Dunaway's Crossing (19 page)

But then the rebuttal began, and this side of him invoked the same evidence to turn the argument on its head. If she never wrote home or talked about him, she must not miss him. She’d mentioned no plans to return to Savannah. Maybe if she knew how Will felt, she’d take those necessary steps to sever her marriage.

Will shook his head as he reached for the box of nails. He always stopped the debate at that point. Why would Bea Dot go through the scandal of a divorce for someone like him? She was money, tea parties, fine clothes. Her refined background was no match for a country tradesman plagued with war wounds and nightmares. He stuck four nails between his lips, then lay a plank on the upturned side of the pine box. Holding a nail point down on the coffin’s edge, he lightly tapped it into the wood before pounding it fully to the flat surface—this time moving his hand out of the way.

Still, there was that kiss. She’d been as much a part of it as he. Had she really fallen for him too? Or was she simply swept up in the moment?

He drove the other three nails into the coffin, then turned it on its bottom. But when he did so, no open side faced up. After turning the box two more times, he cursed himself again. He’d nailed the coffin shut.

Thoughts of Bea Dot infiltrated his brain like enemy spies sneaking into home territory. Every time his mind conjured her image, he’d make a mistake with his work, and usually he hurt himself.

He reached for the crowbar.

“Got any nails, Dunaway?”

Will passed a handful over to his associate, who worked at a faster pace.

“Thanks,” he said from behind a sawdust covered mask before returning to his side of the dimly lit shed behind Pritchett’s funeral parlor.

Day in and day out, the two men had been measuring, sawing, and hammering. Having spent the entire week with the fellow, Will supposed he could have tried to get to know him, but he was more concerned with finishing his work and getting back to his store. And Bea Dot.

He wrenched one side off the coffin, nails poking from its edges like Scylla’s teeth. The job’s end seemed nowhere in sight. Each time Harley picked up another load of coffins, he asked for more, as if he’d hired Will to build peach crates.

“Got any I can take away, fellas?” Harley stood in the doorway, the afternoon sun silhouetting his stocky figure.

Will pounded his fist lightly on the top of the box in from of him. “Just finishing up this one.” He pointed with his throbbing thumb behind him. “Got another in the corner.”

“How about you, Randall?”

Randall. That was his name.

“Give me ten minutes and you can have this one,” he said. Then he cocked his head to the right. “Plus those two over yonder.”

Harley nodded and made his way toward Will’s work space, squinting over the dingy mask covering his nose and mouth. He pulled two leather gloves out of his coat pocket and slipped them over his hands. Will helped him lift the coffin off the saw horses. Together they carried it to Pritchett’s wagon and slid it onto the bed.

“Before it gets dark,” Harley said, his mask puffing in and out with his words, “could you bring any finished boxes to the funeral parlor?”

Will’s chest tightened as he pressed his lips in objection. Harley knew Will couldn’t return to the crossing if he exposed himself to influenza.

“Now, Harley—”

“I know.” Harley held up his hand to silence Will. “We had an agreement. But can you help me out this once? I’ve got to bury some folks this afternoon, and I won’t be back before sundown. With these recent thefts—”

“What thefts?” Will frowned and cocked his head.

“You didn’t hear?” Last night somebody stole the coffins from Pritchett’s back porch. Now he has to lock them up inside before he closes for the day.”

“That beats all I’ve ever heard.” Will shook his head in disbelief. “Our men give their lives protecting us from heathen Turks and Germans. What’s the point if we’re going to be so uncivilized at home as to steal coffins?”

“Yeah, I know. It’s terrible,” Harley said quickly, and, Will thought, a little impatiently. “So can you bring the coffins to the funeral parlor for me?”

Will sighed and stomped to shake the sawdust off the tops of his boots. He’d developed a light sweat working in the shed. Now the cold breeze dried the perspiration on his neck and forehead, making him shiver. Sure, Pritchett needed his help. But Bea Dot needed him too. He couldn’t leave the women alone at the crossing any longer.

