by Ace Atkins
“Should it have?”
24
“He’s hunting, Quinn, I don’t know when he’s coming home,” Anna Lee said, standing on her porch with her arms folded across her chest. Her door was open, and a big-screen television hung on the wall playing Fox News, a woman making inane conversation about several more servicemen killed in Kandahar. The room was furnished with a big brown leather couch and heavy wood furniture and gold lamps. “I’ll have Luke call you when he gets in.”
She tried to close the door. Quinn wedged his boot in the jamb. She wore a thin T-shirt and jeans, no makeup. She smelled of soap and shampoo.
“He say why he dropped charges on those men?”
She shook her head, and looked down at his boot and then up at Quinn. She stared at him for a long time, chewing on her lip. “I don’t know.”
“I’d be a little pissed if someone hammered a gun into my forehead.”
“Wesley said it’s resolved. Okay? Do you mind?”
She pushed at the door.
“Okay. This is where it’s getting a little confusing to me,” Quinn said, pulling his foot back and smiling. “You show up at my uncle’s farm last night, worried out of your mind. You basically beg me to go over to that peckerwood compound, blaming me if anything happened to Luke. Does this picture ring true?”
She held her arms around her waist, thin T-shirt blowing in the cold, her skin looking pale in the fading light. He could hear the buzzer going off on the stove. “I got to go,” she said. “Shit’s burning.”
“You tell Luke that if he’s a stand-up guy, he’ll file those charges. Those shitbags might have killed us all last night.”
“He’ll do what’s best.”
“I bet.”
“Luke is the most stand-up man I’ve ever met,” she said, jaw clenching. “I don’t have time for this. It’s cold and I’m not wearing shoes.”
He touched her shoulder. “Since when does Luke work with Johnny Stagg?”
“You’ve lost your mind.”
“Stagg serves on his board.”
“Stagg serves on the board for the electric company, too. He’s a county supervisor. That’s just what he does. Damn it. Let me go.”
“Stagg just called in a big favor for getting that hospital certificate.”
“You’ll have to talk to Luke about that instead of bullying me.”
“People wonder why I left this place.”
“I sure as hell don’t,” Anna Lee said, slamming the front door.
The glass rattled, and a pine wreath fell to the ground. There was a lot of garland on the porch, strung in with Christmas lights and magnolia leaves, plastic shaped like flowers. Quinn recalled the old Victorian as being a ghost house when he was a kid, a big vacant shell where you’d step up and throw rocks at the window or sneak girls inside to slip a little to drink or smoke dope and make out.
Quinn stepped up to the glass door to knock.
But he dropped his hand, changing his mind.
There was a small playground across from the Baptist church where Quinn sat with his mother, watching Jason navigate a small fort, a couple slides, and a climbing wall. Up and down, back and forth, jumping and scrambling. Falling and rolling. He always got back up on his feet and cried only once, and only then because one of the swings had been wrapped high above him and he couldn’t reach it. Quinn got to his feet and unraveled it for him, Jason jumping into the seat and holding on to the chains.
“You eat lunch?” his mother asked.
Quinn shook his head.
“We could drop by the Sonic. How about a burger and a milk shake?”
Quinn felt for the cell phone in his pocket, checked the number, and saw it was Anna Lee. He turned off the ringer.
“They could call you back anytime,” she said. “Right?”
He nodded.
“Did you go over this year?”
“Just for a couple weeks.”
“It’s not the time. It’s what y’all were up to.”
“It was boring, just some recon stuff.”
His mother nodded, not believing him, and walked over to the fort, waiting for Jason to navigate the steep edge. Jason found a way out from the bar, teetered around the top, held on to the handrail, and then for some reason—Quinn hoped it was that Jason knew that his grandmother was under him—he just let go with a high-pitched laugh and fell into her arms. She let him go, and he ran over to a metal elephant that had been set on a heavy-duty spring, about breaking it as he rocked back and forth.
