The Innocents (8 page)

“Your father still not paying you any rent?”

“I didn’t ask him.”

“Well,” Jean said. “He should. If he had any pride ’bout himself.”

Quinn finished the last bite of sandwich and pushed the plate away. He’d known by coming over to his mom’s house, he’d soon be talking about the original Jason Colson. He just didn’t think it would’ve happened so fast.

“I hear he’s thinking of opening up some kind of dude ranch,” Jean said. “You two being partners.”

Little Jason was drinking a big glass of milk and his big light eyes looked up to Quinn over the glass. Quinn asked his mom if they might discuss farm business a little later.

“Jason, baby,” Jean said. “Why don’t you run into the living room and find Grandmomma’s cigarettes?”

Jason bounded out, always happy to ditch his lunch and have a challenge.

“Your cigarettes are on the counter,” Quinn said.

Jean smiled. She folded her hands in front of her.

“What you’re hearing is just talk,” Quinn said. “I haven’t agreed to do anything.”

“Well,” Jean said. “I certainly hope not. Your father is playing around with something that isn’t his.”

Quinn knew this part was coming, had expected it after talking with Caddy. Beckett land, now being in the family for a hundred and twenty years, was some serious business. Jean had grown up on the farm, her father—the old farmer—had, too, and so on. They’d worked that land since they’d cleared it in 1895.

“I don’t like it.”

“The only consideration is what will happen to the farm while I’m gone,” Quinn said. “It would be nice to have a caretaker. That place can grow wild quick.”

“Then set something up with Boom,” Jean said. “I’m sure he’d be happy to stay out at the farm and look after Hondo and the cattle while you’re gone.”

“He doesn’t mean anything by it,” Quinn said. “It’s just Daddy’s way, you know?”

“Better than you,” Jean said. Little Jason bounded into the room and said he couldn’t find her cigarettes or her lighter anywhere. “That’s OK, baby. Go watch a little TV.
Andy Griffith Show
is about to come on.”

“What about Uncle Quinn?” Little Jason said. “Are we gonna play?”

“Just a second, sir,” Quinn said. He waited until the boy had left and then turned back to his mother. “I have other things on my mind right now. I can let him dream all he wants. He can’t get the money anyway.”

“What’s he need money for?” she said. “You own it outright.”

“He wants to buy the parcels Uncle Hamp sold off to Johnny Stagg.”

“Why?”

“For more pasture,” Quinn said. “Riding trails. But it doesn’t matter. You and I both know Stagg’s got nothing better to do than hold that land hostage.”

“So if you’re not worried about your daddy,” Jean said, “then what?”

“The future.”

“What of it?”

Quinn stood up, walked to the old coffeepot plugged into the wall, and poured out a cup. There was always hot coffee at his mother’s house. He sat back down and looked at his boots for a moment and then lifted his eyes back to his mom. He nodded, sure now he should tell someone. “I want to ask Anna Lee to marry me,” he said. “I take this next job and I’ll be back in the spring. We could think on how to move forward then.”

Jean nodded, reached for the gold cross on her neck, and played with it back and forth on the chain. She took in a long, deep breath and Quinn waited. A warm breeze blew through the room, knocking a vase of flowers off the sill, glass breaking and water pouring to the floor.

“Let me get that,” Jean said.

M
illy made it to the Wednesday night service just in time to hear Pastor Zeke Traylor let everyone know, who hadn’t heard it already, that man doesn’t live by bread alone. “God’s word is alive and sharper than a two-edged sword,” Traylor said. “The Psalms of David tells us that thy word is a lamp upon my feet and a light unto my path to see where I’m going clearly.”

Traylor spoke more laid-back on a weeknight, the old man wearing a blue golf shirt and khaki pants, casual for a man who seemed to be born wearing a suit. His hair was white as Christmas snow and he had on the same bright, round gold glasses she’d seen him wear her whole life. When he really wanted to make a point, he softened his words, making you strain to hear the whisper. “You hear what I’m saying?” And when folks nodded along because what the hell else could you do, he’d say, “Amen.” And things would continue on and on like that. On and on.

