by Ace Atkins
“One of the Watchmen,” Tanner said, tightening up his cheek, a little tic in his left eye. “Man named Silas Pierce. He was the leader of the whole crew. Figured you must’ve done some business with those boys at one time or another.”
“Holy hell,” Fannie said. “What flaming pile of shit have y’all left on my back door?”
Tanner kind of kicked at the ground with his boots, lifting his eyes up at Danbury, who pursed his tiny mouth and narrowed his eyes. He looked away, out into the lake. Over the water, Fannie could see the lights of her lake house, the dinner party of Vardaman’s good ole boys in full swing by now. She’d have to be the one to drive up with the good news. Sorry to interrupt your crooked little pecker pulls, Governor, but the goddamn Feds are in Tibbehah County and may be watching every single move you make. Don’t worry, the cooze and the booze is on the house. Just relax and drink. Shit. They were screwed.
Danbury caught Tanner’s eye again and slowly shook his head.
“Y’all working out some goddamn Morse code?” she said. “What? What is it? I swear to God, if you boys are holding back, I’ll reach out and snatch up your nuts in Miss Fannie’s hand and squeeze those things until y’all beg for mercy.”
“Quinn Colson was there,” Tanner said.
“What do you mean Quinn Colson was there?” she said. “Colson was where? At the fucking Rebel?”
“He and that big nigger he hangs out with,” Danbury said. “They bust in shooting up the truck wash and I heard one of them is who killed General Pierce.”
“How about you wash the redneck out of your fucking mouth?” Fannie said. “You must be tied in with those Watchmen boys, Danbury. Got yourself a ticking pocket watch tattooed on your ass? Yeah, they’ve done favors for me before, but I’ll never work with them again. Too unreliable. Too damn crazy.”
Mitchell Danbury didn’t answer, dumb black eyes dead on Fannie’s, then turned and reached for a tin of Skoal up in his shirt pocket. He thumped at the can and took a little pinch with his thumb and his forefinger, just like the old commercial used to say.
“How many Feds?” she asked.
“Six,” Tanner said. “Maybe eight.”
“What else they have going on?”
“I think that’s it,” Tanner said. “The guns Varner was selling were stolen from that big UPS facility up in Memphis. They were onto him and also looking for some black dude named Akeem Triplett, the one and the same Akeem Triplett that used to play at State. Hell of a damn football player before he shattered his ankle.”
Fannie heard Triplett had gotten away, shagging ass from Vienna’s Place just about the time the Feds busted into the truck wash. She’d tried calling him and Marquis Sledge up in Memphis but hadn’t heard a word back. Whatever was going on, they’d blame Fannie for the deal turning to shit.
“Are they gone?”
Tanner nodded. The little tin light over the entrance to the Captain’s Table shuddered in the warm wind off the lake, making small squeaking sounds. From where they stood, Fannie could barely make out the sound of music from over at her compound. She wished to God she was there already, pounding a double Dirty Shirley and locking herself in with the governor, making damn sure he continued to insulate and support her good works up in Tibbehah County.
“Is that a party going on?” Danbury asked.
“Not for you, fucknuts,” Fannie said. “Y’all need to get out and do some goddamn work. Did you do what I asked you on that woman Caddy Colson?”
Danbury shrugged. “Pulled her and her kid over. I think I scared her pretty damn good.”
“That’s it?” Fannie said. “I was promised that you both knew how to take care of business. I asked you to handle someone for me and you write them a goddamn ticket? That had to put the real fear of God into Caddy Colson. A fifty-dollar fine.”
Fannie thought she could just make out the song playing way out on the lake at her party house. Sounded to her an awful lot like “Everybody Loves Somebody.” The notes caught her off guard, nearly leaving her to stumble in her Jimmy Choos. She walked ahead of Tanner and Danbury, moving out through the weedy gravel and toward the dock, straining to listen and knowing she was right. Ray. Damn, it was his favorite song. She touched the ruby pendant on her neck and closed her eyes. She breathed for a moment, trying to regain her composure, but still tasted the blood in her mouth after Caddy slapped her hard on her face. Just what would Ray have said about that? Any small transgression, however slight, wasn’t to be accepted. Ever.
