The Ranger (33 page)

“What’s that for?”

“Because I felt like it,” Anna Lee said. “You need it.”

“I didn’t kill Wesley.”

“I’m so sorry, Quinn,” she said. “Those men should all die.”

Quinn grabbed her wrist lightly and lifted his head, their faces maybe two inches apart. He could feel her breath on him before she shook her head and stood.

She got halfway to the door, turning back once to smile.

“Anna Lee?” Quinn asked.

Lillie Virgil burst into the room and nearly bumped into her, dressed in full Tibbehah County Sheriff’s gear, with ponytail threaded through ball cap and holding a police radio. “You look like shit,” she said. “Hey, Anna Lee.”

Anna Lee smiled at Quinn before heading out. Quinn wondered what her husband had done with the bullets he’d dug out of him.

“So you got shot in the ass?”

“Just some buckshot,” Quinn said. “And a bullet in the shoulder.”

“I thought bullets bounced off Rangers.”

“You’re in a good mood.”

“Why the hell not?” Lillie said, standing over him and then turning her back to answer a call on the radio, a lot of squawking and static, but it was clear some shit was going on at the Citizens Bank Building. “Gets better and better.”

“Wesley sold me out.”

“Boom told me.”

“You expected that?”

“I wasn’t surprised,” she said. “I never wanted him a part of what we’d been up to.”

“He was my friend.”

“We can sing ‘I’ll Fly Away’ sometime later,” she said. “I got ten troopers blocking the roads out of the county. We got Gowrie bottled up, and now he’s come right back for more. I think he’s lost his goddamn mind. Ain’t no way this will end pretty. He either surrenders or gets killed.”

“How many with him?”

“He’s got seven of his boys and I got five, counting me,” she said. “He killed that preacher.”

“Johnny Stagg offered me a reward to get back his collection plate,” Quinn said.

“And you told him to go fuck himself.”

“You should probably wait for some more folks,” Quinn said. “Who’s in charge anyway?”

“I guess that’s me,” Lillie said. “We got deputies headed this way from Webster and Choctaw.”

“Folks will say a woman shouldn’t take action,” Quinn said, playing with her. “That Tibbehah always needs outside help.”

Lillie studied Quinn’s face as he moved slowly off the end of the bed, slipping down light and easy on wobbly legs. They held steady but hurt like hell, the medication wearing off.

“I can see your ass,” Lillie said.

“Troopers got him bottled in,” Quinn said. “He’s in the bank right now. No other way out?”

“Pretty much.”

“And he’s killed three men we know about.”

“And Jill Bullard.”

Quinn shook his head, handing her the suicide note Johnny Stagg had given to him. Her face dropped a bit, eyes lifting up and meeting Quinn’s. She shook her head like she didn’t believe a word of it even though they both damn well knew it was written in Hamp Beckett’s own hand. Shit, it was flecked with his blood.

“I don’t believe it.”

“You should,” he said. “We can debate it later.”

“We could just wait around.”

“Yeah,” Quinn said, grinning. “Sure thing.”

“Let everyone think that this whole county is corrupt and weak.”

“Would you please have someone get me a pair of jeans, a gun, and boots,” Quinn said, winking at her. “I’d like a shirt and jacket, if that wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

Lillie wadded up the suicide note and tossed it in the trash. “Be right back.”

“And Lillie?”

She hung at the doorway, hand on the doorframe. She had to lift her chin to see him from under the dropped bill of the ball cap.

“We’ll need some more local folks to make a stand.”

35

The old men seemed frozen in the same spot at
the VFW where Quinn had joined them one week ago after the funeral, where they’d first asked him to pull up a chair, share in some whiskey, and explained how his uncle stuck a .44 in his mouth and pulled the trigger. They all looked up from their ceremonial cups of coffee, seated at a corner table below a group photo from 1993 of the same men plus his uncle. Mr. Jim pointed to a chair—his uncle’s chair—and asked Quinn to join them, saying he was headed down to the barbershop and he always cut the hair of active service members for free. “High and tight,” he said. “I can give that Ranger cut as good as anyone.”

“We need help,” Quinn said, explaining the situation.

Varner walked behind the VFW bar, reaching for an M40 sniper rifle that hung in a red velvet perch. He checked the sight and racked open the chamber. “I keep ammo at the store. I can take a fair shot from the water tower.”