It had been a while since Milly had shown her face at the Jericho First Baptist. A couple folks craned their head around to make sure it was really her.
That girl.
She’d taken a seat in the back row, a place she’d always preferred since her parents insisted on sharing the same church after the divorce. Her daddy and Charlotte’s fat ass sat on the right side of the sanctuary at First Baptist and her momma and sister on the left. As the song wound down to the last note, Traylor said, “Lift him up. Lift him up. Slam the devil!”

Traylor dropped to one knee, battered old Bible in his right hand, and began to pray that the church would be a light on Jericho’s Main Street, the congregation a light to all those lost, and each member a light to family and friends who’d lost their way. Words filled up the big screen again and the dozen folks who made the service sang:
Lord, I sing your praises. I’m so glad you’re in my life.
The written words scrolled over a video of a car driving down a long, twisty road. Nothing but blue skies and green mountains. A couple folks raised their palms high. Pastor Traylor sang off-key about how Jesus came from heaven to earth to show us the way. Milly bowed her head and hoped they’d be wrapping things up real soon because Reverend Traylor was her last damn hope. She prayed that the old man would come through.

Come on, Milly said silently.
Jesus H. Christ
. Come on.

Despite their differences, several interventions that didn’t go so well, and a failed attempt to get her to date a pimply-faced grandson from Pontotoc, she believed Traylor was on the side of right. After the sermon, a few more big-screen gospel tunes, and a call to the leaders of this God-less country to seek His wisdom, Traylor stepped down from the sacred red carpet of the pulpit with old dog-eared Bible in hand.

He invited everyone to join him in the events room for chocolate
chip cookies and homemade punch before spotting Milly. “I don’t believe it,” Pastor Traylor said. “Our own little lost sheep.”

Milly wanted to quote the Bible about how the shepherd should’ve been out looking for that goddamn sheep. But she kept her mouth shut and smiled. She’d even worn a simple summer dress to church that night. She hadn’t worn a dress in two years.

“I need to talk, Pastor.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Pastor Traylor said. “But how about some cookies first?

“You mind if we skip the damn cookies and punch?” she said. “I ain’t in the mood.”

Milly turned to watch the last of the parishioners head out the front doors. With a lot of effort, Pastor Traylor sat down on the carpeted steps and motioned for Milly to join him down on the floor. It was just like the kids’ sermon he delivered every Sunday, spoken seated from the steps in words even the simplest child could understand.
Jesus was the shepherd. The kids were the sheep. Stay on the path and don’t get lost.
Milly straightened her short skirt over her tan legs and wondered if Pastor Traylor ever spoke about young sheep working that pole.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“I don’t even know where to begin,” she said. “Things are real messed-up.”

“I know some of it,” Traylor said. “Your daddy and I have been praying for you.”

“Is that a fact?”

“Drugs can warp a young mind,” he said. “Boys, too. Lead you to do things you never imagined. But you never get too low for Jesus. Jesus will lift you up.”

“This ain’t about me, Pastor,” she said. “It’s about what happened with Brandon.”

Pastor Traylor took off his golden glasses, blew a hot breath on the lenses, and cleaned them with a white hankie from his shirt pocket. His old skin was real white and sagged at the neck. His eyes were the clearest blue, and he smelled of old hymnals, musty old coloring books, and something sugary sweet. He’d always had that smell about him—peppermint candy and the Word of God.

“Your family’s been to hell and back,” he said. “When someone makes a decision to end their own life, it can be the most selfish thing they’ve ever done. They don’t think about everyone they’re leaving behind.”

“You think Brandon had a choice?”

“God gives us free will,” he said. “We all have choices.”

“I don’t blame him,” Milly said. “We all know he was exposed to things that no young boy should ever know. He got saddled with all that sickness and he didn’t have nowhere to run.”

“He was a very confused young man.”

“You didn’t believe him?”

