by Ace Atkins
“How’s Brandon?”
“Asleep,” she said. “He didn’t want Jason to go but I promised he’d see him tomorrow at your mother’s. Are we still having lunch after church?”
“Unless you see a way out of it.”
“You don’t mean that,” Maggie said, drying her hands. “Come here and let me see that eye.”
Quinn set his green sheriff’s cap on the kitchen table as the needle caught in the next track, “Take Me to Your World,” and he walked into the overhead light. Maggie caught his chin and turned his head to the left, checking out her handiwork. “I did a damn fine job, if I say so myself,” she said. “How’s Michael Jackson doing?”
“Bat-shit crazy,” Quinn said. “If it goes like it always does, he’ll be with us at the jail for a long while. When I left, he was singing ‘Man in the Mirror’ and dry-humping a pillow.”
“At least he won’t be lonely,” she said. “You still hungry?”
Quinn shook his head, telling her about grabbing dinner at the VFW, sitting down with old Luther Varner and catching up with Boom. “Mr. Varner was honored to be a groomsman,” he said. “He looked like he just might cry.”
“Luther Varner?” she said. “The Marine?”
“I know,” he said. “First time I ever saw it. I don’t like seeing him be sentimental. It means he’s getting older. I hate to know that. I figured he was damn-near indestructible.”
Maggie walked back to the sink and started to scrub another plate, dish towel thrown over her shoulder. The full moon shining bright through the window as she worked.
“Any word on your daddy?” Maggie said. “Have you decided what you want to do about that situation?”
“No situation,” Quinn said. “That’s just a lost cause.”
“You really don’t want him there?”
“Jason Colson does for Jason Colson,” he said. “I thought he’d changed, and I was wrong.”
“And that’s it?”
“I’m not begging him to be a part of something that he doesn’t deserve,” Quinn said. “Besides, it’s an affront to my mother and to Caddy. He can’t just pick and choose when to ride back into town in his cherry-red Firebird. Do tricks for his grandkids.”
“He does tricks?”
“About the only thing he’s good at,” Quinn said. “Sometimes I forget you haven’t met him.”
“What kind of tricks?” Maggie asked, drying a plate and sticking it in the wooden rack. She dumped some silverware into the sink and added a bit more soap to the water.
“All kinds,” Quinn said. “He can walk around while being set on fire, drive backwards at sixty miles per hour, and with the proper equipment, jump from a twenty-story building. Things like that. He also taught his horse how to drink beer.”
“Hard act to follow.”
“You said it.”
“You want some pie?”
“What kind of pie did you get?”
“Does it really matter?” Maggie said, walking over to the table. She had on an old ringer T-shirt with faded bell-bottom jeans and bare feet. Her tee said I’M A LITTLE DEVIL. Quinn pressed the side of his face into her chest and pulled her tight. She didn’t have on a bra and smelled like fresh laundry. “How about I surprise you?”
Quinn smiled, Maggie opening up the refrigerator, an old tank of an International Harvester he’d found in the barn and had refurbed in Memphis. She cut out a nice slab of chocolate pie with a tall bit of meringue and set it in front of Quinn. She handed him a fork and a cup of coffee and sat down right next to him, resting her head on her hand and staring through him with those translucent green eyes.
“So,” she said. “I need to know a little bit more about something.”
“Shoot.”
“I don’t think you’ve told me everything about you and this Anna Lee Amsden.”
Quinn put down his fork. He reached for the coffee and watched Maggie over the rim of the cup watching him.
“What’d you hear?” he said.
“In town?” she said. “Probably more than I wanted.”
* * *
• • •
Ordeen’s goddamn mind was blown.
He crawled back out from the tunnel and set his feet on the old barn’s floor, breathing hard. Walking backwards, he closed the stall doors and turned toward the loose-hanging doors. Ordeen had taken plenty of pictures down in the ground and needed to get back to Miss Fannie’s as soon as he could. This was a hell of a lot more than either of them expected. A hell of a lot more than Ordeen could even imagine. His mind spun with all the details, flooded his thoughts, as he reached for the hood to cover his face since he’d have to pass back by that camera watching the property.
“Hold it right there, nigger,” a man said.
Ordeen stopped, heart jackhammering in his chest. He heard the voice but couldn’t see anything deep inside the barn. Off in the far corner, he saw a shape, just a shadow, and smelled the cigarette smoke, the red tip glowing hot.
“Where the hell you’d come from?”
Ordeen didn’t answer.
“I seen woodchucks, foxes, and even snakes crawl from out of the earth,” the man said. “But this is the first time I ever seen some thieving nigger pop his head out.”
“I didn’t take nothing.”
“Then who the fuck are you?”
Ordeen didn’t answer. He had that Glock in his pocket but knew the man was watching his hands, nothing but a cell phone in his right.
“You got permission to be on Pritchard land?” he said. “I’m betting you don’t.”
