South of Shiloh

by Chuck Logan

  “Marcy?” Mitch grinned. Relief like anointing oil, like his brain dumped about a quart of serotonin.

  “Look. I only got a minute. Hang tight. We’re gonna get you out. Your weird wife approached me and I talked to Dwayne. We’re working on it. She’s following our instructions so listen to what she has to say.”

  “What’s going on?” Mitch bounced on his feet.

  “One for the books. She’s paying us to let you go.”

  “That’s all,” Ellie hissed. LaSalle grabbed the phone from Mitch’s hand, ended the call, and turned it off. “Back inside,” he said.

  Mitch kept grinning as he noticed that ole LaSalle was working manfully to keep his face straight. Ellie was walking back and forth in the rain, down by the lake, with her arms clamped across her chest. Lips moving.

  Damn.

  The shackle now a minor bother, Mitch sat erect, cross-legged, shaggy and dirty as a barbarian chieftain holding court in his cave.

  He lit a Marlboro, poured a cup of thermos coffee, and savored the minutes until Ellie dragged her ass in here for an audience. Always had her daddy, her brother, and me to protect her from her impulsive decisions.

  What we got here, Ellender Jane, is a little more serious than blowing your monthly allowance on furniture in Memphis.

  He cocked his head. Scuff scuff went her running shoes on the rocks and rubble and dirt. Head lowered, arms stiff at her side, Ellie walked down the passage, stopped, and raised her eyes; the poor little rich girl discovering what her tantrums can cost out in the real world.

  Mitch stood up so he could look down on her, smiled, and asked, “You think I could get a razor and some hot water? A mirror?”

  “Shut up, goddamn it,” Ellie said, her jaw pulsing red like it was going to sprout gills.

  Mitch waited, couldn’t help smiling.

  She folded her arms across her chest. “This whole thing has become impossible. I need to get you out of here. But you have to understand, Mitchell Lee. This is the last one of your messes I clean up. Killing that poor boy…?”

  “Prove it. You can’t, can you? And you realized that. You and your brain-dead zombie had your fun and now the bill comes due and you’re looking for a way out.”

  She drew herself up, indignant. “While my daddy is dying I have spent the week dealing with the scum of the earth.” Her lips curled in disgust. “…setting up this…arrangement.”

  “I’m all ears, sweetheart.”

  “I had to deal with your slut.” She balled her fists and took a combative step forward; seething now but careful to keep her toes on the safe side of the line. “Now I’m mixed up with your crooked cousin, Dwayne,” she cut him with a sharp look. “That gets out…” She shook her head. “You have no idea what I’ve been through.”

  Mitch curved his lips in feigned sympathy—right, bitch, and I been sunning myself here by the pool—but, you know, just maybe Marcy and Dwayne could untangle it. Sonofabitch.

  “What’s the arrangement?” he asked.

  “Tomorrow morning LaSalle will turn you over to Dwayne. And we’ll…just make all this go away.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  She glowered and cut him off, “Don’t say anything. Just listen. We clear so far?”

  Mitch bit his lip and nodded.

  “Then Dwayne will take you back to Memphis where they’ll concoct an alibi. Something. I suspect Billie Watts will be involved. That’s not my concern.”

  Mitch accepted her dirty look. This was starting to sound like it could work. “You think this up?” he asked.

  “I’m paying for it, is what I’m doing,” she said in a frazzled voice.

  Mitch nodded again. “And the rifle?”

  Ellie raised her chin and sniffed. “Kenny Beeman’s already been by and I told him the rifle disappeared from the gun rack. LaSalle passed it off to Dwayne. I suspect it will turn up in the trunk of an abandoned car, along with other stolen items. The Minnesota guy’s death will stay as is, an accident.”

  “What about Beeman?” Mitch asked, tapping his teeth together.

  “What about him? Marcy says you’ll work something out with Memphis PD. Turn yourself in, like all the gossip had you spooked. I don’t know.”

  Mitch mulled it. The plan, the dream, the land. Shit, if Dwayne had his hooks in her, it could still work. Even better with her on board. She’d have to go along and maybe get to keep her funny little life. He shrugged, “It could work.”

  “I never want to see you again,” she blurted.

