The Forsaken

by Ace Atkins

  “Where?” Quinn asked.

  “You say you’re some kind of kin?”

  • • •

  Quinn followed Pocahontas Road to a dirt road with the No Trespassing sign the good reverend had told him about. He followed the road for a quarter mile and soon found ten trailers huddled close together on a circular cut-in at the dead end. Quinn got out of his truck, chose the trailer that looked most promising out of ten trailers with little promise, and knocked on the door. The trailer was old and misshapen, with brittle wooden steps leading to it. Inside, a dog started to bark. No one came to the door. He knocked some more.

  Nothing. The wind was cold, but the sun had started to cut through the clouds.

  He tried two more trailers. At the third one, a skinny old white woman holding a cigarette came to the glass door but didn’t open it. She just stared at Quinn. He smiled back at her while she blew some smoke out from her lips and cracked the door. She was wearing a set of pink pajamas and tube socks. “I done paid that ticket.”

  Quinn shook his head. “I’m looking for Jason Colson.”

  The woman shrugged. Her eyes were shrunken and sallow, and she wiped her nose while she stood there and waited for Quinn to offer her something. She was skinny, her wrinkled skin just kind of sagged from the bone.

  “He lives in one of these trailers,” Quinn said. “He’s not in any trouble. If that’s what you’re thinking.”

  “Good,” she said. “Man don’t need no more.”

  “How’s that?”

  “He’s been keeping himself clean,” she said. “He paid off those mean men from Jackson. He don’t need no more trouble from the law.”

  Quinn waited a few seconds. “It’s a personal matter,” he said.

  “Why?”

  “He’s a relative.”

  “Oh, sure . . .” she said, smiling a row of yellowed and uneven teeth. “Just who are you to him?”

  Quinn studied the wrinkled woman, holding herself in the wedge of the door, blowing smoke out into the cold air. The whole thing crazy as hell, that this woman would know more about his own father, feel like she’s got to be kind of protective of him. She couldn’t stop squinting at Quinn’s face. He couldn’t answer her.

  “Mr. Jason don’t live here no more.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “He was living with that woman, Darlene, but they got into it one night and she left,” the woman said. “I think she stole his truck. He tossed all her shit out in the yard. She come back and got it, and that’s the last I seen of her. She was only with him till his money run out. She said she loved him, but she was just hanging on the man ’cause he used to be a big shot. But I figure you know about who he is, and all the folks he knowed, or you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Burt Reynolds,” she said. “My Lord. Did you know Mr. Jason once broke a beer bottle off Terry Bradshaw’s head? You know, that old quarterback on TV?”

  Quinn had heard the story.

  “Where’d he go?” Quinn said.

  She tiptoed outside the house, delicately, as if leaving her tin shell was going to make her too vulnerable. She smoked more of the cigarette, blowing a long stream into the air. Her voice was as gravelly and worn as a lifetime smoker’s should be. She nodded over toward a trailer up the hill on some eroded land. It wasn’t the worst on the lot, but it was close. The single-wide set up on concrete blocks, with a rusted roof and tinfoil in the windows. An old red Trans Am, with flat tires and half covered in a tarp, sat in the front yard. The window had been busted out, and the wind ruffled the tarp up over what probably had once been a fine car.

  “Y’all are kin.”

  “Why you say that?”

  “You look damn-near just like him.”

  Quinn nodded, still looking at that relic of a car.

  “He works down the road at that big horse barn,” the woman said.

  “How far?”

  “Not far,” she said. “You can’t miss the place. Biggest goddamn barn I ever seen in my life. He’s been working for those rich folks for a while. I hear he’s been living up there, too. Real nice, when he’s not drinking. Something awful wrong with him. To hear the things come out of that trailer up there . . . That woman Darlene was the devil. She beat him down to nothing.”