“Thursday?”
“They gave me a week,” Quinn said. “That was generous.”
“The U.S. Army can stand to do without you for a week.”
“Just how long has Anna Lee been coming over, helping with Jason and all that?”
“I can get someone else. There’s a little girl at church who’s sweet and pretty reasonable.”
“So you’re full-time now. With Jason.”
“It’s temporary.”
“You sure?”
“Caddy is looking for work in Memphis, staying with a friend, trying to get into a stable situation. She said she’s looking for good schools right now. She’s made a real change, Quinn.”
Quinn took a breath. He folded his hands in his lap, rubbing them together, placing them back into his jacket pockets. “Shit, it’s cold.”
“Does it bother you?” she asked.
“Caddy can do what she likes.”
“I mean, about Anna Lee?”
“I won’t lie,” Quinn said. “Ever since I got back, Anna Lee has acted like I’ve wronged her. I guess we remember events in different ways.”
His mother didn’t say anything.
“And I don’t want to hear a word about how she was trying not to get hurt,” he said. “You know how many boys in my unit get the same shitty letters? All that brokenhearted BS looks like it’s written by the same person. I just wish one girl would own up that she was tired of her boyfriend being away and wanted to screw around.”
“You believe that?”
“Are we gonna go to Sonic or what?”
“We can go to the Sonic.”
“You mind if I ask you something?”
His mother waited.
“All those times Dad left, headed out to wherever he went, did you get mad?”
“He had to make money.”
“Even though he wasn’t always on a job.”
“Quinn, I love you,” she said. “But don’t try and rope me into your dilemma.”
“Can you do me a favor before I leave?” Quinn asked.
“Anything.”
“All right.” Quinn smiled, put his hand on her back. “How’bout we take Jason to say good-bye to his great-uncle.”
Jean Colson just shook her head.
So they stood there, looking down at the ground. Jason had wandered off one row over to pet a stone bunny that had been placed over a grave. The cemetery was big and flat and treeless, reminding Quinn of something that a farmer would design, not landscaped, only long, even rows of headstones waiting for the final reaping. The stone for his uncle had his name and birth and death, underscoring he was a Christian. Nothing about his military service, or that he’d been sheriff. On the mound of dirt, dead and dying flowers lay in the cold. A big wreath shaped like a gun had been sent by the Mississippi Law Enforcement Association.
“That’s not in good taste,” Quinn said.
“What happened wasn’t for public knowledge.”
“So, you want to say a few words?” Quinn asked.
She shook her head.
“It would mean a lot.”
“I don’t know.”
“Might make you feel better.”
She nodded and closed her eyes. She inhaled for a moment before she began. “Okay . . . You were a good brother when you acted right,” she said. “You could be fair but not always. Some folks might have said you were pigheaded and stupid, and I think that did play a role in this final stupi
d act you’ve left us with. But who am I to judge? I don’t judge you, Hamp. I’m your sister. I guess you can’t hold a dead man accountable to things that have been said. But he’s here with me and part of this family, and even to this day I want to kick over this headstone for you ever calling that boy a”—she was whispering now—“a damn mistake. Only mistake I know is self-pity.”
His mother kept her mouth open, breathing, like she was about to add a little more, but then she took a step back and simply said, “Amen.”
“Amen,” Quinn said.
The wind across the treeless graves seemed even colder, light fading down even at four p.m., Quinn recalling how damn desolate this county could be during the wintertime and then how green and alive it could be during planting season. He reached for a yellowed rose from the flower gun and set it at the base of the headstone.
“Is that it?” his mother asked.
He nodded.
Quinn’s cell phone continued to buzz in his coat pocket. He reached to switch it back off but saw it was Lillie. He answered it as his mother went to scoop up Jason, both of them still at the grave site.
“Where are you?” Lillie asked.
“A little family time.”
“Can you get over to your uncle’s place?”
