school is long gone.”

  “You want to see Boom?”

  “Headed there next.”

  Wesley shook his head and thumbed behind him. “One-stop shopping, brother. Boom got himself picked up two days back. Giving him some time to cool down a bit.”

  “What’d he do?”

  “What does Boom always do?”

  “Tear shit up.”

  4

  Boom Kimbrough sat in a kid’s plastic school chair, almost crushing it with his massive size, as he looked at nothing in particular in the jailhouse yard. The small bit of property had been corralled off in chain link and concertina wire, and there really wasn’t much to look at besides bare trees and rolling brown hills down to the sluggish water of the Big Black River. He didn’t even seem to hear Quinn approach after Wesley unlocked the gate and let him inside, but when Quinn was two feet away from his shoulder, Boom just said: “What up, Quinn.”

  Quinn looked down at his friend’s massive shoulders and the back of his head. His hair had grown nappy and uneven around a puckered scar at the base of his skull. Despite it being about thirty degrees, he wore only a dirty white undershirt and the bright orange pants of a prisoner. Last time Quinn had seen him, he’d been coaching linebackers for their old high school and was proud to be bringing in an extra paycheck with the National Guard. Boom had been sent to Iraq a few years back to guard convoys, and then there was something about an IED and some time at Walter Reed.

  When Quinn circled him, he noticed only a left arm and another pink puckered scar across Boom’s black cheek. His eyes were sunken and tired, and his Army boots were unlaced.

  “I’d shake your hand, but you got to do it with your left.”

  “What’d you do?” Quinn asked.

  “Knocked down parking meters with a sledgehammer.”

  “With one arm?”

  “How else am I gonna do it?’

  That one arm was even more massive than Quinn remembered, the thick forearm and bicep twisted with big veins. Quinn figured that arm must’ve grown, taking on double duty.

  “You want to get out?”

  “Shit, I can’t make bail.”

  “I paid it.”

  “You know, this used to work the other way around,” Boom said. He looked up from the river and met Quinn’s eyes, searching for something and kind of suspicious, as Boom was known to be.

  Quinn offered his left hand.

  “Can you believe Wesley is sheriff?” Boom asked.

  “Acting sheriff.”

  “Who’s gonna run against him?” Boom asked. “Lillie?”

  “Said he didn’t want it. Someone will step up.”

  “God helps fools and children.”

  Quinn drove north and hit 9W, following the river and then breaking away west into pastureland and the big fuming expanse of the pulp mill and past Varner’s Quick Mart, where he bought Boom a couple sausage biscuits and a Coke and asked about the break-in, and then kept on driving till they hit the county road heading to the old farm. The trees looked black and skeletal and cold far across the wide spaces of fallow land.

  “How was Afghanistan?”

  “The Garden of Eden,” Quinn said. “The base had a pet monkey.”

  “You know, every goddamn day I wake up and think I’m still over there.”

  “I have dreams in night vision green. Isn’t that sick?”

  “Pretty damn sick,” Boom said. “When you headed back?”

  “Maybe never,” Quinn said. “I either jump into the regular Army or become a Ranger instructor.”

  “While your boys storm the castle.”

  “Yep.”

  “You gettin’ old, Quinn.”

  “Old man at twenty-nine.”

  “Does your dick still work?”

  “Last time I checked.”

  “Well, you got that goin’ for you.”

  Boom nodded and smiled as Quinn downshifted and slowed into the gravel drive of the old farmhouse, looming white and ramrod straight, with the tin roof shining. They both crawled out of the truck, Boom tossing the wadded-up foil of his biscuit into a massive pile of junk and garbage by the old house’s front steps. “Whew.”

  “Got bad after my aunt died. My mom says Hamp stopped caring.”

  “This is just plain nasty.”

  “Inside it’s even better,” Quinn said.

  “Why am I here again?”

  “’Cause I said I’d pay you if you’d help.”

  “You did?”

  Quinn pushed open the door to find that same sickly scent as last night, the same smell that had driven Lillie and him out into the yard, locking the door behind them. They decided to take one room at a time. The parlor was loaded with rat-eaten furniture and boxes of old clothes and rags, absolutely nothing of value. Musty clothes and ragged suits decades out of style. Leisure suits of denim, white dress shirts yellowed with nicotine. There were stacks of newspapers and scrap wood, piles of drapes and rolled carpets without any purpose. He and Boom made a pile in the back field, and Boom walked to one of the old barns to hunt up some kerosene or diesel to start burning the whole mess of it.