  • • •

  The barn was fashioned out of river stone and large cypress beams and stood as large as a couple aircraft hangars joined end to end. It had been built high on a hill overlooking hundreds of acres of rolling farmland where horses grazed among Black Angus cattle. Quinn followed a private road that twisted past an endless lake, a big stone mansion, and through the pasture, until he turned uphill and saw the stables and two large open corrals, where some kind of training was happening. The sun was setting over the pasture and turned the air a bright orange through the kicked-up dust.

  A group of young kids in thick coats, western wear, and cowboy boots sat on a fence as a man and a young woman stood near a young boy on the back of a small spotted horse. They were talking to the kids, showing them the basic tack, handing over the reins to the kid in the saddle. The man rubbing the horse’s forehead between the eyes. The man wore a hat low across his eyes, but as Quinn walked closer, studying him, he could see the guy wasn’t much older than himself. He was telling the kids about the right kind of pull on the reins when they were ready to go and when they were ready to stop. He talked about being gentle to the animal and that a kick in the ribs could be firm without hurting the animal.

  Quinn recalled a horse that had belonged to his father, a palomino named Bandit. There was a strange feeling as Quinn walked, a little bit of light-headedness with the copper-colored air and the reddening skies. The laughter of the children sitting on the rail. The woman who was helping with the instruction was pretty and blond and smiled right at Quinn as he made his way to the railing and leaned his forearms across the top rung. The girl let go of the horse and came over to where he stood. She had a slow, easy walk, with her boots, tight jeans, fitted Sherpa coat, and feathered hair.

  “Looking for Jason Colson,” he said.

  She smiled some more at Quinn, strangely, as if should she know him, and pointed to the mouth of the barn. Quinn tipped his ball cap and walked toward the door, the feeling of being uneasy and unsettled something very unfamiliar. Before he walked into the big open cavern, he spit into dirt and clenched his teeth.

  The floors of the barn were red brick and the ceiling was cathedral-tall, with thick cypress beams crossing overhead. The big sliding doors were open at the opposite side of the barn, hundreds of meters away, and above them was a circular window of stained glass showing two horses grazing in a green meadow. Its colored light shone down onto the bricks.

  Quinn followed a lot of empty stalls, nicer than many homes in Tibbehah County, and on through the big central space, its brickwork laid in Byzantine patterns and different colors. Above was one of the tall spires he’d spotted on the drive from the main gates.

  Quinn kept walking. Not seeing anyone, not even a horse, only hearing the sound of a radio playing down among the stalls. He followed the music, recognizing the song, “Choctaw Bingo,” this one sounding like Ray Wylie Hubbard and not James McMurtry. More reverb and twang through the barn.

  His arms and legs felt funny and loose as he spotted a man leaning into a stall over a half door. The man wore Wrangler’s and beaten boots, a tight green-checked snap-button shirt and no hat. The man’s hair was longish, more gray than blond, his skin the color of stained wood. He had a graying mustache and goatee and he was laughing.

  Quinn stopped walking. He just stood there, watching the man, and then a horse leaned its big head out of the stall. The man popped open a beer, the horse taking it from his hand and shaking it all loose from the can, throwing his head back in pleasure. The man laughed and laughed, taking the empty and tos
sing it. He rubbed the forehead of the horse, walking away from the stall, eyes down, smirk on his face, and then raised them and looked at Quinn.

  Quinn just stared.

  The man stopped walking, hands on his hips. Something familiar but off about the face. The lines were different. He had a big scar on his cheek, white and zagging, different from the burnt skin. The man took in all of Quinn, eyes and mouth serious as hell, finally just shaking his head and saying, “Well, god damn, ain’t you got big.”

  How’d you find me?” Jason Colson asked.

  “I asked at the Big Teepee.”

  “How’d you know where to start?”

  “Mom told me.”

  “Didn’t know she knew,” Jason said, sitting down on a railroad tie outside the barn, staring out at the rolling brown pastures, that big, endless lake where ducks and geese gathered. “We hadn’t spoken in a long while.”

  “Uncle Van,” Quinn said. “She knew from him. But he never said a word to me.”

