by Ace Atkins
“How’d you enjoy the fair?”
“It was hot,” Caddy said. “Boys didn’t want to leave. They spent all day running around without shoes in all the dust, chasing Hondo and living off hot dogs and funnel fries.”
“You think Jason is fast on account of him being part black?”
“Momma, that’s so wrong.”
“Well, tell me you weren’t thinking the same thing,” her momma said. “I mean, he didn’t get that speed from our side of the family. It’s why Quinn ended up in the recruiting office instead of signing with Ole Miss.”
“Quinn ended up in the recruiting office because he couldn’t stay out of trouble,” Caddy said. “Uncle Hamp gave him two options, jail or the Army. Do you really think he had a choice?”
“Look at those little boys run,” Jean said. “My two grandboys. I couldn’t be any prouder.”
The kids all followed a long, straight route across the goal line, waiting for the coach’s whistle, and then followed down the sidelines, up ten yards and across the field, up another ten yards and across the field again, snaking their way back and forth to the other goalpost. Caddy was glad she wasn’t down there in the heat. There was barely any shade up in the stands, her mother bringing them seat cushions and travel mugs filled with iced tea. Although if she really wanted to make an issue, she was pretty sure her momma had filled her own mug with ice, margarita mix, and a double dose of tequila. The woman never missed happy hour. Jean’s eyes shone a bit in the fading sunlight, pointing down toward little towheaded Brandon, three years younger than Jason, trying to keep up with the big boys. He reminded Caddy of herself, trying to keep up with Quinn and Boom Kimbrough when they were kids, never facing a trail or a treehouse that didn’t need conquering.
“How about Hondo?” her momma asked. “Did he bring that dog to the Neshoba County Fair?”
“Hondo won’t leave Quinn,” Caddy said. “You know that.”
An old brown GMC truck rambled down to the edge of the field and parked crooked by the goalpost. The front door opened and an old black man got out and walked around to the passenger side and held open the door. Boom Kimbrough, twice as big as his father, crawled out of the truck, his own, planting a big foot on the field and then a cane and hefting himself to his full height. He had on a ball cap, long khaki pants, and a plain white tee, loose on the right sleeve where he’d lost an arm in Iraq. He’d grown out his beard since he’d been beaten by those two thugs, walking slow and steady toward the team he used to coach.
“I can’t believe it,” Jean said, taking in a long breath of air and reaching for her special cup.
“Did you really think Coach Boom would miss the first day of full practice?”
Some of the boys broke from formation and ran toward him, the other coach on the sidelines blowing the whistle but soon stopping, seeing who’d arrived. The swarm of children enveloping the big black figure with the wide smile.
* * *
* * *
“Buster wants Wes Taggart gone.”
“A little late for that,” Fannie Hathcock said, on the fifth floor of the casino, looking through the windows at the flat roof over the conference center and out onto the Mississippi River, muddy and snaky all the way up to Memphis. “Don’t you think?”
“He thinks you might can get to him.”
“In federal custody?” Fannie said, resting on a little blue settee, a cigarillo lit in her long, manicured hand. “No thank you. Wes Taggart is Buster’s goddamn dog. If it’s Ole Yeller time, then he better be holding the fucking gun.”
“You’re right,” Ray said, slipping out of his jacket and setting it across the king-sized bed. The soft gold light shone into the curtains and across the white carpet and dark furniture. He walked over to the bar and scooped out some ice into a glass and filled it full with Glenfiddich.
“When Wes was at your place did he talk much about us?” he asked. “Family business and all?”
“Not really,” Fannie said, plucking the cigarillo back into her mouth and stretching out her long legs, studying the toenail job she’d gotten down at the spa, cotton still between her toes. “Man was too goddamn pussy-blind to talk about much else. He and his buddy Hood just wanted to let me know I was nothing but a yipping dog at the table. Did I tell you what they did to my office?”
“You did.”
“A couple fucking animals,” she said. “Food and cigarette butts everywhere. He screwed that girl Twilight so hard on my desk, they cracked the glass. Cost me nearly a thousand dollars to get it repaired.”
