The Forsaken (4 page)

W
h
en Jason Colson returned to Jericho, the mayor offered him the key to the city. But there was a catch, as there would be with someone as slick as Ben Bartlett. He asked if Jason might put on some kind of demonstration, you know, to bring people down from Memphis and see all Tibbehah had to offer. So Jason, never being one to shy away from a dare, asked if he might line up ten Ford Pintos and build a ramp at each end to his specifications. He’d bring along his custom-built Harley XR-
75
0, nearly identical to the one Evel Knievel rode, only instead of an American flag, this one had the Stars and Bars on the gas tanks. Bartlett only asked where and when.

They’d decided to do it on May 16th of 1977 in the center of the Tibbehah County stadium, the town welcoming back its favorite son after Jason had been gone about seven years working out in Hollywood. Most recently he’d joined up with a crazy man from Arkansas named Hal Needham, who’d brought him into a little film called
Smokey and the Bandit
that looked to perhaps be the biggest picture of the year. In the South at least. It bombed with the Yankees up in New York.

That Saturday morning, Jason wore a Schott Perfecto with his name embroidered on the back, jeans with kneepads, and riding boots. The jump, while tough, wasn’t as hard as some of the work he’d done with cars on
Smokey
or on
Gator
or on
Billy Jack Goes to Washington
. This was all about speed and timing and nerves. He had the nerves and had worked out the speed on a calculator. All the old stuntmen found it funny as hell he carried a calculator in his pocket. But he never did trust the changing wind or his math skills to protect his ass on a jump.

For the past six months, he’d been dating the actress Adrienne Barbeau, living it up in Laurel Canyon. But as much as Adrienne had to offer, she’d seemed to lose interest, and there also was this redhead back home. He’d been thinking of her ever since he’d come home the last time. That was the real reason he’d been coming back and the real reason he was going to fly over the cars that morning, pop some wheelies for the kids, and sign some autographs.

It was a hell of thing to come back and show you weren’t afraid of jack shit.

“You ready, Jason?” asked old Ben Bartlett. “I thought I might give the announcement and maybe you do a few tricks around the stadium. Just try not to burn up the end zone. We just had that resodded.”

“And you give me the key after the jump?”

Bartlett grinned like a goddamn politician. “If you make the jump.”

Who the hell says shit like “If”? Nobody said “If” to Jason Colson. Jason spit, looked up to the stands, and saw the redhead he’d been thinking about sitting there with the fat town sheriff who’d he’d just learned was her goddamn brother. A lot older brother who looked at Jason like he didn’t stand a chance.

“What’s that key open?” Jason said.

Bartlett may have been an opportunist, but he wasn’t stupid. Jason looked up at that redhead, Jean Beckett, who he’d known a good long while but never since she’d become a filled-out, curvy woman. He pointed to her and gave her the thumbs-up.

Damn, that look on her face made it all worth it as he pulled on his helmet, adjusted his elbow pads and kneepads, and gunned the engine. He did two fast laps around the stadium, popping wheelies like a barnyard rooster, and then zipped down to the line he’d calculated for the run. He’d have to hit his top
speed, running full-ass-out, when he hit that ramp. But he had to be careful. Start too soon and he’d overshoot the landing. Start too late and he’d be tasting goddamn Pinto for lunch.

He hit the mark and stopped, gunning the engine and staring down the space between the Harley and the ramp. He throttled the engine, its big, guttural sound shaking him and the bike, and making him realize for a split second he’d be just flying through the damn air on a seat with wheels and nothing else but the hand of God under him.

Jason Colson was good with that, toeing into first gear and running that bike faster than a scalded cat. The last thing he heard before hitting that ramp was the crowd yelling with excitement and fear.

And then there was only the open air.

