by Ace Atkins
A nervous young guy in a tieless suit stood on the small stage filled with guitars and a drum set. He spoke about his love of country and his personal relationship with Jesus Christ. “I am a family man and an avid hunter. No one will take that away from me.”
Quinn drank his beer.
“This is more than an election to me,” the candidate said. “It’s a crusade. We will restore morals to our country and put God in charge.”
The speeches were limited to two minutes, sometimes Stagg having to get on stage and point to his golden watch. The Good Ole Boy was good-natured, the candidates black and white, male and female. A black woman was running for circuit judge and offered the only speech that contained facts about her office. There were coroners and county clerks, two U.S. Congress candidates trading veiled barbs about mean-spirited television ads Quinn had not seen.
The smell of the chicken smoke blew in from a cold breeze inside Johnny’s shed. A prayer was said and everyone finally lined up with paper plates and plastic forks. Quinn grabbed some chicken with baked beans and coleslaw and found a place to sit outside on a hay bale. Kay Bain and her band started into “Fist City” by Loretta Lynn, and the smell of the hickory smoke and the sparking bonfire under a full harvest moon wasn’t altogether unpleasant.
“Glad you came, Sheriff.”
Quinn looked up from his plate to see the craggy, comical mask of Johnny Stagg. Stagg wore high-waisted jeans and a white snap-button shirt. His brown dye job was slicked back into a ducktail, and his ruddy Scotch-Irish face shone from a recent shave.
Quinn nodded.
Stagg offered his bony hand.
Quinn stood. He saw groupings of people turn, watch, and whisper. Lillie stood by the mouth of the barn, nodding to Quinn as she held a drumstick of chicken.
Quinn shook Stagg’s hand.
Stagg showed off his huge veneers and laughed, holding the smile for a while and nodding with some surprise. “You ain’t gonna give me a talkin’-to?” Stagg asked.
“About what?”
“I guess you know all that mess was just politics.”
“Sure, Johnny.”
“And I figure you know that I intend to keep my position over the Board of Supervisors.”
“It’s a small county,” Quinn said. “I may have heard something about that at the Fillin’ Station.”
“Long as we’re OK on that.”
Quinn nodded. He wanted to sit back down and eat some chicken. He waited a beat, and said: “I’ve been hearing about some action out at your truck stop. Gambling, girls, and such. You wouldn’t know anything about that?”
Stagg grinned and laughed.
He turned and quickly took the arm of the U.S. senator and led him to the front of the line to get a plate of chicken.
“That was a good start,” Lillie said. She handed him a fresh beer.
“Can I go wash my hand?”
“You’re maybe the best outdoorsman I ever met,” Lillie said. “You respect the woods, and that includes the animals that could kill you.”
“If I see a rattlesnake, I blast it with my shotgun.”
“No you don’t,” Lillie said. “You kick them out of the way, knowing they’re just a part of the forest.”
“Thanks for the beer,” Quinn said. “You can keep the advice.”
Lillie smiled at him. The firelight caught the little blond hairs at the nape of her long neck and freckles across her nose and cheeks.
“What?”
Quinn grinned and looked toward the bonfire.
Anna Lee Amsden—Quinn still thinking of her by her maiden name—and her husband, Luke Stevens, stood at the edge of smoke and sparking light. Luke was a good man, having been in Quinn’s graduating class, and had come back to Jericho to serve as one of the town’s few doctors and now county coroner. Quinn never thought he’d see Anna Lee with someone else long term, but there she stood with her arm hooked in Luke’s, nearly eight months pregnant.
Quinn finished the beer and crushed the can.
The country music stopped, and Johnny Stagg again assumed the role as master of ceremonies, ring leader, and preacher, launching into a big-grinned thank-you to all the donors and politicians and cooks who made this possible. He also said he was thankful to Sheriff Colson for showing up.
Quinn stood and craned his neck over the crowd.
“The supervisors wanted to present the new sheriff with something to show a new beginning in Tibbehah County,” Stagg said from the stage. “And how much we appreciate a young man and decorated soldier coming back home.”