She opened her eyes and walked back to where her two lawmen for hire languished by their patrol cars, waiting for their orders.
“I want that bitch gone,” she said. “Tonight. I don’t care how you have to do it.”
“Shouldn’t we wait?” Tanner said. “Until the dust settles in town?”
“You said the Feds got their prize and are gone,” she said. “Right?”
Tanner nodded.
“I don’t care what you have to do or how you do it,” Fannie said. “But I’m sick of that whole damn Colson clan. Burn that bitch out.”
* * *
• • •
“I know I shouldn’t be saying this,” Governor J. K. Vardaman said. “Not in this era where every red-blooded man might find himself in front of the firing squad. But ma’am, you sure got a fine body on you. All those bumps and curves. Just sitting here, watching you bend over to fill the water glasses, I’ll be damned if I forgot what I came here to talk about.”
Nat smiled, wanting to take that serving tray and whack that son of a bitch upside his head. But instead she just thanked him for the compliment and asked if she might get him another scotch. “What was it again, Johnnie Walker or Glenfiddich?”
“I think I’ll have some of that Macallan Rare Cask I saw up there,” the governor said, smacking his lips, slumped down in a spinning leather chair and eyeing Nat up and down. The man looking a little different than on TV, no suit and tie, just some khaki pants, zipped at half-mast, a blue plaid shirt, and a big-ass jangly gold watch on his wrist. His silver hair had been combed back up off his long, tanned face, hound dog eyes not moving off her breasts.
They were alone in the poker room, Vardaman getting led straight back for his private cocktail while some of the other men mingled under twinkling strands of white lights by the lake. The men had gone straight for the buffet table, scooping nachos in crab dip and shoving chicken wings into their chubby cheeks, pulling the bones out clean. Midnight Man was playing Sinatra and the rest of the old Rat Pack, those boys from Jackson really happy to meet up at Miss Fannie’s little dinner party. Later on, there would be charbroiled steaks and cold raw oysters from down around Apalachicola.
“Later on, me and you should have a drink,” Governor Vardaman said. “Upstairs.”
“Sorry to disappoint you, sir,” Nat said. “But I’m not on the menu. I’m just a bartender.”
“Damn shame,” he said. “Always had me a sweet tooth for black women. Just what are you? Is your momma or daddy white?”
Nat felt the silver tray in her hands, thinking about how she could hold it tight and swing, using it as a sharp-edged weapon aimed right for his Adam’s apple as he took a swig of that scotch.
“Oh, they were just people,” she said, not being able to resist. “Same as me.”
“But you’re mixed, aren’t you?” he said. “I know some folks have trouble with that, but mixed folks have the damn prettiest babies. You may not know your history, but quadroon and octoroon women were prized down in New Orleans. Y’all have the most lovely skin, like cream in coffee. Yes, ma’am. You are one fine-looking woman and I’m not afraid to say it out loud.”
Nat wished she could’ve told the dumbass crook she’d been a history major at the University of Memphis and studied slave narratives from the antebellum and postwar Deep South. Yeah, motherfucker, I know all about how white m
en “valued” mixed women two hundred years ago. I sure as hell don’t need a history lesson from the dumb hick who ran on the platform of turning back the clock for Mississippi.
When Nat turned to set out two more water glasses, she felt the man’s small hand run up her bare thigh and almost make it up into her shorts. She knocked the governor’s hand away with a smile and a laugh. “Oh, Governor,” she said between gritted teeth. “You’re such a rascal.”
“Darling, you got no idea,” he said. “What’s your name, baby?”
“Nat,” she said, winking at him.
“Nat,” he said. “I like that. Simple and cute as a button.”
“Good,” she said. “You’ll be hearing that name again real soon.”
“Oh, yeah?” he asked, sleepy-eyed. “Counting on it, sweetheart.”
