Dunaway's Crossing Read Free

Netta. She held a napkin-covered plate in one hand and a glass of lemonade in the other. Beads of condensation dripped down the glass and over her fingers. Her usually long, slender face was puffed in her late pregnancy, and she leaned back slightly to accommodate her growing girth.
    “Hello, Mrs. Coolidge.” Will tipped his brown leather hat as he greeted her. “You look like a picture this morning.”
    Netta laughed shyly in response as she looked down at her white cotton smock. “Perhaps a picture of a hot-air balloon,” she joked. “I’m sorry you have to see me this way. I was just taking Dr. Coolidge his lunch. I didn’t realize he had a patient.”
    “He has no one now,” Will replied. “We just finished our appointment. And you look lovely. If I may say so, your condition becomes you.”
    Netta blushed before saying good-bye and disappearing into her husband’s office. Will started his horse down the double ruts of the Coolidges’ long drive, wondering if he’d embarrassed Netta with his compliment. Coming from a refined Savannah household, she always impressed him as more polished and graceful than Pineview’s other ladies—more nervous as well. With her large, wide-set eyes and long chin, she reminded Will in more ways than one of a deer.
    He took his horse slowly into town, pulling to the side of the dirt road for motorcars. He made way for them more often these days. A few passengers called out to him, and he replied to their backs as they passed. On Depot Street, he tied his horse to a corner lamppost, away from the row of parked automobiles. Then in his typical long-legged gait, he ambled down the sidewalk, stopping here and there to reply to the townspeople’s typical greetings:
    “So glad you’re home safely.”
    “You look so well.”
    “We’ll have you to supper sometime soon.”
    “We’re all so proud of you.”
    That last remark drove a stake right through him. Since when was killing American soldiers something for an ambulance driver to be proud of? Will felt not one bit heroic. However, he politely but hurriedly thanked the well-wishers and went on his way. As he passed the funeral home, its owner stepped outside with a broom. Will called to him without stopping.
    “How goes it, Pritchett?”
    “Rather slow these days, Dunaway.” The undertaker swept his front stoop.
    “Glad to hear it,” Will replied as he passed by, and ambled down the sidewalk to the redbrick post office on the other end of the block. Inside, Will expected to find the young woman the postmaster recently hired. She had moved to Pineview from nearby Hawkinsville, and since starting her job, she greeted Will with an irksome flirtatious simper. To Will’s relief, the postmaster stood at the window and, upon seeing him enter, immediately drew out some papers from a nearby drawer.
    “Thanks for coming by. Here are those papers I mentioned.” He placed them on the counter. “Just fill these out and sign them, and I’ll send them to Atlanta.”
    Will moved to the end of the counter to fill in the blanks. When he finished, he returned the paperwork to the postmaster.
    “Like I told you before,” the postmaster said as he double-checked the forms, “we’d rather have someone with a motorcar deliver the mail out there. Makes delivery go faster, you know. Any chance you’ll get one sometime soon?”
    “Afraid not,” Will said, shaking his head. “But to my knowledge, no one else is signing up for that rural route.”
    “You’re right,” the postmaster replied. “I’ll take what I can get.”
    “Besides,” Will said—as he usually did when someone suggested he purchase a car—“horses don’t run out of gas, and they don’t break down.”
    But the real reason was that the ambulance at Belleau Wood weighed on him like a lead jacket. He’d never forgive himself for killing his comrades, and he couldn’t stand to be behind a wheel. He shivered at the sight of a gearshift, which tortured him with