The Broken Places

by Ace Atkins

  “You know I got that senator’s underwear on right now,” Bones said, grinning. “I think my momma be proud.”

  “Since we broke out, I’ve been meaning to ask you something.”

  “Shoot.”

  “When Dixon was praying for you and got you cleaning toilets and painting walls at the Spiritual Life Center, did you buy into it?” Esau said, putting down his fork. “Did you believe when he was preaching to us that Dixon was really somebody and that he’d been forgiven?”

  “You know, I been thinkin’ on that, too,” Bones said. “Way I figured it out is that just ’cause a man is forgiven don’t mean he won’t fuck up again. Plenty of men ask for some forgiveness but go back to their old ways. I think when you shared that about the truck and all that money, it was just too much for Jamey Dixon to take. Like a drunk man staring at a whiskey bottle.”

  “I believed him,” Esau said. “Reason I told him. I believed he had the hookup with Jesus. Now I know I was just bending over and taking it deep.”

  “We out, ain’t we?” Bones said, throwing Esau his sack.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “And free?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Maybe Dixon was right,” Bones said. “God got a plan for everyone.”

  “To shoot to kill until you get that money you stole?” Esau said, slipping on the backpack, checking the load on the .357 and reaching for the shotgun he took off Dixon’s woman. “That it?”

  Bones shrugged. “Maybe this ain’t our story,” he said. “Maybe this is Dixon’s, and we’re here to set things straight.”

  “Hand of God?”

  “Both of ’em,” Bones said, and bumped fists with Esau.

  • • •

  Quinn had the deputies rally two miles from the hunt lodge, still wet and dark as hell. Quinn had on a slicker, same as Lillie, same as Kenny, Dave, Art, and Ike. Ike had just driven up in his sheriff’s office truck, another Ford painted the same dark green as Quinn’s. Only Ike’s didn’t have the winch and the big tires or the rack of KC lights that lit up the spot where they met. Lillie showed them all an aerial map she’d downloaded and covered in a Ziploc bag.

  “I just got off the phone with Willie Tucker, and he told me the layout inside the lodge,” Quinn said. “We’ll enter at a rear door by a swimming pool. Mr. Tucker even told us where to get a key, so we move in quiet. This is just like what we drilled all summer and fall at the shoot house. No different. Art is our breech, I’ll go first, and we pie up that space. It’s a big space, a big open room for the senator’s trophies and a bar and TV. What we need to worry about is eight doors opening from up above. The rooms all look down on the open space, and we’ll make for fine targets. You’ll need to be aware of not only the room but anything popping up from above.”

  The shoot house Quinn had constructed over the summer was considerably smaller, him trying to get the deputies ready for houses and trailers with a main room and a couple doors off center. It was pretty much just a barn with inside and outside walls made of railroad ties and filled with gravel, a tin roof, and a catwalk above to observe and critique. But the entry would be the same, his deputies all knew how to pie the room, carve up that space, and make sure it was all clear. If not, and if the convicts were there, Quinn had spoken to one and all of his deputies that hesitation was not an option.

  “Remember, this isn’t for show,” Quinn said. “We hit that door and move as fast as tactically sound. You hear me? I don’t want any of y’all to be in a rush to get shot. Move as fast as tactically sound.”

  There were mumbles of approval. A couple yes, sirs. Quinn would have felt better with a loud “Roger that, Sergeant,” but that shit wasn’t going to happen here. They headed back to their vehicles, driving within a quarter mile of the house. Quinn handed Ike the keys to his truck and told him to be on standby; he’d radio if the men tried to escape in a vehicle. Kenny would park his patrol car on the opposite ridge in case they ran in that direction.

  Quinn, Lillie, Dave, and Art walked uphill all the way in their slickers and hats and carrying pistols and shotguns. Quinn smiled at the deputies as they moved, thunder shaking the low Mississippi hills. First light still a half hour away. All of it felt familiar and right marching in the muck in his boots.

  “Am I crazy, or are you smiling?” Lillie said.

  “I love it.”

  Rain poured down on her face and into her eyes while she repositioned her ball cap. “You let me know when the fun starts, OK?”

  “You’ll know,” Quinn said.

