The Revelators Page 2

  A place that smelled so horrible, her mother would strip and shower after work every day, letting her clothes soak in bleach.

  Little dust devils turned and kicked up in a hot summer wind between Ana Gabriel and her brother. She looked over at Sancho, and he gave her a smug, self-knowing smile.

  “What?” Ana Gabriel said, approaching the other children. “What is it?”

  “They’ve taken them,” a boy about her age said. She’d seen him only once, maybe twice, at The River, getting supplies. His name was Armando and his father had been the one who’d offered the processing plant job to her mother. Hector, his father, acting as a go-between, often gathered workers at the trailer park, telling them what he’d heard from the plant owners, letting them know their rights when there was trouble.

  “Who?”

  “Our parents,” Armando said. “They are all gone.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Although it hadn’t quite been a year since the shooting, Quinn felt like his recovery had gone on forever. Draining and bandaging the wounds, getting up slow and easy to his feet, learning to walk again, taking weeks and months off from the Tibbehah County Sheriff’s Office. If it hadn’t been for his wife Maggie, he’d probably still be in the hospital or gone insane. She made him walk, drove him to rehab, looked after his medication and nutrition. No fatty foods. Almost no alcohol and limited coffee. Damn, how Quinn loved coffee.

  “Maggie sees you smoking that cigar, she’s gonna have your ass,” Boom said.

  “You gonna tell her?” Quinn said.

  “Nope.”

  “Wasn’t I told to resume normal activities?”

  “Is drinking and smoking at four in the afternoon normal?”

  Quinn shrugged and blew a smoke ring. “Is now.”

  Quinn and Maggie and his adopted son Brandon lived on a fifty-acre parcel of land near a hamlet called Fate. The house was white and tin-roofed, a classic old L-shaped farmhouse built more than a hundred twenty years ago by his great-grandfather, an austere, big-bearded Methodist preacher by the name of William “Big Bill” Beckett. Quinn had barely left the land the last few months, taking walks on the trails in and around the property, at first moving slowly up to the pond, taking nearly thirty minutes for what used to be a five-minute trip. Over the summer he’d taken to fishing, welcoming his old deputy Lillie Virgil and Special Agent Jon Holliday. Boom came over nearly every day, sitting with Quinn until the sun went down.

  Quinn was a tall white man, thinner than normal, with a sharp profile and close-cropped dark hair. Some folks told him he had “flinty eyes” and he wasn’t sure whether that was a compliment or an insult. His best friend Boom was black and much larger, six-six and two-sixty, with only one arm. His right arm had been blown off while delivering a tanker of water to Fallujah. Boom had been in the Mississippi National Guard and Quinn in the 3rd Battalion of the 75th Ranger Regiment. They’d known each other since they were five years old.

  “What bothers me most about this new sheriff is his attitude,” Boom said. “Man’s cocky as hell. Sure loves telling folks that he’d gone to Vanderbilt and served as a captain in Afghanistan.”

  “Even wrote a book about it,” Quinn said. “I heard they’re selling it at the Jericho Farm and Ranch for nineteen ninety-five. Honor and Duty.”

  “I wouldn’t wipe my ass with that shit,” Boom said. “Most folks saw more action playing Call of Duty.”

  Quinn shrugged. “Governor Vardaman calls him an American hero,” he said. “Just the kind of man Tibbehah County needs to clean up the filth and corruption of such a wicked county.”

  “You trying to get me to start drinking again?”

  The sun hadn’t even thought about setting yet. Quinn reached for the bottle and refilled his coffee mug. Boom didn’t touch the bottle, again on a long period of abstinence from booze. Booze and Boom never mixed well.

  “No, sir.”

  “Then let’s not talk about Vardaman,” Boom said. “Not now. Not after all that man’s done.”

  “You don’t believe he wants to see a clean and corruption-free state?” Quinn said.

