Dunaway's Crossing (29 page)

He didn’t. Instead, he grabbed her at the collar and pushed her back to the wall, just next to the front door. There he pinned her, his face to hers. Bea Dot turned her face away as he panted putrid breath in her face, his fingers wrapping around her throat.

“I could snap your neck in a heartbeat.”

“Then do it,” she replied with a shaky voice. She closed her eyes, praying her hunch was right, that Ben wouldn’t kill her. If he did, he’d have no one left to punish. His pause lasted an eon, but then his fingers tightened, and pressure built in her face as the room went dark. But then she heard a bang, and Ben’s hands flew away. As she sucked in air, her vision cleared. Two men tumbled on the floor, then broke apart.

“What the hell?” Ben shook his head as he pushed himself to a seated position. Then he coughed violently.

Will Dunaway rose quickly and rushed to Bea Dot’s side. He was thinner than before, paler too, but he was alive, and she couldn’t have been happier to see anyone. He frowned at her in concern. “Are you all right?”

She nodded.

“Let’s go now,” he said, taking her hand and pulling her toward the door. “Your aunt Lavinia’s waiting.”

Recovered from his coughing spell, Ben lunged and grabbed the back of Will’s collar, pulling him close. Then he drew back and punched Will’s rib cage, sending him crumpling to the floor and gasping for breath.

“No!” Bea Dot cried as she fell to his side. She tried to help him up, but Ben gripped her waist to pull her away from him. Fighting back, she yelled, “Let go of me, you monster!” She managed to slip out of his hands for a moment, but Ben came back, this time with more force. As he pulled her up, she clutched at Will’s legs, resisting Ben’s strength, as her fingers searched the top of his boots. Just as they found what they were looking for, Ben yanked her from the floor and turned her to face him. Gripping the front of her dress with one hand, he drew back his other to slap her, but stopped short when Bea Dot pointed Will’s hunting knife at his neck.

“Let go of me this instant,” Bea Dot said, her voice low like a bobcat’s growl.

Ben hesitated, so Bea Dot pressed the knifepoint into his neck, just enough to draw a speck of blood. “I’ll kill you if you don’t.”

He stood with his back to the wide open front door. Bea Dot locked eyes on him, not daring to turn to check on Will, but she heard raspy breath and movement behind her. She hoped he could stand.

Ben’s expression transformed from anger to surprise to utter confusion, and even though he loosened his grip on her, he didn’t let go. She pressed the knife at his neck and narrowed her eyes, refusing to break her gaze.

Aunt Lavinia’s voice sliced through the tension.

“What in the world is happening here?” she asked as she stepped into the door. Her eyes widened when she saw the knife, but she checked her surprise instantly and turned to Bea Dot. “Darling, put that knife away before you hurt someone,” she said, touching Bea Dot’s forearm. “Where did you get this thing? Does it belong to Mr. Dunaway?” Gently she pulled Bea Dot’s arm away from Ben until it was extended to her side.

Hunched and bleeding from the mouth, Will stepped forward and took the knife from Bea Dot’s hand. Aunt Lavinia slid between Bea Dot and Ben, and though she kept her eyes on him, she spoke to her niece. “Gather your things, dear. I think you should come home with me.”

Bea Dot backed away slowly, then turned to Will for reassurance. When he nodded, she picked up her satchel, then stood at his side. He took it from her, before putting his arm over her shoulders. Aunt Lavinia maintained her gaze at Ben, but not with anger or threats. Instead her face was as congenial as if she were greeting a visitor to her house.

“We’ll be going now,” she said. Then she took Bea Dot’s arm and led her toward the front door. Will followed.

Just as they reached the front door, Ben called to her. “If you walk out that door, Mrs. Ferguson, you can be sure all of Savannah will learn your filthy secret.”

The exertion provoked another coughing spell.

Bea Dot froze for an instant, then relaxed and faced her husband for the last time. His shoulders shook as he coughed into his bandaged hand. Then she turned her back on him and descended the front steps, flanked by Will and her aunt. She felt lighter than she’d felt in two years.

“Gossip?” Aunt Lavinia asked. “That’s what he’s holding over you?” She shook her head in amusement. “That won’t get him far. That man’s got more dirt on him than a ditch digger’s shovel.”

