by Ace Atkins
“Damn, Quinn,” Boom said. “Why don’t y’all just move in together? Let your momma and Caddy have the farm, just find a place for you and Ophelia.”
“You know who you sound like?”
“Don’t tell me.”
“Lillie Virgil.”
“God damn it all to hell.”
The Southern Star was a long shot, narrow brick bar right off the Jericho Square, not too old since legal bars were something new to Tibbehah County. The bar ran along the left side of the room, the walls decorated with stuffed ducks, deer heads, and SEC and NASCAR memorabilia. A framed rebel flag adorned the wall in back of the bar, behind all the whiskey bottles. But Quinn’s favorite thing in the Southern Star was that crazy stuffed wildcat, hissing and reared back, ready to bite. It was indigenous to Tibbehah County and the high school mascot.
There was a stage at the far end of the bar where J.T., the local muffler man, was plugging in his bass to the motherboard, and a drummer Quinn didn’t know was setting up his kit. He turned to the door and saw Diane Tull walking in, proud and strong, holding a battered guitar case, wearing black jeans and a low-cut black top, turquoise necklace, and feather earrings. She was a good deal older than Quinn but still a very attractive woman. Quinn nodded to her.
Her face flushed as she passed and set down her guitar on the stage. She seemed to pause and hang there for a few moments and then clomped back to Quinn in her pointed rose-inlay cowboy boots and came up nose to nose. “OK,” she said.
“Ma’am?”
“Caddy said we could talk.”
“She did.”
“How about now?”
Quinn nodded. He introduced Boom.
“You think I don’t know Boom Kimbrough? His daddy worked at the Farm & Ranch for twenty years before my stepdaddy died.”
“Ole Mr. Castle,” Boom said. “How’s your momma and them?”
“Doing fine,” Diane said. “Appreciate you asking. And your daddy?”
“Working security at the mall in Tupelo.”
And then there was a little bit of silence, enough silence that Boom was confident to excuse himself and say hello to J.T., who was readying the stage. Diane sat up with Quinn and motioned to Chip for two fingers of Jack Daniel’s and a Coors chaser.
“That’s pretty outlaw.”
“Helps with the nerves,” Diane said. “Whenever I have to sing, doesn’t matter if there are two people or two hundred, I get a little shaky inside. A couple drinks stokes some confidence. Makes my voice sound smoother.”
Quinn smiled, took a sip of coffee, and then checked the time. He needed to be back to the farm by 1900 to meet up with Ophelia and have dinner with the family.
“I really don’t know very much,” Quinn said. “Caddy said it would have to come from you.”
“I think,” Diane said, pushing back her black hair with her fingers, one silver streak hanging loose. “I think. Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know where to begin. You ever think something is as important in the dark of the night and then you wake up and find yourself trying to get some meaning out of it?”
“I do.”
“Really?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “You bet.”
“Please don’t call me ma’am,” Diane said, leaning into the bar. “Makes me feel old as hell.”
“Miss Tull?”
“Shit . . .”
“Diane?”
“Better.”
“And so Caddy says you and me need to talk.”
“That all she said?”
“Yep.”
Chip laid down the whiskey and the beer. Diane threw it back and chased it with the Coors. She took another sip and stayed there all silent as J.T. hit some runs on his bass, the unknown drummer banging his kit, testing things for the show. Diane Tull’s guitar set still in the case, waiting for her to come up and lead them through that Outlaw Country set, talking about raising hell, drinking, heartache, and love with such an absolute truth that Quinn wished he could stay for a while.
“Me and you haven’t spoken that much,” Diane said.
Quinn nodded.
“But you know who I am?”
Quinn nodded, studied her face a bit, and waited.
“I don’t mean me the crazy lady at the feed store but the me you know for what happened when I was a teenager?”
Quinn took a breath. He slowly nodded.
“I never wanted to bring that up again.”
“I understand.”
