The Redeemers

by Ace Atkins

  “I thought you’d gone,” Caddy said. Lillie almost forgetting she was there, the woman sitting back in the chair her brother used to fill, fiddling around with the maps and pictures laid out on the desk.

  “Caddy, please don’t look through all that,” Lillie said. “Those files are part of an open investigation. You don’t need to be reading transcripts.”

  “I’m not,” she said. “I’m just looking at your maps.”

  “Fine.”

  Lillie reached for her Winchester she’d left in the gun rack against the far wall. She stocked her pockets with more bullets and an extra magazine for her Glock. She’d already called up McCaslin, Watts, and Cullison to meet her at the Fate General Store and called on two more counties to meet her in Tibbehah County. She’d flush the woods with so much of the real law that the shitbirds couldn’t make a play for Quinn. Ringold promised he had help on the way but was going into the woods himself to see if he couldn’t get to Quinn before anyone. Nobody would be looking for him. Ringold was dead and gone, far as they knew.

  “This red circle on the map where you found Rusty Wise?” Caddy said.

  “Mmm-hmm,” Lillie said, holding the gun and nodding for Caddy to vacate the office. “C’mon. I got to lock it.”

  “And down the road is where you found Quinn’s truck?”

  Lillie shut the door slightly and raised her voice. “Listen. I know you’re worried as hell about Quinn and want to know every detail. But this isn’t the time, Caddy. I got to move.”

  “He wasn’t far from Highway 9, but y’all are making marks up into the Big Woods?”

  “Where?”

  “The Big Woods,” Caddy said. “That’s what we called it when we were kids. That’s where Quinn used to hunt when he was a boy. Where he got found that time after being gone. All that stuff that was in the newspapers. ‘Country Boy Did Survive.’”

  “I think he knows what he’s doing,” Lillie said. “I never doubted that. There’s just a serious fucking time factor I’m working with.”

  Caddy picked up the printed map and brought it over to Lillie. She pressed her thumb on a mark at the far edge of the page. “This way,” she said. “That’s where he’s headed.”

  “That’s a lot of woods,” Lillie said. “We’re talking miles and miles.”

  “He’s trying to make the cut over to the Trace,” Caddy said. “I know that trail. The exact trail. Let me show it to you.”

  “How about you just tell me?”

  “Things might’ve changed,” Caddy said, pulling into her heavy coat and wool hat and brushing past Lillie at the door. “I hadn’t been on that trail since I was eight. I never wanted to see it again. I swore it.”

  “I got to go, Caddy.”

  “Would you listen to me?” Caddy said. “God damn it. Quinn was never lost when we were kids. I was with him. He was hiding from a bad man. We were hiding. I know where he’s headed. He’s taking the same path and I can take you there.”

  • • •

  Quinn slept on and off through the darkness, waking up at the false dawn and assessing the situation. He checked and cleaned his forearm, which looked worse this morning, twisted and purple, with no feeling at all in his hand. His water jug had frozen overnight, so he used the last of the antibacterial from the snakebite kit, wrapping his arm in some clean gauze and resetting the splint. The left arm was useless. Without the injury, he could’ve headed right back the way he’d come, following the far northern border, and buttonhook around to the men. With some stealth and full control of the .308, he could have disabled all of them without a problem. But with one arm and use of only a pistol, the task was a little trickier. As he’d learned in the Ranger Indoctrination Program and Rogers’ Rules of Ranging, sometimes you have to disperse to take a mightier stand down the road. Or as Kenny Rogers once said, “You’ve got to know when to hold ’em. Know when to fold ’em.”

  If he could keep on rucking west, the men might disperse and he could pick them off one by one. There was also some shelter he could make by nightfall, an old cattle barn deep into the National Forest. He might be able to draw a few of them into the barn and set up shop there. With a pistol, the work would come easier.

