by Ace Atkins
“Didn’t figure he would.”
“What now?”
“Circle back to Caddy,” Boom said. “Maybe she’s heard something by now.”
Quinn cranked the ignition, knocked the truck in reverse, and headed out of the lot. The morning coming up bright blue and spreading across the bottomland of Tibbehah County.
14
Ana Gabriel’s gone and her little brother won’t talk,” Caddy said. “I know he’s scared as hell, but so am I, Hector. I need you to talk to him, make him feel comfortable, let me know what he knows. I’m so damn worried for those kids. Please help me. Please.”
She stood with Hector Herrera outside the Huddle House along Highway 45. He’d agreed to meet her there after driving back from an early morning meeting in Tupelo, trying to gather a coalition of priests and pastors to sign a petition for humane treatment for those in federal custody. From behind him, Caddy could see the monstrous Tibbehah Cross, a so-called civic project from last year that would’ve fed and clothed countless families. Instead, it had become a local joke, the target of a laser light show from Vienna’s Place. SIN TODAY, REPENT TOMORROW, the cross would read at sundown.
“I know of six other girls who are gone,” Hector said. “Where is the boy?”
“He’s here,” Caddy said. “In my truck. Will you speak with Sancho?”
Hector smiled at her, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Of course,” he said.
Caddy walked back to her old GMC and opened the creaky passenger door. Little Sancho sat sunken down in the front seat playing with the knobs on the radio, cutting between country music and talk radio. Sort of listening in a mindless way—Kane Brown’s “Lost in the Middle of Nowhere” and a sound bite of Governor Vardaman talking about Mississippi being on the cutting edge of technology and education. Caddy wasn’t sure the boy was even paying attention to the songs or what was being said as three eighteen-wheelers rolled past, back to back to back. The trucks flew south along the highway, passing by the Jericho exit and the Huddle House, the Golden Cherry Motel, and the Rebel Truck Stop that offered “the best chicken fried steak in the South.”
Hector’s head was clean shaven that day, gleaming like a cue ball, his mustache and goatee an inky black. He wore a LOS TIGRES DEL NORTE T-shirt and khaki pants cut off ragged into shorts with a pair of blue Crocs. His gold cross was huge and heroic hanging from his neck, the chain thick enough to lock up a gate. “Sancho, es bueno verte esta hermosa mañana,” Hector said, smiling. “¿Ya comiste? ¿Estás bien? Escuché que no hablarás con la señora Caddy.”
Sancho shrugged. He kept on spinning the dial on the old radio.
“Esto es muy serio,” Hector said. “Por favor. Debes escucharme, mi amigo.”
When Sancho didn’t answer, Señor Hector reached over him and shut off the radio. The man leaned into the open window and rubbed his face with his hands. He looked to be composing himself. More than once this morning, Caddy had wanted to shake the kid until the fillings came loose from his teeth. But you couldn’t and she didn’t, instead asking plain pleading questions and getting nothing in return. His sister was missing, disappeared, and her son with him. Her only son, her sweet boy Jason, gone off to God knows where.
“No lo sé,” Sancho said, shaking his head. “No lo sé.”
“Por favor. Por favor, Sancho,” Hector said. “Te necesitamos. Tu hermana corre mucho peligro.”
Caddy closed her eyes, praying the Lord would give her strength. She wasn’t exactly sure everything Hector was asking but she could tell it wasn’t helping. She leaned in the window opposite from Hector and looked across at the boy. Sancho wouldn’t give her his eyes, head dropped, black hair scattering in the wind off the highway. He spoke in a low muttering voice, barely understandable with all the noise from the highway.
“Sancho,” Caddy said. “Your sister may be in some real danger. Where are they? Where did they go?”
Sancho inhaled a big breath and shook his head. “Yo prometí. Le prometí a mi hermana que no lo diría.”
Caddy rested her chin on her forearms. “Is she with my son? Is she with Jason Colson?”
Sancho turned his head and looked Caddy right in her eye. The boy started to cry and gave a small nod.
“¿Y estaban con las otras chicas?” Hector asked.
“Yes,” Sancho said, staring down at his fat little hands, nails bitten down to the quick. “They left after school with the others. Ana Gabriel said they were going to find our mother, who is in jail for nothing. You understand? You must understand, Señor Hector.”
