35
The old men seemed frozen in the same spot at the VFW where Quinn had joined them one week ago after the funeral, where they’d first asked him to pull up a chair, share in some whiskey, and explained how his uncle stuck a .44 in his mouth and pulled the trigger. They all looked up from their ceremonial cups of coffee, seated at a corner table below a group photo from 1993 of the same men plus his uncle. Mr. Jim pointed to a chair—his uncle’s chair—and asked Quinn to join them, saying he was headed down to the barbershop and he always cut the hair of active service members for free. “High and tight,” he said. “I can give that Ranger cut as good as anyone.”
“We need help,” Quinn said, explaining the situation.
Varner walked behind the VFW bar, reaching for an M40 sniper rifle that hung in a red velvet perch. He checked the sight and racked open the chamber. “I keep ammo at the store. I can take a fair shot from the water tower.”
Quinn nodded.
“You loan me a gun?” Mr. Jim asked Lillie. “All I got is a peashooter I keep by my cash register.”
“Yes, sir,” Lillie said. “Two more of my deputies just quit. I’m down to Quinn, Boom, and two others. Four boys just got in from Choctaw. Two from Eupora. Troopers got the highways out of town.”
“What about you?” Quinn asked Judge Blanton.
Blanton hadn’t moved since Quinn and Lillie had walked in, sitting still with a hand around the heat of the coffee mug. He looked hungover, with half a cigar going in the saucer. “You sure about that?”
Quinn nodded.
“I got a shotgun and an old M1 in my trunk,” Blanton said. “Just got it out last week to show the boys. Works as good as ever.”
“Gowrie’s bottled up in the Square,” Quinn said. “We need to hold him there, make sure they don’t move.”
“Wesley really threw in with that sack of shit?’ Varner asked.
Quinn nodded.
“Who’s driving with me?” Varner asked. “My finger’s startin’ to itch.”
Gowrie strolled down the rows of the Dixie Gas convenience mart, throwing chips, beef jerky, and liter bottles of Mountain Dew to his boys. They’d made it all the way out of town only to spot that roadblock with two state patrolmen, Gowrie not saying shit, only working that black Camaro into a wide U—turn and trying for another route. After the third roadblock, he drove back to the gas station, filled up the beast, and told the two cars following him to do the same. “It’s gonna be a battle,” he said. “Git some supplies.”
Daddy Gowrie drove the second car with Charley Booth riding shotgun, his cherry red El Camino with bucket seats complete with a nekkid-woman air freshener. He wasn’t so sure about his son’s plan and told Ditto, while everyone looted the store, the store clerk down on his face, counting squares.
“I think my boy’s brain has corroded.”
Ditto nodded.
“Why the hell you come back?”
“For money.”
“Money and pussy has killed many fine men.”
“You want to run?” Ditto asked.
“He’d kill me. He’d kill you, too.”
“I just as soon try,” Ditto said.
Daddy Gowrie topped off the tank and hung up the nozzle. “No. I said I’d back him. He’s my boy.”
“You shoot me if I run?” Ditto asked.
“Probably.”
Ditto looked to Main Street, running south into Jericho’s downtown. His eye caught something high up, just in line with the winter sun. Someone was crawling up that old rusted water tower with a rifle on his back.
“What you looking at?” Daddy Gowrie asked.
“Nothin’,” Ditto said, smiling. “Let’s go.”
“Hold on,” Daddy Gowrie said. “Wait one minute.”
Ditto turned and saw that Jimmy parked across the road, Lena marching toward the gas station with the baby in her arms. His mouth stayed open, not sure what the hell to say.
Charley Booth ran out to meet them and pulled them on inside.
“You ever seen two roosters git into it?” Daddy asked with a rotten smile.
Lillie gathered the men on South Main, right by what had been the train depot, deputizing Blanton, Ed Varner, Mr. Jim, Boom, and Quinn right on the spot. Varner asked if this was all legal, and Judge Blanton said that Lillie was acting sheriff and she could deputize who she saw fit. That seemed to satisfy Varner, and he set off down the road for the water tower, telling Quinn he’d take the shot on Gowrie if he’d poke his head out just a little.
“What about George and Leonard?” Quinn asked.
“Who do you think quit on me?”
“In with Wesley?”
