Spriggs threw on a robe over his pajamas and staggered to the door, unlocking it with some degree of effort.
"Suitcase?" he said as he cracked open the door.
The woman stood back from the door with a suspicious frown. Spriggs followed the woman's gaze to his feet. There, propped up beside the door was his metal ammunition box. "Thank you ma'am, I'll take care of it," he said as he quickly scanned the motel parking lot and pressed a quarter in the woman's hand.
Spriggs shut the door, pulled the box inside the room and heaved it up onto his bed. Without thinking, he flipped the latches and threw back the lid.
On top were the bogus maps and charts that he had prepared earlier in the week, but just under the papers were several dirt-covered remnants of butternut gray clothing that he had never seen before.
Once he removed them from the case, he was surprised with the realization that the rags were, in fact, all that remained of a Confederate major's uniform, held together by rotted threads and small clods of dirt. A tarnished belt buckled with the inscription, "CSA" fell out from within the tattered trousers. Under the uniform lay the grand prize: an equally dirt-covered, ancient satchel stuffed with thousands of wrapped bills of different denominations.
"Confederate!" he hissed. His next thought, however, was interrupted by the heavy pounding on his motel door by the huge fist of the county sheriff.
