Dunaway's Crossing (20 page)

1918
OCTOBER
20
AM
0825

MRS BENJAMIN FERGUSON

PINEVIEW, GA

YOU WERE DUE HOME TWO WEEKS AGO STOP

RETURN IMMEDIATELY STOP =

Irritated, Bea Dot ripped the document into small pieces, then threw them in the stove. How dare he order her home? How could she travel back to Savannah with Netta in her condition and influenza raging across Georgia? Surely he realized how dangerous the trip would be, not only for herself but for Netta as well. But then, Ben never worried about her safety. She’d reply to the telegram explaining her inability to return to Savannah, but she’d have to write Uncle David today to ask how she could go about dissolving her marriage.

Finding no pen or paper in the kitchen, Bea Dot entered the store to write her reply before calling the telegraph office. She found Netta handing over a small stack of mail to Birdie Henderson.

“Well, look who’s here. Good morning, sunshine,” Netta sang. Though her voice was cheerful, her eyes showed the strain of carrying a tremendous burden. Would that baby ever come?

“Good morning,” Bea Dot replied. She turned to Birdie Henderson holding her parcel of envelopes. “Will didn’t deliver the mail to you today?”

Netta touched Bea Dot’s upper arm with a consoling expression on her face. “Will had to leave, dear. He went back to town.”

“Oh?” Bea Dot’s heart fell to her feet. “I didn’t realize. Why did he go back?”

“Pritchett and Harley needed his help,” she said, her hand still on Bea Dot’s arm, rubbing it up and down. She cocked her head to one side in what might have been sympathy, but Bea Dot suspected smugness instead.

How could Will leave without saying good-bye? Was he angry because she’d put him off last night? He didn’t seem angry when she’d left him. Maybe Netta had convinced him to go. As soon as the notion crossed her mind, she latched on to it, and anger simmered within her. Will would not have just left her unless someone convinced him to. And it was just like Netta to meddle.

“I need some paper and a pen. I must send a telegram home.” Trying to hide her disappointment from Mrs. Henderson, she turned to search the workspace behind the counter. She breathed deeply and evenly. How could she talk to him now? How could she reach him to tell him her decision? What if he caught the flu before she could tell him? Damn that Netta!

Spying a notepad and a pen on the back shelf, she scribbled a reply to Ben until she regained her composure: “Influenza makes return impossible. Letter follows.” Then she walked to the phone, picked up the earpiece, and turned the crank. No one answered.

“They say the school’s closed and the churches have canceled services,” Birdie Henderson said. “Good thing we’re out in the country. Hope it doesn’t spread out here.” Then noticing Netta’s worried expression, she quickly added, “I’m sure Doc Coolidge has the whole thing under control.”

Frowning, Bea Dot put the earpiece on the hook, then picked it up again. After turning the crank a second time, she heard only the repeated buzz of the telephone ringing at the other end.

“What’s wrong, Bea Dot?” Netta asked.

“The operator isn’t picking up,” she said, turning the crank a third time. “I’ve never known that to happen before.”

Birdie Henderson piped up, “Oh, Charlotte’s a wonderful operator. Takes her job very seriously.”

“She’s not there now.” Giving up, Bea Dot put the earpiece back on the hook. Her resentment mixed with confusion.

“Maybe a line is down,” Netta suggested.

“The line is ringing into the switchboard.” Bea Dot shook her head. “So it must be fine. It’s just that no one is picking up on the other end.” Wonderful. One more obstacle between her and Will.

“That don’t sound like Charlotte,” Mrs. Henderson said. “Even when she had her baby, she had her oldest daughter, Jilly May, fill in for her.”

“Birdie’s right,” Netta said. “Ever since we’ve had a phone at home, Charlotte has always been on the line.”

“Then why isn’t she picking up now?” Bea Dot asked.

The three women gazed at each other, none of them venturing to utter a reply. In an instant, Bea Dot’s anger at Netta gave way to a sickening feeling that Charlotte was dead.

C
hapter 20

D
on’t you get uppity with me, Lola. Dr. Coolidge needs all the alcohol you’ve got. Now.”

Lola stifled her anger as the squat nurse frowned over a breath-soaked gauze mask.

