by Cathy Marie Hake, Lynn A. Coleman, Mary Davis, Susan Page Davis
The cistern will be the best place for her, he thought, his mind racing. It should be full this time of year. Ellis scooped her up and carried her out to the backyard, to the large coral trough protected by a weathered shed. He’d often thought the cistern was far too big, but today it would prove its worth. He set her on the top step, her feet dangling in the pool of water. He held her in his left arm and reached into the pool to dampen the rag again. This time it would be more refreshing.
Gently he applied the cool cloth over her face and neck, her arms and legs, carefully avoiding her torso.
Cook burst into the shed, huffing and gasping for breath. “Mr. Ellis, what’s the matter with the poor child?”
“I’m no doctor, but I’d say she has a serious case of heatstroke. Cool her down, Cook. Keep her cool. I’ll fetch the doctor.”
“I’ll take care of the child,” she replied, immediately taking Beatrice from Ellis, cradling her like a mother with child.
Richard stood next to Cook trembling, tears streaming down his face. “Is Nanna going to die?” he asked.
“No, Son. She’s going to be just fine.” Ellis knelt beside him and held his hands. So much death in this little one’s life, Lord. Please make his Nanna all right, he silently prayed. “Would you help Cook keep Nanna wet?”
Frightened eyes stared inquiringly into his uncle’s.
“She’ll be fine, Richard, trust me.”
Richard nodded.
Cook continued to pour the water over Beatrice’s lethargic body.
“Can you help her, Son?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Strip down to your shorts and stand in the water next to Cook. Keep pouring water on her. I’ll get the doctor.”
Richard began stripping off his clothes. Ellis figured the water would help the child as well. While he didn’t appear to be having any trouble with the heat, he might later. A good dip in the cool cistern would be helpful for him. Ellis headed for town, thanking God for living in such a small community with the doctor a few blocks away.
“Miss Smith.”
Someone was calling her, but who? The gentle lull of a woman’s voice continued to penetrate her muddled thoughts.
“Come on, Child, I know you can hear me.”
“Nanna!” Richie cried.
Richard, crying. Beatrice opened her eyes wide and tried to bolt upright. Water? She was in a tub? With Richard? And … and … Cook? What was going on here?
Cook’s warm chocolate face broke into a grin, and her eyes sparkled. “Glad to see you’re feeling better.”
“Where am I? What’s going on?”
“A touch of the heat. Didn’t drink enough, I reckon.”
“Nanna!” Richie exclaimed and jumped on her. The boy was soaking wet, she quickly realized, and in this … this huge tub.
Bea embraced Richard. “Where am I? Where are we?”
“This here be a cistern. Folks on the island have them all over. We collect the water during the rainy season and have it for the dry season. When the troops came to the island in the twenties, folks realized they wouldn’t have enough fresh water in the wells. So they built these. Come in pretty handy.”
Handy—the water was downright wonderful. Beatrice gathered in her surroundings. She was sitting on a white coral step at a rectangular pool of water with walls of coral as well. A small wooden roof with short sides stood over the area with a hatch-like opening at the peak of the roof. She cupped a handful of the refreshing water and sipped. It was cool and very energizing.
“Drink slowly. Your body has had quite a shock.”
“How’d I get here?”
“Mr. Southard brought you.”
Bea’s cheeks flamed. She was in her undergarments. “Oh my,” she gasped.
“Don’t be fussing about modesty now, child. He had you wrapped in a bedsheet. I took that off.”
“Oh.”
“Mr. Southard is a perfect gentleman. He’s gone to fetch the doctor. I reckon he’ll be here shortly.”
“Doctor? What happened?”
“Near as I can figure, you passed out from the heat. Your skin was bright red when I first came on you.”
Bea looked at her arms. They were pink, but certainly not red.
“Your color’s almost back to normal,” Cook said.
Richie sat on the step beside Beatrice. “Isn’t this great?” Richie wiggled his toes in the water.