  “No more than a hog wants to see his crib free of mud and slop,” Boom said. “You want to see exactly what’s going on? How about me and you go riding tonight and I’ll show you just how much that son of a bitch has cleaned up.”

  Quinn drank some whiskey, feeling the hot bourbon slide down his throat. Cicadas chattered high in the pines, a hot wind blowing through the big oak that shadowed his tin-roof porch. As Quinn took another pull of the Liga Privada, he spotted Maggie’s green Subaru cross the old wooden bridge, kicking up dust and grit and pulling into the front yard.

  “She gonna get your ass,” Boom said.

  “That woman loves me.”

  “I know she do,” Boom said. “That’s why she wants you whole.”

  Quinn set down the cigar on the edge of an empty coffee can. He would’ve stood up if he could, still exhausted from his mile walk that morning. Hondo raised his head and got to his feet and stretched before running out to meet Maggie and Brandon. Maggie, still dressed in navy scrubs and carrying cloth grocery sacks, made her way up onto the porch. Boom met her, hooked a few bags with his prosthetic arm, and headed into the old house. Brandon, towheaded and skinny in khaki shorts and an Adventure Time T-shirt, had run off into the back field with Hondo, tossing a stick toward the pecan trees.

  “Lousy job getting rid of evidence,” Maggie said, waving her hand through the dissipating smoke cloud.

  “Would it have made any difference?” Quinn asked.

  “Nope,” Maggie said. “You’ve been sneaking cigars for the last month.”

  “Never smoke around you.”

  Quinn grinned, tapped the ash of the cigar, and carefully edged out the burn. Maggie took a seat on the old porch swing and stretched out her long legs, hair wrapped up in a messy bun on top of her head. She lay her hands over her expanding stomach and looked down to it, cutting her eyes over at Quinn.

  “She’s been active today,” she said. “Kicking and punching my ribs.”

  “She’s going to be tough.”

  “Damn straight, Ranger.”

  “Gets it from both sides.”

  Maggie nodded, lifting her eyes to Quinn. She tilted her head and pushed some stray hair off the nape of her neck. “You think you might slow down a little tonight?”

  “Boom wants to get me out tonight, go low riding on some country roads like we used to,” Quinn said. “Cool out. Take in some sights.”

  “I know what he wants to show you,” Maggie said. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

  Quinn didn’t answer, reaching for the coffee mug and finishing what was left, not sure if Maggie knew it wasn’t coffee. He stretched his legs out and looked out into the cow pasture across the road, dozens of cattle huddled under a well-worn oak, seeking shade from the heat. They were beautiful to watch. Red Angus, brought over from Texas by his father back when he’d been living in a trailer in the back field. Quinn hadn’t heard from Jason Colson now for almost three years. Even after he’d been shot and it had made national news.

  “I guess Boom told you all about the trouble in town today.”

  Quinn shook his head.

  “New sheriff and his deputies met up with ICE,” Maggie said. “Arrested most everyone out at the chicken plant. I figured you knew all about it. The news was all over town.”

  “Heard from Caddy?”

  Maggie shook her head. “Nope,” she said. “But I figured she’s right in the middle of it. You know your sister.”

  “Son of a bitch.” Quinn gripped the rails of the old metal chair and pushed himself to his feet. “Where’s my phone?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ana Gabriel sat on the steps to her trailer watching the sun se
t through the gathering of pines near the road. They’d scrounged for an early dinner, fried eggs with sweet plantains and warm tortillas. There was a little coffee left in the pot and she halved it with milk, adding four teaspoons of sugar and heated in the microwave. Sancho was inside, half asleep and watching television. Her phone showed she’d called her mother a total of forty-nine times.

  If what the boy Armando said was true, she’d need to find her father in Atlanta. Or her uncle in Houston. She’d found only ninety dollars hidden in her mother’s room, tucked into the insides of a ceramic pig in a makeshift bookshelf. How long that would last, she didn’t know. She promised herself that she would try her best to make it as routine as possible for Sancho. Ana Gabriel could wake him in the morning, make their breakfast, and get out to the highway to meet the bus. They would go to school and say nothing about what had happened. It was always a possibility. Her mother had always promised this day would come. Protect Sancho. Protect your brother. But never said anything about protecting herself. Just as the sun had about disappeared, she began to cry.

