He did his best to put all the lights out in Beau’s eyes.
Someone tried to pull him off but got shoved away, and Chantry was vaguely aware of Beau struggling to get up. That gave him a sense of satisfaction, but nothing like seeing Beau down on his back with his nose bleeding and an arm slung over his face to protect it. It was probably best he got pulled off Beau before he did real damage, and some guy slung him to one side, then hauled Beau to his feet. Chantry took the opportunity to get lost in the crowd. No point in being stupid enough to hang around and end up with three or four against him.
He looked around and saw Donny slugging it out with Rafe. They were pretty evenly matched, both tall and wiry, but Donny had the advantage of determination while Rafe had a few years and muscle on him. The whole place had erupted into a huge brawl. It happened that way sometimes. One fight sparked another, someone got knocked into someone’s table or girlfriend, and men just started slugging it out. Truthfully, on a Saturday night just about any excuse to fight would do fine. Even the women got in on it, some of them as rough as the men they were with, using fists and feet and hair-pulling. It was better than a matinee at the Clarksdale movie theater.
Two men jumped him and Chantry went sideways, knocking over a table and breaking a chair. It splintered beneath the combined weight of all of them, cheap wood and plastic going in several different directions. He fought free, shoving and punching with reckless, mindless intensity until he stood breathing hard on his own. He turned to find Donny again and saw him several feet away, going at it foot and fist with one of the iron workers. Another guy came up behind Donny with a beer bottle in one hand lifted in the air, and Chantry launched himself at him like a missile. They both went down, sliding across a floor littered with bits of glass and wood and spilled beer.
The guy got hold of his shirt but he had him down pretty good, smashing his fist into his face, when something made Chantry glance to the side, a premonition maybe. Another iron worker came at him with a broken beer bottle, something ugly in his eyes and twisting his mouth. There wasn’t time to get out of the way even if he hadn’t been held fast by the man he was pounding, and like everything was in slow motion, Chantry saw that he was about to get gutted like a fish and there wasn’t much he could do except go sideways in desperation.
Then quick as a snake, the broken side of a chair slashed down at the man’s head and he went down like a felled ox, sprawling on the floor with the broken bottle still held tight in one fist. Chantry looked up to see who’d saved him, and Chris Quinton looked back.
That was a shock. Chris looked mad and tense, pale eyes glittering in the dim light, his mouth flat and taut. He didn’t say anything, just stared hard. Chantry nodded acknowledgment of what he’d done. It didn’t matter where Chris had come from or why he was there or even that he was there, he was just glad not to have his guts hanging out onto the floor right now.
“Thanks,” he got out.
Chris might have said something then, but a sudden deafening boom like a shotgun going off sent people scattering like roaches in bright light. Somebody screamed “Cops,” and it was a race for the exits. Chantry jumped up and looked around for Donny but didn’t see him; then he happened to see Tansy still up on the stage, crouched down and frozen with fear, her eyes glazed.
He grabbed Chris’s arm. “Get her out of here. Tansy. Get her home, okay?” Chris gave him a strange look and he shoved him toward the stage. “Take her home, man.”
Chris ran up to the stage and grabbed Tansy by the arm, and she looked up at him with an expression of relief and gratitude and something like admiration, and Chantry wondered why he didn’t like that even as he turned around to go find Donny. They had to get out of here fast. If it really was the cops, he’d be in major trouble.
There was no sign of Donny. Just chaos. Finally, he ran for the side door that let out onto the backwash, and pushed through it. He had a glimpse of trees and freedom just before a deputy blocked his path, riot gun in one hand and back-up bunched behind him. Oh shit.
CHAPTER 15
Blue lights lit up the night. So many arrests were made that white vans from Ledbetter’s used car lot were called into use as transport. Quinton County cops had long memories, and the same deputies who’d stopped Chantry before had the good—or bad, depending on which side of the badge you were standing on—luck to be among the police who raided the Hideaway.
