The Sinners

by Ace Atkins

  “You keep on saying ‘our land,’ Uncle Heath,” Cody said, speaking up. “I think me and Tyler have what you call squatter’s rights on that property. We done worked long and hard to get what we got.”

  “You boys each grab a handle and I’ll clear a path through all this tall grass,” Uncle Heath said, lighting up a cigarette and squinting into the wind. His tanned back was sweaty, with an imprint of the truck seat over his jailhouse tattoos. He smelled all musky and feral, like scat off a wildcat. “We can talk family business over supper. Maybe go out to the Rebel Truck Stop for some of that fine chicken-fried steak. Me and Johnny Stagg used to be thick as damn thieves before he done turned on me.”

  “Johnny Stagg’s in prison,” Tyler said, pulling the toolbox toward the tailgate, Cody reaching for the opposite handle. “Fannie Hathcock took over everything he owned.”

  “Sure would like to know more about that woman,” Uncle Heath said.

  “Fella in this box might could’ve told you,” Cody said. “If you asked questions first and shot him dead later.”

  “You reckon that woman’s gonna have some truck with us?”

  Tyler grabbed the handle and pulled in tandem with his brother, the weight of the box feeling like it just might pull his arm loose from the socket.

  7

  Skinner walked into Quinn’s office shortly after nine a.m. Monday morning, holding his pearl-gray Stetson in hand, his bald dome shining in the artificial light. Quinn had just started his third cup of coffee, working his way through the overnight reports and jail log. He had two prisoners that needed transport over to Lafayette County and a break-in up in Yellowleaf.

  “Mornin’ there, Sheriff,” Skinner said. “Mind if I take a minute of your time?”

  Quinn nodded toward an empty seat. Behind him hung a framed American flag that flew on his last deployment to Afghanistan and on a far wall several rifles and shotguns waited, locked in a wooden rack. His desk was neat and clean, with only a telephone, a computer, and a humidor filled with Undercrowns and Liga Privadas.

  “I wanted to see if you’re still making the community development meeting tonight,” Skinner said. “Lots on our plate, with the expansion of the industrial park, patrols at the construction sites. Some folks are worried about more traffic out there on Jericho Road.”

  “I said I’d be there,” Quinn said.

  “Good, good.” Skinner grinned, as much as the old reptile could, just a sliver on his purplish lips. He was a big man, taller than Quinn, but stoop-shouldered and potbellied. He wore a little gold cross and an American flag pin on the pocket of his starched white shirt. His old, weathered skin sagged at his neck like a turkey’s, as dry and thin as parchment paper. “We already got half occupancy for the industrial park, with those German folks flying in next week,” he said. “You know the ones who make those consoles and fancy bucket seats for off-road vehicles?”

  “I met ’em when they came through to look at the facilities.”

  “That’s right,” Skinner said, twirling his hat in his hand, looking Quinn right in the eye. Quinn looked straight back at him. “You sure did. You talked some facts you knew about some Air Force base.”

  “Is that it?” Quinn asked.

  “You don’t like me much,” Skinner said. “Do you, Sheriff Colson?”

  “It doesn’t really matter if I like you or not,” Quinn said. “I got business to tend to this morning. If you want to shoot the breeze, I’m down at the Fillin’ Station most mornings for breakfast.”

  Skinner nodded, clearing his throat. Cleotha, the office dispatcher, opened the door, peeked inside, and just as quickly closed it. Quinn leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest, waiting for Skinner to get to whatever he’d really come to say.

  “Your sister,” Skinner said, “has some interesting ideas about how the laws of this country work.”

  “How’s that?”

  “You do realize she’s taken it upon herself to be the Mother Teresa of Tibbehah County?” Skinner said. “There’s more Mexes at her little commune than in all of Guadalajara.”

  “I highly doubt that,” Quinn said. “I imagine there are plenty of Mexican folks in Guadalajara. You ever been out of this country?”

  “Me and my wife once took one of the Carnival Cruises from Miami,” he said. “We went to Key West and over to Cozumel. My wife bought a straw hat and some little ole sombreros for the grandkids.”