“Just cowards.”
Lillie held a 12-gauge and chewed gum, moving in the direction of the town Square, where they’d walk north toward where Gowrie’s men had met at the old Dixie Gas station. Judge Blanton held a beautiful old Browning Sweet 16 in his liver-spotted hands. Mr. Jim hobbled next to him in his Third Army hat, cradling a 12-gauge pump.
Boom held a deer rifle, the .44 Anaconda tucked into his belt.
Quinn carried Blanton’s old M1, the clip loaded and a spare in his jacket pocket. The old man said it had been his and he fired it once a year, still in fine working order.
They all crested the hill of the railroad tracks and moved on into town, passing a barricade set up by a couple policemen down from Eupora. Lillie nodded, the group of five walking together, Quinn scanning the town for any movement from the doorways or the roofs of the storefronts.
He picked out Ed Varner, that old crazy bastard, on the rusted water tower where he’d already found a perch for the sniper rifle, aiming it down toward the north end of the Square and the old gas station.
“I didn’t ask him to do that,” Lillie said, walking beside Quinn.
“You didn’t have to.”
“Can he make that shot?”
“In his sleep.”
Blanton hobbled alongside Boom, Boom’s left arm hanging loose with the rifle in hand. Mr. Jim kept that shotgun pointed upward, walking nice and easy, as if they were at a Saturday quail hunt, moving on past the Coulter’s Flower Shop, past what had once been the hardware store, pharmacy, and general store. Nothing but shells now. Plywood covered the busted-out windows of the Odd Fellows Hall and the check-cashing business on the bottom floor.
The town gazebo sat empty. The whole town emptied out after the bank robbery, the old brick buildings standing crooked and worn in the weak winter light, a cold wind slicing through alleys and roads. You could hear sirens and the sound of a helicopter, Lillie saying it flew down from Lee County. More support heading into Tibbehah County every minute.
“They’re not going anywhere,” Quinn said.
“I want you to blast Gowrie’s ass.”
“How you doin’, Boom?” Quinn asked, passing the veterans’ monuments, with old artillery parked at the base, an American flag and a POW flag flying overhead.
“I think I like being a deputy.”
“Better than jail?” Lillie asked.
“Better than jail,” Boom said.
The monuments had so many names etched in granite from World Wars I and II, Korea, Vietnam, the Gulf War, and what they were calling the Global War on Terror. Six names added in the last ten years. Quinn knew them all.
The four-sided town clock sat in front of the old five-and-dime, still working, reading nearly three o’clock.
The helicopter beat overhead. The police sirens came from all directions.
Someone had cut the power to the service station, and Gowrie’s boys met up in the candy aisle, Gowrie talking about how the government had wanted to implant microchips in every citizen but had to settle for digital watches. “That’s why you won’t catch me wearing jack shit.”
“Just askin’ the time,” Ditto said.
As soon as he’d seen Lena, Gowrie had smiled like he’d just won the Tennessee Lottery, reaching for her and the baby and telling them they were having a hell of a party at Dixie Gas today. He offered her some chicken wings and beer. “You just what we needed.”
Ditto took her to the back of the store by the beer coolers, wanting to ask her what in the hell she had just done. He had the matter well in hand and she just strolls on into this situation. But he didn’t speak while Gowrie could listen, waiting till Gowrie got off his ass and walked to the edge of the big window facing the pumps.
Gowrie spotted ten patrol cars barricading the path from the station, about three hundred feet from the door.
“Some fun,” Gowrie said. “Y’all ready?”
The phone to the store kept on ringing till Gowrie shot it and started to prowl around and smile, saying all the training at the compound was coming to a head. He said once they got in their vehicles, using the girl and baby as a shield, they could bust right through the barrier and shoot down a couple cops, too.
Gowrie hated cops.
Dittto recalled one plan he had involved them in, blowing up a police station in Memphis. Gowrie got real excited about it one day after church, and then the idea seemed to slip his mind.
“You love her?”
Ditto looked up to see Charley Booth, working on a Hershey bar in one hand and a sack of peanuts in the other. Lena said, “Ptttt,” and turned her head.
“That’s no concern of yours,” Ditto said.
“That’s my baby she’s holdin’.”
“This what you wanted for your baby, you dumb shit?”