  “What if it’s not them?”

  “Then we would have scared the ever-living shit out of some squatters,” Quinn said, marching on ahead and watching the big log house growing larger and closer, two yellow lights burning inside. “Right?”

  Esau had gone ahead and gassed up a couple 4-wheelers, Kawasaki Brute Force 750s, the damn things looking as if they’d never been ridden. Esau was careful to check the oil, make sure the engine had actually been broken in, and started them up. Bones walked on in the tin shed that was clean as hell, with a polished concrete floor and rows of landscaping equipment, pole saws and chain saws and even a little backhoe. Esau wondering out loud if the senator ever used this stuff himself or just got people to clean up his shit.

  “What the hell do you think?” Bones said.

  “There’s a fire road run south of here,” Esau said. “I seen it on some maps in the man’s study. It runs all the way down south till it dovetails with Highway 9. We get to 9 and pick up a new car down there. We ride out of here with only what we can carry. I don’t give a shit about no souvenirs.”

  “If I could take that TV on my back, I would,” Bones said. “But I hear what you sayin’. Sure like that Winchester special edition with the gold plating.”

  “I packed some food, shotgun shells, and bullets,” Esau said. “He got about every kind of caliber in this shed. I’d fill up one of them backpacks before we head out. Ole Dixon won’t take but the only bullet he’s worth. But dealing with Stagg is going to mean some shooting. He’ll probably bring that fat-ass police chief and some other good ole boys if he’s smart.”

  Esau fitted on a ball cap that read O’TUCK FARM SUPPLY and tightened the backpack over his shoulders. He straddled the ATV and rode on out of the shed, the high-pitched whine of that fresh engine sounding good enough to ride clear on to California if they decided to head that way. Bones got on his and followed till they both slowed where a ravine ran down the hill with a narrow wooden bridge spanning into the fire road that would zigzag and trail south all the way to the state highway. Bones kept the engine running but told Esau he’d changed his mind. He wanted to carry that Winchester as a souvenir, saying it would come in handy when they finally would have it out with Stagg’s boys. Esau nodded and told him to hurry his ass up, heart beating, sweating a bit, excited to finish his business with Jamey Dixon as it all was supposed to be. He had a memory, a not too distant one, of Dixon preaching to the boys in Unit 27, hands raised to high heaven on the basketball court and telling them all to be grateful for every day God gave them. There were some snickers and laughs, just as the sun rose big and fat over the flat Delta land. A scattering of sparrows looping and swirling, tangled and bunched together in flight, Dixon’s eyes closed talking about a life that was promised to all of them, a world anew with faith and strength and forgiveness. Death was all. He said everyone standing with him today on that court was given another chance. The laughter stopped. He said no man was fit to judge another. Forgiveness was a personal thing between you and the Lord.

  The men listened. Esau listened. The sun rose just as promised.

  Esau believed he could be forgiven for what he was about to do. He didn’t just think it was necessary, staring down that zigzagging road that would lead him to Jericho, he knew it was damn well ordained.

  • • •

  Quinn, Lillie, Art, and Dave stood at the back patio to the lodge, a pair of French doors looking into the wid
e-open den of the senator’s personal hunt club. All the lights were on, as was the television, set to a morning show in Tupelo. With all the glass windows and the glass doors, there wasn’t much chance to stay hidden. The best they could do is go ahead and bust inside before they had been spotted. Quinn had the key he’d found, just where Willie Tucker had told him, under a certain rock in a certain corner, and handed it on to Art Watts, who stood with his standard-issue Glock at the ready. Quinn waited behind him and Lillie and Dave in the respective order. Art turned the key and Quinn was inside, taking the center of the room, concentrating on nothing else, with his Beretta raised, finger on trigger, knowing from experience you don’t set up to shoot when you find a target. You set up from the get-go. “One clear,” Quinn said. “Two clear,” Art said. “Three clear,” Lillie said. “Four clear,” Dave said.