C
hapter 30

B
ea Dot’s uncle David pulled two cigars from his coat pocket as he descended the club’s front steps. After offering one to Will, which Will declined, he stuffed the other in his mouth, stopping on the sidewalk to light it. His pink cheeks undulated as he puffed life into the tobacco.

“Thank you for joining me for lunch today, Will.” Mr. Barksdale puffed swe
et smoke from his mouth and nostrils as he spoke. He strode in the direction of his Jones Street home.

“The pleasure is all mine, sir,” Will replied, almost jogging to keep up with his host. The man had legs longer than a life sentence. “The meal was quite a treat, and I appreciate your loaning me this coat and tie.” In truth, Will couldn’t wait to loosen the silk noose around his neck.

“Not at all,” Mr. Barksdale said. “Least I could do for the man who saved my niece’s life.”

“Actually, sir, that was Mrs. Barksdale.” Will huffed and puffed as the two men walked. “She handled Ben like a snake charmer.”

“Ha, ha!” Mr. Barksdale’s laugh echoed off the Jones Street homes. “Maybe I should send my wife to Atlanta to meet with the General Assembly!” He laughed again and clapped Will between the shoulder blades, which sent Will into a bout of coughing. Bent over at the waist, Will hacked into the cracks of the brick-paved street.

“Good heavens, boy. Are you all right? I didn’t think I’d hit you that hard.”

Shaking his head no, Will coughed a few more times before straightening.

“I’m fine,” he said gruffly. “Since the influenza, my lungs have cleared, but every now and then they want to give me a little reminder.”

“Well, take it easy, son.” Mr. Barksdale resumed walking, but slowed his pace. “If anybody deserves a respite, it’s you, what with your military service and then this influenza ordeal.”

“I should have said so sooner, Mr. Barksdale.” Will’s face reddened as he walked and talked. “Ralph told me you were instrumental in securing my discharge. I thank you for that.”

“No need.” Mr. Barksdale waved his hand as if swatting mosquitoes. “With your injury, you would have come home eventually. I just lit a little fire under Senator Holder to speed up the process. Good thing too, if the papers are right. Camp Gordon took a beating during the epidemic. If you had caught the flu there, you might not have survived.” He puffed again on his cigar. “Besides, I hear you looked after my Netta and Bea Dot. It’s I who should thank you.”

They approached the Barksdale home, and Mr. Barksdale stopped at the front walk. He dropped his cigar to the sidewalk and ground it with his heel. Pointing to the house, he said, “If I know my wife, she is still holding Bea Dot captive with women’s talk.”

“They have much catching up to do,” Will said. He would love to be a fly on the wall when Bea Dot told her aunt about the bobcat attack.

“I have some business to attend to,” Mr. Barksdale continued. “You might be able to help me with it. How about you and I give the women more time to themselves?”

“Whatever you say, sir.”

“We’ll take my car.” Mr. Barksdale pointed to the carriage house behind his home. Inside sat a black automobile, its headlamps peering through the open double doors like round eyes. “Chevrolet Series H,” Mr. Barksdale boasted. “They call it the Royal Mail. It’s the only one in Savannah.” He sauntered toward the carriage house, and Will followed. “All my friends drive Model Ts, so I went with something different. What do you drive?”

“Well, sir . . .” Will struggled for an answer. Although friends constantly urged him to purchase an automobile, Mr. Barksdale was the first to assume he’d already done so. In fact, the only person who hadn’t pushed him to drive a car was Bea Dot. “I still use my horse and wagon. It suits me fine.”

“You have a mail route, in addition to your trading post, correct?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And you manage to fit in all that work with a horse and wagon?”

“So far, sir. Of course, Bea Dot has been a big help.”

Mr. Barksdale cocked his head and studied Will for a moment. Will didn’t know what felt more confining, his necktie or Mr. Barksdale’s gaze.

“Will, have you ever fallen off a horse?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Yet you still ride one, correct?”

“Yes, sir.” He got Mr. Barksdale’s implication, but the man didn’t understand the difference between his analogy and what had happened at Belleau Wood. He inhaled deeply to squelch his resentment.

