The Ranger - Ace Atkins [15]
Varner laughed and leaned against a support beam, smoking and coughing at the idea. Mr. Jim just shook his head, standing up from the chair for a brief moment and spitting over the railing before settling back down.
“Not long after you left,” Blanton said. “He sold that filthy place, but I have my doubts. Same ole place, with its backroom whores and card games. It may have exchanged officially, but I have the feeling he’s still got a piece of it.”
“And got himself elected. He’s running the county board of supervisors.”
“Everything in Tibbehah County is for sale,” Mr. Jim said. “Most folks who kept things straight are dead.”
“Or retired,” Blanton said.
“Well, I’m not handing it over,” Quinn said.
“You could get a decent price for the property,” Varner said. “It’s the land he wants, not trouble.”
“I’d rather burn the house and timber,” Quinn said.
Varner smiled and looked over to Mr. Jim, who cracked a grin, smoke leaking out from his old lips. He crossed his legs at the ankle and smiled with pride at Jason Colson’s kid, although the men had never really accepted Quinn’s father, always seeing him for what he’d become, a drunk who ruined about everything he touched.
“Want some coffee?” Blanton asked.
Quinn nodded, placing his smoldering cigar on a large ashtray, and followed Blanton to the back door of the old house and into the kitchen, where he had a pot of coffee plugged into the wall. Blanton poured them both a cup and headed into a sitting area filled with fine antiques, foxhunt paintings in oil on canvas, and an enormous old grandfather clock that ticked and whirred, filling the silence until the time changed to eight, clanging and gonging, then only the slow tick between them.
“So you’re going to stay awhile?”
“I got five more days.”
“Can I recommend a good lawyer?”
“I was thinking of you.”
“I’m retired.”
“But you’re the only one I trust.”
“I guess I could file a few things in town to keep Stagg off your property. Sooner or later this thing’ll end up in front of Purvis Reeves.”
“He’s the judge?”
“Even if Stagg hadn’t been the one who put him on the bench,” Blanton said, “Purvis’d likely look at both claims and seek to split the difference. That’s his idea of justice. I might could whittle Stagg down some, though. That I can promise you. Maybe you keep the house and a good hunk of the property. You’re apt to lose some road front, though.”
“I hate that bastard.”
“He’s not worth that,” Blanton said. “Hate’s too powerful an emotion to waste on turds.”
Quinn tested the coffee and it had cooled a bit. Blanton walked to the fire in the small chimney and poked at it, the air smelling of burning cedar, pleasant and warming on a cold, gray morning. He looked through the glass panes in the front door and watched his friends, sitting comfortably and smoking. “Don’t let that cigar go out on you.”
“Do you know what happened to my uncle?” Quinn asked.
Blanton placed the fire poker back into the metal rack and turned back to him.
“Lillie Virgil doesn’t believe he’d kill himself.”
“That little ole gal likes to create problems.”
“You must’ve seen him before it happened.”
“None of us had spoken to Hamp for nearly a month,” Blanton said. “He wouldn’t return our calls. If we stopped by the jail, he’d find something that needed to be done.”
“But you were his friend,” Quinn said, leaning in from his chair. “Just what was it that hit him so hard and fast?”
“This county,” Blanton said. “His job, the way most everything he’d known had been tainted and ruined. He’d become obsessed with taking the blame for things he couldn’t control. He was too old and too experienced to take his work so personally.”
“Is it that bad?” Quinn asked.
Blanton began to rebutton his mackintosh coat and motioned his head toward the porch. Quinn followed him to the front door, the daylight coming on strong but not seeming to break the brisk cold. Blanton put his arm around Quinn’s shoulder. “Do you know I have to sleep at night with my doors locked and a pistol under my pillow?”
“And two mean dogs.”
“Around here, I wish they were