The governor smiled, his leathery sunburned skin bright red against his silver hair and tuft of fur from his open shirt collar. He lifted the scotch again as a few more men, guffawing and back-slapping, entered the room. They had heavy country accents, so garbled and thick it sounded like they had marbles in their mouths. Most of them wore red and blue polo shirts, big expanding bellies hanging over their khaki pants, two with brown leather belts adorned with the logo for Ole Miss. She noticed that one of the men, paunchy and leathery with what looked like a brown squirrel on top of his head, wore a white polo with CEDAR GROVE STABLES embroidered on the chest.
That man going on and on about how glad he was they’d sent all them chicken chokers back to Mexico. As they gathered, she refilled their water glasses and took drink orders.
Vardaman got to his feet and stared down at the leather-topped card table. “How about you leave us for a few minutes, baby,” he said. “We got some man talk to do.”
Nat smiled. “Y’all just let me know if you need anything,” she said. “Anything at all.”
Nat Wilkins left the poker room and closed the stained-glass door with a tight little click, the guttural voices muffled from behind her.
* * *
• • •
Ana Gabriel hadn’t left The River since getting back from Memphis. There had been a tearful homecoming with her friends, talk of returning to school, and then an unexpected phone call from her mother. She wasn’t sure how it happened, only that Miss Caddy had handed her a phone and told her who was calling. There was so much to say, so much to tell, Ana Gabriel leaving out most of what had happened with the Ramos Brothers, only saying there had been a little trouble but all was fine now. Her mother cried. She cried so much and begged Ana Gabriel to take Sancho and go with her father to Atlanta.
“I can’t leave you,” Ana Gabriel had said.
“It’s finished,” her mother said. “They are sending us back. There is nothing to be done.”
Ana Gabriel hadn’t slept much since then, talking twice to her father, finally agreeing that yes, she and Sancho would come next week. She hadn’t told Jason they were leaving so soon. How could she? That boy had risked his life for her. How do you throw away such a gift?
That night she’d gone back to the small cabin, turning off the light where Sancho had fallen asleep reading Charlotte’s Web. She kissed her brother on the head and changed into a secondhand nightgown Miss Caddy had given her. The nightgown had belonged to someone long ago, white cotton worn thin, comfortable and light as she slid into bed and turned her head to the window, looking out onto the wide-open space behind the barn and the houses where the dry creek had just started to flow.
Tomorrow, she would tell Jason. She and Sancho would return to the old trailer and start to pack whatever they could bring. They would start again. The thought didn’t scare Ana Gabriel; her entire life had been about packing up and moving on. That’s why she seldom made friends, never liked people to get in close. They were just people she’d never see again on the road to somewhere else.
As she turned her head to the cool pillow, delighted to see the last flickering of the lightning bugs, she smelled the smoke.
Ana Gabriel moved from the bed to the front windows of the cabin and stared into the darkness. She couldn’t see much, but the smell was so strong. She opened the front door and walked out onto the gravel path that connected all the cabins at The River. She could hear a crackling, creaking sound. The smoke was coming from the great old barn where they held church.
She crept down the small hill, the nightgown feeling like gossamer against her small body, finding refuge behind Miss Caddy’s old truck and hearing the sound of men laughing. As she looked around the grille, she saw a heavy man with a pockmarked face and angular haircut lift a bottle to his lips and then toss it into the barn. He and another man, one she couldn’t see but only hear, were laughing, stumbling back to a truck parked down the main road to The River.
The fire was going strong now, flames erupting from the center of the barn over the church pews and bales of hay where they sat during service. Smoke poured from the big open mouth of the church, the two windows of the loft lit up in fire like glowing eyes.
The breath left Ana Gabriel as she sprinted back to the cabins, the nightgown tight and restrictive on her legs as she knocked on doors and screamed for help. Sancho ran out and found her, clutching her elbow and tugging her back from the barn.
The entire structure crackled and burned. Even from where she stood, she could feel the heat radiate off her face and smell her long black hair start to wilt and smolder.