Headlights shot on from up the gravel road, and a truck rolled slow down the path, past the barbecue pit, bonfire, and stage. The horn honked, scattering the onlookers, and blue lights flashed from the dashboard. A brand-new Dodge Ram 2500 painted a golden brown idled at the mouth of the barn. The gold star of the Tibbehah County Sheriff’s Office had been painted on the door. The truck boasted a two-ton winch, dual exhaust, four-wheel drive, and roll bar decked out in a set of massive KC lights.
“Jesus Christ,” Quinn said.
“I had no idea,” Lillie said.
One of Quinn’s new deputies—he’d fired all the old ones except Lillie for years of laziness and corruption—got out of the truck and walked to Quinn, smiling and holding the set of keys. The onlookers gathered around the truck and admired the golden paint and leather seats, a big-haired woman with fake breasts tooting the horn and hitting the siren.
“Kenny,” Quinn said to his deputy. “Hand the keys back to Mr. Stagg.”
“Come again?”
“I don’t want it,” Quinn said. “Tell him I’ve always been a Ford man.”
“Come on, Quinn,” Kenny said. “Board of Supervisors approved the funding last month. It’s all legal.”
Kenny was a thick guy with a short goatee and shaved head. He was a trusted friend and a good man, but the whole idea of it made Quinn sick to his stomach.
“Tell Mr. Stagg and the board I appreciate it,” Quinn said. “But taxpayers’ money can be better spent.”
Stagg stood over by the massive truck and offered a wave, the moonlight shining off his pompadour and big teeth. Quinn just stared at him and nodded as he turned to the gravel road.
“You coming?” he asked Lillie.
Lillie put down her half-eaten plate of chicken and followed.
“Don’t I always?”
3
THE NEXT MORNING, LUKE STEVENS CALLED THE OLD FARMHOUSE. QUINN had inherited the place from his dead uncle along with a stockpile of hunting rifles, rusted farm equipment, and a cattle dog named Hondo. He’d just finished eating some fried eggs with country ham and placed a black skillet on the floor to let Hondo finish off what was left. The dog’s coat was a patchwork of gray and black. He had two different colored eyes.
“Good to see you last night,” Luke said.
“Sure thing.”
“Wish you’d come over and said hello,” Luke said. “With Anna Lee pregnant, we haven’t been going down to the Southern Star much. Too damn smoky. You should stop by the house sometime for a beer.”
“What’s up, Luke?”
“Strange thing this morning,” he said.
Quinn looked at his watch, noting it was nearly 0700.
“Woman named Janet Torres. You know Janet? Used to be Janet Sanders. Clerk at the Dollar General, tips the scales at more than three hundred. She has a face that would stop a Mack truck cold.”
“Maybe.”
“Anyway, Janet brought in this little girl,” Luke said. “Child was three. She’d suffered massive head trauma, tons of bruises, and a broken leg. Janet says the girl fell out of a shopping cart at the Piggly Wiggly.”
“I bet.”
“You think you can pay a visit before I get child services involved?”
“Sounds like you better start that process.”
“Quinn?”
“Yep.”
Hondo polished off the skillet and looked up at Quinn.
He scratched the dog’s ears for a job well done. He reached for his 9mm and wallet with sheriff’s star.
“I think she’s got some other kids out there,” Luke said. “Some kind of foster deal out of South America.”
QUINN MET UP WITH KENNY at Dixie Gas on the edge of the Jericho Square, and they rode out in Kenny’s patrol car, finding the Torres property in the south part of the county near some bottomland that adjoined the Choctaw Indian rez. A cattle gate fronted the highway, shut with some old chain and a padlock. Kenny searched in the pocket of his deputy’s uniform and pulled out some chewing tobacco. He offered Quinn some Red Man, and Quinn declined.
“You try their phone?” Kenny asked.
“Couple times,” Quinn said. “You know this woman?”
“I know who she is,” Kenny said. “She used to have a place called Little Angels Daycare in the city. I hadn’t seen her in a while. I know she married some Mex fella, and had an ass the size of Texas. Mean disposition.”
“Sounds like a winner. Can’t wait to meet her.”
