The Innocents

by Ace Atkins

  Charlie Rich sang “Behind Closed Doors” as the bikes rode up to the barn, slowed, and killed their engines. A tall, gangly man with a black beard slid off an old Harley and asked, “Are you in charge of Jesus Land out here?”

  “I’m Caddy Colson,” she said. “I run The River.”

  “No need to get excited because of a couple of scooters,” he said. “I came out to see a friend of ours. Girl named Milly Jones.”

  “Don’t know her.”

  “I heard she was tossed out of her daddy’s house and is staying out back in one of your shacks.”

  “If she was, it’s nobody’s business,” she said. “People come here for shelter, not to be hassled.”

  “Do I look like someone who’d hassle a young lady?”

  “Mister, you look like that’s your main occupation.”

  “Colson, Colson,” the biker said. “You any kin to that soldier who was the sheriff?”

  “You bet,” Caddy said. “And I got the new sheriff on speed dial. So unless you want to start explaining trespassing, y’all better ride off into the sunset.”

  “Sun has already set.”

  “So it has,” Caddy said, arms resting on the bed of her truck. Charlie Rich sang “The Most Beautiful Girl” from her phone as she glanced into the cab and spotted her old Sears & Roebuck twelve-gauge Quinn had given her. It had belonged to their Uncle Hamp. “Good night.”

  “I guess you wouldn’t mind if we checked them shacks out back, then,” the biker said.

  “What’s your name?”

  “Lyle,” he said. “But folks call me Wrong Way.”

  “Fitting.”

  Some of his boys crawled off their scooters, making themselves at home. Lyle nodded back through the gaping mouths of the barn—open front to back. “Through here.”

  “We have women who’ve gone through hell and back trying to get some rest back there,” she said. “All they need is some greasy peckerwoods to come knocking on their door and sending their hearts up into their throats. So, no. It’s not that way. The only way is back down the road you came.”

  “Oh, baby,” Lyle said. “No need to be like that.”

  And if you did. Was she crying, crying?

  Caddy opened the door to the truck and pulled out the twelve-gauge. “Get gone.”

  “Come on, Pastor,” he said. “Don’t be that way.”

  “Do I look like I went to divinity school?” Caddy said. “I’ve been hosing shit and piss down after a three-day revival. And now I sure as shit don’t mind firing off a few rounds into those beautiful scooters of yours.”

  The bikers started to make cat noises, hissing and meowing, laughing like hell. The whole scene just a damn joke to them. Some skinny little girl in rubber boots threatening to shoot their asses.

  “All right,” Lyle said, showing his palms. “All right. But you see that Milly Jones, tell her we were asking about her.”

  Tell her I’m sorry. Tell her, I need my baby.

  The stock felt heavy and solid up under Caddy’s arm, a steady sweat pealing down from her short hair and into her eyes. “Back down the road, fellas,” she said. “Unless you’ve come to worship. Door’s always wide-open for that.”

  Lyle walked back to his bike and threw his leg over his Harley. “Just might take you up on that sometime, ma’am.”

  They started their bikes together and inelegantly turned right back around and rode into the oncoming black night, leaving dust and exhaust hanging over the tilled garden patch.

  • • •

  Milly had said good-bye to her momma and her sister before the game. Now, she needed to find a place away from Jericho where she could just live for a while. When she got on her feet, she could make things right. She could send back the money to Miss Fannie, talk to her daddy about those stupid threats. The only thing she wanted was to get some breathing room and figure out a way for folks to hear her. The last few years had felt like screaming underwater with no one hearing or seeing what she was saying.

  Milly drove away from all the cars and trucks bunched together behind the stadium and past the fat little deputy standing at the edge of the road. She figured she’d ride through Jericho, ’round about the Square, to see who was about. Maybe she’d see her sister or run into Joshua—maybe wanting to see Joshua more than anybody. He was the only one who believed her, believed in her, until things became such a goddamn mess.

