The Forsaken (6 page)

“God damn, it keeps on hurting, Diane,” Stillwell said, finishing the beer. “You think that’ll ever stop?”

“No, sir,” she said. “Not till you quit loving your daughter.”

She stood and walked with him to the door and watched as he made his way down her stone path and back to a vintage Plymouth with shiny chrome wheels. He had to crank the car three times, but once it started it growled like a big cat before he rode away.

Diane took a deep breath. Tomorrow she’d lay it all out. Even if it didn’t make her feel better, maybe it would keep both Stillwell and Caddy Colson off her ass.

The bugs had started to gather on her front porch. She clicked off the night-light and went on to bed.

J
ason’s younger brother Van had warned him: “Don’t go and fuck with Big Doug and all his bullshit. I don’t care how long y’all been friends. Something done broke in his head in Vietnam.”

“We’re just going to go drink some beer,” Jason said. “What can be wrong with that?”

“You know who he rides with?” Van said. “You know about him and the Born Losers? They seen you jump the other day and wanted you to come out to the clubhouse. It ain’t no beer joint, it’s their private club where they shoot drugs, shoot guns, and raise hell. Do what you want, but I wouldn’t go out to Choctaw Lake for nothing.”

“Appreciate the advice, Van,” Jason said, sliding into his leather jacket and snatching up the keys to his Harley. This was the Fat Boy, not the trick bike he’d used at the show. The landing had been a little off and, damn, if he hadn’t bent the frame. He’d get her straightened out and smooth out the gas tank where it got all nicked to hell when he laid her down. He hadn’t wanted to ditch the bike, but he came off the ramp hot as hell and headed right into the cop cars that had been parked in the end zone.

He rode out along Dogtown Road on a fine early-summer night, feeling the warm wind, smelling that honeysuckle and damp earth, and being glad he
was back down South for a while. The Fat Boy was baby blue, with a hand-tooled leather seat made by the same man who’d made saddles for Elvis. It was comfortable to be on the bike, comfortable to be back home among friends. The evening light was faded, a purple light shining off the green hills headed out to the lake, nothing but winding ribbon and yellow lines.

The clubhouse had once been an old fishing cabin, a cobbled-together collection of boards and rusted tin. Outside, fifteen, twenty Harleys parked at all angles in the dirt, all of them custom, with tall ape hand bars, and sissy bars on the backseats for the women who rode with them. When Jason killed the engine he could hear an old Janis Joplin song blaring from inside the shack. A man with red hair and beard, wearing leather pants but no shirt, eyed Jason as he walked past. The man was turning over steaks on an open grill and smoking a cigarette. The man looked to Jason, cigarette hanging from his mouth, and said, “Who the fuck are you?”

“I’m Jason-Fucking-Colson.”

The dude stopped, held up the end of a long fork to Jason’s chest, and said, “You the dude who jumped the bike over all them Pintos?”

“Yep.”

“I saw that,” the man said. “That was some crazy shit. A bit wobbly on that landing, but some crazy shit, brother.

“My name’s Stillwell, but they call me Pig Pen.” He removed the fork from Jason’s chest and offered him a big pat on the back, his hands filthy with grease. “Big Doug is inside with his old lady. Go on in, there’s cold beer in some trash buckets, help yourself. Damn.”

The windows had been busted out a long time ago and covered in plastic sheeting that bucked up and rippled in the wind off Choctaw Lake. There was a doorway but no door, and once Jason got inside it took some adjusting to get used to the darkness. The walls were decorated in those velvety glow posters of women with big tits, panthers, and Hendrix and Zeppelin. There were some black lights spaced around the room, keeping everything in a soft purple light. as men in leather vests and women in tight T-shirts stared up at him, everyone
getting real quiet, just like folks in old John Wayne movies, and all he could hear was Janis daring a man to take another piece of her heart.

Someone messed with the music, turning down what he saw was an old jukebox on a dirty concrete floor, and Jason looked at the group, man-to-man, and over at the women, with long stringy hair down to their butts. He nodded and walked toward the beer, the reason he’d come to the party, since it was harder to find a cold beer in Jericho than a decent job.