  “Oh, I don’t know. Now that you’re getting to know my family?”

  “Don’t even!” Her eyes flashed.

  Mitch exhaled and nodded. “Okay. So where do I meet them in the morning?”

  “Not around here, that’s for sure. Someplace over the line in Tennessee. We’re working that out,” Ellie said.

  As she turned to leave, Mitch couldn’t resist calling out. “Ellie? Why’d you do this in the first place?”

  She just kept walking, shouting, furious, over her shoulder. “You were in trouble. I was trying to help you, you dumb shit.”

  After she disappeared down the corridor, LaSalle returned with the rinsed chamber pot. As he placed it on the floor, he gave Mitch one of his cold smoke looks. “You get all the twisted white-folks shit straightened out?” he asked. Then he placed a fifth of Jack Daniels next to the chamber pot. “Little going-away party for you tonight. And here’s two more Demerol.” He set a folded napkin next to the bottle. “You go with the Jack, lay off the pills. They don’t mix.” Then he withdrew down the passage.

  Mitch studied the bottle of bourbon as he plucked up the napkin, dumped the pills into his palm, weighed them, and glanced back at the bottle.

  Then he folded the pills back in the napkin, stuffed it in his pocket, dragged his chain to the empty pot, undid his filthy wool trousers, and splashed urine on General Grant’s scruffy face. As he buttoned up his pants, he caught his reflection flicker in the bottom of the pot. First look he’d had of himself in a week. Wincing, he jockeyed around to get a better view and fingered his week-old growth of beard, his unkempt hair. The idea of a hot shower…

  Then, slowly, he ran his fingers over the square of gauze taped to his cheek. Looking at it got him thinking how his cheek hurt a hell of a lot more than falling on a flowerpot. So he dragged the pot closer to the overhead bulb and gingerly loosened the dressing and let it hang. Shifting around to get the best angle on the light, he knelt, waiting for his image to settle down in the lapping circle of piss. Slowly, his face came into focus and the four deep slashes on his cheek didn’t look anything like a laceration caused by falling down.

  What the hell? Did the crazy bitch claw on him when he was out? What was in the tetanus shot anyway?

  Mitch replaced the bandage and methodically peeled the cap off the bourbon. He took one drink, relishing the hot trickle down his throat and warming through his chest. Then he poured most of the bottle into the chamber pot, recorked it, and placed it aside. If he drank too much Jack on top of the drugs he’d been taking, he’d be easy as a baby to handle in the morning. Best wait on the party, think this through. He lit a cigarette, poured another cup of coffee from the thermos, and sat back against the wall.

  Marcy’s voice on the phone was real.

  But.

  Were they getting tricky on him?

  56

  “BULLETS,” BEEMAN SAID, HOLDING OUT HIS hand.

  “What’d she say?” Rane asked, hunched against a rising wind.

  “Touched on a number of things. Bullets,” Beeman repeated.

  Rane realized that Beeman wasn’t calling in the undercovers; that this was still between the two of them. So he rummaged in his cartridge box, pulled out the pack of baby wipes, extracted the sealed baggie, and gave it to Beeman, who opened the wrapping, studied the packet, and then slipped it in his cartridge box. “Now tell me about this rifle. Why’s it all rusty?” Beeman asked as he slipped the Sharps off his shoulder and he
ld it in both hands.

  “I sprayed it with water and left it in my flower bed before I left St. Paul.”

  “Lord. Will it fire?”

  “I plugged the barrel and I greased the breech and hammer and protected the cone.”

  “And the tape on the sights?”

  “Go ahead, peel it off.” After Beeman removed the tape, Rane said, “Trick of the trade. See the white marks along the right side of the flip-up sight? You place the top of the open aperture on a normal man’s head. If the first line falls on line with his eyes, he’s a hundred yards. If the second line is level with the bottom of his chin it’s two hundred. Third line across the bottom of his neck even with his shoulders it’s three hundred.”

  Beeman flipped up the sights and scanned across the field, nodded, lowered the rifle.

  “Now slide the catch back to free the lever,” Rane said.

