The Ranger - Ace Atkins [52]
“Shut up and sit tight.”
Quinn walked the road a quarter mile down into a cleared circle with two mobile homes up on concrete blocks. He circled the property twice before he was sure no one was inside either trailer. He tried the doors, finding one unlocked; the other had to be busted open.
Both were empty.
Quinn jogged back to the Buick under a patch of moonlight and spotted Shackelford, standing by a ravine, taking a leak. “Can you please take me back to Eupora?”
“You’ve shown me two places.”
“So?”
Quinn reached into the glove box and found the Tibbehah County map he’d bought, circling the sites they’d already visited.
“You said you knew of at least thirteen cook spots.”
“I said I know where they used to be,” he said, zipping up his fly and turning back to Quinn. “I didn’t make you no promises.”
Quinn scratched his neck. “What do you want?”
“I don’t want nothin’.”
“He killed my uncle.”
“Probably,” Keith said. “He sure killed Jill. But that don’t mean nothin’ to me.”
“Where next?”
“You know, I used to be good-looking,” Shackelford said. “You better believe it. I was king-shit stud in high school. Played football. Ran track. I got more tail than you could shake a stick at.”
“Where’s next?”
“You know your way up to Fate?”
Quinn circled the hamlet on the map, got into the car, and cranked the engine, which sputtered twice before turning over. He drove back down the hill and pulled onto the highway to town, where they’d hit 9 going north.
“Latecia said where to find me?” Shackelford said, righting himself up into the seat and cracking the window, the cold air feeling good in the cab, blowing away some of Shackelford’s body odor. “Right?”
Quinn didn’t answer.
“Man, if Gowrie had known I liked black women, he’d a shit a brick. ’Course, Latecia was light-skinned, hot as hell. Guess that don’t make no difference.”
“What do you know about him?”
“He’s a crazy-ass, nigger-hating nut job,” Shackelford said, coughing up a lugie and spitting out the window. “What else is there to know? He likes to shoot guns, shoot crank, and talk about the End Times like some kind of wandering preacher. I did business with him. I didn’t say I followed him.”
“Who’d he do business with?”
“I don’t know.”
“He didn’t sell what y’all made in this county?”
“He sold some, I guess,” Shackelford said. “But he said he wouldn’t shit where he ate.”
“I heard that before,” Quinn said, taking a soft turn in the road, stealing a glance at Shackelford. “Taliban said they sold poppies only to the infidels. Their politicians made excuses for those shitbags, saying the farmers couldn’t survive.”
Shackelford took off his baseball cap and creased the bill. “I sleep in on Election Day, never figured a single politician to be worth a shit.”
“You ever hear Gowrie talk about Johnny Stagg?” Quinn asked.
“The county supervisor?”
Quinn nodded.
“Not that I recall.”
“Stagg sent over some of Gowrie’s boys to steal some of my uncle’s cattle.”
“You know, most of those boys believe in Gowrie, like he’s some kind of prophet. I went out there one night to some kind of barbecue, and he showed us an old movie about the mongrelization of the races. Said if we didn’t come together to fight it, we’d be the new niggers. What the hell does that mean? But he did make some pretty good ice cream. Peach, I think.”
They drove north, turning on the Square to the northwest part of the county on the other side of the Big Black River, a full moon shining out onto the flooded land like a mirror. They crossed over an old metal bridge that had always reminded Quinn of an Erector set.
“You headed back?” Shackelford asked.
“You got more places to show me.”
“I mean, headed back to the AFG.”
“I’m headed back to Benning.”
“You know your next deployment?”
“Ranger instructor.”
“No more stormin’ the castle, huh?”
“Why don’t you shut the hell up?”
Quinn studied the broken line on Highway 9, not being able to see an inch beyond those headlights. He turned on the radio, George Jones singing he had stopped loving her today.
A little before midnight,