“But all of this, what happened to the town, and other things that have come to light, have made me want to talk about it,” Diane said. “Now I don’t give a shit what you do. I don’t care if you file a report or investigate or whatever it is you do. I just want to tell the sheriff, someone different than those men I told—no offense because I know Hamp Beckett was your uncle—but just to make sure there’s some kind of memory, facts, to what Lori and I went through that night. It should be remembered.”
“Lori was the girl who was murdered?”
Diane nodded. She breathed, licked her lips, and swallowed.
“I don’t want to talk about it now . . . or here,” she said. “Can I come by the sheriff’s office tomorrow? I can take you out and show you where it happened. You know it’s your sister who wants me to do this.”
“Caddy has her way.”
“Caddy gives me a shit ton of strength,” Diane said. “What she did, taking on things after that tornado, helping out so many, despite her personal grief. Caddy Colson is my hero.”
“Mine, too,” Quinn said. “She’s got a tough streak. I’m proud of her.”
“Come by tomorrow?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Appreciate you, Sheriff,” Diane said. “But if you call me ma’am again, I’ll try and break your fingers.”
Diane Tull marched up to the stage and within five minutes, as Boom and Quinn were leaving the Southern Star, she launched into an old favorite called “The Healing Hands of Time.”
• • •
Johnny Stagg ran most of Tibbehah County from a sprawling truck stop off Highway 45, not far from Tupelo, called the Rebel. The Rebel had a restaurant, a western-wear shop, convenience store, and place for truckers to shower, get some rest, and continue on to Atlanta or Oklahoma City or parts unknown. Lots of truckers made it the stop of choice in north Mississippi not only because of the fine facilities and the famous chicken-fried steak, but because of a smaller establishment behind the Rebel, also owned by Johnny Stagg, a concrete-bunker strip club called the Booby Trap. Tonight Stagg had on eight of his finest young girls, ranging in age from eighteen to forty-two, working the pole in spinning colored light to rap music that Johnny didn’t understand or care to understand. But Johnny would’ve played “God Bless America” if it made the girls get their asses off the couches and shake their tails two inches from those bone-tired truckers.
Stagg had dinner at the Rebel with Ringold, as was his nightly custom, and walked over to the Booby Trap, toothpick swiveling in mouth, where he kept his real office, not the one for the Rotarians or his constituents from the Tibbehah County Board of Supervisors. This office, away from the bar and the stage, and down a long hallway of ten-inch-thick concrete blocks and rebar, was where he kept a safe full of cash from running drugs and whores all over north Mississippi and Memphis.
“Yes, sir?” Stagg said, walking into the office, finding the man from Jackson sitting and waiting. Ringold nodded and closed the door behind him.
“Heard you been in Memphis,” the man said. “So I waited.”
Stagg didn’t answer.
“I don’t know how you do it,” said the man, looking strange out of his stiff blue uniform for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. “Them people are animals up there. How you trust them blacks, Johnny? Good God Almighty.”
The Trooper smiled, black eyes flicking over Johnny’s face, waiting, just knowing that Johnny was curious as hell why he’d come.
“He’s getting out in a few weeks,” he said. “That’s official from the parole board.”
Stagg leaned forward over his desk. “You sure?”
“It’s a goddamn done deal,” the Trooper said. “Figured you’d want to know straight off. But if you don’t give a shit, hell, I won’t bother you again.”
The Trooper stood.
Stagg made a motion with his hand for him to sit his ass back down. Stagg looked up to Ringold, who raised his eyebrows and leaned against the wall. Ringold smiling a bit because he knew the possibility of this piece of shit getting out of prison had been one of the reasons he’d been hired.
When Ringold removed his jacket, you could see the man’s brightly colored tattoos running the length of both arms. Stagg believed the daggers and skulls represented kills he’d made in and out of the service.
“But Johnny,” the Trooper said. “Just ’cause the man’s getting out doesn’t mean he’s coming straight to Tibbehah County. That bastard is sixty-fucking-six years old. He probably just wants to go and live a quiet life somewhere. I think you’re putting too much thought into the past, buddy.”