They got out of the sheriff’s cruiser, hearing a pack of dogs begin to bark deep down through the second-growth pines and up a slight hill. Quinn looked to Kenny and hopped the cattle gate. Kenny, who was double Quinn’s size, hefted himself up onto the gate and nearly toppled over before finding his feet, some of his chew spilling on the lapel of his shirt.
“Son of a bitch.”
“If the woman says anything,” Quinn said, “we had some urgent information from Dr. Stevens.”
“Is that baby still with her?”
“Luke got the child airlifted to Memphis. St. Jude’s.”
Quinn could see the house as they got about a quarter of a mile from the highway, a ramshackle place perched on top of a small hill. A gauntlet of small cages and pens surrounded the property, the sound of the dogs barking and yipping and howling just about deafening as he and Kenny walked closer.
“Damn, Quinn,” Kenny said. “You smell that?”
“Hard to miss.”
Dozens and dozens of chain-link pens and rabbit hutches were crowded with puppies and full-grown dogs with matted fur. The ground was a sticky mud clumped with dog hair and crap. The damp dogs smelled of urine and rot. One cage held two hound puppies, both dead.
“Holy hell,” Kenny said.
Quinn walked ahead through the maze of cages and pens and yipping dogs that scratched and cried for him, looking at him with their sad yellow eyes. A crude set of steps had been fashioned with some old two-by-sixes, the façade of the house looking to have been cobbled from parts off a trailer. The house was old and crooked, with a rusted tin roof and a patchwork of blue tarps stapled on top that fluttered and bubbled in the cold morning.
Quinn knocked on the door.
“I guess Janet ain’t the homemaker type,” Kenny said.
Quinn knocked again. He tried the knob. The shitty, thin little door had been dead-bolted. He looked to Kenny and shrugged. Kenny stepped back to the path.
Quinn stepped back and leveled the heel of his boot at the lock, busting open the door.
The smell inside knocked them backward.
Kenny walked inside behind him, covering his face with the edge of his jacket. The big deputy didn’t make it halfway inside the house before he turned and ran back outside, throwing up his breakfast and tobacco over the railing.
Quinn kept his breathing slow and easy, reaching for a bandanna in his pocket, the stench at least better than bloated bodies and backed-up latrines. The house was dark. He tried the light switches, but there was no electricity. He turned on his Maglite and spotlighted the room. Piles of dishes filled the kitchen sink. Mounds of dirty clothes and diapers sat in heaps on the vinyl floors. A massive easy chair with large holes and tears faced a brand-new flat-screen television. Stacks of Us Weekly and People magazine littered the ground next to wrappers for Jenny Craig weight-loss bars.
Kenny ventured down the hallway. Quinn heard doors opening and closing.
The house looked to be stuck in time, with appliances nearly thirty years old. The gas oven contained half of a pizza. The pizza waited, stale but not covered in mold. It looked like some squatters had entered a time warp, not bothering to change anything, only trash what was there. An old hi-fi system sat in the corner loaded down with a Peggy Lee 33.
Quinn followed Kenny into the back rooms.
“Quinn?”
Quinn stopped at a closed door, opening it wide with his knuckles.
The room had been painted pink several decades ago and splattered with wallpaper murals of bunnies, chickens, and baby frogs. There were rainbows and big shining suns. Most of the murals hung halfway off the wall, the glue weakening from years of summer heat. The room stank of fermented urine and the open jugs of spoiled milk on the filthy blue carpet.
Kenny moved ahead, tripping on the toy trucks and stuffed animals worn down to the thread. He turned to Quinn. The big man’s eyes filling, unable to speak.
Thirteen rickety cribs patched from lumber scraps filled the room.
All thirteen were empty.
4
“WHAT’D YOU DO THEN?” JEAN COLSON ASKED.
“Not much to do,” Quinn said. “They’d shagged ass out of the county, probably the state. We’ve got bulletins out on their vehicles.”
“And the children?” she asked, out of earshot of her grandson Jason, who’d wandered over to an old shed where Quinn kept the cane poles and fishing tackle.
Quinn shook his head, watching Hondo following the boy, nudging him at the butt to hurry up. Both boy and dog impatient to get to the pond.
“Memphis police are keeping watch,” Quinn said. “Girl’s in rough shape, Momma.”