“No, sir,” Ordeen said, then thinking he should have just kept his mouth shut. This wasn’t one of the goddamn Pritchard boys. This was an older man, gravelly-voiced and country-fried. Ordeen could smell his body odor and foul breath from all the way across the barn. He didn’t move, looking to the door and then back to the shadow. The shadow moved forward, taking shape and form in the sliver of light shining from the hole. He could only make out half the man’s face, but it damn sure wasn’t pretty. He was dusky-colored, flat-headed, with mean black eyes and a shaved head. The man didn’t wear a shirt and only had on jeans and cowboy boots. He had crude tattoos all over his body like he’d been inked by a six-year-old.
“I don’t like thieves,” the man said. “Had to live with too fucking many over the years. Can’t trust a damn one of them.”
“I didn’t take nothing.”
“Shut your fucking mouth, boy,” the man said. “Go on. Git outside.”
He saw the man’s hand lift, a shotgun sliding up onto his shoulder.
“You’re gonna shoot me in the back.”
“I wouldn’t ever do such a thing.”
“I didn’t do nothing,” he said. “I didn’t take nothing.”
“I know what you seen,” he said. “That ain’t something for no prying eyes of some wandering nigger. So you either tell me what you’re doing on Pritchard land or look forward to catching some buckshot in your face.”
“I came to talk to Tyler,” he said. “About business. He wadn’t here and I started to look around. I didn’t mean nothing. C’mon, man.”
“Liar,” the man said, spit flying from his mouth. “Black liar. You people can’t help but lie. It’s in your damn blood like the mark of Cain. You better get going. Run. Run, nigger. Let me see if you can’t get to that bend in the road before I blast your black ass back to Africa.”
“I didn’t come for none of this.”
“Run, boy.”
“You gonna shoot me in the back?”
“One . . .”
“Don’t shoot me.”
“Two . . .”
“I don’t have no business.”
“Three.”
Ordeen set off running, sprinting faster than he ever did playing for t
he Tibbehah Wildcats, looking for that bend in the road where he could break into those woods and make it back to the highway. He got past the shop barn and the old house and had damn near made it out when he heard the shotgun blast and caught that hot lead in his back.
He kept on trying to run, stumbling and tripping, falling down onto his knees, hands, and face.
Ordeen was hurt bad.
He was bleeding out, breath coming in ragged gasps from his mouth, with his head cocked back toward the barn. Boots crunched on the gravel, Ordeen watching the man making his way, in no damn hurry, with the shotgun held in his right hand. All he could make out were the man’s boots, looking to be rattlesnake skin.
The man was whistling to himself. He was bleeding to death and this goddamn redneck was whistling. He walked up and found Ordeen’s cell phone that had fallen in the dust and took a long while clicking through some things.
“Please,” Ordeen said.
“I’ve been through too damn much to take any more fucking chances.”
Ordeen closed his eyes.
He heard the snick of the shotgun pump.
“Goddamn you.”
“Too late,” the man said, pulling the trigger. “I’ve been damned since I slid outta my momma’s coot.”
* * *
• • •
Just what did you hear?” Quinn said.
“Don’t you want to eat your pie first?” Maggie said. “Chocolate. Look at the meringue on top.”
“Nope,” he said. “Not really. And I never kept my relationship with Anna Lee secret.”
“I knew it was complicated,” she said. “I knew what you had and what it had been before you left for the Army. And that you’d tried to keep it going when she separated from her husband.”
Quinn nodded. He drank some coffee. He swallowed, knowing what was coming next. He had not exactly lied to Maggie, but he’d omitted some important details. He looked into her clear green eyes, pretty freckled face, and full mouth now tight, caught in a question.
“I didn’t know what made her leave her husband,” she said. “I’ve met a lot of people at the hospital who knew him before he left. They said he was a good guy, a fine man, who kind of became a mess. Made a lot of mistakes before he left town. There was talk of self-medicating.”
Quinn took a deep breath. He met Maggie’s eyes again and nodded. There was no getting around it, and better to get on with it here, right here in the kitchen, than some time after they were married. She should know it. Should know all of it. All the dirty laundry and all the sordid whispers she’d have to put up with for years on end because of him not being able to leave Anna Lee alone.
“We had an affair.”
“How long?”
“About a year,” Quinn said. “For the last six months, I think Luke knew it. He never mentioned it to Anna Lee because he figured it was something would pass, like a sickness.”
“But it didn’t.”
“She left before you came to town,” Quinn said. “If that’s what you’re asking. I don’t think about her. I don’t want her. She was never good for me, and I wasn’t something she really wanted, either. Kind of like being on a merry-go-round. It was all pretty much a run-down, dirty game in the end. Lillie couldn’t stand the stink of it. Ask Boom. Ask Caddy. Hell, they know all of it.”
“I just wish you’d told me.”
“Me, too,” Quinn said, toying with the handle of his mug. “It’s not the kind of thing you bring up when trying to court a woman.”
“You knew all about me,” Maggie said. “You knew every detail.”
“Hard to keep secrets,” Quinn said. “Your ex did try and kill me.”
“But it was all there, out in the open,” she said, fingering her bangs away from her eyes. “If there were people talking about us, they didn’t have to whisper.”
“It’s over.”
“Are you sure?”
