Dunaway's Crossing (8 page)

“Are you ready? I can help you down now.”

“Oh,” she said, tearing her eyes away from the camp house. “Yes, of course.”

Holding the wagon’s side for balance, she carefully picked her way around the cargo in the wagon, but at the sound of a rip, she gasped and reached for her skirt. She’d caught one of the gathers in a nail poking out of a crate and ripped a three-inch hole in the front.

“Oh, jiminy,” she said frowning, wishing she could say something worse.

Will pulled his lips into his mouth, obviously stifling a laugh. “Pardon me for saying so,” he said, “But that rip would be a real tragedy if it were in a more practical skirt. Now that you’ve torn it, I wish you’d let me cut that…” he gestured toward her ankles “…that business at the bottom of it. You’d be able to walk again.”

Her stomach tightened at the thought of cutting up her skirt. But when she studied the raveled edges and realized no seamstress could work her magic to repair it, her shoulders sagged. “Oh, all right.”

She shuffled to the end of the wagon as he bent over. When he straightened, he held up a hunting knife. Alarm cut through her as she hopped back.

“It’s all right,” he soothed her. “I’ll only cut the skirt.”

“You keep a knife in your boot?” Her shoulders relaxed again.

He shrugged. “You never know when it might come in handy.”

“Isn’t it uncomfortable?”

“I’d wager it’s a sight more comfortable than that skirt.” Palm up, he drew his fingers toward him as he spoke. “Now, if you’ll allow me.”

She stepped to the edge of the wagon, then pulled up the corner of her mouth and turned her gaze to the sky, unable to watch the destruction at her feet. Her skirt tugged downward, and a ripping noise made her cringe. “Oooh! I bought this skirt in Atlanta.”

When the cutting ended, she studied Will’s handiwork. The slit extended from just below her knees to the hem. Stray threads dangled here and there, and the brown weave had already begun to loosen. But the vent allowed air to cool her legs, what a relief. Will tucked his knife back in his boot. When he straightened again, he said, “Whatever you paid in Atlanta was too much.”

“I’ll have you know this skirt is the height of fashion.” Bea Dot put her hands on her hips, petulance germinating within her.

“Mm hmm. But now it makes more sense. Put your hands on my shoulders, and I’ll let you down.”

Bea Dot complied, and Will placed her on the ground the same way he had before. Absently, he kept his hands on her waist as he asked, “Still sore?”

“Not as much. Thank you.” Still looking up at him, Bea Dot removed her hands from his shoulders and took a step back, still nervous around him, but this time in a strange, thrilling way, as if she were committing a crime and enjoying it.

He smiled and nodded, then offered his arm. “Then let’s go inside and see your cousin.”

“Lola, be sure to remind Ralph to send out that rocking chair.”

“Yes, ma’am.” Lola put the Model T in gear, but Netta held on to the driver’s side door.

“And don’t forget to ask Jim Henry to paint the nursery.”

“I told you, Miss Netta, he planning to do that this Friday.”

Netta sighed and wiped her damp forehead with the back of her hand. What else should she tell Lola before sending her off for good?

“Miss Netta,” Lola patted her hand with a sympathetic look, “you gone be just fine. Mr. Will and your cousin gone be here shortly. But I got to go. Doc Coolidge need his motorcar back to go see sick folk.”

Netta nodded in resignation and let go of the door. She stepped away from the automobile as Lola revved the engine and chugged the car toward the cart path and to the woods. Netta waved after her as she pulled away, but the housekeeper kept her face forward, having only just learned to drive that afternoon.

Netta walked into the cabin and smoothed the tattered blanket on one of the rickety cots. How was she supposed to sleep on that thing? She hated to question Ralph’s judgment, but with her precarious condition, wasn’t it more logical for Ralph to stay at the camp house and for her and Bea Dot to stay at home? But who was she to contradict the town doctor?