“Tell you what,” he said, meeting Harley’s red-rimmed eyes. “I’ll work through the night. Then in the morning, you can come get what I’ve made before I leave town.”

Harley’s eyes widened. “What do you mean? Are you quitting?”

Will shook his head. “Just taking a break. I have to see about my business. I’ve been gone almost a full week.”

Harley turned his face to the sky and exhaled. “How long will you be gone?”

Will shrugged. He’d just come up with the idea. He hadn’t figured out the whole plan.

“What are we supposed to do, Will? People are still dying.” Harley’s voice took on an annoying edge, as if he were stifling anger.

“You’ll have to rely on Randall in there until I can get back.” Why did he say that? He’d rather not come back.

Harley huffed and kicked at the dirt. Will felt a little sorry for him, but not enough to put off going home any longer.

“Look,” Will said, softening his voice to alleviate Harley’s frustration. “I’ll try to phone the crossing tomorrow. Maybe Bea Dot can give me a supply list so I can stock up now. That’ll save me some time, and I can get back here sooner.”

Harley didn’t reply, just sighed and gazed into the distance. He must have been mighty put out, and that irked Will. So far, nobody had offered to pay for his work or even bothered to thank him for donating a week of his time. At least in the army he’d earned a pay check. Will gave Harley a moment to respond, but when he didn’t, Will continued. “I’ll do my best to build you a load of coffins tonight.”

Will left Harley standing outside the shed, puffs of breath clouding around the gauze mask like a muzzled dragon.

#

“Wake up, Dunaway.”

Something shoved Will onto his right side, and straws of hay pricked his cheeks and neck. He shook the cobwebs out of his heavy head and opened his weighted eyelids to find Randall standing over him, hands on hips, flecks of sawdust clinging to his wool coat and oily neck. Randall prodded Will a second time with his heavy brown boot.

“I thought you wanted to sleep only an hour.”

Will rubbed his face with cold, rough hands. “What time is it?”

“Almost eleven. I’ve brought back the new load of lumber. Are you staying after all?”

Will shook his head as he slowly came to his feet, his hips and back chastising him for sleeping seated on a brick floor while his head rested at an angle on a bale of hay. His pallet at the crossing was a feather bed next to this prickly pillow. Will leaned on a saw horse and rubbed his sore back.

“I need to see about my store,” he said. “Once I know everything’s all right, I’ll come back to help if you still need me.”

“We’ll need you.”

Will’s chest ached at the truth, and he nodded. Randall walked over to the water bucket and drew out the ladle. He brought it over to Will, who drank greedily, in spite of the cold. The chill ran down his throat and into his empty stomach.

“Thanks.” He handed the ladle back to Randall.

“I told Harley how you worked all night until you were out of lumber.”

Will nodded.

Randall continued, “I took those last few coffins over to him just now. They ought to get him through today. Harley says if you could be back by tomorrow, he’d be much obliged.”

Will felt certain Harley had never used the words much obliged.  He searched the hay bale for his hat. “Maybe he should find a couple more men to help out.”

“He’s trying,” Randall replied. “So far, you and I are the only men strong enough for the work who don’t have the flu.”

From between the hay bale and the wall, Will plucked his hat, now halfway flattened. He brushed the dust off it and put it on. “Tell Harley I’ll be back when I can.”

As he turned to go, Randall called out to him, “You’re covered with hay. You might want to shake out your coat. And your hair.”

Out in the daylight, Will squinted hard in the midmorning sun. A strong cold breeze pushed against him as he made his way toward the livery to get Buster and his wagon. The wind slapped him awake as it burned his cheeks. He pulled his hat far onto his head so it wouldn’t blow away.

Inside, the livery, dark as Pritchett’s shed, smelled of urine and manure. Why hadn’t the stalls been cleaned yet? And where was the stable hand? One of only three horses in the barn, Buster was easy to find. He lifted his nuzzle in greeting. Will was relieved to find a feed bucket in his horse’s stall.