  They all walked as a unit through the house, the layout being unusual: since the back wall was made of glass, any son of a bitch could watch every move after entry. They repeated the entry into the kitchen and then mounted the steps in single file, no one touching the loud television explaining how to make meatballs from scratch with nothing but healthy and natural ingredients. About halfway up the stairs, Quinn knew it was just fine to use turkey sausage in the mix, some whole-wheat bread crumbs, and light olive oil. At the top of the landing, the team split. Quinn and Lillie took the rooms to the left, and Art and Dave took the rooms to the right.

  They met in the middle. All was clear.

  Quinn lowered his weapon. He was not breathing hard or tense. He could still to this day hear his RI telling him to slow the fuck down, breathe, and engage the brain. Don’t get tunnel vision. See everything, slow down and relax in your own personal workspace. Quinn kept an eye on the back doors as they walked back down into the sprawling den. The meatballs apparently were delicious. The host of the show said she’d never eaten anything so good in her life and couldn’t believe it was healthy, too. She said all she needed was a nice Chianti, and that really broke up the local cook and the host. They laughed until Quinn walked up to the big TV and turned it off.

  “Let’s check the grounds,” Quinn said. “Make sure we’re all clear. We got two outbuildings and some kind of pool house. Who the hell keeps a swimming pool at a hunt cabin?”

  “This isn’t a hunting cabin,” Lillie said. “This is a pussy palace.”

  “Where’d you learn to talk like that?” Quinn said as he followed her. Art and Dave already out back, checking on the sheds.

  “You really think Vardaman comes up here to hunt?” Lillie said. “Stagg brings him in some of Memphis’s youngest and finest tail.”

  Quinn shook his head, 12-gauge in hand, as he rounded the corner and heard the kitchen door slam. He looked to Lillie and then outside to see Art and Dave had disappeared, already into the big sheds. Quinn lifted the gun. Lillie moved quiet and fast to the kitchen door, standing to the side and nodding to Quinn that she was about to push it open.

  Quinn kicked in the door, checked half of the room, Lillie behind him, sweeping the other. Room was empty. Refrigerator open. And the back door wide open, too. A blue-and-white gingham curtain in the door’s window waving in the wind.

  Somewhere close, Quinn heard the whine of ATVs as he reached for the radio to call Ike.

  Esau turned the Kawasaki around just in time to see Bones running from the lodge and two sheriff’s deputies walking from the shed. The men yelled to Bones, Bones hauling some serious ass with that goddamn gold rifle in hand. The wind whipped up some rain into Esau’s eyes. He didn’t wait a second to head on over that bridge, hoping Bones would come on but not being able to do a thing about it. His ATV rumbled up and over that footbridge and dug in hard and quick to the mud and stones, spewing up some dirt as he fishtailed and swung on into the tree line and onto the fire road, turning back just for a second to see Bones riding on behind him. He thought back to the time on the horses at Parchman, that feeling like ten years back. Bones looked a mite bit more comfortable with his legs straddled over an engine than a horse.

  The trail was thick with mud and broken in spots with runoff from the hill. Esau ran it hard and fast, hunkered down with his backpack strapped tight and rifle thrown over his shoulder. He’d tucked his loaded .357 into his belt ready and waiting for any poor son of a bitch who decided to follow. Back at the shed he’d only seen the two ATVs, but there could have been more, probably would be more, and he’d sure bet the sheriff had brought his own up into the hills.

  There was lightning and thunder as the wet branches whipped across his face. The cool rain ran down over his bad eye, good eye firmly on that narrow path that was sometimes hard to follow, but they kept rolling on some ruts in the road that a truck had made sometime in the last year and looked to where the saplings and weeds were no taller than your knee. The whine of the ATVs filled the forest, turning and cutting, Esau’s foot not touching the brake a single time. He raced on down that hill, thinking about Becky, hoping she would do what she had said and go and follow through with what needed to be done. She had sworn to him, pulled his hand to her, up under her shirt and her bra, to feel her heart beating for him to know it was true. Esau knew it hadn’t been her heart that he’d trusted, feeling that big ole titty in his hand and that familiar swelling between his legs, knowing he’d follow Becky into the depths of Hades itself. More branches swatted his face and his bad eye, though he ducked some. He turned at a sharp, muddy curve where the road got a bit steeper, touching that brake for the first time, looking back to Bones, who rode up beside him, breathing hard, smiling big ole crooked teeth, that golden rifle tucked into a camo backpack.