  “And I’ve seen you over at the El Dorado once or twice on two-for-one taco night.”

  “That’s the thing,” Skinner said. “I ain’t got a thing against Mexes. As long as they’re here all fair and legal, you won’t hear a word from me. It’s when these people show up in our little Southern town, taking jobs from the workin’ man, that’s when you’re gonna hear me raise a real ruckus.”

  “Well,” Quinn said. “Maybe before you raise your next ruckus, you check the paperwork on the legal workers who stay down at The River. Just how many arrests did ICE get on that last raid?”

  Skinner looked at Quinn, dead-eyed, from across his desk, breathing in through his nose, eyes hooded with heavy wrinkled lids. “Hard to catch these folks if they get tipped off.”

  Quinn had had enough. He stood up slowly, grabbed his coffee cup, and took a long sip. What he wanted to do was toss the mug at the old man’s forehead and drag him from the sheriff’s office. Instead, he looked over at the sorry old bastard and shook his head. “See you tonight,” Quinn said. “We’ll discuss the traffic out of the industrial park.”

  Skinner blinked and swallowed, using the armrests of the chair to push himself back to his feet. He composed himself, slipping the Stetson back on his head, and offered his hand to Quinn. “We’ve been blessed with this Tibbehah Miracle,” he said. “Thanks to hardworkin’ men like Senator Vardaman and some good folks down in Jackson. The last thing we need is a blemish on this county.”

  “Nice to see Vardaman is using this little postage stamp of a community for his ads,” Quinn said. “Guess I’m still waiting to see if that miracle appears.”

  “Already has,” Skinner said. “It’s all around us. This town is starting to look like it did when I was a boy. Been a long time since I could walk out on the Square with my buttons about to burst.”

  “Glad to hear it,” Quinn said. “Now, I got some shit I need to clean up in the county.”

  Quinn walked over to his door and held it wide open. Skinner wished him a good day on his way out of the office.

  * * *

  • • •

  Boom didn’t have a lick of trouble with the next run. He checked the load this time in Tupelo and on the way back from Atlanta, nothing but catfish on the way over and truck parts on the way back. Smooth and easy. Dropped off the trailer and picked up a new one, helped with the packing and didn’t stop off until he got to I-22 in Birmingham at a Flying J truck stop with a Denny’s inside. He got that All-American Slam—with three eggs and cheddar, two slices of bacon, two sausage links, hash browns, and white toast—and ate while he watched the rain. That rain had been following his ass all the way from Talladega.

  “How you doin’ out there, young man?” said a voice behind him.

  Boom turned to see an old trucker he’d met down in Biloxi. Black-skinned and gray-headed, the man took a seat at the table near him. He had on denim coveralls, work boots, and a navy ski cap. The waitress came up with a fresh cup of coffee, calling him Sugar Bear. Boom couldn’t recall his real name.

  “Making it,” Boom said.

  “Met you on your first run?” Sugar Bear said. “Somewhere down on the Coast.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Takes time,” Sugar Bear said. “Ain’t nothing good comes quick and easy. Trucking ain’t no job. It’s a way of life.”

  Boom scribbled some more figures into the logbook. The man turned away, drinking his coffee, star
ing out at the pumps, the rain, and the road that led back to Tupelo or I-65 up to Nashville, Louisville, all the way to Indianapolis and beyond.

  “Where you headed?” Boom asked.

  “Home,” Sugar Bear said. “Mobile. Take a few days off. Go deep-sea fishing, maybe get me a haircut. How about you?”

  “Tupelo,” Boom said. “Don’t know where to next. But I’ll get some sleep after I drop my load and wait until I get a new schedule.”

  “It’s hard working for someone else,” he said. “I did that shit a good long while. It took time before I got to be an independent contractor. That’s where the money is at. You just keep on keepin’ on.”

  “Must be nice to have your own truck,” Boom said, slicing into the eggs, yellow busting, spilling out on the plate into the bacon and sausage. “Whoever had this truck I’m driving didn’t have respect for it or himself. Smells like cigarettes and body funk. Man must’ve hung twenty air fresheners in the cab that didn’t do shit. Even left me a big old jug of piss next to the seat.”

