by Ace Atkins
Soon as they got clear, Cody busted out laughing.
“What’s so funny?”
“Most fun I’ve had in a while, little brother,” he said. “Goddamn. How the fuck do you think they knew we were coming?”
“This was a bad idea,” Tyler said, scooting up into the seat, the windshield looking like goddamn Swiss cheese. They rolled fast and hard down the blacktop. Highway patrol would be on their damn ass in a few minutes. “Trusting that mean-ass bitch. What the hell were we thinking?”
“Why do you think she’d fuck us?” Cody said.
Tyler let down his window, his heart racing hard, sweating like hell. “Maybe we should’ve wondered why the hell she wanted to keep us around. We done what she wanted.”
“And what’s that?”
“Fucked up the damn system.”
Tyler looked into the rearview and saw two SUVs racing up fast behind them. Neither of them looked like the law, but they were coming up behind as Cody was driving damn near ninety. “They’re coming.”
“Who?”
“Fuck if I know,” Tyler said. “Just get us the hell out of here.”
* * *
• • •
Quinn walked into the sheriff’s office break room and waited for his other deputies to gather at the beat-up old table in the center of the room. Reggie Caruthers, Dave Cullison, Art Watts, and Kenny were all on duty for the day. Two more coming in special since Quinn had gotten the news from Batesville.
“I don’t want y’all to breathe a word of this,” Quinn said. “But we got a match on those toolbox prints. And I got a warrant for the arrest of Heath Pritchard for the murder of Ordeen Davis.”
The deputies nodded, none of them being all that shocked to hear it, as there had been talk about what Quinn had learned in Memphis from Lyle Masters. Heath had also been a jailhouse turd for the twenty-four hours he’d spent under the hospitality of the Tibbehah County Sheriff’s Department. He’d thrown his food against the wall, tore up his bedsheets, and pissed all over the walls. Kenny himself had taken an instant disliking to the man, wondering why Hamp Beckett didn’t finish the damn job twenty-five years ago.
“I want to approach this with extreme caution,” Quinn said. “A man like Heath Pritchard doesn’t have a damn thing to lose. Not to mention, he’s in a guarded compound with his two nephews. I don’t think either one of those boys are going to freely cooperate. Just remember the situational awareness we discussed at the shoot house. Y’all got it? We move and communicate. If these good ole boys so much as fart in our direction, you know what to do. Anyone have any questions?”
Reggie raised his hand.
Quinn nodded at him. “Yes, sir.”
“I heard they got dogs out there,” Reggie said. “You know how I hate dogs, Sheriff. Especially pit bulls.”
“Only dog I know about is that old Walker hound.”
Reggie nodded, seeming to be satisfied with it. Quinn leaned into the desk, everyone standing over the table crowded with boxes full of files, maps, and empty coffee mugs filled with cigar ash. Quinn looked over at Dave Cullison, who studied one of the maps of the Pritchard land, nodding, seeming to be in deep thought. He was a medium-sized guy with thinning brown hair and glasses.
“What’s up, Dave?”
“When I was a school resource officer, I got to know those boys pretty well,” he said. “Tyler’s not a bad kid. I think under different circumstances, he might’ve been a solid citizen. Great at math, science. But his brother is another story. That boy flies by the seat of his damn pants, a real hothead. He won’t take kindly to us showing up to take his uncle away.”
“Like I said, let’s do our best to arrest Heath Pritchard without incident,” Quinn said. “But my first concern is y’all’s safety. Keep your damn eyes and ears open. We take it to the Pritchards fast and mean and don’t give them a chance to think about any other options. That’s five against three. I kind of like those odds.”
Reggie looked up from the table and nodded, rubbing his chin. “Yeah,” he said. “I’m ready. But, damn if I don’t miss Lillie Virgil up in the hills with her Winchester.”
* * *
• • •
You can’t do that,” Cody said, running that Dodge Ram Tungsten to damn near a hundred miles per hour, farmland racing past their windows. “You can’t be shooting at folks on Highway 45. I sure as hell ain’t cut out for no prison.”