  The Square looked good that Friday night, calm and empty, with most everyone at the game. A few boys had cut out early, parking their jacked-up trucks and custom muscle cars up by the gazebo and veterans’ memorial. A couple boys from high school added to the monument now. One of them had gotten in her pants once, then he’d gone off to Afghanistan and got blown to bits. She was glad she gave herself to him before he left. He wasn’t a handsome boy—pimply face, big Adam’s apple—but he’d been kind and sweet. About the most you could ask for.

  Even though it was August, the old oaks twinkled with white Christmas lights, and at least two of the storefronts shone with light. Pizza Inn and the Panda Buffet. The others were either closed up for the night or closed up forever. The old movie house that had been one church or another Milly’s whole life had been bought up last year and redone. They had a cheap marquee on it now, a special double feature of WHITE LIGHTNING AND GATOR. SPECIAL APPEARANCE BY STUNTMAN JASON COLSON!

  She headed north out of town, past the old post office, taking the new bridge over the Big Black River, a gentle curve of concrete lifting her way up above the dark waters and sending her on toward Yellow Leaf and then beyond toward Highway 45 North. Her old Kia sputtered and coughed, the incline of the bridge being maybe more than it could take. She checked her gas, knew she had enough to at least get to Tupelo, but as soon as she heard the pop and saw all that steam, she knew she was screwed. That burned antifreeze smell filled the car, the engine shut down, and only through damn gravity was she able to roll down from the bridge and turn onto the landing where folks set their boats into the river in the spring and summer. As the Kia rolled to a stop, she rested her forehead on the steering wheel. Steam hissing through the cracks of the hood.

  Milly made two phone calls and then walked to the water’s edge, where she smoked a cigarette and paced up and down the muddy bank.

  Twenty minutes later, she saw a car turn off the end of the bridge and wind down toward her. Milly waved to the car, the headlights lighting up high and bright in her face. She had to use a forearm over her eyes so she could see who’d given a shit enough to come help.

  The door opened. Milly saw the face and stepped backward, tripping over her own legs. “Get the hell away from me.”

  12

  Finally rolling,” Indiana Jack said, calling in to dispatch in Memphis. “Shipper was having equipment problems.”

  “Make sure you stop by the office,” dispatch said. “You need to get your permit books updated and those IFTA stickers.”

  “Ten-four,” Indiana Jack said. “I’ll be headed backwoods on the way to Wally World. May shut down for an hour if I’m having shutter trouble.”

  “Drive safe,” dispatch said. “See you back at the mother ship.”

  Indiana Jack hung up the CB and thought about a warm bed, hot breakfast at the Flying J, a T-bone and two eggs sunny side up, side of grits, and a pot of hot coffee. He’d be sleeping in until Monday, get a couple days with his wife and their two grandkids. Maybe go to the zoo or the Bass Pro Shop. He’d been living down South now for the last four years, having met Sheri online on that farmersonly.com, not that he was a farmer, but he wanted a woman who was looking to meet a regular joe. Sheri was a good woman, a stout widow with four kids and eight grandchildren. She ran her own business, a knitting supply company in Cordova. Indiana Jack and her had been cohabitating now for the last two years and things couldn’t be better.

  Jack knocked it down a
gear as he slipped down the snake of the new Big Black River Bridge, headlights lighting up a fine early evening. He reached for some coffee from the Thermos cap and took a big sip. He’d been running and gunning since Mobile at four a.m. He didn’t mind being a company man. He’d been working for Walmart since he moved to Memphis. It wasn’t a bad thing knowing you had steady work, not having to hustle a load.

  Jack kept on the radio to listen, never being the kind of driver to get ratchet jaw. He drank some coffee. Set the AC on high to dry the sweat off his face and keep him awake. He punched up the next stop, computer calculating the mileage and his fuel load. The back road to the highway had plenty of rolling green hills and lots of cattle. He could see himself settling down in a little place like this county. Maybe getting some acreage, building a shop to tinker around with once Sheri got tired of minding store.

  Indiana Jack shifted down and hit a steady fifty, the night shining bright under a full moon, signs leading him back to 45. He rolled past a couple of rural churches, two convenience stores, and a cinder-block beauty shop called Nanette’s.