  Quinn found a suitcase filled with old family photographs and placed it on the kitchen table. And then there were the guns, damn guns, all over the house. Hampton had squirreled away pistols in the folds of his sofa, behind doors, high on bookshelves, and even a .38 on the lid of his toilet. More boxes of ammunition, souvenirs and medals from Korea, and tarnished awards from decades in law enforcement.

  Boom had the bonfire in the back field stoked, and twisting gray snakes of smoke rose far up into the reddened twilight. Quinn had already found twenty-four guns, a pocket watch that had belonged to his great-grandfather, broken crystal and broken china, mountains of old books, tools that would be useful to get the property up to speed, and record albums he’d sort out later. There was gospel and plenty of George Jones and Charley Pride. Charley Pride always made Quinn think about his uncle, the music always playing when they’d come over for supper.

  He also found two bottles of aged bourbon that Hampton had kept for much better days or perhaps just misplaced in the piles of shit. One of them had a tag reading MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE STAGG FAMILY.

  Quinn uncorked the bottle with his teeth and reached for a tobacco brown ranch coat he’d found in his uncle’s closet, the same coat Hamp had worn the day he’d found Quinn lost in the woods. Boom was a hulking shadow by the fire, holding a shovel in his one hand and watching the decades of memories and clutter crumble to ashes. Quinn handed the bottle to Boom, and Boom examined the label in the firelight, nodding his approval.

  “You know, my parole officer says this stuff is the root of all my problems.”

  “You got the shakes.”

  “Appreciate you not judging me.”

  “Long as you reciprocate.”

  A biting wind separated them and whistled in Quinn’s ears as Boom took a long swallow and passed the bottle back. They drank for a while as the night came onto the farm. The temperature dropped hard and fast, and Quinn was grateful for the coat and the fire his uncle had provided. A tattered piece of an old flowered dress that he clearly remembered his aunt wearing to one of his birthday parties caugh
t and sputtered, bursting into a blue-and-orange flame, and then it was gone.

  A large truck rambled down the gravel road an hour later, and the beams of the headlights swung onto the house and the back field. Two men got out, and Quinn and Boom exchanged glances. Quinn handed the half-empty bottle back to Boom and walked toward the headlights.

  As the two figures stood there in the glow, a familiar feeling of being exposed out in the open and naked and vulnerable passed through Quinn—he wished he had a weapon, preferably his M4, but was then embarrassed by the thought. One of the figures stepped forward, and even in the distance, and through all the years he’d been gone, he recognized the craggy, comical face of Johnny T. Stagg.

  “Good to see you, boy,” he said, stepping forward and offering his small hand. “I guess we need to talk about this situation here.”

  Johnny Stagg came from a family of hill people, moons-hiners and dirt farmers who were unfit for society. They all possessed that same bright red skin, even in the winter, and crooked teeth stained brown from muddy well water. Stagg was a slight man, not even coming up to Quinn’s shoulders, and kept a permanent smile on his face like a man who enjoyed every second of living or found the world a humorous place. Quinn shook his offered hand out of manners, waiting for Stagg to drop the bomb on what he really wanted. His hair was oiled back, as had been the fashion in his day, and he smelled of cheap aftershave and cigarettes. His suit was ill fitting and dark, and he wore an American flag pin on his lapel. He introduced the older man with him as Brother Davis, the pastor at his church.

  “Brother Davis was at Hamp’s funeral but didn’t have a chance to speak,” Stagg said. “He thought he’d have a moment with both of us now. Maybe a short prayer.”

  Brother Davis had wrinkled skin and a gold tooth. His eyes looked confused behind the dirty lenses of his glasses.

  “Y’all want a swig?” Boom asked, holding up the bottle.

  Stagg bit into his cheek, the smile fading and then returning. “Naw, I don’t touch that stuff anymore.”

  “What are you serving out at the truck stop?” Quinn asked. “Kool-Aid?”

  “I don’t have nothin’ to do with that place anymore,” Stagg said. “I sold it two years back.”