“Don’t let that war define you, son.” Mr. Barksdale stepped closer to Will and put a hand on his shoulder. Its warmth seeped through the wool of Will’s suit jacket. “I can’t begin to understand the hell you endured over there, but you’ve got a rich life ahead of you. Don’t carry those burdens along the way.”

Easier said than done
, Will thought, but he responded with a polite “Yes, sir.” Resentment gave way to ambivalence. Will had always hated the way people told him what to do and how to feel. However, Mr. Barksdale’s advice was different. In one breath he’d acknowledged the horrors of war, yet in the next he’d made it sound so simple to overcome.

“Let’s take a ride, shall we? You turn the crank, and I’ll set the spark control lever.” After firing the engine, Will settled in the passenger seat, his stomach a bucket of crickets. He eyed the gearshift warily as Mr. Barksdale shifted the gears and moved the car forward. Perhaps the open air helped, but Will found the ride surprisingly more comfortable than he anticipated. Not until the motorcar reached the corner of Jones and Whitaker did Will wonder where he was going.

“What business am I helping you with today, sir?”

“Not a meeting you’ll relish,” Mr. Barksdale said. “I need you to go with me to talk to Ben Ferguson.”

Loathing washed over Will, and he turned the corner of his mouth in disgust.

“I’m not hot in the pants to talk to him myself,” Mr. Barksdale explained. “But for Bea Dot’s sake, I must. I’ll not have him causing her any more trouble—not for her or my family.”

“What do you intend to tell him?”

“I mean to convince him that he should give Bea Dot a quiet divorce.” Mr. Barksdale’s face had turned from a stern countenance to a scowl. Will understood the expression. The thought of Ben Ferguson easily provoked it. “If I must, I’ll tell him that if he resists I’ll charge him with attempted murder. I want you there as a witness.”

“I see.” The crickets in Will’s stomach jumped again as he doubted Ben would take Mr. Barksdale’s suggestion easily.

“This situation between him and Bea Dot might get uglier before it gets better,” Mr. Barksdale said, “but I’ve got to give it a try.”

Will nodded, and the two rode in silence the remaining few minutes as the Chevrolet bumped along the few blocks of Whitaker Street to the Ferguson home. Will eyed the pastel-colored porches adorned with gingerbread, and he wondered at Bea Dot’s ability to leave such refinement and feel at home in his country trading post.

The Chevrolet slowed, and Mr. Barksdale pulled it to the side of the street in front of Bea Dot’s house. Will gazed at the wide brick steps leading up to the front porch and heavy oak door. This house was an unfamiliar part of Bea Dot—one he didn’t care to know.

“Let’s go in,” Mr. Barksdale said, holding the passenger door open. Will hadn’t noticed him getting out of the car.

Slowly Will got out himself, and the two approached the front steps, but a strange sight halted Will, and he grabbed Mr. Barksdale’s arm.

“Why is the front door open?” he asked, the back of his neck prickling with suspicion.

Mr. Barksdale waved away Will’s question. “Everybody knows Ben likes his whiskey. He probably left it that way.”

“At two in the afternoon?”

“Wouldn’t surprise me.” Mr. Barksdale loped up the walk and ascended the front steps, and Will followed. After knocking twice on the door, Mr. Barksdale called in. “Ben? David Barksdale here. I need to talk to you.”

After pausing for a response, Mr. Barksdale pushed the door open, and Will followed him into the foyer where he’d recently wrestled Bea Dot’s louse of a husband.

“Ben? Are you here?” He stepped farther into the house.

“Maybe he’s not home,” Will suggested.

“Let’s just look and see. I’d rather not come back here again.” He crept through the foyer and into the dining room, with Will close behind. They peered into the parlor and then the kitchen, but found no one.

“I don’t think he’s here,” Will persisted, discomfort swelling within him. What would Ben do if he came home and found him and Mr. Barksdale snooping around?

Mr. Barksdale stepped into the back hall and then stopped short.

“Oh, good God!” he exclaimed as he buried his nose in his elbow.