“And Jason went with her?” Caddy asked.
Sancho didn’t speak. And then turned to look at Hector Herrera. Herrera nodded to the little boy. The boy’s chin began to quiver a bit as he wiped the tears from his eyes. “Yes,” Sancho said. “Jason Colson is with her. She says he wanted to protect her. Why? What is the matter? Did something bad happen? Something very awful? Are they all dead?”
“No,” Hector said. “But we can’t find them. Who drove them? Who took them away?”
Sancho swallowed and began to cry, heaving into his hands. Caddy opened up the truck door and crawled inside, the bench seat covered in an old blanket, pulling the chubby little boy close to her. He shook and cried for a while and then finally looked up and wiped his big brown eyes. “You know this boy? The one they call Angel?”
Caddy shook her head, her eyes also filling with tears, and then over to Hector; Herrera had backed away from the truck, turned to stare down at the highway, up and down, north and south, and then back to Caddy. “I know this boy,” Hector said. “He is not one of us. His mother worked at the plant. This boy Angel would leave and come home when he needed money. They lived at that place people call the Skid Bucket. There was talk of drugs and threats to another family. I’m afraid he is a very bad kid. Este chico es malvado.”
“Where can we find him?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “Perhaps someone at the trailer park knew him?”
Sancho swallowed and looked to both of them. He shook his head in full agreement. “This boy, Angel,” Sancho said. “He is a very big asshole.”
* * *
• • •
Jason knew damn well they were screwed. There were two, possibly three, dudes coming into the old car dealership, kicking over desks, looking in hidey holes and mildewed offices and poking around until they would find him and Ana Gabriel. From what he heard, the tall black dude with the braids went by the name of T-Rex. Angel seemed to be real familiar with the man, saying, “T-Rex coming for you” and “Watch out, kids, T-Rex ready to eat.” Angel was a stupid kid and stupid was worse than mean and evil, or maybe it was the glue that tied those things together. At one point, for no reason whatsoever, Angel fired off a shot from his pistol. “Give it up, chico. You don’t have nowhere to go.”
Jason and Ana Gabriel stayed crouched together behind the piles of worn-out tires, not far from a busted window where you could see the interstate and a long stretch of high grass and trees, a meandering creek separating them. Jason nodded to Ana Gabriel, and she saw it, too. Both of them waited for Angel and T-Rex to head back into the showroom, knocking over chairs and toppling partitions to offices, making a whole lot of racket as they worked.
Jason figured Angel thought his bullshit was scary.
“Where did you meet that kid?” Jason said, whispering.
“Church,” Ana Gabriel said. “He came to the Catholic church over in Pontotoc.”
“Pontotoc?” Jason said. “Yeah. That sounds about right. Those folks ain’t right in the head.”
Jason reached for his Buck knife and nodded to Ana Gabriel. The girl ran toward the window, jagged pieces of glass sticking out like blades on the lower parts of the frame. Jason knocked the glass shards out with the blade of his knife, but the pieces didn’t fall quietly. He followed Ana Gabriel through the opening, careful not to cut himse
lf. The girl sprinted toward the tree line, through the eroded dirt and weeds covered in sacks from Pirtle’s Chicken, crushed cans and bottles, rubbers, old lost shoes, and discarded car parts. The girl was fast, already deep into the little brittle trees and briars, the interstate close almost enough to touch, cars zooming along in the first light.
He was almost there when he heard the gunshot. Twice. And then a third time. Angel’s dumb ass yelling behind them. Jason kept on running, diving into the tree line and searching for Ana Gabriel through the kudzu, weeds, and brush. If they could get down to the creek and up that hill on the other side, they could find the road and try and flag down a car. Or at least follow the road until someone stopped for them.
At first, he couldn’t find Ana Gabriel.
She was already down at the edge of the shallow creek, backpack on her shoulder and following the crooked, twisting water. The backpack was bright purple and a hell of a target as she crossed. Jason tried to recall all the things Uncle Quinn had told him about making yourself invisible, finding concealment when you can, cover when it was available. There was little concealment and no damn cover. It was just him and the girl trying to make it through that little slice of nature between the car dealership and the road. It seemed like one of the few spots in Memphis someone just forgot to pave over. A strange little patch of woods in the middle of all that concrete.