  “Don’t cry,” a voice said. “Come with me.”

  She looked up, seeing Jason Colson. He was out of breath and sweating, offering his hand to her. The last light illuminating his blue eyes and bright white smile. She bit her upper lip, nodded, and took his hand, standing.

  “My mother’s here,” Jason said. “We’ll drive y’all to the plant. Maybe there is something that can be done. My mom has called lawyers and powerful people she knows to kick everyone free.”

  Jason was tall and lean, his skin the color of milk and coffee. She’d been at his birthday party the month before when he turned twelve and she’d given him the braided bracelet he still had on his wrist. They’d had the party at the place called The River that his mother ran, a church and outreach she’d started in an old wooden barn that offered Sunday services in English and Spanish. Miss Colson was spoken about with reverence all over Frog Pond.

  “Let me get my brother.”

  “Bring everyone you can find,” Jason said. “Momma has a van. Anyone who can’t find their parents can come with us. We’re here to help.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Quinn and Boom got out to the Johnny T. Stagg Industrial Center right outside Jericho a little after six. Boom parked his jacked-up Chevy on a slanted hill, the road clogged with cars and news trucks, law enforcement and big black buses. Boom limped alongside Quinn as they both saw Caddy screaming at two men in black tactical gear wearing ICE vests, M4s slung over their shoulders. It had been some time since he’d heard his little sister curse. But tonight, she worked out a damn symphony of profanity on the men who smirked at her behind mirrored sunglasses.

  “You chickenshit sonsabitches,” Caddy said. “You don’t have any right to come to our town and steal these people. These are good people. I have two babies not a year old who are still breastfeeding, and you took their mommas from them. What about that? What the hell are you going to do about that?”

  The men didn’t answer. Quinn walked up to his sister, lightly touching her elbow. She hadn’t seen him and turned around fast and hard. Caddy’s face was sunburned, her blonde hair turned almost white from working outdoors all summer.

  “Let’s take a walk,” Quinn said.

  “I don’t want to walk,” Caddy said. “I want you to do something. Did you know about this? Aren’t they supposed to tell the sheriff when they invade his county?”

  “My current status is complicated,” he said. “But I can find out.”

  A tall fence topped with concertina wire encircled the property and the four large white sheet metal buildings where they slaughtered and processed thousands of chickens a day. Even at this distance, the smell was overwhelming, like rotten flesh and a well-used latrine. Boom had gone over to a white church van adorned with a winding purple cursive with the words THE RIVER on the side. He leaned into the open doors of the van, speaking with some kids. Boom always had a way with kids.

  “I have thirty-two children missing their parents,” Caddy said. “Today was the first day of school. If these assholes wanted to pull that shit, why today? Why would they want to snatch these parents who’ve been working here for months, some of them for years? Did I mention that I have two babies still nursing? We’re doing all we can. But still.”

  “Roger that.”

  “Do something,” she said. “They won’t talk to me.”

  “Maybe it’s the way you’re speaking to them?”

  “Don’t you think I tried nice?” she said. “I’m not Lillie Virgil. I tried both logic and compassion.”

  “And?”

  “No one will tell me a damn thing,” she said. “Sometimes a kick in the nuts is the only way to start a conversation.”

  Quinn nodded and headed toward the front gate, seeing more immigration agents and a few deputies from the sheriff’s office. He didn’t recognize a single one of them but the interim sheriff, a skinny, dark-haired man with a narrow face, black eyes, and jug ears. His two meetings with Brock Tanner hadn’t been pleasant. The man was doing his best to keep Quinn away from returning to his job, protected by the governor’s investigation into corruption in Tibbehah County after Quinn was shot. Quinn had challenged the shaky legal grounds at nearly every level, waiting for the latest hearing with his personal attorney, W. D. “Sonny” Stevens. A good lawyer when sober and even better when drunk.

