The Ranger (30 page)

A couple skinny pit bulls started to bark, running to them. Wesley kicked the shit out of one, sending it flying a few feet, both dogs scampering away.

“That’ll give you a start,” Lillie said to an old trooper who brought down his gun, slow and easy.

“I would’ve shot ’em.”

Ruth nodded to Leonard and George, sending them to the first trailer, the state men spreading out, knocking on doors first and then kicking them in, finding trash and upturned couches, plastic bags of trash and clothes, and children’s toys. By the fourth trailer, the old trooper was on the radio, and the four-wheelers buzzed on down Hell Creek and crossed along a sandy shoal, hitting their engines into a high whine up a hill.

They found only two vehicles left. One was up on blocks. The other was missing an engine. Both of them had FOR SALE signs in the cracked windshields.

Lillie had pulled the hood of her jacket up over her baseball cap, hands in pockets. Within fifteen minutes Wesley had holstered his .45, calling a huddle with the state men, pointing up the hill to a few more trailers, the men shrugging and trudging up through the small gum trees and pines.

“What do you say, boss?” Lillie asked as she approached him, George and Leonard at her heels. “You want us to stick around and see what shakes out?”

“They’re long gone,” Wesley said, spitting on the ground. “And they ain’t comin’ back.”

“What a shame,” Lillie said, clicking on her safety.

31

“You don’t have to stand outside and smoke,” Jean
Colson said, opening the screened kitchen door onto the back porch, where Quinn stood with a cigar. “You can smoke in the kitchen.”

The sun had gone down hours ago, and it had grown even colder than the night before. The porch chairs, left unused for months, were covered with molding leaves. He’d scraped off the leaves with his hands and wiped the muck on the legs of his jeans.

“Just wanted to stretch my legs.”

“Leonard is sitting right outside,” she said, motioning him in. “Come on and have some pie. Say good night to Jason. He waited up for you.”

“Just doing some thinking.”

“With your dad’s hunting rifle?”

“Just checking it out.”

His mother closed the door behind her and joined him on the deck, covered at each end by pecan trees, the ground sloping up to their neighbor’s backyard and a chain-link fence, where a dog was barking. She’d left a scarecrow hanging from a stake in the garden, and it jittered and spun in the cold wind.

“So they’re gone?” Jean asked.

“Wesley thinks they’re gone for good,” Quinn said. “I don’t see that happenin’.”

“You must’ve made them plenty mad.”

“Tried my best,” Quinn said, putting down the cigar in an empty flowerpot and sitting down across from his mother. She nodded. Quinn said: “No moon tonight.”

“You packed?”

“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “Not now.”

“How’s that gonna sit at Fort Benning?”

“My CO knows me.”

“They’re gone,” his mother said. “They’re not coming back, and nothin’s gonna happen to your old momma.”

“I can take a few more days,” he said. “They’ve got me slotted for training, and it’s not the same as waiting for rapid deployment. Things are different now.”

“Still, won’t sit well.”

“I can’t leave this mess.”

“It was your Uncle Hamp’s mess.”

“How do you figure?”

“My brother was a good man, and a good uncle to you,” she said. “He took over after your dad’s failings and did about everything he could right. I love him for that. But he was about as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”

Quinn sat up, spilling the cigar ash on the worn rancher’s jacket.

“He’d been taking payoffs since he was elected.”

“I don’t believe it.”

She didn’t say anything, the wind still blowing around them, amplifying the cold in the thin soles of his cowboy boots.

“You can find what you want when you come back home,” she said. “But don’t throw away your career on account of this mess. You and Boom ran those men out of town.”

“What about Jason?”

“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” she said, waiting a beat, smiling. “Caddy’s coming over.”

“When?”

“Tonight,” she said, nodding.

“She’s taking him?”

“He’s her son.”

“And you’re okay with this?” Quinn asked, picking up the cigar, leaving the rifle on the porch and standing at the railing, looking out at the tilled-up earth where tomatoes and peppers and sunflowers would rise up in the hot summer. “She’s the mess.”

“Not anymore.”

Quinn took a deep breath, cigar in hand, looking across the little garden, and shook his head. “I saw her.”