Netta’s emotions played hopscotch all day, and currently, they’d landed in the frustration box. Earlier they’d landed in the fear box as Ralph rushed her and Lola into a packing frenzy and shooed them off to the camp house. When Netta arrived and surveyed the little shack, she hopped into the panic square at the thought of receiving Bea Dot and welcoming her guest in this one-room shanty. But the panic lasted only about an hour because Lola, with her insistence that she return to town, pushed Netta into the resentment square.

Left alone to make the cabin the least bit presentable, all the while unable to lift anything remotely heavy, Netta worked herself into such a dither that she couldn’t think straight. Her heart pounded, and her underarms grew sticky with sweat. The best thing for her, under the circumstances, was to rest in her rocking chair, which she couldn’t do because Ralph made her leave it, in front yard of all places. The neighbors would surely think she’d gone batty.

Without the rocker, Netta decided to take a walk around the cabin to calm her nerves, and that helped a bit, but the stench of the outhouse and the harsh summer sunshine drove her back indoors. Finally, she sat on a straight-backed wooden chair, the one that wobbled the least, and took a few deep breaths.

She rubbed her rounded belly, a habit she’d developed over the past few months, a kind of tacit signal to her baby that all would be well. When she’d reached the three-month milestone, she wept for joy, with relief that she’d finally have that beautiful child of her dreams. Now, at seven and a half months, she found herself stuck in the middle of nowhere without even her husband, the only person she would trust to deliver her baby.

Netta held her feet up in front of her. The ride to the country and walk outside had exacerbated her swollen feet so that now the tops of them puffed like half-baked loaves out of her slippers, the only shoes she could still wear. Ralph always told her to put her feet up, but if she lay down on that cot, she might not be able to get up by herself. Instead, she pushed the other wooden chair around the table so that the two chairs faced each other. Then she rummaged through a box of housewares until she found her book, Baroness Orczy’s
The Elusive Pimpernel
, a birthday gift from Ralph. Sitting in one chair with her feet in the other, she resolved to ignore the hard seat and focus on whether Chauvelin would succeed in tricking Sir Percy Blakely in returning to France. She never fancied this kind of romantic fiction. She much preferred an Edith Wharton novel, but the closest library was twenty miles away in Hawkinsville, and its collection was sparse. Buying new books required a trip to Macon, which was impossible for her these days.

The swelling in her feet subsided a bit, but she doubted they’d ever look the same again. Apparently, the fluid in them had traveled to her bladder because she was about to pop. Of course, lately that need arose hourly. As she tensed her muscles and crossed her legs, her eyes widened in alarm. She could never use that putrid outhouse once, much less a dozen times a day. What would she do?

She tried to read more of the novel, but the building pressure inside her ruined her concentration. Still, she ignored the urgency in her bladder until her belly ached. Shutting her book, she whispered a curse on her husband, then pushed herself out of the chair, shuffled to the door, and waddled down the cement block steps. The sun had lowered itself in the sky, but the temperature had dropped little. That outhouse would be both stinky and stifling. She’d just have to hold her breath while she was in there.

As she neared the rickety wooden structure, its emanating odor withered her resolve. She stopped, considered the alternative for a moment, and then turned toward the lake, just down a slight embankment. At the sound of water lapping the edge, Netta thought she would wet herself, but she held on long enough to remove her underclothes and find a bush thick enough to squat behind.
Just my luck that Bea Dot would arrive at this moment
, she thought as she hiked up her skirt and held the fabric in her fist. With her other hand, she grasped the trunk of the bush for balance and squatted. She’d never felt such simultaneous relief and shame. Here she was, a graduate of Saint Vincent’s Academy, former secretary of the church women’s guild, and wife of Pineview’s only physician, urinating out in the open into a country lake. Her mother would just die.

When she finished, she put her underclothes back on, and just before turning to go back to the camp house, she spied a large black turtle sitting on a nearby log, staring at her. She stuck her tongue out at it before trudging up the embankment, and then a frightening thought occurred to her. What if that turtle had been a snake? Weren’t there water moccasins out here? What about alligators? She shivered at the thought and made her heavy legs push her up the embankment and into the house. No more outdoor business for her. She would just have to fashion herself a chamber pot and then ask Will Dunaway to phone Ralph. There had to be a better option than this shabby fishing camp.