Quinn nodded.

“You loan me a gun?” Mr. Jim asked Lillie. “All I got is a peashooter I keep by my cash register.”

“Yes, sir,” Lillie said. “Two more of my deputies just quit. I’m down to Quinn, Boom, and two others. Four boys just got in from Choctaw. Two from Eupora. Troopers got the highways out of town.”

“What about you?” Quinn asked Judge Blanton.

Blanton hadn’t moved since Quinn and Lillie had walked in, sitting still with a hand around the heat of the coffee mug. He looked hungover, with half a cigar going in the saucer. “You sure about that?”

Quinn nodded.

“I got a shotgun and an old M1 in my trunk,” Blanton said. “Just got it out last week to show the boys. Works as good as ever.”

“Gowrie’s bottled up in the Square,” Quinn said. “We need to hold him there, make sure they don’t move.”

“Wesley really threw in with that sack of shit?’ Varner asked.

Quinn nodded.

“Who’s driving with me?” Varner asked. “My finger’s startin’ to itch.”

Gowrie strolled down
the rows of the Dixie Gas convenience mart, throwing chips, beef jerky, and liter bottles of Mountain Dew to his boys. They’d made it all the way out of town only to spot that roadblock with two state patrolmen, Gowrie not saying shit, only working that black Camaro into a wide U—turn and trying for another route. After the third roadblock, he drove back to the gas station, filled up the beast, and told the two cars following him to do the same. “It’s gonna be a battle,” he said. “Git some supplies.”

Daddy Gowrie drove the second car with Charley Booth riding shotgun, his cherry red El Camino with bucket seats complete with a nekkid-woman air freshener. He wasn’t so sure about his son’s plan and told Ditto, while everyone looted the store, the store clerk down on his face, counting squares.

“I think my boy’s brain has corroded.”

Ditto nodded.

“Why the hell you come back?”

“For money.”

“Money and pussy has killed many fine men.”

“You want to run?” Ditto asked.

“He’d kill me. He’d kill you, too.”

“I just as soon try,” Ditto said.

Daddy Gowrie topped off the tank and hung up the nozzle. “No. I said I’d back him. He’s my boy.”

“You shoot me if I run?” Ditto asked.

“Probably.”

Ditto looked to Main Street, running south into Jericho’s downtown. His eye caught something high up, just in line with the winter sun. Someone was crawling up that old rusted water tower with a rifle on his back.

“What you looking at?” Daddy Gowrie asked.

“Nothin’,” Ditto said, smiling. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on,” Daddy Gowrie said. “Wait one minute.”

Ditto turned and saw that Jimmy parked across the road, Lena marching toward the gas station with the baby in her arms. His mouth stayed open, not sure what the hell to say.

Charley Booth ran out to meet them and pulled them on inside.

“You ever seen two roosters git into it?” Daddy asked with a rotten smile.

Lillie gathered the men
on South Main, right by what had been the train depot, deputizing Blanton, Ed Varner, Mr. Jim, Boom, and Quinn right on the spot. Varner asked if this was all legal, and Judge Blanton said that Lillie was acting sheriff and she could deputize who she saw fit. That seemed to satisfy Varner, and he set off down the road for the water tower, telling Quinn he’d take the shot on Gowrie if he’d poke his head out just a little.

“What about George and Leonard?” Quinn asked.

“Who do you think quit on me?”

“In with Wesley?”

“Just cowards.”

Lillie held a 12-gauge and chewed gum, moving in the direction of the town Square, where they’d walk north toward where Gowrie’s men had met at the old Dixie Gas station. Judge Blanton held a beautiful old Browning Sweet 16 in his liver-spotted hands. Mr. Jim hobbled next to him in his Third Army hat, cradling a 12-gauge pump.

Boom held a deer rifle, the .44 Anaconda tucked into his belt.

Quinn carried Blanton’s old M1, the clip loaded and a spare in his jacket pocket. The old man said it had been his and he fired it once a year, still in fine working order.

They all crested the hill of the railroad tracks and moved on into town, passing a barricade set up by a couple policemen down from Eupora. Lillie nodded, the group of five walking together, Quinn scanning the town for any movement from the doorways or the roofs of the storefronts.

