He wasn't squeamish but then he did believe some of it. He'd seen some things, for sure-out here, and at the house...

A quick chill rippled up his sunbaked back. He knew the skull was very old. He also knew it was likely the skull of a slave, not a soldier killed in the field.

The skulls were actually all over the place.

CHAPTER TWO.

I.

"You're right," Collier said to the old woman. He marveled over one of many gla.s.s display cases. "Your inn is like a mini-museum." Below his gaze lay an array of Civil War-era implements. Each one was labeled. MESS PAN-1861, MORTISE TWIVEL-1859, .36-CALIBER SELF-c.o.c.kING STARR REVOLVER-1863.

"Just you take a look at the Gast Museum downtown and tell me what we got here ain't a lot finer'n more interesting," Mrs. Butler bragged.

The next case sported gloves, belts, and footgear. "Brogen?" he asked of the clunky black shoe.

"That was the standard combat boot back then. They were as important to a fella's survival on the battlefield as his rifle." She leaned, pointed to a different styled shoe. The gesture caused Collier to run his gaze across the sweep of her bosom, after which he blinked hard to sideswipe the distraction.

"But this 'un here," she continued, "was the cream'a the shoe crop. The Jefferson shoe, or bootee as it was called. Mr. Collier, you could put that shoe on right now and it'd fit better than any fancified Gucci you might buy today."

Collier looked at the high-top leather shoe. Save for a few scuffs, it looked in excellent condition. The label read: FEDERAL PATTERN JEFFERSON BOOTEE-1851-WORN BY MR. TAYLOR CUTTON, RAIL INSPECTOR FOR THE EAST TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA RAILROAD.

"Everything here was found on this premise at one time or another," Mrs. Butler said. Now she stood back proudly, crossing her arms under her b.r.e.a.s.t.s, which made them appear even larger. "I get a tax break through the state historical commission by displayin' it all...and by keepin' that blasted portrait of Gast hangin' up there."

The most evil man to ever live here? Collier was amused. It was likely just promotion. "If this man was so evil," he baited, "I suppose the house is haunted, huh?"

"Only by the memory of that low-down b.a.s.t.a.r.d," came the strange response.

Collier changed the subject, back to the Jefferson shoe and its long-dead owner. "But I've never heard of this railroad. Was this prewar?"

"They started in 1857 and finished in 1862," she said. "It was Gast's railroad. He put down track from here to the middle'a Georgia, the perfect junction from the main roads that branched into town. He built it with a hundred slaves and fifty white men-not a bad feat for back then. That's a lotta rail to lay."

The notion impressed Collier. They had no machines to do it back then, just hard-muscled humans lugging iron rails and driving spikes with hammers. Five years...Collier suspected that the hardest labor he ever did was carrying groceries from the car to the house.

"And this?" he asked.

ASH CAKE-1858 "Ash cake is what they used for soap back then," Mrs. Collier went on. "Weren't no Ivory or Irish Spring, you can be sure."

The grayish cake was the size of a hockey puck. "How was it made?"

"They throwed a bunch of animal fat in a barrel of boiling water. Horse fat, mostly. Never pork or beef 'cos them was good for eatin'. So they boil the fat and slowly add ashes-any kind: leaves, gra.s.s, plants. Boil some more, then add more ashes, boil some more, then add more ashes, like that all day long. By the time the water's all cooked off, the fat's broken down and mixed with the ashes. That's when you cut your cakes and set 'em out to dry." Her old finger tapped the gla.s.s. "Works as good as anything they make today in fancy factories. It's rough but gets you cleaner than a whistle. See, people didn't wash much back then, only every Sat.u.r.day before the Sabbath, and not much at all during the winter-back then a bath could give you pneumonia. Ladies would clean themselves a bit more than fellas, though, with hip baths."

"Hip baths?"

"Just a little tub with leg cutouts. You lower your privates into it. We've got one here-upstairs right next to your room's a matter of fact. I'll show it to ya."

Collier couldn't wait to see the hip bath.

"So much about the old days folks just got the wrong idea about. About the South in general."