By the time he’d harnessed Buster and hooked him up to the wagon, the stable hand still hadn’t returned, so Will stepped into the small office at the end of the building to leave payment for his board. In the corner of the small room, on a rickety cot, the livery owner lay motionless, staring open-mouthed at the ceiling. His skin, dark gray, horrified Will, who instinctively tucked his nose into his elbow as he stumbled backward out of the room. This body was more gruesome than those of the dead at Belleau Wood. Will looked up at the sound of running feet. The masked stable hand had returned. Harley, also wearing gauze over his mouth, followed several yards behind the boy.

Will lowered his arm and gazed at Harley. “I just talked to him last night.”

Harley nodded somberly. His face shone with a fresh coat of oil. “Sometimes it takes them that fast.” He picked up a horse blanket from a nearby bench and handed it to the stable hand. “Cover him up,” he said. Then he turned to Will. “If you’re leaving, you’d do me a favor if you’d go now and get back fast.” Without waiting for a reply, he stepped to the door of the small office. But then he stopped and turned again. “Cover your face.”

Will nodded blankly, pulling the tattered bandana from his pocket and tying it around his head. As he walked back into the sunlight to his wagon, fatigue and cold numbed him. His brain told him he should be traumatized by finding a corpse in the livery, but his body refused to react, instead converting to that shielded mode it developed during the short time as an ambulance driver.  He’d learned quickly that if he didn’t insulate himself from the horror, it would drive him insane.

He climbed atop his wagon and drove to the mercantile, where he bought coffee, sugar, flour, and other goods he felt sure would be in short supply at the crossing. After loading his wagon, he was just about to steer it through town, when a man’s voice stopped him. “Dunaway!”

He turned to find the stationmaster running toward him waving an envelope. He stopped just short of the wagon, then grabbed his knees to catch his breath. Finally, he stood straight and held up the envelope. “You headed to the crossing?”

“I am.”

“Got a telegram here for Mrs. Ben Ferguson.”

Will winced at the mention of Bea Dot’s married name.

“That’s Miss Netta’s cousin, isn’t it? Could you take it to her?”

Without replying, Will held out his hand and took the small yellow envelope. He stuffed it into his coat pocket as he watched the stationmaster turn and jog back to the depot.

As Will steered Buster down the empty street, he counted the bows adorning the door of almost every home and business. Pritchett had started a color coding system. Two or three white ribbons signified the deaths of children while a handful of gray ribbons told the deaths of the elderly.  Most ribbons—the black ones—signified the deaths of adults his age or a bit older, those who should have had the greatest chance of survival. It was a wicked foe, this flu. No matter how horrific the events in France, at least over there Will could see his enemy. An invisible menace, influenza turned the human body into a battlefield, a trench warfare among veins and organs, wiping out victims before they knew they’d been attacked.

Cold wind burned Will’s eyes, while his breath behind the bandana moistened his nose, mouth, and chin. As he drove down Pineview’s main residential street, he saw a familiar figure in the distance. Turning Buster up the Coolidge’s drive, Will approached the house with the large front porch, where Ralph Coolidge sat slumped on the front steps, his coat collar turned up around his neck, his elbows on his knees. A gauze mask hung under his chin. In one hand, he held a half-eaten sandwich.

As the wagon neared the house, Ralph raised his head. Dark circles underscored his weary eyes, and his cheekbones, more prominent than they were three weeks ago, gave him an angular expression. He must have lost ten pounds. From his wagon seat Will noticed his friend lacked even the energy to finish his lunch. It was a miracle Pineview’s only doctor hadn’t fallen ill himself. Will just hoped he wouldn’t collapse of exhaustion. Will didn’t dismount, knowing Ralph would object.

“I heard you were in town,” Ralph muttered.

Will nodded. “For a few days helping out. I’m on my way to the crossing now.”

“Don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ralph replied, though Will knew the doctor hadn’t the energy to stop him.