“I’d get off on Highway 14 and scoot our asses through the Tombigbee Forest,” Tyler said. “They’re gonna try and shut our asses down the closer we get to Starkville.”
Their back window cracked. A side mirror splintered into a dozen fragments.
“Goddamn son of a bitch,” Cody said, standing on it now. The engine howling, bucking forward, taking them up to the damn redline. Tyler would never admit it in a million years, but he was glad Cody was driving. That boy would drive that truck until it was rode hard as hell and put up wet, the engine giving out before he would.
“Did you get a good look at them?” Tyler said.
“I started running when you did,” Cody said. “I wasn’t gonna ask no questions with those cocksucking commandos jumping out with AR-15s.”
“They weren’t taking no chances,” Tyler said.
The window cracked again, both Tyler and Cody hunched down in their seats, Cody so fucking low he could barely see over the fucking wheel. Running that big-ass truck flat out, flying past other cars unlucky enough to find themselves in a Wild West shoot-out in east Mississippi.
“Who are those guys?” Cody said.
“How the hell should I know?”
“They sure knew us.”
“Miss Fannie said they work for some bad folks down on the Gulf,” Tyler said.
“And who the fuck does she work for?”
“I said I didn’t ask.”
“That might’ve been a good start,” Cody said. “Shit, Tyler. What if Uncle Heath was right?”
“’Bout what?” Tyler said.
“That we were two JV turds in the big leagues.”
Tyler could see the HIGHWAY 14 sign coming up quick on the right, his brother, not giving a damn about turn signals, turned the other way, crossing the southbound lane and kicking up dirt. The truck flew down an embankment toward the highway that would lead them deep into a National Forest. If they could get out that way, they could get home.
Cody smiled when they got about a mile down the road, checking the rearview, that beautiful Dodge truck shot to shit. “Damn,” he said, laughing. “That was close as hell. We’re good.”
Tyler looked back in the busted rearview, steadying his breath, seeing the grille of an SUV racing up behind them, going faster than any street legal truck should travel. “Cody.”
“Yeah,” he said. “I fucking see ’em.”
“Guess they want their shit back real bad.”
“Real bad,” Cody said. He floored it, Tyler holding on to the passenger door so not to get knocked into the backseat. The shooting started back again. The rearview mirror shattered into pieces and fell from the truck onto the road.
“Who are those guys?” Cody said.
“Shut the fuck up,” Tyler said. “You done already said that.”
“What do we do?”
“Like always,” Tyler said. “Drive like hell and don’t ask no more questions.”
* * *
• • •
Quinn had just spread out the aerial map of the Pritchard place on the hood of his F-150 when a big black truck came blowing past him and the deputies at the gate to the Pritchard land, not stopping, not hesitating, just busting right through the cattle gate and leaving in a plume of dust.
Quinn looked up from the map. “Or,” Quinn said, “we can pursue those shitbirds and take their asses down right now.”
They’d p
arked in the shade of a big oak, maybe three hundred meters from the entrance to the land. Whoever had busted through the gate hadn’t seen the grouping of law enforcement vehicles or simply didn’t give two shits.
By the time Quinn snatched up the map and reached for his shotgun on the hood, two SUVs came racing down the highway, fishtailing behind that black truck, running through the wide-open gate.
Art Watts, muscly with blond shaggy hair, looked over at Quinn. “That was Heath Pritchard’s truck,” he said. “That’s the one I told you he paid seventy thousand in cash for at the Dodge dealership.”
Quinn nodded, heading around to the driver’s side, Reggie opening up to ride shotgun. Quinn cranked the truck and handed Reggie his gun. Reggie checked the load and snicked it closed. The other deputies piled into two other sheriff’s office vehicles and U-turned toward the old Pritchard place, Quinn thinking on his Uncle Hamp and the famous time he’d had here long ago.
He reached for the mic and called into Cleotha.
