by Ace Atkins
“Grandfather was a great liar,” she said. “He liked to tease you.”
“I miss him,” Sancho said.
“I know.” Ana Gabriel felt a rock form deep in her throat. The air conditioner humming and rattling under a window to the big barn.
“I miss Mother, too,” Sancho said. “When can we see her? Where will we find her? Will she ever be able to come home?”
Too many questions that Ana Gabriel didn’t want to answer. She turned on her side, her eyes facing away from Sancho. She could not let him see her cry.
* * *
• • •
Boom had let Quinn borrow a ’76 Ford Highboy 4×4. It was royal blue with a decent lift and good tires. The engine needed some coaxing from time to time, but with his sheriff’s vehicle still in impound, he didn’t have much choice. He drove the blue Highboy up and around the winding fire road, zigzagging toward the airfield he’d been watching for months. It was late, Maggie getting Brandon to bed when he left, and now he headed down a narrow dirt road with the windows down listening to Merle Haggard. “I’m a Lonesome Fugitive” seemed just about perfect on a night like tonight. The moon was high and silver, coating the valley in a soft white glow. He had a Liga Privada going, orange tip glowing in his right hand, tapping in the truck’s ashtray as he slowed and stopped by a black SUV pointed in the opposite direction.
A dark figure stood at the edge of the road, looking down into the valley. He wore dark clothes and a dark ball cap. Quinn got out and walked toward him, the truck’s engine knocking a few times like an old dog shaking its coat.
“A classic,” Jon Holliday said, stretching out his hand. Quinn shook it.
“A loaner,” Quinn said. “Until I get my badge and keys back.”
“Patience,” Holliday said. “Tell me again what you guys saw.”
“Three men,” Quinn said. “Plus the pilot who never left the plane.”
“And one of those men might’ve been Buster White?”
“I’d never seen White in person,” Quinn said. “But whoever it was sure looked like the mug shots. A face even a momma couldn’t love.”
Holliday nodded. Quinn reached into the front pocket of his T-shirt and handed him a cigar. Holliday snipped off the end with a pocketknife and Quinn pitched him his old Zippo. After a few moments, the cigar kicked to life and they stood looking down at the compound Fannie Hathcock owned. At the moment, it was still and quiet, no lights at all, the moon shining off the metal of the Quonset huts.
“Police in Biloxi just pulled a dismembered body from a dumpster,” he said. “Once they found a hand, they were able to match prints to Buster White. They said the face wasn’t much to look at. It had been beaten past any recognition.”
“Y’all know what time he headed back to Biloxi?”
“Never did,” Holliday said. “That plane never made a return trip. Buster White never came back from Tibbehah.”
“What about his people?” Quinn said.
“You think they’re gonna talk to the Feds?” Holliday said. “Most of White’s people have hightailed it back to New Orleans. Got a few people on the inside that said they saw it coming a long way off. They said ole Buster had gotten soft in his old age. Miss Hathcock has been edging his fat ass further and further out into the Gulf.”
“From what I read about Buster White, that couldn’t have been easy,” Quinn said. “I read that he hosted a barbecue for the family of a man who had crossed him, using him as the main course. After, they told police it had been the best damn brisket they’d ever eaten. Sweet and juicy.”
“All these folks, Miss Hathcock included, have brains that would send a psychiatrist screaming from their office,” Holliday said, staring at the glowing end of the cigar. “Just how the hell do you afford smokes like these?”
“One of the men in my unit lives in Miami,” Quinn said. “Sends me a box from time to time.”
“You save his life or something like that?”
“Nope,” Quinn said. “I ran his ass ragged at Benning. Tried to make him wash out and quit and I never could do it. He was too damn tough. A real Ranger. The cigars are more of a fuck-you than a thank-you.”
“Look, man,” Holliday said. “I know this process is long and slow as hell. I can’t imagine you having to put up with the slights from Vardaman’s people. But I promise you, Quinn, we are damn close.”
“How much more do y’all need?” Quinn said. “Fannie does most of her business in the wide open now. Y’all could raid this place almost any night of the week and come up with a dozen different charges against her and her people.”
“Yeah,” Holliday said, puffing on the cigar. “But don’t you want it all? Wouldn’t you love to scoop up damn near all these folks that’ve been giving both of us hell for all these years, going way back to Johnny Stagg and Bobby Campo? Buster White doesn’t end things. It’s only the beginning. Fannie Hathcock and Jimmy Vardaman is a match made in Hades. They won’t rest until they loot and burn every inch of Mississippi.”
Quinn crossed his arms and leaned against the old truck, the hood feeling warm against his scarred back. In the darkness, he tapped at the cigar and looked at Holliday. “You’re asking a lot of me.”
“You’re not alone,” Holliday said. “You know that?”
“How many y’all got?”
Holliday clasped him on the shoulder and winked. “I prefer to keep all these nasty little stories separate until the end.”
