Dunaway's Crossing (15 page)

Bea Dot had turned over in her cramped bed at least twenty times in the last hour, but she couldn’t sleep. Disturbing her more than Netta’s light snoring was the voice of Terrence Taylor’s innocent question, “You think Miss Netta’s baby’s coming?”

Oh, dear Lord, she hoped he was wrong.

But fear of Netta’s delivery was only one problem weighing on her mind. Will had been gone almost a week, and her inventory was running low. Not only did she not have paraffin for Mr. Anderson, but she had also run out of cane syrup and baking soda. Others requested goods that had never been on the shelves—Lux soap, rubbing alcohol, Vaseline. As the epidemic grew worse in town, people in the country relied more heavily on Will’s store. Will hadn’t left instructions, so she didn’t know what to do with the short supply, but she had a feeling demand would continue to increase.

Giving up on sleep, she sat up and stared out the window at the lake shimmering in the full moonlight. She wished Will would come home, though she dared not utter that thought aloud. Netta already cut her eyes at the slightest mention of him, as if every utterance of his name were a declaration of undying love. Although she understood Netta’s concern, how could she not bring up Will Dunaway when she was living in his house and minding his store?

What a pickle her life had turned out to be. All she knew of her mother was the constant despondence she saw in her father. She longed for a home of her own with real love and a happy household. But thanks to her father’s drunken despair, she’d been forced to make one desperate decision that pushed her storybook ending far out of reach. She leaned her elbow on the windowsill and rested her head on her fist. If only she could wish on one of those stars outside and reverse the clock.

A low growl interrupted her reverie, and Bea Dot smiled, thinking of how embarrassed Netta would be to learn she’d begun to snore. At another growl, this one louder, Bea Dot frowned and straightened her spine. That wasn’t Netta. Then several growls sounded outside, and Bea Dot’s heart sped. “Netta, are you awake?”

Netta rolled in her bed, a blanket-covered mountain in the darkness, before resuming her rhythmic breathing. Bea Dot sat wide-eyed, staring out the window, wondering what lurked on the other side of the pane. Two sharp growls made her jump and yelp, and Netta awoke.

“Bea Dot? Is that you? Are you all right?” She sat up and rubbed her eyes.

“There’s something outside.”

Netta yawned and stretched. “Maybe you were just dreaming.”

“No, I heard something.” Bea Dot shook her head sharply. “Growling. There’s something out there.”

They both sat mute for a few moments before the noise occurred again. “What was that?” Bea Dot asked.

“Sounds like animals,” Netta said. “Look out the window.”

“I already have.” What if the animals saw her? Could they jump at the window? She peered through the glass again, this time squinting, as if that would illuminate the pine trees outside. “I don’t see anything,” she said at first, but then she gasped as something shifted in the shadows. “Wait. There it is.”

The growling recommenced, this time continuously, as Bea Dot crouched in front of the window, her hands on the sill.

“What is it?” Netta asked nervously.

“It’s hard to tell.” Bea Dot watched the movement in the darkness. “All I see is shadows. Maybe it’s two animals of some kind. Looks like they’re fighting over something.” She turned her face to Netta, who looked angelic with the moon shining on her pale face and blond hair.

“Are they raccoons?” Netta asked.

“Is that what raccoons sound like?” Bea Dot shrugged. “I’ve never heard them.” She bent as she put her face closer to the window. The cold from the glass radiated onto her cheeks.

“Oh, for heavens sake, let me see.” Netta rose and joined Bea Dot at the window. “I think those are raccoons.” She wrapped her quilt around her more tightly and went to the back door.

“Where are you going?” Bea Dot asked. Was she crazy going outside with wild beasts in the yard?

“Out on the porch. Maybe I can see them better out there.”

“It’s cold out there,” Bea Dot protested.

“I won’t be long.” She opened the door carefully and tiptoed out.

Bea Dot sat quietly for a moment, but fear got the best of her. Preferring company outside to being alone inside, she gathered up her blanket and joined Netta on the porch, watching the two animals. Netta’s blond hair curled over the quilt around her shoulders. The growling had subsided somewhat, and the creatures kept their heads to the ground. Maybe they were digging a hole.

“Can you see them?” Netta whispered, her eyes locked on the pair of animals.