And there was Big Doug, arms outstretched, big hairy belly exposed through a wide-open leather vest. He had long black hair and a long black beard and looked like he should be riding the high seas with men with wooden legs and eye patches. He walked over to Jason, wrapped him in a bear hug, and lifted him off the ground. Big Doug got the name honest: he was six foot six and about three hundred pounds. A woman, wearing a headband over her long blond hair parted in the middle, walked over and gave Jason a cold can of Coors.

“I knew you’d come,” Big Doug said. “That pussy brother of yours try and scare you?”

“Which one?”

“Van,” Big Doug said. “I tried to talk to him at the Dixie gas station a few days ago and he about pissed down his leg.”

“Were you alone?” Jason said, grinning.

“Just out for a ride.”

“All of you?”

“Yep,” Doug said. “We ride with the club. We live with the club. It’s a brotherhood. Hey, listen, I want you to meet my woman, Sally. We call her Long Tall Sally because . . . you know.”

“She’s built for speed?”

“Hell yeah,” Big Doug said. “Man, you hadn’t changed a bit. You look the same as when we graduated. You said you’d get out and, damn, if you didn’t do it. Working with Burt Reynolds. Holy shit. You’re an A-list L.A. motherfucker now.”

Jason nodded, drank some beer. The jukebox went silent and he heard that click and whir of a new song coming on. Wicked Wilson Pickett. “Mama Told Me Not to Come.” Somebody’s idea of a joke.

Since leaving the set of the last picture, Jason had let his hair grow out some, getting long for him, down over his ears and covering his forehead and eyebrows. He’d even grown a beard, feeling like a wild man and all natural, until being around this bunch made him feel like a clean-cut square. Some pussy businessman from Atlanta.

“How long you here for?” Sally asked. She had roving eyes and wore a man’s tank top hiked up high over her belly. From the looks of her belly, she drank as much beer as Big Doug.

“Few weeks,” Jason said. “Want to help my dad get settled after my mom died. Spend some time with Van. And Jerry is driving his rig in from El Paso. Should be here soon.”

“Jason-Goddamn-Colson,” Big Doug said, a little high and a little drunk. “Man, you were never scared of shit. Me and him did FFA together and he was the only one who’d compete with the men at the State Fair. He’d ride goddamn bulls. You remember that? Riding those big-nutted motherfuckers till they sent you flying.”

“Good times.”

“Good times?” Big Doug said. “You are crazy, you son of a bitch.”

Jason finished the beer and Sally wandered off to get him a new one. His eyes had adjusted in the dim room, with the purple light, the haze of dope smoke, and a makeshift bar with a velvet painting of a nude black woman above it. The big glow of the jukebox shone across a group of three men who hadn’t gotten up, still staring at Jason as he stood in the center of the clubhouse.

“Hey, come on,” Big Doug said, just as Sally handed him the Coors. “I want you to meet the man. Come on.”

Jason walked with him over by the jukebox, the music so loud it was hard to hear a word that was being said. A muscular man with no shirt and a lot of tats reclined in a big leather chair. A young girl was in his lap, arm around his
neck, holding a cigarette for him and then taking a drag herself. She checked out Jason as Big Doug leaned in and said something in his ear. The man had wild eyes and long greasy black hair and a long beard. There was a lot about the fella that reminded Jason of goddamn Charles Manson.

Jason nodded at him. The scary fella just stared, took another drag, and then looked to Doug, who was grinning big as shit. Doug leaned over to Jason and yelled in his ear. “Meet Chains LeDoux, club president.”

Jason offered his hand. Chains looked at him as if he’d just picked up a turd. Jason looked up over to Big Doug and shrugged. “Doesn’t look like I’m wanted.”

“Don’t worry, he’s always like that,” Big Doug said as they walked away, Chains’s wild eyes never leaving Jason. “He just is skittish of new people. He’s protective of all of us. Doesn’t like change. Always worried someone is going to be a narc.”

“Do I look like a narc?”

Big Doug smiled and patted Jason’s back so hard, Jason lost his wind for a moment. “You sure do, brother,” Big Doug said. “You sure do.”

