The Forsaken

“My name is Animal,” he said. “Call me Animal.”

“I’ll check the property records,” Qui

“Man,” Animal said. “Trespassing? We’re just moving in. This is our welcome-home party. Come on. Get that stick out of your ass and join us for some tequila and Mexican pussy. You look like you might like some of that, too, girl.”

Qui

“Patience,” she whispered. She turned to Animal. “Listen, you ugly motherfucker. It may be tough for you to look me in the eye with yours headed in two different directions. But if you want to keep out of jail around here, you will address me as ‘Ma’am’ or ‘Chief Deputy Virgil.’ Do you understand me?”

The man pursed his lips and smiled. His eyes did head in different directions. “Yes, ma’am,” he said, splitting his index and middle fingers and flicking his tongue between them.

He staggered away. The corridas kept playing from the parked trucks, exhaust fumes from the dually pipes chugging into the brittle night air.

“This won’t end well,” Qui

“Who are these guys?” Lillie said.

“My uncle used to tell me stories about the Born Losers,” Qui

“How?”

“He said he’d run the sonsabitches out of town.”

There was an ash on Luther Varner’s cigarette that must’ve grown about two inches long before he broke it in the tray, looked to Qui

“What about the lynching?” Qui

“Sure,” Mr. Jim said. “We knew about what happened to that fella. He killed a couple girls and they took him out and hung his ass. One of the girl’s fathers was part of the gang. Most people didn’t have much trouble with it.”

Mr. Jim had the clearest blue eyes he’d ever seen and a giant bulbous nose. After he spoke, he hacked a nasty cough into a handkerchief. The cough had grown worse and worse over some weeks, Mr. Jim saying he just had a cold and to quit bothering him about it.

“One of the girls lived,” Qui

“Oh, that’s right,” Mr. Jim said. “It’s been a while. You forget things.”

“But nothing ever happened to those bikers,” Luther said. “I don’t know what your uncle did about it, if anything. I think it was a pretty hot issue. Divided folks.”

“Black and white?” Qui

“Nope,” Varner said. “Old Testament and New.”

“Where did y’all line up?” Qui

Luther thumped his pack of cigarettes, drew out a long fresh one, and lit it quick with his Zippo. “Whatever we thought at the time was wrong,” Luther said. “You’re saying the man they got was i

“Still can happen,” Qui

“Guess it does,” Mr. Jim said. “But at least a man has a fighting chance to tell his side of things whether they listen or not.”

Luther smoked down half the cigarette, squinting through the smoke, only two other folks left in the old VFW. The hall was a cinder-block building with gray linoleum floors and a lot of plaques, photos, flags, and anything military or about America. Somewhere there was a framed article from the Tibbehah Monitor more than ten years ago about Qui

“You know much about this gang?” Qui

“They were some bad motherfuckers,” Luther said. “Nobody messed with them. They pretty much kept to themselves. Wasn’t like in no movies, where they were chasing the panties off virgins or breaking church windows. All you had to do was look at their head dude and know he meant business. They called him Chains, and the boy had that look in his eye. Haunted? Crazy? Long hair and a beard, animal-wild.”

“What about the men who followed him?”

“Some of them were pretty nice fellas.”

“Like who?” Qui

There was a glance, a very brief one, between Luther and Mr. Jim. Mr. Jim opened his mouth and then closed it. He seemed to think for a second and then said, “J.T. either rode with them or fixed their bikes. They spent a lot of time at his garage. But this was a long, long time ago. By the time you were in diapers, most of them had moved on.”

“Hank Stillwell,” Varner said. “It was Stillwell’s daughter they killed. You talk to him?”

Qui

“Why are people talking about all this now?” Mr. Jim said.

“They’re coming back.”

“Who?” Varner said.

“The Born Losers,” Qui

“Bullshit,” Varner said.

“Nope,” Qui

“Seems like all the turds out of Memphis get shook out in Tibbehah,” Mr. Jim said. “Can’t they go somewheres else?”

The only two other folks in the VFW hall huddled by the front door, deep in conversation. One of the men turned, eyed Qui

Qui

Luther Varner and Mr. Jim couldn’t hear jack shit. Qui

He excused himself and walked over to the table where tubby Clay Sneed was snickering. “Glad you enjoyed my talk,” Qui

Sneed’s face flamed a bright red. “What the hell you talking about?”

“You just said I take payoffs and got myself a free truck.”

“No I didn’t,” Sneed said. “You’re hearing things.”

“I was offered a sixty-thousand-dollar Dodge Ram by the county supervisors that I turned down,” Qui

“This was a private conversation,” Sneed said. The other man, a kid in his early twenties, just kept his eyes down on his half-eaten pancakes. “I didn’t mean nothing.”

“People like you never do,” Qui

“What the hell’s that mean?”

“Think on it,” Qui

Qui