The next objects in the case seemed bizarre: six-inch-long metal implements with coiled springs on the end. NAUGHTY GIRL CLIPS-1841. "What on earth are these? They look like clothespins."

Mrs. Butler smiled, and reached for the cabinet.

Collier's eyes widened as she leaned forward. He just couldn't keep his gaze off her bosom...

"Stick your finger out, Mr. Collier," she instructed.

"What?"

"Go on. Stick it out."

Collier chuckled and did so.

The tines squeezed down and began to hurt at once.

"See, when little girls were naughty, their daddies put one'a these on their finger."

Only five seconds had pa.s.sed and Collier was wincing.

"How long the clip'd stay on depended on how bad the little girl was, see? Say she didn't do her mornin' ch.o.r.es, for example; then she'd likely get the clip on for fifteen seconds." The old lady's eyes smiled. "Hurt yet, Mr. Collier?"

"Uh, yeah," he admitted. It felt like pliers on his finger.

"Or say she stole a piece of rock candy from the general store; then she'd probably get a minute..."

Collier's finger was throbbing in pain, and he'd only done twenty seconds so far.

"And if she ever dared talk back to her momma or daddy-two minutes at least."

Collier chewed his lip a few seconds more, then insisted, "Take it off!"

Mrs. Butler complied, clearly amused. Collier's crimped finger was red above the joint. "Aw, but you barely done thirty seconds, Mr. Collier."

He wagged his hand. "That hurt like h.e.l.l..."

"I'll bet'cha it did. That's why little girls didn't act up much in the good old days. A couple minutes with the clip was all the discipline they needed. Wasn't uncommon for a little girl to wear it five minutes for usin' profanity, or gettin' sent home from the schoolhouse."

"Five minutes?" Collier objected. "In this day and age, they'd call that child torture."

"Um-hmm. But I dare say, if our teachers used these clips in the schools today, we wouldn't be havin' all these problems we see on the news." She put the bizarre clip back in the case. "I'm sure you agree."

Collier couldn't dredge a reply. "But those clips were only used on girls?"

"That's right."

"What about the boys?"

A self-a.s.sured snicker. "When boys misbehaved, their daddy'd simply take 'em out to the woodshed for a thrashin'."

"Ah. Of course." Collier rubbed his finger. He was a bit p.i.s.sed by the history lesson. That hurt like h.e.l.l! he wished he could bark at her. But her next gesture deleted the incident.

She unfastened her top b.u.t.ton, then vigorously fanned the V of her blouse-which only revealed more of the awesome bosom.

"I keep forgettin' to turn the a/c up higher this time of day," she said. The sun was beating in through the high front windows. "Are you hot, Mr. Collier?"

Only below the belt, he thought. The image of the flesh of her bosom and the deep cleavage stoked him. "A little, now that you mention it."

"I'll take care of that presently." She kept puffing the blouse; Collier could see a mist of sweat frosting the skin within.

Something else caught his eye in the last case: a pale gray slip of paper that looked like an old bank check. He squinted.

RECEIVED OF: Mr. N. P. Poltrock, AGENT OF THE EAST TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA RAILROAD COMPANY, Fifty DOLLARS.

"Wow," Collier remarked when he noted the check's handwritten date. Sept. 16, 1862. "What an old doc.u.ment, and it looks in perfect shape."

Mrs. Butler stopped puffing air through her cleavage. Her expression soured. "A paycheck from Gast's d.a.m.ned railroad. But, yes, it is quite old."

Gast again. The very mention of anything related to him corrupted her disposition.

"It's just terribly interesting, isn't it?"

"What's that, Mr. Collier?"

"A piece of paper signed by someone during the Civil War."

"We prefer to call it the War of Northern Aggression," she insisted.

"But wasn't it Southern aggression that actually started the war?" Collier said and immediately thought better of it. "It was the Confederacy that bombarded Fort Sumter."

"But it was the North, Mr. Collier, who begged for it by charging high tariffs on cotton exports," she snapped.

"I see..." Collier looked at the check again, imagining it being signed nearly a hundred and fifty years ago, when the solidity of the nation was dangling by a thread.