“Appreciate the beer.”

“You ain’t going yet,” Big Doug said, grabbing his elbow. “We’re just getting started. And you’re invited to ride with us tomorrow. We’re going up to Shiloh, pay tribute to the boys.”

“That gonna be OK with Chains?”

“He’ll learn to love you as much as I do,” Big Doug said. “Just relax, man. Be cool, brother. You’re among friends.”

L
et’s get one thing straight right from the start, Sheriff Colson,” Diane Tull said, “if there is any blame that goes to this, go ahead and blame me. I was the one who wanted to walk home. I was the one who froze up when that man stopped us, when Lori and I should have run like hell.”

“The only blame is on the man who did this,” Quinn said. “You were two kids. The man had a gun and had you both trapped. He was a predator out there hunting for something just like y’all. If it hadn’t been you, he would have attacked someone else.”

Diane was quiet, seated in the passenger side of his big green Ford F-250, the heater blowing, hot coffee in the mug holders, driving on out to the road to Jericho where all this had happened thirty-seven years ago. She said she wanted to make a run out to the old Fisher property before the Farm & Ranch opened at nine. Quinn had rolled on duty at 0600, but he had been up since 0430, running the hills up and around his farm and doing a short routine of pull-ups, push-ups, and flutter kicks, before shaving, dressing, and meeting up.

Hondo rode in the backseat of the cab, wanting to come to work today, his head slid up between the two front seats, panting.

“Your uncle sure loved that dog,” Diane said. “He bought top-shelf food and kept a jar of pig ears for him. Always kept him in flea collars and heartworm protection. He was a good man, Sheriff.”

“How about I don’t call you ma’am and you don’t call me sheriff?”

“You don’t like to talk about him,” she said. “Your uncle. Do you?”

“Nope.”

“Always thought what they said about him were a bunch of dirty lies,” she said. “People can be hateful.”

“You bet.”

“I know you hear things they’re saying about you now, too.”

“I do.”

“And that’s some dirty, shitty lies.”

Quinn didn’t say a word.

“People said things about me after all this, too,” Diane said. “People said me and Lori picked up that man at the carnival and had sex with him. Some people even thought I may have shot Lori myself ’cause I was jealous or didn’t want her telling what we’d done.”

“People have small and idle minds.”

“And you can’t even do your job without people making comments.”

“Of course, bullshit does go with an elected position.”

“And this,” Diane said. “All this I’m about to show you is just for you to know. Your sister wanted us to talk, maybe stoke a cold case and get some kind of air cleared about what happened. Is there still an old report?”

“There is.”

“And you’ve read it?”

“I have.”

A hand-painted sign out on the country road read
Dirt For Sale
. Quinn followed the rolling ribbon of cracked blacktop, the morning coming up bright and hard in early January. The trailers and small houses, the little farms, and closed gates to hunting lodges passing by. Quinn slowed after a few minutes, Diane telling him to keep driving, it was a ways up, but it
was hard to tell anymore since the Fisher house had burned to the ground back in 1992. She pointed a finger a half mile down the road and Quinn slowed and drove off onto the shoulder, the old cedar posts and barbed wire still there, some of the posts replaced with solid metal T-bars. Cattle wandered far in the open pasture, trees dotting the land, cow pies dotting the worn-down grassland.

A tree in the distance caught Quinn’s eyes, skeletal and alone, blackened from fire and spiky-branched. The dead tree resembled a black pitchfork.

Quinn shut off the engine. Diane took in a deep breath. Something about that old tree captivated him, like it was from a half-remembered dream.

“The house was up on that hill?” he said.

She nodded.

“You want to walk up that way?”

She took another long, deep breath. She rubbed her fingers over her eyes. She breathed again. “Oh, hell,” she said. “Come on.”

They got out of the truck, Hondo following. They walked through a cattle gate and then out into the pasture, among the growing weeds, wandering cows, and piles of shit. An old bull sat up on the hill, watching them without menace, just slow and lazy but curious, wide-eyed and snorting a bit. The other cattle grazing and chewing as Quinn walked side by side with Diane until she stopped and said this is where the man had taken them that night, under the full moon and with a pistol on them, telling them they were going up to that old abandoned house and sit a spell.

