The Ranger - Ace Atkins [93]
31
“You don’t have to stand outside and smoke,” Jean Colson said, opening the screened kitchen door onto the back porch, where Quinn stood with a cigar. “You can smoke in the kitchen.”
The sun had gone down hours ago, and it had grown even colder than the night before. The porch chairs, left unused for months, were covered with molding leaves. He’d scraped off the leaves with his hands and wiped the muck on the legs of his jeans.
“Just wanted to stretch my legs.”
“Leonard is sitting right outside,” she said, motioning him in. “Come on and have some pie. Say good night to Jason. He waited up for you.”
“Just doing some thinking.”
“With your dad’s hunting rifle?”
“Just checking it out.”
His mother closed the door behind her and joined him on the deck, covered at each end by pecan trees, the ground sloping up to their neighbor’s backyard and a chain-link fence, where a dog was barking. She’d left a scarecrow hanging from a stake in the garden, and it jittered and spun in the cold wind.
“So they’re gone?” Jean asked.
“Wesley thinks they’re gone for good,” Quinn said. “I don’t see that happenin’.”
“You must’ve made them plenty mad.”
“Tried my best,” Quinn said, putting down the cigar in an empty flowerpot and sitting down across from his mother. She nodded. Quinn said: “No moon tonight.”
“You packed?”
“I don’t know,” Quinn said. “Not now.”
“How’s that gonna sit at Fort Benning?”
“My CO knows me.”
“They’re gone,” his mother said. “They’re not coming back, and nothin’s gonna happen to your old momma.”
“I can take a few more days,” he said. “They’ve got me slotted for training, and it’s not the same as waiting for rapid deployment. Things are different now.”
“Still, won’t sit well.”
“I can’t leave this mess.”
“It was your Uncle Hamp’s mess.”
“How do you figure?”
“My brother was a good man, and a good uncle to you,” she said. “He took over after your dad’s failings and did about everything he could right. I love him for that. But he was about as crooked as a dog’s hind leg.”
Quinn sat up, spilling the cigar ash on the worn rancher’s jacket.
“He’d been taking payoffs since he was elected.”
“I don’t believe it.”
She didn’t say anything, the wind still blowing around them, amplifying the cold in the thin soles of his cowboy boots.
“You can find what you want when you come back home,” she said. “But don’t throw away your career on account of this mess. You and Boom ran those men out of town.”
“What about Jason?”
“That’s what I wanted to tell you,” she said, waiting a beat, smiling. “Caddy’s coming over.”
“When?”
“Tonight,” she said, nodding.
“She’s taking him?”
“He’s her son.”
“And you’re okay with this?” Quinn asked, picking up the cigar, leaving the rifle on the porch and standing at the railing, looking out at the tilled-up earth where tomatoes and peppers and sunflowers would rise up in the hot summer. “She’s the mess.”
“Not anymore.”
Quinn took a deep breath, cigar in hand, looking across the little garden, and shook his head. “I saw her.”
“When?”
“Two nights ago,” he said. “She was in Memphis, and she was not fine.”
His mom waited, but that’s all he’d offer.
“Don’t let her take that kid, Mom,” he said. “She’s far, far gone.”
“Don’t say things like that,” she said. “She’s heard about the Bullard girl and all that’s happened.”
“Who told her?”
“I don’t know.”
“Anna Lee?”
“I don’t think so,” his mom said. “They haven’t been friends for a long while.”
“She ever tell you about Jason’s father?”
His mother shook her head and stayed silent. Quinn left the railing and walked back to the chair, standing there, smoking. Jean reached into her housecoat and pulled out a pack of cigarettes, joining him, sharing a weak smile.
They sat there in the cold, the cold feeling good, not saying a word until Jean got up, patted his knee, and went on inside to put Jason to bed.
Sometime later a car pulled into their driveway, headlights washing through the backyard and up into the bare branches of a pecan tree, and then a car door slammed.
Quinn could hear a rush of