Will rushed to his side and peered over the man’s shoulder. On the floor next to an overturned telephone stand lay Ben Ferguson, gray in the face and struggling for breath. A pink line of sputum ran from the corner of his mouth and over his pudgy, bluing cheek. He smelled of sweat and urine. The candlestick telephone lay just out of reach, its earpiece disconnected from the receiver. Ben weakly lifted his hand in Will’s direction.

“Get out of here. Now.” Will grabbed Mr. Barksdale by the elbow and pulled him back into the kitchen. “He’s got influenza.”

The two men locked eyes for a beat. Then Mr. Barksdale stammered, “We . . . we must call a doctor.”

He stepped toward the hallway, but Will stopped him again.

“Don’t use this phone,” he warned. “Go next door and call a doctor from there.”

“What about you?” Mr. Barksdale asked.

“I’ve already had it,” Will said. “If Ralph Coolidge is right, then I can’t get it again.”

Mr. Barksdale stood motionless, staring at Ben’s deathly face.

“Go,” Will said.
Before I change my mind
.

Mr. Barksdale ran out the back door, and Will turned his attention to Ben, who curled into a ball as a coughing spell turned him into a hacking, choking mess. Will turned his back until the fit subsided. Then, removing his suit jacket, he stepped over Ben and stooped at his feet, covering them with the coat. Then he grabbed Ben’s ankles and tugged, pulling him into the adjoining bedroom.

Littered with whiskey bottles and soiled towels, the room reeked with the same sour odor. Bed linens lay crumpled in a pile on the floor. As Will tugged Ben toward the bed, he knocked the sick man’s head against the door frame. He couldn’t help feeling a touch of satisfaction from the thump.

He stopped to rest once Ben lay on the floor next to the bed. Then he stooped and grabbed him under the arms, lifting Ben’s torso to heave him up to the mattress. But then he stopped himself, remembering the days he lay lingering on Ralph Coolidge’s floor, delirious with fever and clenching with the excruciating pain of each breath. A memory flashed through his mind of Bea Dot, her back against the wall, struggling against Ben’s choking grasp. Will released his grip, and Ben dropped to the floor with a groan.

“I can’t leave you here to die,” he said. “But I’ll be damned before I make you comfortable.”

He stepped over the ailing drunkard and went to the kitchen, where he found a cake of soap in the window over the sink. He scrubbed his hands thoroughly, not so much to protect himself from contagion, but to wash any residue of Ben Ferguson from his body. Retching coughs sounded from the bedroom, and Will wandered into the front of the house to escape the disgusting noise. Mr. Barksdale and a doctor appeared at the front door just as Will reached it. Flustered, the white-haired, red-eyed doctor skipped any introductions.

“Where is he?”

“Back in the bedroom.” Will pointed his thumb behind him, and the physician rushed around him toward his patient.

“Thought we’d seen the last cases . . .” The doctor’s voice trailed away as he disappeared into the back of the house.

Mr. Barksdale stood at the threshold, breathing heavily.

“I just ran to his house,” he explained. “He lives just a couple of blocks away.”

Will nodded, then stepped onto the porch with Mr. Barksdale. He sat on the top step and rested his elbows on his knees, his face in his hands.

“Call me the devil,” Will said to his feet, “but I hope we were too late to save him.”

Mr. Barksdale sighed and joined Will on the step. He put a hand on Will’s shoulder, but said nothing. After a few minutes of silence, Will turned his gaze to Bea Dot’s uncle.

“Earlier, you said Ben likes his whiskey, as if everyone in town knows he’s a drunk.”

Mr. Barksdale nodded sadly, his forearms resting on his knees. He gazed at Forsyth Park across the street for a few seconds before answering.

“No boy needed a sibling as much as that one,” he said. “His parents made sure he never wanted for anything, never had to work for anything. Officially, he’s employed at his father’s shipping firm, but he spends most of his time at the club paying the tab for anyone who will drink with him. He’s always been an arrogant, spoiled son of a bitch. Not a drop of responsibility.”

Nothing Mr. Barksdale said surprised Will. The few minutes he’d spent with Ben Ferguson gave just the impression Bea Dot’s uncle described. The only thing he couldn’t understand was how Bea Dot ended up as his bride.