“We need assistance from highway patrol and Lee County,” Quinn said, giving her the address of the trouble. “And Cleotha? Call up Maggie and tell her I’m gonna be a little late to the rehearsal.”
“She’s gonna have your ass, Sheriff.”
“Ten-four,” Quinn said and then pressed the mic button again. “How about we keep this channel clear of personal business?”
25
“Right now, I wish we hadn’t killed that son of a bitch,” Cody said.
“Uncle Heath had it coming,” Tyler said. “If it hadn’t been us, it’d been someone who didn’t appreciate his special brand of bullshit.”
“And how does that make it better?”
“Don’t make it worse.”
They’d run the Dodge inside the race shop, closing the big bay doors and locking them from behind. Cody reached into a little hidey-hole under the workbench and snatched up an AR-15 with a big-ass drum clip. That gun could spit out a hundred rounds before you could cover your damn peter. Tyler headed on over to the tool racks stacked with Rubbermaid containers, searching for some shotgun shells for his Remington, pouring a few into his hand while staring up at a framed picture of the Pritchard boys racing go-carts up in Memphis. Both of them wearing matching helmets decorated with Confederate flags. Cody had lost his two front teeth.
“Ain’t nobody gonna miss this race,” Cody said. “Damn ten grand purse and the return of those Lucas Oil girls with the big tatas. A big time in Lower Alabama.”
“I don’t know,” Tyler said. “Maybe we should just call the sheriff. This is our damn land. They don’t have no right to be here.”
“Don’t matter,” Cody said. “I think we lost ’em back in the Tombigbee Forest.”
“You keep thinking that, Cody,” Tyler said. “Maybe that dream’ll come true.”
They heard dirt spewing and car doors opening, slamming shut, engines continuing to run with feet crunching on the gravel. For the first time all day, maybe forever, Cody looked a little scared, his face growing pale. Someone started to shoot at the garage locks, the big bay door echoing like a steel drum.
“Come on into the briar patch, motherfuckers,” Cody said, placing the AR up to his shoulder. “We’ll scatter your damn nuts across the back forty.”
“We’re fucked,” Tyler said.
“Nope,” Cody said. “We’re gonna shoot our way down into the grow room. Ain’t nobody can get through that metal hatch.”
“Ordeen Davis did.”
“That’s ’cause you left the goddamn door open,” Cody said. “I’m talking about sealing our asses down there and watching the whole show from the TVs. We got enough Twinkies, Ding Dongs, Keystone Light, and weed to last us until the Seventh Seal is opened and those seven bugles sound.”
“Why the fuck not?” Tyler stroked his beard, holding the Remington in both hands, his pockets so fat with shells he could barely walk. “C’mon. Let’s do this shit.”
“When they don’t find us,” Cody said, “they’ll think we’re long gone.”
“That’s a damn big piece of real estate between here and the barn,” Tyler said. “How many boys they got in those two Tahoes?”
“Don’t matter,” Cody said. “Might as well be the whole goddamn Bolivian Army.”
Tyler swallowed, looking around the shop, their race car sitting pretty at an angle, ready to roll onto the trailer for the big night down in Loxley. The Deep South Speedway. Women in bikini tops, short shorts, and after they won, a long white beach and ice-cold beer. They needed some real-world Jimmy Buffett shit after what they’d been through.
“Maybe we should stay right here,” he said. “Protect the car.”
“Those boys can bust through those doors with their trucks,” Cody said. “It’s time to take it to the fucking barn, brother.”
“Hey, man?” Tyler said, looking over at Cody’s side, bright red with blood. “What the fuck? Are you bleeding?”
Cody touched his stomach, looking down at his slick palm. “What do you know?” he said. “I guess I am.”
* * *
• • •
Dispatch, this is Tibbehah One,” Quinn said. “We’re at the Pritchard place on Chicken Roost Road. We’ve encountered a gunfight with half-dozen subjects on each side. Handguns and semi-autos involved. How are we coming with MHP and Lee County?”