Pastor Traylor swallowed hard and put the glasses back on, lenses still smudged with a fat thumbprint at the edge. He smiled real wide, showing off those thick yellowed veneers. “He did a lot of finger-pointing in this town,” he said. “But he never looked on himself and saw things he might’ve made different.”

Milly looked at the pastor’s old grandfatherly face and saw it as a hollowed-out, saggy mask. She stared into his unblinking clear blue eyes and said, more to herself than him, “You’re the same as the rest, aren’t you? You know but don’t care.”

“Come on, Miss Milly,” he said. “Leave your burden with Him.
Let’s pray on it. But I want you to leave that burden your brother left right here and now.”

“It ain’t no burden,” she said. “It’s more of what I call a responsibility.”

The pastor reached for her small hands, held one close, and closed his eyes. “Lord, Lord, Lord.”

“You know,” she said. “Don’t you? That man is real sick?”

“Good Lord,” Pastor Traylor said. “Let’s pray for Milly and her family. Let’s pray for forgiveness and healing.”

Milly stood up on the steps where she’d heard all the good stories about Jacob and his coat of many colors, Moses lost in the bulrushes, and Jesus walking on water. Every kids’ sermon had a purpose, a moral lesson, to be learned. She’d never heard a story about shutting your mouth in the face of true evil.

“I’m letting it all out.”

“Milly,” Pastor Traylor said, still seated. “I’d be careful. A bunch of tall tales could hurt a lot of folks in this town.”

“You think I really give a shit, Pastor?”

Pastor Traylor licked his old dry lips and shook his head. “And coming from you,” he said, “after the places you been, they won’t be heard any more than a dry summer wind.”

Milly watched the old man use two hands to get back on his busted-up old knees and stand, clutching his old Bible under a frail arm. A fat woman in a pink jumpsuit came to the door and called out, wondering if everything was OK. “Can I bring y’all some cookies and punch?”

The fat woman grinned brightly as Milly brushed past her, halfway down the aisle, and then turned back. The preacher watched and waited. The fat woman kept on grinning.

Milly lifted her middle finger to Pastor Zeke Traylor and slammed the church doors behind her. Somewhere inside the sanctuary, the fat woman gasped.

•   •   •

I
think we just broke that chair,” Quinn said, searching for his blue jeans and cowboy boots.

“Good,” Anna Lee said. “It belonged to Luke’s grandmother. I always hated those damn things.”

“You don’t feel guilty?”

“About what?” she said. “Serving a purpose other than just collecting dust in this big old drafty house.”

“I thought you loved this old house.”

Anna Lee walked into the foyer, where Quinn was getting back into his clothes. She still had on a short black T-shirt but had lost pretty much the rest of it in the rush. They didn’t have long until her mother would be bringing her daughter Shelby home for the night. Anna Lee shook her head, finding one of Quinn’s stray boots and tossing it over to him. “Not anymore,” she said. “It’s so damn big and empty. I hate the sounds it makes when I walk.”

Quinn watched her as she got her cutoffs. “Lillie offered me a temporary job,” Quinn said. “Says I can get on the payroll until I make a decision on heading back overseas.”

“Take it,” she said. “And then look for something else. With your Army training, people will be lining up to hire you.”

“You think?”

“I do,” Anna Lee said. “I know some folks in Memphis and Oxford you should meet.”

“No thanks.”

“You’d rather go back to the other side of this earth and have people shoot at you?”

“I guess it wouldn’t be bad to make a little extra,” he said. “Especially if you hate living so much in this big old drafty house so much.”

“After being sheriff,” she said, “how would that feel?”

“Like a paycheck,” Quinn said.

“You don’t mind working for Lillie?”

“Why?” he said. “She’s more suited for the job than me. Always has been.”

“Lillie has a temper,” Anna Lee said. “She blows up quick. That’s what scares folks. There is being direct. And then there is Lillie Virgil’s way.”

“I’m well aware,” Quinn said. “She say something to you?”

“I saw her the other day at the Piggly Wiggly,” Anna Lee said. “She told me to either quit fucking with your head and get married or go ahead and let you go free.”

“We need to talk.”