Charley Booth leaned down and whispered, “Not really what I was aiming for.”
“Y’all shut the hell up,” Gowrie called from the front of the store. “I think they want to talk, lay out those terms and bullshit. Well, they can suck my ass. I’ll kill everyone in here if they keep crowding me.”
Daddy Gowrie had found a spot up by the cash register, where he thumbed through porno mags and drank a beer, every so often giving a low whistle and saying, “Hot dang.”
Ditto looked to Lena and mouthed the word “Why?”
Boom rested the deer rifle in the open window of a sheriff’s office patrol car and smiled.
“You got him?” Lillie asked.
“I do.”
“I figure you take out Gowrie and we shoot the windows in with some tear gas,” Lillie said. “How’s that sound?”
“That’ll work,” Quinn said.
“Hold on,” Boom said, peering through the scope. “Y’all know they got a girl in there with a baby?”
“Shit,” Lillie said. “Your friend?”
Quinn took the field glasses Lillie passed to him and watched the girl arguing with that boy Ditto and some skinny little white boy with jug ears.
“Yep.”
“Shit,” Lillie said.
“This complicates things,” Quinn said.
“I can take out Gowrie,” Boom said. “What do you say, Lillie? Shit.”
“What?” she asked.
“Son of a bitch moved.”
Quinn handed her the field glasses and nodded.
“What do you say, Ranger?”
“I can clear that room in under twenty seconds.”
“What about your girl and baby?”
“I can work around them unless they make a break.”
“Let’s go,” Gowrie said.
He had his sweating forearm around her neck, Lena trying to breathe and hold Joy at the same time. The baby was screaming and Gowrie was yelling, making her move faster than her legs could work. She wanted him just to ease up a little, let her catch a breath before they broke out, because if she couldn’t breathe she’d drop the child.
He kicked open the gas-station door and walked her out onto the pavement, pointing the gun to her head and then back at the long row of policemen and cruisers. Lena had just a single moment of clarity then, looking at all those red and blue lights, all those guns aimed at Gowrie, and kind of took comfort that this wasn’t something being done at Hell Creek but in plain view of so many people.
If she or her baby died, someone would at least know about it.
He tightened the grip around her neck, his mouth hot and wet in her ear. “Get in the fucking car.”
He let off her neck and opened the passenger seat to the old muscle car. She tried to get inside, hold that baby close, but not fast enough for Gowrie, who kicked her in the ass and sent her toppling over, nearly crushing her child. She screamed at him and then just started screaming at all of it—at Charley for all he’d done and then Ditto for bringing them back here and then herself for the goddamn mess she’d caused. She’d thought she could grab Ditto, make Charley Booth see that some men were a hell of a lot smarter and stronger.
But Gowrie just ate her up.
She was in the car now, the .22 tucked into the blanket with Joy.
The keys were in the ignition as Gowrie tried to crawl over her.
She started the car with a free hand, baby in her right arm, and slipped her foot onto the pedal, knocking the car into first gear. The car lurched forward in a rush before she hit the brake, and Gowrie smacked his head against the windshield, spiderwebbing the glass, as Lena took a shaky aim at his chest with that ole peashooter and fired three times.
Her baby screamed. Gowrie fell out of the open door and rolled onto the grease-stained asphalt and ran for his boys.
She took her foot from the accelerator, slowing at a pile of creosote crossties, trying to stop that war-cry scream. Her baby screaming and crying.
Two cops looked into the window and tapped on the glass. The engine revved, but she wasn’t going nowhere. She tried to calm Joy, that .22 still frozen in her fingers.
She looked at herself in the rearview mirror, the red eyes, and tears causing some confusion. She climbed out, tossed the gun in the dirt, and saw Gowrie surrounded by his shitty daddy, Charley Booth, and two more boys.
Ditto wasn’t anywhere to be seen.
Quinn Colson, two old men, and that big black man with one arm walked onto the grounds of the station. That woman deputy stood with them, aiming a rifle at Gowrie and his boys. Gowrie, bleeding in ragged spurts onto his T-shirt, seemed to think this whole mess was funny.
His gun was out.
All of ’em had guns out.
What followed lasted only thirty seconds but would often take hours to debate.