  “I told him not to,” Jason said, stroking his old-dog goatee and mustache. His cheeks and neck were clean-shaven. His clothes were neat and fit well. He’d grown his hair long, not like some kind of hippie but like a man from another time, the frontier days or something. He was darker than Quinn and weighed a bit more, with something off about his mouth when he spoke, like his teeth had been busted out and replaced. Jason seemed nervous as he talked, careful with all his words, as Quinn stood above him.

  “I’m glad to see you, Quinn,” he said. “You may not believe it, but I am.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “How’s Caddy?” Jason said. “Van’s told me some things. I’ve been real concerned.”

  “How about we just talk about why I’m here?”

  Jason looked off and shook his head, not being able to think of another reason his son might come to see him. He seemed like he had started to settle in, would maybe give Quinn the speech about why he left, how it’d been better for everyone but he’d kept real good tabs. He’d be real proud of Quinn’s service and all that kind of J.C. bullshit he knew too well from the letters that one day just stopped cold.

  “You used to ride with a crew called the Born Losers,” Quinn said, not asking but stating it.

  Jason nodded, eyes scrunched up, knees bunched up around his chest, looking up at Quinn. “About a hundred years ago.”

  “Well, some bad shit happened about a hundred years ago,” Quinn said, “and you were an eyewitness to it.”

  “Can you stay a bit?” Jason said. “We can talk about all this stuff. But can I take you out for a meal?”

  “Some barbecue at the Teepee?”

  “A steak dinner in Jackson,” Jason said. “Would mean the world to me, son.”

  “I don’t have time,” Quinn said. “I’ve spoken to a man named Hank Stillwell. He said you were riding with Chains LeDoux the night a black man was abducted in town, taken out to Jericho Road, and hung from a tree. Nobody has forgotten.”

  “You sure don’t waste a lot of time,” Jason said. “Can you at least tell me about your mother? How’s Jean doing?”

  “I don’t preach, Jason,” Quinn said, “but I don’t think my family’s welfare is any of your concern. You need to be more worried about your involvement in this lynching.”

  “I didn’t lynch that man,” Jason said. “Sure, I remember it. But I didn’t kill someone . . . I’ve fucked up plenty, son.”

  “Don’t call me that,” Quinn said. “You don’t have the right.”

  “I said I’ve fucked up plenty,” Jason said. “I go to meetings in the basement of a church every Wednesday. I’ve gotten up on the horse again and fallen off. Right now, I’m staying on. But any bad things I’ve done, I’ve done them to myself.”

  “That a fact?”

  “And my actions have hurt others,” Jason said. “I know that. You really come all this way to ask me about the damn Born Losers? I fooled around with that group maybe a month at most. I left town and never hung out with them again. A buddy of mine wanted me to ride and it was just something to do between films.”

  “Raising hell and becoming a star.”

  “I wasn’t a star,” Jason said. “I busted up my whole body and head to make other people stars. Broke my back twice and nearly every bone in the body.”

  “I figure they don’t give Oscars for that.”

  “I know you’re bitter,” Jason said. “I don’t blame you.”

  “July fourth, 1977,” Quinn said. “Where were you?”

  “Hell, I don’t know.”

  “Hell you don’t,” Quinn said. “You were part of that motorcycle gang. I don’t give two shits about the reasoning behind it. I want to know what you saw and where y’all went that night. Uncle Hamp covered the thing because he thought you loved his sister.”

  “I did love his sister.”

  “He shouldn’t have made this thing OK,” Quinn said. “Y’all fucked up.”

  “Some man killed Hank Stillwell’s daughter,” Jason said. “Raped and shot another girl. There was this man lived up in the hills . . .”

  “How about you follow me to the Hinds County sheriff’s office,” Quinn said. “You can make your statement there. There will be some complications putting this case together, given our situation.”

  “What situation?”

  “Running in my own father for murder.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone,” Jason said, standing. The lake behind him had turned a hard copper-gold, ducks skimming the water a bit and then landing with a gentle smoothness in small coves and hidden pockets. Quinn stared at Jason Colson. The old man’s forearms stood out, where he’d rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, muscled and corded from plenty of outdoor work.