N
ot that it always worked out, but when Quinn was on day shift, he was usually off at 1800 hours and drinking coffee with Boom at the Southern Star by 1815. Not that Quinn didn’t enjoy decent beer and good whiskey, it was just the town sheriff couldn’t, or shouldn’t, be seen drinking in public in uniform or some might critique his judgment. Coming to the bar was more a nice way to decompress and swap some stories before heading home at dinnertime. Boom, his oldest and best friend, who’d given up the whiskey for a while now, would listen to Quinn complain about the slowness of rebuilding of his mother’s house and how privacy was something he hadn’t had since that twister had torn apart Jericho.

“But there is all that family love, that togetherness and shit,” Boom said.

“Yes, sir,” Quinn said. “All that shit.”

“Man, you just pissed ’cause you can’t get laid,” Boom said. “You mad ’cause you and Ophelia can’t walk around buck-ass naked and take care of business.”

“And what’s the matter, if that’s the case?”

“You do seem just a little frustrated.”

“How’s that coffee?” Quinn said.

“Terrible as always,” Boom said. “Why do we come here anyway?”

“Because there’s nowhere else for forty miles?”

Boom nodded and toasted him with his mug. All around them people swilled beer and whiskey, a jukebox in the corner playing Willie Nelson’s “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain.”

“You hear about that Chinese restaurant coming in?” Boom said. “Some family down from Memphis. I think they’re Vietnamese but thought Chinese food would sell better. One of those buffets.”

“Hell, yeah,” Quinn said. “In Jericho, that’s some fancy grub.”

Quinn had known Boom since they were kids. They’d fished, hunted, fought, and raised hell all the way through high school until graduation, when Quinn signed up with the Army and Boom a couple years later with the Mississippi National Guard. Boom was a big, hulking black man who’d come back from Iraq with only one arm and a headful of PTSD. His water tanker had been blasted to hell and back when it hit an IED, and it had taken Boom a while to achieve what folks called the new normal. But he’d found what that meant, learning to work with a prosthetic, and even getting work tuning up the sheriff’s vehicles at the county barn, with screwdrivers as fingers.

The long-haired and long-bearded bartender, a fella named Chip, poured them both some more coffee. Except for the Skynyrd tee, he looked like an authentic mountain man.

“Damn, Quinn,” Boom said. “Why don’t y’all just move in together? Let your momma and Caddy have the farm, just find a place for you and Ophelia.”

“You know who you sound like?”

“Don’t tell me.”

“Lillie Virgil.”

“God damn it all to hell.”

The Southern Star was a long shot, narrow brick bar right off the Jericho Square, not too old since legal bars were something new to Tibbehah County. The bar ran along the left side of the room, the walls decorated with stuffed ducks, deer heads, and SEC and NASCAR memorabilia. A framed rebel flag adorned the wall in back of the bar, behind all the whiskey bottles. But Quinn’s favorite thing in the Southern Star was that crazy stuffed wildcat, hissing and reared back, ready to bite. It was indigenous to Tibbehah County and the high school mascot.

There was a stage at the far end of the bar where J.T., the local muffler man, was plugging in his bass to the motherboard, and a drummer Quinn didn’t know was setting up his kit. He turned to the door and saw Diane Tull walking in, proud and strong, holding a battered guitar case, wearing black jeans and a low-cut black top, turquoise necklace, and feather earrings. She was a good deal older than Quinn but still a very attractive woman. Quinn nodded to her.

Her face flushed as she passed and set down her guitar on the stage. She seemed to pause and hang there for a few moments and then clomped back to Quinn in her pointed rose-inlay cowboy boots and came up nose to nose. “OK,” she said.

“Ma’am?”

“Caddy said we could talk.”

“She did.”

“How about now?”

Quinn nodded. He introduced Boom.

“You think I don’t know Boom Kimbrough? His daddy worked at the Farm & Ranch for twenty years before my stepdaddy died.”

“Ole Mr. Castle,” Boom said. “How’s your momma and them?”

“Doing fine,” Diane said. “Appreciate you asking. And your daddy?”

“Working security at the mall in Tupelo.”

