Griffith Tavern (Taryn's Camera Book 2)

Book 2 in Taryn’s Camera

Rebecca Patrick-Howard

Copyright © 2014 by Rebecca Patrick-Howard

www.rebeccaphoward.net

Published by Mistletoe Press

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

First Edition: September 2014

Printed in the United States of America

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Bone weary from traveling and still a little stiff from the cold that clung to him like a virus, despite his evening in the tavern, he gratefully dropped down onto the bed and tugged at his boots. The bed gave a little moan under him and creaked when he moved, but the sheets and blanket smelled fresh. Someone had come up and built a fire when he was downstairs and he was thankful. It was blazing now, licking at the pine logs and filling the room with a pleasant scent.

He’d spent almost eight hours in the coach today, traveling over ruts and washouts in the road until his teeth chattered from all the jarring about. The last couple of hours were the worst, when the weather had turned first to sleet and then to snow. He’d never been so happy to see the lantern of the tavern ahead, beckoning the exhausted travelers with its light.

He’d only been planning on staying a night before moving on, but now, with his belly full of stew and whiskey, he thought he might spend one more. Nobody was waiting for him up ahead. Nobody missed him back home. What he had were the clothes on his back, a small bag, and a full purse. When he got set up in the new town he’d find him a good wife, even if he had to send for one back east. Right now, though, he was on his own.

Shouldn’t have eaten so much
, he thought as he stretched out on the bed, the feather pillow bunching around his neck. Absently, he rubbed at his stomach which was starting to gurgle. Or maybe he shouldn’t have eaten so quickly. All he’d had in the coach was some dried venison and bread. He’d all but inhaled his first bowl of stew with its chunks of beef and potatoes.

Soon, the gurgle in his stomach turned to cramps and he nearly didn’t make it in time as he bent over the side of the bed and retched into the pot someone had thoughtfully pulled close. Mixed with the sour taste of whiskey, the contents of his recent supper left him with a force he’d never felt before.

When he at last felt like he was finished, he sat up on the edge of the bed and placed his head in his hands. His forehead, beaded with sweat, burned hot under his touch. Why was it so hot in here? The room spun before him, flickering in and out of darkness. How much had he had to drink? Three, four pulls on the bottle? He’d done much worse in the past without such bad results. Surely he wasn’t coming down with something?

Another cramp seized him but this time he didn’t make it to the pot and emptied what was left of his stomach onto the bed and floor.
Someone will have to clean that up
, he thought, but his mind had trouble focusing. Where was he again?

Gripping the small nightstand, he forced himself to stand. The spindly wooden table shook under his weight, rocking the oil lamp. The doorknob was only a few feet from him. If he could get out of the room he could holler for help, maybe send for a doctor. Something just wasn’t feeling right. But with each move he made, the door seemed to move farther and farther away, like one of those carnival mirrors. He dropped back down to the bed, fire running through his arms and legs.

Suddenly, a sound caught his ear. A knocking? No, it was a scratching. Faint at first, he almost didn’t hear it for the ringing in his ears. It was coming from the wall, above his nightstand. “Damn mice,” he muttered as he tried to stand again. The last of his energy left him, though, and he fell to the floor in a heap, his knees buckling under him like they were made of toothpicks.

“Help me,” a hoarse voice cried from the spot where the scratching had been. “Help me!”

His last thought, before he saw total blackness, was,
My God, either I’ve lost my damn mind or someone’s inside the wall!

T
he first thing Taryn thought as she stood looking at the old tavern and inn was,
I hope it doesn’t fall down around me
. Her second thought was,
if it doesn’t fall down, I wonder if they’ll let me move in
?

She’d worked in some pretty questionable places, but Griffith Tavern was standing on a wish and a prayer at this point. Oh, it was still beautiful with its wide porch, tall white columns, and hints of grandeur.  And the flat Indiana farmland surrounding it made it more imposing. Without clumps of trees blocking it, the old inn and tavern stood like a sentry facing the two lane highway. Tall and dramatic, it must have been a real beauty in its day.

That day had passed, however. Now, it was in shambles.

Taryn possessed more vision than a lot of people when it came to seeing the positive side to old buildings and houses. With enough money and time, she thought anything could be fixed. Termite damage? Not a deal breaker. Asbestos? Let’s don some hazard suits and get to work! Structurally unsound? Dig deeper into the budget.