  His face had a plastic quality to it of someone having to fit it back together but not getting the configuration just right. One of the blue eyes was just a little off and Quinn wondered if it might be glass.

  “I know I’m not pretty to look at,” Jason said. “I wish I’d taken better care of myself. I wish I’d taken better care of you and Caddy. Why don’t you go have dinner with me and I’ll roll out a list of regrets that will stretch from here to Jericho.”

  Quinn nodded.

  “Did you see Chains LeDoux, Hank Stillwell, or any of the gang abduct that man?” Quinn said. “Did you take a ride with them out to Jericho Road after Diane Tull was found wandering after she’d been raped and shot?”

  “I knew you’d find a reason to come after me,” Jason said, “but I never figured it would be for something I hadn’t done.”

  The men stood within maybe five feet of each other up on that hill, sunset leaving everything red and black, clouds scrambled above them in weird colors. “You’re refusing to make a statement or take part in an interview?”

  “What the hell we doing now?” Jason said, rubbing his goatee. “God damn.”

  “You’re coming with me.”

  “No, sir,” he said. “I can’t walk off my job.”

  “You’re coming back to Jericho,” Quinn said. “You can do it on your own or in cuffs. I got a D ring in the back of the truck where I can chain you.”

  “Damn, you sure hate me.”

  Quinn swallowed, hand absently touching the leather pouch on his belt where he kept the cuffs.

  Jason bowed and shook his head. “OK.”

  “You can notify who you like,” Quinn said. “Bring any stuff you might need. You might be there for a few days.”

  “I wasn’t part of this.”

  “You got a lot of explaining to do,” Quinn said.

  “Nothing to explain.”

  “We’ll get that on record,” Quinn said. “And then we’ll talk about the charges.”

  • • •

  Chains LeDoux walked out of prison as he’d come in, the jeans a little tighter
but the old T-shirt, flannel shirt, and leather jacket still fit just fine. A deputy sheriff named E. J. Royce he’d known down in Jericho had picked him up from the correctional center, helped with the out-processing and signed some paperwork, then drove him down the Natchez Trace straight out of the hills of Tennessee and down into Tupelo, where they stopped off at a Walmart and let him get some clean underwear, a toothbrush, and deodorant. He took Chains as far as a Super 8 Motel on Highway 45 where Chains’s old lady Debbie was waiting, now a gray-headed grandmother of four but still the kind of woman who opened the door in a nightie and holding a bag of weed and a bottle of Jack Daniel’s. They fucked that night like kids.

  She helped cut his hair and trim his beard. One of the younger boys had made him a new vest with a new patch and the colors for the Losers. Debbie said they had something real special for him the next morning.

  Chains couldn’t sleep with excitement.

  At dawn he awoke to the sound of what might have been a hundred cycles out in the parking lot, all revving their engines at the same time. He jumped up out of bed, threw on some pants, and walked out, bare-chested, covered in tattoos, and barefoot, and looked down at all those good old boys looking up at the second balcony, revving their Harleys over and over. A few more doors at the Super 8 opened but closed quick.

  Chains wasn’t able to dress fast enough, Debbie helping him find his boots, combing his long stringy hair and beard, and holding open his leather jacket. He slid into the vest himself.

  “How do I look?” he said.

  “Like Chains-Goddamn-LeDoux.”

  He kissed the woman, who he’d laid maybe a million times but who now seemed unfamiliar, hard on the mouth. He walked out on the second-floor balcony and raised his hands, the dozens of Losers revving and hollering until he walked down the steps into the parking lot and a path was cleared through so many faces he didn’t know, young men who looked at him with admiration and respect.

  He saw a few of the old faces, those who’d come to visit, written him letters, and kept him going on club business. Frank Miller had his arms wide when Chains got close and embraced him in a big hug of brotherhood and friendship, patting his back and saying, “You ready?”