The Ranger (11 page)

Where the paved road ended, a gravel path grew under his tires, curling up to the north in a single lane of more dirt and gravel, signs for PRIVATE LAND and hunt clubs and logging companies nailed onto pine trees. This was the place where people came to dump their old refrigerators and washers and car parts, in the long ravine choked with last year’s pine straw and faded beer cans and diapers and old plastic dolls. Quinn wished he had a beer right now as he drove, searching for music on the radio but finding only messages of salvation and digs at the sinners of this world. He checked in with the old rock ’n’ roll station out of Tupelo but found that it had become nothing but the yelling voice of talk radio. He wished he’d brought some music with him. Keeping the windows down, the cold air feeling good on his face and in his lungs, he reached into his jacket for that extra cigar that Judge Blanton had given him the other day and lit it. As he circled the bend, he found himself on blacktop again as the road headed back to join up with Highway 9, a few trailers off to the north over some cleared land.

A lone figure walked far in the distance, a big, hulking shadow keeping up high on the shoulderless road, wearing an old Army coat and ragged pants tucked inside flopping desert boots. Quinn slowed behind the man, honking his horn.

Boom Kimbrough turned.

“Get in,” Quinn said, reaching for the passenger-door handle, cigar clamped in his teeth. “Where are you goin’?”

Boom shrugged.

“You’re coming to lunch,” Quinn said. “Don’t think you’re leaving me alone with my momma’s church friends.”

Boom smiled at him, and Quinn gunned the motor just like when they went riding in high school, trying to stay one step ahead of the law, knowing every back road and fire trail in the county. “You remember when we smoked ole Deputy Frank? He about shit his pants, trying to prove we were the ones who outran him. I wonder what happened to him.”

“He’s dead.”

“He always reminded me of Barney Fife.”

“Where you been?” Boom asked.

Quinn told him about the meeting with Uncle Van and the truck-stop whore, the trip to Bruce, and then seeing the pregnant girl at the Rebel Truck Stop.

“You sure it was the same guy?”

“’Less I broke another man’s wrist.”

“You do love to fight, Quinn.”

“It was him.”

“What’d the other one look like? The one with the girl?”

Quinn gave a description of the sleeveless muscle shirt and the shaved head, the bad teeth and the .45. “And he had a tattoo of a shamrock on his neck. Must be Irish.”

“That or he’s in the Aryan Brotherhood.”

“That’s their symbol?”

“Yeah. The peace sign was taken.”

“Sound familiar?”

Boom nodded, adjusting his large weight in the cab of the truck, reaching down to roll back the seat and pulling at the seat belt with his left hand. “That motherfucker’s name is Gowrie. His people moved in here about two years ago. He is bad news, man. He’s plugged into the Memphis scene, cooks meth all around the county, and fucks with anyone who gets in his way.”

“Why do you think Wesley wouldn’t tell me that?”

“’Cause he got a little bit of sense,” Boom said. “And knows you.”

“So what’s in this for Johnny Stagg?”

“Here we go,” Boom said. “Fuckin’ with things. Quinn, you just can’t help but fuck with things.”

11

So he hit her. Lena wasn’t all that surprised by it
after she spat in the man’s face, but she was surprised by him handing her a wad of twenty-dollar bills and saying for her to get cleaned up. He’d taken her back to where he lived, where they all lived, and she found out his name was Gowrie. She wasn’t sure if that was his first or last name or just something folks called him. He and his boys had five trailers laid down in this big gully wash off some back road north of Jericho. He’d told her they planned on getting Charley out real soon—Lena still getting used to folks calling him Charley, or sometimes Slim—and that if she’d just stay put, they’d take care of her. They were Charley’s family, and now that he’d planted his damn seed, they were Lena’s family, too. The smack in the face happened only once, when she got kind of hysterical. She said she’d sit in the car, and then he just started to drive, taking her up and around the Square, and then flat out hitting it on the main road north. She’d reached for the handle of that black Camaro and, the next thing she knew, she felt like she’d been kicked by a mule.