  When Beeman freed the catch and cranked the lever, the block dropped and the breech opened smoothly. He inserted a finger and withdrew it, rubbing a light coat of graphite lubricant between thumb and forefinger. Then he dug around and eased one of the linen-wrapped bullets from his bag, turned it in his fingers, and felt the sharp, conical lead tip. He inserted the bullet and closed the lever.

  Rane said, “It takes a regular percussion cap.” After a moment, he added: “My uncle built that gun. I put about thirty rounds through it before I left home. The ramp sights are true. Hundred yards up to eight hundred.”

  “Slick,” Beeman said. “I see a rusty rifle and I think, this is a dumb-ass city boy from up North who doesn’t know squat about guns, huh?”

  Rane shrugged.

  “What about the camera, you shining me down the road there too?” Beeman asked.

  “Camera’s legit,” Rane said, shifting from foot to foot.

  Beeman grunted. “Well, you had me fooled on the rifle.” Then he said softly, “Play to your opponent’s prejudices. Something Sheba taught me. A smart black dude’ll play that one to perfection against a redneck. Have the range on him every time.”

  “Something like that,” Rane said as he looked around. “Okay, Beeman, now what?”

  Beeman grinned and they locked eyes. “Now I’m armed is what. And you’re gonna help me get the sonofabitch if he shows his face. What you came for, am I right?”

  “Something like that,” Rane said.

  A raw wind came off the Tennessee River and whipped through the trees with enough force to scatter dead leaves. They removed their packs and leathers, unrolled their sky-blue greatcoats, and put them on. As they restrung their gear, Beeman handed Rane his Enfield and his bayonet, then shouldered the Sharps. With the caped collars of their coats turned up against the wind, they started walking back toward the parking lot.

  Like a tiny school of sharks following prey, the undercovers and the van conformed to their movements.

  “Would you have gone after him, given the opportunity?” Beeman asked.

  “You asking as a cop or man to man?” Rane asked back.

  Beeman sighed. “C’mon, John, we’re both bending the rules right about now, don’t you think?”

  Rane stopped, turned, and looked directly at Beeman. “Yeah. I would have gone after him. If I got a fix on him and the conditions were right.”

  “You mean if no one was watching?”

  “I had an idea. Not a plan. If I really had a plan would I be talking to you about it?”

  “You come all this way?” Beeman asked.

  “He shot a good man. He ruined a little girl’s life.”

  “C’mon, John. Gotta be more,” Beeman said. “Wearing Paul’s shit. This habit you got about stepping into a role before you do a story?”

  Rane withdrew the fate card from his pocket and handed it to Beeman, who studied it a moment, then handed it back.

  “Man, that’s creepy, ’specially here. Ain’t gonna bring him back,” Beeman said with slow appraisal.

  “Might bring me back,” Rane said softly.

  He put the card into his pocket and turned away. The fields were emptying, as spectators and reenactors hurried toward the shelter of their tents and cars. Only the monuments and the bleak rows of black cannons stood fast. “Everybody who writes about this place describes it as special,” he said finally.

  Beeman rubbed his knuckles across the stubble on his cheek, then blew on his hands to warm them. “I been to Gettysburg several times and it’s sacred ground but it’s kinda this marble sacred ground. Shiloh’s out here all alone in the woods. Pretty much the way it was. Only two of the Confederates buried here were ever identified. And just a third of the Union dead. You spend the night here camped on the ground and listen long enough you get beyond sacred pretty quick into haunted. It was fierce, what happened here, John, the first modern battle…”

  “You ever been shot at, Beeman?” Rane asked abruptly.

  Beeman studied Rane’s face in the pale storm light. “The truth? Couple piddly contacts going into Kuwait. Small arms, some mortars. And years back, Wally Hunter took a pop at me with a .32 as he was going out the back door of his house over south. Missed me by four feet and drilled a hole in a picture of Bobby Kennedy his mom had over the kitchen table. I had a twelve-gauge pump so I put a load of birdshot in his large black ass to slow him down.”

  “Didn’t try to kill him?”

  “Why would I do that? I known him since we were little kids clipping tamales off Rat Ferguson’s cart down by the depot. Shit, we played ball against each other when he was at Easom High. Plus his wife and four children were hiding in the parlor. ’Course the reason I was there is he was beating on his woman. Friday-night drunk, was all.”