6
Donnie was having a hell of a dream about being trapped on an island full of half-naked women, a few of them taking him to a secluded waterfall to wash his parts, when he heard the grumbling pipes of his daddy Luther’s GTO. The man left him a message that he’d be by at 0700, but Donnie didn’t even have to look at the damn clock to know he’d arrived early. It was still dark outside, the shades down, and he nearly broke his damn neck trying to turn on the light in the Airstream. Donnie pulled on a T-shirt and blue jeans and walked to the tiny kitchen counter to find his pack of smokes. He lit one up and just had time to inhale before Luther was knocking.
Donnie opened the door, trying to look like he’d been up for hours. The old Marine already gave Donnie a ton of shit at the Quick Mart for being a first-rate joker and smoker. That old man had a million lines like that.
“See you got the power hooked up.”
“Last week,” Donnie said. “Don’t you recall me bringing you back that generator? You think I’m living out here with a flashlight and my pecker in my hand?”
“You paying for it?”
“Hell yes, I’m paying for it, Dad,” Donnie said. “You think I’m going to hook up to the damn power association myself? I’d rather not get my ass flambéed into no crispy critter.”
“How about some coffee?” Luther said. The old man’s hair cut even higher and tighter than Quinn Colson’s. Luther only left a little silver on top, the rest shaved down to damn near nothing.
Donnie got to work making the coffee in an old percolator his momma used to use. Luther wandered back outside, leaving the door wide-ass open, the cold air from the trailer blowing out into the hot summer morning. It had been a week since Donnie had gone to see Fannie Hathcock at Vienna’s and not so much as a fucking greeting card. For the first time in his life, Donnie began to doubt his Southern charm.
“Damn, old man,” Donnie said, closing the door. He wandered out of the Airstream as he scratched his ass, finding Luther sitting on an old-fashioned metal chair. “You trying to bankrupt me before I even find a job?”
“Figured we might talk over Saul on the road to Damascus today.”
“You didn’t tell me we were talking scripture so early,” Donnie said. “I figured you just wanted to see where I was living.”
“You remember that’s when Saul come across Jesus,” Luther said, the battered leather Bible splayed open to Acts on his
lap. “The light was so bright and overwhelming it blinded him. He couldn’t see for days. Didn’t eat or drink until he made it to Damascus and found Ananias to restore his sight and baptize him.”
“How about some coffee before Saul?” Donnie said. “I need a couple smokes and a shot of caffeine if you and me are going to jump right back into Biblical times.”
Luther didn’t answer. Donnie grinned at the old man, feeling like he did when he was a young kid and had accidentally lit the back forty acres on fire. Luther would never let him live that one down, although all it did was burn down an acre of old cornstalks and worthless pines, lighting those sonsabitches up like Roman candles.
Donnie found an old Dallas Cowboys Super Bowl Champs mug and filled it with hot black coffee, bringing it out to his father. The old man sitting in half-darkness and watching the creeping pink and blue light begin to shine from behind the old drive-in movie screen. The lot of the theater was busted and cracked, covered by weeds, with crooked metal posts where they once hung little speakers. Donnie had found a box of them all rusted and loose in what had been the concession stand. The owner told Donnie he could stay out there as long as he liked if he took care of the rat problem. And by god, that joker wasn’t kidding. Just two nights ago he’d seen a gray rat up in the rafters as big as a lapdog, eyes glowing red in Donnie’s flashlight.
“Do you want to start reading?” Luther asked. “Or would you like me to begin?”
“I’d rather you tell me why you needed to wake me up so damn early,” Donnie said. “You got me working three nights this week at the Quick Mart.”
“You call this early?”
“Yes, sir,” Donnie said. “I sure as hell do.”
“The way I figure it,” Luther said, “seeing the sun rise every morning is a gift. It puts everything into perspective. You’re up and at ’em and got the world by the nutsack. Or do you plan on working at the Quick Mart until I finally go and kick the bucket?”
“You doing that anytime soon, old man?” Donnie said.
“Don’t be picking out flowers just yet,” Luther said. “Before I drove out here, I did a hundred push-ups and sit-ups.”
“Good on you, Daddy.”
Luther studied the end of his extra-long cigarette and then turned his hard blue eyes at Donnie.
“This place looks like shit,” Luther said from behind him. “I remember when this was the hot spot of Jericho. When I was boy, I saw Rio Bravo here five times. Your grandfather made two of us hide in the damn trunk of his Buick to save a nickel. Used to be a beautiful sign out on the road. Magnolia Drive-In. Hell of a place. Can’t figure why a man would want to live out here now.”
“Well,” Donnie said, pinching the cigarette between his thumb and forefinger. “You sold the gun range while I was in prison. My finances continue to be limited.”
“You left me with a few bills.”
“I do appreciate you keeping the Airstream,” Donnie said. “And making sure it didn’t rust and turn to shit.”
Luther nodded, still transfixed by the light spreading behind the old metal movie screen, sheets of tin hanging askew from the metal skeleton. His mouth hung open as if experiencing a miracle. “I know it ain’t easy finding a job after you been out of circulation.”
“Damn, Dad,” Donnie said. “You make me sound like a fucking library book. We can just all admit I was in prison. I fucked up. I did my time. I’m good with it. I bet even Jesus is good with it, although He didn’t shine no blinding light out of the sky when I got walked out of those chained gates.”
“You don’t believe in signs?”
“Oh, hell.”