“‘Sit a spell’?” Quinn asked.

“That’s what he said,” Diane said. “But you could see what he wanted from his eyes and the way he was sweating.”

“I’m sorry,” Quinn said.

“I’d like to say you forget in time,” Diane said. “That some of all this is fuzzy. But that would be a goddamn lie.”

•   •   •

The city
and county leaders
decided to hold the announcement at the Jericho Square. It had taken some time to remove all the debris and contractor trucks from the park and get it all looking straight again. The city work crews had strewn white lights in the newly planted trees and across the gazebo that had remained untouched after the storm, as well as the monument to the fallen heroes of the World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, and the Global War on Terror. The heads of the automotive components company had flown into Memphis and would arrive within the hour. Tibbehah was going to be supplying parts to that new Toyota plant in Blue Springs, one of the country’s biggest. And already Johnny Stagg had spoken to no less than four news crews from Tupelo and Jackson bright and early that morning about what folks were calling the Tibbehah Miracle. Not only did it look like this little backwater county would survive after being hit dead-ass-on by an F4 tornado, but, damn, if it didn’t look like it was going to be stronger and better than ever. A new industrial park, grants to rebuild the old downtown in the historical style of the original, and new road and highway improvements.

“People know it takes a good man to grease those wheels in Jackson,” Ringold said, saying it in that flat, solemn way he spoke. “You’re a hero. Folks say it takes a businessman like Mr. Stagg to get things done.”

“Is that what they’re saying?” Stagg said, grinning. He popped a piece of peppermint candy in his mouth and chewed hard. “The gratitude does keep me going.”

“Are you going to speak?”

“No, sir,” Stagg said.

“Senator Vardaman?”

“It’s more his kind of show,” Stagg said. “I just handle the introductions around here. I’m what you call a facilitator.”

“You’re also the man who pledged a half-million dollars to rebuild Jericho before any of this happened,” Ringold said. “If I were you, I’d at least say a few words and take a fucking bow.”

“People know what I done,” Stagg said. “That’s enough.”

“Tupelo paper this morning called it an overall story of redemption,” Ringold said. “They referred to you as the former owner of a roadside strip club turned entrepreneur.”

“Is that a fact?” Stagg said. “‘Former’? Bless their hearts.”

The chamber of commerce president, Wade Mize, waddled on over with five folks who looked to be dressed for Sunday service. He wore a blue suit and bright gold tie, fat jowls recently shaved and smelling of cologne. He introduced a minister from Southaven, a couple businessmen from Memphis, and a couple women from Oxford who were looking to start a restaurant and maybe a boutique. Stagg grinned and shook their hands, smiling to all their praise, especially when the minister told him that most often miracles sprout from unlikely places. Stagg winked at the man and continued walking with Ringold. “Uh-huh,” Stagg said.

“Mize sure seemed happy to see you.”

“Funny, the people who call me Mr. Stagg these days,” Stagg said. “Wade Mize’s mother is a stone-cold crazy woman who’s made it her personal mission to drive me from this town. I could take all the newspaper columns she’s written about the old Rebel being a den of iniquity and we could wallpaper the whole truck stop. And you know what? I hadn’t heard a damn peep from her after the storm. She still won’t speak to me, but at least she shut her dry old mouth.”

Stagg and Ringold walked on up to the gazebo where Stagg would stand behind Vardaman and the boys from the automotive company. There’d be talk about the opening of the production line and a grant to
finally complete the industrial park right off Highway 45 that would bring jobs, money, and growth to northeast Mississippi. People had flyers and big blown-up pictures of the architectural drawings and such.

There would be a short prayer for the nine dead souls and a bell rung from the Baptist church at noon. After, the way Stagg understood things, they’d all go on over to city hall for a plate lunch of barbecue and catfish catered by Pap’s.