  “What about the Leets kid, the one you put in prison?”

  “Donnie? He emptied a nine at me during the car chase. After I run him off the road he reloaded and let a few more fly as he was running away. I was so amped when I jumped out of the car I damn near mashed handprints in the grip of my SIG. Won’t lie. I tried to put him down. Wound up hitting him in the knee.”

  Rane looked past Beeman into the trees, where the mist churned like troubled breath. “What happened here must have been like fighting in your backyard,” he said.

  “More like fighting in your living room. There were brothers shooting at each other,” Beeman said.

  Rane reached for his canteen, pulled the cork, and took a drink. “You remember the desert?” he asked.

  Beeman nodded, clearly intrigued that Rane was finally starting to talk. “I remember sand in everything and damn near forgetting what green looked like.”

  They were walking past a row of cannons lined up facing the Sunken Road. Rane slowed his pace and peered across Duncan Field into the oak thickets beyond a split-rail fence.

  “I don’t believe in ghosts, Beeman. Or demons,” he said slowly. “But I do believe in consequences.”

  Beeman cocked his head, listening.

  “It was just that one time,” Rane said. “I put down seven Republican Guards in less than five minutes. They never got a round inside twenty yards of me.” Then he stopped, extended his hand, and touched the slick, wet muzzle of a cannon. Turning to Beeman, he said, “I’ve never been shot at. Not really to my thinking. Not the way I shot at people.”

  They walked back to the Jeep in silence.

  57

  BEEMAN TALKED WITH THE TENNESSEE COPS IN the back of the Chevy van while Rane warmed himself in the Jeep. Warmed his outside. After Jenny’s call, it felt like he had the whole cold, wet battlefield in his chest. Beeman left the van and climbed in with Rane, who was holding his cell phone.

  “You going to call the Edin woman?” Beeman asked, dusting raindrops from his hair.

  Rane shook his head, killed the power on the phone, leaned over, and put it in the glove compartment. Beeman plugged his charger into the cigarette lighter and hooked up his cell.

  “So what does our security detail say?” Rane asked.

  “They still think it’s a snipe hunt,” Beeman sa
id as he shifted in the seat and checked the connection between the portable radio clipped to his belt and the mike fastened under the collar of his overcoat. “But they’re pros. They’ll see it through.”

  The drizzle and the wind moderated to a random drip by the time they’d put their gear back on and tramped across the Rebel encampment toward Hurlbut Field. A regiment of Tennessee infantry was forming up in front of their tents. Off to the right, twenty cavalrymen were mounting their horses along a tree line.

  On the field ahead, behind a rope barrier fastened to engineer stakes, artillery crews stood to four cannons and their limbers. On a wooden stage set up next to a triangular pile of black cannonballs, a group of singers with banjos roused the gathering crowd.

  Beeman led Rane to the left until they were about two hundred yards from the crowd of spectators and the marshaling reenactors. A modest group detached from the crowd and started to trail Beeman. A uniformed cop herded them back.

  “Vampires,” Beeman muttered. Then he hunched over and keyed the shoulder mike clipped inside his collar. “We’re going to hold here, try’n keep clear of the crowd.” On the other end, they depressed the squelch key twice, as an affirmative response. Beeman glanced warily at the surrounding tree lines. The wind had died down and the fog was making a comeback.

  “Like father like son, huh,” Rane quipped as he watched Beeman take out the tin of Copenhagen and insert a pinch in his lower lip.

  “Can’t hurt,” Beeman said as he eased the hammer of the Sharps to half-cock and worked a percussion cap out of the small pouch on his belt. Casually, he placed the cap on the cone under the hammer and bent the flanges down. Then he reached in his trouser pocket and took out something that he began to knead between his thumb and fingers like worry beads.

  “What’s that?” Rane asked.

  Beeman opened his hand, revealing a shiny brown nut. “Buckeye. My daddy gave it to me. Suppose to be good luck.”

  “Shit,” Rane hunched his shoulders, “now you’re making me nervous.”

  “The time to take a shot would be when those cannons go off. Which is gonna happen pretty damn soon,” Beeman said, squinting at the far tree lines.