The Innocents

by Ace Atkins

  Anna Lee, in cutoff jeans and an OLE MISS BASEBALL T-shirt, leaned against the kitchen counter. She’d grown her strawberry blonde hair out long that summer and her skin had a burnished red-brown glow, making the freckles even more pronounced. As she moved and stretched, the gray T-shirt rode up a bit on her flat stomach.

  “I know,” she said.

  “I know what I want.”

  “So do I.”

  “But what?”

  “Luke knew you were coming back home,” she said. “He was worried you’d want me and Shelby to leave with you.”

  “That’s crazy,” Quinn said. “Luke might realize I have two aging parents and a crazy sister to look after. Not to mention a wandering cattle dog.”

  “He believes the only reason you came back to Jericho was for me. And, now that you have me, you’ll keep on moving.”

  “Do I have you?”

  “Slow steps,” she said with a grin. “Isn’t that what we agreed?”

  “I don’t like you being with Luke.”

  “He’s still my husband.”

  “Not for much longer.”

  “I have to see him,” she said. “I’ll always have to see him.”

  “But you’re with me,” Quinn said. “Right?”

  Anna Lee gave a weak-as-hell smile, walking toward him. Quinn took the steaks from the skillet and set them on an old china plate to cool. He reached out and pulled her close, his hand touching the warmth of her low back, and kissed her. She kissed him back, but barely, a stiffness in her lips and back. He told her he loved her and she told him she loved him back.

  They ate outside. Anna Lee cut up some heirloom tomatoes for a salad and served them with a couple baked sweet potatoes. Quinn drank his second beer and Anne Lee had a Pepsi, still too much Baptist in her. You can’t commit adultery and drink alcohol at the same damn time.

  “My dad wants me to invest in some more land,” Quinn said. “Said I need to be thinking of the future. Planning a family.”

  Anna Lee nearly spit out her Pepsi but caught herself and wiped off her chin. “Are you kidding me?” she said. “Jason Colson giving you advice on how to plan ahead. I really don’t think he knows what he’s going to do from day to day. All he does is play old Creedence tapes and work on that piece-of-shit Pontiac.”

  “It’s something,” Quinn said. “He’s pretty much just getting to know us.”

  “You know what I think of him and his excuses,” she said. “Your momma feels the same way. She doesn’t care a damn bit about how he’s trying to show off his horses to Little Jason. Acting like he’s goddamn Grandfather of the Year.”

  “He’s trying,” Quinn said. “And he thinks I need to buy up that logged-out land Johnny Stagg owns.”

  “Why?”

  “He wants to open up a dude ranch,” Quinn said. “Well, he’s not calling it that. Basically, he wants us to double our cattle and add some horses. He thinks we can dig a big lake and maybe rent out some cabins. He believes folks would pay for lessons or to board their horses.”

  “That’s crazy.”

  “You know, he was the wrangler on both Pale Rider and Silverado.”

  “Have you actually seen his name in the credits?” Anna Lee said, finally getting down to slicing into the steak. Bloody and nearly raw, just as she liked it. “I mean, to make sure?”

  “I have.”

  “Be careful, Quinn Colson,” she said. “I just don’t want that man to go and break everyone’s heart again.”

  “Aren’t I always?”

  • • •

  Why do you keep those animals around?” Mingo asked.

  The boy stood with Fannie Hathcock in the parking lot of the Rebel, watching the Born Losers race each other up and down the strip between the truck stop and the Golden Cherry Motel, where they sometimes lived. The Golden Cherry was a classic old fifties hotel, with a twenty-unit brick building surrounding a swimming pool. The green-and-bright-red neon sign flashed WELCOME to all the weary travelers coming off Highway 45.

  “I don’t know,” Fannie said. “Maybe because they have character.”

  “They scare the crap out of me,” he said. “I don’t like them in the bar.”

  Mingo was a good kid. Dark, handsome, and smart as a whip. Fannie had brought him along down at the place on Choctaw land when he was thirteen. He was in his early twenties now, skinny, with long black hair and a handsome native face. More than anything, Mingo was loyal. In this business, Fannie appreciated that above all else.

