CHAPTER SEVEN I
1857
A rugged man in a leather hat by the name of Cutton rode them up the main street on a new two-horse wagon. The steeds looked strong and healthy, and the wagon had iron-spoked wheels and slat springs: more proof that Gast had a lot of money behind him. The air of the street cleared Poltrock’s head quickly. He felt purged.
“So how far’s the junction?”
“Not but two miles, just out of town,” Cutton said. He sounded like a Marylander, or a Delawarean.
“It’s a nice town,” Poltrock observed of the clean streets and well-constructed buildings. Women in bonnets and bustle dresses strolled past shops with tidy men in tailcoats. Orderly slaves off-loaded goods from wagons.
“It sure is. We got a fine whorehouse here, and, well, I saw you in Cusher’s Tavern last night so you know we got good liquor. The general store’s always full up, and folks come from all over to buy boots from our cobbler. We even got a doctor and an apothecary.”
Just then the horses pulled them past a sign: GAST—POP. 616.
“Yes,” Poltrock said. “This town’s got more to be said for it than Chattanooga. Strange I ain’t never heard of it.”
“Used to be called Branch Landing since we got statehood in ’96. Weren’t nothing but a little trading post then. Called it that ’cos three main roads branch out from here, one to Richmond, one to Lexington, and one to Manassas, the three biggest Southern rail junctions that have lines from Washington. But once Mr. Gast came to town, they just said to hell with it and named the town Gast. These folks worship the ground he walks on. He built everything here.”
“Plantation money’s what I heard,” Poltrock said over the next bump.
“Owns thousands of acres, here and other states, too.”
“What other states?”
“Don’t know.”
“This ain’t Virginia, you know, or the North. How’s one private man own all that land and manage the Indians?”
“Killed ’em. What did you think?”
Past the final buildings on the main street, they could see the Gast House.
Poltrock shuddered at a chill. His sickness had passed. He hadn’t known what to make of any of it when he’d been inside. That…house, he thought. The vision, the smell. “Can’t say I care for the house, though.”
Cutton said nothing as he tended his reins.
“A fine house to look at, but I mean…there’s just somethin’ funny about it. I swear I was seein’ things, hearin’ things, even smellin’ things.”
Cutton remained silent.
Poltrock tried to push the memory out of his head. “Felt sick as a dog when I was in there.”
“You was likely hungover,” Cutton finally spoke up. “I saw you at the tavern last night, in your cups.”
“Yes, that’s right.” And that’s all it is.
“You meet his wife?”
“I did. Seems nice, sophisticated.”
Did Cutton smile to himself? “She’s somethin’, all right. How about his kids?”
“I saw a blonde girl with a dog for a minute.” And then Poltrock gulped at what he thought he’d seen next. “Like about fifteen, sixteen or thereabouts.”
“That’s Mary, and there’s another one—nine, I think—a brown-haired little girl named Cricket…” Cutton stalled his next words, which Poltrock found curious.
“Yeah?”
Cutton gnawed off the corner of a tobacco plug. “Well, see, Mr. Poltrock, I understand that you’re a man with some credentials. I heard you were the track engineer for the Pennsylvania Railroad.”
“That I was, but what’s it got to do with Mr. Gast’s children?”
Cutton spat over the side. “I’m just an inspector—all of a sudden a very well-paid inspector but still. You’re my boss, and I don’t want to lose my brand-new job by sayin’ something out of line.”
This perked Poltrock up. He didn’t know anybody here. “I appreciate any information you might be kind enough to render. Good men keep the details of their discussions to themselves. My word is bond, and I am certain yours is, too. An honest man is worth his weight in gold and, for instance, it will be an honest man as well as a helpful man that I pick to be my line chief. Which pays an extra five dollars per week.”
Cutton nodded. “I just mean to say that without no discourtesy to Mr. Gast, his children are a might peculiar and the same for his wife. It would do a wise man service to keep a good distance from ’em all. They’re bad luck is all I’m sayin’, Mr. Poltrock.”
Cutton stroked his reins and drove on.
Poltrock thought he got it. But now that he was out of the house, he could think clearly. Gast just hired me to be his number-two man on this job—that’s all that matters.
The horses drew the wagon down a byroad that ran parallel to the track. The track itself appeared to be top quality, as was the tie bed beneath. “How much track’s been laid so far?”
“Five, maybe six miles so far, and we only started a few weeks ago.”
Poltrock looked at him. “That’s impressive, Cutton.”
“Mr. Gast plans to have it completed in mid-’62. He says the war will’ve already started by then, and the South will likely be in Washington. Mr. Gast’s rail line will be a crucial alternate supply route.”
Poltrock thought about that, and smirked. A lot of it didn’t make sense to him. An alternate supply line…from Maxon? He figured it was best left alone. Just do what you’re paid for, and let Gast think what he wants…
A high gaze ahead showed him the layout. A steam engine connected to several pallet cars would haul the new rail and ties up the current point of construction, then go back to Virginia for more: a constant replenishment of material. Each return run would find the newly lain track a mile or two longer. Five years, was all Poltrock could think. Five years of goin’ back and forth like that, each trip back a little bit longer. It would be hard work, for sure—and Poltrock wasn’t adverse to that—and by the time the project was done, most of his formidable salary would still be in the bank. Ain’t gonna have much time to spend it.
The sun blazed. The closer they got to the site, the more apparent the sound: metal ringing as a hundred slaves brought hammer to spike. It was almost musical in Poltrock’s ears.
“Gettin’ close now,” Cutton remarked.
At once a foul odor crinkled Poltrock’s nose. “God in heaven, what’s that?”
Cutton pointed beyond the track, to farmland. Poltrock saw cotton, corn, and beans being picked by complacent female slaves. But that’s not what Cutton pointed to…
Poltrock thought of scarecrows when he noticed a couple of severed heads on stakes. The awful smell came from the rotting heads? “I heard some talk of executions,” he mentioned through a half gag.
Cutton nodded. “Yes, sir. Plantation justice I guess is what you’d call it. When slaves get frisky, well…you gotta make an example of ’em.”
“Any white men executed?”
“Oh, sure. Two or three, at least. One fella got caught tryin’ to steal from Mr. Fecory—”
Poltrock stared at the odd name in his head. “Who’s he?”
“One you’ll get to know well, like the rest of us. Mr. Fecory is the paymaster. Shows up at the site every Friday with his ledger book and suitcase full’a money. Funny little man in a red derby hat. And he’s got a gold nose.”
“A gold what?”
“Nose. Rumor is he got his nose blowed off a while back when some fugitives tried to rob him, so now he wears a fake one made’a gold. But like I was sayin’, one’a Mr. Gast’s white laborers pinched some money out of Fecory’s pay case and, well, that was that for him. Then another white fella or two got caught rapin’ some town girls. They got executed, too.”
Poltrock looked at the next severed head. “In the fields?”
“No, no. The white men got trials. They was hanged in the town square. Only the nigrahs are killed in the field. You’re probably smellin’ it right about now.”
“Yes, I am. Hard to believe a couple of severed heads could smell that bad at this distance.”
“Oh, it ain’t just the heads,” Cutton calmly went on. “Their whole bodies are threshed into the soil. Fertilizer. turnin’ somethin’ bad into somethin’ good. And they’ll just leave the heads there till they rot down to skulls, a reminder for the rest of the slaves not to act up.”
Poltrock gazed back out when several intermittent shadows crossed his face. Jesus Lord, he thought grimly. They’d just passed two more severed heads mounted in the field. He forced himself to look forward.
Down the line, he could now see the men working. White foremen measuring gauge and marking the next length of track bed to be dug and filled with ballast, then a hundred sweat-glazed slaves, either digging, hammering spikes, or dropping ties. Armed security men stood watch over the entire site, faces vigilant.
“Here were are, Mr. Poltrock,” Cutton announced and slowed the wagon. “Everything you see, you’re now in charge of. It’s a pleasure to be workin’ for ya.”
You work for me, but I work for Gast, Poltrock reminded himself. “Thank you.” Metal striking metal sang in his ears. “I must say, this appears to be a top-notch team.” And suddenly he felt enthused. Maybe the job wasn’t impossible after all. The operation was running like welloiled machinery.
The wagon stopped. “Morris is the crew boss. I’ll have him call a break, and then he can introduce you to the men.”
“That would be in order.”
They both dismounted the wagon. No one even looked at him when they approached the line. Each man, black or white, worked with focus and determination.
And the hammers hitting spikes rang on.
When Poltrock crossed the line, he stopped cold. Suddenly he felt bile bubbling in his gut…
The field seized his gaze, where he saw at least three dozen more severed heads on stakes. II
“Quit actin’ like you ain’t never done this before,” the younger man said, straddling the fat man’s face. The fat man mewled.
This guy is the hardest trick I ever turned, thought the younger man, frowning, and this younger man, of course, was Jiff. To maintain his arousal, he forced himself to think of Tom Cruise in Cocktail, because every time he looked down at his obese client, he winced. Nothing arousing about him. The fat man remained strained and trembling on his bed, his XXX-large Christian Dior shirt opened, and his Bermuda shorts pulled off.
“Suck it right, fattie,” Jiff said, and grabbed a hank of white hair beside the fat man’s bald spot. “If’n you cain’t suck better than that, I just might have to slap your big fat face.”
The overweight “client” struggled to do as complied.
“Maybe if I kick your fat ass, you’ll get the message,” Jiff went on with his playact. He angled off the bed and—
CRACK!
—brought his open palm hard against the fat man’s face.
The fat man was misty-eyed now. “I…I love you…”
Jiff couldn’t have smirked more sharply.
Afternoon sun lit up the fat man’s posh bedroom; Jiff found it amusing that a busy Number 1 Street bustled just outside that window, a story down. Tourists out for leisurely strolls and antique fanatics scouring the town’s quaint shops. And none of ’em would ever guess what’s going on up here. When the fat man brought his hands up to caress Jiff’s ass, Jiff jerked away the fat man’s cheeks with one hand, squeezing hard.
“Did I give you permission to touch my ass, girlie? Hmm?” He squeezed harder, and the fat man shook his head.
“I ought’a drag your fat girlie ass right out in the street with your little pants down like ya are, so’s every one out there can see your little pansy pecker! And then piss on ya to boot!” Now he squeezed so hard, tears formed in the fat man’s eyes, and—
Jesus, what a sick pup, Jiff thought.