Stagg swiveled his chair around, looking at Ringold and then back to the Trooper. He could feel himself perspiring up under the red Ole Miss sweater and his face heating up a good bit. He reached into his pant pocket and found the key to his desk, unlocked it, and pulled out two neat stacks of envelopes, all of them postmarked from the Brushy Mountain federal penitentiary in Tennessee. “For twenty years, that son of a bitch has been writing me letters, saying what he planned to do when he came back,” Stagg said.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” the Trooper said. “Shit, the parole board would’ve found that pretty damn interesting.”
“Been a good idea if the bullshit he wrote wouldn’t incriminate me, too,” Stagg said. “This man is one of the most cunning, evil, hardheaded sonsabitches I’ve ever met. He’s gonna join up with those shitbirds down on the Coast, they’re gonna put his old weathered ass back on the throne. Then they’re coming straight back for me. He’s going to do it. You know why? Because he goddamn promised he would, gave me his word, and now it’s his time.”
“That man sets foot in this place and we can arrest his ass,” the Trooper said. “You got so many friends in Jackson, Stagg. People who owe you favors are waiting in line. This guy makes any trouble, coming after you, and his ass is in jail or shot dead.”
“Y’all don’t get it,” Stagg said, rubbing his temples, standing up, and spitting the mawed toothpick in the trash can. “He doesn’t want to do me harm. He just wants to get back in the saddle and slide into the world he left.”
“And what’s that?” the Trooper said, grinning. Ringold shuffled a bit on the far wall, those spooky blue eyes blank and almost sleepy, but he heard every goddamn word. His jacket bulging with a Smith & Wesson automatic.
Stagg looked at him, the pulsing dance music in the bar shaking the thick concrete walls. “You’re sitting right in it,” Stagg said. “Chains LeDoux says he’s coming to take over what’s rightfully his.”
Quinn took the highway north headed toward Fate, the fastest way from town up into the hills and his farm, his family, and his cattle dog, Hondo. The setting sun gave all the busted-up trees on the way that in-between red-and-black glow, almost making the destruction pretty. Ophelia and Caddy were still outside, talking on top of a big wooden picnic table, while Jason ran around the bare apple trees with Hondo. Caddy smoked a cigarette but quickly extinguished it as Quinn got out of his truck.
The old farmhouse was a two-story white box with a tin roof and wide porch facing the curve of a gravel drive. The big colored Christmas lights still up from the holidays shined bright and welcoming as Jason and Hondo raced toward him. He picked up Jason, which got harder to do every day as the boy grew, and walked up to where the women sat. Hondo’s tongue lolled from the side of his mouth as Quinn patted his head.
“Trouble,” Quinn said. “Real trouble, with y’all discussing matters.”
“Why’s it men always think women are talking about them?” Caddy said. “You know, there are a lot more interesting subjects.”
“Like what?” Quinn said.
“Embalming,” Ophelia said. “Miranda Lambert’s new album, and maybe taking a trip Saturday to Tupelo. Jason wanted to go see his Great-uncle Van.”
“Embalming?” Quinn said.
“Been a busy week,” Ophelia said. “Should I expect more business tomorrow?”
“Nope,” Quinn said, smiling. “Slow day in the county. Although I saw Darnel Bryant at the gas station and he was looking pretty rough. Not long now.”
Ophelia had brown eyes and brown hair parted down the middle, cut in kind of a stylish shaggy way when not worn up in a bun. When she worked, she didn’t wear makeup, jewelry, or let her hair down. Working with the dead meant hospital scrubs and rubber gloves and masks, and Quinn was always glad to see her out of uniform in blue jeans and lace-up boots, an emerald green V-neck sweater scooped enough to show the gold cross around her neck. She wore her heavy blue coat unbuttoned.
She smiled back at Quinn. Very white straight teeth, nice red lips, and an impressive body under all those winter clothes.
“Grandma’s fixing meat loaf,” Jason said. “You like meat loaf, Uncle Quinn?”