“Send me the bill.”
“I sent it to Buster.”
“Tread easy, Fannie,” Ray said, taking a seat across from her. “Buster White isn’t in a joking mood. This casino is on its last legs and it looks like he’s going to have to double down on our business at the Rez.”
“Jesus Christ,” she said. “Goddamn Sitting Bull and his tribe of thieves.”
“Don’t worry about all that,” he said. “We made nice with the Chief.”
“Only way to make nice with Chief Robbie is to ram a goddamn tomahawk up his ass,” Fannie said, offering a sweet smile. “Would you be so good as to pour me some champagne, doll?”
Ray stood up, feeling a little light-headed and tired, holding on to the arm of the chair, before pushing on back to the bar. Fannie was on her feet, holding his arm and walking with him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine and dandy.”
“Your face has gone a little gray.”
“Two hours with Buster, him talking nonstop bullshit, and you’d go gray, too,” he said. “Now, where’d I put my goddamn cigarettes?”
“That dumb son of a bitch,” she said, letting go of his arm and making her way to the minibar, pulling out a bottle of Veuve Clicquot rosé. She twisted off the cork and poured a glass, making her way back to the little sitting area, pulling out the cotton between her toes, before taking a sip.
“Taggart has become a real problem,” he said. “He knows stuff no one should hear about. He opens his mouth and he fucks us all.”
Fannie snorted some rosé and shook her head. “No argument from me,” she said, turning from the fluted glass. “I’d take out his ass pronto.”
“No kidding,” he said. “But here’s the thing. I need ideas on how we get it done.”
“From little ole me?” Fannie said, rolling the glass stem between her fingertips. “I’m just the hospitality queen. Or isn’t that what that tub of whale shit Buster White called me?”
* * *
* * *
“You look good, Boom,” Jean Colson said.
Boom took a seat up in the bleachers between Caddy and her mother, taking a damn long time to get off the field and make his way to where they sat. It was hard as hell watching him walk so slowly, but she knew he’d hate being helped. Boom told her he didn’t want anyone’s pity or anyone treating him like a goddamn invalid. He said he’d been hurt but it wouldn’t slow him down a bit.
“Appreciate it, Miss Jean,” Boom said. “But I feel better than I look. My therapist said it might take me six more months to get back to normal. Figure by Christmastime, I’ll be ready to hit the road again. After all the news got out, I got plenty of offers to start driving again.”
“Don’t rush it,” Jean said. “Don’t you rush a thing. Heal up. Get yourself better.”
“Jason’s looking good out there, Caddy,” Boom said, leaning his back into the bleacher behind him. “Boy sure is fast. Lots faster than your brother. Y’all know Quinn’s slow as hell.”
“I told you,” Jean said.
“You see how fast he set up in the pocket?” Boom said. “Damn. If he can get a decent receiver, these boys going all the way to state.”
Caddy looked over at Boom, the sun setting across his scarred face. The scars came from years before, back in Iraq, barely hidde
n under his patchy black beard. She wanted to reach out and touch his face, try to make him feel better, let him know there were better things than the meanness and violence that kept on stepping into his life. More than anything, she knew Boom just wanted to be left alone. Him and his truck and a long stretch of road in front of him.
“Wasn’t too long ago when I was watching you and Quinn play,” Jean said, leaning forward and setting her face on her hands, watching her grandsons split up into drills.
“Hate to say it, Miss Jean,” Boom said. “But that was back in the Jurassic days. You wouldn’t know from looking at this football field. Nothing looks like it’s changed.”
Jean Colson smiled, her hair getting longer and grayer over the summer. Her pale blue eyes crinkled at the edges as she smiled, putting a hand on Boom’s leg. “Looks the same as when my ex jumped all those Pintos here back in ’77. Lord, love is blind when you’re wearing hot pants and suede boots up past your knees.”