“When?”

“Two nights ago,” he said. “She was in Memphis, and she was not fine.”

His mom waited, but that’s all he’d offer.

“Don’t let her take that kid, Mom,” he said. “She’s far, far gone.”

“Don’t say things like that,” she said. “She’s heard about the Bullard girl and all that’s happened.”

“Who told her?”

“I don’t know.”

“Anna Lee?”

“I don’t think so,” his mom said. “They haven’t been friends for a long while.”

“She ever tell you about Jason’s father?”

His mother shook her head and stayed silent. Quinn left the railing and walked back to the chair, standing there, smoking. Jean reached into her housecoat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, joining him, sharing a weak smile.

They sat there in the cold, the cold feeling good, not saying a word until Jean got up, patted his knee, and went on inside to put Jason to bed.

Sometime later a car pulled into their driveway, headlights washing through the backyard and up into the bare branches of a pecan tree, and then a car door slammed.

Quinn could hear a rush of feet inside the house and Jason’s little voice saying, “Mama.”

“Hello, big brother,”
Caddy said.

Quinn looked up from the deck chair and nodded to her. She had cracked open a Budweiser, and had traded out the Dallas Cowboys cheerleader outfit for a sweater and jeans, a leather jacket with fringe like Annie Oakley once wore.

“Heard you been shootin’ up town,” Caddy said, laughing a little, sliding over the railing and taking a swig of beer. “I did warn you.”

“Why’d you come back?”

“To get Jason.”

“I’d prefer you left him.”

“You don’t even know him,” she said. “Call me protective, but I’d rather not see him shot.”

“He won’t get shot.”

“You can guarantee that?”

“Yes, I can.”

“Jesus,” she said. “I’m starting to see how Mom felt about Uncle Hamp. Just because you’re blood relation doesn’t mean you have to like the person.”

“How’s the job?” he asked.

“A job.”

“You get insurance?”

“Fuck you, Quinn,” Caddy said. “We have some girls who worked over in Columbus, and they said the Rangers practically lived at those bars. Don’t cast stones.”

“How much to head back to Memphis?”

“I’m not a whore,” she said.

“How much?”

“You don’t have enough for me to leave my boy,” she said, finishing the beer and throwing it against a pecan tree, breaking the glass, and turning inside the kitchen.

Quinn smoked some more and finally put out the cigar.

A car started and left.

Quinn walked around the house, spotting his mother sitting in front of the television with a wineglass, her face drained of any expression.

He clicked off the lights and everything was silent, only the gentle hum of the refrigerator.

He made coffee and sat on the porch for most of the night, smoking down two more sticks and walking out to Ithaca Road and shooting the shit with Leonard till the sun came up. As he headed up the drive from the patrol car, he absently picked up a toy truck and placed it under his arm, thinking how toys like that can really take a beating in the elements.

32

Quinn heard stirring in the kitchen and wandered
in, kissing his mother’s cheek as she fried bacon, and poured himself a cup of coffee, his fourth. He leaned against the counter, the house feeling even more empty in the daylight, and he knew she felt it more than he could. Quinn searched for something to say. He drank the coffee while she cracked a couple of eggs and served him at the table. “You put new wallpaper in here?” he asked.

“You like it?”

“It’s pink poodles.”

“It’s the same wallpaper Elvis used in Graceland for Gladys.”

“You headed up to Memphis for his birthday?” Quinn asked, never understanding her devotion to the King but knowing it made her happy, brought her some peace.

“Of course,” she said. “Why wouldn’t I? You packed?”

He ate and nodded. “I don’t like it.”

“I’ll be fine,” she said. “The only thing good about being the sheriff’s sister is that I get no shortage of support. Your uncle gave Wesley a job when Wesley couldn’t get a job picking up trash.”

Quinn smiled. “I’m sorry about Jason.”

“He’ll be back.”

“Can’t be good for him.”

“She’s trying,” she said. “Don’t be so tough.”

Quinn took his coffee mug and looked out the front window, spotting Leonard bracing himself on the door of the patrol car talking to Wesley Ruth, who’d pulled in ahead of him. Wesley looked like a giant next to Leonard, thick chest and fat forearms, a big grin on his face. Aside from his bulging stomach, Wesley still held himself like a pro athlete.