Quinn looked to his sister, and she nodded, shooting him a look. Quinn nodded, too, and told Jason he liked it just fine.
“Momma says it tastes like shit,” Jason said.
Caddy swatted his little leg, lightly but firm. “Where on earth did you learn to talk like that?”
Jason shrugged, unfazed. Quinn kept quiet, knowing exactly where he heard it.
The back field had been turned over, waiting for the spring, lying dormant until after Good Friday and planting time. Jean and Caddy both had a pretty ambitious list for the farm this year. Lots of corn, tomatoes, peppers, and peas. They already had cattle, but his mother wondered if they might get a milk cow, too. Quinn wanted to know who was going to milk it every morning when his mother moved back to town once her house repairs were done.
“Who was at the Star?” Ophelia asked.
Quinn shook his head. “Boom,” he said. “Ran into Diane Tull.”
Caddy looked up, Jason crawling up into her lap, watching Hondo chase after a brave squirrel who’d come down from a pecan tree. “When can I shoot?” Jason said. “I could shoot that squirrel. Pow. I could knock him outta that tree.”
“You ever heard Diane sing?” Ophelia said, wrapping her arms around her body. It was a warm night for January, but it was still January. Quinn sat down next to her and put an arm around her. “She’s got a gift.”
The trees were leafless and skeletal, skies turning a reddish copper with long wisps of clouds. “Yep,” Quinn said. “There’s something about her that reminds me a bit of June Carter Cash.”
“Most people say Jessi Colter,” Caddy said, piping up, pulling a cigarette out of the pack and giving Quinn a Don’t you dare lecture me, you cigar-smoking bastard stare.
“Just because you smoke Cubans doesn’t make ’em any less dangerous.”
“Dominicans,” Quinn said. “Cubans are illegal.”
Jason waved away the smoke with his little hand and jumped off the picnic bench, pointing up into the tree. “There’s two of ’em. Look, Uncle Quinn. Pow. Pow. Pow. I can
get both.”
“And Boom?” Ophelia asked. “He’s doing OK?”
“Hadn’t drank in a long while,” Quinn said. “Says he’s fine with that.”
“I couldn’t get by without him at The River,” Caddy said. “He comes by every day after work. Helps out on Saturday and after church, too.”
“You do the true Lord’s work.” Ophelia plucked the cigarette from Caddy’s hand and took a puff. “Y’all feed the poor and the sick and give people a place to stay when they have nowhere to go. You don’t need to be a man or go to Bible school for that.”
She handed Caddy back her cigarette.
Little Jason now talked about hunting deer and wild turkey and maybe he could buy that bowie knife at the Farm & Ranch. “Like the one in the book you read,” Jason said. “About the king and that knife in the rock?”
Jean stepped out onto the porch and called them to supper. Quinn caught just a glimpse of his mother in the fading light, blue jeans and an old gray sweatshirt. Dressing up was a rare thing for her, only church, weddings, and funerals. His father had been gone nearly twenty years, and despite some men coming and leaving, she preferred to keep to herself. She was a tallish redhead, a little heavier, a few more wrinkles in her face over the years, but men still turned and looked at Jean Colson. She yelled again and stepped back inside.
Jason didn’t seem excited about supper but walked on ahead with Caddy, Hondo trying to scoot into the kitchen door but someone pushing him back. Hondo, a coat of gray and black patches, ran up to Quinn and nuzzled his leg, flashing the saddest eyes he’d ever seen.
“Hondo’s been banished from supper,” Quinn said. “Jason was feeding him under the table.”
“You always let him clean your plates.”
“Yeah, but Jason was giving him too much,” Quinn said. “That dog is getting fat.”
Ophelia rubbed Hondo’s ears and told Quinn not to talk that way. Quinn didn’t say anything, just leaned in and kissed her hard on that tight red mouth. Glad to be alone with her again.
“How’d the meeting with Mr. Stevens go?” she asked.