“Momma,” Caddy said, the last thing she wanted was to hear stories about the wild old days of the seventies when her father split time between north Mississippi and Los Angeles, working as a stuntman. Or the time her mother visited an aging Elvis at Graceland, talking to him in the Jungle Room about the existence of God and man’s place in the universe.
“You still seeing that nice girl from Memphis?” Jean said, having the sense to change the subject. “The one with the nice smile and all that wild hair?”
“Nat Wilkins?” Boom said, stroking his beard, the way he did when he got nervous. “She come down to visit from time to time. But she’s a busy woman, a lawwoman like Lillie Virgil. Don’t have much time for relationships. Especially with a busted-up dude like me.”
“Hush your mouth,” Jean said, taking a long pull from her tumbler. “You and Quinn have heads made out of steel.”
“Shit,” Boom said. “What you drinking there, Miss Jean?”
Boom looked to Caddy and Caddy grinned, having a little fun with her mother. At the far end of the football field, Jason dropped back for a pass but then just as fast ran it hard and quick up the middle for a touchdown.
Jean just shrugged and toasted them both with her cup. Boom looked over at Caddy and studied her face. “What?” Caddy asked.
“Saw you last night at the service,” Boom said. “You and that Bentley fella seem real close.”
“He’s just helping me with some grants,” she said, feeling her face flush, trying to keep her eyes on practice. She wouldn’t turn to Boom because he’d known her his whole life and would see it all over her face. “His nonprofit in Jackson can be a godsend to communities like us. Helping get food and supplies where they’re needed. We’re getting hamburger meat. Cheese. Clothes for the schoolkids . . . Stop looking at me like that.”
Boom laughed. It was good to hear him laugh, even if it was at her expense.
“Mmm-hmm,” Boom said.
“What are y’all talking about?” Jean asked.
“Nothing,” Caddy said. “Nothing at all. Besides, the boy is six years younger than me. He’s just a damn kid.”
Boom just grinned and the three of them sat back on the bleachers watching the Colson boys practice.
Tashi Coleman
Thin Air podcast
Episode 2: THE BIG WOODS
NARRATOR: The first spot I wanted to visit in Tibbehah County was the old Hawkins place. This is where Sheriff Hamp Beckett found Brandon’s ’55 Chevy Apache the day after he disappeared, although Brandon’s body wouldn’t be found for nearly a week. The windows were open, seats covered in rainwater, according to an account in the Tupelo Daily Journal. His gun rack was empty, only his backpack and a few scattered CDs lay in the passenger seat. One of them was Garth Brooks, Fresh Horses. I’d thought about that album a lot when I first started looking into Brandon’s death, the song “Beaches of Cheyenne” particularly staying on my mind. They packed up all his buckles and shipped his saddle to his dad, the song goes, about a rodeo rider who gets killed riding a bull. His girlfriend takes the news pretty rough.
The land is in the far northeast corner of Tibbehah County, a five-hundred-acre spread that had recently been divided up into four sections after Joe and Lorna Hawkins died in the late 1970s. Their kids moved to other states and rarely checked on the property. According to the same news story, one of the children had offered hunting rights to Tim Taylor and Taylor, in turn, let Brandon use it.
My producer Jessica and I decided to drive out to the land on our very first day in Mississippi. The cattle gate was still up, chained to a rotting post, and covered in thick kudzu. It’s an eerie stretch of dirt road to the old house, much of it overgrown by weeds and partially blocked by downed trees. The house had fallen in on itself, windows boarded up with rotting plywood and the front steps broken and decayed. Brandon’s mother told us about a deer stand sitting a quarter mile down a path from the old home.
[BIRDS CHIRP. CICADAS TICK. REPORTERS’ STEPS SHUFFLE ON PINE NEEDLES.]
We followed the same path, pushing through the vines, spiderwebs, and tree branches. It was August, almost oppressively hot, but there was a soft stillness as we walked on the rust-colored pine needles, following the trail Brandon Taylor had gone down many times. Even twenty years later, it doesn’t seem like the kind of path you’d get easily lost on. We found the deer stand in about ten minutes and crawled up its old wooden ladder to see what was left. Inside, we discovered a stack of waterlogged Penthouse magazines, some empty tins of smokeless tobacco, several crushed soda cans, and two condoms.