“On their way, Sheriff,” Cleotha said.
“Ten-four.”
There was a long silence and then the click of the radio, Cleotha back on the mic: “Miss Maggie said for you to take your time.”
“That’s good,” Quinn said. “Because we are about to engage. Over.”
“You think Maggie’ll believe this?” Reggie said, grinning. Quinn knocked the truck into gear and headed down through the busted gate into the Pritchard property. “Her sitting at the church, ready to rehearse, and you not showing? I was really looking forward to that barbecue.”
“Barbecue’s tomorrow,” Quinn said. “Tonight was catfish, catered by Pap’s Place.”
“Son of a bitch,” Reggie said. “I sure hate them Pritchard boys.”
* * *
• • •
At first, Boom thought he was back in Iraq on a helicopter with that medic who shot him full of morphine, then coming to a few days later at a field hospital outside Baghdad being told he was one lucky man even though he’d left his goddamn arm somewhere outside Fallujah. He could taste that blood and sand in his mouth, sense his hand and arm even though it had been gone a long time. He didn’t think much on it, just tried to push himself off the bed, when he heard a woman’s voice telling him to be still. The woman wasn’t that Army medic on the chopper or a doctor at the field hospital or anyone back at Walter Reed where that shrink talked to him about the “new normal.” This was a voice he damn well knew but couldn’t see her worth shit, all the images coming through damn double like looking out the wrong end of some field glasses. Maggie Powers.
“Be calm,” she said. “You’re fine. You’re gonna be all right.”
“What happened?”
Last thing that came to mind was driving home from New Albany with Quinn, waiting around damn near forever at that Waffle House. He thought about it, trying hard as hell to remember, but nothing more came to him. Time had just kind of stopped.
“You got knocked around pretty good,” she said. “Doctor’s on his way.”
“Where we at?”
“The hospital,” she said. “Just lay back, don’t move. Don’t stress yourself.”
“I feel like I’m gonna puke.”
“Deep breaths,” she said. “Close your eyes. Breathe deep.”
“Breathe deep?” Boom said. “Shit. Yeah, OK. Where’s Quinn?”
Boom’s mouth felt as dry as paper. He had to close his eyes. The double vision was making him sick as hell. If he didn’t move,
didn’t look, he could tolerate it. The sheets smelled like Lysol and bleach, everything air-conditioned and cold as hell. He moved his left hand a little, wiggling his fingers, and then his feet and toes. Make sure he hadn’t lost anything else. He thought of that rolling and running in the big truck, the Humvee, a big goddamn explosion and electric silence and pain so fucking deep that everything in his brain shut down.
“Did I miss it?” Boom said.
He felt Maggie’s cool hands on his cheek, laying back, feeling useless, not being able to see, some of his hearing muffled.
“What’s that?”
“The wedding,” Boom said. “Did I miss y’all’s wedding?”
“Tomorrow,” Maggie said. “Don’t you worry. Everything is going to be just fine.”
“Quinn’s a good man,” Boom said. “You know he loves you?”
“I know,” she said.
“And he won’t quit?”
“Rest easy,” Maggie Powers said. “Lay back.”
Boom felt Maggie’s hands leave his face, touching his left arm, squeezing, as more voices filled that little room. Prodding, poking, feeling the tubes strain all around his body. “Quinn don’t know how to quit,” he said, eyes closed. “We’ll get those motherfuckers who did this.”
“He knows,” she said.
“Me and Quinn don’t know another way.”
* * *
• • •
What amazed Tyler most was that the damn highway patrol hadn’t been on their ass the whole way back to Tibbehah. Those bastards were never around when you needed them. Only in your rearview if you were five miles above the speed limit or if they knew you’d just left a beer joint, maybe with a little likker on your breath. He figured the space between the shop and the old barn was only about thirty or forty yards, not even half a football field. There couldn’t be more than a half-dozen boys from those two black SUVs and they’d be seriously distracted when Cody opened up with that AR-15 with the big-ass round clip.