  “The Born Losers,” Fannie said, watching them gather by the motel pool. One of them stripped off his nasty leathers and jumped on in, to a bunch of hoots. “We do for them and they do for us.”

  “Don’t like them,” Mingo said. “Don’t trust them. I don’t get it, Miss Fannie.”

  She and Mingo were taking a smoke break after hanging some new light fixtures in Vienna’s. The noontime sun was harsh and the late summer was hot as hell, heat waving up off the asphalt. Across the road, the Losers were gunning their bikes and playing loud music, the doors of the units they rented wide-open. They were dirty, stinky, and mean, but they were the key to making Highway 45, from the Gulf Coast to Memphis, really work. Without them, the Mexicans would think they were weak.

  “We get a lot of good stuff running through the Rebel,” Fannie said, spewing smoke from the side of her mouth. “I do a little window-shopping and sometimes they get that stuff for me.”

  “That chop shop in Olive Branch?” Mingo said. “With that old trucker who busts up what you send him?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “I don’t like him, either,” Mingo said. “He’s a damn crook.”

  “We all are, baby,” Fannie said. “Me, the Born Losers, that old redneck in Olive Branch. We all do for each other.”

  “But a motorcycle gang?” Mingo said. “Couldn’t you get someone else to do their part?”

  “Crooks work in wild and mysterious ways,” Fannie said. “Nobody wants to testify that those boys hijacked your truck.”

  “Guess not,” Mingo said, strands of black hair flying in front of his flat face. “But they’re really messing up the motel. Two of the doors are broken. All the TVs are gone. If I were you, I’d burn the sheets when they take off for Biloxi.”

  “Good idea,” Fannie said, tossing the nub of her brown cigarillo to the ground. “Will you see to that?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I wouldn’t worry too much about TVs,” Fannie said. “Those boys just liberated a whole truck from Best Buy. You got a laptop?”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Need another?”

  Mingo smiled, his dark Indian hair nearly blue in the hot August light. He’d been full of so much potential down at the Rez. He’d been living with a crackhead sister and her mean-ass boyfriend when Fannie took him. When they came for Mingo or some money, Fannie handed over enough cash to get them high for the rest of the month.

  “They piss in the pool.”

  “I know.”

  “Dirty bastards.”

  “But they’re our dirty bastards,” Fannie said. “We just can’t let them ever forget who’s boss.”

  • • •

  Back when Milly Jones was a cheerleader, she’d been a Big Fucking Deal, all eyes on her as the girls would toss her high in the air, twirling and spinning, being blinded by the stadium lights and bright green of the field. The lightest on the team, a damn two-time state champion, who’d learned how quick your life could turn to shit. Not a year out of school, working two goddamn jobs, the Dollar Store in Jericho and the Build-A-Bear Workshop in Tupelo, and now thinking about scrounging for dollar bills at a titty club.

  The team tossed up the new flyer that Friday night, a little girl named Tiffany, building a damn human pyramid, and Milly grinned down from the bleachers and
clapped and cheered louder than anyone. She was happy for them. Really, she was happy as hell. The band from Lafayette County blared out “Party in the U.S.A.” and for exactly three seconds she forgot that she wasn’t a part of this anymore. It was a hot August night and the grass was green and cool. The lights, the players, the students and families all packed in tight. Everything so familiar.

  “I hadn’t heard from you in two weeks,” Nikki said.

  “I told you what I’m doing.”

  “Oh,” Nikki said. “That big secret thing.”

  “You remember that writer I told you about?” Milly asked. “The one that writes romance novels, but about Christians. So they talk about the Bible and Jesus more than just doing it?”

  “Sure.”

  “Well, she’s signing books over in Tupelo tomorrow,” Milly said. “If she can’t help me tell my story, ain’t no one can.”

  “Can your car make it over to Tupelo?”

  “I’ll see that it does.”

  “So you’ll tell her, but you won’t tell me,” Nikki said. “Son of a bitch. I’ve known you most of my life, Milly. And I’ve never known you to act stranger.”