  The blanket he’d used for shelter last night had frozen as stiff as a board. He’d sink it in what was left of the pond and cover his tracks the best he could along the path. The good thing about it being so cold was that the soft ground had frozen and tracking would be difficult. Quinn stared down into the valley, trying to see if the men had returned and which direction they’d headed. But the entire valley was covered in a sheen of ice, coating the heavy-weighted pines and brittle limbs of hardwoods. You could hear the branches clicking together like bottle trees.

  In his coat pocket, Quinn found one last hard biscuit and ate it. He chipped some ice off a tree and sucked on it while packing the gear he’d scavenged. He had a fifteen-round magazine for the sidearm and only twelve bullets for the .308. A Bear & Son white bone bowie knife hung on his hip.

  He’d need some more food. Some sleep and some medical care. If he didn’t get a sweat going, he’d be at risk for hypothermia. He knew an infection was soon to follow on that arm. Of course if he’d been Rambo, he’d take the bowie knife and cut out the bullet. But his medical training had told him that was a bad idea. Sometimes that bullet is pressing just right on an artery and cutting out the bullet would just turn on the tap.

  The last thing he did before leaving the dead pond was reach into his coat pocket for his cigar. He’d never give the enemy an edge with smoke. But without coffee, he needed to get a good buzz going, so he broke the end off, inserting some of the leaves behind his lip. Quinn had never been one for dipping, unlike most every other Army Ranger he’d ever known, but it would do the job.

  As he set out on the western deer trail, deep into the Big Woods, he heard the heavy tramping of feet.

  A man walked up within fifteen meters of where Quinn stood, stooping down and checking the water’s edge for footprints. The man was in his forties, pale and thick-bodied, wearing a green puffy coat and sunglasses. His posture and haircut looked like law enforcement, but he wore no insignia on his jacket or hat.

  The man squatted to his haunches, studying the frozen mud, looking like an Indian tracker from an old Western. He wouldn’t see anything but raccoon and deer prints. Quinn hadn’t even walked to the water’s edge.

  Still, Quinn took no chances, approaching the man from behind. The man carried a rifle, slung out of reach and over his shoulder. There was a chance, Quinn knew, that someone suspected him of killing Rusty. He’d been blamed for equally bad things. This could be a whole different crew than who’d been hunting him last night. They could be trying to help.

  Within two feet, walking soft and slow, Quinn said, “Cold day for a hunt.”

  The man, still on his haunches, turned and looked up at Quinn. Quinn had the Beretta aimed dead center.

  “You Colson?” the man said.

  “What if I am?”

  “Been looking for you all night.”

  “You found me.”

  “You’ve made a mite mess of things.”

  “Who are you with?”

  “You mean like the law?”

  Quinn didn’t speak and shifted the gun a bit. His ruck lay waiting on the side path. All the ice in the trees clinking, sharp wind skimming the waterless pond.

  “Don’t be a goddamn fool.”

  “If you’re not the law,” Quinn said, “who are you?”

  The man grinned, smug and self-satisfied, gathering his feet and standing up, his right hand in the puffy coat pocket. He kept on smiling, meeting Quinn’s eye. “There’s too many of us,” he said. “Don’t make it no harder.”

  “Take your hand out of your pocket, sir,” Quinn said.

  “You sure?” he said. “You got pretty shot-up last nigh
t.”

  “Take your hand out of that pocket,” Quinn said. “Third time and I’ll shoot you dead. It’s too fucking cold to argue about this.”

  “All right, all right,” the thick-bodied man said. “I got no problem showing you my—” And the man pulled out a pistol and nearly got it clear before Quinn shot him three times dead center, dropping his fat ass to his knees. The man fell back into the pond, his head breaking the ice of a little pocket of water.

  Quinn walked on over and kicked him farther in. He covered the man’s face with the frozen blanket and added some branches across his body. If someone wasn’t looking for him, they wouldn’t see him and would keep on going.

  Three gunshots. Now they’d be headed this way and on his trail.

  34.

