“It hurts, so I’d rather not. Why do you need to hear my lungs anyway? I have broken bones, not pneumonia.”
Ralph stepped around the examining table and faced his patient, his downturned mouth revealing slight frustration. “Structurally, you’re fine. You’ll still feel some discomfort for a while because of that puncture wound and the compound fracture. Luckily, we got you home quickly, so I could set the bone correctly. But I want to listen to your lungs, so will you please cooperate?”
Guilt softened Will’s attitude. After all, his friend had bent over backward to bring him home to Pineview. Still, Will had a busy afternoon and had to get going. “Just tell me why, Ralph.”
The physician frowned slightly, crossing his arms and leaning against the cabinet in the crowded examining room. “I’m checking all my patients as I see them. No need to panic,” he began, and with that remark, Will felt a pellet of alarm, “but a bad influenza has sprouted up north and in a few army camps in the Midwest.”
“Widespread panic?” Will exhaled and smiled. “Over the flu? I’ve had that dozens of times.”
“Not this flu.” Ralph shook his head. “It’s a menace. It spreads quickly in densely populated areas, and it kills. That’s one reason I wanted you out of that hospital tent at Camp Benning.”
Ralph returned to the examining table and stood behind Will, pressing the cold stethoscope under Will’s shoulder blade. “Good thing Netta’s father plays poker with Senator Holder. Without his influence, you might still be in France. Now, cough.”
Will nodded, also thankful for his friend’s family connections, but still baffled as to how a country doctor attracted a wife from such a prestigious family. He coughed and pinched his face as a claw of pain grasped his right side. He’d be glad when he could move freely without the gripping reminder of the gruesome crash at Belleau Wood.
“Thank you,” Ralph said, hanging the earpieces of his stethoscope around his neck. “Your lungs are as clear as spring water. You can put your shirt on now.”
About time. As he dressed, Will watched Ralph write notes in a file. In the August humidity, the pages stuck to Ralph’s hands as he wrote, and perspiration stained the shirt under his thick arms.
“How’s the work coming along at your store? Open for business yet?” Ralph asked.
“Next week, maybe.” Will had managed to pull his sleeve over his still bandaged arm, but buttoning the shirt one-handed challenged him. He worked slowly as he answered Ralph. “I’m on my way to the post office to talk to the master about a rural route.”
Ralph whistled softly. “The farming families out there will love you. Terrence Taylor still helping you with the carpentry?”
“Helping’s an understatement,” Will said, exhaling a soft chuckle. “Not much I can do with one hand.” He had succeeded with three buttons and was working on the fourth.
“Come by next week.” Ralph turned to face his patient, looking over his wire-rimmed spectacles. “We’ll remove that bandage.”
“I’ll appreciate that.” Will had managed the fourth button. Only one more to go.
Ralph closed his file and leaned forward with his next question. “How are you doing…you know…otherwise? Sleeping through the night? It’s not unusual for returning soldiers to, well, suffer some emotional or psychological effects.”
“I’m fine,” he lied. Annoyance bubbled in Will’s gut as he focused on the last button. Why the persistent prying into his emotional state? Still fiddling with the button, Will sensed Ralph’s skeptical gaze. Still, he refused to meet the doctor’s eye.
“Okay, then,” Ralph relented. “I’ll see you in a week.”
“Thanks, Ralph.”
Will exited the small office, which was adjacent to the Coolidge home. He untied his horse from a nearby fig tree and led it to the front steps of the house. He still had to use a step or stool to climb into this saddle, but at least he could get around town now, instead of staying cooped up in the Coolidge’s extra bedroom, bound by bandages and memories. Using the aid of the steps, Will lifted his leg into the stirrup and pushed himself over the saddle, the twinge of the exercise having subsided significantly over the past couple of weeks.
“Oh, Will Dunaway,” a woman’s voice came from behind him.
Unable to twist his torso, Will turned his horse around to face Ralph’s wife, 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 goodbye and disappearing into her husband’s office. Will started his horse down the double ruts of the Coolidge’s 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 as they passed, and he at their backs in response. On Depot Street, he tied his horse to a corner lamp post, 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 dinner 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 a medic to be proud of? Sometimes Will wanted to give Pineview permission to stop pretending he was a war hero. Instead, 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 red brick 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 any time 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 gear shift, which tortured him with the memory of that broken rod piercing his side. Whenever a careless driver veered off a muddy clay road, Will winced at the recollection of moans from injured soldiers thrown atop each other in the back of the wrecked truck.
