by Ace Atkins
“Are you sure you’re OK?” Tyler said.
“This ain’t shit,” Cody said, holding a dirty rag to his side. “I’m right behind you. Ain’t nobody comes on our land and tells us what to do. You see this thing? Fucking hundred rounds. I’ll turn those sonsabitches into ground chuck in a few seconds.”
Tyler headed on over to the side door, duck-walking the last ten feet or more, in case someone was peeping in the glass. He looked out and saw the corner of the barn, the old faded building leaning hard to the right. It was nearly five o’clock, but it felt like when they’d been racing all damn day. Tyler had nearly sweated through his T-shirt, jeans dusty and dirty and rolled up high over his old cowboy boots.
Cody’s white T-shirt was red and sticky with blood. He waited by the bay doors with his AR in his left hand and right finger on the button to open up the shop. “Go on,” he said. “Run. You can’t shoot worth two damn shits.”
Tyler nodded from across the big shop, turning the dead bolt to the back door. He ran like hell.
There was yelling and shooting behind him as he raced toward the deep shadow of the barn. Then he heard the long, sustained chattering of Cody unleashing that gun, sounding like those sonsabitches were being fed into a goddamn buzz saw. He got halfway to the opening when he felt something tear in the back of his leg, taking him down to his fucking knees, seeing red as he limped, dragging that busted leg into the darkness.
Not until he steadied himself on an old horse stall did he realize he’d been shot, too. Even in deep shadow, he could see the dark red blood pooling onto the powdery dirt floor. Son of a damn bitch.
He gritted his teeth and spit, dragging his leg over to the hatch, slapping it wide open and crawling on inside. He flicked on a switch to light up the passage down into the ground, holding on to the rungs with his hands, smelling the wet, musty earth below.
* * *
• • •
Quinn left his truck to block the narrow dirt road and headed out into the woods with Reggie, keeping coms with the other deputies, who waited for instructions, lights flashing all the way down the Pritchards’ private road, more help arriving soon. The last thing Quinn wanted to do was run his deputies right into the mess. As he learned a long time ago back at Fort Benning, never be in a hurry to go and get shot. Assess the situation, get the damn intel, and then make a good decision on how to shut it down.
“That don’t sound too good,” Reggie said.
“Nope,” Quinn said. “Looks like the Pritchard boys have more trouble than just us.”
“Who do you think were in those SUVs?” Reggie said.
“Two options,” Quinn said, swatting away a few branches, jumping over a narrow ravine, holding his Winchester pump. “But considering those boys weren’t on motorcycles, I believe it’s the Syndicate. They’ve come to get what’s theirs.”
More gunfire, a few shotgun blasts and the pop-pop-pop of rifles. Quinn used the shotgun’s barrel to push away the brush and branches, moving in closer to the family compound, spotting the sun glinting off the tin roof of the house.
“Can I ask you something, Sheriff?” Reggie said. Both of them onto a cleared stretch of woods, hitting what looked to be some kind of old trail. They picked up the pace, moving into a slow jog toward the action.
“Yes, sir.”
“We’re going to head into a dangerous situation,” Reggie said, “to save a couple peckerwoods. And their uncle, who was the one who killed Ordeen Davis.”
“I’m hoping we’re about to engage with the boys who put a beatdown on Boom.”
“And snatch up Heath Pritchard in the process,” Reggie said, walking beside Quinn. He held a Colt M4 as they ran, the barrel aimed down toward the ground. “Make him answer for Ordeen.”
“Maybe,” Quinn said. “But if it’s the Syndicate, we may already be too late. Let’s just try to hold them down until MHP arrives.”
“Love to meet the men who did that to Boom.”
The gunfire revved up, fully automatic weapons slicing through the air in what seemed like an endless barrage that finally left the woods and the property in a weird, electric stillness. They were to the edge of the tree line, with a clear view of everything that was happening. Two black SUVs parked crooked, the bay door to the race shop wide open.
“Me, too,” Quinn said, kneeling down, trying to get a sense of the numbers. “Just don’t leave me alone with them in the interview room.”