  “Breaker, breaker,” he said. “This is Indiana Jack slow-rolling to Memphis. On channel one-nine. High Plains Drifter, you got your ears on?”

  High Plains Drifter, a coffin hauler out of Batesville, answered right back, calling him a sorry so-and-so, just as a bright patch of light caught Jack’s eye. He shifted down, the bluish light nearly stepping in front of him, and he saw the bright light was a human form, someone walking, and he hit the brakes, nearly losing the whole rig as it slid for another forty yards to a hard, skidding stop. Burnt rubber hung heavy in the air. Indiana Jack hopped out of the cab with the shipping blanket he kept on the jump seat and ran toward whatever it was, thinking something was maybe playing with his mind. But he knew when he saw a bluish orange flame walking down the centerline.

  “Sweet Jesus.”

  Indiana Jake ran toward the thing, covering up the smoldering fire with the old gray blanket, trying to smother the flame that just wouldn’t die. The body was small and frail, with bright red skin beyond belief. Never a praying man, Jack began to pray over and over, call out to Jesus on the main line, or whoever was listening, to help this screaming, crying little mass. It had no hair and not much of a mouth. Words, or something like it, were coming out between the screams. There were eyes in all the burned flesh staring right at him, trying to say something.

  He ran back to the truck and grabbed his cell phone and called 911. “Help. We got a dying woman out on 421, a half mile or so from 45.”

  “What’s the medical emergency?”

  “It’s a girl,” Indiana Jack said. “She’s been set on fire, god damn it. Y’all come on right now. She ain’t gonna make it.”

  13

  Will she make it?” Lillie said.

  “No way,” Ophelia Bundren said. Lillie had called Ophelia, the county coroner, right after the Burn Unit in Memphis. The helicopter blades on the medevac started to spin, kicking up dirt, grit, and plastic bottles from the bridge where it had landed moments ago. Ophelia turned away, black hair covering her face, as she closed her eyes.

  “Jesus, God,” Lillie said. “I’ve never seen anything like that. And I hope to never again.”

  “EMTs pumped her full of morphine,” Ophelia said. “There’s that.”

  Ophelia was two years younger than Lillie, two inches shorter, but prettier, dark hair and eyes and a tight red mouth. She didn’t talk a lot, but when she did, it was often explosive. She’d once thrown a steak knife at Quinn Colson when she found out about him and Anna Lee.

  “How could she be alive?” Lillie said. “After all that? Christ, the girl was walking while on fire.”

  Ophelia shook her head. The helicopter lifted up high and big over the Big Black River, red light pulsing on the tail, and dipped its nose toward Memphis, flying fast and away. Ophelia walked to the edge of the bridge and held on to the wall, taking deep breaths. She just kept on shaking her head, looking like she might toss her cookies.

  “Her mouth was the worst of it,” Lillie said. “Someone had poured something into her before they lit her up. She kept on trying to talk, tell me something, but nothing made sense. I didn’t know who or what I was looking at until we ran the tag on her car. Now I see her eyes. Her eyes were bloodshot but focused. She wanted us to know who did this.”

  “Someone wanted that little girl shut up fast.”

  “You OK?” Lillie said.

  “You bet,” Ophelia said. “I’ve seen some things half as bad.”

  “Good.” Lillie put her hand to her own mouth and walked down the road to where the flares had been set, burning down to their final sparks. She stepped off a good two or three paces before she ran toward the edge of the bridge and lost her lunch.

  “It’s OK,” Ophelia said. “It happens.”

  “Fuck it all,” Lillie said. “I don’t want anyone seeing me be sick. I’ve worked a lot of homicides. It’s, just, the smell. God damn, it’s all over me. It’s her. Burning. It’s all on me.”

  “Lemon juice and bleach mixed with water,” Ophelia said. “If that doesn’t work, I have strong soap at the funeral home. You can take some.”

  “I don’t know how you do it,” she said. “Every damn day.”