Chantry wasn’t given much of a chance to resist arrest this time. By the time he got loaded into one of the vans, he was trussed up like a Christmas turkey and more bruised from the arrest than the brawl. All the seats had been removed from the van except for the two front seats, and he was thrown in back on top of a couple of men who’d gotten hit with that first blast of rock salt and looked as battered as he felt. They met him with a few kicks just to make sure he didn’t stay on top of them too long, and he rolled to one side and out of the way as quick as he could. He managed to twist himself into a sitting position with his head back against the bare metal side of the van before the back doors were once more yanked open and another prisoner got tossed in just as unceremoniously.
He drew his legs quickly up to his chest before he got pinned again, and saw Rafe land on the van floor. Oh hell. That’s all he needed. After a minute, Rafe grunted and maneuvered into a sitting position across from him. He glared at him through his one good eye. His lip was split and he had a cut on his cheek. Chantry wasn’t sure, but he probably looked about the same as Rafe. It felt like he did. Now that the adrenalin rush was fading, aches and pains cropped up.
“You little bastard,” Rafe said after a short silence. “We shoulda drowned you when you was still shittin’ your drawers.”
Chantry just looked at him. It wasn’t like they hadn’t tried often enough.
Rafe kicked him, a swift jab of his steel-toed boot against Chantry’s cuffed legs. “Ain’t you got nothin’ to say, mama’s boy? You skeered since she ain’t here to keep you all safe?”
Rafe had mean little eyes and that thin, sharp face, but he’d never been the worst of the two. It’d always been Beau who was the leader, older, bigger, and the favorite since he looked so much like Rainey. Their mama had the cancer just like Tansy’s mama, but where Julia Rivers had fought like a tiger to stay alive, Charlotte Lassiter had just faded so quietly into death that Eleanor Rowan said it was like she’d wanted to die. Chantry could well believe that.
Rafe grinned. “Get your brains scrambled, mama’s boy? Piss your pants yet?”
Chantry was at a distinct disadvantage. Rafe had his hands cuffed behind him, but his feet were free and he wore iron worker’s steel-toed boots. It wasn’t worth a busted leg just to tell him what he really thought, so he let his head rest back against the side of the van and kept his mouth shut.
That only made Rafe braver and meaner. He nudged Chantry with his foot. “What, did that yella gal suck out your tongue?”
Now Chantry’s head came up. He fixed Rafe with a cold stare. Rafe seemed to find that funny. Despite the split lip, he laughed, mouth twisting to one side.
“Mebbe there’s something you don’t know ‘bout that little gal. You ain’t the only buck in town. Huh uh. She got more on her line. You better take a number. That’s one busy little pu—”
That was as far as he got. Chantry lifted his cuffed feet and slammed them straight into Rafe’s face. It shoved his head back against the side of the van. Blood flew. Howls of pain and rage mixed with curses from the other men, and the van rocked violently from side to side as a full-scale battle broke out, the other men trying to keep Chantry from kicking Rafe to death, and Rafe trying to breathe without choking on his own blood.
No telling what would have happened if some deputies hadn’t noticed and come running to separate them. While Rafe ended up in an ambulance with some other guy that’d been cut with a broken bottle during the fight, Chantry was dragged roughly from the van and thrown to the gravel. He heard one of the medics say Rafe had a broken nose,
maybe jaw.
Chantry got a ride to the Quinton County jail in the back of a police cruiser instead of the van, but it wasn’t especially comfortable since the cops had hog-tied him so he couldn’t move so much as an inch without risking a dislocated shoulder. He lay belly-down on the hard back seat and thought about Tansy, and Donny. He hoped they’d made it without getting caught. Then he thought about what he was going to say to Mama this time.
It was a busy night at the jail so adults were put in all available cells, Chantry in with kids lumped into one cell. They took his belt and laces from his boots, then a guard took him down a short hall to the cell and unlocked the barred door to shove him inside with several other kids. He didn’t look at them, just went to sit on the edge of the metal ledge that offered seating.
Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they kept him here instead of sent him over to DeSoto County where they had a larger facility for underage prisoners. He didn’t want that. He’d heard enough about it.
Juvenile detention was supposed to keep kids away from hardened criminals, but Chantry knew most of the kids in juvie were worse than the drunks and petty criminals kept in the other side of the jail. They were tough kids from all over north Mississippi, many whose parents either didn’t know or care where they were, migrant farm workers’ kids, lifetime residents’ kids, and kids like Chantry who just didn’t give a damn anymore. Some had run away from group homes or other state fostered programs, and were just waiting transport to the next way station to wait out their time until they reached eighteen and freedom, or the confines of Parchman, the state prison.
But not here. Juvenile space was limited to an open cell across the concrete hall from the cellblock holding adults. Usually, kids were either quickly released to their parents, or transported to a larger facility. He had no idea which fate would be his.
Leaning back, he let his head rest against the concrete block wall and tried not to think about anything. It wasn’t easy.
Five other kids marked time in the cell with him. They were quiet for the most part, just waiting like him, two of them sleeping sitting up on the cold concrete floor with their heads back against the wall. It was noisy across the hall, the adults making a racket that brought the guards barreling down the corridor a few times.
One of the kids looked up at Chantry finally. “Heard there was a raid.”
Eying the wiry black boy of about fourteen, Chantry nodded. “Yeah.”
“So—you out there? At the Hideaway, I mean?”
“Yeah.”
“Man, you gotta be stupid.”
“Yeah,” Chantry agreed after a minute. That pretty much summed it up.
He spent all night in that cell, watching as kids left one by one until he was alone. No one came to get him, not even the cops seemed to much care if he was there. They had bigger fish to fry with all the arrests netted in the raid. He caught snatches of talk between the guards, enough to hear that they’d been planning to shut down the Hideaway for a while.
Sergeant Gordon came to get him while he was still staring at his breakfast, a bowl of watered down grits that bore no resemblance to the stuff Mama made at home: hot and thick and with a big pat of butter slowly melting in the middle. This looked like slightly lumpy milk.
“We got some talkin’ to do, boy,” the sergeant said, and motioned for two of the guards to bring him out of the cell.
Maybe it was to make a point, but the guards seemed to take particular pleasure in being rough. One swung Chantry around and up against the wall, pinning him against concrete blocks with a leather baton pressed against the back of his neck while the other cuffed him. He’d already had his pockets emptied for him when he was brought in, but now they searched him again, hands patting him down while they discussed doing a full body cavity search. Chantry closed his eyes. It was a good thing he hadn’t been able to eat, because just the prospect of that made him sick to his stomach.
He was half-walked, half-dragged down the hallway to a large room at the end, and when he was cuffed to a chair at the table, he knew the body cavity talk had just been a threat. For now anyway. Sergeant Gordon came in a few minutes later, a clipboard in one hand, a tape recorder in the other. He sat down at the table across from Chantry and looked at him real hard.
“Consequences, boy. I told your mama you’d be back if she let you get by with it last time, and it looks like I was right.”
Chantry didn’t say anything. The fleeting memory of Rainey and his belt passed through his mind but he focused on the cop. Gordon had something specific in mind. He kept looking at Chantry like he was trying to figure out the best way to get what he wanted—with threats, or with promises both of them knew would never be kept.
After a minute of silent speculation, the sergeant set the tape recorder in the middle of the table and flicked it on. He gave his name, Chantry’s name and age, the date, and the time. Then he turned it off.
“You got a choice. Tell me what I want to hear now or after we beat the shit out of you. It’s that simple.”
Chantry eyed him narrowly. “I don’t know what you want to hear,” he said finally, and the sergeant’s lip curled back.
“The hell you don’t. That wasn’t your first time out to the Hideaway. You know what’s up. You’re underage and drinking. Doing drugs. I want names, dates, specifics.”