Jason returned and tugged at Quinn in the fading golden light, a stretch of pecans behind him. He wore a snap-button rodeo shirt and Wranglers with knee-high rubber boots. Sometimes when he was with Quinn or his grandmother, people would stare. He was a light-skinned black child with the eyes of Quinn’s father, an over-the-hill Hollywood stuntman who no one had seen in years.
Jason had been with Quinn’s mom now for the last three weeks, left for the fifth time by Quinn’s sister, Caddy. There were excuses, legitimate reasons, and promises to return at Christmas. A cell phone number she’d left turned out to be disconnected.
“He doesn’t have to stay,” Jean said. “I know y’all are busy.”
“I’ll call if we get word on the Torres folks.”
“Is Lillie coming over?” she asked.
“Why do you ask?”
“No reason.”
“You asked.”
“She’s not as tough as you think.”
“Lillie was the top shooter on the Ole Miss rifle team,” Quinn said. “I’ve seen her knock a three-hundred-pound man to his knees. You want to me to buy her roses?”
Quinn’s mother grinned and walked back to her Chevy, wearing a new sweatshirt she’d bought on a recent trip to Graceland for Elvis’s seventy-fifth birthday. After a few glasses of cheap wine, she’d recount that time in ’76 when The King touched her hand at a show at the Mid-South arena, sighing his signature finale of “Can’t Help Falling in Love,” draping a yellow scarf—that she still owned—around her neck. Romantic to a fault.
Jean waved and drove off, Quinn waving back and reaching into his old Ford to the gun rack for his Remington 870 pump. He pocketed a few 12-gauge shells, and then snatched the cane poles from the shed.
“Ready?” Quinn said, pulling Jason’s ball cap over his eyes.
Jason nodded, taking the poles from Quinn, serious on the walk down the well-worn path, through the rows of cedar and oak, scrub pines, and gum trees that had grown tall in the neglect of the old property. They stopped at the edge of the levee, sun setting over the water.
“Stay here.”
Jason stood still. Hondo stayed, panting, at the boy’s side.
Quinn crested the levee and spotted a pair of fat water moccasins sunning themselves on the banks. H
e moved slow and careful through the grass and blasted a fat one in half and reracked a load, sending the other one dropping in pieces into the water.
“They dead?” Jason asked in a soft country accent.
“Just scared ’em a little,” Quinn said, toeing his boot at a piece he missed, Jason not seeing the bloody parts as they rolled into the pond with a plop.
DONNIE VARNER EXPECTED the Mexicans at four, but they didn’t get to his gun range till nearly six, Donnie having to turn on the lights fashioned into his tall pines to give them a decent enough view to shoot. There were four more of them and Alejandro and the girl, the fine-looking one named Luz. She wore jeans and pointy-toed boots and a bright red leather jacket, black hair spilling over her shoulders and down her back, reminding him of a horse’s mane.
He smiled at her when she climbed out of the back of the black Cadillac Escalade and surveyed the bare hills and ruined land around the range, the trailer where he kept his shop, another he rented to Tiny, and up the hill to the small Airstream he called home. The sign out on Highway 9 read southern comfort.
He was glad to see her. But, man, Alejandro sure was a freak show.
The tattoos of the horns and numbers and shit looked even stranger in the harsh artificial light. He burned off a cigarette and reached for another. Three of the other men were big hard-looking Mexes in T-shirts and jeans. The other was just a boy, Donnie figuring him not to be much more than fourteen, holstering a goddamn Glock 9 on his belt.
No introductions asked for or given.
“Thought we agreed on just you and Alejandro?” Donnie asked.
Luz shrugged. “They wanted to shoot.”
“What’s to stop them from shooting my ass and taking the goddamn guns?”
She looked to the tree line where Donnie had spread out his boys Tiny and Shane with deer rifles just in case the party got a little ugly. She turned to him and smiled and said, “The guns?”
He walked the Mexicans over to some tables built with scraps of lumber, a rusted tin roof nailed overhead on four-by-four posts. Donnie snatched a blue tarp from a big table and showed off the weapons along with some ammo. Right then, it started to rain.