  Quinn nodded to Brock.

  The man was dressed as if he was about to be dropped deep in a war zone, complete with fatigues, combat boots, and an M4 rifle. His hair had been shaved short across the nape of his neck and around his gigantic ears.

  “Can I help you?” Brock said.

  “You can start by telling me what’s going on.”

  “What’s it look like, Quinn?” Brock said, snorting. “We’re rounding up a mess of illegals who’ve thrived in this county too long. Tried running. But we got ’em. Got ’em all.”

  “You were supposed to keep me posted on any and all operations within the county.”

  Brock shook his head. “This wasn’t the type of thing ICE wanted to broadcast,” he said. “This crackdown has been a long time coming.”

  “You saying I’d broadcast the information?”

  Brock didn’t answer, taking a call on the radio microphone attached to his tac vest. He turned to a few of the deputies he’d brought along with him from Jackson with limited experience in law enforcement. “I’d be glad to sit down with you and discuss specifics tomorrow,” he said. “But I have a job today. I wasn’t brought up here by the governor to sit around the office and drink coffee.”

  “You’re doing a heck of a job,” Quinn said. “Looks like some real tough hombres down there.”

  Quinn lifted his chin to a group of portly brown women dressed in blue uniforms, heads covered in protective plastic caps. Their hands locked behind them with plastic handcuffs.

  “They tried to run,” Brock said, grinning. “But we filled up every damn hole on the fence line with rocks.”

  “Damn, Brock,” Quinn said, giving him a sloppy salute. “I can see how you made captain before you ever deployed. Real smart thinking.”

  “I don’t need any pushback with this, Quinn,” Brock said. “We’ve been working on this operation since I got here.”

  “Where are you taking them?”

  Brock stared hard at Quinn and shook his head. “What the hell does it matter?”

  * * *

  • • •

  Ana Gabriel spotted her mother behind the chain-link fence down the harsh slope of the hill. She had her wrists cinched behind her back, still dressed in the blue work clothes from the plant. Her mother, Luisa, looked sad and ashamed, absently nodding at a fat man in a navy uniform, who stood without speaking, flipping through a stack of papers. When her mother turned, Ana Gabriel saw the blood tha
t covered her coat, a breathing mask loose around her neck. She jumped up and down and waved, shouting, “Mamá. Mamá!”

  Luisa Ramirez looked up the hill, lifting her chin and smiling at her daughter. She yelled something but Ana Gabriel couldn’t hear her words with all the other sounds. The motors of the buses rumbled, the men with guns shouted, and their radios chirped with beeps and static.

  “Mamá!” she said, yelling again.

  Sancho joined her at the barrier, both of them reaching into the chain link and rattling the fence. It was night now, the gravel lot pooled in the bright lights above. She did her best not to cry, only to let her mother know she was there and that she knew what was going on. She was safe. She and Sancho were safe and would look out for each other.

  She watched as the officers pushed her mother toward the others who’d been arrested, forming a line onto the bus. Many of them she knew from the Frog Pond, mostly women, but a few men. There was Armando’s father, his hands unbound, holding a plastic bag full of papers, speaking with a dark-skinned woman wearing a vest that said HSI. The conversation seemed hot, although she looked as if she could have been one of them with her dark hair and eyes. But she had a badge and wore a gun and it seemed nothing Armando’s dad said made a difference. Ana Gabriel watched as the line continued to push forward, her mother nearing the door. A bald man with a head like a thumb forced them forward like cattle with the flat of his hand.

  Te quiero, Mamá. Te quiero, Mamá.

  Luisa Ramirez turned before taking a step on the bus and mouthed that she loved them both. Sancho started to cry, his round little face in his hands. Ana Gabriel screamed and rattled the metal fence topped with razor wire.