The Black Train

CHAPTER ONE I

“So you just leave, just like that?” the voice whined. “That’s so you, Justin. When there’s a problem, all you do is get on a plane and fly away.”

Collier felt cramped in the rental car, and annoyed that the squawking phone call was diverting him from the scenery. “Evelyn, dear, I wouldn’t define a divorce as a problem. It’s merely an event. The problem is the notion that you and I ever thought we could be compatible marital partners…but that’s a moot point by now.”

The tiny cell phone seemed to vibrate when she objected, “What’s that supposed to mean!”

“Look, Evelyn, I have to finish this book. The deadline is next week. If I miss my deadline, then there’s the theoretical possibility that my publisher would cancel the contract in which case I’d have to pay back the fifty-thousand-dollar advance. Now, put your little thinking cap on and consider those ramifications, since you’ll likely get half of that advance in the divorce settlement.”

Silence. Then, “Oh.”

“Yes, my love. Oh. Along with half—and I repeat: HALF. Of everything else I’ve earned.”

Another rail: “Hey, I work, too!”

“Honey. Caterers in L.A. are like old people in Florida, i.e. too many.”

Collier knew he shouldn’t have referred to her failed business endeavor. He knew what she would say even before she said it:

“I’m glad your stupid show’s getting kicked off the air, you pompous asshole!”

Ahh, the good life, Collier thought. True love and domestic bliss. “Evelyn, let’s not fight. I’ll be back in a week to sign the papers, okay? I’m not evading the issue, if that’s what you think. But I have to do this.”

“What do you have to go to Tennessee for? You write books about beer.”

“I only have one more entry before the book’s done, and I think I may have found it here. I need it to be unique. I can’t just throw in some run-of-the-mill microbrew.”

“Well…fine.” She simmered down.

“I’ve got to go now. I left the airport four hours ago, and I’m still lost. Tell you what, I’ll call you midweek to see how you’re doing.”

“Okay. ‘Bye.”

click

Collier felt as though a large animal had just climbed off his back. He banged his elbow when he put the cell phone away. Why’d I ever get married? All my married friends told me not to. When married people tell you to NEVER get married? That’s like the chef coming out of the kitchen and telling you the food sucks. Pretty qualified advice. Evelyn was beautiful, of course, but quite a few other men in L.A. seemed to think so, too. It’s the way of the modern world. You have great sex; then you get married; then you get divorced. And the man gives the woman HALF.

Great sex wasn’t worth it. By now, in fact, he’d forgotten what great sex was.

Deliriously green pastures and farmland swept by on either side. Collier loved the view, especially after four years in L.A. It wasn’t a city, it was a city-state. Hollywood! Spago! Venice Beach! Rodeo Drive! They can have it, he thought. Had the town lost its charm, or was it something else? He found that the older he got, the less interested he was in things. His Food Network TV show, Justin Collier: Prince of Beer, paid enormous money for the first three seasons but now they were giving his slot to some hotshot chef from San Francisco. Seafood Psycho, they were calling it. Just as well. Collier hated L.A., and the show—though it had turned him into a semicelebrity—was wearing him down. At forty-four, most of his hair was gray now, and he felt like a ninny having some makeup girl at the studio dye it for him. His books on craft-made beer always did well enough to make him a solid living, and that’s what he yearned to go back to.

Maybe I’m just getting old, he considered. But forty-four wasn’t old, was it?

Damn…

The only thing Hertz had to rent at the airport was this awkward VW Bug. It looks like a kiddie car, was the first simile that came to mind when the clerk gave him the keys. Worse was the color: sherbet green. Yeah, I can see me driving THIS on the 405. The inside was aggravatingly cramped, but he could still see Lookout Mountain, site of a famous Civil War battle that had put the final nail in Confederate pomp. The image soothed him, not that the mountain signified a wartime slaughter, but the assurance it brought that he was nowhere near L.A.

More miles passed behind him. When he’d run a Map-Quest for Gast, Tennessee, he kept getting that PAGE EXPIRED message. He’d found it on a 7-Eleven map but the convolution of minor roads had turned into a maddening webwork. How hard could it be to find a town with such an unlikely name? It took another hour before he came upon a sign: GAST, TENNESSEE—TOWN LINE. A CIVIL WAR HISTORICAL SITE.

Finally!

The town stood bright in its reincarnated anachronism: fine clapboard buildings lining a cobblestone main drag called NUMBER 1 STREET. Normal-looking middleclassers walked to and fro on immaculate sidewalks, past the expected antique shops, bistros, and collector’s warrens. MINIE BULLETS! one sign boasted. BATTLEFIELD MAPS!

At the corner, two elderly ladies strolled by and smiled. Collier smiled back—“Good afternoon, ladies”—but then it appeared they were chuckling. It’s this eyesore on wheels! he realized. The oddball car stuck out here like a sore thumb. Hurry up and turn green! he thought of the traffic light. More pedestrians, now, stopped to eye the car with furtive smiles. That’s definitely making an entrance…He turned aimlessly, just to get away from the passersby but immediately spotted the sign and arrow: LODGING.

Collier bisected roads similarly marked—NUMBER 2 STREET, NUMBER 3 STREET, etc.—but noted the road he was on: PENELOPE STREET. Collier peered ahead. The road side-wound up plush green hills, atop which sat a splendid antebellum house. Could it be a hotel?

Some joint. Collier wasn’t much into architecture but when he pulled round the center court, he couldn’t help but be impressed. An elaborate two-story veranda formed the main structure’s face, propped by Doric columns chiseled with intricate fluting. The center edifice was octagonal and walled by handmade red bricks, while four more one-story wings flanked outward. White clapboard comprised these wings, and each possessed a deep wraparound porch. Out front a granite boy in Confederate dress blew water from a flute into a mortar-and-stone pond beside which grew a gnarled oak tree more massive than any Collier could remember. He parked and got out. The shadow of the central building cooled him.

Lush weeping willows, fifty feet high, fronted the estate, while some even older oak trees seemed to circle the immediate property.

Collier approached. Streams of ivy crawled up the octagon’s eroded brick walls. He noticed several cars parked in a side lot, and hoped they belonged to guests, not just staff; in spite of the building’s old splendor, Collier didn’t want to be the lone lodger. Though he couldn’t be sure, he believed he might’ve seen a face peering at him from a narrow window on the closest addition. The face looked inquisitive, or warped by old glass.

WELCOME TO THE BRANCH LANDING INN, the high stone entablature read. A low brick next to the door had been crudely engraved: MAIN HOUSE, 1850.

White granite blocks framed a massive front door. Since this was obviously a rooming house, he didn’t feel the need to knock in spite of the presence of a peculiar knocker: a face of brass bearing wide, empty eyes but no nose or mouth. For some reason, the knocker caused an odd sensation; then he reached for the brass doorknob and