“Why won’t they leave us alone?” Sancho said, crying.
“Because they are afraid,” Ana Gabriel said, wrapping her arms tight over her chest. “They are all cowards.”
* * *
• • •
The men had left a damn mess.
Nat set about picking up paper plates of chicken bones, dry cheese, and cracker crumbs. Cheese dip that had fallen onto the floor and empty crystal glasses wet with melted ice left on the porch railing. The welcome buffet looked as if it had been attacked by a pack of wild dogs. Not much left, and what was left was filthy and nasty, men leaving half-eaten crackers in the dips, bits of cigar ashes on the cheese tray. Whoever believed in the myth of Southern gentlemen needed to meet these old boys.
She wiped her face with a paper towel, drinking water from a red Solo cup Fannie had given her.
“Apologies,” a weathered old voice said behind her as Nat dumped ashes and empty plates into a trash bag. She turned to see a lumbering bald-headed man standing there. He had on a sky blue golf shirt with a small embroidered gold cross on the chest and stiff pleated khakis, a white cowboy hat clutched in his hand.
“Just part of my J-O-B,” Nat said, smiling. She took another sip of the ice water and surveyed all the mess that was still left to clean.
“I’m ashamed how those men were acting,” he said. “The things they said to you and those other young ladies that welcomed them here. They had no right.”
“I think we both know some of those fine young ladies were part of the buffet line.”
The man nodded, his pale, almost translucent eyes looking sad. He just stood there on the big deck overlooking Choctaw Lake, almost as if he was waiting for the right words to say.
“Can I help you with something?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “I believe I’m on my way out.”
“Oh,” Nat said, looking into the windows to the great room. “Y’all’s meeting over?”
“No, ma’am,” he said. “Just beginning. But I decided I’d rather not be a part of it. I’m too old and too worn out to listen to such filth.”
Nat looked the man in the eye and nodded, going back to what she was doing, straightening up and resetting the buffet line for when they headed back outside. The next course would be big silver trays of oysters on ice and shrimp po’ boy sandwiches cut into little wedges. She figured if they couldn’t beat and bust these old boys’ asses, maybe they could just feed them on a ch
ow line until their hearts stopped.
“You remind me of my granddaughter,” he said. “If those men spoke to her the way they spoke to the rest of you women, I think they’d have to call in the National Guard.”
Nat smiled, tilting her head. “What’s your name, sir?”
“Clarence,” he said.
“Nice to meet you, Clarence,” Nat said, offering her long, lean hand, jangling silver bracelets on her wrist. “I’m Nat. You seem like a good man.”
“Well,” he said. “Not for a good long while.”
He placed the cowboy hat on his head and delicately reached for the porch railing, looking out onto the still, black lake. “My daddy helped build that lake back in nineteen thirty-three,” he said. “There is a whole little town under there called Easonville, covered up when they put up the dam and blocked in the river. I don’t have any recollection of it, but it had always haunted me. A whole town, little grocery store, and an old filling station down there in all that blackness.”
“Are you OK, sir?”
“Just a stupid old man,” he said. He looked to lose his footing for a second as he reached out to grab the railing, hat falling down to the porch, knees looking weak.
Nat brought him over a metal chair and the man sat down as she reached for his cowboy hat and placed it in his lap. He used the brim to fan his face. “Looks like I forgot to take my pills,” he said. “Would you mind getting me a glass of water, too, Miss Nat?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Sure is nice meeting you,” he said. “You truly are a ray of sunshine.”
* * *
• • •
Caddy was headed out to The River late that night with Jean, wanting to check on a few things for tomorrow’s Sunday service. She knew that tomorrow they’d double capacity with the band Southern Flair, a gospel bluegrass group that she loved, coming to town. This would be the last big fund-raiser before the Christmas season, not only for those immigrant families left in trouble but also for her entire ministry. She was running almost eight thousand dollars behind now, but raising three would maybe allow them to keep their doors open for a few more weeks. It was a tight spot but not an unfamiliar one.