“No disrespect, ma’am. I just ain’t got any alcohol to give you. I used it up days ago.” She swept her arm in a wide arch to display the groaning patients lying on the sofa, on the coffee table, on the heart-pine floors, even on the dining table. “I had one bottle in Miss Netta’s medicine closet to use on this houseful of sick folk. Now all I got to use to cool ’em down is cold water compresses.”

The nurse narrowed her eyes. “You’re lying to me.”

Lola’s chest pulsed with contempt. Why would she lie? “You welcome to search the house if you like. Doc Coolidge’s office too.”

A young man rolled onto his side with a gurgling cough.

“I got to tend these patients now.” Lola left the nurse and knelt at the coughing man’s pallet, lifting his shoulders and back in attempt to ease his labored breathing. She took his hand in hers and inspected his fingers. Blue, as she suspected. This one would be gone by tomorrow morning. Her death toll grew steadily. Three bodies already lay on the screened porch awaiting removal, and she’d not yet had time today to move the ones who had died this morning.

She scratched her nose through the linen napkin, which she’d secured at the back of her head with a clothespin. Then she turned her eyes to the nurse, who glared at her with hands on hips.

“Wait until Dr. Coolidge hears how you’ve talked to me. He’ll turn you out on the street.”

“And I’ll thank him for the favor,” Lola replied under her breath as she grabbed two sofa cushions from a dead man’s pallet and placed them under the coughing man’s head. “Then I could go home.”

The nurse stood over Lola, seething, but after a moment or two, she stepped over the groaning bodies and slammed the front door on the way out.

Lola huffed in exasperation. Normally, she’d be fired for standing up to a white woman. Not that she was working for pay. But flu changed everything. Since Jim Henry died, Lola no longer cared what white folks thought of her. Besides, by the time that nurse returned to the hospital, the boatload of groaning flu patients would make her forget about Doc Coolidge’s uppity housekeeper.

A woman groaned behind Lola, so she took the compress off the woman’s head and dipped it in a nearby pot of water, squeezed it out, and replaced it over the woman’s half-closed eyes. The woman sucked in a couple of breaths, not as labored as the coughing man’s, but her fever was mighty high. If she kept the coughing at bay, maybe this patient would pull through.

Lola wiped her brow and eyed the clock on the mantle. Two thirty. She’d been working since seven that morning. Rising from the wood floor with crackling knees, Lola put her hands on her lower back and stretched. Then she stepped carefully between the suffering patients and made her way to the back stoop.

She sat on the top step, pulling from her pocket a can of tobacco, a package of rolling papers, and a box of matches. She fumbled with the paper. Jim Henry had always made rolling a cigarette look so easy, but Lola hadn’t mastered the skill. She always used too much tobacco.

After striking a match on the bottom of her shoe, the way she’d seen Jim Henry do a thousand times, Lola held the flame up to the fat cigarette and put it to her lips, as if she were sucking on a dead white man’s finger. Taking her first drag, Lola let her shoulders and back relax. If Jim Henry could see her now, he’d take her over his knee and spank her. “You too pretty to take up such a nasty habit,” he’d told her. “Don’t you ever let me see you smoking.”

Well, he wouldn’t see her now. He died after two days of influenza. Two days. He’d come home from work with a cough and a headache, and by the next morning, he was delirious with fever. No amount of cold compresses, not even the October breeze through an open window, cooled him off. Nothing relieved the congestion that tormented every breath. Then he’d turned a bluish gray, as if he were rotting from the inside out. Who knew a black man could turn blue? She’d run like a bat out of hell to get Doc Coolidge’s help, but by the time she got home, Jim Henry was already dead, a line of bloody saliva running across his blue-brown cheek. They’d been married eleven months.

She should never have left him.

Only an hour after Jim Henry’s burial, Dr. Coolidge asked Lola to help care for the patients overflowing from the hospital into his home.

“You’ve already been exposed,” he said. “You can’t take the sickness back to your sister’s house, so you might as well be my nurse.”

He’d been so practical about the request, never uttering any words of condolence for the loss of her husband. So she balked at first. What if her sister fell sick? Her nieces? Who would take care of them? Dr. Coolidge stood his ground, though.

“Is your sister sick?”

“No, sir.”

“Your nieces?”

“No.”

“Well, if you go back to them, you’ll make them sick. You know I’ll care for any patient, black or white, who knocks on my door. But right now I need your help here.”