Before the great mound of belly, the client’s genitals hardened and he moaned.
How grim. It just reminded Jiff of the situation’s strange psychology. I tell the guy I’m gonna piss on him and he gets hard? Jiff had been a male prostitute for a long time but even he had never seen a client this bad off. It wasn’t the actual sex, nor even the pain and bondage—it was the sheer humiliation that the fat man was paying for. It didn’t matter that this was fast money—the gig was getting old.
Get it over with, he thought, disgusted.
He put the rubber ball in the fat man’s mouth and got to work.
A few minutes later, Jiff was finally done, his client ravaged. He removed the rubber ball. Finally…
“Help me! I love you so much!” came the desperate plea.
By now Jiff felt sorry for him. Poor fat bastard’s up’n fell in love with me. “That’s a good girl,” he praised. “And now, for bein’ so good, you know what I’m gonna do?”
Hopeful eyes glimmered up.
Jiff lowered his face and bit one of the nipples.
The fat man shrieked in glee.
Jiff climbed off the bed, nude. He knew that the fat man’s eyes were on his body when he strode to the bathroom. Behind him, he pretended not to hear the forlorn whisper: “I love you so much…”
Jiff washed up at the sink. He felt skewed. He’d originally viewed this gig as easy money—thirty bucks for ten minutes?—but now it was getting too kinky even for him. The debasement? At least his other tricks in town were simple action. It was his body that got him the business. He appraised himself in the mirror, flexed his abs, shot a few bicep poses. Some of the guys down at the Spike would lay twenty on him just to flex while they jerked off. Now I’ve got this tub’a lard with all his hangups. Oh, well, he supposed it beat cutting yards.
He pumped his pecs once in the reflection. Yeah. I still got it.
Behind him, his client’s voice drifted, “You’re beautiful…”
Jiff frowned.
When he came back out, the fat man was sitting up in bed, his shorts still at his ankles. “I’d be a mess without you.”
You ARE a mess! Look at yourself! You look like 300 pounds of vanilla pudding folded over in bed! Jiff ignored the remark.
He looked around the spacious room. A stone bust of some guy named Caesar stood on a pedestal by one wall, and another one of some guy named Alexander the Great stood next to the window. Jiff guessed these guys were relatives of Liberace, maybe helped get him started in Vegas. There was also a chess table made of checkerboarded marble and pieces that looked made of silver and gold. Lucky bastard…Jiff knew that his client’s money came from an inheritance—he was the last of the line. Ain’t no way that fat pansy’s ever gonna have a kid to inherit what’s left. Jiff knew he could steal a chess piece or two, but that wasn’t his style. He was just a hayseed male hooker, not a thief.
An old, fancy armoire stood opened, revealing cans of nuts and boxes of chocolates. “Hey, can I have some’a this?”
“All that I own…is yours.”
I guess that means yes. Jiff knew he had to get the gears shifted fast now, otherwise the man’d just get all depressed and mushy. He opened a box of Trufflettes. “Wow, these are good.”
“Take the whole box, I’ll get you more. I order them special from France.”
Jiff shook his head. The antique cupboard was full of such stuff. The poor bastard. Aside from me comin’ over here and treatin’ him like dog shit, all he’s got to look forward to is food. “But, you know, you ought’a cut down on this stuff. It’s bad for your heart’n all.”
A grateful sob. “You care about me!”
Christ. Jiff knew that the sight of his naked body was just riling the old man up. He began to dress.
“I’m nothing,” his client croaked. “I’ve got nothing.”
“Aw, don’t start talkin’ like that now. Shee-it, you got quite a bit from what I can see. Nice car, nice place, money.”
“Don’t you understand? None of that means anything, not without love. I’ve got no true happiness at all…”
“Stop feelin’ sorry for yourself!” Jiff snapped. I gotta get out’a here! “Come on, now, none of that. Look, I got work to do, so where’s my money?”
A trembling hand pointed to an inlaid dresser. Jiff picked up the check and folded it in his pocket.
“At least, tell me…Tell me you like me! Please!”
“A’course I like ya—”
“Then love me, too!”
“We been over it’n over it. This ain’t like that, and never will be. This is just fun and games. We’re friends, that’s it. You help me out, I help you out. We play a game. What’s wrong with that? What’s wrong with bein’ friends?”
Teary eyes looked up. “Do you ever…think about me? I mean…when we’re together?”
Jiff was getting sick of this. Man, when I’m with you, all I think about is Christian Bale in his Batman suit, you pathetic fat slob…But Jiff just couldn’t be that much of a prick. The man was too harmless to be disgusted by. “A’course I think about you sometimes,” he lied.
The client clasped his hands. “Thank you!”
Jiff needed to split. He needed to be around some real men. “Now you give me a call next time you want me to come by.” And then he headed for the stairs.
Halfway down, he heard the plea: “Marry me! It’ll be our secret! You can have as many lovers as you want! I’ll give you everything! Just…marry me!”
Jiff hit the back door fast. III
Collier woke at just past noon, a seam of sunlight from the curtains laying a bar across his eyes. What a slug, he thought. He felt sick from some inner confusion, then in bits and pieces everything resurfaced: the atrocious nightmare, Lottie, the hole in the wall…and the voices he thought he’d heard.
He frowned it all away and quickly showered, only now noticing a numb erection. What a night. The stair hall bloomed in the sun, flagging a distant headache that was no doubt the by-product of drinking too much. Just as he began to take the stairs down, he heard children laughing, and an excited voice like a little girl’s exclaim: “Here, boy! Come get the ball! Here, boy!”
Like a kid calling a dog, he thought. He walked back up and looked but no one was there.
Mrs. Butler was dusting the banister down below. She looked up at him, as Collier was forced to look down, where his eyes targeted her cleavage. Today the stacked old woman wore a smart frilled blouse and blue skirt. Collier felt a covert thrill, now that he’d seen her naked in the peephole.
“Good morning, Mrs. Butler—er, I should say good afternoon.”
Her withered face beamed. “Ya missed breakfast but I’d be happy to fix ya up somethin’ for lunch.”
“Oh, no thanks. I’m going to walk into town. I’ll pick something up there later.”
“And again, Mr. Collier, I’m so sorry about my silly drunken daughter bein’ a thorn in your side last night—”
“Don’t mention it. I was a little drunk myself, if you want to know the truth.”
“So what’cha lookin’ for in town? Anything in particular?”
She stepped aside as he descended; Collier’s eyes groaned against her plush body. “Actually, the bookstore. Is that on the main street?”
“Yes, sir, right on the corner. Number One Street and Penelope. It’s a fine little shop.”
Something nagged at him—besides her blaring curves. “Oh, and I wanted to ask you something. Do you allow guests to bring pets to the inn?”
Her eyes seemed to dim. “Pets, well, no. But of course if you’re thinkin’ of bringing a pet on some future visit, I’m sure I could make—”
“No, no, that’s not what I mean. It’s just that—” Suddenly he felt foolish bringing it up. “I thought I saw a dog last night.”
“A dog? In the inn? There aren’t any here, I can assure you. And we don’t own any pets personally.”
What a mistake. I was seeing things because I was drunk and stressed out from her psycho daughter. “I’m sorry, I guess my head wasn’t on straight last night. Let me just say that the beer at Cusher’s was so good, I drank a few too many.”
She tried to laugh. “Well, we want ya to have a good time, Mr. Collier.” She paused and pinched her chin. “There is a stray dog ’cos these parts that some folks see. What kind’a dog was it you thought ya saw?”
“I don’t even know. A mutt, I guess, about the size of a bulldog. Kind of a muddy brown.”
Did she throw off a moment of fluster? “Well, if some stray got in here, we’ll have it out of here a mite fast. Lottie leaves the back door open sometimes. Honestly that silly girl runs me ragged, but you have a nice time in town, Mr. Collier.”
“Thanks. See you later.”
Collier went out the big front doors. Did her reaction strike him as odd, or was it just more overflow? There’s no dog. I’m the one who’s overreacting. He let the winding road out front take him down the hill, into warm sunlight.
After a hundred yards, he felt better; something more positive began to supplant last night’s foolishness. He’d brought one of his boilerplate permission forms because he’d already decided that Cusher’s Civil War Lager would be the final entry in his book. He’d found what he’d been looking for, and the brightest sideline was the brewer herself. She’s so cool, he thought in a daze. “Dominique…” The name rolled off his tongue. He’d already assured himself that his professional motives were intact. I’d give the beer a five-star rating even if the brewer were ugly. Still, he couldn’t wait to see Dominique…
Downtown, the lunch crowd was out, filling the picture-postcard streets with smiles and shining eyes. Money first, he reminded himself. He didn’t have much cash on him, and right there on the corner stood a bank. FECORY SAVINGS AND TRUST. Odd name, he thought, but who cared? There was an ATM.
Several people stood in line before him. Collier waited idly, looking down the rest of Penelope Street. When he turned, he noticed a mounted bronze plaque bolted to the front of the building.
THIS BUILDING WAS CONSTRUCTED ON THE ORIGINAL SITE OF THE FIRST BANK OF GAST, AND NAMED FOR THE TOWN’S PAYMASTER, WINDOM FECORY. IN 1865, UNION SOLDIERS CONFISCATED THE BANK OF MILLIONS IN GOLD THAT HAD BEEN HIDDEN BENEATH THE FLOOR, THEN BURNED THE BUILDING TO THE GROUND TO RETRIEVE ITS NAILS FROM THE ASHES.
Interesting, Collier thought, but now the only thing on his mind was Dominique. I’ll have lunch there today, and give her the release form. “And I’d really like to talk to you some more, too, Mr. Collier,” he remembered her saying. Collier was so distracted by the thought of her, he didn’t even take note of the tube-topped/cutoff-jeaned Paris Hilton look-alike who was now bent over the ATM tapping in her PIN. Collier’s resurgent lust, in other words, was thwarted by thoughts of someone else.
“Oh, hey there, Mr. Collier—”
Collier looked up, surprised to see Jiff standing right before him in line. “Hi, Jiff. Didn’t even see you there. Guess I’m preoccupied or something.”
“Hard not to be on a beautiful day like we got.” Jiff stood lackadaisically in his work boots, scuffed jeans, and clinging T-shirt. “Out for a stroll?”
“Yeah, but I saw the bank here and thought I’d grab some cash first.”