Bea reached out to him, found she was still dizzy, and put her hand back down on the steps to steady herself.
“Now don’t you go moving too quickly, Miss.”
“I can’t believe how shaky I am.”
“Comes with the heat, if you don’t take care of yourself. Now sit back and enjoy the water.” Cook rose from her step and sat down on the top stair.
“Nanna, do you think Uncle Ellis will let me go swimming in here?”
“I doubt your uncle will want you swimming in here, Child,” Cook answered. “We’ve got a big ocean out there, plenty of water for a boy to go swimming if ’n he has a mind to.”
“Can I go swimming in the ocean, Nanna?”
“Give your Nanna some time to rest.”
Richard’s shoulders sagged. “All right.”
Bea couldn’t possibly keep Richard’s questions straight in her mind. It took all of her energy just to try to stay awake.
“She’s in the cistern, Doc.” Ellis pointed to the backyard shed covering the cistern.
“Quick reasoning, Ellis,” Dr. Hanson replied.
“Cook and my nephew are back there with her. Unless you think you need me, I think for propriety’s sake I best stay out front.”
“I understand.”
“Thanks, Doc. Send the boy to me. I’ll take him with me to work.”
“Sure.” Doc Hanson headed to the backyard.
Ellis paced his front yard, picking up some fallen palm fronds and tossing them in a pile. A house, a yard, a child—all brought more burdens, and more responsibility into his life. Not to mention a guest who had almost died. A pain shot through Ellis’s chest. She had such lily-white skin, made even more beautiful by the few freckles dotting her cheeks. The woman weighed next to nothing in his arms. She didn’t have the strength to even protest. Never in a million years would he forget her lifeless form draped across his arms. Why hadn’t he checked on her sooner, when she hadn’t appeared for breakfast?
Ellis kicked a coral rock out of his path. Life sure had changed in a little over a month. Then, he had been a man of no worries. Oh, perhaps a few regarding the success of his business, but then he only had himself to provide for. His bank account grew. He had more than he needed.
He had sunk a tremendous portion of his savings into this old house—a house he had purchased upon learning he was to raise his brother’s son. Oh, how the tables had turned.
He had hired Cook to fix his dinner and clean his rented room in town. The owner of the boardinghouse, Ana White, could no longer care for her boarders in that fashion, so he found Cook. In the end, Cook worked for just about everyone in the house, including Ana. She was quite a woman for her age.
He was thankful she had come to work for him here. But he knew she still wandered over to the boardinghouse and took care of a few folks there as well.
“Uncle Ellis.”
Ellis spun around to see the child, dripping wet, his rumpled clothes in his arms and fear knotting his forehead. “How is she, Son?”
“She’s awake.”
“Good.”
“Do I have to go with you?”
How could he take the child away? “Not if you don’t want to. But I thought we could walk down to the dock, speak to my workers, and come right back.”
“Really?” Richard’s eyes widened. A curl of a smile edged on the side of his mouth.
“Sure. Do you want to come with me or stay?”
Richard turned and looked back at the cistern. “Will she be all right?”
“Yes, Son. Cook and the docto
r can handle things from here. But I’m sure you helped a great deal.”
Richard puffed out his chest. “I did like you said. I got her real wet.”
Ellis chuckled. “Good, Son, real good.”
Chapter 5
Ellis worked out the tension in his back then walked hand in hand with Richard toward his dock. The sun was bright, the sky a vivid blue, a few clouds lining the horizon. “Richard.” Ellis pointed to his right. “See those tall clouds that look like a top?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Those are funnel clouds. The air is swirling around real fast.”
“Really? How does it work?”
“Hmmm, tell you what. When we get to my office I’ll show you how the wind spins and the cloud is formed.” The ploy worked; the boy seemed to have taken his mind off his nanny. On the other hand, Ellis found himself wondering how she was doing—if they had her out of the cistern yet and back in her cottage. He’d have moved her into the house to care for her, but the cottage was actually a tad cooler than his home.