Dr. Coolidge had always been kind to Lola and her family, but she couldn’t help wondering: How were sick black folk supposed to get to his house to knock on his door? She learned the answer soon enough. They didn’t. Doc Coolidge asked her to run the overflow unit—that’s what they were calling his home now. So here she was, as usual, taking care of the white folks. But who would take care of her and her family?

Grinding the cigarette stub into the concrete step with her heel, Lola put the smoking goods back in her pocket, stood, and stretched her arms over her head, trying to relieve her aching back. She turned to open the screen door, but children’s voices stopped her.

I had a little bird.

Its name was Enza.

I opened the window.

And influenza.

A month ago, that ditty would have sent chills up Lola’s spine. Now, all that impressed her was that someone in Pineview was well enough to skip rope. She reached for the door handle, but before she stepped inside, she spied the undertaker’s wagon rolling slowly across the yard.

“Finally,” she grumbled as she reached into her skirt pocket for her linen napkin. As she pinned it behind her head, she watched Harley, shiny with that thieves’ oil he swore by, pull his wagon up to remove the dead. “I’m glad you’re here, Mr. Harley,” she called. “We could use the space.”

“I’ll take ’em off your hands, but first I got to get these three inside.”

Lola sighed through the linen napkin and stepped wearily up the back steps. She opened the screen door as Harley brought in the first of the new patients.

“Just put them on the parlor floor, there. Wherever you can find space,” she said. She watched him disappear inside the house, then forced herself to follow him.

C
hapter 21

N
etta spread the quilt over her little bed, then rubbed the small of her back as she stood straight. She’d been aching all morning, but she dared not complain. Bea Dot hadn’t spoken to her in two days.

From the next room came the
zumpa
,
zumpa
,
zumpa
of Bea Dot’s scrubbing on the washboard. From outdoors came the slow
thock . . . thock . . . thock
of Terrence Taylor chopping wood. The house buzzed with activity, yet no one said a word.

After straightening Bea Dot’s blanket and fluffing her pillow—maybe that would soften her mood—Netta’s toe tangled on something under her bed. She reached down and pulled up Bea Dot’s nightgown. Spots of blood on the back glared against the white cotton, signs of her wounds from the bobcat attack. Netta rubbed her thumb against the stain and felt her heart swell for her cousin. She’d invited Bea Dot to visit to rescue her from any future harm. Some protection. Netta took the nightgown into the kitchen.

“I found this under your bed,” she said, holding the garment out.

Bea Dot took it silently and placed it in the small pile of dirty laundry before resuming the up, down, up, down rhythm of the washboard. She might have been taking vengeance out on Netta’s housedress.

“You’re going to scrub the blue out of that frock,” Netta joked.

Bea Dot sill ignored her, instead wringing out the garment and setting it aside for a rinse. Sighing, Netta reached out and gripped Bea Dot’s elbow. “How long are you going to give me the cold shoulder?”

Bea Dot jerked her arm from Netta’s grasp and picked up the nightgown, which she plunged into the soapy water.

Netta sighed and rubbed her back again. She pulled out a chair and sat at the table next to the wash bucket. “How many times do I have to say I’m sorry?” she asked. After several
zumpa zumpas
, she persisted. “I know I shouldn’t have minded your business, but I was afraid for you. And Will.”

Bea Dot glared as she plunked the nightgown into the soapy water, splashing onto the tabletop and Netta’s sleeve. “When are you going to realize that I am a grown woman and can take care of myself?”

Netta had seen that petulant glare a thousand times over the years. She cocked her head and raised one eyebrow. “Oh, really? Is that how you ended up in Pineview? By taking care of yourself?”

“Oh, shut up, Netta.” Bea Dot grabbed the nightgown again and resumed scrubbing.

“Wait. I shouldn’t have said that. I’m sorry.” Netta held up her hands in surrender. When Bea Dot ignored her apology, Netta raised her voice. “Will you please just give me a chance to explain myself?”

Exhaling heavily, Bea Dot dropped the nightgown into the bucket. With a slant look she said, “Go ahead. Explain.”

“Sit down.” Netta gestured to the chair opposite her.

Bea Dot dried her hands on her apron and sat, arms folded in front of her. Her knuckles were the color of raspberries. Her eyes could have frozen lava.