He knew they’d have to cross that little creek but he couldn’t see a good place to pass without being followed. Not far beyond where they stood, he saw where the Mt. Moriah bridge spanned over the creek and the interstate, a big, empty, shadowed spot below. On the other side of the creek were big rocks and sandy shoals where they could climb out and away from these bastards trying to catch them. Jason now thinking of the other girls, wondering how many of them broke loose and got free.
Jason prayed they were all all right.
When he turned back to the hill, he spotted T-Rex coming out from the scraggly trees. The black duster swirled behind him as he rushed forward and raised a big black pistol in their direction.
* * *
• • •
“You know, you don’t need that shit,” Boom said.
“That’s what Maggie tells me,” Quinn said.
“Your wife is, you do realize, a fucking nurse.”
“You once thanked me for not judging you,” Quinn said, shaking two pills into his hand. “Appreciate you returning the favor.”
Quinn had parked outside the old Calvary United Methodist Church, right next to the cemetery where both his sets of grandparents and his Uncle Hamp and Aunt Halley were buried. It was a small, simple white-frame structure with a slanting silver roof, reminding him a lot of his farmhouse. He’d been attending church there most of his life; his mother, too. He and Maggie married there. Quinn’s parents were supposed to get married there before they hightailed it to Vegas. Quinn wondered where in the universe his father, the original Jason Colson, landed after once again leaving Jericho in shame.
“You think you can’t face another day without them,” Boom said. “But you sure as shit can. Pills, booze. Man, it’s like falling into a feather bed. Nothing matters. Nothing hurts. You just kind of live in that in-between world. Everything fuzzy at the edges like an ole-time photograph. Don’t you want to be sharp, clearheaded, and see the world? It’s about gratitude. About appreciating what God laid at your feet.”
“Damn, you sound like Caddy.”
“Where she at anyway?” Boom said.
“She texted me she’d call when she can,” Quinn said. “Said she’s meeting up with Hector Herrera. She believes he might can help her with that kid, Sancho. Boy won’t say shit to Caddy, pretends he only knows Spanish.”
“He’s scared.”
“Damn straight.”
“Caddy sure Jason’s with that girl?”
“Yep,” Quinn said, reaching down for his metal thermos. He poured himself a tall cup of coffee and then offered some to Boom.
“I’m good.”
“It’s coffee,” Quinn said, grinning. “Just coffee.”
Boom didn’t say anything, leaned all the way back in the passenger seat. He cut his eyes over at Quinn and then stared down the long gentle slope of the cemetery, the morning sun coating half of it in bright white light. His people were buried far on the opposite side of town behind a clapboard church in Sugar Ditch where his dad served as a deacon.
“Want to smell it?” Quinn said.
Boom turned to Quinn and yanked the thermos from his hand. He sniffed at the coffee and then handed it back. He didn’t say a word.
“Just trying to get through the day,” Quinn said. “Get things done. Move ahead without falling. I’m not hurting anyone. I’m not doing anything wrong. This is a doctor’s prescription. I was shot. Remember that? Four times in the back.”
“Your momma says what Elvis took came from a doctor, too.”
“I’m not Elvis.”
“You know when we were kids, after your daddy left, I had this feeling that Elvis was your real daddy,” Boom said, staring straight ahead. “Your momma had just showed us that movie where Elvis is that half-breed. What’s his name?”
“Charro.”
“Yeah, Charro,” Boom said. “One of those movies where he don’t sing and don’t dance. Just shoots guns and looks mean, trying to be Marlon Brando or maybe Clint Eastwood with that skinny cigar. I left y’all’s house, your momma going on and on about what a good man Elvis had been, and thought to myself, yeah, that woman, Miss Jean Colson, done messed around with the King of Rock and Roll.”
“And then you did the math.”
“Yeah,” Boom said. “I did. Kind of disappointed me, you being born three years after Elvis died. I figured we might at least be able to get a free tour at Graceland, maybe take out one of his cool-ass dune buggies or one of those pimp-tastic Stutz.”