And then there was a little bit of silence, enough silence that Boom was
confident to excuse himself and say hello to J.T., who was readying the stage. Diane sat up with Quinn and motioned to Chip for two fingers of Jack Daniel’s and a Coors chaser.

“That’s pretty outlaw.”

“Helps with the nerves,” Diane said. “Whenever I have to sing, doesn’t matter if there are two people or two hundred, I get a little shaky inside. A couple drinks stokes some confidence. Makes my voice sound smoother.”

Quinn smiled, took a sip of coffee, and then checked the time. He needed to be back to the farm by 1900 to meet up with Ophelia and have dinner with the family.

“I really don’t know very much,” Quinn said. “Caddy said it would have to come from you.”

“I think,” Diane said, pushing back her black hair with her fingers, one silver streak hanging loose. “I think. Hell, I don’t know. I don’t know where to begin. You ever think something is as important in the dark of the night and then you wake up and find yourself trying to get some meaning out of it?”

“I do.”

“Really?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Quinn said. “You bet.”

“Please don’t call me ma’am,” Diane said, leaning into the bar. “Makes me feel old as hell.”

“Miss Tull?”

“Shit . . .”

“Diane?”

“Better.”

“And so Caddy says you and me need to talk.”

“That all she said?”

“Yep.”

Chip laid down the whiskey and the beer. Diane threw it back and chased it with the Coors. She took another sip and stayed there all silent
as J.T. hit some runs on his bass, the unknown drummer banging his kit, testing things for the show. Diane Tull’s guitar set still in the case, waiting for her to come up and lead them through that Outlaw Country set, talking about raising hell, drinking, heartache, and love with such an absolute truth that Quinn wished he could stay for a while.

“Me and you haven’t spoken that much,” Diane said.

Quinn nodded.

“But you know who I am?”

Quinn nodded, studied her face a bit, and waited.

“I don’t mean me the crazy lady at the feed store but the me you know for what happened when I was a teenager?”

Quinn took a breath. He slowly nodded.

“I never wanted to bring that up again.”

“I understand.”

“But all of this, what happened to the town, and other things that have come to light, have made me want to talk about it,” Diane said. “Now I don’t give a shit what you do. I don’t care if you file a report or investigate or whatever it is you do. I just want to tell the sheriff, someone different than those men I told—no offense because I know Hamp Beckett was your uncle—but just to make sure there’s some kind of memory, facts, to what Lori and I went through that night. It should be remembered.”

“Lori was the girl who was murdered?”

Diane nodded. She breathed, licked her lips, and swallowed.

“I don’t want to talk about it now . . . or here,” she said. “Can I come by the sheriff’s office tomorrow? I can take you out and show you where it happened. You know it’s your sister who wants me to do this.”

“Caddy has her way.”

“Caddy gives me a shit ton of strength,” Diane said. “What she did, taking on things after that tornado, helping out so many, despite her personal grief. Caddy Colson is my hero.”

“Mine, too,” Quinn said. “She’s got a tough streak. I’m proud of her.”

“Come by tomorrow?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Appreciate you, Sheriff,” Diane said. “But if you call me ma’am again, I’ll try and break your fingers.”

Diane Tull marched up to the stage and within five minutes, as Boom and Quinn were leaving the Southern Star, she launched into an old favorite called “The Healing Hands of Time.”

•   •   •

Johnny Stagg
ran most of Tibbehah County from a sprawling truck stop off Highway 45, not far from Tupelo, called the Rebel. The Rebel had a restaurant, a western-wear shop, convenience store, and place for truckers to shower, get some rest, and continue on to Atlanta or Oklahoma City or parts unknown. Lots of truckers made it the stop of choice in north Mississippi not only because of the fine facilities and the famous chicken-fried steak, but because of a smaller establishment behind the Rebel, also owned by Johnny Stagg, a concrete-bunker strip club called the Booby Trap. Tonight Stagg had on eight of his finest young girls, ranging in age from eighteen to forty-two, working the pole in spinning colored light to rap music that Johnny didn’t understand or care to understand. But Johnny would’ve played “God Bless America” if it made the girls get their asses off the couches and shake their tails two inches from those bone-tired truckers.