“Uncle Ellis?”
“Yes, Son.”
“Did you make this dock?”
“No, I bought it from the man who built it.”
“How come it’s so long? New York had little docks.”
The child was amazing, noticing little things like that. “In New York harbor the water becomes deep quickly. In Key West, you have to go out a long way from shore before the water gets deep, so the dock goes out to the deep water to enable the ships to come up to them.”
“Oh.” Richard pointed toward the mounds of sponges drying on his dock. “What are those?”
“Sponges. They grow in the ocean. My men take small boats out and dive into the water to bring up the sponges.”
“Can you teach me how to swim?”
“Sure.”
“Nanna plays in the pond with me at the farm. But I don’t think she knows how to swim.”
“Hmmm, it’s possible. Growing up on the farm, I learned to swim in the pond. Is that where Nanna took you to play?”
“Yes, by the big rock.”
Ellis smiled. How many leaps had he taken off that rock into the cool, crisp water below? He couldn’t possibly count. “The water in Key West is much warmer than back home.”
“That’s ’cause we are closer to the sun, right?”
Ellis grinned broadly. Richard was a very bright boy indeed. He walked his nephew to the end of his pier where he had a small building which housed his office and tools for the men. Inside he showed him the sharp knives the sponge fishermen used for tools, and the nets they tied to their waists. Some of the men preferred an odd scissors-shaped tool to the knife, depending on which method the man had been taught.
“Uncle Ellis, what’s this?” Richard pointed to a long pole with a two-pronged iron hook.
“That’s for hooking the sponges from inside the boat.”
“Do you go sponge-fishing too?”
“Sometimes, but not too often. Most of the time I have to work in the office here, or with the sponges after they’ve been harvested.
“Go take a whiff of that pile of sponges over there.”
Richard scurried over. He wrinkled his face and looked back at Ellis. “They stink like dead fish.”
Ellis chuckled.
Bea raised her head off the soft, down-feather pillow. She inhaled the freshness of the clean white sheets Cook had remade her bed with. “Cook, what were you and the doctor whispering about before he left?”
“Not worth repeatin’. He was just making sure I knew how to care for ya. I’ll be spending the night with ya, too.”
“I’m fine,” Beatrice protested.
“Land sakes, Child, you are exhausted from that heat. I’ve got to make sure you drink enough fluids.”
“But you have a family.”
“True, but the doc, he’s a-sending a message to my house. My children are all grown with children of their own. They feed themselves now, since I cook dinner for Mr. Ellis, and they insists I eat with him.”
“I don’t mean to pry, but were you a slave?”
“No, Ma’am. My family was set free when I was no higher than your knee. There’s always been good pay for honest work for Bahamians on Key West. So my husband, George, brought us here right after we married. We bought our own home after a few years, and though things been tough at times, we’ve had a good life here on the island.”
“What about the war?”
“Truth be told, the island wasn’t much a part of the war. Granted, some of the folks who were wreckers suffered hard times when they weren’t allowed to do no salvaging. And, what with the navy being here, there weren’t quite so many wrecks.”
“Tell me about this island of Key West. Where’d it get its name?”
“Original name was Cayo Hueso. That’s Spanish for ‘Island of Bones.’ Folks say, for a long time the island was just a watering hole for sailors. Belonged to Cuba back then. Eventually, the king of Spain gave it to a man for faithful service. That fella, in turn, sold it to four businessmen from Connecticut. And they was the ones that started building a town here. Soon after, the navy put up a base. But ’twas the wrecking industry what brought a lot of money to the island.” Cook leaned back and gave a low laugh, slapping her hands on her broad lap. “Listen to me rattle on.”
“No, I’m interested, really.”
Cook set her ample figure down on a rocker beside Bea’s bed. “I can tell a tale or two about this here island. It’s very different from the Bahamas, but I’m most comfortable here.”