“Will? Did you hear me?”
“Sorry,” Will snapped back to the present. “What did you say?”
“I said I’ll let you know when I hear back from Atlanta. Here’s a map for the meanwhile.”
Will shoved the map in his rear pants pocket and left the post office. With no steps in sight for a boost, Will pulled himself into the saddle, the skin at his side pulling like a stretched canvas. Although he’d have a scar forever, he hoped the sensory evidence of his injury would soon disappear. He chucked the horse’s sides again with his heels, and led the animal out of town and toward his new home.
The horse’s slow gait made for a long but painless ride home. Under his wide-brimmed leather hat, Will’s brown hair dampened in the Georgia heat. As the wide clay road led him through a pine forest, the August sun gave way to evergreen shade—and insects. Holding the reins close with his right hand, the one with the bandaged arm, he waved away deer flies with his other. Once out of the woods, Will continued past acres of cotton fields. The deer flies’ torment abated as the sun resumed its oppression. Over the fields, Will gazed at the welcoming farm house where he’d grown up, now occupied by the Taylor family.
Summer had been good to the cotton crops, blessing farmers with early rains, and no boll weevils. If those tiny crop destroyers stayed away another month or two, the Taylors would be set for the year. Maybe in a few years, if the store succeeded, he could buy back some of his father’s property and grow cotton of his own.
Several miles later, Will’s new home came into sight—a roadside wooden building, the main part grayed and weathered, but two sections on each side constructed of new yellow lumber. From underneath the front tin overhang, a lanky figure under a straw hat carried a tool box and placed it next to the water pump. As Will approached the building, he waved his good arm and called, “How’d you do today, Terrence?”
The lanky figure turned toward Will, lifted the hat, and wiped his damp forehead with his forearm. Only fifteen years old, Terrence Taylor, Will’s neighbor to the east, already stood six feet tall. His sweaty blonde hair drooped over his freckled forehead before he replaced the straw hat. Then he disappeared under the overhang, only to return a second later carrying a small wooden bench. He placed it on the ground, and Will steered his horse to it.
“Thanks.” Will slid off the horse and onto the stool. He actually only needed the boost for getting into the saddle, but he appreciated Terrence’s consideration. “So tell me,” he repeated, “How’d you do today?”
“I finished,” Terrence replied, smiling broadly with pride.
“You hung all those shelves?”
“Yessir, I did. She’s all done.” Terrence always referred to Will’s remodeled building as
she
, something Will found silly. But when the young man offered to do cheap carpentry work, Will asked no questions about vocabulary. “All she needs now is some dry goods to put on ‘em,” Terrence said.
“I’ve got some in the back room at Richardson’s in town,” Will replied. “More’s on order. If I work straight through, I can open for business by Monday.”
“Mama will be glad to hear that,” Terrence said, shifting his weight to one foot.
“That baby hasn’t come yet?”
“Nope, but she’s moving slower and slower. It’ll be any time now. With a baby in tow, she ain’t gone be able to get into town.”
“I should stock some baby goods, then.” Will suggested.
“I’ll ask her what she might need.” Terrence then lifted his gaze to the truck approaching from the east, the same way Will had come. “Here comes my pop.”
Will and Terrence watched the Ford truck approach and pull over next to them. Thaddeus Taylor, a bear of a man, lumped out of the driver’s seat and lumbered over to where Will and Terrence stood. “Whatcha know, Will?” he asked.
“About ready for business, thanks to your son’s help.”
“Glad he’s been some assistance to you.” Thaddeus nodded to his son with a look of pride and said, “I come by to offer you a ride home. You ready?”
“Yes, sir,” Terrence replied.
“Just a minute, Terrence,” Will interjected. “I’ll go inside and draft you a check.”
Terrence shoved his toe into the red dirt. He eyed his father, as if for approval, before saying, “You ain’t got to pay me, Will. Instead, could I fish in your lake some time or another?”
“Now, don’t be silly, Terrence.” With hands on hips, Will cocked his head at the boy and his father. “You worked too hard not to be paid. Besides, your land has almost a whole mile of lakefront. You have access to the water.”
Terrence studied the ground again before glancing at Thaddeus. Putting two and two together, Will chastised his neighbor. “Did you put him up to this?”
“You ain’t got to pay him, Will. We’re happy to help out, help you get back on your feet again.”
Will sighed. Why did the Taylors feel guilty about taking over the Dunaway property? He’d much rather see them take the land than some stranger.