Bea Dot nodded. They watched silently for a moment until a larger figure raced across the grass and with a yowl pounced on the two smaller ones. One of them galumphed toward the woods, but the larger beast held the other smaller one down, shaking its head from side to side as it growled. Heart racing, Bea Dot clutched Netta’s elbow and pulled her back into the house. Then she slammed the door and rested her back against it, sure that her heart pounded clear through her rib cage and onto the door panel. The thumping in her ears echoed in her skull. Once she had calmed herself, she realized that the growling had stopped.

Netta peeked out the window. “They’re gone.”

“What was that?” Bea Dot asked.

“I think it was a wildcat.”

“You mean a panther?”

“Not the kind you read about in
The Jungle Book
,” Netta explained, “but similar. I’ve heard Ralph call them bobcats before.”

Bea Dot’s jaw dropped, and she stared at Netta wide-eyed, like a six-year-old witnessing a circus act. “I had no idea wildcats lived in Georgia.” She turned her eyes back to the darkness outside. “So there were two little ones and a big one?”

“No,” Netta explained in the exasperated voice of a more knowledgeable big sister. “The smaller ones were raccoons, but the big one was a bobcat.”

Netta’s voice irked Bea Dot. Since when did she become such an expert on wildlife? Still, Bea Dot was more concerned about the animals outside. She shuddered under her blanket. “So the bobcat ate one of the raccoons?”

“Yes,” Netta said as she returned to her bed.

Bea Dot climbed back into her bed and rubbed her numb toes under the covers. “I wonder what the raccoons were doing, though. That’s the first time we’ve seen them since we’ve been here.” She pondered them as her feet warmed. “They looked like they were eating something.”

After a pause, Netta asked, “What did you do with the scraps after we ate those fish?”

“I tossed them in the woods behind the house.” Bea Dot pointed at the pine trees visible through the window.

Netta fluffed her pillow and exhaled in the way she always did just before she criticized Bea Dot. “That’s what they were eating,” she said. “You should have buried them.”

Bea Dot rolled her eyes. “Why?”

“Leaving out scraps attracts all kinds of animals, maybe even bears. It’s so dangerous. You didn’t know that?”

Says Netta the adventure scout
, Bea Dot thought. “Well, pardon me, madam, but after dinner I had to wash the dishes and move the laundry in from the line because it wasn’t drying out in the cold. Not to mention that I had to put the kitchen back in order because you wore yourself out before you finished your deep-cleaning project.”

More than Bea Dot’s feet were warm now.

“I wasn’t scolding you,” Netta said. “I was just saying—”

“I know what you were ‘just saying.’ ” Bea Dot tugged her covers up to her chest and reclined in her small bed. Honestly, why did Netta always have to be such a know-it-all?

Across the room, Netta sighed and reclined against her headboard as well. After a pause, she said, “I hope the cat doesn’t come back. Did Will leave a gun here? Maybe you could shoot it.”

In spite of her frustration, Bea Dot guffawed at Netta’s suggestion.

“What’s so funny?”

“The idea of me using a gun,” Bea Dot replied. “I can barely hang a sheet on the line by myself, and you’re suggesting I shoot and kill a moving bobcat.” She laughed again.

“I guess that was a silly idea,” Netta said.

“I’d have more luck beating the cat over the head with a gun,” Bea Dot continued. Then a thought came to her. “Maybe when Will comes back, he can teach me to shoot.”

After a long pause, Bea Dot eyed Netta’s dark form sitting upright in the opposite bed, so she knew her cousin was still awake.

“You don’t think he’s coming back, do you?”

“Well . . .” Netta’s voice sounded cautious as a cat. “I do worry about Will being in town, just as I worry about Ralph, but I think he’ll be home eventually.”

Bea Dot’s heart ached at Netta’s comment. She uttered quietly, “I worry about him too.”

“I know you do, honey,” Netta replied. After a pause, she added, “That’s what concerns me.”

A pang pierced Bea Dot’s chest. Even though she already knew the answer, she asked, “What do you mean?”

“Bea Dot, have you developed an attraction to Will?”

Bea Dot exhaled and leaned her head back against the headboard, gazing up into the blackness for a few seconds before replying. No sense in denying it anymore. “I’m afraid I have. I’ve never appreciated a man as much as I do Will Dunaway.”

