by Steph Post
Ramey didn’t give herself time to think. She snapped the phone shut and threw it up on the dash before stepping on the gas and peeling out in a U-turn. She wasn’t sure where she was going or what she was going to find. She only knew that she had to do something.
Sister Tulah slid her plastic tray down the metal rack and stopped at the roast beef carving station. A tall black man in a Brooks Brothers suit and crew cut was in line ahead of her. The man stared at the slab of meat being hacked away at by the teenager in the smeared, white apron and did not acknowledge Tulah’s presence until she spoke.
“You come all the way to Kentsville just to end up at Golden Corral?”
“I like the soft serve ice cream.”
Tulah smacked her lips together and smiled an ugly smile. The man in the suit shook his head when offered a slice of beef.
“No, give me a different one.”
The teenager rolled his eyes and slapped the meat back on the cutting board. Sister Tulah laughed.
“Are you always this picky? Seems like a man like you wouldn’t presume to be disagreeable in these parts.”
The man in the suit turned and looked down at Sister Tulah over his tinted glasses.
“Really? Seems like you might be the one wanting to walk a little more carefully right about now.”
This time he held out his plate when the thick piece of rubbery meat was offered. He waited for it to be doused with a ladle full of gravy before sliding his tray down to the mashed potatoes. Sister Tulah scooted into his place.
“What exactly is that supposed to mean, Mr. Reynolds?”
Mr. Reynolds scooped up a mound of gloopy potatoes and plopped them onto his plate.
“It means that you have some steps to take, preacher lady. And soon.”
The teenager held out a piece of roast beef to Sister Tulah, but she ignored him. The man in the suit had already moved down to the creamed corn and fried okra and Tulah slid her tray along the line. She pushed herself up against him and whispered hoarsely.
“What are you talking about?”
“You’re from around this podunk popsicle stand aren’t you? What do you think is better, fried okra or sautéed okra? There’s this place up in New York that serves the best sautéed okra you ever put in your mouth. Some kind of Moroccan spices on it or something. Like nothing you ever tasted. What do you think?”
Sister Tulah pursed her lips together and gripped the edge of her plastic tray.
“All right, city boy, you’ve proved your point. Now get to business. What sort of steps are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about the upcoming vote on a certain phosphate company’s permits.”
“What about it?”
The man turned to her and chuckled.
“See, if you were as smart as you claim to be, you would be spending less time down here waving snakes around and hollering about fire and brimstone, and more time keeping an eye on what’s going on up in Tallahassee.”
Sister Tulah hissed.
“I know everything I need to know.”
Mr. Reynolds shrugged and speared a log of boiled corn with a serving fork.
“Then you’d know that the vote got bumped up on the timeline. You wouldn’t need to be paying me to stop by on my way up there to tell you.”
Sister Tulah smacked her hand down on her plastic tray, rattling the silverware.
“And if you want to get paid, then you’d better start talking. I don’t have time for your games, Mr. Reynolds. When is the vote going to be now?”
“Monday.”
Sister Tulah’s eyes widened.
“This Monday?”
Mr. Reynolds slid his tray down to the end of the line and picked through the soggy pile of cornbread triangles.
“This Monday. As in, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, vote. You feel me, sister?”
“We’ve got everyone we need on board, right?”
He shrugged again.
“You need Kirkland in order to get the rest and he’s still holding out. That’s why I’m here. To pass along the message.”
Tulah frowned.
“What does he want for the vote?”
“Fifty thousand. In his bank account, before Monday morning. Otherwise, he’s voting against the permits and swaying the others to do the same. And let me tell you, PRB Industries is not keen on waiting any longer. Word on the street is, if those permits are denied, there’ll be a mine popping up in North Carolina next year, not in Florida. The deal’s just not sweet enough for PRB to hold on to the proposal here.”
“What do the others say?”
The man picked up his laden tray and moved over to the dessert bar. Tulah grimaced and followed him.