“I just stopped by to deposit a check real quick, and then it’s back to work.” He’d pronounced “deposit” as “deposert.” “And thanks again for last night. I had me a lot of fun.”
“Me, too. We’ll do it again before I head back to L.A.”
Jiff grinned ruefully, arms crossed. “Ma told me ’bout your little problem last night with Lottie. She can be a right pain in the ass, she can.”
You’re telling me? “It was no big deal. She’s a good kid.”
“Yeah, but it’s too bad she’s the way she is. Don’t fit in proper with everyone else, not bein’ able to talk and all, and a’course that goofy grin.”
“Hopefully she’ll come out of her shell someday.”
Jiff waved a hand. “Naw, that’d just get her into more trouble. She’s best just doin’ her work ’cos the house’n stayin’ put.”
The poor girl’s doomed in that house of bumpkins…But by now, Collier noticed the lithe blonde at the ATM, and several other men in line were eyeballing her, too. But when Collier looked to Jiff…
The man didn’t seem to be aware of her.
Just like last night at the bar, Collier remembered. Then, very quickly, he noticed the top of the check in his hand.
JOSEPHAWITZ-GEORGE SUTE, the name at the top read. The local author, he thought. Collier hoped to be running into him today. He noticed that the check was made out for thirty dollars. Side work, Collier recalled. Jiff had already mentioned that he was also a local handyman.
The blonde left; then Jiff stepped up and deposited his check. “Guess you’ll be stoppin’ by Cusher’s for lunch, huh?”
“As a matter of fact I am. I’m going to write up the lager in my book and I need Dominique to sign a release form.”
Jiff grinned over his shoulder and winked. “It’s a mighty fine beer, but you know, Mr. Collier, my mom makes her own spiced ale on occasion. I’m sure she’s still got plenty in the fruit cellar, and I’m double-sure she’d love for you ta try some.”
He’s trying to fix me up with his sixty-five-year-old mother again. Collier squirmed for a response. “Oh, really? That’s interesting. I enjoy homemade ales.” But, sixty-five years old or not, he still remembered that body of hers, in the peephole—Man…—then the odd notion that Mrs. Butler herself had drilled that hole…“You’re welcome to join me for lunch,” he added, if only to blot out the image of the plush, large-nippled breasts all glimmering in lather.
“Aw, thanks much, Mr. Collier, but I still got some fix-it jobs around town ’fore I head back to the house.” He flashed a final grin. “But you have a fine day.”
“You, too, Jiff.”
Jiff strode off, whistling like a cliché. Collier took money out of the machine and continued into town.
A quick look into Cusher’s showed him a full house and full bar. Shit. I’ve got to get a seat at the bar, otherwise I won’t get to talk to her…The lunch crowd looked heavy everywhere, so he decided to kill some time roving in and out of some knickknack shops, tourist crannies, and the Gast Civil War Museum. On the corner, then, he noticed the bookstore. Might as well go in now and see if I can run down J.G. Sute…
A bell jingled when he pushed through the door. It was a small, tidy shop, with more tourist buttons, shirts, and related trinkets than books. Several browsers milled about but none of them could be Sute. Jiff said he was close to sixty…Collier shouldered into a cove and found it full of Civil War tomes, mostly pricey picture books. Wouldn’t mind picking up a few books on Gast, though, he told himself. One shelf was filled end to end with the same title: From Branch Landing to Gast: A Local History. The author was J.G. Sute, but, No way! Collier rebelled. The downsized hardcover was fifty dollars. Another book, more like a trade pamphlet, showed the title, The East Tennessee and Georgia Railroad Company, also by Sute. The same title filled the next shelf: Harwood Gast: A Biography of Gast’s Most Sinister Figure. It was very thin, but, That’s more like it, he thought of the five-dollar price tag. It was not a quality printing, and the photo-plate section looked xeroxed, but as Collier flipped through he found some curious tintypes of the town in the 1850s and through to the end of the war. One plate, of Gast himself, Collier found chilling in the way the subject’s eyes seemed to burn through the photo’s fuzzy surroundings. The well-dressed, mutton-chopped plantation baron looked exactly like the huge portrait in the atrium. Another plate showed a sturdy wooden building with the text below: THE FIRST BANK OF GAST. I was just there, Collier thought. An opposite daguerreotype was devoted to MR. WINDOM FECORY: HARWOOD GAST’S CONTROVERSIAL BANKING OFFICER. What could be controversial about him? Collier wondered with a smirk, but the more he appraised the picture—a wiry, thin-faced man with a peculiar nose—the creepier he found the image. One surprisingly clear plate showed Mrs. Penelope Gast standing elegantly beside one of the house’s entrance pillars; she looked demure and beautiful in an elaborate bustle dress and corsetlike top. The cleavage in the lowcut top couldn’t have been more apparent. What a rack! Collier admitted.
The little book hooked him. I’m buying this, he knew, but as an author himself he flipped instinctively to the copyright page, to see who the publisher was. Not a good sign, but I’m still buying it, he resolved. The publisher was listed as J.G. Sute Publications.
“Let me guess what you’re thinking,” a crisp yet deep baritone Southern voice surmised. Sun from the front window reduced a wide figure to shadow. “You’re thinking that it must not be any good since it’s self-published.”
“I—”
“But I can assure you, sir, that the author has no resort since all respectable publishing houses found the subject matter too controversial.”
Collier, caught off guard, stepped aside and found himself facing a short, obese man in a tweed sports jacket with patches on the elbows. Balding, stout-faced, but with eyes that seemed serious and credible…and a white-gray mustache and Vandyke that reminded Collier of Colonel Sanders. It was the same man on the book’s back cover. “Oh, you must be J.G. Sute. I’ve actually been looking for you. I’m Justin—”
“Justin Collier,” the deep voice replied. “When a celebrity comes to town, I’m the first to know. Very pleased to meet you.” He offered a soft but large hand. “I have seen your beer show several times but I’ll have to admit, I’m more of a wine and scotch man myself. And you say…you’ve been looking for me?”
“Yes, yes,” Collier returned and quickly got the Internet printout from his wallet. “It’s actually this piece you wrote that got me here.”
Sute looked at it and seemed pleased. “I do a lot of freelancing for local papers and the tourist Web sites. Oh, you mean my reference to Cusher’s?”
“Right. And I’d just like to thank you because their lager turned out to be just what I needed to finish my current book.”
Now the wide, squat man seemed to grow a few inches from the compliment. “I’m flattered my little piece could be of service. So…if you don’t mind my asking, who’s the publisher for your book?”
“Random House,” Collier said.
Mr. Sute’s extra inches dropped back down very quickly. “Well, regrettably, I’ve never been published by so lofty a house but”—he pointed to the fifty-dollar edition—“that one there is my pride and joy. Published by Seymour and Sons, in Nashville. It’s sold a thousand copies so far.”
Collier got the gist. The poor sap’s just a hack and I’m rubbing Random House in his face. He decided to bite the bullet, and he took a copy down. “I planned on buying that one, too. Would you sign it for me?”
Sute blustered. “I’d be honored.”
“I’ve only been here a day but I’ve become enthralled by all the local color. Harwood Gast and his railroad, for instance.”
“It’s quite a story, and as I was saying previously, a little too harsh a story for the big publishers. I’ve had to publish several on my own for the same reason—”
“Too harsh?”
“—and I don’t think I’m being conceited to say that I am the only true expert on the local color and history of this town. All my works are based on original letters, photos, and estate archives. This one, for instance”—his finger gestured another slim paperback, entitled Letters of Evidence: The Epistemological Record of Gast, Tennessee—“and it’s only five dollars.”
Collier took down a copy. “I’ll be digging into all of these soon, thanks. But I was also wondering, since you write for tourist and dining sites, are there any other brew pubs or regional taverns in the area? What I’m looking for are more places that might specialize in regional beers based on old recipes.”
Sute seemed downtrodden that he could offer no more expertise. “Not really, I’m afraid. The South is more known for whiskey and mashes. There are a few taverns in Chattanooga that brew their own beer but I think it’s more faddish than authentic.”
Well, I guess I knew it was too good to be true. But at least Cusher’s had been a stunning success…And I suppose I owe part of its discovery to him.
“I wish I could be more help.”
“You’ve been quite a bit of help already, Mr. Sute. If it hadn’t been for your piece, I might never have found out where Cusher’s is located.” Collier supposed buying several of the man’s books—especially the fifty-dollar job—was gratitude enough. “Let me take these to the cashier, and then you can sign them.”
Sute gushed behind Collier, and eventually signed the tomes with a confident expression. Maybe they’d be interesting, maybe not. But then something ticked in Collier’s ear.
“You said this one book was too harsh for a New York publisher?”
“That and a number of others. Not even the local college presses would touch them, even though these are the only books ever written on this aspect of town history. And it’s an important history, too—there are dozens of books on the railroads of Chattanooga during the war, yet the most unusual railroad of the same period was the one that Harwood Gast built. My book details, among other things, Gast’s actual use of the railroad, which was…atypical.”
The comment seemed bizarre. “I presume that any railroad during a war is used chiefly to transport troops and supplies.”
“Um-hmm, but not this railroad, Mr. Collier—and my sources are firsthand evidence. No supplies, and not one single soldier was ever transported on Gast’s railroad.” Sute nodded sternly, and indicated the books under Collier’s arm. “The railroad’s actual use is touched upon in those books, however. I hope you find them interesting.”
What is it with people in the South? Collier wondered, aggravated. They deliberately evade the point. The best storytelling ploy, keep the listener in suspense. “Come on, Mr. Sute. What was the railroad used to transport?”
“Captives,” the obese man said.
“Oh, you mean they used it to take Union prisoners to detention camps? Andersonville and all that?”
“Not…Andersonville. That was on the other side of Georgia, and, yes, that’s where most of the captured Union troops were sent. But I’m afraid Gast’s railroad had an exclusive utility: to transport captive civilians. Women, children, old men. The innocent. It’s unfortunate that the complete story was never published.”
“Yes,” Collier added, “because it was too harsh. You told me. But you’ve got my curiosity going. So…Gast transported captured Northern civilians on the railway—do I have that right?”
Sute nodded.
“And I guess they were transported to a separate detention camp…”
“In a sense, you could say that. It’s a harrowing story, Mr. Collier, and probably not one you’d like to hear in detail on a beautiful day such as this. You’re a celebrity, after all, and it’s wonderful to have you in our humble town. I’d hate for such a story to spoil your stay.”