  The bald-headed lawyer had been worth every nickel. The only reason Mickey had used him was because he’d remembered the jingle from the commercial, with all the rapping and dancing, the 901 area code plus the number. But he’d gotten him sprung, Mickey having to come up with ten grand in cash and a hundred-thousand-dollar bond, the lawyer arguing to the judge that his client wasn’t a flight risk. The man had even given Mickey a ride back from the Tibbehah County Jail, stopping off at Captain D’s for a deluxe seafood platter, plus an extra order of butterfly shrimp, and a Diet Coke. Mickey walked in the house, set the paper sacks on the counter, and turned on the lights. Jesus Christ, he needed a shower.

  “What you got there?” a boy said. “Sure smells good. I’m hungry as hell.”

  Chase Clanton was sitting on his sofa, watching the big plasma TV, Mickey and Tonya on their honeymoon trying out different and unique positions.

  “What the hell you doing here, man?” Mickey said. “Are you crazy? I hadn’t been out of jail but an hour. You know the cops are watching my place. Son of a bitch.”

  “Don’t worry,” Chase said. “I left my vehicle down the road. I just figured it was high time me and you talk.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah,” Chase said. “That’s right. I’m tired of you wiping your ass with me and Uncle Peewee like we just the hired help.”

  “Y’all were the hired help,” Mickey said. “You were paid to do a job and get lost.”

  “And dump a body for you,” Chase said. “God damn. You forget about that part? You should’ve heard the big splash Kyle made into the Tombigbee. I watched him sink on down to the bottom and out of sight. I think that shit kind of makes us partners.”

  “I don’t have time for this,” Mickey said. “I swear to Christ I’ll call the law right now. They’re already looking for you. Me and you are done.”

  “What’d you tell them about me?”

  “Nothing,” Mickey said. “Shit. Just leave. Get out of here. My fucking seafood platter is getting cold. I don’t want no cold shrimp. I been hanging out with every shitbag in Tibbehah County, folks asking me all about the safe, how much we’d get, how’d we do it, and all that mess. One of the fellas in the can used to go to my church. He trimmed the hedges.”

  Chase had not moved on the couch, dressed in gray sweatpants and a maroon football jersey with the number 12 on the front. He had his hands down his pants, fiddling around, like it was helping him think some. On the coffee table was an open bag of Golden Flake Sweet Heat BBQ Fried Pork Skins and a can of Milwaukee’s Best. They kept silent for a moment, the only sound in the room coming from the television and Tonya’s groaning and giggling.

  “Why don’t you turn that shit off?”

  “Y’all are good,” Chase said. “Nothing to be ashamed of. If you let me back it up a moment, I’ll show you one hell of a play. That woman—I figure it’s your wife—does a scissor kick and turn, landing on her tummy, so you can try out a different approach. I mean, it was real effortless. I could tell she had some real natural talent.”

  “Turn it off,” Mickey said, digging into the bag for some shrimp. Damn, they were cold. “I had to listen to her bitching at me all morning. Last thing I need is to hear more screaming.”

  “How’d she get so tan?”

  Mickey leaned against the counter, watching a side view of him and Tonya, not really thinking much about him on that eighty-inch, thinking more how’d he get this brain-dead hillbilly back on the road without calling the sheriff’s office. “She owns a tanning parlor,” he said. “It’s more than that. You can get coffee there, too. But she likes to tan.”

  “Even in the wintertime?”

  “Especially in the wintertime,” Mickey said. “Look, Chase? Come on over here and get you a piece of fish and some fries. Get a hot meal in you and then go boogie on down the road. This looks bad. Real bad. Someone catches us together and we’re looking at a better case, added time. I can drive you back to your car. But just get the hell out of Jericho.”

  “I want my money.”

  “What money?”

  “Half of what you pulled out of that safe,” he said. “I want half of what you promised my Uncle Peewee.”

  “Take it up with your Uncle Peewee,” Mickey said, sifting some fries onto a plastic plate and thunking down a cold piece of fish.

  “I can’t.”

  “Why?” Mickey said, heading to the refrigerator and pulling out a cold beer, popping the top, and taking a long sip.

  “’Cause I killed him.”