Beatrice’s eyes were getting heavy. “Were there pirates living here?”
“Sure. Still are.”
Beatrice pulled the sheet up to her chin.
Cook’s robust laughter filled the room. “Most of ’em are retired. They made their money. Now they’ve settled down, got married, had kids. Got respectable, you might say.”
“Really?” The word slipped past Bea’s lips before she could catch herself.
“Wreckers salvaged whatever was worth taking from ships. Story goes, years ago, before the law came to the island, some folks would put a light out on the water to confuse the sailors so they’d run their ships aground on the reefs.”
“No.”
“Don’t know if it be true or not. Just know that’s what some say, is all. But it woke you up, didn’t it?”
Bea chuckled. “Yes.”
“Good, you need to stay alert, keep drinking. Rest will come later. But the doctor wants you awake for a mite longer before you sleep again.”
“All right. Perhaps you can tell me some more tales of Key West.”
“Why don’t you tell me something about yourself?”
“Like what?”
“Why are you a nanny at such a young age?”
“Oh, well, that’s easy. My best friend was Elizabeth Southard, Richard’s mother. She had a terrible time when she was with child. We weren’t even sure she was going to pull through. Elizabeth decided she needed some help, and she didn’t want just anyone. Richard’s family was gone, so they were alone on the farm. And she, being so weak … well, she asked me.”
“You was a good friend.” Cook tapped Bea’s hand and proceeded to dip a cloth in the bowl of water. “Go on, I’ll keep you cool while you tell me more.”
“At first I was supposed to help only until shortly after Richard was born. But Elizabeth never fully recovered. So she asked me to stay. My parents weren’t too happy. They’d had my coming-out party just before Elizabeth turned ill. Nevertheless, they understood the closeness between us, and knew that, if it were me who was so desperately ill, Elizabeth would have constantly been at my side.
“Elizabeth worsened after Richard was born. She developed a cough and never shook it.” A tear edged her eye. “A year after Richard’s birth, she passed on. But not before begging me to stay and continue to watch over Richard. Not that she had to beg me for anything regarding that little one.”
“He
’s a charmer,” Cook agreed. “You should have seen him this morning. Had his uncle tied up in knots just trying to figure out where all the boy’s questions came from.”
Bea laughed, her parched lips feeling brittle. She reached for a glass of Cook’s refreshing limeade, noticing her hand still shook, though it was much stronger than earlier this morning. “I can’t believe I fainted.”
“Praise be to the Almighty! If little Richard hadn’t come to check on you right away, you would have been far worse.”
“He was so frightened.”
“That he was, Child. But the Good Lord was with us, and you’re going to be fine. You should have seen him pouring the water on you. He just kept doing what his uncle Ellis told him to do. You’ve raised a fine lad there, Miss. You should be proud.”
“Don’t know that I’ve done all that much, really. Just loved him as if he were my own.”
“It shows, Child. It shows.” Cook finished applying the damp cloth to Bea’s limbs and sat back down on the wooden chair beside the bed. She brushed the gray hair, streaked with black, off her face. “Tell me where the child’s father was during all these years.”
“The war.”
“How could I forget that? Mr. Ellis sure was broken up by his brother’s death. I never seen a grown man so close to someone so far away.”
“Close? Elizabeth never even spoke of him.”
“I’ve been carin’ for Mr. Ellis for a number of years now. He been receivin’ a letter from his brother at least once a month.”
“Even during the war?”
“Truly a miracle, I say. Yes’m, he managed to get some mail out with a Captain Brighton.
Seems the captain was working for the North, privateering. ’Course, you talk with a Southern sympathizer, they’d call him an outright pirate.”
Bea chuckled. “I guess it all depends on which side of the war you’re on.” So, the Justice’s captain was a pirate or a privateer. Interesting.
“You speak a lot of truth there, Child.
“You mentioned your ‘coming-out party.’ Is that when your family says you’re now ready for courtin’ and marriage?”