The Ranger - Ace Atkins [11]
Boom nodded and smiled as Quinn downshifted and slowed into the gravel drive of the old farmhouse, looming white and ramrod straight, with the tin roof shining. They both crawled out of the truck, Boom tossing the wadded-up foil of his biscuit into a massive pile of junk and garbage by the old house’s front steps. “Whew.”
“Got bad after my aunt died. My mom says Hamp stopped caring.”
“This is just plain nasty.”
“Inside it’s even better,” Quinn said.
“Why am I here again?”
“’Cause I said I’d pay you if you’d help.”
“You did?”
Quinn pushed open the door to find that same sickly scent as last night, the same smell that had driven Lillie and him out into the yard, locking the door behind them. They decided to take one room at a time. The parlor was loaded with rat-eaten furniture and boxes of old clothes and rags, absolutely nothing of value. Musty clothes and ragged suits decades out of style. Leisure suits of denim, white dress shirts yellowed with nicotine. There were stacks of newspapers and scrap wood, piles of drapes and rolled carpets without any purpose. He and Boom made a pile in the back field, and Boom walked to one of the old barns to hunt up some kerosene or diesel to start burning the whole mess of it.
Quinn found a suitcase filled with old family photographs and placed it on the kitchen table. And then there were the guns, damn guns, all over the house. Hampton had squirreled away pistols in the folds of his sofa, behind doors, high on bookshelves, and even a .38 on the lid of his toilet. More boxes of ammunition, souvenirs and medals from Korea, and tarnished awards from decades in law enforcement.
Boom had the bonfire in the back field stoked, and twisting gray snakes of smoke rose far up into the reddened twilight. Quinn had already found twenty-four guns, a pocket watch that had belonged to his great-grandfather, broken crystal and broken china, mountains of old books, tools that would be useful to get the property up to speed, and record albums he’d sort out later. There was gospel and plenty of George Jones and Charley Pride. Charley Pride always made Quinn think about his uncle, the music always playing when they’d come over for supper.
He also found two bottles of aged bourbon that Hampton had kept for much better days or perhaps just misplaced in the piles of shit. One of them had a tag reading MERRY CHRISTMAS FROM THE STAGG FAMILY.
Quinn uncorked the bottle with his teeth and reached for a tobacco brown ranch coat he’d found in his uncle’s closet, the same coat Hamp had worn the day he’d found Quinn lost in the woods. Boom was a hulking shadow by the fire, holding a shovel in his one hand and watching the decades of memories and clutter crumble to ashes. Quinn handed the bottle to Boom, and Boom examined the label in the firelight, nodding his approval.
“You know, my parole officer says this stuff is the root of all my problems.”
“You got the shakes.”
“Appreciate you not judging me.”
“Long as you reciprocate.”
A biting wind separated them and whistled in Quinn’s ears as Boom took a long swallow and passed the bottle back. They drank for a while as the night came onto the farm. The temperature dropped hard and fast, and Quinn was grateful for the coat and the fire his uncle had provided. A tattered piece of an old flowered dress that he clearly remembered his aunt wearing to one of his birthday parties caught and sputtered, bursting into a blue-and-orange flame, and then it was gone.
A large truck rambled down the gravel road an hour later, and the beams of the headlights swung onto the house and the back field. Two men got out, and Quinn and Boom exchanged glances. Quinn handed the half-empty bottle back to Boom and walked toward the headlights.
As the two figures stood there in the glow, a familiar feeling of being exposed out in the open and naked and vulnerable passed through Quinn—he wished he had a weapon, preferably his M4, but was then embarrassed by the thought. One of the figures stepped forward, and even in the distance, and through all the years he’d been gone, he