Dunaway's Crossing (23 page)

C
hapter 25

S
omewhere in the distance a baby cried. Bea Dot opened her eyes and found herself lying on a single bed under a homemade quilt. She inhaled deeply and stretched as she scanned the room. Next to the door stood another single bed with Will Dunaway’s old wool coat, the one she’d been wearing, on top. On the floor next to the bed sat her shoes.

Again a baby cried, and instantly she remembered where she was. The Taylors’ house. Thaddeus had brought her here after Netta’s burial yesterday. Bea Dot’s throat tightened and her chest ached at the memory of that horrible day in Pineview. When they’d returned to the country at dusk, she’d been so drained that Thaddeus carried her into the house. She didn’t remember being put to bed. When she pulled the quilt off, she saw she was still wearing the riding pants she’d worn to town.

She rose, stretched again, and peered out the window, October’s frost emanating from the glass and onto her cheeks and nose. The sun, low in the bright blue sky, cast long shadows from the pine trees across the grass behind the house. She couldn’t tell if it was early morning or late afternoon. How long had she been asleep?

Padding on bare feet downstairs, Bea Dot found Eliza at the fireplace with two infants. Baby Netta lay in Eliza’s arms, suckling at her breast. Troy, a couple months older, lay on a quilt on his back, kicking his little leg over his torso in attempt to roll over. Eliza smiled with delight as she watched her son’s exertions. Bea Dot smiled sadly too, realizing all the milestones Netta would never see her baby reach.

“Good morning,” Eliza said with a smile. “You was mighty tired. You been asleep almost twenty-four hours. You hungry?”

Bea Dot’s stomach grumbled at Eliza’s question, and she nodded. “Yes, a little.”

The infant at Eliza’s breast had drifted off to sleep, so Eliza laid her in a bureau drawer lined with baby blankets. She picked up Troy and carried him into the kitchen, where she put together a plate of biscuits, ham, and honey with one hand while using the other to hold Troy on one hip. While Bea Dot ate, Eliza played patty-cake with Troy, then put three pots of water on the stove, all the while chattering about mundane topics, such as this year’s cotton crop, the recent drop in temperature, and her new bathroom that Thaddeus had built onto the house last spring. Bea Dot listened as she ate, grateful that Eliza monopolized the conversation, as if she knew not to remind Bea Dot of the turmoil of the past two days. While Bea Dot cleaned her plate in the dishpan, Eliza stepped out of the room momentarily and returned without her baby.

“Now, you need a bath,” she announced, and she picked up two pots of hot water and instructed Bea Dot to pick up the third.

Bea Dot followed Eliza into her bathroom, a tiny space that included a pump, which spilled out into a white enamel tub. She supposed the bench on the opposite wall was for sitting and undressing.

“It ain’t a real bathroom, least not yet,” Eliza explained, pouring the boiling water into the tub. “I ain’t got a toilet in here, and until we get electric service out this way, we have to heat our hot water on the stove.” She took Bea Dot’s pot and dumped that water in too. “But it’s a treat to have a private room to take my bath, especially with all these men in the house.” She then pumped cold water into the tub and after testing the temperature, said, “Now get them clothes off so I can wash them. I’ll bring you some soap and something to wear.”

Bea Dot shed the riding pants and shirt she’d worn for the past three days and lowered herself into the warm water, her back to the door. While this tub was a far cry from her luxurious private bath at home, she relished the ability to stretch out her legs instead of hunching over in a washtub in the kitchen at the crossing.

The door opened again, and Eliza entered. “Here’s a dress,” she said, placing the clean clothes on the bench. “Good Lord a mercy, look at your back.”

Bea Dot reached behind her shoulder, feeling the scabbed scratches. The attack seemed like ages ago, not just a few days. Her jaw tightened with reluctance to relive the bobcat episode for Eliza.

“Will come by here a few days ago, on his way into town. Left a bobcat carcass with Thaddeus. Said we might want the pelt.” Eliza reached out and gingerly touched the healing flesh. “I didn’t realize that cat done gone after you.”