“Sure. Can it wait?”
“There’s been some trouble. You need to get out here right now.”
25
Quinn drove over the Sarter Creek bridge and stopped his truck with a skid on the gravel drive, running for the burning barn caught up in flames and smoke. A big shed had gone up, too, but the fire had already ripped through it, and all that was left was a heap of crackling and snapping wood. Lillie met him on the hill and said she’d called the fire department, volunteers arriving in spurts, spilling from pickup trucks and old cars. The red engine was the last vehicle to arrive, and got stuck twice in the mud before getting close enough to get a decent shot at the barn that now was pretty much ruined and leaning because of the destroyed beams.
He called for Hondo but couldn’t find the dog.
A young boy, maybe twelve, ran up to Quinn. He was barefoot, even in the cold, and as soon as he began to speak it was easy to tell he was somewhat mentally deficient. He asked Quinn about all those dead cows.
“There weren’t any animals in that barn,” Quinn said. The heat was tremendous across his face, and ash blew over them in a steady wave of wind.
The boy shook his head and pointed to the muddy pasture, where a half-dozen cows lay on their sides, the blood clearly visible across their flanks.
Quinn walked toward the animals, the barn behind him, the cars and trucks and commotion, men smoking cigarettes and calling home on cell phones. A hell of a banner day for Tibbehah Station No. 8. One of the firemen joked to another: “Anyone want to grill up some T-bones?”
The cattle had been raked with automatic weapons, looked to him like small caliber, probably .223 assault rifles. There were more dead animals down in the creek, two calves dead in shallow water running with blood, and a momma cow that lay on her back in a sandy creek bed, probably toppling over while trying to get away, mouthing for air like a beached fish. He heard more cries from cattle along the edge of the creek.
Quinn walked back toward the house through the heavy black smoke in the air, wondering why they’d spared the house, but then he spotted the long black charred marks across the east side. A fire had been started but didn’t take. They’d only been able to bust out a couple windows.
He found the Browning .308 in the back of his truck and loaded it with bullets, followed the broken path and skittered down the muddy bank to the dying cow. He took a breath, and the rifle recoiled in his hands.
He walked to another, reloading, and did the same.
A third, and then there was an electric silence in his ears.
Again he yelled and whistled for Hondo.
As he crossed the road and entered the drive, a blue sedan pulled up behind Quinn’s truck and killed its engine. County fire marshal Chuck Tuttle stood up out of the car, a leather jacket over his shirt and tie, a toothpick hanging out of his mouth, picking the last bits of a leisurely meal before getting down to work.
He shook his head sadly when he saw Quinn and offered his hand.
Quinn just stared at him, his right hand hanging at his side.
“Everybody all right?” Tuttle said, again shaking a hangdog head.
“I must’ve left the skillet on too long,” Quinn said.
“Come back?” Tuttle said, a confused smile on his lips.
“Looks like a grease fire to me.”
“You trying to burn down them old barns?”
Quinn didn’t say anything.
“All right,” Tuttle said. “Let me take a look. Some teenagers probably thought this place was abandoned.”
“How much?” Quinn asked. Tuttle turned to walk down to the barn.
Chuck Tuttle pulled the toothpick from his mouth and spat.
“I sure as shit hope Johnny Stagg made it worth your while,” Quinn said. “I wonder how those kids felt as they were being burned alive.”
Quinn felt a gentle hand on his shoulder and found Wesley looking down and smiling at him.
Tuttle kept walking down the hill. Wesley blew out a long breath and took in the whole scene, slipping off his baseball cap in some kind of reverence. “Holy shit.”
“Tuttle said it was some kids.”
“I saw the cows. This wasn’t no kids.”
“You believe Shackelford now?”
“I never argued there weren’t some evil people living among us,” Wesley said, placing his cap back on his head, hands on his hips. “I just didn’t see any conspiracy in what happened. Look at Gowrie, look at what he did here. You see that shit from a mile away.”