Quinn let the curtain go and told his mother he’d be back a little later.

“Where you headed?”

“I wanted to lock up the farmhouse and close the gate,” he said. “Check on Hondo again.”

She nodded, both of them knowing that dog was dead, but it was at least something final he could do for his uncle. Maybe he’d see some buzzards circling around the property and he could bury the dog.

“If I don’t find him,” he said, “don’t go out there alone.”

“I promise.”

“And I’m going to get you an attorney to fight Stagg,” Quinn said. “We’ll keep that up. Right?”

Johnny Stagg opened up
the cattle gate to Judge Blanton’s place and drove slow along the gravel drive, a couple pit bulls trailing his Cadillac, barking at him, snipping at the tires, as he approached that old white house, a fire going in the chimney. Those dogs didn’t leave him alone until he stopped and got out, shooing them away, not seeing hair of the judge and wondering. He’d been calling all morning and hadn’t found him at home or the office.

He knocked on the door and still heard nothing, but saw it was unlocked and let himself in. A propane space heater burned on a wall under a hunt painting and a barrister bookcase filled with rare volumes. Johnny Stagg always respected the judge for being such a learned man. The fireplace smelled of burning cedar.

The silence was so strong, the popping logs nearly made him jump.

He called out to him.

The judge answered from a far back corner of the house.

The judge was in his study, mounds and mounds of books and files and unopened bills and letters around him. All four walls of the room held sagging bookshelves of law and history, mementoes of the past. Blanton sat looking at a computer screen but stood when Johnny Stagg entered and shook his hand, offering a cocktail.

“A little early, Judge.”

“Is it?”

“It ain’t even nine o’clock.”

Judge Blanton rubbed his unshaven face and clicked on a banker’s lamp. The greenish light came up on his bloodshot eyes and white buzz cut, which was grown out to the point of lying straight. A tall crystal glass with melted ice gone brown sat at the edge of his desk. Stagg spotted a black-and-white photo of a much younger Blanton surrounded by some Marine buddies. He read the inscription. “You were in Korea? Sure looks cold.”

“Let me make some coffee,” Blanton said, standing.

“I need help, Judge.”

The judge sat back down and nodded.

“I want these Memphis people gone.”

The judge nodded some more.

“They might try and kill me,” Stagg said, feeling his cheek twitch. “They blame me for Gowrie, and I feel like I got a target drawn on my back.”

“What’d they say?”

“When I called back, Campo wouldn’t answer,” Stagg said. “I’ve called him about a hunnard times. Some man answered about an hour ago and said to never call this number again.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Means they’re gonna wipe the floor with my ass,” Stagg said. “I can’t come up with that kind of money. Even if I could, I never made a nickel off Gowrie. Never a nickel. Shit fire.”

Blanton shook his head and reached into a desk drawer for some more whiskey. He poured some into the watery glass, again offering some to Stagg, who declined. Stagg felt himself licking his lips as Blanton drained the glass, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Stagg could smell the aged whiskey.

“I’ll take that coffee,” Stagg said.

“Johnny, you mind me asking how you came into contact with such people?” Blanton asked. “You’ve sunk us.”

“You knew.”

“Hell I did. Can I ask what you were promised?”

“Money. Favors. Good-ole-boy promises.”

“Ever try another bank?” Blanton asked. “Nobody would’ve held you responsible for this whole deal not working. You never promised us a sure thing.”

“Sweet Jesus,” Stagg said, rubbing his hands over his face and neck despite the cold sweating through his undershirt. “You know better than anyone how this state works. Campo promised things you can’t pay for. Certificates and contracts and men in Jackson who make things happen. You ever hear that the world is round?”

“Johnny, I could’ve told you that brass key to the men’s club comes with a price.” Blanton stood, heading toward the door. “Who are these men?”

“You know these men better than me, Judge. You got yourself a gold key a long time back.”

“I’ll put on that coffee. Tell me what you know.”

“This wasn’t my plan. It ain’t my fault.”

Blanton asked: “What about Hamp Beckett? What was he promised?”