Bea Dot remembered Will stuffing the dead cat into the burlap bag, but she had forgotten about it after that. She drew her knees to her chest and hugged them, recalling the evening that had distracted her from her wounds—the one good memory she could retreat to.

“We got it in the barn right now,” Eliza continued. “Thaddeus gone treat it so we can make a hat, maybe line the collar of my coat. Wouldn’t that be fancy?” She didn’t even wait for an answer. “Well, I’ll give you some privacy,” she said, handing Bea Dot a cake of soap. She picked up Bea Dot’s dirty clothes. “I’ll start washing these.” For a moment, Bea Dot enjoyed a recollection of the days when California drew her bath and picked up her laundry. She missed Cal. Then Eliza interrupted her reverie. “Holler if you need anything,” she said before pulling the door closed.

Bea Dot leaned her back against the tub’s hard surface and felt the steam drift over her face before scrubbing herself with Eliza’s homemade soap. She let her toes turn to prunes before drying off and putting on Eliza’s housedress, which was a little big, the hem reaching almost to her feet.

Back in the parlor, she found Eliza standing over the bureau where she’d laid baby Netta earlier. After pinning a fresh diaper on the child and dropping the soiled one in a bucket of borax, she held the infant out to Bea Dot. “Come see your new little cousin.”

Bea Dot took little Netta in her arms and padded gently to the rocking chair in front of the fireplace. The infant yawned and stretched, then opened her little blue eyes and gazed upward at Bea Dot. Though she knew the baby’s vision was blurry, Bea Dot still felt as though the child were considering her with skepticism, as if wondering,
Will you be able to take good care of me?
Bea Dot wondered the same thing. Eventually, little Netta turned her gaze toward the fire, and she lay there staring at the flickering light. Bea Dot examined the baby’s small hands, then reached under the blanket to inspect her tiny toes. Finally, she lowered her head to the infant’s and inhaled deeply before kissing it.

The front door opened with a gust of fall air, and in walked Terrence. Over his shoulder he carried her trunk. Looking at the floor, he muttered, “Me and Pop was cleaning up over at the crossing.”

Bea Dot’s heart ached as she imagined having to clean the aftermath of Netta’s gruesome demise.

“We seen this trunk with your name on it, so we brung it home for you.” Soot smudged his face, and he smelled of smoke. He’d probably burned almost every piece of fabric in Will’s small bedroom. “You want me to go put it in your room?”

“Thank you, Terrence,” she replied with a frog in her throat. As he hefted the trunk up the stairs with ease, he reminded her of Will and the way he lifted that same trunk the day she first met him. A few minutes later, she carried baby Netta up to her room and laid the infant on the bed, a pillow on each side of her. Then Bea Dot kneeled in front of the trunk and opened it, expecting it to be empty, but instead finding
a pair of stockings, a chemise, and the wool hobble skirt she’d worn on the train from Savannah. She lifted it out of the trunk and laid it on her lap, fingering the raveled fibers from the rip Will made down its front. Soreness spread in her gut, as if someone had kicked her for putting off Will’s proposal. She’d let her uncertainty drive him away, and now she didn’t know whether she’d see him again. If she did, she promised herself she’d tell him she loved him. Whatever it took, she’d find a way to leave Ben and be with Will.

A mewl from the bed trumpeted to a loud squall, and Bea Dot picked up little Netta, who now emitted a sour odor. Bea Dot carried the angry ba
by downstairs and found Eliza, who taught her how to change a soiled diaper.

From that point, Bea Dot and Eliza teamed up to manage the household and tend Troy and little Netta. Working at the crossing had been a challenge, but adding children on top of the responsibility gave Bea Dot new respect for motherhood. She’d never realized how time-consuming were the tasks of bathing babies, changing diapers, washing and drying dirty linens, and lulling infants to sleep. On top of that, several times a day, Eliza had to interrupt her chores to nurse both children. Bea Dot regretted her inability to help in that respect, but she tried other ways to pick up the slack. Often, Eliza sat with a baby at her breast, giving instructions while Bea Dot baked corn bread, washed turnip greens, cleaned out the fireplace, or mopped the kitchen floor. Though it drained her, Bea Dot welcomed the work, for any time that familiar ache in her chest emerged when she thought about her deceased cousin, a baby would cry, as if to say, “Don’t think about her. Think about me instead.” At night she craved her bed, but she dared not mention fatigue, for she knew it was Eliza who wakened in the darkness to feed two babies.