“I wouldn’t trust those folks, either,” Reggie asked.
“It’s not that,” Quinn said. “After what they’ve done? I don’t trust myself.”
* * *
• • •
Tyler dragged himself through a series of grow trailers, everything still and silent below the earth, making his way toward the safe room where they kept the security cameras and supplies. He’d already tied his T-shirt around his thigh but knew they had some gauze and duct tape in a toolbox somewhere. Maybe he could clean out the wound with some Jack Daniel’s they’d left down there the other night.
He slapped on the light and flipped open a toolbox to grab some supplies. The bottle of Jack was just where he left it, in the deep freeze with Uncle Heath. He and Cody had a few swigs in his honor before placing him inside, tucking the bottle into his arms, a peaceful smile on the old man’s face. Or at least they told themselves that, trying to feel better about the whole goddamn rotten situation.
Tyler took a long-ass swig before pouring it across his leg. It stung so damn bad that he drank the rest of the bottle before reaching into the kit for the gauze. He pressed it tight to his wound as he looked up at the monitors, which showed the property from about every angle, from the front porch of their house on into the shop, and into every grow room watching over their weed.
He started to roll the duct tape around his leg, pulling it tight as he could, feeling like the Jack Daniel’s wasn’t gonna cut it, gritting his teeth together as he saw Cody’s back from the shop camera. He was firing off a bunch of rounds from that AR, moving forward out of the garage.
Everything soundless and in black-and-white, like some kind of old-time gangster movie.
He looked up, catching the feed from the telephone pole outside, watching Cody shoot three dudes with guns and then tear the shit out the front of those two SUVs. He was laughing the whole time he was doing it, reminding Tyler a hell of a lot of William H. Bonney in Young Guns, loving every second of that crazy-ass destruction.
“Get ’em,” Tyler said, standing up, a pain shooting through his leg, but hobbling forward. “Hell fucking yeah.”
He tore off his shirt and reached into a box of some of their merch, Team Pritchard Racing. The T-shirt read DOING IT OUTLAW STYLE, with a logo of a man in a black hat, a red bandanna covering his face. They stole it off the internet from the Skoal Bandit car that ole Harry Gant used to drive, their stepdaddy showing them his races on videos he’d taped of the Winston Cup from a million years back. Tyler made his way to the sink and washed his face and the blood off his hands, hobbling back over to the monitors to fetch his gun and head back to the hatch to let Cody down into the rabbit hole.
Three men were down on their backs, SUVs all fucked up, as Cody kept walking, knocking loose that big drum and reloading with some magazines from his pockets. As he moved, something caught Cody hard and fast in the chest, knocking him back on his ass.
Tyler screamed, not believing that high-pitched sound came from his own mouth. He got up so close to the monitor that he nearly touched it with his nose.
An old man with a gray ponytail stepped out from around an SUV and kicked Cody hard in the ribs, looking around the property before moving to their race shop.
Tyler ran from the room, screaming, holding the shotgun and trying to get back up to the surface. He felt like he was walking at the bottom of a pond, unable to take a fucking breath.
* * *
• • •
Wasn’t the Pritchards,” Boom said.
It was just him and Maggie again. The two doctors had left, saying that he needed to head back for more tests, and with some solid luck maybe might get some Jell-O for dinner. Maggie helped him raise his bed a little. He was still hooked up to a heart monitor and IV, some fucking tube stuck out his nose and down in his pecker.
“What happened?” Maggie said.
“Two white dudes,” Boom said. “They run that trucking company. Quinn knows.”
“Cleotha called me and said he was going to be late,” she said. “We have the rehearsal at the church tonight. Something big must be going on.”
“You think Quinn went after those boys?”
“He was about to arrest Heath Pritchard,” she said. “That’s the last I heard.”
“Damn,” Boom said. “They’re coming for those boys.”
Maggie looked at him. “Who?”