Netta swallowed her discomfort, then began. “When I spoke to Will, I didn’t ask him to leave. He made that decision on his own.” Netta paused for a reaction from Bea Dot. Receiving none, she continued. “I merely wanted him—and you—to think matters through carefully before jumping into a romantic . . . scenario.”

“What exactly did you think I hadn’t thought through?” Bea Dot asked with steel in her voice.

“Will told me he’d asked you to marry him,” Netta said, “that he wanted you to seek a divorce from Ben.”

“So?”

“So I think he doesn’t realize how complicated that would be. I told him the same thing I’ve already told you. Pineview is a friendly town, but it can be unforgiving at times.”

When Bea Dot huffed and looked away, Netta persisted. “But that’s not the worst thing that worries me,” she said. Maybe it was best not to divulge that she’d told Will about Bea Dot’s miscarriage. She proceeded carefully. “Let’s say you went to Savannah and asked Ben for a divorce. What might he do to you? I know you don’t like to think about it, but you must recognize that he killed your child. His own child.”

Bea Dot turned her face to the ceiling and shook her head.

“Listen to me, cousin. If he did that because you forgot to make him lunch, what might he do to you when you ask for a divorce? And what would he do to Will? I think it’s gallant of Will to offer to protect you from Ben, but I wonder if he could. True, his war wounds have healed, but I wonder if he’s strong enough to take on someone of Ben’s size and temper.”

“He managed a wildcat with no problem,” Bea Dot jabbed, her face still full of contempt.

“True,” Netta conceded. At least Bea Dot was talking to her. She put her palms flat on the table. “We may have different parents, but in every other way you’re my sister. And Will is a dear friend. I don’t want either of you to get hurt.”

Bea Dot’s eyes warmed slightly as she replied, “But, Netta, don’t you think I’ve already thought of that? Yes, Will asked me to marry him, but I didn’t give him an answer. I needed to think all those matters through.”

Netta’s face heated. Will had told her that.

“In fact,” Bea Dot continued, “before I knew he left, I was planning to talk to him about what we’d have to do to seek a divorce. I had a letter to Uncle David all written out in my head.”

“I didn’t know that,” Netta said quietly as she put her head in her hands. Her insides squeezed her in remorse. She’d really put her foot in it this time.

“If you had bothered to ask me,” Bea Dot said, “you would have known. Instead, you went behind my back, and now Will’s gone, and I didn’t even have a chance to say good-bye.” Her voice shook at those last words, so she inhaled slowly, as if to steady herself. “He’s back in that flu-infested town, and now I’m truly afraid.”

Netta reached across the table and clutched Bea Dot’s chapped hand.

“We haven’t gotten an operator on the telephone line since Will left,” Bea Dot said, staring past Netta’s face and at the opposite wall, as if she were talking more to herself instead of her cousin. “If the town hasn’t replaced her, that must mean they’ve got no one else to do it, which means more people are sick. If that’s the case, there’s only a matter of time before Will gets the flu too.”

Netta’s gut clenched as she realized Bea Dot had silently nurtured her fears for two days.

“He could die in town.” Bea Dot’s eyes watered. “And I don’t know what I’d do if I didn’t get to see him again to tell him how I feel about him.”

At that remark, Netta’s eyes burned with sympathetic tears. She squeezed her cousin’s hand. “I know the feeling. I’ve been living with it for the past several weeks.”

Bea Dot finally met Netta’s gaze, and her shoulders relaxed, perhaps opening a door to reconciliation.

“It seems we have more in common than we realized,” Netta said, venturing a smile. “I was wrong to pry into your business, dear. I was thinking of the Bea Dot I used to know, the one who rushed into a wedding with Ben, and—”

“I had my reasons,” Bea Dot interjected.

“I’m sure you did. Forgive me?”

Bea Dot sighed. “All right.”

Relieved, Netta pulled her hand away from Bea Dot’s and picked up her wrung-out blue dress. Her back had stiffened from sitting in the hard chair, and she walked to the pump to relieve the tension. As she rinsed the dress, she said, “Of course your fear is understandable, but it’s also probably good that you’re no longer in the same house with Will. I mean, you don’t want to end up with another baby before you figure out—”

“Oh, honestly, Netta!”