He picked out Ed Varner, that old crazy bastard, on the rusted water tower where he’d already found a perch for the sniper rifle, aiming it down toward the north end of the Square and the old gas station.

“I didn’t ask him to do that,” Lillie said, walking beside Quinn.

“You didn’t have to.”

“Can he make that shot?”

“In his sleep.”

Blanton hobbled alongside Boom, Boom’s left arm hanging loose with the rifle in hand. Mr. Jim kept that shotgun pointed upward, walking nice and easy, as if they were at a Saturday quail hunt, moving on past the Coulter’s Flower Shop, past what had once been the hardware store, pharmacy, and general store. Nothing but shells now. Plywood covered the busted-out windows of the Odd Fellows Hall and the check-cashing business on the bottom floor.

The town gazebo sat empty. The whole town emptied out after the bank robbery, the old brick buildings standing crooked and worn in the weak winter light, a cold wind slicing through alleys and roads. You could hear sirens and the sound of a helicopter, Lillie saying it flew down from Lee County. More support heading into Tibbehah County every minute.

“They’re not going anywhere,” Quinn said.

“I want you to blast Gowrie’s ass.”

“How you doin’, Boom?” Quinn asked, passing the veterans’ monuments, with old artillery parked at the base, an American flag and a POW flag flying overhead.

“I think I like being a deputy.”

“Better than jail?” Lillie asked.

“Better than jail,” Boom said.

The monuments had so many names etched in granite from World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and what they were calling the Global War on Terror. Six names added in the last ten years. Quinn knew them all.

The four-sided town clock sat in front of the old five-and-dime, still working, reading nearly three o’clock.

The helicopter beat overhead. The police sirens came from all directions.

Someone had cut
the power to the service station, and Gowrie’s boys met up in the candy aisle, Gowrie talking about how the government had wanted to implant microchips in every citizen but had to settle for digital watches. “That’s why you won’t catch me wearing jack shit.”

“Just askin’ the time,” Ditto said.

As soon as he’d seen Lena, Gowrie had smiled like he’d just won the Tennessee Lottery, reaching for her and the baby and telling them they were having a hell of a party at Dixie Gas today. He offered her some chicken wings and beer. “You just what we needed.”

Ditto took her to the back of the store by the beer coolers, wanting to ask her what in the hell she had just done. He had the matter well in hand and she just strolls on into this situation. But he didn’t speak while Gowrie could listen, waiting till Gowrie got off his ass and walked to the edge of the big window facing the pumps.

Gowrie spotted ten patrol cars barricading the path from the station, about three hundred feet from the door.

“Some fun,” Gowrie said. “Y’all ready?”

The phone to the store kept on ringing till Gowrie shot it and started to prowl around and smile, saying all the training at the compound was coming to a head. He said once they got in their vehicles, using the girl and baby as a shield, they could bust right through the barrier and shoot down a couple cops, too.

Gowrie hated cops.

Dittto recalled one plan he had involved them in, blowing up a police station in Memphis. Gowrie got real excited about it one day after church, and then the idea seemed to slip his mind.

“You love her?”

Ditto looked up to see Charley Booth, working on a Hershey bar in one hand and a sack of peanuts in the other. Lena said, “Ptttt,” and turned her head.

“That’s no concern of yours,” Ditto said.

“That’s my baby she’s holdin’.”

“This what you wanted for your baby, you dumb shit?”

Charley Booth leaned down and whispered, “Not really what I was aiming for.”

“Y’all shut the hell up,” Gowrie called from the front of the store. “I think they want to talk, lay out those terms and bullshit. Well, they can suck my ass. I’ll kill everyone in here if they keep crowding me.”

Daddy Gowrie had found a spot up by the cash register, where he thumbed through porno mags and drank a beer, every so often giving a low whistle and saying, “Hot dang.”

Ditto looked to Lena and mouthed the word “Why?”

Boom rested
the deer rifle in the open window of a sheriff’s office patrol car and smiled.

“You got him?” Lillie asked.

“I do.”

“I figure you take out Gowrie and we shoot the windows in with some tear gas,” Lillie said. “How’s that sound?”

“That’ll work,” Quinn said.

“Hold on,” Boom said, peering through the scope. “Y’all know they got a girl in there with a baby?”