“This may not make any sense,” Quinn said. “But what I had with Anna Lee wasn’t love. It was need and probably a lot of lust. But it wasn’t love. Maybe it was love before, when we were kids. But when I came home after the Army, it wasn’t something I needed in my life. I was wrong. I should have never started that up again. It hurt Luke and made a mess of her family.”
“What if she comes back?” Maggie said. “You’ll see her again. She has a lot of family in this county. Will you be able to stay away? Even if she wants you back?”
“I’m with you,” he said. “I love you.”
“More than Anna Lee?” she said. “I’ve heard too much. I heard that’s why you could never make things work with that Ophelia Bundren.”
“That woman once threw a steak knife at my head.”
“Because of Anna Lee.”
“Because I told her I couldn’t make a commitment.”
“What’s so different about me, Quinn Colson?” she asked. “We’ve only been together for a year and now I’m about to give you everything I have. You’ll be Brandon’s daddy for his whole life. This is some serious shit.”
“People are just jealous,” Quinn said. “Don’t let a bunch of wagging tongues and gossips pollute what we have.”
“I don’t like to be be broadsided,” Maggie said. “Makes me nervous.”
“Won’t happen again,” Quinn said.
“Better not,” she said, pushing the plate forward and handing him the fork. “Were there a lot of other women?”
“I once dated a hairdresser from Phenix City, Alabama,” he said. “Would you like to hear the details?”
“Not really,” she said. “How about you just shut up and eat your damn pie.”
* * *
• • •
You did it,” Tyler Pritchard said. “You couldn’t get them Lucas Oil girls’ phone numbers, but, damn, if you didn’t edge out that fucker Booger Phillips. I got to be honest, man. I didn’t see you doing it, with y’all tradin’ paint going into those last four laps. That snot-nose fucker not letting you get inside. Y’all kept tight as hell on those turns, drifting all nice and pretty going into that last lap when you smoked that fucker. I still got the dirt in my teeth from watchin’ it all go down.”
“That boy done got cocky.”
“That’s what I was thinking,” Tyler said. “Wait until that last lap to go all in. I thought you were done on that stretch for the line. Hitting the gas in that last turn, drifting like hell, and scooting ahead before hitting the wall.”
“I never lost control.”
“You about flipped the car,” Tyler said. “Whole front end is fucked up where you smacked that wall, sparks flying, people all yelling in the stands.”
“You do it any different?”
“I’m just saying I didn’t see it goin’ that way,” Tyler said. “You sure surprised me, brother.”
“I leaned over to that one girl,” Cody said. “The one with big ole titties.”
“They both had big ole titties,” Tyler said. “That’s why they’re working for Lucas Oil. You think they’d hire some flat-chested chicks to hand out T-shirts and bumper stickers?”
“I just kind of leaned in and asked that one if she’d like to split a nice rare porterhouse with a pitcher of them prickly pear margaritas.”
“And what’d she say?” Tyler said, grinning.
“Not a goddamn word,” Cody said. “She just stood there smiling as they took pictures with me and the car. She presented me with that trophy and then told me to go take a hot shower. That I smelled like country-fried funk and weed. That’s a damn lie. Before the race, I drowned my dang ding-dong in Axe body spray. I don’t know what the hell that woman was talking about.”
“When I was passing on that weed to Levi, he had this girl named Rhonda with him,” Tyler said. “She was good-looking but had a real smart mouth on her. But I could tell she was intereste
d. Levi seen it, too, and it pissed him off. Hell. I can’t make women stop loving me. Once she tries some of our shit, she’s gonna be calling me. I guarantee.”
“Levi pay up?”
“That shithead paid in full.”
“Well, then, I take back everything I said about his sorry ass,” Cody said. “Except for him being stupid. He may be one of the dumbest shits I ever met. Last time I was over at his house, he tried to feed a goddamn dog on TV a Cheez-It. We were watching Beverly Hills Chihuahua and he couldn’t tell no difference.”
Tyler slowed down, getting close to their homeplace, hitting the high beams on the county road when he spotted their old silver mailbox. He turned slow into their long driveway, waiting for Cody to get out and open up the cattle gate. His brother fiddled around in the high beams, then turned back toward Tyler’s open window.
“You leave that gate open?” Cody asked.
Tyler shook his head.
“Either you forgot or someone stole the damn lock,” he said. “Ain’t nothing but the chain.” Cody hopped back in the passenger side and they drove fast over the gravel, the trailer behind them bucking up and swerving. The tall pines walled the snaking road, as they curved up and around, deep into their land, high beams still on, until they took the big, familiar turn to the house. All the lights were on, the old place looking like a big glowing yellow box. “Get your goddamn gun.”
Cody reached back into the gun rack and pulled out the 12-gauge. Tyler had the Glock in his waistband and reached for it even before he stopped the truck. He pulled in right by the shop, trying to make it look like everything was cool as hell to anyone who was waiting on their asses. Cody was already out, shotgun up in his arm, watching the shop. Tyler looked into the house, seeing a figure darken a window and hearing the squeak of the front door open and then thwack shut.
The high beams had shot up onto the landing, where he saw a short, muscled man smoking a cigarette. He had a shaved head and lots of tattoos across his chest and belly.