“But you’re married.”

“I know that.” A touch of annoyance peppered her voice this time. “I never said I would act on that attraction.”

“Does Will feel the same way?”

“I don’t know,” Bea Dot lied, still unsure whether Netta had seen Will kiss her.

“Don’t ask,” Netta said.

Bea Dot curled her lip in the cold darkness. Who was Netta to lecture on romance? She married the first man who showed her any interest. “I’m not asking for advice, Netta.”

“I can’t help giving it, though. Nothing good can come of your starting a relationship with another man.”

“Oh, really? You don’t think so?” Bea Dot couldn’t help showing
her irritation. How could Netta talk to her as if Bea Dot were unaware of her own husband’s temper? Not to mention public scrutiny. Bea Dot was well experienced in avoiding that. “You make it seem like Will and I regularly sneak off to clandestine rendezvous. Nothing of the sort has happened.”

“That’s true. So far, you haven’t seen the need to sneak off.”

Now Bea Dot’s irritation escalated to outright anger. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“I mean that I interrupted something in the barn last week. Don’t try to deny it. There’s no telling what would have happened had I not walked in. He might have gone so far as to kiss you.”

Bea Dot exhaled in relief as her face burned, but she bit her tongue.

“I don’t mean to insult you, dear.” Bea Dot hated when Netta called her
dear
, as if she were an appointed stand-in mother. “But I would hate for Will to get the wrong impression. Much worse, knowing what Ben’s capable of, I would hate for him to have any inkling of an infidelity. Just please be careful.”

“Nothing happened in the barn.” Bea Dot had become an expert liar. “Will and I are both well aware that I’m married. We’re friends, that’s all. I enjoy working in the store, and he appreciates the help.” As she spoke, though, the memory of Eliza Taylor’s misunderstanding slapped her
. I ain’t seen that look on his face in a long time, not since he come home from France.
Maybe she and Will were too transparent after all.

Bea Dot played blindly with a loose thread on her bedspread, chewing on her lip as she mulled over her own ambivalence. More than anything she wanted Will to return home safely, but maybe it was better that he remain in town. But how could she think that? The longer he stayed in Pineview, the greater his chance of catching influenza.

Netta’s voice intruded on her thoughts. “Bea Dot, you know you’re welcome to stay in our home as long as you’d like, but have you given any thought about what you’ll do when you return to Savannah?”

“Well, no . . . I haven’t.” Actually, she’d enjoyed the opportunity not to think of her husband much at all. The last thought she wanted to entertain was the possibility of returning to him. Bea Dot twisted the loose thread around her finger, tightening it to stop the circulation to her fingertip. After a few seconds, she released the thread and felt the blood rush toward her fingernail.

“When is he expecting you home?”

Bea Dot hesitated before answering. “Two weeks ago.”

“Two weeks ago? And you haven’t written him? Does he even know you are here?”

Bea Dot shook her head in the dark.

“Does he?”

“No.”

“Good Lord, he must be mad as the devil,” Netta muttered.

“He was mad at me when I left, so you see? Nothing’s changed.”

“When I invited you to Pineview,” Netta explained, “I thought you needed the time away from Ben to figure out what to do. This epidemic has certainly botched things up, but you still need to consider how you’re going to contend with your marriage.”

“Netta,” Bea Dot sighed in frustration, “I don’t even know what that means.”

“It means you have some decisions to make,” her cousin replied. “Do you want to divorce Ben? If so, my father could help you with that. But then you know you’d have to leave Savannah. Where would you go afterward?”

“Couldn’t I come here?”

“You’re always welcome in my home, dear. But people in Pineview already know who you are. They won’t be as congenial to a divorced woman. And if you take up with Will, they might extend that cold shoulder to him.”

Bea Dot tugged at the thread until it snapped. “Do you really think his friends would do that to him?”

“It’s a possibility,” Netta said. “Of course, Ralph and I wouldn’t. I doubt the Taylors would. But I don’t know about anyone else. You should think about how that would affect his business.”

After all she’d seen Will do for the sake of helping others, Bea Dot could hardly fathom the notion of Will’s friends turning on him. Pineview, what little she’d seen of it, seemed like such a friendly place. But then again, Mr. Floyd had gotten his shorts tangled over the idea of women voting. What would he say about a divorced woman?