  “How’d you know it was piss?”

  “Jug said ‘Green Tea’ on it,” Boom said. “Didn’t look like any tea I’d seen. Got that truck cleaned out before I hit the road.”

  “Cleanliness being next to that godliness,” Sugar Bear said. “And I am a praying man.”

  “Ain’t nothing godly about that smell of that cab,” he said. “AC busted and I’m riding with the windows down all the way to the ATL and back.”

  “Just who you driving for?” Sugar Bear said, slipping on a pair of half-glasses and checking out the laminated menu, all those photos of eggs, pancakes, and breakfast skillets.

  “Outfit out of Tupelo,” Boom said. “Called Sutpen.”

  Sugar Bear didn’t react, didn’t answer, just kept on reading, acting like he was making a decision, before taking off the glasses and placing them back in his coverall pocket. He wrapped his hands around the coffee mug and took a long sip, looking out at the pumps. “How long you been driving for them?”

  “Since March.”

  “Mmm-hmm.”

  “You know ’em?” Boom said.

  “Drove for them a few times,” Sugar Bear said. “Damn sure won’t again.”

  “Why not?”

  The waitress walked back up to the man’s table, Sugar Bear ordering some steak and eggs, wanting that steak well done and the eggs runny. He kept on drinking coffee, not answering Boom’s question, and Boom wondered if the old man had forgotten. Boom didn’t say anything, finishing his breakfast and asking for a cup of coffee to go. Out on the highway, the cars and trucks had their headlights on, windshield wipers working against the rain. Boom stood, laid down the cash on the check, and slipped back on his flannel shirt.

  “Those Sutpen folks ain’t no joke,” Sugar Bear said, looking up at Boom, raising his eyebrows.

  “How’s that?”

  “You’ll know it when you see it,” Sugar Bear said. “They like a godddamn water moccasin about to strike. Watch your ass, young man.”

  * * *

  • • •

  How much shit are you getting from Momma?” Caddy Colson asked, leaning against the bed of her battered GMC truck outside the Jericho Farm & Ranch. Quinn and Hondo had just stopped off to buy a sack of dog food and ran into her on the way out.

  “She worked herself up pretty good,” Quinn said. “Wants everything perfect, obsesses on every detail. I told her Maggie and I want a simple service. Just family and close friends. We don’t need to invite the whole damn town.”

  “Did you expect any different?” Caddy said, grinning, enjoying the screws being put to her brother this time. “Maybe y’all should have just run off to Biloxi and got married down there. Y’all going on a honeymoon? Right?”

  “Gulf Shores for a few days,” he said. “Put some chairs down on the beach and drink cold beer all day. Hadn’t worked out all the details. It’ll depend on what happens around here. You can never predict the shit storm of the week.”

  “I believe it, seeing those stitches on your eye,” she said. “Momma said the man thought he was Prince.”

  “Michael Jackson,” Quinn said.

  Hondo jumped up into Caddy’s truck bed, letting Caddy scratch his ears, the truck loaded down with fertilizer, chicken feed, galvanized tubs, and a flat of pepper plants. Caddy was a slender girl, lighter and shorter than Quinn, with hair bleached blond from the summer sun and cut nearly as short as her brother’s. She had on a man’s undershirt, dirt across her arms and down the front of her jeans, which had been tucked into a pair of mud boots.

  “Tibbehah County will be OK for a few days,” she said, squinting into the sun. “And Jason and I’d be glad to take care of Hondo for you.”

  “He’d appreciate that.”

  “And you’re still welcome to have a reception out at The River,” Caddy said, talking about the property she had south of town where she operated a shelter and interfaith church. They grew food, helped battered women, and looked out for neglected kids. Some folks in town called it a damn hippie commune.

  Quinn smiled and thanked her, calling for Hondo to get out of his sister’s truck and back into his official vehicle, a gray F-150 with a light bar above the cab. He held open the door for Hondo, who hopped inside. “You having any more trouble with those boys from ICE?”