“Have you lost your faith?”
“I don’t know,” Donnie said. “I still pray if that’s what you’re asking. But I hadn’t seen or experienced anything in my life that I felt was divine intervention.”
“Those Mex boys should’ve taken your ass out,” Luther said. “I prayed and prayed that He would keep you safe. That’s something. Ain’t it?”
“I figure,” Donnie said, taking a seat beside his father and resting his feet on a section of an old log he’d dragged back from the woods. He knew come fall, this would be a nice little spot for a campfire, a place he could watch the stars. The stars were a spectacle he could behold that didn’t require setting no damn alarm clock. The sun started to touch the streaks of white clouds crossing the sky, turning everything a bright hot-pink and -blue.
“I am grateful to be free,” Donnie said.
“Five years knocked off,” Luther said. “I’d call that a fucking gift.”
“I might argue that point.”
“You want to enlighten me a bit?”
“How about we just sit here?” Donnie said. “I appreciate your company.”
Luther looked down at the Bible, using his long bony finger to find his lost place. He peered up at Donnie before he turned the page. “Now that you’re home, maybe you should go down and visit The River sometime.”
“Caddy Colson’s place?” Donnie said. “Sure. Don’t see why not.”
“Good,” Luther said. “I told Caddy I’d send you her way. She said she sure would like to see you. I don’t believe you’ve been to church since you got back.”
Donnie shook his head. Luther Varner didn’t take a shit without a damn action plan. And it looked like The River was going to be ground zero to save his wicked soul. Donnie didn’t speak, cigarette burning between his fingers as Luther’s gravelly voice started into “Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?”
* * *
• • •
“These people will stop at nothing to shut us up and get what they want,” Hector Herrera said. “It infuriates me.”
“How many has ICE let go?” Caddy asked.
“Fifty-three,” Hector said. “The ones with papers. They were in this country working legally and still suffered such humiliation. One woman, Adrian Calderón, left five children at home. No one notified her children or informed her of her rights.”
She stood with Hector outside the big old wooden barn a little before noon, the sun high and hot on the hard-packed dirt road. Hector’s white cargo van idled next to them, coated in a fine brown dust. He was a medium-sized man with a round stomach and a shaved head, big black eyebrows, and black mustache and goatee. He had on a red V-neck T-shirt and wore a large braided gold chain and cross, complete with a crucified Jesus. His face and bald head were shiny with sweat.
“And where are the rest now?”
“Still in north Louisiana,” he said. “An ICE facility in Pine Prairie.”
“Pine Prairie?”
“I know,” Hector said. “Sounds nice. But it’s anything but lovely. They are not officially prisoners but are forced to wear orange jumpsuits and are shackled while moved.”
“Lawyers?”
“We are working on it,” he said. “Most do not speak English. And we are told the government is under no obligation to provide counsel. These people are the voiceless. Those in power want to see them disappeared.”
“We’re overloaded here,” Caddy said. “We’ve gotten some local support but not much. I can offer as many as fifty beds. But I could use some help. The children get restless. They are scared for their parents. I give us maybe four days before we run out of food. But I have faith. He always comes through when we need Him.”
Hector nodded, placing a strong hand on Caddy’s shoulder and looking her in the eye the way he did when he was serious, when it was a matter of honor. “Thank you,” he said. “We all thank you. If this place wasn’t here, the children would have nowhere to go. That whore of a trailer park has kicked everyone out who can’t make their weekly payment. They didn’t care if they were legal. They didn’t care if they were children. Everything is about money.”
“What I don’t understand is how the money people allowed this to happen,�
� Caddy said. “The processing plant is the biggest money in the county. You’d think they’d have some friends in Jackson to make sure no one gives them trouble. They run more than fifty thousand chickens a day.”
“More like eighty thousand,” Hector said. “What they do is not sanitary and is not legal. The foremen are brutal and mean. Few speak Spanish. They make insults and use their hands on the women.”
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
Hector shook his head and spit. “You do not get it, Miss Colson,” he said. “This raid was not about stopping that business—they helped it. It was about shutting me up and shutting the mouths of anyone who spoke up against the plant. Did you not know about the lawsuit?”
Caddy shook her head. She had her hands on her hips, her Carhartt work pants cut off into shorts, high rubber boots covering her calves. Dirt and sweat stained the front of her white T-shirt. She’d spent the morning in the field, gathering the very last of the corn that hadn’t been completely destroyed in the heat. She was tired and hungry, and within two hours, the school bus would return with nearly fifty kids that she could barely house or afford to feed.
“I helped many women at the plant with a class-action lawsuit,” he said. “One woman that had moved too slowly was hit with a broom handle. Another woman, this one at a plant outside Jackson, was accused of stealing and forced to a strip search. There are so many humiliations. And so many things the plant doesn’t want known. All I can say is don’t eat the chicken from that place. If you knew all the practices, it would turn your stomach.”
“Why didn’t they get you?” Caddy asked.
“They would like nothing more,” Hector said, reaching down and absently touching the large cross on his neck. “And have tried in other ways. Legally, they can’t touch me. I was born and raised in Houston. I am an American. I have a voice and can speak loud.”