But this place? She wasn’t so sure. Her optimism was waning by the second. Most of the glass had been knocked out of the windows, probably by vandals from the looks of the graffiti and beer cans that littered the ground. Shards of glass plagued the dry, brown grass and reflected in the sunlight, twinkling like a million little diamonds. The front porch sagged in the middle and boards were missing in some places, allowing grass, weeds, and even the start of a small tree to push through. The roof had completely caved in on one side, leaving a gaping hole to expose that part of the house to the elements. As she took a few steps closer, the dead grass crunching under her feet, a flock of crows (or was it a murder of crows?) shot out of the hole and raced towards the sky, their calls filling the air with mockery.

Dark red bricks were crumbling, falling and stacking up like piles of leaves around the house. Anything wooden (shutters, window frames, etc.) had rotted away.

“Well, what do you think?” The energetic young man beside her positively beamed as he gazed upon the structure in admiration. “She’s something else isn’t she?”

Taryn estimated his age to be somewhere around twenty-five, but it was hard to tell with his full black beard and long dark hair hiding most of his face. His skin was brown and leathered from the sun, the T-shirt and khaki shorts he wore loose on his thin frame.

“It’s um, really something else,” Taryn agreed diplomatically. “But, goodness, it’s gorgeous. Almost like something from the old south. I could see myself in a big dress, walking around this yard, handing out orders to everyone while I carried my parasol.”

“Ha ha,” Daniel laughed. “My girlfriend says the same thing. She loves this place.”

Taryn’s talent was in looking at the past and seeing what had once been. She had an eye for detail and a big imagination. Clients hired her to come in and paint structures that were in ruin, or simply needed a good renovation, and depict them in their primes. She might, for instance, be hired to paint a picture of a beautiful old mansion that was missing the whole second floor. In her painting, however, the house would be intact and look as elegant as it had when it was young and full of promise. Sometimes clients hired her because they wanted to renovate a building and needed help with the visuals; they might not have a good idea of what it used to look like. Of course, some clients just wanted her paintings for sentimental reasons.

“So what are you planning on doing with it again?” Of course she already knew, thanks to the email correspondence they’d shared over the past month, but now that she was looking at it in person she wanted to hear it again, just to be sure.

Clapping his hands together, the young man (Daniel was his name) grinned with eagerness. “When we formed Friends of Griffith Tavern last year my buddies and I just wanted to research the place, get a feel for it, you know? It’s a big part of our history, you know, but everyone just ignores it. Then we decided to try and buy it. I mean, why not? She deserves to be rebuilt, kept up, opened as a museum. You know she was in operation for almost ninety years?”

“But not always like this…” Taryn murmured. There were some modernizations done to it. She could see that from where she was standing.

“Oh, no,” he agreed. “When it started out it was just a regular old clapboard boarding house. You could come in, grab some grub, spend the night, and then be on your way. That would’ve been in, oh, around 1820 I guess. Barns out back kept your horses fed and watered. Over the years, though, this grew up around it. It was a successful stagecoach stopover for a long time. That was its heyday.”

“When did it close?”

Daniel thoughtfully rubbed his beard and chewed on his bottom lip. “Well, it officially closed as a tavern and inn in 1919. Railroad came through, new inns and taverns cropped out, original owners gone…You know how that goes. Things change. Somebody bought it and turned it into a little hotel after that but it was only open for about five years. For the rest of the time, it was used as a house. It’s been empty for around thirty years now. You can see it’s not in very good shape,” he added hesitantly.

Yeah, no kidding
, Taryn thought,
and it’s a damn shame
. “Is it still in the same family?”

“Oh yeah. Not the ones who ran it originally, they didn’t have any kids, but the ones who bought it in 1919 still have it in the family. Something like the great-grandkids or whatever. I can’t remember the connection. But the new generation, they don’t want it. I totally don’t get that. Who wouldn’t want
this
?”

“People lack imagination and ingenuity these days,” Taryn agreed. “I wish someone would leave me an old house. Or, old inn as it may be. I’d live in it.”

When Taryn’s parents died they’d left her the house. But it was a brick ranch house in a subdivision in Nashville. Not quite the same.

“Yeah, for real,” Daniel agreed. “But these folks, they want to sell. That’s when we decided to step in. We’ve applied for a grant and a couple of loans and that would get us rolling. And that’s why
you’re
here. The first thing we have to do is get an architect to do some renderings. That’s part of the grant stipulations. You’re going to help bring it to life. We want to show everyone exactly what it used to look like and what it
will
look like when we’re finished.”