Collier smiled. “It’s some ’ghost train’ or something, then, right?”
A curt “No.”
This guy is ticking me off now, Collier thought.
Sute shed some of the grim cast, and raised a finger. “But if you like ghost stories, I’ll admit, a few of those are touched on, too. Some nifty little stories about the house.”
The house, Collier stalled. The Gast House. “I knew it all along! So the inn’s a haunted house. I knew Mrs. Butler was bluffing…”
J.G. Sute’s broad face turned up in a grin. “Well, I’m on my way to lunch now, Mr. Collier, but if you stop by tomorrow I’ll tell you some of the tales.”
Collier wanted to bang the books over his head. “Come on, Mr. Sute. Tell me one story about the house. Right now.”
Sute drew on a pause—of course, for effect. “Well, without sounding too uncouth, I can tell you that many, many guests of the Gast House—dating back quite a spell—have reported a curious…influence. A, shall we say, libidinous one.”
Collier squinted at the thick mustachioed face. “Libidinous—you mean, sexual?”
The schoolmarmish cashier frowned over her glasses. “Please, J.G.! Don’t start getting into all that now. We want Mr. Collier to come back, not stay away forever!”
Mr. Sute ignored the crotchety woman. “I’ll only say that the house seems to have a sexual effect on certain people who happen to stay there. One of whom was my grandfather.”
The cashier was fuming, but Collier couldn’t let it go. “A sexual effect in what way?”
Sute’s shoulder hitched up once. “Some people have experienced an inexplicable…amplification of their…sexual awareness.”
Amplification. Sexual awareness. Collier’s mind ticked like a clock. “You’re saying that the house makes people h—”
Before Collier could say “horny,” Sute polished up the inference by interrupting: “The house will incite the desires of certain people. Especially persons who are otherwise experiencing a decline in such desires. My grandfather, for instance, was in his eighties when he stayed there.” Sute smiled again, and whispered, “He said the place gave him the sex drive of a twenty-year-old.”
Collier had to make a conscious effort to prevent his jaw from dropping.
Just like me, from the second I set foot in the place…
“Mr. Sute? I’d be honored if you’d allow me to treat you to lunch,” Collier said.
But why was Collier so fascinated? He didn’t even try to discern it. Sute’s strange comment about “amplified” sexual desire, and the fact that Collier had experienced exactly that, could have just been timeliness and coincidence—in fact, he felt sure it was.
Still…
The house was having some effect on him—probably due to his boredom and angst. They walked around a busy corner, Sute still ego-stroked that this “celebrity” was interested in his stories enough to actually buy him lunch. Two birds with one stone, Collier thought; J.G. Sute was all too happy to lunch at his favorite local restaurant: Cusher’s.
“Would you mind if we sat at the bar?” Collier asked when he noticed two empty stools. Better yet, Dominique was tending the taps, cuter than ever in her dark, shiny hair and bosom-hugging brewer’s apron. Collier looked up hopefully, and when she smiled and waved, he could’ve melted. Oh, man. The perfect woman…
“The bar’s fine with me,” Sute said, but just then—
You fuckers! Collier’s thought screamed. Get the fuck away from those stools!
A middle-aged couple beat them to the stools.
Collier walked to the end of the bar. “Hi,” he said to Dominique.
“I’m glad you came,” she said. Caramel irises sparkled. “No room at the bar right now, but there’s plenty of seats in the dining room.”
Collier stammered, “I was really hoping to get to talk to you—oh, and I have that release form.”
“Great. When you’re done eating, just come by.” Dominique glanced at Collier’s unlikely lunch guest. “Getting an earful, huh?”
“Well…”
“Good old J.G. will keep you enthralled,” she said. “Last night you did seem pretty interested in some of the town’s folklore. Mr. Sute’s the one to talk to about that.”
“So I gather. But—” Shit! “I really wanted a seat at the bar.”
Her eyes thinned, and she smiled. “I won’t fly away.”
Christ, I really dig her, Collier thought. A hostess seated them in the dining room. I’m the one who invited this big dolt to lunch, so live with it. I’ll have plenty of time to talk to Dominique later.
“I’d recommend the pan-fried trout cakes in whiskey cream,” Sute mentioned. “It’s state-of-the-art here, and a Southern delicacy.”
“I’ll try it. Last night Jiff and I just had regular old burgers and they were great.”
Sute’s jowly face seemed to seize up. He looked at Collier in a way that was almost fearful. “You—you know…Jiff? Jiff Butler, Helen’s son?”
More to gauge reaction, Collier said, “Oh, sure, Jiff and I are friends. He helped me check in.” Collier remembered Jiff’s similarly odd reaction last night, to Sute’s name. “We had a few beers here last night. He was the one who told me I could find you at the bookstore.”
The reference seemed to knock Sute off center, from which he struggled to recover. “He’s a…friend of mine as well, and a fine, fine young man. What, uh, what else did Jiff say?”
Yes sir, this place and these people are a hoot. What is going on here? Sute was obviously bothered, so Collier acted as though he didn’t notice. “He had a few stories himself, though I’ll be honest in saying that he was even more reluctant than you telling me them. The most interesting one was something about Harwood Gast hanging himself shortly after his prized railroad was finished.”
“Yes, the tree out front,” Sute acknowledged.
“And how several years later, just when the war was ending, several Union troops hung themselves from the same tree.”
“Quite true, quite true…”
Collier leaned forward on his elbows. “Sure, Mr. Sute. But how does anyone really know that?”
Sute grabbed one of the books Collier had purchased, thumbed to a page, and passed it to him.
Another tintype in the xeroxed photo-plate section. The heading: UNION SOLDIERS SENT TO BURN THE GAST HOUSE HANGED THEMSELVES FROM THIS TREE INSTEAD, ON OCTOBER 31, 1864. HARWOOD GAST HANGED HIMSELF FROM THE SAME TREE TWO YEARS EARLIER.
The stark, tinny image showed several federal troops hanging crook-necked from a stout branch.
“That’s…remarkable,” Collier said. “Every picture really does tell a story.”
“There are quite a few such stories, I’m afraid.” Sute’s forehead was breaking out with an uncomfortable sweat. “Did, uh, did Jiff say anything else? Anything about me?”
This guy is really sweating bullets, Collier saw. Sute’s reaction to Jiff’s name was as curious as the ghost stories. “Just that he did yard work for you sometimes, and that you were the local expert on the town’s history.” Collier decided to stretch some truth, to see what happened. “And, of course, he mentioned that you were a successful author and quite respected in the community. A local legend, he called you.”
Sute gulped, staring at Collier’s remark. “What a—what a generous compliment. Yes, Jiff truly is a wonderful man.” Sute patted his forehead with a handkerchief, squinting through more unreckonable beguilement. “Say, Mr. Collier? Do you mind if I drink?”
You look like you need to, buddy. “Go right ahead. I’ll be having a few myself.”
Collier ordered a lager while Sute ordered a Grey Goose martini. He’s so flustered he needs booze. Indeed, the mere mention of the name—Jiff—seemed to pack some hypnotic effect on this man. But Collier was getting sidetracked himself. Whatever odd vibe existed between Sute and Jiff wasn’t the point. Collier burned to hear more about—
“And Penelope Gast, the wife? I believe Jiff mentioned that Gast murdered her. Is that right?”
Sute settled down when his first sip of the top-shelf martini drained a third of the glass. “Yes, he did, the day before he hanged himself. And if you want to talk about a person with amplified sexual desires? Mrs. Gast fits that bill quite nicely, and an interesting accompaniment to the nature of the house itself.”
“Are you saying that the house was the reason for her high sexual state?”
Sute mulled it over, with another sip of his drink. “Perhaps, or perhaps the opposite. Some claim that the house didn’t affect her—she affected the house. The sheer evil of her carnality.”
Collier came close to laughing. “Mr. Sute, it sounds to me like she was just another cheating housewife who had the misfortune of getting caught. Being a floozy doesn’t mean her house is possessed. If that were the case, the real estate market in L.A. would be in big trouble.”
“Just another cheating housewife, or something more? No one will ever be able to say for sure,” Sute calmly remarked. “She was reportedly pregnant, and not by her husband. We know this because the local physician had her name in a ledger in his safe.”
“So? Maybe she had an appointment for an earache.”
“She had an appointment for an abortion. The way they did it back then was—” Sute peered up, mildly pained. “It’s uncomfortable to talk about, Mr. Collier. It’s an ugly, ugly story, and not one you’d want to hear before eating your lunch.”
Collier chuckled. “Mr. Sute, my life is so boring in Los Angeles I can’t even see straight most of the time. This is fascinating stuff; I’m really intrigued by it. And besides, it can’t be any grosser than the crime section of the L.A. Times on any given day.”
“So be it. If you want me to oblige you, I’ll oblige you.” The large man cleared his throat. “The way they aborted pregnancies back then was by injecting a distillation of boiled soapberry flowers into the uterine channel. This compound—very astringent—would cause a drastic PH shift in the womb, and usually result in a miscarriage within three days. The town physician’s ledger—and keep in mind, this was a private ledger, for his private activities—plainly listed Mrs. Gast’s appointment as a meeting for an abortion. And prior to that, Mrs. Gast had had three more appointments for the same procedure—at least three on the record; the ledger went back five years. Of course, she didn’t live long enough to make that fourth appointment. Harwood came home earlier than expected—and killed her.”
“How?”
Another pained look. “With an ax.”
“He axed his own wife to death, when she was pregnant?”
“Yes, and he did so in the very room she’d committed all of her infidelities. She had a special room for these trysts. It was kept locked for her—by the family maid, a slave named Jessa. I shudder to think of how many other secrets Jessa went to her grave with—though I don’t suppose she ever really had a grave, not a proper one. See, Gast murdered her, too, when he became apprised of her collusions with his wife.”
Collier peeped over his beer. “I almost hate to ask.”
“She was…well, she was left out in the fields for the buzzards and the crows.”
Sute’s pause irked Collier. “Left? You mean Gast killed her and then left her body somewhere?”
Sute finished his martini, ordered another, and stolidly replied, “Gast had her raped to death, by twenty of his most loyal rail workers. Then her body was discarded in the fields behind the house. The mass rape, by the way, took place in the same room that Mrs. Gast would be murdered in later that day—”
Raped to death. Yeah, it’s hard to get grimmer than that.
