The Ranger - Ace Atkins [85]
“I don’t hear sirens.”
“Your uncle made a lot of enemies in Jackson,” she said. “Wasn’t any secret they weren’t welcome here.”
“Just why is that?”
“He was stubborn,” Lillie said. “You ever remember troopers hangin’ out in Tibbehah besides on 45?”
“Something happened this morning,” Quinn said, laying down the gun and reaching for the .45, popping out the slide. “I had a little chat with Gowrie.”
“I know,” Lillie said. “Wesley about shit a brick.”
“I bet.”
“How’d that chat go?”
“Gowrie was pretty open to the idea,” Quinn said. “Of course he denied killing my uncle.”
“What’d you expect?”
Quinn shook his head, the iPod shuffled onto Johnny Cash, playing “Daddy Sang Bass,” low, while he fed bullets into the magazine of his .45 and tucked it into his Western belt. “He did admit to working with Stagg, but he said Hamp did, too.”
“That’s a nasty lie, coming from a shitbag like that.”
“I don’t know what to think,” Quinn said. “But I’m not leaving till this is sorted out.”
“You gonna go AWOL.”
“If I have to.”
“Is this worth screwing up your whole career?”
“Yep.”
Lillie walked in close and slow and grabbed his arm, making him look at her. “I’m not leaving tonight,” she said. “Wesley said that was fine by him. Boom’s outside, standing watch by those trees. He said he’d stay out there all night if you’d bring him some whiskey.”
Quinn didn’t say anything, George Jones now sliding onto his digital mix, George telling them to step on up and take the Grand Tour of his empty house. He blinked, and Lillie moved in close and hugged him tight, rubbing his back. Quinn finding it awkward to hold her with the .45 and setting it on the table.
“Judge Blanton and my uncle were in that development project with Stagg,” Quinn said, letting out a long breath. “Stagg wanted to run me out so he’d control a parcel of land he needed to connect it to the highway. Blanton lied to me about it. He’s no different from all of ’em.”
Quinn could feel Lillie breathing next to him as he wrapped his arm around her small waist. “You know you got friends, right?”
“Sure wish I knew where that old dog went.”
They brought the boy back, bloody and busted up, and tossed him into the headlights of Gowrie’s Camaro at the base of the ravine. Daddy Gowrie and two of the boys had fetched Shackelford up somewhere in Tennessee and drove him back to camp, knowing that Gowrie had figured him for the snitch. Lena had heard that it didn’t take but a few phone calls to place him with Quinn Colson and some deputy up in Eupora. She’d even heard it might’ve been his own brother that sold him out for fifty dollars. A fifty-dollar bill looked as big as a bedspread right now to Lena, but she didn’t think she could sell out any of her kin for a paycheck.
She was feeding her baby girl when she heard the ruckus and didn’t have any choice but to stay in the trailer, with the heat and light, away from the screaming and yelling and all those fists and feet coming down on that poor boy’s body. She had a piece of curtain cocked off the window, nothing but an old towel, but she could watch without fear of Gowrie seeing her, making her witness to that evil he was doing. But maybe he didn’t care. He didn’t seem to have any room for remorse in that shit-stained soul.
Ditto and Charley Booth completed the ring, but she could tell it was only Charley that found some enjoyment in the beating, all them acting like a bunch of wild dogs on a runt. Charley getting his kicks in and then stepping back like he was afraid he might get bit. But this was all in the game, the way that she’d learned Gowrie would bring a wayward boy back into the group. You beat him and humiliated him and then they’d be drinking beer and listening to their heavy metal by midnight.
Or that’s what Charley Booth had said over supper.
She dropped the curtain and turned her head.
They was gonna kill him. Ditto knew it just as soon as he’d heard they were bringing back Keith Shackelford from somewhere