"Where is that silly child with your bags?" she asked, frowning at the door.

"I better go help her. They're pretty heavy-"

"No, no, please. Believe me, it's a thrill for the poor thing. It'll tickle her pink to carry a celebrity's bags."

Collier frowned when she wasn't looking. I was a minor celebrity at best, and now I'm a has-been celebrity. He didn't have the fort.i.tude to tell her his show was being canceled. Then the myth would be shattered, and all I got is the myth...

The bell at the desk rang. Collier noticed two guests-a couple in their thirties. Tourists, he discerned. A camera slung around the man's neck. He was nondescript in a tasteless striped short-sleeve shirt and beige Dockers strained at the waist. He held a finger up to Mrs. Butler.

"Oh, the Wisconsin folks," she muttered. "They must want a tour brochure. I'll be right back, Mr. Collier."

"Sure."

Some unknown force commanded Collier's eyes to fix on her rump as she hurried to the desk. If she only had a face that wasn't quite so...OLD! He felt p.r.i.c.kly sweat at his brow...

He pretended to survey more oddments in the case: a hand-sc.r.a.ped burl bowl from the early 1700s, a debarking iron from a century later. The next item looked intimidating: a bra.s.s-hilted knife that had to be a foot and a half long. GEORGIA ARMORY SABER BAYONET-CIRCA 1860-OWNED BY MR. BEAUREGARD MORRIS OF THE EAST TENNESSEE AND GEORGIA RAILROAD COMPANY. The sheer size of the blade gave Collier a twinge. The blade looked almost new and didn't show a speck of rust. I wonder if anyone was ever killed by that thing? the question blared into his mind.

He scanned more items as Mrs. Butler's charming drawl engaged the new couple. She was pa.s.sing them some local tour brochures...Now Collier was eyeing the tourist woman. A plain Jane with a little paunch but still shapely. Wide hips stretched her own beige slacks-also too tight, like the husband's-and Collier's vision focused at the bosom, and then an image barraged his mind: Collier pulling her top off and pressing his face between her b.r.e.a.s.t.s...

He winced until the dirty image was gone.

When he looked again, the woman was on her tiptoes, a great big white dental-bleached smile. She was waving at him.

"Pardon me, pardon me," she was saying.

"Yes?"

"You're Justin Collier, aren't you?"

Collier tried not to sigh. "Why, yes."

"Oh, we're big fans! Look, honey, it's the Prince of Beer!"

The husband waved, too. "Love your show, Mr. Collier."

"Thanks."

The wife: "Could we get your autograph?"

He could've groaned. "It would be my pleasure-" But then the vestibule doors opened, and in trod Lottie with his suitcase and laptop bag. Off the hook for the moment, Collier thought. "But let me catch you later today. I'm just now checking in."

"Of course," the giddy woman said. "Nice meeting you!"

"Last room on the stair hall, Mr. Collier," the old lady added.

A fake smile; then he rushed to Lottie.

"Here, let me take one," he said, but she just grinned and shook her head no.

The old lady's right, she's strong as a mule. She effortlessly hauled the c.u.mbersome bags up the staircase. Lean legs took the steps two at a time. Collier wasn't sure why at first-he deliberately lagged several stairs behind her-but then...

More pervert instinct, he a.s.sumed.

He was trying to look up her denim skirt. For only a second he caught white panties bunched up the crack of a delectable little rump.

What is WITH me today?

Maroon carpet took them down the main stair hall; over the rail Collier could hear Mrs. Butler's jack-jawing with the Wisconsin couple. He fought the urge to look down, hoping for a cleavage view of both women but this time he gritted back the impulse. How come I'm suddenly obsessed with s.e.x! he demanded of himself. When no answer came, he took to eyeing Lottie's rump and the backs of her toned legs. He felt crazed by the imagery, and could imagine no reason why. Even her Achilles tendons and her bare heels seemed enticing, and the drab shanks of hair, the backs of her arms, her fingers wrapped around his suitcase handles seemed inexplicably erotic...