“You see Hondo?”
“Shit.”
“He’s not down with the cattle.”
“I’ll drive up the road into the hills,” Wesley said, nodding. “You want to ride with me?”
“Nope.”
“Quinn, I know what’s on your mind.”
“I’ll wait.”
“Come on with me. Let’s go find that dog. You can’t do nothin’ here.”
“I want to stay.”
Wesley nodded and patted his arm again, crawling into the sheriff’s truck and driving slow up the gravel road into the hills, looking for that lost dog.
Quinn walked back to his truck, slammed the door, and accelerated in a slew of gravel and dirt in the opposite direction toward the main road back to town. The smell of charred wood and smoke bringing back thoughts of a firefight on top of a snowcapped mountain a few years back. A seventeen-hour gun battle over rocks and in caves, five soldiers dead.
The Army lost track of enemy dead after three hundred.
Charley insisted on it. Absolutely insisted on it.
The baby, still with no name, had to come, too, he said. He wouldn’t have a child that wasn’t raised in a proper church. And Lena made the point that any church that made its home in an old movie theater wasn’t a real church at all. Charley got all solemn about it, thinking—as if the dummy could think—and told her that churches were built with lives and souls. How in the hell can you argue with a load of crap like that? The marquee was still advertising BIG MOMMA’S HOUSE 2.
Of course Lena had been raised in the church, knew the liars and the creeps, the fools who fell out on Sunday, rolling in the aisles, while the big-toothed preacher passed around the collection plate. She knew the old men who carried weathered Bibles and hugged you a little too close when you turned thirteen and wore a little bra. But Charley had said something about them all getting fed, and since they’d left the hospital that morning, having to sneak out a back door on account of Charley saying he couldn’t deal with the government, she hadn’t had much besides a hamburger and a cold Coke from the Shell station.
She’d slept thirty minutes in the back of a broke-down van.
For the last
hour she hadn’t been paying much attention to the sermon, maybe on account of the preacher being Brother Davis and her having used profanity with him and all earlier, but then he started repeating and repeating that he was a worthless soul and a nobody and a fool, and that got her attention—Lena thinking he’d learned something—until she realized he was speaking as Moses.
Brother Davis wore a suit that looked as if it had come off a corpse—the kind you see your grandpa renting before they plant him. It was dark brown, and he’d matched it with a stiff brown tie with a deer head painted on it.
“Moses said to God, ‘Do you know my name? I ain’t nobody,’ ” Brother Davis said, seeming upset by it, shaking his head, making you know that he often felt like nobody, too. Everyone did. “You see, dear friends, Moses didn’t think he was special. He wasn’t no household name among the Israelites. He was even a wanted man in the pharaoh’s country.”
Lena turned to study Charley’s profile, the dummy nodding with great understanding as the preacher continued. “He had wanted posters throughout Egypt. ‘Wanted Dead or Alive!’ And Moses said to God again: ‘I know you ain’t talkin’ about me.’ And then God says to Moses . . . Say it with me, folks: ‘I am that I am!’ ”
The forty or so creatures in the movie theater repeated it back, their words echoing off the walls and down the long sloping floor, where you could still see the candy and bubble-gum stains. Lena rocked her baby, watching its pale blue eyes wander blindly across her face. Lena thought maybe she could pray for some kind of miracle to get out of this world and back home. She said a little prayer.
“God said, ‘I send you,’ ” Brother Davis said. “You thought when you faced that ole Pharaoh and them Israelites that you are alone. But I’m asking you to use the name that is above all things. Y’all know what I mean.”
Brother Davis prowled back and forth from his Hollywood pulpit.
“How do I face financial struggle, the physical struggle, the demons in my body? You are strong in His name. In His name. Because everything is His name. His name is above cancer. Above struggle. Poverty. Affliction. His name is above everything. His name! PRAISE HIM!”