Stagg looked out on the town square, taking a lot of pride in how much had been done in such a short amount of time. The broken shit had been hauled away and already a new row of four storefronts was being built. Stagg had offered the owners of the old stores a solid price for the destroyed property, telling them the recovery might take years—if at all. And now he already had agreements from a bank from Tupelo, a steak restaurant, and a combo coffee shop and tanning parlor.

“You think a dozen girls is enough?” Ringold asked. “For tonight?”

“Depends on the girls.”

“Best we got.”

“Make sure you got a couple real young ones,” Stagg said. “That’s been requested direct by one of the guests. Young, black, and happy.”

“Yes, sir.”

“Gonna be a hell of a party out at the ole hunt lodge tonight,” Stagg said. “You better believe it. Those sonsabitches couldn’t wait to get back to ole Jericho.”

Stagg started to step down from the gazebo, walk across the park, and say hello to the meat manager of the Piggly Wiggly when he heard a guttural growl that nearly made him swallow the rest of his candy. He stopped cold on the steps and held up a hand for Ringold to do the same. “You hear that? You fucking hear that?”

He looked into the distance to see a half-dozen motorcycles with big engines and big pipes rip and vibrate the town square. The men had broad
backs and leather vests worn over denim jackets. They had long hair and beards and looked as if they’d just stepped off horses from another century.

Stagg wandered out on the walkway, trying to get a glimpse of the pack rounding the Square, see if he recognized any of the bastards who’d come to town to make a stand and go ahead and squat and shit on his big day.

“Mr. Stagg?” Ringold said. “You OK?”

•   •   •

“Y’all didn’t
make it
to the house?” Quinn said.

“No, sir,” Diane said. Diane and Quinn stood in the pasture a few hundred meters from where the old house had been. “This is where he grabbed Lori and started to mess with her, putting his hands all on her, reaching under her shirt and into her jeans. He kept the gun on me and told me to sit, wait till he was done. I told him we needed to get to the old house, you know, just to keep him moving, trying to figure out a way we could get loose before we got inside.”

Quinn nodded. Hondo broke into a wide circle and started to bark a bit at the cows, getting one big fat heifer to trot forward, the dog nipping at her heels. The dog barked some more and nipped at some other cows. Quinn looked up to the big bull on the hill and then back to Diane. The morning so gray and cold, he could see her breath as she spoke.

That black pitchfork tree loomed in the distance.

“He pushed her down to the ground,” Diane said. “Right here. He told us if we didn’t stop crying, he’d kill us both. He said if I tried to help her, he’d shoot me where I stood. I sat down and waited. He got to one knee, then pressed himself on Lori, and I just blurted out all of a sudden, I’m not even sure I’d said it, but I must have. I told him to come on with me first. I told him I’d let him have me first, not cry about it. I told Lori to go
on, leave us alone. He didn’t say anything, but she wouldn’t leave us. She didn’t go ten feet, just standing there with arms across her chest, crying, watching as that son of a bitch ripped off my jeans and underwear with a pocketknife and did what he wanted to me. He smelled like pure garbage, grunting and calling me filthy names the whole time, gun in his right hand until he finished up. Yes, it hurt like hell. I bled down there for weeks.”

“You gave a pretty good description to my uncle,” Quinn said. “You said he had burn marks on his face. A lot of scarring.”

“On the right side,” she said. “And some white scarring across his head where the hair didn’t grow back normal. He wasn’t a big man, but he had a lot of weight and muscle about him. Real compact. I’d never seen him before. When he got going, he spoke in biblical passages about whores and harlots. He told me he hated me.”

Quinn nodded. Hondo looped back to him, tongue lolling, waiting for orders on more roundups.

“When he finished, he buckled up his pants and told me to get my ass up and to stand next to my friend,” Diane said, hands in the pockets of a Sherpa jean coat, gray strand of hair falling across her eyes. “I pulled up my things, which were ripped and trashed, and walked over to Lori, putting my arm around her. I remember doing that much, telling her that as soon as we could we just needed to start running. She nodded, shivering like she was cold, even though it was hot as hell that night. I held her hand as we walked, like when we were kids, and I would look back at the man, him trudging along with a grin on his face till we got near that old tree over there.”