They had electricity out at the trailers, something she was surprised about because it was so far off the main road. But she heard the loud humming of generators and saw a mound of red gas cans by the mouth of a leaning barn. The trailers were all rusted and worn, looking like they’d been picked up and set down plenty, the steps fashioned out of scrap wood, some just loose bricks laid down in the mud. A long sluicing ravine fed into the mouth of the old barn, that looked like something that had been there for a hundred years, and by midday she found this was a place where the men, about fourteen or sixteen of them she was pretty sure, would gather. Some of them brought their women and children. Some were alone. Most of them smoked weed or chewed tobacco, circling around Gowrie as he spoke to them, Lena waiting for a sermon but instead learning of a world that was about to collapse in on itself due to all the Mexes and niggers in their midst. And if they didn’t get to work, get some money to buy more weapons, they’d be swept up in a darkness that would descend on the land like locusts.

Gowrie was geeked-the-fuck-out. She’d seen plenty of folks with their minds burning on that crank. But Gowrie was wild-eyed overtime. One time he just flat out kicked a boy from a folding chair when he thought the boy’s attention had wandered. It was that kind of speech, Gowrie walking and spilling out all matter of hateful things, wearing a T-shirt reading WHITE PRIDE, WORLDWIDE over a Celtic cross.

Lena grew restless in the chair, wanting to get up, her feet hurting, growing hungry, but afraid to move. The damn thing finally broke up after what seemed like forever, and trucks and four-wheelers started, Lena noticing more shithole trailers up into the scrub oak and pine. They lit a fire and gathered around it, passing around whiskey, and crank to snort. The day was cold but bright.

No one spoke to Lena for a while, and she was afraid to move from the radiator in the barn. When she could, she’d get clear of these people and back on the road. She’d give ole Charley Jody Booth one more try and then she’d find her way back to Alabama.

She felt hands on her shoulders and she jumped. But it was just a dumb boy putting a jacket on her. The jacket was warm and smelly and about four sizes too big. But she was in no place to refuse it and thanked the boy, who was short and fat and had the face of a pig.

His hair was shaved down, like all the men in Gowrie’s world. But his teeth seemed a mite better, and his voice was even and steady, asking if he could fetch her some food. She just nodded and followed, moving back to a row of freezers laid side by side at the back of the barn. A big Honda generator kept them going, and the boy opened the top of one of them to show food stocked like the cold section at a Walmart. TV dinners, sausage biscuits, even whole pies and ice cream.

The boy’s T-shirt had a picture of Alan Jackson on it. His arms were covered with goose pimples in the cold. He smiled a lot as he lifted a whole chicken potpie into a microwave and sent it spinning. He poured her a tall Mountain Dew in a plastic cup and took her over to a card table piled high with books so worn they’d grown soft and spineless.
Weapons of the Middle Ages. Being White in America. The Coming Race War.
Several comic books featuring Wolverine.

“You know Charley Booth?” she asked.

He nodded.

“Are they really gonna get him out?”

“That’s what Gowrie says.”

“He creeps me out.”

“Shh. Gowrie’s got a lot on him. Everything we got here is on account of him.”

“I think he’s crazy.”

“How’s your eye?”

“How’s it look?”

The bell dinged on the microwave, and the boy brought the potpie out to her. His jacket felt mighty warm. And she no longer noticed he had the face of a pig. She just saw a mess of freckles.

“My name is Pete. They call me Ditto.”

“Why they call you that?”

“I guess on account of me agreeing with most folks.”

You had to hand it
to Jean Colson, she could sure put on a Sunday spread. Quinn and Boom stepped into the full house, barely noticed by all the people Quinn didn’t know, piling their plates with boiled ham and fried chicken, potato salad, and collard greens. His mother had made biscuits and corn bread, two pies, and that damn casserole based on cream-of-mushroom soup. Quinn took off the rancher coat, hung his baseball cap on the hook by the door, and started the progression of handshakes and hugs, making sure Boom was included in the conversation when the conversation turned to war. Boom seemed not to give a damn, excusing himself to join the line for the food, Jean making him comfortable up at the long, polished dining-room table, filling his glass with sweet tea.