Bea Dot quickly noticed with surprise how much she loved her cousin’s child. She’d never loved anyone, not even Will, the way she loved this baby
.
If my own baby had lived, she asked herself repeatedly, would I have loved it this much? Each time, she shook the question out of her head. Considering how that baby was conceived, it was best for all that she never learn the answer. Still, she finally understood Netta’s protectiveness of her unborn child, and Bea Dot’s own love for this little girl helped alleviate some grief.

On her third day at the Taylor home, Bea Dot hung laundry on the line while Nettie—as she’d started calling her little cousin—slept. In the distance, Thaddeus and Terrence slowly made their way along the rows of the back field. Thaddeus was eager to bring the cotton in now that October had ended. Even though the sky was a brilliant blue, and the laundry billowed in the cool breeze, Thaddeus had warned, “November always comes with rain.”

At the rumble of an engine and the crushing sound of tires, Bea Dot turned to peer down the drive to the house. A shiny black Model T emerged from the pine trees. She shaded her eyes with her hand, trying to make out the driver, but the sun reflected off the windshield and blinded her. The car pulled all the way to the clothesline before stopping, and out of it came a squat man with hair parted in the middle and slicked back on either side. His trim mustache covered his upper lip, and his short body resembled a cylinder in a black suit. Was this the Pritchett fellow from town? Her heart sped at the anticipation of bad news.

As he approached her, she asked, “May I help you?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, his voice whiny and nasal. “I’ve been looking for Mrs. Benjamin Ferguson.”

“I’m Mrs. Ferguson,” she replied. His use of Ben’s name poked a wasp nest in her gut.

“Mrs. Ferguson, my name is Kermit Bonner, and I’m a private investigator from Macon. I work for your husband.”

“For my husband?” What would Ben need with an investigator?

“Yes, ma’am,” he said, scratching his lip at the corner of his mustache. “Your husband has been mighty worried about you. He says you came to Pineview at the end of September with intent to stay two weeks. He hasn’t heard from you since.”

Bea Dot reddened and exhaled with embarrassment. “I’m sorry to have troubled you so, Mr. Bonner. Obviously, the influenza epidemic has upset the entire state. My cousin, Netta Coolidge, and I had to retreat to the country to avoid contagion while she awaited
the arrival of her baby. I couldn’t leave as expected.”

Bonner nodded as he pulled a tablet from his inside coat pocket. He flipped a few pages before pausing to scan his notes. “Mrs. Coolidge has already delivered her baby, hasn’t she? And she has since died?”

Bea Dot stiffened at the tone of his voice. The wasps hummed inside her. She wanted to swat him. “Yes, that’s correct.”

“My condolences for your loss,” he mumbled before continuing his questions. “So isn’t it safe to say that your responsibilities have ended?”

“No, it is not safe to say that,” Bea Dot answered, trying to suppress irritation in her voice. “My cousin’s husband, Dr. Ralph Coolidge, is in town treating the sick. He asked me to take care of the baby until the flu subsides and he can take custody of the child.” How dare he speak as if her care for Nettie was an assignment or a job?

“According to your husband, you have not communicated any of these complications to him.”

“I tried, but as you probably already know, the telephone operator has come down with flu. I could not reach the telegraph office from the crossing. It’s all a big misunderstanding, really. Please tell my husband that I am well and he should not worry. I’ll write a letter to that effect if you would like to deliver it to him. Mail service has been affected by this epidemic as well.”

“Yes,” he said, scratching at his mustache again. “The mail carrier in this area is a Will Dunaway, isn’t that correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And at the time of your cousin’s death, were you then residing at the home of Will Dunaway?”