  “Old people die,” she said. “What gets to me are the kids. Or bad accidents. People with parts missing. Or their faces real fucked-up. But I promise you, I have never seen anything like this. Ever. Did you say she was walking?”

  “Some old trucker from Indiana stopped her,” Lillie said, wiping her mouth, looking around to see who may have seen her throw up. God damn it. Everyone looked intent on watching that helicopter, a bunch of folks stopped on the side of the road to pray. “Someone needs to buy that old boy a drink. He’s a goddamn mess. He said she was all lit up like a candle, seeing fire in her mouth and over her back. He knew it was a girl from her screams. He kept on talking about those screams, how it was so high-pitched, he couldn’t get it out of his head. And that man had been in fucking Vietnam.”

  “Christ Almighty,” Ophelia said. “I sure as hell hope no one wants an open casket.”

  “Don’t worry,” Lillie said. “I’m no expert. But I don’t think that’ll happen.”

  “Who is she, Lil?”

  “Teenager named Milly Jones,” Lillie said. “Her father filed a missing persons report on her two days ago. Said she’d been messing around with drugs. He told us he’d heard she’d been stripping, maybe turning a trick or two.”

  “Boyfriend?”

  “You can bet your ass we’ll find out,” Lillie said. “This kind of hate, meanness, doesn’t have a place in this world. Only a goddamn animal would do something like this.”

  “In my experience,” Ophelia said, “animals are more kind.”

  “Did you get photos?” Lillie asked. “For after.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  Lillie nodded and shook her head. Her mouth tasted metallic and she spit on the bridge. She wanted very badly to take a shower in lemon juice and bleach, maybe burn her whole uniform. A hot wind shook the trees off the Big Black. In between the passing cars and occasional whoop-whooping siren, you could still hear the old river turning and churning. That was a strange comfort.

  “Oh, shit,” Ophelia said. Her black hair blew across her face and dark eyes, catching in her mouth. Ophelia still was wearing the black uniform of the Bundren Funeral Home. Serving Jericho’s Families Since 1962.

  Lillie looked toward the end of the bridge and in the darkness she saw Quinn Colson talking with Kenny and Kenny, pointing their way. Ophelia had done her best to stay clear of Quinn since things had gone Deep South. That knife being thrown had been the punctuation in their relationship.

  “Will they release the body back to the county?” Ophelia said.

  Lillie nodded. “Might have some state people take a look, t
oo,” she said. “No offense.”

  “None taken,” Ophelia said. “I’m pretty good. But I’m better at putting together than taking apart. I’m just damn glad you’re the sheriff right now.”

  “Hadn’t you heard?”

  Ophelia swallowed and shook her head. There was a great deal of noise and light at the foot of the bridge. An empty ambulance bucked up onto the asphalt from the landing. Lillie had taped off pretty much the whole area. Kenny, Reggie, and the rest were out with flashlights. It was going to be a long night. News crews coming in from Jackson, Tupelo, and Memphis.

  “I offered Quinn a part-time job,” Lillie said. “Until he heads back to Afghanistan.”

  “Why the hell does he just keep coming back?” Ophelia said. “He should’ve gathered up that trophy and left a long time back.”

  • • •

  Ordeen forgot to get his momma some whole milk. She’d asked him three damn times already and then he came home without the milk and she’d sent his ass back to the Gas & Go. You back-talk her and you’re in a world of hurt. Sammi was there, as always, his face all fucked-up, cut and bruised. He should’ve known Ordeen didn’t have shit to do with it. That was between him and Nito. Nito was fucking crazy, Ordeen thought, walking down the aisle with the freezer buzzing on high at midnight.

  “Five ninety-five,” Sammi said, when Ordeen set down the jug.

  “For a gallon of fucking milk?”

  “Five ninety-five.”

  “That’s bullshit, man,” Ordeen said. “You fuck people ’cause you can. ’Cause if we don’t pay that much, you send us down to Jericho. Cost that much in gas.”

  “Cost me that much in gas,” Sammi said. “Five ninety-five.”