“Those Pritchard boys jacked my ass,” he said. “Stole my whole damn truck and everything in it. That’s why they came for me. These men in Tupelo thought I’d thrown in with the goddamn Pritchards. Now they’re coming to kill those boys.”
“You don’t know that,” she said. “Just hang tight until Quinn gets here.”
“God help them,” Boom said. “These are some nasty folks. You tell Quinn that. Tell him to watch his damn ass.”
Maggie stood, just looking at Boom, the phone already in her hand, dialing. The ringing went straight into voice mail.
* * *
• • •
Quinn moved from the tree line with Reggie Caruthers, getting to the edge of the old house when the man with the ponytail came around and shot Cody Pritchard right in his chest and off his feet. There were three more bodies on the ground between those SUVs and the race shop. Quinn didn’t see Tyler, only another man join the guy with the gray ponytail, the gray-headed man looking to be in charge as he pointed for the other one to circle around back. Quinn nodded to Reggie, who disappeared to the back of the house, coming at the old barn from the other side.
Quinn found a good spot to work from the old house’s porch, two brick pedestals near the front steps. Quinn slung the shotgun off his back and covered Reggie.
The older man toed at Cody’s body and then turned, spotting Reggie, raising his gun as Quinn blasted the shotgun, jacked in another shell, and blasted again. The ponytailed man ran for the second vehicle, Quinn yelling for him to stay down. A half-dozen shots followed from in the garage as Quinn reloaded and slung the shotgun to his back, reaching for his Beretta, waiting for the man to stick his head out.
About sixty meters separated Quinn from the dude with the ponytail. He heard two quick shots from behind the shop. After a long minute of silence, Reggie came over the radio to say one man was down. That left the man by the truck and the shooter in the garage, only them and Jesus Himself knowing what had happened to the remaining Pritchards.
Quinn heard a car door open and Quinn shot at the SUV, shattering the side windows. He picked up the radio and told Reggie about the second shooter in the race shop, and for deputies to shut down everything coming out to Chicken Roost Road. The black SUV started and reversed fast, Quinn emptying out his clip into the back window. It sped off toward the shop, the other shooter jumping into the truck while Quinn reloaded and moved from the porch into the yard, following the SUV, walking with purpose and firing for the tires.
The Tahoe fled in a big cloud of dust and fishtailed into the curve and toward the county road. If the highway patrol hadn’t showed to block off the road, he wasn’t so sure they could stop them.
Quinn holstered the Beretta and slung the shotgun back into his hands, moving past the bullet-riddled SUV and the four dead men, moving with caution into the half-light of the race shop.
He stepped onto the smooth concrete, his eyes adjusting to the light as a motor grumbled to life, the engine gunning hard and fast.
Quinn fired off two big blasts as a green race car came speeding toward him and jumped out of the way as it shot past, out of the shop, onto the dirt, and following that SUV onto the main road.
Quinn lifted the mic as Reggie ran into the garage and saw him lying on the ground. “Shut down the damn road,” Quinn said into the radio. “Two cars headed your way.”
Quinn and Reggie ran for the bend in the road and saw his F-150 crossways in a ditch, a pattern of deep tire ruts where the SUV had knocked it out of the way. They jumped into the truck, hit the four-wheel drive, and after some dirt spewing behind them, came up onto the gravel. They drove through the Pritchards’ gate past a disabled sheriff’s car and a path wide enough for an SUV and a race car to make it through. “Son of a bitch.”
“They gone,” Reggie said.
Quinn hit the lights and siren on the truck, following the blackened tire tracks on the asphalt, heading east, while Reggie called in details of the dead.
“Heath Pritchard?” Quinn said.
“Never saw the son of a bitch,” Reggie said. “That was Tyler in that goddamn race car.”
