Diann Ducharme (9 page)

She seemed to see something far off over the ocean that I couldn’t yet lay eyes on. “But the really special part is the land. It stretches on forever. The soil is so fertile, it can grow just about anything.” Her smile faded just as fast as it came. “But that doesn’t mean anything anymore, for planters like us.” She gnawed on a thumbnail, then whispered, “I think we’re going bankrupt.”

I tried to whisper, too, then. “I didn’t know things were that bad off for you all. Your pap … he never said a word about that. And to my eyes, you all look to be living in fine style.”

She groaned and waved her hands about. “That’s all anyone seems to care for. Appearances aren’t everything, you know.”

“Don’t I know it! Well, if I know your daddy—and I think I do, now—he’s not the type to just roll over for dead.”

She sighed. “That’s Daddy. He’s used to getting what he wants.”

She then pulled out that book that she thought I would take to, called
Robinson Crusoe
, written in the year 1719 no less, by a man with the name Daniel Defoe, and began reading aloud from chapter one.

And darned if that Mister Crusoe didn’t hook me on his story from the get-go, talking about his need to take his own way in life in spite of his family trade and his father’s wishes. I soaked up every last word, and thirsted for more after she closed the book for the day. The sound of her voice, mixed with all those big words, sure did agree with me.

What I took to be her younger brother and sister came scampering up the porch to see what we were up to. The little redheaded Sinclairs stared at me with three bright hazel eyes—the fourth one was covered by an eye patch.

“You’re Mister Whimble, aren’t you? My sister’s told us about you,” said the little gal, skinny as a twig, even with that dripping wet bathing uniform pulling on her. “She was right—you sure are dirty!”

Miss Sinclair’s hands flew to her mouth, and she said, “Phhsssh, I said no such thing, Martha!”

“Why, yes, ma’am, I am. Mister Whimble at your service. But you can call me Ben. That’s what my friends call me.”

“I’m Miss Martha Anne Sinclair, I’m ten and a half years old, and I can read big books and write in cursive like Abigail, and this here is—”

The boy elbowed Martha out of the way. “I got a mouth. I can talk, too! I’m Master Charles Aaron Sinclair, and I’m six years old, and I can read, too, and I don’t care to learn cursive writing!” he said real loud, sticking out his hand to shake with me.

“Say, I sure do like your eye patch.”

He cackled and sliced the air a few times too many with an imaginary sword. “Do I scare you?”

“Oh, yeah. I wouldn’t stand a chance if it came to a duel. Let’s just be comrades.”

He grinned, then lifted the eye patch to look at me. “Is it true you can’t read nor write? I didn’t believe Abby when she said that.”

“It’s true. There ain’t no schools out here, nor teachers, neither. Can you all read and write?”

Their eyes about popped out of their heads. “Sure we can! Watch us!”

Martha started to read straight out of
Robinson Crusoe
, and Charlie began to write all over the slate with the chalk. What he wrote, I had no notion. But it sure was a sight, watching the two of them. The louder Martha read, the more Charlie squeaked the chalk.

I liked them already. I said, “Hey, now, I got a grand idea. How about you all come to the horse penning on Independence Day?
Bring the whole family, and your friends, too. It’s a real fun time. The whole island goes. I’ll be there, corralling the ponies.”

The younguns clapped their hands and hollered, “Pony penning! Yee-haw!”

“That sounds like fun,” said Miss Sinclair.

“Well, plan on it, why don’t you. But I’ve got to skedaddle now. I’m taking my gal to a frolic tonight, and I got to wash up. Ain’t that right, Martha?”

Martha laughed loud, and Charlie said, “Don’t do it, Ben. Let’s be dirty!”

I mussed up his red hair and looked to Miss Sinclair, feeling shy.

“I-I want to thank you,” I stammered out. I wanted to say more to her, but after all that book learning, words of my own were hard to come by.

“You’re welcome. And please, you can call me Abigail. Miss Sinclair is my mama!”

I wasn’t used to hearing her laugh. It was a good bit louder than I thought it would be, her being such a lady and all. It really set me to wondering on what else she had stored up inside her.

T
HE LARGE WHITE SCHOONER SLICED THROUGH THE LIQUID GREEN OF THE
Currituck Sound, its white sails yawning in the early-morning
breeze. I could see only water and trees, mostly pine and wax myrtle, curved from many years of ravaging winds. Here and there, waterbirds circled figure eights in the gathering heat, looking for something to eat, or maybe just passing time.

The horse penning was to take place a few miles north on the Banks, in a sparsely populated fishing village in Currituck. Daddy, Charlie, Martha, and I awoke at first light to travel with Daddy’s friend Mr. Viceroy on his fine boat, with the name
White Storm
painted in bold black cursive on her side.