  When he turned, Chase had a gun on him.

  On the television, it was Tonya’s big brown ass shimmying like two old ham hocks. Big Daddy. Big Daddy. Yes, sir, Big Daddy. Oh, hell.

  “I’ll get straight with you after all this mess is done.”

  “You’ll get straight with me now, Mickey Walls,” Chase said, grinning. “It’s high time you go and make things right.”

  • • •

  Lillie drove her Jeep Cherokee down the dead-end road, past the men with rifles eyeing her, huddled around two pickup trucks, and beyond Quinn’s old Ford to where the road just stopped cold in a hill.

  “Who were they?” Caddy said.

  “I don’t know,” Lillie said. “I was told they were with highway patrol.”

  “But you don’t believe it?”

  “No, ma’am,” Lillie said. “I don’t know. We got folks on the way. But I’d just as soon not stop and chat. Let’s keep on moving ahead of them and get to where we’re going.”

  “It’s just an idea,” Caddy said. “I can’t be sure. But it’s so close to where we got lost. If I were Quinn, that’s what I’d be thinking about.”

  “Maybe he knows,” Lillie said. “Maybe he figures you and I would talk?”

  “I think Quinn hasn’t figured me into the process for some time,” Caddy said, Jeep window cracked, spewing smoke outside. “I think he figures me pretty much worthless.”

  “Come on.”

  “I’m not crying on it,” she said. “But it sure would be nice to prove him wrong.”

  Lillie opened the door and walked around to the Jeep’s hatch. She pulled out a backpack, her Winchester, and a handheld GPS. Cell phones didn’t even register out this way. Lillie pointed into the thick woods and the gentle rising of a hill to the north.

  “That way?”

  “I’m not Quinn,” Caddy said. “Can you show me? On the map?”

  Lillie laid out the map on the hood of the Jeep, the small acre pond circled in red. She said it was a good mile into the deepest part and another mile and a quarter up to the top of the ridge.

  “I have good boots,” Caddy said. “Come on.”

  “I don’t know about these folks,” Lillie said. “We could wait for some help. Go in later.”

  “Shit.”

  “Yeah,” Lillie said. “If we get stopped, let me talk. Don’t open your fucking mouth.”

  Caddy nodded. She had on a waterproof woodsman camo parka and a pink Carhartt hat. Lillie figured maybe the pink would stop them from being confused with
Quinn. And maybe help them from both being shot. After all, they were just helping in the search, walking the ground and marking off the grids. If there was too much trouble, Lillie had a radio. She could contact the deputies or Ringold. Ringold had moved on ahead of them to find Quinn.

  Lillie kept to the GPS, heading due north, not seeing anything, not even wildlife in the frozen patch of woods. Sunlight had come on weak and white through the treetops, and every so often an icicle would drop onto the moldy wet leaves. The cedars were encased in ice, and big spread oaks seemed to be made of glass. Somewhere, far off, she heard the growling motors of ATVs, and even farther away the sound of an airplane and then a helicopter. She wondered if it was the copter she requested from Tupelo. A mile in, she and Caddy changed course and headed up into the hills and the ridge that would take them up and over into the National Forest and what Caddy called the Big Woods.

  “Are you going to tell me what happened?” Lillie asked. “Because in all the time I’ve known Quinn, he never told me the whole story.”

  “He blames himself,” Caddy said. “But he saved my life.”

  “From that man?” Lillie said. “The game warden?”

  Caddy nodded under the pink hat as they walked. She kept her hands in her pockets. Lillie’s hands were free and growing cold. Every so often, she’d switch up the hand holding the gun to keep the shooting finger warm, pliable, and ready. Ever since they’d found Rusty in that stand, she could not wait to use it. She didn’t need much of an excuse.

  “That man is dead,” Caddy said. “Quinn killed him.”

  “He never told me that.”

  “He’d followed me and Quinn up to the pond up yonder,” she said. “We had made a little fort with limbs. I fashioned a little broom out of weeds, sweeping the dirt floor.”