“There’s no doubt that you hold the key properties and stand to make the most money on the mineral rights, but with men like Gripes and Josten, well, if this deal doesn’t go through they have twenty other projects in the works. They told me to tell you that they’ve put enough into this already. Kirkland’s your problem. If you want this deal, then you had better come up with the cash. Pronto.”
Sister Tulah looked down at her empty tray. She gripped the edges again, then let go and smoothed her hands down the sides of her flowered dress.
“You tell Mr. Gripes and Mr. Josten not to worry. Kirkland will have the money by Monday.”
Mr. Reynolds nodded and pushed his tray down to the ice cream machine.
“Oh, man. They have the swirl kind. This is just my kind of day.”
Sister Tulah abandoned her tray and stalked out of the restaurant.
So far, the plan seemed to be going well. About a minute after Ramey pulled out onto the highway, Judah again heard the growl of motorcycle engines in the distance and he knew that the trap had been set. The second set of Scorpions must have seen Ramey go by, following the first group, and they had taken off behind her. He waited about thirty seconds and then put the Bronco in gear. Judah was cautious at first, hoping to give the bikers ahead of him time to set the pace and be focused on Ramey, not the vehicle slowly approaching behind them. About two miles past Lightning Strike Road, on a long stretch of highway, Judah saw two of the Scorpions up ahead. He was far enough back, and driving slow enough, that he hoped he would be taken for just another car on the road. He was betting everything on the Scorpions’ assumed incompetence. They had been robbed of a hundred and fifty thousand dollars by an old man and his two sons, after all, and Hiram certainly didn’t place any confidence in Jack O’ Lantern’s ability to lead. Judah didn’t think he was too far off in believing that he would be able to out-trap the Scorpions.
He tried not to think about Ramey up ahead. He tried not to think about Benji lying unconscious in a hospital bed or Sherwood hiding out with Levi. He tried not to think about all of the little things that could wrong in the Wal-Mart parking lot when he confronted the two Scorpions led there by Ramey. He had left the rifle in the backseat of the Cutlass, but he had his .45 under the seat, ready to go. He hoped he wouldn’t have to use it. He kept his eyes on the road and tried not to think.
About halfway to Kentsville, Judah swerved around a curve and saw that the bikers in front of him had left the main highway. He caught a glimpse of them turning down a side road leading off into the trees and then they were gone. Judah stepped on the gas and tried to ignore the sinking feeling in his gut. Something had obviously changed in the plan and as Judah approached the side road, he had only seconds to make a decision. He could forfeit his chance to get to the second group of Scorpions and meet up with Ramey or he could stick with following the bikes ahead of him. And what had Ramey done? If the first two motorcycles had turned off as well, had Ramey stayed following them or had she stuck with the original plan? Or had something else gone wrong?
The turn was suddenly upon him and Judah had only a split second to decide. He took a deep breath and yanked the wheel hard to the left, fishtailing off the asphalt. Once Judah became aware that he was on a sandy back road, lined with encroaching oak tr
ees and canopied by overhanging, entwined branches, he slowed down. He didn’t want to get too far behind the Scorpions, but as he continued down the narrow, winding road Judah became more and more nervous about his decision. The road was graded and he could tell that he was gradually going downhill, as if heading into a ravine. He went around curve after curve and then the roar of the motorcycle engines abruptly ceased. The sudden quiet unnerved him and he stomped on the gas. He spun around the last bend and slammed on the brakes to keep from crashing into the two motorcycles parked in the middle of a dead end clearing. High rock walls, blinding in the noon sun, surrounded him on all sides. He knew it instantly. He had just driven into The Pit. The two Scorpions were standing in front of their bikes and each had a gun pointed directly at him.