Netta held up one hand in resignation. “All right, all right. I’ll shut my mouth, but do know how hard it is to bite my tongue. It’s just that I love you.”

“Well,” Bea Dot said, standing and tightening her apron, “you’re about to love me to the brink of insanity.”

Netta grinned at Bea Dot’s remark, and seeing Bea Dot try to stifle a smile, Netta poked at her cousin until her lips curled up and she snickered. A ton of guilt fell away from Netta’s shoulders as Bea Dot’s anger subsided.

The back door opened, bringing with it a rush of cool air that cleared the room. Terrence entered carrying an armload of kindling, which he placed in the wood box. Shavings and bits of bark clung to the sleeves of his plaid flannel shirt.

“I split a bunch of logs out there for you, Miss Netta,” he said. “They oughta get you through the next few days. I also brung over a chunk of fat lighter I found in the woods. I split that up to small pieces for you too.” He stepped outside the back door and returned with a small bucket of dark-brown sticks. Netta loved their piney scent, which quickly spread through the kitchen.

“Thank you, Terrence. You’ve been a great help today.”

He blushed and smiled. “Need anything else?”

“No, but does your mother need anything from the store? You’re welcome to take anything you like.”

Terrence shook his head and thanked her. “I’ll just be going now. I’ll tell my mama there ain’t no news yet. Me or my pa will stop by tomorrow to check on you.”

As he reached for the doorknob, Bea Dot stopped him. “Before you go, I was wondering, has your family heard any news from town, maybe any information about the telephone operator?”

Terrence furrowed his brow and stuck his hand in his back pants pocket, replying, “Pa heard she caught the influenza.”

Bea Dot pressed her hand to her chest, and Netta leaned on the countertop. Her back muscles tightened at that news, and her stomach compressed into a tight ball.

“Do you know when anyone will take her place?” Bea Dot asked carefully. “We’ll need to call in when Miss Netta’s baby comes.”

“I wish I could tell you, Miss Bea Dot,” Terrence said, raising his eyebrows and shaking his head sadly. “Ain’t nobody else in town can work that switchboard. Miss Charlotte’s whole family is sick.”

Bea Dot straightened her back and lifted her chin. Netta could tell she was putting up a brave front.

“I’m sorry to hear that,” Bea Dot said. “Thank you, Terrence.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he replied before he stepped out the door.

The two women waved weakly as he shut the door behind him. Then they faced each other. Netta wondered if the nervousness in her eyes mirrored what she saw in Bea Dot’s. But neither woman spoke, and Netta supposed Bea Dot was just as reluctant as she was to articulate her fear.

Netta rubbed her back again and frowned. Why were her muscles so tight today? Then she jumped at a tickle on the inside of her leg and warmth in her undergarments. Her face widened in shock and embarrassment. “Oh, my soul and body! I think I’ve wet myself!”

Immediately, heat flamed her face as she realized she’d admitted aloud her humiliating mistake. She put her hands to her hot cheeks and said, “I don’t know what’s come over me. I feel like I’ve lost complete control of my body. I didn’t even realize I had to . . . go.”

Bea Dot came to her side and put her hand on her arm. “It’s all right. I’m sure this happens to all expectant women this late in their terms. Besides,” she said lightly, pointing to the wash bucket, “you picked the right time. Go change, and I’ll clean your clothes.”

Netta still burned with shame. “I think I should go to the outhouse first.”

She stepped outdoors and let the October breeze cool her flushed cheeks. She walked as fast as her heavy legs could take her to the privy. How could she have let such a thing happen, as if she were a three-year-old child? At least Terrence had already gone home. Oh, what a horror if she’d made her mistake with him in the room! She blushed all over again at the thought. She had just reached the outhouse door and had her finger on the hook when the muscles around her torso squeezed her like a corset. Then a warm wetness gushed between her legs and down to her stockings. Was she losing the baby?
Oh, no, please God, no, no, no, no, no
. Her heart sped like a locomotive as she lifted her skirt to look for blood, and the odor of pickle juice wafted up. Her legs weren’t bloody, just soaked. Excitement and terror seized her at once, and she turned to hurry back into the house. “Bea Dot!” she called as she lumbered toward the back door. “Bea Dot!”

Her cousin came to the steps, frowning. “What’s wrong?”

Netta reached the house and gripped her cousin’s elbow. “My water just broke.”