“—and I might add, since you insist on some of the more morbid details, that Mrs. Gast received similar attentions from Gast’s roughriders, while he watched, of course.”
“I don’t get it. Mrs. Gast was gang-raped to death, too? I thought you said she was killed with an—”
“She wasn’t quite raped to the point of death—this by Gast’s particular order. After a few hours, and when she was just about to give up the ghost, that’s when Gast put the ax to her.”
“Then she was dumped in the field, like the maid?”
“No. He left her body to rot in the bed. Ironic that she should die by such means in the very room whose purpose she kept hidden from Mr. Gast. No doubt those four previous pregnancies by men other than her husband germinated in that room as well, and I suspect much else.”
“You keep mentioning this room—I wonder which room it is exactly…”
“It’s on the main stair hall. Mrs. Butler doesn’t even rent that one out. Room two.” Sute looked at him. “Which room are you in, Mr. Collier?”
Collier winced at a twinge. “Room three.”
“You’re in an interesting spot, then. To your left is the room where both Jessa and Penelope Gast were murdered. And to your right, the original commode closet and bathing room.”
“What…happened there?”
“He drowned one of his foremen there, a track inspector named Taylor Cutton. Cutton had the bad luck of being one of Mrs. Gast’s secret suitors. Somehow Gast discovered this and drowned Cutton in the hip bath, among other things.”
Eew, Collier thought. I hope it wasn’t the same hip bath I saw Mrs. Butler washing herself in last night…
The topic was at last getting the best of him. When the food arrived, it smelled delicious but he only picked at it. Several more pints of Cusher’s Civil War Lager took some of the edge off the nefarious story that he’d essentially forced Sute to relate. But he did ask, “And this manuscript you wrote, the one too harsh for publishers—do you still have it?”
Sute’s face was pinkening a bit, from a third martini. “Oh, yes. It’s gathering dust on my shelf.”
“And that’s the entire story of Harwood Gast—the entire legend of the man?”
Sute nodded. “And I think a lot of it’s probably quite accurate. Most of the sources are very authentic. Whether you believe the supernatural angle or not, Mr. Collier, you can believe this: Harwood Gast was purely and simply an evil man.”
“Mrs. Butler said the same thing.”
“And she’s well advised. Some of her ancestors lived in this town when all these things were happening, and mine, too. I appreciate your interest, though. It’s quite flattering, I must say. Here’s my card.” He slipped one across the table. “If you’d like to borrow the manuscript, or browse through it, don’t hesitate to ask. But—please—call first.”
“Thanks,” Collier said. “I might take you up on that.”
“I can also show you some of the original daguerreotypes that I didn’t elect to put in any of my published books. There are a few nudes of Mrs. Gast, if you’re…interested in seeing that sort of thing.”
Collier’s brows jiggled, but then he thought, Nudes? “Oh, come on, don’t tell me she did pornography, too. They must not have even had it back then.”
“No, nothing like that, but just as aristocrats of earlier eras would have their wives painted in the nude, the same went when photography was invented. Daguerreotypes and other early forms of photography were very expensive, and reserved only for the very rich. Well, Harwood Gast may have been the richest private citizen in Tennessee back then. He had several nudes taken of his wife, for his own viewing. She’s quite a comely woman.”
Collier continued to be astounded by his interest in this. And now…Nude pix of Penelope Gast. I’ve GOT to see those.
It took another moment for the next question to click in his head. “Mr. Sute…Was anyone murdered in my room?”
“I’m quite happy to say…no, Mr. Collier.”
Collier—even though he wasn’t sure he believed any of this—was relieved.
“And there you have it, the short version anyway.” Sute’s distraction continued. He seemed to keep peering over Collier’s shoulder, out the restaurant’s plate-glass window. “I won’t bore you with certain other testimony—things said to have been witnessed in the house.”
“Finally. Ghosts.”
“Yes, Mr. Collier. Ghosts, apparitions, and every conceivable bump in the night. Footsteps, voices, dogs barking—”
“What?” Collier snapped.
Sute smiled. “Yes, as well as regressive nightmares, hallucinations—”
“What do you mean, regressive nightmares?” Collier snapped.
“—and even demons,” Sute finished.
Collier plowed his next beer. He didn’t like to be taken for a fool. Was this bizarre fat man a master storyteller? Or…
He hadn’t heard any dogs barking exactly, but he had seen one, or so he’d thought. He’d found his own sexual responses exploding…something Sute claimed to have happened to others. And the nightmare he’d had? It had regressed him back in time, all right, to a mindboggling atrocity that involved a railroad during the Civil War.
And he’d heard voices, too, hadn’t he? Children, a woman, a man.
Now this.
“Demons?” Collier asked.
“I’m afraid so.”
“Let me take a stab at it,” Collier tried to mock. “Harwood Gast was really a demon, I’ll bet. To do the devil’s bidding on earth.”
Sute chuckled at the attempt. “No, Mr. Collier. It’s actually something even more contrived than that.”
“Really?”
“There’s long been the suggestion that Gast sold his proverbial soul…to a demon.”
Collier rubbed his eyebrows, if anything, laughing at himself now. That other stuff? It was just human nature, plus too much beer. He was seeing what the fabulist in him wanted to see. People make any excuse to think they’ve seen a ghost. More human nature, primal human nature. He was the Cro-Magnon listening to the scary story in the cave, and just knowing that that sound he’d heard in the woods was a Wendigo or a lost soul.
And now Sute was professing demons.
“I’m glad you said that, Mr. Sute. Because now, your story isn’t really that disturbing anymore.”
“I’m glad. You don’t believe in ghosts then?”
“No, not at all.”
“Nor in demons?”
“Nope. I was raised in a Christian family—” Collier felt an inner gag. Peeping on a sixty-five-year-old woman taking a bath, coitus interruptus with Lottie, getting drunk to the gills, plus a burning, unabated, unrepentant LUST…Jesus, what am I trying to say? “What I mean is, I’m not what you’d call a practicing Christian, but—”
Sute nodded, with a cryptic smile. “You were influenced by the faith. They say that more than half of the Americans who even call themselves Christians never even go to church.”
That would be me, Collier realized.
“But I think what you’re trying to say is that some of your upbringing, in the midst of Christian values, has remained with you.”
“Right. And I don’t believe in demons.”
“How about Christian thesis in general? Do you believe that?”
“Well, yeah, sure. The Ten Commandments, the New Testament, and all that. Blessed are the pure of heart. I mean, I guess I even believe in Jesus.”
“Then you believe in basic Christian ideology,” Sute observed more than asked.
His hypocrisy raged. I’m profane, I’m lustful, I’m gluttonous, I’m a pretty serious sinner, but, sure, I believe it. “Sure,” he said.
Sute rose, and pointed at him. “In that case, Mr. Collier, then you do believe in demons. Because Christ acknowledged their reality. ‘I am Legion, for we are many.’ And on that note, I must excuse myself momentarily.”
Collier watched him depart for the restroom.
The conversation’s shadow hovered over him. In truth, he didn’t know how to define his beliefs at all. When he turned, his vision was cut off by a pair of ample breasts in a tight white T-shirt, and a silver cross between them.
“Did I hear you right? You were discussing…Christian thesis?”
Collier looked up, slack-jawed. It was Dominique. She’d removed the apron and was standing right next to him.
Collier didn’t know how to reply. He was hypocritically claiming a Christian ideal to explain why he didn’t believe in demons? I’d sound like a complete tube steak. Dominique—at least it seemed—was a genuine Christian, not a phony. For a moment, he even thought of lying to her, just to impress her.
And she’d see through that…like I see through this empty beer glass.
Finally, he said, “Mr. Sute and I were just talking subjectively.”
“About what?” she asked in a heartbeat. A little catsmile seemed to aim down at him.
Collier tried to sound, well, like a writer. “Theoretical Christian interpretation of demonology.”
She shifted her pose, to stand with a hand on her hip. “Well, Jesus was an exorcist. He cast out demons like he was a football ref throwing penalty flags.”
Collier’s thoughts stumbled. This is the girl of your dreams, dickhead. Maintain conversation. “So…true Christians believe in demons?”
“Of course!”
“And the devil?”
“Well, Jesus wasn’t tempted in the desert for forty days by the Good Humor Man. If you believe in God, you have to believe in the devil, and the devil’s minions. Lucifer isn’t a metaphor—jeez, I’m so tired of hearing that one. He isn’t an abstraction or a symptom of mental illness.” She groaned. “God punted him off the twelfth gate of heaven—once his favorite, the angel called Lucifer—for his vanity and his pride. The friggin’ devil, in other words, is a real dude, and so are his demons. If you don’t believe in demons, then you can’t believe that Christ cast them out, and if you don’t believe that, then that’s the same as saying the New Testament is bullshit—”
Collier sat stunned, by the variety of her animated explanation.
She finished up with a nonchalant shrug. “So if a person who calls himself a Christian doesn’t believe the New Testament, that person is no Christian at all. Simple.”
Collier could’ve laughed at her diversity, or remained stunned by her conviction. Before he could comment, she asked, “So what brought this conversation on? It’s not exactly what I would expect America’s premier beer chronicler to be yakking about at lunch.”
Now Collier did laugh. “I guess some aspects of religion snuck their way into my curiosity about the town lore.”
Dominique rolled her eyes at the empty martini glass. “Oh, so he’s the one ordering umpteen Grey Goose martinis.”
Collier craned his neck up at her. Sunlight sparkled off the cross on her bosom like molten metal. “Do you…”
“What?”
“Do you believe any of it, the lore, I mean?”
Her little cat-grin dropped a notch. “Yes.”
For some reason, the tone of her response gave him a chill. Is she jerking me around?
“You only ate a smidgen of your trout cake,” she noticed. “Do I have to go back to the kitchen and kick some ass?”
Collier chuckled. “No, they’re great. But I’m a sucker for a good story, and Mr. Sute got the best of me.”
“Mr. Sute…or Harwood Gast?”
“Well, both, I guess. But you know, last night you sounded kind of into it yourself.”
She shrugged again, and tossed her hair. “I’m a sucker for a good story, too. Just, please, don’t ask me if I’ve ever seen anything at the Gast House. It’d put me in a compromising position.”
She’s as bad as Sute, or do I just have a MANIPULATE ME sign on my head?
“Anyway, I have to go now, so I just came over to say ’bye.”
Collier was wracked. “I thought you worked till seven,” he almost exclaimed.