Stagg had dinner at the Rebel with Ringold, as was his nightly custom, and walked over to the Booby Trap, toothpick swiveling in mouth, where he kept his real office, not the one for the Rotarians or his constituents from the Tibbehah County Board of Supervisors. This office, away from the bar and the stage, and down a long hallway of ten-inch-thick concrete blocks and rebar, was where he kept a safe full of cash from running drugs and whores all over north Mississippi and Memphis.

“Yes, sir?” Stagg said, walking into the office, finding the man from
Jackson sitting and waiting. Ringold nodded and closed the door behind him.

“Heard you been in Memphis,” the man said. “So I waited.”

Stagg didn’t answer.

“I don’t know how you do it,” said the man, looking strange out of his stiff blue uniform for the Mississippi Highway Patrol. “Them people are animals up there. How you trust them blacks, Johnny? Good God Almighty.”

“I don’t see how my business is any concern of yours,” Stagg said, not caring one goddamn bit for the man just showing up unannounced and taking a seat in Johnny’s office. Stagg would have the ass of whoever opened his door up for the man and led him back. The man should’ve sat out in the titty bar like any professional, enjoying the jiggle, while Johnny finished up his pecan pie à la mode.

The Trooper smiled, black eyes flicking over Johnny’s face, waiting, just knowing that Johnny was curious as hell why he’d come.

“He’s getting out in a few weeks,” he said. “That’s official from the parole board.”

Stagg leaned forward over his desk. “You sure?”

“It’s a goddamn done deal,” the Trooper said. “Figured you’d want to know straight off. But if you don’t give a shit, hell, I won’t bother you again.”

The Trooper stood.

Stagg made a motion with his hand for him to sit his ass back down. Stagg looked up to Ringold, who raised his eyebrows and leaned against the wall. Ringold smiling a bit because he knew the possibility of this piece of shit getting out of prison had been one of the reasons he’d been hired.

When Ringold removed his jacket, you could see the man’s brightly colored tattoos running the length of both arms. Stagg believed the daggers and skulls represented kills he’d made in and out of the service.

“But Johnny,” the Trooper said. “Just ’cause the man’s getting out doesn’t mean he’s coming straight to Tibbehah County. That bastard is sixty-fucking-six years old. He probably just wants to go and live a quiet life somewhere. I think you’re putting too much thought into the past, buddy.”

Stagg swiveled his chair around, looking at Ringold and then back to the Trooper. He could feel himself perspiring up under the red Ole Miss sweater and his face heating up a good bit. He reached into his pant pocket and found the key to his desk, unlocked it, and pulled out two neat stacks of envelopes, all of them postmarked from the Brushy Mountain federal penitentiary in Tennessee. “For twenty years, that son of a bitch has been writing me letters, saying what he planned to do when he came back,” Stagg said.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” the Trooper said. “Shit, the parole board would’ve found that pretty damn interesting.”

“Been a good idea if the bullshit he wrote wouldn’t incriminate me, too,” Stagg said. “This man is one of the most cunning, evil, hardheaded sonsabitches I’ve ever met. He’s gonna join up with those shitbirds down on the Coast, they’re gonna put his old weathered ass back on the throne. Then they’re coming straight back for me. He’s going to do it. You know why? Because he goddamn promised he would, gave me his word, and now it’s his time.”

“That man sets foot in this place and we can arrest his ass,” the Trooper said. “You got so many friends in Jackson, Stagg. People who owe you favors are waiting in line. This guy makes any trouble, coming after you, and his ass is in jail or shot dead.”

“Y’all don’t get it,” Stagg said, rubbing his temples, standing up, and spitting the mawed toothpick in the trash can. “He doesn’t want to do me harm. He just wants to get back in the saddle and slide into the world he left.”