Sometime in the night or the early morning his mother had decorated for Christmas, lights across the mantel, garlands on the front railings, and candles around the kitchen. The house smelled inviting and warm. His mother brought him a plate, and he sat down next to Boom, his chair in the center of the table, the wide mirror in the hallway reflecting Quinn flanked by family and friends, an elderly aunt patting him on the shoulder, more potato salad passed from his left. Elvis, as always, played on the stereo, Jean choosing a nice mix of old-time hymns and songs from his movies. “Peace in the Valley.” “Clambake.”

Wesley Ruth and Judge Blanton stopped by but didn’t eat. Luther Varner got loose from the Quick Mart for a few minutes. Mr. Jim stayed, taking an empty seat by Quinn and not saying a word but giving a polite nod before settling into a large piece of fried chicken. Boom excused himself and left with his plate empty, and that chair was empty all of ten seconds when Anna Lee sat down, wearing a bright red coat buttoned high, blond hair loose over her shoulders, giving a crooked smile and a roll of the eyes to Quinn. “We missed you in church,” she said. “They called for you all of two times. Your mother said you were working. I thought you might have headed back to camp.”

“I went for a drive.”

“With who?”

“Myself.”

Anna Lee cut her brown eyes over at him, her long fingers picking at her chicken, pulling the skin off, taking little bites. Quinn smiled at her and she looked away, another old woman coming over to him, a friend of his dead grandmother, handing him a greeting card she wanted him to open when he returned back home. Quinn wasn’t quite sure where she meant.

He laid his hands on her old hand and thanked her, his eyes lifting up and seeing Lillie Virgil holding Jason upside down and swinging him from side to side like a pendulum. She was dressed up, long black pants, a nice silk top. Quinn noticed Anna Lee watching her and then looking down when she saw Quinn was staring.

“People have seen you around with Lillie,” she said, smiling. “What’s going on there?”

“Nothing.”

“Heard y’all have barely been apart.”

What do you say to that?

Quinn messed around with the last few mouthfuls and put down his fork, looking for some sweet tea to clear his mouth. He took a deep breath, catching Lillie’s eye and smiling. Lillie smiled back.

“She never dresses like that.”

“Stop,” Quinn said.

“What?”

“Needling me.”

“Congratulations,” Anna Lee said. “They sure missed you at church.”

She cleared her plate and was gone. Quinn turned to the right, where Mr. Jim was working on a chicken leg and then wiping his mouth. He looked at Quinn and shrugged.

“What do you make of that?” Quinn said.

“I wouldn’t have kept my barbershop open for forty years if I didn’t know when to shut my mouth.”

“I will never understand her,” he said.

“Hell, men and women, we don’t speak the same language,” he said.

Quinn winked at the old man, gathered his plate and took it back to the kitchen. His mother, never one to have a good time, was already elbow-deep in the sink, suds spilling over the counter onto the floor. Jason was running wild, with Lillie running after him, running right into Quinn and then pushing him back with the flat of her hand.

“Y’all have a nice talk?” she asked.

Quinn reached for the coffeepot and poured a cup.

He rolled up his sleeves and started to help with the dishes, his mother trying to push him away. “Go talk to everyone,” she said. “I can’t be in there.”

“Let me ask you a question,” Quinn said, reaching for a wet plate to dry. “Was Uncle Hamp really friends with Johnny Stagg?”

“I know they did business,” his mother said. “I don’t know if they were friends.”

“Stagg wants our land pretty bad.”

“He won’t get it.”

“You’re goddamn right.”

“Quinn?”

“What?”

“Watch that mouth.”

Quinn reached for a glass and dried it, setting it on the rack, Lillie wrangling Jason long enough to sit him at the little breakfast nook, trying to get him interested in a coloring book. Over his mother’s shoulder, he saw Anna Lee in the foyer throwing a purse over her shoulder and reaching into her coat pocket for her keys. She looked at Quinn and then turned for the door, Quinn knowing the move, knowing she wanted him to follow her outside so they could argue a bit more.

Quinn reached for another dish.

“Judge Blanton is going to keep his eye on things after I’m gone,” Quinn said. “I don’t want that land ever coming to that son of a bitch.”

His mother shook her head.

“Okay?” Quinn said, Lillie lifting her head from the table and looking at him.

His mother nodded.

“Do you now see how he wasn’t in his right mind?” Jean Colson asked. “It would’ve been just his mind-set to sell that property to someone without telling me.”