“It’s a damn fact,” Quinn said, taking a sip of coffee. “I am Jason Colson’s boy.”
“Oh, I know,” Boom said. “I know you. You always been crazy as fuck.”
Quinn winked at him, already feeling the pain go away in his shoulders and lower back. He took a deep breath and looked back down at his cell, waiting to hear from Caddy. He snipped the end of a fresh cigar, a new Liga Privada from the humidor Maggie had tried to hide from him, and lit it up with his old busted Zippo. A gift from a Ranger who’d served in Vietnam before Quinn had left for his first deployment a million years back.
“I’ll get straight when this is done,” Quinn said. “When we get Jason back and all this shit is over.”
“You think it’ll ever be over, man?” Boom said. “Shit. You know this is Tibbehah County. Been cursed since your people fucked over the Choctaws.”
Quinn was about to answer when his cell phone buzzed. He looked down and saw the message from Caddy. Can y’all find that crazy old man Manuel? Looking for a kid named Angel in Skid Bucket.
* * *
• • •
From up the hill, T-Rex fired once. And then again.
Jason figured the son of a bitch was trying to scare them, not make too much trouble for himself with two dead kids up by the interstate. He told Ana Gabriel to drop that damn backpack and make a run for under that bridge. Jason knew if they could get under the bridge, over that creek, and to the road, they’d be safe. No one could mess with them up there. They’d wave down a car or a truck, and get someone to slow down and help. You’d have to be a real heartless bastard not to help out a couple kids hitching on the roadside. Maybe they’d get spotted by the police or highway patrol. Up on 240 at least they’d get a fighting chance.
Under the bridge, it was dark, quiet, and cool. The creek ran slow and sluggish over stones and little sandbars situated between them and the other side. Jason knew ole T-Rex and Angel would be on them in a minute if they didn’t cross. Jason jumped from stone t
o stone, off a little sandbar littered with busted bottles and plastic bags, Ana Gabriel following him fast, hopping onto another stone, trying to make it across. Above them, Jason could hear the zooming cars on Mt. Moriah Road. Jason had been to enough Vacation Bible School to not like being in the land of Moriah where old man Abraham was about to sacrifice Isaac. Hell, the man had been a hundred years old but was going to do as God had told him. Putting a blade to his own boy’s neck, saved in the nick of time by an angel of God and a stray sheep.
“You’re dead,” Angel said, yelling.
Ana Gabriel turned, falling from a rock and into the shallow water. Her face gone white as she pulled herself up onto a sandbar and held her ankle.
“Come on,” Jason said.
“I can’t.”
“They’re going to flat-out kill us,” he said. “I said leave that backpack. Come on. We got to go.”
Ana Gabriel dropped the backpack and moved from one rock to the next, gritting her teeth in pain as Angel and T-Rex were on them now, in the darkness and up under the bridge. They yelled and taunted them, Jason pulling Ana Gabriel along the sandy shoal and up into a thicket of trees and kudzu. Uncle Quinn told him to find concealment when he could, make yourself small and quiet, and always be on alert. Something he preached called “situational awareness.” They stopped for a moment and Jason looked down at the girl’s ankle, all swollen up and thick-looking.
Jason didn’t speak, only pointed up the hill where they could hear the cars passing. They moved through the scraggly trees and all that trash thrown out of windows and up into the little patch of woods. The kudzu was wild and thick, clinging to the eroded hillside and up into the tree branches, blinding and choking them, catching Jason’s legs as he headed farther up the hill. The heat had come on strong and he and Ana Gabriel were sweating. Jason tried not to look back, only move forward. There was no slowing down now.
He could see the road, a highway breaking off from the interstate, a good place to rejoin the world and be seen. They had to be seen if they wanted to make it out. Jason figured they’d take Ana Gabriel but leave him shot up in the ditch, bled out and lost among the broken bottles, scattered hamburger wrappers, and assorted trash. Keep moving. Don’t look back. Keep moving ahead. Rangers Lead the Way. They’d never give up, keep moving, keep on the march. His mission was to bring the girl home safe. He wouldn’t be Isaac or that sheep his daddy ended up killing. No sacrifices today. No sacrifices today.