He clapped his hands again and let out a long breath of air, like he’d been saving it all up just for this moment. He looked at her with so much admiration and hope that Taryn felt slightly embarrassed, blushing under his gaze. It was a good idea, Taryn knew, but she sensed there was more to it. “And then what?”

“Then we bring someone in to estimate the cost. We’ve found a historical preservation society willing to match the grant when we get it. And we WILL get it. After that, well, I guess we gotta start a Kickstarter campaign or something. That’s how we raised most of the money to bring you in. We’ll cross that bridge when we get there.”

“But that’s after you buy it outright, correct?”

Looking down at his feet, Daniel exhaled again. “Right. The grant will do that much. They’ve priced it at $175,000. Most of it is for the land because, you know, they say the house ought to just be condemned. But we can do it! We have to!”

Taryn could admire his enthusiasm and she was glad to see someone doing their best to preserve a part of history. Still…

Buying it was one thing but this place needed extensive renovations. Those could cost half a million, or more. What would they do then? It wasn’t her place to bring that up, though. She was just there to paint. “I’ll do my part for you and that will at least be one thing out of the way.”

“Awesome!” Daniel certainly was an animated little man. “We’re so glad you came here. I actually borrowed money from my grandmother to help pay you. We know you’re the best and we’re counting on you!”

No pressure, Taryn thought as she stared at the sad building. No pressure at all. She hoped the organization had more in their corner than her.

S
o what does it look like?” Matt, her childhood friend of more than twenty years, was on speaker phone as Taryn attempted to unpack her suitcase into the tiny dresser drawer. The closest hotel to the job site was more than half an hour away but she’d found a B&B. She appreciated the owner’s endeavor at providing original antique furniture to fit the style and age of the Victorian house, but there wasn’t much room for storage.

“Like something out of a horror movie,” she called in the general direction of the phone as she gave the drawer one final shove.

“Oh good,” he chuckled. “Your kind of place.”

She laughed back. “You know it! Of course, I completely want to move in. I’m already seeing myself on the porch, sipping on a mint julep and waiting for my beau to come up the road on his mighty steed.”

“You want to live in every place you work at.”

“Most of them, yeah,” she agreed. She had a huge weakness for old houses.

Taryn made a habit of talking to him at least once a day by phone. With her parents gone and his dysfunctional without the “fun” they were the closest thing the other had to family. He lived in Florida and her tiny apartment was in Nashville so they didn’t see each other often, usually just over the holidays, but they talked every day and texted throughout it.

“Well, I met Daniel this morning,” she proclaimed. Having given up on unpacking, she flopped down on the four poster mahogany bed and stared up at the ceiling, her phone resting on her stomach. “He’s the president of the organization that hired me. Seems okay. Idealistic, but that’s a good thing. It’s going to take a lot of positive energy to get this place bought and renovated.”

“Is it worth it?” Matt asked. She could tell from his voice that he was moving around too and had her on speakerphone. Sometimes they spoke to one another as though they were in the same room and not on the phone.

“It’s
always
worth it,” she replied. “Well, most of the time.” She didn’t have to mention Windwood Farm for him to know what she was talking about. Sometimes, it was better for the place to just be torn down and forgotten.

“So…” Matt left the word hanging in the air between them, a loaded question.

“I didn’t feel anything. Sad at the condition of the place, but nothing unusual. Excited at its beauty and interested in learning more about it. Worried for the sake of the organization. But no vibes,” she answered truthfully.

“Did you take any pictures?”

No, she hadn’t. She knew she would but the thrill of photography had subdued her somewhat, especially considering what happened in Vidalia. The more distance she got from the situation, the more she let it get to her. The distance made her feel more vulnerable and the nightmares she’d always had since she was a child had grown more frequent.

“Not yet.”

Matt groaned. “You’ve had two other jobs since then. Both of them turned out fine. You’re going to be
okay
. But this is something you’ll have to learn to deal with. You can’t abandon Miss Dixie. Not after what you went through together.”

Taryn’s Nikon seemed to wink at her from the other side of the room and she felt a little guilt for not taking her along for the ride earlier. It wasn’t the camera’s fault Taryn was seeing things she wouldn’t normally be seeing. It wasn’t the camera’s fault ghosts, or something, appeared to her through its lens. She’d tried other cameras and the same thing had happened. It was
her
. As the conduit, though, ignoring Miss Dixie felt like the only real way to avoid history repeating itself.