26
There had been a time at the beach when Tyler had wanted to kill his brother. It was the exact damn moment he knew that he could never race like him, that he didn’t have the lack of fear, the flat-out craziness of Cody. They’d been racing go-carts down in Gulf Shores, trying to impress this bowlegged girl from Wetumpka, Alabama, with their racing skills. The girl watching from the fence as they were running neck and neck on this old wooden track, rolling up into the sky on these big spiral ramps and coming fast and hard down a hill, hitting that sweet turn. Tyler had been damn sure he had him when his brother nosed his way to the inside and knocked the everliving shit out of him, throwing him hard into the concrete wall, breaking the thread-worn straps holding him back, and sending him tumbling and rolling across the asphalt. He’d broken his arm and bloodied his nose and face, the bare legs in those jean shorts scraped up as hell. But, goddamn, Cody didn’t stop, racing up the ramp and not slowing until he’d finished that last damn lap.
Tyler got the girl, though. She gave him some titty underneath the pier later that night, his arm in a cast and his legs and arms covered in bandages. Cody told him that it was his own damn fault for driving that close to the wall and, if he’d had any nuts, he’d have tried to beat him on the inside of the track.
Cody was like that. And now Cody was dead.
Tyler felt the hot wind in his face, running their car to more than a hundred, redlining that son of a bitch, no wall to hit and no turns to take. Only a straightaway past the Jericho Square and on out toward the highway, the Rebel Truck Stop, the Golden Cherry Motel, an Exxon station. He saw the taillights of that Tahoe turning north onto 45, thinking they could come on their damn land, kill his brother, and get the hell out of Tibbehah County.
He didn’t know who these people were. And he didn’t care.
They’d killed Cody. And now he’d do what Cody would’ve wanted. He’d knock their damn dicks in the dirt. Tyler stood on that pedal, aiming for the SUV’s right front panel as it sped up onto Highway 45. He rubbed against the side of the truck, the panel of the race car shearing off like an apple peel. He hit their ass again, trying to send those boys down into the off-ramp, but they kept on going, the race car too damn light against the SUV.
They were side by side, Tyler seeing, smelling, and tasting everything as they rolled up on Highway 45 toward Tupelo. The man had a squared-off head, chapped red skin, and nubby little ears. He lowered the window and raised a gun toward Tyler.
Tyler reached down beside him and clutched the Remington pump while steering with his left hand. He balanced the gun on the sheet metal cover of the passenger side and steadied the barrel, running flat out at one hundred and ten. He had to slow a bit to get beside those fuckers again, running two wide and door-to-door down the highway, just as he blasted the driver. The
Tahoe slowed a bit, Tyler thinking hard on crazy-ass Cody sending him into the wall at the beach, crazy-ass Cody knocking the shit of their dumb stepdaddy’s nuts. That was the Pritchard way. You goddamn knocked your enemies’ dicks into the dirt.
He raced hard in front of the Tahoe, cutting right across the highway, the truck ramming him so damn hard that his head flew forward, the truck sending the race car tumbling down the fucking embankment, over and over. Tyler’s goddamn lights went out at some point, and he came to hanging upside down like a goddamn space ape in the cockpit.
Tyler Pritchard tried to get free just as quick as he could and find that Remington pump to finish the fucking job.
* * *
• • •
Holy shit,” Reggie said. “You see that?”
Quinn picked up the mic and called in the mile marker, a few details of the damn mess he saw broken apart down the side of Highway 45. Fenders, broken lights, shattered glass everywhere. The highway patrol had set up a roadblock a few miles down the road and Cleotha said they were now heading back. Quinn slowed the F-150, sliding off to the shoulder, he and Reggie getting out fast. They walked down the embankment sideways, looking at the green race car turned upside down and the black SUV lying on its side, hazard lights flickering, as they approached.
Quinn had his Beretta out. Reggie moved with him with his Colt as they watched Tyler Pritchard, bloody-faced and crazy-eyed, crawl from the flipped-over race car, looking like a stuck turtle, holding a shotgun. The boy was in some serious shock.
“Better think on it,” Quinn said. “Put that shit down. Now.”
Tyler looked to Quinn and Reggie, hearing the highway patrol sirens screaming as they headed south to the wreck. He held the shotgun loose in his right hand as he staggered, the sun a swirl of orange, yellows, and blues to the west.