  They both turned the ATVs to the empty road and looked down the fire road and the wide expanse of the valley. They could see Highway 9 and a few trailers down that way. A couple cars and trucks. Good pickings. But they’d need to move fast before word got out; everyone would know this road only led in one direction.

  • • •

  Thirty seconds later, Ike McCaslin drove up behind the hunt lodge and hopped out of Quinn’s running F-250, asking which way those boys were headed. Quinn jumped in behind the wheel, Lillie following on the passenger side, as he pointed down the fire road, all the deputies understanding where it spilled out and the direction they should head. Quinn knocked the truck in four-wheel drive and headed in the direction of those 4-wheelers, coming to the bridge and straddling it, big tires running fine and smooth over the ravine and on to the curve.

  “Couldn’t resist it,” Lillie said, buckling in, which was a true task with the jostling. “Could you?”

  “Nope.”

  Branches swatted at the windshield and scraped the sides of the truck as it rolled up and over rocks and down into ruts, crushing fallen logs as Quinn cracked the window, listening but not hearing the motors. Another limb appeared in the windshield, and Quinn turned to the right, evading it, picking up the path again and turning down into the drop-off. The valley below, three contiguous farms, their early plantings as clear and defined as Highway 9. He hit the lights and the siren.

  “Sheriff,” Lillie said. “What happened to ‘move as fast as tactically sound’?”

  “Learned that in Ranger training.”

  “And this?”

  “Being wild-ass crazy.”

  In all that jostling and bucking, Lillie actually nodded. “Roger that,” Lillie said.

  • • •

  Esau and Bones had slowed, rolling back the throttle a bit before turning through the woods and toward that little group of trailers down by the highway. Rain was going full tilt now, making it harder to see the path. Bones was up by Esau’s side, pointing an opposite way, showing where that road to the right petered out and the other path would take them down through a ravine and on into the valley. Esau nodded and gunned the Kawasaki, turning around just in time to see a big green Ford with a growling engine bust through the brush and woods, chewing up that narrow path and coming right at them with sirens and lights. With not much
else a man could do, Esau headed down the new path, Bones right behind him, bucking up and nearly falling off the 4×4, hitting another stump and then coming up hard around a half-fallen tree. Esau wanted to reach for his pistol but didn’t want to risk his ass falling off. Down on the other side of the ravine was a long, flat space that spread out treeless and open, a deer stand sitting right there at the edge of the forest.

  Esau motored on down into the ravine, water coming up past his knees and up to the seat, but the Kawasaki revved up and then out up a sandy hill. He was not the first to ride these trails back here. Bones stopped at the edge, and Esau, turning back, told him to come on. Bones looked up at the top of the bed, squinting at Esau, almost like he couldn’t believe he’d actually made it through the water. But Bones sat back into the seat and gunned the engine and came up on the other side, following the trail again. Those sirens were coming up quick toward them.

  • • •

  Quinn knew the road. He hadn’t been on it since he was fourteen, but time didn’t seem to matter. He was waiting for that big, wide creek bed to come up. It was the same creek bed he’d fallen into after it had frozen and Boom had to lift his ass out and build a fire and make sure his socks and coat were dry before they headed on out of the forest. When he saw the break in the woods, he slowed, just a little, and edged the Ford down the slope.

  “I don’t care for this,” Lillie said, looking like she might be sick.

  “It’s the only way.”

  “I don’t care for this at all.” She put her hand to her mouth.

  “Trust me.”

  “We’re getting stuck.”

  “Nope.”

  “Yep.”

  Lillie nodded. The engine whined and tires spun, sinking them down into the ravine a little more, water coming up nearly past the big tires before Quinn knocked the truck in a low four and lifted out of the bed. The thin path on the other side gave his truck a decent place to grip, even if just on one side, as the nose of the truck lifted up and then over the hill, windshield wipers swiping away the dead leaves and pine needles and rain. Quinn turned on into the curve, seeing those two convicts running the stolen ATVs toward the final stretch of hills before things flattened out into country roads and farms and plenty of trailers and houses.