  “Not since you explained things to them,” she said. “But they’ll be back. They figured coming to this county is like shooting fish in a barrel. Only, we got our shit together. Even though I had all the documentation they needed, they jammed up me and The River. Scared the shit out of our families. Where the hell is this coming from?”

  “One guess.”

  “Ole Man Skinner.”

  “Yep,” Quinn said. “I tell ICE folks one thing and Skinner’s on the phone the next minute, calling Jericho a rogue sanctuary city. He claims the cartels have infiltrated the sweet potato pickers and are planning a drug war in our streets.”

  “I’ll let the Gonzales family know,” Caddy said. “I had to explain to them that they have rights same as folks born in this country. They came here to work on a visa and are still getting shit from some people in town and that bastard Skinner.”

  “Before the supervisor meeting last week, Skinner prayed for the county, saying we’d lost our moral ways,” he said. “He says it’s his America, too, and he wanted us to start protecting what’s rightly ours.”

  “That for the black and brown folks, too?”

  “Skinner believes in the 1950s ideal,” Quinn said. “When black folks were happy being separate and not equal.”

  “How can a man have so much hate and ill will in his heart and still call himself a Christian?”

  “Because he’s not a Christian,” Quinn said. “He’s a liar and a hypocrite. He just likes the brand name, like some folks say they drive Chevy trucks or drink Pepsi. He cherry-picks what enforces his views from the Bible and clings to it like a life raft.”

  Caddy ran a hand through her short hair and shook her head. A maroon truck wheeled into the lot, backing up to the loading dock. The truck had a Mississippi State tag and a few bumper stickers, and the potbellied man who crawled out from behind the wheel had on an MSU golf shirt. Melvin Pierce gave Quinn and Caddy a two-finger salute and hobbled on up the ramp to the store.

  “Thank the Lord I don’t have to deal with Skinner.”

  “We all have to deal with him,” Quinn said. “I may regret saying this. But sometimes I really miss Johnny Stagg.”

  “You don’t mean that,” Caddy said, leaning into her truck bed, chin resting on her forearms. “That’s a bold statement.”

  “At least with Stagg you knew where you stood,” Quinn said. “Skinner is ambitious as hell, rolling over on his back and showing his belly for his boys down in Jackson. He’d do anything he could to drive his retro agenda. What kind of m
an shows up to the polls on Election Day riding a horse?”

  “I think your partner is ready to ride,” Caddy said, laughing.

  Quinn turned to see Hondo sitting at the wheel of the truck, resting his paws on the steering wheel. He walked over and gave Caddy a hug, squeezing her tight, and she said, “Diane Tull.”

  “I just saw her inside,” Quinn said. “She sold me two sacks of dog food, a new pair of work pants, and some fishing line.”

  “You need a wedding band,” Caddy said. “And Diane Tull sings just as pretty as Jessi Colter. She also might cut you a break since she sometimes plays with crazy Uncle Van. Ask her and you get Momma off your back for a minute.”

  Quinn nodded and opened the driver’s door to his truck. He liked the idea. Diane Tull was a hell of a singer and had put together a nice little classic country band. Hondo scooted on over to the shotgun seat. Quinn waved at Caddy through the open window.

  “Joys of a small town,” Caddy said. “One-stop shopping.”

  8

  A few days later, Reverend Rebecca White had a mess of questions for Quinn and Maggie at the Calvary United Methodist Church—Will you tell the truth? Will you commit? Are you willing to submit to each other? Will you give the respect each other needs? Are you ready to get naked?—the last question getting a laugh from Maggie, before Reverend Rebecca explained that real intimacy includes spiritual, emotional, and interpersonal connection. Afterward, they’d walked in the empty sanctuary and taken a seat on the front pew, staring up at the altar and the stained-glass window of a friendly-looking Jesus. His arms outstretched in welcome, sunlight shooting from his hands. He looked like a good dude, the kind of relaxed guy who’d turn water into wine for a wedding party.

  “I do love this old place,” Maggie said. “Simple and old-fashioned. No big-screen TVs, no big rock band or praise music. How long have y’all been going to church here?”

  “My whole life,” Quinn said. “I used to be an acolyte before I nearly set the church on fire when I was ten.”