by Ace Atkins
Quinn shifted his weight on his boot heels, watching Donnie stand up, slip into his laceless canvas shoes, walk to the toilet, and toss in the spent cigarette. Donnie scratched his bruised and scratched-up face and waited for Quinn to answer.
“They didn’t find that truck,” Quinn said. “I told you all this already.”
“Yeah,” Donnie said, pushing himself up and getting off the bunk, grinning. “But I love hearing it. I wonder where they crossed the border? Damn if they didn’t pull that shit off.”
“You do realize you’re going to be formally charged in federal court with gunrunning on Wednesday,” Quinn said. “I’ll see if I can’t take you to Oxford for your arraignment.”
“Appreciate that, Quinn,” Donnie said. “But I think I’d rather ride with that redhead who came to talk to me last week. She about set the room on fire. You know if she’s got a boyfriend? Didn’t see a wedding ring.”
Quinn didn’t say anything.
“Hell, do I need to draw you a map?”
“Come on, Donnie,” Quinn said, opening up the jail door. “Luther’s waiting for you. He brought you some biscuits from the Quick Mart.”
“Miss Peaches sure can cook.”
“You mind if I ask you a question?” Quinn said. “Between us?”
“Shoot.”
“How’d you get all those guns out of Afghanistan?” Quinn asked. “Did you hide them in the heavy equipment y’all brought over? Or you catch some customs officer with a goat?”
“Nope,” Donnie said, grinning.
“I’m not working for the Feds.”
“OK,” Donnie said, smiling wide. “We fitted those Conex containers with fake floors, raised ’em up about four inches, enough to fit in whatever we please. Customs folks would clear out the containers, walk around on those floors, and not suspect a thing. A buddy, who will remain nameless, helped me take ’em apart and refit them over in the Shitbox.”
“You’ve got vision, Donnie,” Quinn said. “I’ll give you that.”
“It’s a gift,” Donnie said, walking ahead out in the long dark hall. “Sometimes I wish I could turn the damn thing off.”
LATER, IN THE SPRING, the children played outside after the church held Sunday service with doors and widows open, daffodils flowering, grass coming back to life, a soft, warm wind blowing across picnic tables set between the headstones in the nearby cemetery. Quinn stood inside with Caddy, hearing the kids squealing and laughing while they played tag, running wild up and around the graves, too young to know they were stepping on the dead. Caddy wore a new denim dress, face freshly scrubbed, and worked to take the cakes and pies out to the tables. The other church members finishing off their cold fried chicken and potato salad; open jars of homemade pickles and pimento cheese spread out on the table. Somewhere their mother was among them, gabbing, bragging about Jason.
They called days like this Dinner on the Grounds. Old church members and those who’d left Jericho long ago would often return, recall old times about people they’d buried long ago with a smile and a laugh. Since the fall, a soldier had come back home, another small American flag staked by the grave. Another just like him lay nearby, dead since ’05. Quinn knew them both, had grown up with them.
Caddy took the pies outside and returned to fill pitchers of sweet tea. She looked confused as Quinn smiled at her. “What?” she said. “You drinking?”
“It’s good to have you back, Caddy.”
She nodded. “Can you still drive with me to Tupelo on Thursday?”
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Quinn said, standing alone with his sister. The wind shooting through the open doors smelled of warm sun and budding leaves and flowers.
“I know you hate going, all that talk.”
“Nope,” Quinn said. “No reason we can’t talk about it. We’re not kids. You were right.”
“You mind me writing that down?” Caddy said. “Never heard my brother say that before. You sure you haven’t been drinking? Maybe a little of that strawberry moonshine Boom likes?”
“Nope.”
“I’m good,” Caddy said. “I don’t even know who that person used to be.”
“Day by day, right?”
“It’s over, Quinn. Everything is different.”
Quinn was quiet, just smiled back at Caddy. He wished everything was as simple as she imagined it.
Quinn walked to the open doors and stared down the sloping hill at all the folks sitting at the tables among the headstones. Boom ambled up to the steps with an empty Styrofoam plate in his hand and joined him at the threshold, turning back to see what Quinn was watching. They stood side by side, and Boom nodded his head, seeing it, too. Lillie was showing off the child she’d adopted, the lost girl from the trailer park. Good to her word, she’d named her Rose after her mother, who was buried down that hill. Quinn had never seen Lillie smile so much. Boom wondered aloud if Lillie knew just what the hell she was doing, raising a child by herself, a child she didn’t know a thing about, finding it like a wandering animal on the side of the road.
“You want to question Lillie’s methods?” Quinn said.
“Nope.”
“Lillie will figure it out.”
“Kid’s not right,” Boom said. “Hadn’t walked yet. Baby over a year old. God bless her for trying.”
“Sometimes a hard head is an asset.”
Boom walked back into the church for a second helping of lemon icebox pie or chocolate pie or coconut cake. Quinn drank a little more tea while Jason played war among the headstones with two boys and a tough little girl in a pink dress, time seeming to move in reverse. Quinn’s eyes again falling on Anna Lee with her child, the little girl born in November. She was probably talking to Lillie about long sleepless nights, diapers and baby clothes, as she readjusted the child in her arms, Luke nowhere to be seen, probably sticking with the Episcopalians in town. She turned to Quinn at a distance, like she could feel him staring, and waved. He returned a loose wave back and smiled, Anna Lee still looking eighteen with her blond hair tied back in a black ribbon, long flowered skirt showing under a bright red jacket. A dozen years ago, there had been a summer afternoon on a secret creek, cutoffs and tank top tossed onto the hill, jumping out, wild and free, toward Quinn as he treaded cold water.
“Don’t even think about it,” Lillie said, meeting him on the steps and handing him her adopted daughter. Quinn hoisted the kid into his arms, all big brown eyes and long lashes. The child was attentive and beautiful, but as light as a bird, almost like holding air.
“I’m just watching the kids,” Quinn said. “Making sure Jason doesn’t bust his head on one of those stones.”
“Bullshit,” Lillie said. “You know she still looks at you the same. Same as when we were in high school, and you had her name written in your truck’s back window. She shouldn’t do that. It’ll mess your head up, and I need you whole.”
“I’m here.”
“You think that redhead you were seeing knows anything about where to find Janet Torres?”
“If she did, she wouldn’t tell me.”
“You can do better than that tight-ass,” Lillie said. “I do feel for Mara. If her lawyer can’t put fat Janet on the stand, jury won’t be able to make sense of the hell she lived through. She was a victim same as those other children.”
Quinn nodded and passed the baby back to Lillie, admiring the natural way Lillie took the child, held her, made her smile and laugh. Lillie always had seemed a lot better with children than grown-ups. He wondered about the other kids they’d found, not knowing where they’d been placed or how things had turned out after all that the Torres people had done to them. Lillie handed Quinn a piece of coconut cake and a fork, and Quinn sat on the church steps, eyes coming back to Anna Lee, her arms empty now, standing there alone in her bright red jacket, blond hair, and red mouth.
Anna Lee met his gaze for a long moment and then turned away. She seemed almost angry, maybe a little confused. He’d seen that look plenty of times before they br
oke up. She collected her child from a white-headed woman and marched down the hill, out of sight and out of reach. Quinn finished the pie, helped clean up, and then drove back to the farm.
The old tin-roofed house stood stark, shadowed. Hondo waited, tall on the hill, barking at his return.