Mama stayed back at the cottage, too ill to travel. Whatever ague she had caught out here, it sure was sapping her strength. I doubted very much if she would have the energy to get to the Independence Day party at the hotel later this evening.

But she wasn’t the only one battling a bout of sickness today. I was trying, from my position on the bench near the bow, to concentrate on keeping my eyes steady on the horizon, advice from Mr. Viceroy, an experienced waterman. And it seemed to be keeping the boatsickness under control so far, although my head still seemed far too heavy for my neck.

Daddy said that Mr. Viceroy was a famous Conservative newspaper editor in eastern North Carolina. Everywhere he went, he walked quickly and purposefully, with a sideways tilt of his head, which for some reason made me want to turn my head and snicker.

Yet his sharp black beard, dark slanted eyebrows, and beady, watchful eyes gave him a satanic look, which usually served to quell the titters. I didn’t think Daddy had known him long, but he had been traveling to Nags Head on
White Storm
since the summer began. The two seemed to be deep in conversation back at the helm, which made me wonder what a planter and a newspaperman had to talk about.

Martha suddenly sat down next to me. She grabbed my hand and slid a circle of twisted twine on my finger.

“Do you, Abigail Sinclair, take the most
handsome
Benjamin Whimble to be your lawfully wedded husband?” she squealed.

She had apparently taken a fancy to Benjamin. She talked about him all day and night. She especially liked to ask me questions about our tutoring sessions, and how he was getting along. Yesterday I caught her writing a letter to him. When I asked her what it said, she hid it behind her back and told me to mind my own business.

“Well, you might not want to use your fanciest cursive penmanship, since he can’t yet read it.”

Martha had gasped and looked down at her letter. Then she’d crumpled it up and started a new one, in giant print fit for a blind man.

I did wonder why she thought he was so handsome when you couldn’t even see his facial features through all the dirt. I pulled the wedding twine off my finger and tossed it overboard. A hovering seagull swooped down to inspect the discarded object, then flew away with it in its beak.

Charlie started to march and chant. “Horses, horses, I want to see the horses!”

We were all looking forward to seeing the wild horses, even Daddy, who said that he was interested in buying one for us to use in Nags Head. Old Mungo still wasn’t taking well to the sand. Whenever Justus tried to hitch the cart to him, he raised his lips and bared his long teeth. It might have looked to other folks like he was smiling, but Justus’s shinbone knew differently.

I’d already seen horses and cows and hogs and sheep, too, roaming around free as they pleased all over Nags Head. Folks from the mainland let their stock run wild over here to graze on the common sea grasses and shrubs, and it seemed there were more animals than people out here.

The smaller stock liked to lounge underneath the houses that were
set on pilings. If there were no latticework screens to keep them out, they’d lounge like fat and comfortable relatives until someone forced them out with a long stick.

The sun blazed hot in a cloudless blue sky when we finally rowed the yawl boat ashore. The fishing village of Duck appeared to be nothing more than a desolate strip of windswept sand and a couple of old shacks.

We were met by a mule-drawn cart, driven by a ratty-bearded, happy old man that Mr. Viceroy called Cyrus. Over the endless sand, he drove us to an empty pen that stretched along a narrow part of land along the Currituck Sound.

I stepped out of the cart onto the sand and immediately I could feel the sun’s heat through the fine suede of my boots. I couldn’t imagine Benjamin walking barefoot through such sucking hotness, all the days of his summers.

I looked around the village and saw that hundreds of noisy onlookers already filled the area. Some wore their summer finery, like us, and some wore ragged homespun; a festive cacophony emerged. American flags flapped from the fence posts, and ladies at little tables were selling fireworks and red, white, and blue trinkets.

We sipped warm lemonade in tin cups, sold by a local woman in a dirty apron and a limp bonnet, while we talked with Cyrus about the tradition of horse pennings.

From what I could pull from his twangy lisping, the twice-a-year pennings involved the gathering of all the horses on an island. Riders would fan out early in the morning to find the herds and drive them steadily toward the pen.

Charlie was having a hard time with the concept. “But what do
they aim to do to the horses in the pen? Surely they won’t kill them?” he asked; he still recalled the nightmarish stories of soldiers and civilians alike killing their horses during the war so the enemy couldn’t ride them.

The old man cackled, his toothless red gums shiny with spit. “Sakes alive, son! What kind of heathens you think we are out here? The owners just want the spring-born younguns to get their brand on ’em, so we know who’s who.”

He placed one worn boot on the fence post in front of him and leaned on his leg with a patchy elbow. “Folks like to use ’em for pulling carts and wagons. They’re good workhorses, strong like you don’t know, and easygoing, so they sell pretty good, ’specially with the lacking of good horses these days. A good lot of them’ll sell today, you watch.”