“I just got a call from one of my distributors. I have to drive up to Knoxville and pick up a hops order. I won’t be back for several hours, and I’m sure you can’t hang around till then.”
Shit! Collier was pissed. He’d been so busy listening to Sute’s ghost stories, he’d missed his chance to talk to her. “Damn, well. I’ll come by tomorrow and give you the release form.”
“That would be great,” she said. “I really appreciate it.”
“Don’t thank me. You’re the one who makes the lager.” Collier’s mind blanked, and before he knew what he was saying, he’d already said it: “Maybe we could go out to dinner sometime…”
What! he thought. What did I just say? I didn’t ask h—
“Sure. How about tonight?”
Collier froze. “Uh, yeah, perfect.”
“Pick me up here at eight. ’Bye!”
Dominique whisked out the front door.
Collier felt like a parachutist who just stepped out of the plane. His face felt like it was glowing. I just asked her out…and she said yes!
He barely noticed when Sute’s bulk sat back down. Were the man’s eyes red? Either he’s allergic to something, Collier supposed, or the guy’s been crying.
“You okay, Mr. Sute?”
The man looked absolutely disconsolate. “Oh, yes, I just…I’ve got several personal quagmires, that I’m not quite sure how to deal with.” He ordered another big martini.
Well, that’s one way of dealing with it, Collier thought. Even during their discussion’s peak, Sute seemed haunted, even pining for something. Could it have something to do with Jiff?
Collier knew he shouldn’t but…“Oh, yeah, that’s another thing I was wondering about. The land. Yesterday when Jiff was showing me my room, I asked him about all that land around the town. It looks like perfectly good farmland to me. But Jiff says it hasn’t been cultivated in years.”
Sute swallowed hard, nodding. But the tactic had worked; both times the name Jiff had been mentioned, Sute reacted in his eyes—the same pained cast. It was everything he could do just to respond to the subject.
“The land hasn’t been cultivated, actually, since Harwood Gast’s death in 1862. It was great land, mind you, outstanding soil. There were rich, rich harvests of cotton, corn, and soybeans for as far as one could see.” Sute’s voice darkened. “If farmers grew crops there now…no one would eat them.”
“Because the land is cursed?” Collier posed. “As I recall…Jiff said something along those lines.”
Was Sute’s hand shaking?
“Of course, Jiff didn’t say that he personally believed the land was cursed,” Collier went on for effect. “Just that that’s part of the legend.”
“It is, very much so.” Sute finally composed himself. “People believe the land is tainted for what happened on it when Gast owned it. As the story goes, he executed a vast number of slaves on that land.”
“Really? So this is fact?”
“Exaggerated fact, more than likely. Based on my own research, perhaps thirty or forty slaves were executed, not the hundreds that the legend claims. But still, men were killed there.”
“Lynchings, in other words?”
“Yes, but not by hanging, which is the standard denotation. These men were slaves, of course, there was never any trial beforehand. Bear in mind, this was the era of Dred Scott—slaves, by law, were regarded as property, not citizens entitled to the rights granted by the Bill of Rights. Therefore, slaves accused of crimes never got their day in court. They were executed summarily anytime white men suspected them of something criminal.”
“Legal murder.”
“Oh, yes.”
“These slaves—what were they accused of?”
“Some sexual crime, almost exclusively. If a white woman willingly had sexual congress with a slave—the slave was guilty of rape. If a slave put his hands on a white woman, or even looked at her salaciously…same thing. A number of these accusations were made by none other than Penelope Gast herself. There were even some accounts of slaves rebuffing her advances, which infuriated her to the point that she’d swear the man either raped her or molested her. Instant execution. And of course we know that she had many, many willing liaisons with slaves, a few of which no doubt resulted in very unwanted pregnancies. The entire ordeal was ghastly. I doubt that any of the slaves killed were guilty of forcible rape—ever.”
Collier’s eyes narrowed. “If they weren’t hanged, how were these men executed?”
“They were dragged to death by horses, or sometimes butchered in place. And then they were beheaded while all of the other slaves were forced to watch. Harwood Gast very much believed in the principles of deterrence. The severed heads were mounted on stakes and simply left there, so to be visible, and some remained erected for years.”
Collier’s brow jumped. “Well, now I can see why superstitious people would believe the land was cursed.”
Sute’s martini was being drained in quick increments. “No, the beheadings weren’t the highlight. After the unfortunate slave was decapitated, his body was crushed by sledgehammers, minced by axes, and then hoed into the soil. How’s that for a ‘haunted field’ story?”
Collier’s stomach turned sour. Jesus. Gast was pureass psycho. He could make Genghis Khan look like Mickey Mouse. “Now I know why the locals call Gast the most evil man the town’s ever seen.”
“Essentially, everything Harwood Gast ever did was in some way motivated by evil.”
“Just building the railroad itself,” Collier added. “Solely to transport captured northern civilians to concentration camps—that kind of takes the cake, too.”
Sute popped a brow at what Collier had said.
Almost as if to reserve an additional comment.
Collier noticed that, too. That and the man’s distress—from some “personal quagmire”—made Collier think: I’d love to know what’s REALLY going on in this guy’s noggin…
“They say evil is relative,” Sute picked up when his next drink was done, “but I really don’t know.”
“Gast was insane.”
“I hope so. As for his wife, I’m not sure that she was really insane—just a sociopathic sex maniac is probably more like it.”
Collier laughed.
Over the course of their talk, Sute’s face looked as if it had aged ten years. Bags under his eyes dropped, while his lids were getting redder.
“Mr. Sute, are you sure you’re all right?”
He gulped, and repatted the handkerchief to his forehead. “I suppose I’m really not, Mr. Collier. I’m not feeling well. It’s been wonderful having lunch with you, but I’m afraid I must excuse myself.”
“Go home and get some rest,” Collier advised. And don’t drink a SHITLOAD of martinis next time. “I’m sure you’ll feel better soon.”
“Thank you.” Sute rose, wobbly. He shook Collier’s hand. “And I hope my accounts of the town’s strange history entertained you.”
“Very much so.”
Quite suddenly, a sixtyish man probably even heavier than Sute wended around the table: balding, white beard, big jolly Santa Claus face. “J.G.!” the man greeted with a stout voice. “Going so soon? Stay and have a drink!”
“Oh, no, Hank, I’ve had too much already—”
The hugely grinning man turned to Collier.
“And Mr. Justin Collier! Word travels fast when a celebrity comes to town, and I’m always the first to get the news.” He pumped Collier’s hand like a car jack. “I’m Hank Snodden, and I must say it’s a pleasure to meet you! I love your show, by the way. I can’t wait for next season!”
Sorry, buddy, but you WILL wait for next season, Collier thought. “Thanks for the kind words, Mr. Snodden.”
“Hank is the mayor of our humble little town,” Sute informed.
The ebullient man slapped Collier on the back. “And I’m also the county clerk, the town license inspector, and the recorder of deeds.” A hokey elbow to Collier’s ribs. “I also own the car lot on the corner. Come on in and I’ll give you a really good deal!”
Collier faked a chuckle. “I love your town, Mr. Snodden.”
The bubbly man turned back to Sute, then frowned. “J.G., you don’t look well.”
Sute reeled on his feet. “I’m a bit under the weather…”
“No, you’re drunk!” Snodden laughed. “Just like me! Go home and sleep it off—”
“Yes, I’m leaving now—”
“—but don’t forget chess club on Monday! I’ll be kicking your tail!”
Sute sidestepped away. “Thank you again, Mr. Collier. I hope we meet again.”
“’Bye…”
Sute finally made his exit, almost stumbling out the front door.
“He’s a character, all right, Mr. Collier,” the mayor piped. “I’ve known him thirty years and I don’t think I’ve ever seen him that stewed. And speaking of stewed, please let me buy you a drink.”
This guy’s a little too high-amp for me, Collier realized. Besides, those lagers had buzzed him up but good. “Thanks, sir, but I’ve got to be going myself.”
“Well, if there’s anything you need, you just call up the mayor’s office, tell them you’re a personal friend of mine, and I’ll get you fixed up in no time.”
“Thanks, sir.”
The big man’s eyes beamed. “And I guess J.G. was talking about his books.”
“Yes. I bought a few. But he mentioned that one of his books never—”
“—never got published because—well—he’s not a very good writer! So that’s what he was bending your ear about, Harwood Gast and his notorious railroad.”
“Yes, it’s pretty grim, but it’s also a fascinating story—”
Another elbow in the ribs. “And pure bullshit, Mr. Collier, but you know how these Southerners are. They love to spin a tale. Horrible Harwood and Mrs. Tinkle, they called them.”
Collier squinted. “Mrs. Twinkle?”
“Tinkle, Mr. Collier, Mrs. Tinkle—that was her nickname, among other things.”
“Why’d they call her that?”
“Oh, there’s my wife, Mr. Collier—I better go before she starts yelling at me—” He slipped a business card in Collier’s hand. “But it’s been a pleasure meeting you!”
“You, too, sir, but—wait—why did they call her—”
Snodden rushed away, to a sneering wife in a dress that looked like a pup tent with flowers on it.
Mrs. Tinkle? Collier paid the check, frowning. Here was something Sute had skirted in his indelicate description of Penelope Gast. It didn’t take Collier long to assume between the lines. Sex maniac, indeed. Water sports, he guessed. She was probably one of these kinky weirdos who likes guys to piss on her. It wasn’t all bonnets and mint juleps on the porch. Every age had its veneers.
He shook his head as he left the restaurant. A piss freak…But his guts sank when he reminded himself that he thought he’d smelled urine in his room.
The gorgeous day helped him get Sute’s dreadful story out of his head. However—
Maybe I’ll walk around town a bit, walk off this buzz. He knew he needed to be 100 percent sober when the time came for his dinner date with Dominique.
Wait a minute! he remembered now. She won’t want to eat at her own restaurant. I’ll have to take her someplace…Now a new kind of dread sank in his guts. I can’t take the woman of my dreams out in that lime on wheels! He looked around for a car rental but wasn’t surprised that a small town like this wouldn’t need one. Suddenly the problem felt like a crisis.
I should’ve asked Sute. He probably would’ve loaned me his Caddy. It would be his prize at the chess club: to brag about how the TV star had asked to borrow his car. But Sute was gone, and too mysteriously distressed to call now. Then Collier thought: Jiff! I’ll bet he’s got a car! I’m sure he’d loan it to me in a heartbeat…
Collier was about to head back to the inn but stopped in the street. Two blocks down, he was pretty sure he spotted Jiff walking into a store.