“Can you do something for me?”

“Whatever you want,” Quinn said.

“I want you to be part of my life,” she said. “My world. I want you to know my friends. Drive up to Oxford with me this fall before you leave. I want to show you off.”

Anna Lee disappeared for a moment and rejoined Quinn, fully dressed, on the front porch of the Victorian, which sat up on a low rolling hill looking down on Jericho. It was late evening and that big orange sun going down lit up the storefront windows, the water tower casting a long shadow through the green town Square.

“OK,” Anna Lee said. “Talk. But just promise me you won’t say anything you don’t mean or that you really don’t want to do. I’ve made
too many mistakes in this life already. I don’t think either of us wants to go down a wrong road.”

•   •   •

I
don’t know who called you,” Fannie Hathcock said, “but I promise you, Miss Virgil, that we’re conducting business as we always do. We adhere to all county ordinances.”

“
Sheriff
Virgil,” Lillie said. “And there aren’t any Tibbehah County ordinances on nude dancing. We just have the unspoken rule that y’all do business in this fucking barn, but don’t let it spill out into the parking lot. But now I’m hearing things might’ve changed and your girls are dishing it out in the open.”

Fannie Hathcock tipped a long brown cigarette, checking out Lillie from head to toe. Lillie didn’t care for the appraisal or being called up to Fannie’s office instead of Fannie coming down to meet Lillie at the bar, where she’d been invited. She also didn’t like not being addressed as “Sheriff”—she got enough of that bullshit in town. Lillie looked over at Deputy Reggie Caruthers, who’d rode along with her, and nodded at him.

“Nice place,” he said.

“You’re welcome anytime, deputy,” Fannie said. “But as far as the law, I don’t know anything about my girls ‘dishing it out.’”

“Come on,” Lillie said. “Y’all show the goods up on the great lit stage and then blow it or throw it out in the cabs. I don’t mind you arguing about the finer points of the law, but let’s not spew bullshit on what kind of business this is.”

“Did you have these kind of arguments with Mr. Stagg?”

“Johnny T. Stagg?” Lillie said. “Bet your ass, Miss Hathcock. He was an A-1 shitbag.”

Lillie could tell the Hathcock woman wasn’t used to being addressed so directly. She looked like a true madam of means, in a red silk top, black flared trousers, and patent leather slingbacks. Her makeup job looked expert and expensive, seeming to Lillie like something out of a high-fashion magazine. The woman was well into her forties but well preserved, with possibly a little work on the face and definitely a lot on her titties.

“Why’d you tear down the Booby Trap sign?” Lillie said. “Nothing like truth in advertising.”

“I thought it sounded rough and vulgar.”

“Why’d you call it Vienna’s?” Lillie said. “’Cause of the sausages?”

“My grandmother,” Fannie said, exhaling a little smoke. “She was a fine old Southern lady.”

“You mind me asking you a direct question, Miss Hathcock?” Lillie said.

“No, ma’am,” she said. “Go ahead and shoot, Sheriff.”

“Just how did you get this place free of Johnny Stagg?” Lillie said. “I always figured we’d have to drag him out of here feetfirst.”

Fannie let out a little smoke from the corner of her mouth. She tilted her head in thought and said, “I don’t think Mr. Stagg had many financial options, from where he was sitting. And I was looking to get out from where I was.”

“Indian land?”

“I managed a few things for the Nation.”

“Bless your heart,” Lillie said.

Reggie Caruthers looked to his boss and swallowed hard. He looked like he’d very much like to get the hell out of there. Downstairs, girls were working the pole at the lunchtime shift, sweaty, naked bodies hopped up on barstools, and big boobies flopping wild. Reggie was a
good man, but all the sweaty summer flesh was a bit too much for him to handle.

“Appreciate you dropping by.”

“Keep your business inside this barn,” Lillie said. “I don’t want to be riding your ass every day.”

“We operate a nice clean joint with nice clean girls.”

“I really don’t give a shit how you view things,” Lillie said. “I just don’t want a bunch of whores advertising on my streets. You got me?”