Judah slammed the gearshift into reverse, but before he could step on the gas he saw a flash of sunlight reflect off another vehicle behind him in the rearview mirror. He whipped his head around just in time to see a mud spattered Dodge Ram pull up behind him and cut off the only entrance and exit to the quarry. Judah started to duck down for the .45 beneath his seat, but a bullet blasted through the glass of his windshield and exploded into the passenger seat of the Bronco. Judah froze.
“Next one’s going through your head, jackass.”
Judah raised his hands slowly above his head. He heard the truck’s door slam behind him and then the sound of a shotgun being racked. The tall, skinny Scorpion whom Judah remembered from the robbery on the highway waved his gun slightly, indicating for Judah to get out of the Bronco.
“And easy does it, buddy. You even think about reaching and we’ll blast you six ways to Sunday.”
Judah kept his hands over his head and met the biker’s eyes. They were dark and narrowed against the glaring sunlight. The man from the truck came up behind Judah and opened the driver’s side door. He slowly slid out of the Bronco, keeping his eyes on the man who had spoken to him and ignoring the man with the shotgun barrel pressed hard between his shoulder blades. From the center console of the Bronco, Judah’s cellphone began to ring. The man behind him sniggered.
“I think you should probably let that one go to voicemail, friend.”
RAMEY COULD hear the voices now. She crept forward on her stomach and inched her way up to the lip of the quarry. The M14 was slung over her shoulder awkwardly, the strap choking her as she crawled, and though it would have been easier to move without the 9mm gripped in her right hand, she didn’t dare put it away. Ramey had no idea what she was going to see when she looked over the edge and she knew that she had to be ready for anything.
Once she had determined that something had gone wrong with Judah’s part of the plan, Ramey had turned around and raced back toward the Scorpions’ clubhouse. She had been frantic, her mind galloping in a thousand directions, when she came up on a side road she hadn’t previously paid any attention to. The road sign had been hidden by low hanging branches when she had been coming from the other direction, but now she could read the name: Devil’s Beggar Rd. She had slammed on the brakes and sat with the Cutlass idling in the middle of the blistering pavement as she realized what had just happened to Judah. In the same instant, she understood why the road name had sounded vaguely familiar when Hiram had mentioned it the day before.
When Ramey had been nine years old, the summer that her mother had left a note on the fridge telling Leroy that she’d found true love in the form of an ice cream truck driver and was moving with him to Texas, she and her sister had been hustled out of the way to stay with relatives in Kentsville. Her cousin Opie had been in charge of occupying them during the long, sweltering days and his idea of fun was to take Ramey and Aubrey with him down to what he called The Hole. Ramey and her sister had spent most afternoons collecting rocks while Opie and his friends smoked pot, drank beer and tried to scale the towering quarry walls.
Once Ramey had realized that she knew The Pit, knew every inch of it and the high limestone ridge above it, she knew what she had to. She had pulled the car over to the shoulder of the highway and leaped out. She had stuffed the 9mm into the back of her jeans and slung the rifle from the backseat over her shoulder before bolting through the woods.
Ramey finally edged her way to the rim and, using a scraggly pine tree for cover, was able to look down. Part of her was terrified, but part of her was relieved as well. She wasn’t sure exactly what was happening to Judah, but at least she knew where he was. Ramey figured that she had pretty good coverage from her vantage point; she remembered as a kid how the light had reflected off the quarry walls and made it difficult to look straight up and see a person scaling down. She pushed herself up so that she was squatting on her heels and surveyed the scene beneath her.
She could see how they had trapped Judah. A large, white pickup truck was blocking the only exit and she understood that once Judah had entered the quarry, he had been unable to leave. Two motorcycles were parked in front of the Bronco, so that it was essentially surrounded. Three men were standing in the middle of the quarry. The heavy man with a full beard had a shotgun gripped in both hands. He wore a sleeveless flannel shirt that left an inch of his white, flabby belly exposed over his cut-off jean shorts. Ramey decided that he wasn’t one of the bikers, maybe only hired help, and she hoped she could use that to her advantage. The other two men were obviously the Scorpions who had initially been following her. Their black leather vests gleamed in the sun. One of them was hanging back, closer to the bikes, and she took the other one, a tall, skinny man with a bad haircut, to be the man in charge. He seemed to be the one doing all of the talking.
