The Forsaken

“Could use a little of your time, sir,” Qui

“Suppose to ice hard tonight,” Stillwell said. “Don’t like to rely on electric. Co-op takes two days before they get the power back on.”

“What’re you ru

“Y’all want to see it?” Stillwell said, wiping his nose, nodding toward around back. “Paid for itself the first year.”

They followed him around the trailer, set high on blocks on a cleared hill. The hill had a nice view of the Yellow Leaf Baptist Cemetery, if you might call a cemetery view a nice thing. The grass was brown and dead across the eroded hills of headstones. The old church, a wooden building, sat next to the new church, a big, wide metal prefab place where they advertised fellowship on Sunday mornings and Wednesday nights. The sign outside was a holdover from the Christmas season. Santa Claus Never Died for Anyone.

Stillwell saw Qui

“Nice setup,” Qui

“My neighbor up the hill got some of them solar panels,” Stillwell said. “His electric bills ain’t hardly nothing.”

Lillie warmed her hands over the black box as Stillwell opened up its door and stuffed in more pieces of wood. The fire inside glowed a high orange and red with bluish flames. Lillie looked to Qui

“I figure you know we reopened your daughter’s case,” Qui

“Yes, sir.”

“We’ve gone through the interviews you did with my uncle,” Qui

Stillwell nodded, blowing into his chapped hands. “Y’all come on inside,” he said. “It’s getting colder out here than a Mi

They followed him around the trailer and up some creaking steps. The trailer was dim, with few pieces of furniture inside and a very small TV on a corner table. He had a few deer heads on the dark-paneled wall and a few big bass. Qui

On the kitchen counter, at the back of a tiny kitchen, was a half-eaten grilled cheese sandwich and an open bottle of Mountain Dew. A grouping of pictures of Lori Stillwell faced out from a nearby table. They were school photos, the girl caught in time in fading colors.

Stillwell reached over to the side table and pulled a photo of Lori. He leaned forward in the recliner and handed the gilded frame to Qui

“Y’all been talking to Diane?”

“Yes, sir,” Lillie said.

“She can tell you the worst of it,” Stillwell said, watching as Qui

“You still ride?” Qui

“Not as much as I’d like,” Stillwell said. “Got J.T. working on some repairs right now. I got real stupid a couple years back and got a scooter with a twin-cam engine. Hell, everyone knows them things got problems. It’s got messed-up cam chains and shoes. J.T. told me to go ahead and replace that gear system before it throws the whole goddamn engine. It ain’t cheap, but better than replacing everything. The Harley people never tell you this shit could cut off the oil to the engine and blow it all. Y’all ride at all?”

“Dirt bikes,” Qui

“Highway riding is something special,” Stillwell said. “When I had the money and a good bike, I could clean my head out. If I hadn’t had a bike when Lori was killed, I think they’d better gone ahead and took me to Whitfield and tied on the straitjacket. I just rode and rode. Seems like all I did for nearly ten years is stay on that bike.”

“And you rode a lot when Lori was alive?” Lillie asked.

Stillwell fingered at his nose, straightened himself against the back of the recliner. He looked to Qui

“Born Losers,” Qui

“Among others,” Stillwell said. “Joined up with them when I got back from ’Nam.”

“Army?”

“101st Airborne, 506th Regiment.”

“When?”

“In the shit of it,” Stillwell said. “’Sixty-nine through ’73. Hamburger Hill. Yes, sir. I was there.”

Qui

“You think we’ll ever know?” Stillwell said. “Your uncle said I needed to make peace that some things just don’t have answers.”

“Diane Tull says a lynch mob killed the wrong man,” Lillie said.

“Yeah,” Stillwell said, hands a bit shaky on the arms of the recliner. “I know about all that.”

“You agree?” Lillie asked.

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Because of Diane?” Qui

“No, sir,” Stillwell said, licking his lips and rubbing his face, eyes void and hovering on a spot between where Qui

There were a few more pictures on the wall and an old black-and-white of a young man with a crew cut on a motorcycle. A young woman sat behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. The boy, Hank Stillwell, wore aviators and had a cigarette plucked in his mouth.

“What about the man who attacked your daughter?” Lillie said. “After all these years, has anyone told you anything?”

“No, ma’am,” he said. “My firm belief is that the boy wasn’t from here. He was a hunter, a goddamn animal, coming through looking for young girls. He did what he aimed to do and took off down the road. I believe I have asked every man, woman, and child alive at that time if they ever saw a twisted son of a bitch who had a face like that. I still ask.”

Lillie nodded.

“So who was the man who was lynched?” Qui

“Never knew his name,” Stillwell said. “Nobody did. He was sick in the head, lived up in the hills. Some said he was a vet, like me. Don’t know. Nobody talked much about it later. It was your uncle who set us straight after all this. He knew what we did and told us never to speak about it ever again. He said we’d have to make right with God what we done. He said no court of law could make sense of the savagery. He said that, ‘savagery.’ Your uncle was a hard man. He didn’t want no part of this posse.”