He followed the clean street down, ducking whenever it appeared he’d been recognized. This celebrity crap is getting on my nerves. I should’ve grown a beard… When he got closer to the store, he realized it wasn’t a store. It was that place he’d seen last night.
THE RAILROAD SPIKE, read the awning sign.
Just what I need, another bar…
A swing door with a circular window opened into murky darkness. Cigarette stench smacked him in the face, and the place smelled like stale Miller Lite. A long bar descended deep, with padded stools as though the place had once been a diner. Collier peered through murk but saw no sign of Jiff. A woman sat alone in a booth, applying lipstick, while several men eyed him from another booth. The bar itself stood tenantless.
What a dive, Collier thought.
A tall barkeep cruised slowly down to his spot. His apparel seemed off-the-wall and then some: a leather vest with no shirt beneath it, and he had a haircut that oddly reminded Collier of Frankenstein’s monster. He held a shot in his hand, slapped it down on the bar, and slid it to Collier.
“That’s a tin roof, just for you,” the guy said in a wrestler’s voice.
“A tin roof?” Collier questioned.
The keep rolled his eyes. “It’s on the house.”
“Uh, thanks,” Collier said, dismayed. Damn, I hate shots, and I don’t want to stay if Jiff’s not here. But he’d feel rude in declining. He sat down at the cigarette-burned bar top. Collier downed the shot. Not bad, even though I HATE shots. “Thanks. That was pretty good.”
“Glad you liked it, Mr. Collier, and like I said, that’s on the house. I heard you got to town yesterday. It’s damn exciting to have a TV star in my bar.”
It never ends, Collier’s mind droned.
“I love your show, and it’s good luck, you being a beer man and all.” The keep extended a huge hand behind him, to a row of beer taps. “We’re not some redneck dump here, Mr. Collier. We’ve got the good stuff here.”
Collier was almost visibly offended by the typical domestic beer taps. I wouldn’t drink that stuff if you had my head in a guillotine…“Uh, actually, I was just passing through—”
“Oh, Buster!” a tinny voice called out from one of the booths. “He doesn’t drink domestic beers! Give him a Heineken. On my tab.”
Collier quailed. “On, no, really, thanks but—”
The green bottle thunked before him. “That’s on Barry over there.”
Collier slumped. His raised the bottle to the guy in the booth—whom he could barely see—and nodded. “Thank you, Barry.” Damn…At least Heineken was a beer snob’s Bud, which could be drunk in a pinch. But Collier didn’t want to drink anymore. “Say,” he addressed the keep, “I’m looking for Jiff Butler. Could’ve sworn I saw him come in here.”
“Oh, that explains it now.” The keep seemed gratified.
“Explains what?”
“Why you’d be coming into a place like this. I got a pretty good eye, you know? I pegged you as straight.”
Collier blinked. “Huh?”
“But how can you be, if you come in here looking for Jiff?” The keep smiled and began polishing some highball glasses.
“Wait a minute, what do you mean?”
“This is a gay bar, and I didn’t make you as gay.”
Collier blinked again, hard. “I didn’t, uh, know this was a gay bar…”
Suddenly the keep’s friendly face turned belligerent. “What? You got a problem with gays?”
Jesus…“Look, man, I’m from California—I don’t care what people’s preferences are. But I’m not gay. I had no idea this was—” All at once, Collier considered the bar’s name, and felt asinine. “Ah. Now I get it.”
The keep looked quizzical. “And you’re here looking for Jiff?”
“Well, yeah. I’m staying at his mother’s inn. I wanted to see if I could borrow his car, but—”
“He’ll be out in a minute…Say, do you know Emeril?”
I sure know how to pick ’em, Collier thought.
He almost knocked his Heineken over when an arm went across his shoulder. A handsome man in a business suit cocked a smile. “You say you need a car, Justin? Wanna borrow my BMW?”
“Uh, uh—no. Thanks—”
A squeeze to the shoulder. “Love your show.” He shot a finger at the keep. “His next one’s on me.”
“Oh, thanks, but—”
“That Ken doll who just bought you the beer is Donny,” the keep told him. “Donny, leave Mr. Collier alone. He’s straight.”
“Oh…”
The man disappeared in murk.
Collier leaned forward and whispered, “Hey, tell me something. If this is a gay bar, why’s that woman sitting over there looking like she wants to get picked up?”
The keep chuckled. “That woman’s name is Mike. I’ll call him over if you want.”
“No, no, no, no, no, no, no, please. No.” Collier’s heart surged. “I was just curious.” He tried to clear his head. “Did I misunderstand you? Did you say Jiff was here?”
“Yeah, he’s in back. He won’t be long.”
“Oh, you mean he works here?”
The keep grinned, revealing a Letterman-type gap between his front teeth. “Sort of. And now that you mention it, he owes me some money…but that’s another story, Mr. Collier.”
This was too weird. I’m sitting in a gay bar drinking mass-market beer, Collier realized. And another thing: Jiff’s obviously gay—why else would he “sort of” work here? No wonder the young man hadn’t been interested in the eye candy at Cusher’s last night. And Sute…Could he maybe be an ex-lover of Jiff’s? Sute had seemed distraught enough, but the rest didn’t add up. Jiff’s young and in good shape, Sute’s old and fat…Collier didn’t care—he just wanted to borrow Jiff’s car. He stood up and looked at his watch—one thirty. Still plenty of time to be ready for his date tonight. “Say, where’s the bathroom?” he asked the keep.
“You’re standing in it!” a voice called from the back booths. Laughter followed.
“Don’t listen to those queens, Mr. Collier.” The keep pointed. “Down that hall, last door on the left.”
Collier smiled uncomfortably when he passed the other booths. Men barely seen in the shadows all greeted him and complimented his show. The hallway was even murkier; he practically had to feel his way down. Did he say last door on the left, or right? Only a tiny yellow makeup bulb lit the entire hall. He saw a door on either side.
Then he heard, or thought he heard, the words: “Get it, come on.”
Collier slowed. That sounded like Jiff…But where was he? In the bathroom?
Dark light glowed in an inch-wide gap at the last door on the right. That’s not the bathroom, is it? There was no sign.
Then he heard: “Yeah…”
A man’s voice but definitely not Jiff’s. Collier peeked in the gap.
He didn’t know what he was seeing at first, just…two shapes in the murk. Only a distant wedge of light lit the room, which looked like a lounge of some kind. There were several ragged-out couches, a table, and some beanbag chairs. The shapes he’d seen were moving.
Jiff’s voice again: “Ya better get it soon, your thirty bucks are runnin’ out.”
Collier’s vision sharpened like a lapse dissolve in reverse. You’ve got to be shitting me!
Jiff was in there, all right, bent over like someone touching their toes. He was also naked. Another man stood behind him, buttocks pumping…
Then, “Yeah…”
The motion slowed, then stopped, and the shadows separated. The other man, exhausted now, gushed, “Thanks, that was great.”
“Glad’ja had a good time,” Jiff’s voice etched from the dark. “So where’s that thirty?”
Collier pulled away and slipped into the bathroom opposite. Now I’ve seen everything. He backed against the bathroom wall, squinting from the sudden change of dim light to bright light. Jiff’s a male prostitute. He turns tricks, and J.G. Sute must be one of his clients. It was an age-old story that worked for gays and straights alike: the Fat Older Man falls in love with the Hot Younger Prostitute—then gets rebuffed. That must be why Sute was nearly in tears during lunch.
The bathroom was more like one in a gas station. Collier relieved himself, then washed his hands, thinking, I guess Jiff’s mother doesn’t pay him enough at the inn. He wasn’t as shocked as he would expect, but suddenly a curdling image assailed him. The scene he’d just witnessed in the little lounge room, only with J.G. Sute as Jiff’s customer…
He waded back through the darkness toward the bar.
“You don’t mind, do you, Mr. Collier?” the keep said, surprising him at the end of the hall.
“Whuh—”
The keep put his arm around his shoulder, then—
“Say cheese!”
snap!
Somebody took a picture of them. The sudden flash left Collier blind.
“Thanks, Mr. Collier,” he heard the keep say. A hand on his arm led him back to his bar stool.
“That’ll look great, framed behind the bar. Our first celebrity!”
Collier could barely see. I better get out of here and sober up before tonight. He reached for his wallet.
“Oh, you can’t leave yet, Mr. Collier. Frank and Bubba bought you beers, too.”
“No, really, I have to—”
“Aw, come on. It’s not every day we have a TV guy in here.”
I guess one more won’t kill me, Collier thought, but was still semishocked by the revelation of what Jiff’s “handyman” work really was.
He spent the next hour trading banter and TV stories with the keep and other patrons. The beers slid down fast, and God knew how many autographs he signed. “Oh, that’s right,” the keep eventually remembered, “you wanted to see Jiff. Mike, go back there and see what he’s up to, all right?”
The beautiful female impersonator rose from the booth, went down the hall, then reappeared a few moments later. “He’s not there, Buster,” Mike said in a silky voice. He hoisted his bra beneath a tight blouse.
They seemed to be shielding the conversation from Collier, but even through the alcohol haze, he could hear traces: “He’s supposed to slip me a ten each time.” “He probably went out the back.” “How do you like that!”
The extra beers were exactly not what Collier needed. He felt narcotized. “Problem?” he asked, when the keep came back.
“No, no biggie, Mr. Collier. But I’m afraid Jiff’s gone; he must’ve left out the back door. If he comes in later, I’ll tell him you were looking for him.”
“I’m sure I’ll see him back at the inn…”
A Pabst clock told him it was past two thirty now. Less than five hours and I’m on a date with Dominique…The fact buffed off the weirdness of his current situation. He was determined to leave soon; he needed some time to nap off his buzz. He had one more beer to be polite, but then his head was spinning. He put a twenty down for a tip, took another fifteen minutes saying good-bye to everyone, and at last stumbled out into daylight.
Holy smokes, I’m drunk out of my gourd…
He had to concentrate on each step. Focus, focus! he ordered. If he fell down on the sidewalk, everyone would see. By the time he got to the end of the street, that last beer was overriding his liver. Collier walked as though he had cinder blocks tied to his shoes. Don’t fall, don’t fall, don’t fall, he kept thinking.