“I don’t do drugs. I don’t hang with people who do.” That was true. He’d tried smoking a little weed, but didn’t like the way it made his body relax to the point of comatose while his brain raced ninety to nothing. It left him feeling out of control, powerless, and he hated that.
The sergeant narrowed his eyes. Then he turned on the recorder.
“Right. You don’t want to keep playin’ this game. We could always bring up your prior and see to it that you spend the next few years as a guest of the state of Miss’sippi. You know what that means, don’t you?”
Oh yeah. He knew what that meant. He just didn’t know anything about names, dates, or the specifics the sergeant wanted to hear.
When he didn’t say anything, Sergeant Gordon slammed his hand down on the table between them and made the tape recorder fall over. “Don’t be stupid, boy. We got you this time for underage drinking and fighting. I’ll be willing to overlook any drug charges since we didn’t find anything on you—in exchange for information.”
Chantry suddenly realized that they couldn’t charge him with drugs. He didn’t have any in his system, and he hadn’t had any on him when arrested. All they could do was charge him with drinking and fighting. That wouldn’t be so bad. Not like drugs. Not like the sergeant wanted him to believe. That didn’t mean he wasn’t in trouble. It just meant he wasn’t in long-term trouble.
He sat back in the chair. “I don’t know anything.”
For the next few minutes he repeated that over and over, while the sergeant got redder in the face and the threats escalated. He kept coming back to the same point: Chantry wouldn’t have been at the Hideaway if he wasn’t there to buy drugs. He was there. He had money in his pocket. Everybody knew drugs were the only reason kids risked going out there.
Chantry thought about Chris Quinton. Then he thought about Tansy. And then he thought how he’d sent Chris to get Tansy and hoped he’d done the right thing. If Chris has been there to buy drugs, no telling what might have happened. He had to get out of here, had to find out if she was all right.
“I want a lawyer,” he said abruptly, breaking across the sergeant’s repeated threat about a lifetime behind bars if he didn’t cooperate. “Either charge me with something or let me go. You can’t keep me here.”
An ugly red color swept up the sergeant’s face to his buzz-cut hairline. He had the same kind of complexion as Rainey, fair and freckled, but with his sandy hair shaved almost to the scalp where Rainey wore his long and unkempt. If Chantry didn’t know all Rainey’s relatives lived up in Missouri where he’d originally come from, he’d swear they were related.
“You think you’re
a smart little fucker, don’t you,” the sergeant said softly. “Well, this time you ain’t got Dale Ledbetter to come bail you out of trouble. This time, old man Quinton’s the one in charge. And he wants that drug ring busted up. If we got to bust you to get it done, I don’t think he’ll have a problem with that.”
All of a sudden Chantry knew where the drugs came from. He knew who brought them in and how. Not that he had any proof. Just suspicion. And without proof to back it up, he was liable to end up in more trouble than he needed.
“I want a lawyer,” he said again, and thought or my mama. He needed her advice. She’d know what to do. What to say. And who to say it to.
Mama finally showed up late that afternoon. Dempsey brought her. Rainey was at the hospital with Rafe, who’d suffered injuries in the brawl, they said. No one mentioned that Chantry was involved, and he figured if Rafe didn’t want it known, he was willing to keep quiet. He just knew he’d have to watch his back. Not much different than before.
Dempsey waited in the hall outside, and he didn’t look upset so maybe Tansy was okay. If she wasn’t, he’d be with her and not here. That made him feel a little better, and he focused on his mother, who stared at him with eyes so angry they were a dark, stormy blue.
“I have no idea what my son was doing out there at that horrible place, Sergeant,” she was saying, “but I assure you he will never go back.”
“Miz Lassiter, I know you’re a good woman. You taught my nieces over there at Cane Creek, and they always spoke highly of you. But you’ve got a blind spot when it comes to your own boy. He’s in trouble, and he’s not making it any easier on himself. Get him to talk to us. Tell us what we want to know and maybe he won’t spend a few years in the reformatory. Otherwise . . .”
Dark River Road Page 21