  It was true Milly had known Nikki since second grade, best friends since they were in eighth grade and went on that mission trip to Belize. In between smoking dope and fooling around with the pastor’s son and his best friend, they’d both finally realized the world looked a hell of a lot brighter away from Tibbehah County. And they’d never be like their mommas, not knowing which way to cross the road. Nikki reached down and held her six-month-old son, Jon-Jon, tighter in her lap.

  “I don’t want you hurt,” Milly said. “This thing—this secret—will turn Jericho inside out.”

  “Shit,” Nikki said. “I don’t think there’s a lot that would shock this place.”

  Milly looked down at the field, the sidelines crowded with players and coaches. Everyone waiting for the coin toss in the center of the field, seeing which way things would go. A hot wind blew in from the west, smelling of burning leaves and fresh-cut grass. The summer was about over.

  “This will.”

  “What is it?”

  “Damn you,” Milly said. “Don’t you listen?”

  “Oh, come the fuck on,” Nikki said.

  “It’s not my secret,” Milly said. “It’s about Brandon.”

  And that stopped Nikki cold from opening up her mouth. Ever since Milly’s brother had blown his goddamn head off while supposedly cleaning his .308 in the woods, there hadn’t been a lot of interest in discussion. For a long while, people would walk the other way when they’d see her. What the hell do you say to the girl who had a defect for a brother? Killing yourself is a cold, hard sin to these Baptists.

  “Can you at least tell me where you’re living now since your momma tossed you out?”

  “Momma didn’t toss me out,” Milly said. “I left because I was tired of all her shit. All she does is watch The View and sell her essential oils to her dumb friends. I moved in with Daddy.”

  “I thought you hated your daddy.”

  “When I was dating Joshua, me and Daddy butted heads,” Milly said. “He couldn’t wrap his thick redneck head around the fact that his little blonde angel was going with a black boy. You know what he called him?”

  “I do.”

  “But now that me and Joshua aren’t together no more, he’s not so damn pissed-off,” she said. “He takes out his shit on his new girlfriend.”

  “Did you tell him what you’re doing?” Nikki said. “This top secret writing project, filling up those little journals with your book.”

  “It’s not my story.”

  “I know.”

  “And I don’t want to talk about it,” she said. “Not until things come together.”

  “And you blow the fucking roof off Jericho, Mississippi?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Why do you need this woman to help you?”

  “This isn’t the kind of thing to whisper,” Milly said. “This is something that’s gotta be told right. She’ll know what to do. She knows people. How to tell the story in the right way. I mean, do you start at the end or go back before it all happened?”

  “He was cleaning his gun,” Nikki said. “Right? That part is true.”

  “We all tell ourselves lies,” Milly said, reaching down and touching little Jon-Jon’s face. “It’s what gets us through the night.”

  4

  There were times when Lillie Virgil wasn’t so sure she wanted to be sheriff. She’d spent Saturday morning hosing down the cell where D. J. Norwood had pissed himself, that turd not flushing quickly enough through the justice system and out of her jail. After, she hadn’t even had a chance to return a few calls and grab some breakfast when the local high school coach wanted to have a sit-down. Last night, Reggie Caruthers pulled over one of his former players hotboxing around the Square with a baggie full of pills, enough weed to choke Matthew McConaughey, and a loaded pistol on the dashboard.

  “He’s just a fine boy who made a mistake,” Coach Bud Mills said, smiling, wanting the woman to know the ways of the world. “He’s a hard worker, tough-minded, and a good Christian. His momma is a pastor out in Blackjack.”

  “Besides the weed and pills,” Lillie said, “you do know we got a loaded Smith & Wesson .357. We traced the gun back to Clarksdale, where it was stolen last year. We also have good reason to believe he’s running with a crew here called the North Side Boys. Heard of them?”

  “What’s that, some kind of rap group?”

  “It’s a gang,” Lillie said. “They’ve been known to work with some pretty rough folks up in Memphis.”