When he looked down Number 3 Street, he saw a drove of tourists moving toward him. There’s no way I can fake it, he knew, and with my luck they’ll all want autographs. I’m so stewed right now I doubt that I could sign my name…He made a forty-five-degree pivot on the sidewalk—Here goes!—and walked right into the woods.
I’ll walk through the woods around the hill. No one’ll see me, and that’s a good thing because I’m pretty damn sure I’m gonna fall on my face a couple of times.
Among the trees, he found a convenient footpath, then—
flump!
—fell flat on his face.
The town buffoon, he thought. Me. Washed-up TV hasbeen alcoholic wreck and L.A. burnout useless waste of space! Gets shit-faced in the middle of the afternoon…Collier hoped there was no afterlife. He didn’t want to think that his dear dead parents might be seeing him now, lamenting tearily, “Where did we go wrong?”
He dragged himself up, then lurched from tree to tree for about a hundred yards. He could only sense where the inn was. Over there someplace, he thought, and gazed drunkenly left. He squinted through double vision, saw that he still had about four hours before his date…
I can’t make it, I need to sit down for a little while. His butt thunked to the ground, and he thought he heard the seat rip open. He heard something else, too, a steady disconnected noise…
Running water?
He shot his face forward and thought he saw a creek burbling through the woods. I ought to go put my face in that, he considered, but now that he was down, he wasn’t getting up. There was no bed to spin here, only the woods.
He nodded in and out. The steady sound of the creek reminded him of those sleep-machine things that supposedly offered calming sounds but only wound up alerting the sleeper. He nodded off again, quite heavily. He felt as though he were being buried in sand.
Pieces of dreams pecked at him: the clang of railroad workers, and men singing like a chain gang. He dreamed of Penelope Gast fanning herself in a posh parlor as female maids tended to her, and then he dreamed of the smell of urine.
A splendid horizon, into which a steam locomotive chugged briskly, smoke pouring, and a whistle screeching as it disappeared into the distance…
“I wanna do it, too,” the voice of a young girl whined.
“Don’t be stupid!” insisted another older-sounding girl.
The brook burbled on, but beneath it crept a fainter sound:
scritch-scritch-scritch
“Then let me do it to you…”
“You’re too little, stupid! You’d cut me!”
“No I wouldn’t!”
Something like alarm pried open Collier’s eyes. The voices weren’t from a dream. He craned his neck and stared forward, at two young girls doing something near the creek. One dirty blonde who looked about thirteen or fourteen, and the other about ten, with a ruffled helmet-cut like a 1920s flapper, the color of dark chocolate. They were both barefoot, wearing white smocklike dresses.
Shit! Two little kids, and they don’t know I’m here, Collier realized. It would likely scare them if he announced himself. The young one stepped into the water and continued looking down at the other, who sat with her back to Collier and seemed to be leaning over.
scritch-scritch-scritch
What the hell is she doing? Then Collier almost screamed when a feisty mud-colored dog trounced in his lap and began licking his face. “Jesus!”
Both girls looked over, and the younger one said, “Look. A man’s there,” in a sharp Southern accent.
The blonde’s accent seemed more lazy. “Hey, mister. That’s just our dog. Don’t worry, he don’t bite.”
“He’s a good dog!”
Collier had to palm the dog back. He wasn’t sure, but in the animal’s enthusiasm, he thought it might be humping his leg.
“Leave the man alone!” one of them squalled.
The mutt broke off, running excited circles in the clearing. But Collier knew at once: That’s the dog I…think…I saw in my room.
“What are you doin’ there, mister?” the dark-haired one squawked. She had smudges of dirt on her dress, and there was something about the way she stood and the way she looked at him that seemed hyperactive.
“I, uh, oh, I was just taking a nap.”
“Too much whiskey, huh, mister?” supposed the older one. She kept her back to him, and was leaning over as if looking into the creek.
“An alkie!” the younger girl half shrieked. “A rummy, like Mother says! Says there’s lots of ’em.”
Collier’s head thunked. “No, no, I’m staying at the inn.” Then he lied. “It’s nothing like that. I was just taking a nap in the woods, because it’s nice out.”
“Rummy! Rummy!” The little girl danced in the water, while the mongrel joined her.
Precocious little shit, Collier thought.
“Shut up, Cricket. Don’t be disrespectful…”
scritch-scritch-scritch
Collier felt he had to prove something now. Very carefully he stood up, and noticed that he’d slept off some of the drunk. Some but not all. Careful. He walked over. “What are you girls doing over here? I hear this noise.”
The dirty blonde looked up, smiled with a doughy face that seemed to droop. Her eyes looked dull in spite of the big, proud smile. “I’m shavin’ my legs, ’cos I’m a young lady now, and I gotta do ladylike things.”
“That’s what our mother says,” the younger one seemed to regret. “I can’t wait till I’m a young lady, too, so I can shave my legs.”
Collier almost winced at the sight. A cup of shaving lather sat beside the blonde, and indeed, she was shaving her legs in the creek, with an old-fashioned straight razor.
scritch-scritch-scritch
Then she splashed the lather off with creek water.
“Oh, wow, you should be careful,” Collier warned. “You ought to do that at home. If you cut yourself, you could get all kind of germs from that water.”
Both girls traded bewildered glances. Now the blonde splashed off some more, shot her gleaming legs up. She wriggled her feet in the air, and seemed pleased with the effect. “There,” she drawled. “All smooth now, just like a real lady.” The doughy face beamed back up. “My name’s Mary, and this here’s my sister, Cricket. I’m fourteen, she’s eleven.”
“Hi,” Collier said, and tasted a waft of old beer.
The younger girl jumped out of the water and poked him with a finger. “What’s your name, mister?”
“Justin.”
A toothy grin turned Cricket’s face into a lined mask. “You ain’t one’a them fellas who messes with little girls, are ya? Ya don’t look like it.”
Out of here! Collier thought. Kids these days—they see all this molestation stuff on Oprah. “No, no, but you girls have a good day, I have to go.”
“Aw, Cricket! What’cha say that for? Now you got him scared. Don’t go, mister. She’s just teasin’.”
“No, I’ve got to—” He winced again. “Please, Mary, be careful with that razor—”
Now she was doing her underarms, rather obliviously. Scritch-scritch-scritch. She shaved the lather out of one armpit, then flipped it off the blade into the water. Collier noticed a thread-thin line of red.
“See, you’ve cut yourself—”
“Aw, it’s just a nick, but I can’t do it right with this hand.” She held up her index finger.
First glance made Collier think she was wearing a fat dark ring but then he realized it was a bruise.
“I got one, too, but not as bad.” Cricket showed her own finger. “I stole a piece of sugarloaf from the store and got caught.” A manic giggle. “But that ain’t as bad as what Mary got caught doin’—”
“Shut up!”
The gritted-teeth mask again. “She got five minutes ’cos she got caught kissin’ a boy at school!”
Mary laid a hard hand across the back of her sister’s thigh. The sound cracked through the woods.
“Ow!”
“Serves ya right. Mister, don’t listen to her.”
Collier’s mind churned over too much at once. Who were these girls? Were they staying at the inn? Collier doubted it. Probably a trailer park nearby. Then: Those bruises, he pondered. He couldn’t forget Mrs. Butler’s painful demonstration of the “Naughty Girl Clips” in the display case…
scritch-scritch-scritch
“Oh, please, you really shouldn’t do that…”
Now the blonde was shaving the other armpit.
“Do mine next, do mine next!” Cricket insisted.
“There ain’t nothin’ to shave!” Mary almost wailed. “You ain’t got no hair yet!” Another gleeful smile shot back to Collier. “She’s jealous, mister, ’cos I got hair and she don’t. I got the blood, too.”
Collier’s throat thickened. “The…blood?”
“The Curse of Eve, like our mother told us ’bout. Eve did somethin’ bad in the Garden of Eden, so now all girls get the curse. But the curse gives us hair. Ain’t that right, mister?”
Collier stood speechless. He cleared his throat and asked, “Are you, uh, are you girls from town?”
“Oh, yeah. We was born here.”
“Where are your parents?”
Cricket wriggled her toes in creek mud. “Our father’s away workin’ and our mother’s at home. Where you from, mister?”
“California—”
Both girls traded another glance that seemed in awe.
“—but I’m just visiting here. I’m staying at Mrs. Butler’s inn.”
Mary splashed off her other armpit. It occurred to Collier just then that, for sisters, the girls couldn’t have looked more different.
“We don’t know no Mrs. Butler.”
Must be from a nearby town, and wandered over here. But…had it really been that dog he’d seen last night? No. It was just a dream. Just a hallucination…
Yet it wasn’t too far-fetched to think that the dog may have gotten inside. Mrs. Butler had even suggested the possibility.
“Oh, yeah,” Mary informed. “There’s a man at the cooper’s named Butler, but he ain’t got no wife.”
Cricket piped in, “One time he was all drunk and he offered us half a dollar to show him our—”
“Cricket! Be quiet!”
Collier’s contemplations stretched like taffy.
“Hey!” Cricket wailed now. “What’choo doin’?”
The dog frolicked in the water, chasing plops of floating shave cream. It seemed to be trying to eat them.
“He’s a silly dog,” Mary offered.
“Sometimes real silly…”
Now the dog yipped, thrashing circles in the woods. At one point it stopped abruptly, to defecate. It seemed to look right at Collier.
“He’s poopin’!”
“I have to go—good-bye,” Collier said quickly and began to walk off.
“Don’t go yet!” Cricket objected. “Don’t’cha wanna watch Mary shave her…”
Collier lengthened his strides.
As he made off, he heard:
scritch-scritch-scritch
He walked straight in spite of the dizziness: half drunk, half hungover. He slowed his pace up the hill he hoped to God would take him back to the inn. White-trash kids or something, he guessed. Poor, negligent parents, no decent role models. It happened everywhere. Then he thought: Or maybe…
Maybe it was another hallucination.
The finger clips? The dog? A young girl shaving her legs in a creek?
The half-heard sound of giggling stopped him. But he must be a hundred yards away now.
Some perverted gremlin in his psyche made him turn against his will.
And peer back down into the woods.
The girls were still at the creek. “Dirty dog!” Cricket reveled amid a flood of more giggling that could only be Mary’s.
Collier’s stomach turned at what he saw, or thought he saw. Then he jogged as best he could for the inn.