No one ever said who fired first, but it was thought the first shot came from the town water tower, no one being able to say—officially—who was up that high.
Gowrie was knocked back, covered in so much blood it was hard to tell where he’d been hit, and his daddy whipped his pistol up before being shot twice through the throat. He fell to the ground, crawling for his El Camino and making it only to the door handle before he died.
Charley Booth made a run for it, turning once to fire his revolver at the cops and getting two rounds of 16-gauge shot through him, opening up his chest like two solid fists. He bled out within a minute.
The other two boys, names later released before they headed to Parchman, dropped their guns and put up their hands. A large black man with one arm knocked them to the ground, holding them underfoot.
Lillie Virgil was down, shot in the calf. Judge Blanton was flat on his back on the cracked asphalt, blood around his head like a halo.
Gowrie crawled back into the gas station and slammed the glass door shut behind him, breathing like a caught fish. The clerk had made a run for it, leaving the back door wide open, the wide expanse of a muddy field showing in a clear frame.
Gowrie saw the shadow of a man enter and then disappear like a wraith.
“Hey, soldier,” Gowrie said, yelling, spitting blood. “Come on down and we can hammer this shit out. I didn’t kill your uncle. You hear me? I didn’t kill him.”
Quinn wanted to ask him about Wesley Ruth and Johnny Stagg and those men from Memphis but instead just hobbled around the aisles of the darkened convenience store, holding a fully loaded M1, hearing Gowrie breathing and cussing. His mouth giving him up as Quinn passed by a NASCAR display for Pepsi and bags of potato chips and pork rinds.
Quinn wanted to kill him.
He’d figured on killing him.
Quinn eyed Gowrie in the wide picture of the shoplifting mirror. Gowrie was on his ass with a pistol, holding his bloody stomach and spitting blood. The floor was slick with all that blood where he’d been crawling on his belly.
“How you doin’?” Quinn asked, limping slow.
“Peachy, soldier.”
“You know, you remind me of a fella I once met in the Kandahar Province,” Quinn said. “You ever hear of that place?”
“I ain’t stupid.”
“He ambushed me just as I was about to get on a helicopter,” Quinn said. “Tried to slit my throat.”
Gowrie didn’t say anything.
Quinn wavered from the pain and gritted his teeth as he crept down the aisle, realizing he was dragging his back leg. “Even after I shot him and cuffed his hands, he kept asking me to kill him. Why do you figure?”
Gowrie was silent, and then said: “You gonna shoot or teach me a goddamn parable?”
Quinn could turn on the next aisle and aim straight down the row with that old M1. Gowrie was already immobilized and sitting pretty. He could take the shot so damn easily.
Quinn stepped back, feeling as if a knife had sliced his hamstring and ass while he retraced his steps back down the aisle. The shot would’ve been so easy and quick.
“Do something,” Gowrie yelled.
Quinn looked up at the round mirror at Gowrie, eyes closing and opening, spitting blood, and trying to keep from passing out. Quinn shook his head and limped forward.
With his good arm, Quinn pushed over the candy-and-gum display, the old metal cage crashing on top of Gowrie. Gowrie kicked and flailed to get loose and rush Quinn.
Quinn staggered over to him, swinging the butt of that ancient rifle at Gowrie’s head, the shitbag’s pistol clattering to the floor. He punched Gowrie in his throat and bloodied chest. Quinn clenched his jaw in a mess of pain that almost brought him to his knees. He dropped on top of Gowrie, grinding his knee into the spot he’d stuck with an arrow not long ago. “You want it bad, don’t you?”
“What the fuck? Goddamn.”
“You want to be somebody.”
Gowrie’s mouth rushed with air, eyes watering. The smell of him was something tremendously sharp and rotting as Quinn held him down flat to the floor. Lawmen filled the room, Lillie limping behind them.
“You’ll be sorry you didn’t pull the trigger,” Gowrie said, whispering with a bloody smile. “You think those boys are the best I got? I’m coming back to kill you.”
“Counting on it.”
Lillie helped Quinn to his feet as two deputies wrestled Gowrie from the floor. When he was gone, only a slick trail of blood left, she turned to him. “The judge is dead.”
Quinn nodded. He picked up the old man’s gun and walked out into the daylight, the Dixie Gas sign reminding him of a flag.