  “It’s hard for my boys,” Mills said. “They come out of high school with everyone patting their back. But when they don’t get recruited or can’t get a scholarship, they’re nothing. They get chewed up and spit out. If Ordeen gets put in the system, he can’t get out. I prayed with him this morning. He’s learned his lesson. Y’all scared the hell out of him. Keep the gun. Let him move on.”

  “We intend to keep the gun,” Lillie said. “It’s stolen property.”

  “It wasn’t his.”

  “Then where’d he get it?”

  Mills shook his head. He reached for a Styrofoam cup at the edge of her desk and spit out a little Skoal. He leaned back and folded his arms over his hard, round stomach.

  “It’s not easy in that culture,” he said. “You know? Most of them don’t have no good role models, with Daddy knocking up Momma and then shagging ass. Ordeen is different. His momma is a preacher. Good family, knows right from wrong. He’s just restless, is all. Can’t find his way. Can’t find any work . . . Thanks again for that cup of coffee. It’s real early for me.”

  “Nice of you to bail him out.”

  “Ordeen is special,” Mills said. “If he’d had better grades or could run just a little faster, he’d be up at Ole Miss right now instead of cleaning out toilets at the Rebel Truck Stop.”

  “Is that what he’s doing?”

  “That was the job I got him,” Mills said. “Before all that business happened to Johnny Stagg.”

  Lillie nodded. She never thought of Johnny Stagg as anyone’s victim. Hard to feel bad for a man who’d been sucking off the county’s tit for more than two decades without anyone questioning him.

  “All I ask is for you to consider the situation.”

  “You want me to drop the charges?”

  “Now, Lillie,” Mills said. “How long have you known me? You forget how close I was to your momma. We all miss her. She was the best damn secretary the school ever had. Every Christmas, she baked me a tin of sugar cookies.”

  “We all miss her.”

  “I know, Lillie,” he said. “How’s that daughter? She’s named Rose, too, isn’t she?”

  “Yes, sir.” />
  Mills spit some more in the cup. He had on a mesh ball cap with the Wildcats logo on it, red coach’s shorts, and a gray T-shirt. Didn’t look like he’d had time to change from the season opener last night. Even if you’d never met Bud Mills in your life, you’d peg him for a coach. Ruddy cheeks, weak chin, and small, clear blue eyes. He was bald on top and graying on the sides. The way she remembered it, her mother always thought he was an asshole.

  “Yeah,” Lillie said. “Y’all were friends.”

  “I’m so sorry, Lil.”

  “It’s been six years.”

  “Your momma had a big heart,” Mills said. “Especially when it came to kids from poor homes. She knew some children just weren’t loved. They didn’t serve no purpose in their homes and got treated worse than dogs.”

  Mary Alice walked up to her glass door, held up her hand holding a callback slip, and Lillie waved her away. She leaned into the desk that had once been her mentor’s, Hamp Beckett, and then had been her friend Quinn’s for a few years. The top of the desk was battered, still scarred with cigar burns from Quinn. It needed a good resurfacing.

  “You keep up with most of your former players?”

  “Those who want to.”

  “What about Nito Reece?”

  “Ole Ranito?” Mills said, laughing. “Hadn’t seen him in a long while.”

  “Hard to find Ordeen without Nito nearby,” Lillie said. “When we arrested Ordeen, Nito was in the backseat. It was Ordeen’s car. He had the weapon on him.”

  “Nito is another story,” Mills said, grinning. “I’m not coming here and vouching for Nito. I kicked that boy to the curb last season. He embarrassed everyone. Smokin’ dope and putting it out there for the world to see on the Internets.”

  Lillie looked across the desk at old Bud Mills, hero to Tibbehah County, the name on the sign when you hit the county line. Two-time State Champs. He smiled back at her as she stared, reaching for his spit cup again, taking a big breath, waiting to hear the game plan.

  “You can talk to the prosecutor, Coach,” Lillie said. “But Ordeen and Nito scare the hell out of me. They got a hell of a bad thing going. And either you’re gonna have to start mailing ’em cheese and crackers to Parchman or visiting them at the cemetery. But they’re long down a fucked-up patch of road.”