In the middle of the three men was Judah. He was leaning against the hood of the Bronco and Ramey could tell that he had already been in the dust once. His left side was streaked with dirt and she could see a line of blood running from the corner of his mouth. Other than that, though, he looked unharmed. He stood with his arms crossed in front of him and a stubborn look on his face. His mouth was firm and his shoulders were thrown back. Ramey knew that posture. He wasn’t going to give them anything. She held her breath, but could only make out the echo of voices, not the actual words.
The tall man kept gesticulating with his hands, but she couldn’t see Judah’s lips moving. He just kept shaking his head. The heavy man with the shotgun came up behind Judah and pushed his shoulders like a schoolyard bully, but Judah kept his footing and only swayed. The tall man indicated for the heavy man to stop. He pulled a cellphone out of his pocket and stepped away from Judah for a moment. Ramey watched him nod his head several times. The other two men seemed to be getting restless and Ramey knew she didn’t have much time left. She put the handgun down; at this range there was no telling what she’d hit if she pulled the trigger on that one. She eased the M14 over her shoulder and held it level between her hands. Though it seemed she had been pulling a gun out a lot lately, it had been awhile since she had actually fired one. And definitely not at a human being.
She slid her hands up and down the barrel of the rifle. Judah was right; it did look prehistoric, but Hiram had been right, too. She remembered shooting this type of gun once at a family reunion with Lyle and Hiram. It was more accurate than anything she had ever fired before, but she was still at least two hundred yards away. She sighted down the barrel, tried to keep her hands steady and waited.
The tall man snapped the phone shut and walked over to the other biker. He spoke to him for a moment and then gestured to the man with the shotgun. The heavy man pushed Judah with the butt of the gun, forcing him to move, while the two Scorpions turned and began walking back to their bikes. She realized that they were going to put Judah in the truck, most likely to take him back to the clubhouse, and Ramey knew it was now or never. She waited until Judah was on the other side of the Bronco, lined up the sights and fired.
The first shot hit the rocky sand right next to the heavy man’s sneakers. At the sound of the gunshot, everyone in the quarry scattered. Ramey’s chest was pounding and her hands were shaking, but she force
d the fear from her mind and fired at the motorcycles. The bullet hit one of the bikes, but ricocheted off the metal into the shoulder of the shorter biker. He screamed and grabbed his arm and she fired again, hitting the ground about a foot away from the skinny man. Judah had ducked down behind the Bronco as soon as the first shot was fired and Ramey hoped he would stay there. She had been right about the blinding effect of the white rock walls. The tall biker pulled out a gun and fired a few shots in her direction, but they weren’t even close. They couldn’t see her and from the way the men were looking around themselves in all directions, the weird acoustics that the quarry created were acting in her favor as well. She took aim and fired again.
As soon as the shooting had begun, the heavy man had immediately run for his truck. Ramey had been right in thinking that he wasn’t invested enough to risk being part of a gunfight. After the blind shots at the quarry wall, the Scorpions ran for their bikes as well. The motorcycle Ramey had hit was toppled over in the dirt, so they jumped on the other bike together. The man on the back of the bike fired wildly behind him with his good arm as they followed the pickup truck out and the shots exploded into the quarry wall. Ramey fired back and shot out the back windshield of the truck. She lined up the sights one final time and aimed for the back of the already wounded biker, but didn’t pull the trigger. She didn’t need to. It was over.
Ramey tossed the rifle aside and looked for Judah. She had seen where most of her shots had landed, but she wasn’t sure. Then his head appeared above the hood of the Bronco. There was dirt in his hair and a wild look in his eyes. Ramey called down him.