[SHUFFLING OF DEBRIS IN DEER STAND.]
JESSICA: Brandon was here.
TASHI: Looking out on this very same field. Maybe this was his Mountain Dew? Or can of Skoal. Did Brandon use that stuff?
JESSICA: I’ll ask Shaina.
NARRATOR: The view opened up into a slice of land that had at one time been clear, now filled with small trees and wild vines.
According to what the sheriff’s office said at the time, Brandon, a kid who’d been hunting these same woods since he was eight, simply got turned around that night and stumbled into the Big Woods, a twenty-thousand-acre stretch of national forest populated by oak and loblolly pine, with creeks, a river, and thick undergrowth.
Brandon’s body would be found nearly twelve miles away from where he’d parked his truck in a completely different part of the county. Was he really lost? Did he purposefully wander into the Big Woods to kill himself?
The location of the body wasn’t our only question. The idea Brandon somehow got turned around and wandered away on purpose could make sense. We do know he carried a Remington .308 on a shoulder sling, a high-powered deer rifle, the gun always cited as the weapon used in his suicide.
But what we’d later learn is the bullet found in Brandon’s skull wasn’t from a Remington .308 at all. A copy of Brandon’s first autopsy released to us by his sister says the bullet that killed Brandon was a .38 caliber, bullets most commonly used in revolvers, sometimes in semiautomatic pistols. Officials would tell the Taylor family for years it was simply a typo. A zero missing in the report.
But with all other files lost, and no evidence related to the case in storage, we couldn’t be so sure. That hot night in August, Jessica and I stayed up in the deer stand until it turned dark, listening to old Garth Brooks on our iPhones, drinking a few cheap beers, and thinking about how this fifteen-year-old boy ended up almost another county away. There was something mysterious and ominous about being so close to those Big Woods, which seem to spread out forever from the old Hawkins land.
TASHI: It’s getting so dark.
JESSICA: No streetlamps or ambient light. I hope we can find our way back.
TASHI: Brandon always had a flashlight. So do we.
NARRATOR: The only thing we could imagine driving us further into the unknown was if we’d been followed.
FOUR
Cleotha handed Quinn a cup of coffee as he entered the sheriff’s office, hot, black with one sugar, in his favorite mug. “Heard that new truck of yours from a mile away,” she said, hands on her sizable hips. “Sounds like a damn monster growling. Shakes the whole damn building, Sheriff. You got to get those pipes fixed.”
“Those pipes cost extra,” he said. “Puts fear in the criminal element in this county.”
“All it do is make a lot of racket, Sheriff,” she said. “Why do boys like them big-ass trucks?”
“Makes us feel important,” Quinn said.
He raised the mug toward her, heading on into his office right beside the entrance to the jail. The SO was pretty much split in half, with the office out front, inmates in the back. As of this morning, they had thirty-six. But he was expecting a thirty-seventh by noon if Lillie Virgil made her schedule checking Wes Taggart out of the Harrison County lockup and heading north. She’d told Quinn she couldn’t wait to make small talk with him on the way up, making a detour into Tibbehah County before getting processed onto his first appearance in federal court in Oxford. He and Quinn had a lot to discuss.
Quinn pulled out the unfinished Liga Privada from his shirt pocket and found a battered old Zippo in his Levi’s. The Zippo had been given to him by his Ranger sergeant who’d gotten it from a Vietnam-era Ranger. He lit the cigar and placed his cowboy boots at the edge of the desk.
His office was as clean and orderly as always, with a polished wooden gun rack on the wall lined with shotguns and rifles. A few framed photographs of his family. His Uncle Hamp. Caddy, his momma. Even a publicity still of his daddy, Jason Colson, as sort of a Southern version of Evel Knievel, wearing a jumpsuit adorned with a rebel flag. He’d written to a young Quinn to Stay in School and Mind Your Teachers . . .