She went back to the stiff wooden chairs, propped up her feet, and returned to
The Elusive Pimpernel
, taking short breaks to stretch her aching back and to light an oil lantern once the sun began to set.

“Where is my cousin Bea Dot?” she asked the bare walls. Then as if on cue, voices drifted through the open window, and she peered out to see Will Dunaway’s wagon by the lake. Bea Dot stood on the back of the wagon while Will was doing something to the hem of her skirt. What on earth could they be doing? Then he took her by the waist and put her on the ground. He spoke to her briefly before she took his arm and walked with him to the house. They looked like a courting couple, except her hair was a mess, and what in the world happened to her skirt? She went to the open door, stopping at the top step.

“Hello! Bea Dot, dear, it’s so good to see you!” Up close her cousin looked even more disheveled. Her hair was a rat nest underneath her hat, and her dirty face was streaked from drips of perspiration. “Will, thank you for bringing my cousin to me.” She held her arms out to Bea Dot as the young woman slowly ascended the steps. Why did she walk so stiffly, as if she’d just gotten a lashing?

“Hello, Netta,” she said with a tired smile. “It’s good to finally be here.” Bea Dot held her arms out, and Netta embraced her. Good heavens! She smelled like Will Dunaway’s horse.

“Do come in. You must be exhausted.”

Netta led Bea Dot into the camp house, and Netta’s nervousness escalated as she saw Bea Dot’s face fall at the sight of the two rickety cots, the wobbly table and chairs, and the wood stove in the corner.

“I know it’s not much,” Netta said as cheerily as she could. “But it’ll just be for a few days, until Ralph can get that flu bug contained in town. Then we’ll go back to my house. Oh, you’ll love it, Bea Dot. It has such a beautiful porch.”

“Yes, I saw it,” Bea Dot said dully, not taking her eyes off the two cots. Then she turned to Netta and smiled politely. “I’m sure it’s lovely on the inside as well.”

“Excuse me, ladies.” Will entered the cabin carrying Netta’s rocker. Netta’s heart leapt at the sight of it. At last a comfortable place to sit. He set it in the middle of the room. Though a small piece of furniture, it consumed the entire space. Will stood with hands on hips and surveyed the cabin, one eyebrow raised.

“Do you have everything you need here, Netta?” he asked.

Actually, what she needed was her own house. “Well,” she replied uncertainly, “I think we have enough to get us by for the next few days.”

“Hmm.” He stepped over to the table and two chairs and peered into the two crates on the floor. “Is this all the food you brought?”

“Yes.”

“How will you get more if you need it?”

“I was hoping you would help me with that.” Netta smiled sheepishly.

Will frowned slightly and stepped to the door, looking out. After a pause, he returned. “Ralph didn’t leave the Model T with you?”

“No, he said he needed it in town to call on patients.” She knew he should have left that machine. Even Will thought so.

Will rubbed the back of his neck and looked out the door at the setting sun. Outside the world was turning gray. He exited the cabin and disappeared around its corner.

“Where is he going?” Bea Dot asked.

Netta shrugged. Then she asked, “How was your trip? Was the train on time?”

Bea Dot opened her mouth to answer, but Will re-entered the house before she could speak.

“You hardly have any firewood out there. Did you know that?”

She hadn’t given firewood any thought. She always had plenty at home. Ralph saw to that.

“And someone should dig you a fresh latrine. Smells like something fell in that one and died.”

Netta curled her lip, and Bea Dot covered her mouth with her hand at the grotesque image.

“Netta, I know Ralph wants you to be safe, but staying at this camp house can’t be the solution. Seems like he didn’t think this plan through.”

Halleluja! Will was going to take them back to town!

Outside, crickets chirped, and the room had grown dark except for the oil lamp, which at least improved the looks of Bea Dot’s dirty face. Will scratched his head and thought a moment before continuing. “Well, I can’t leave you two out here. I suppose you’ll have to come with me.”