Diann Ducharme

by The Outer Banks House (v5)

  He stroked his beard real slow. “I stick out like a sore thumb, especially around these parts. Can’t just do what I want without folks taking too much notice. You, my boy, can help me. So just sit tight, ’til I determine what the course of action will be. It won’t be long.”

  I stared off and couldn’t make my mouth work. I hadn’t given him a yea or nay.

  He laughed. “I’ve never seen you think so hard before, Ben! Don’t get yourself in a bother. It’s not much, in the grand scheme.”

  “As long as I ain’t breaking the law.”

  He kicked his horse happily and rode on. He looked so pleased with himself that a looker-on would think he’d just stumbled upon a buried treasure. It was a letdown to realize he wasn’t as grand as I thought he was, not by a long sight. In fact, he was the worst kind of racist, and he wasn’t afraid to admit it, either. What had the folks in the Freedmen’s Colony ever done to him? He made it sound so personal.

  But I couldn’t see how I could get out from under him now. He had some kind of devil hold over me. And the worst part of it was, I still found myself wanting to do good for him. I couldn’t make a lick of sense from the feeling.

  I left Mister Sinclair on a bar stool after we got back to the hotel, a burn growing slowly on his cheeks, and dragged my dead legs over to the Sinclair cottage without washing up. I didn’t want to be late and get the housekeep into a pucker.

  But no one was there to answer the door, so I walked ’round back to the porch and there in the breeze sat Miss Abigail Sinclair, wearing a dress that spilled in all directions over her chair, and reading that same big book, as natural as you please. Made such a picture I almost forgot about her pap.

  Did she even know how powerful strange it was for me to see such a fine young woman reading a book like that? I wished I could somehow crawl right inside her brain to see what all else she knew about, because it had to be a lot, by the way she carried herself all upright.

  She jerked at my appearing so out of the blue like I did, and had to grab on to the book with both hands to keep it from flopping over to the porch. “Oh my stars, Mister Whimble, I didn’t hear you walk up. The sand sure does muffle footsteps!” she said, her face flustered.

  “Now, I told you to call me Ben, so unless you want me to send over my pap, you best cease and desist with the Mister Whimble. If my comrades heard you calling me that, they’d crack up ’til Christmas. I’d be Mister Whimble ’til I was pushing up daisies! They’d carve it on my headstone!”

  She grinned a bit, showing her pearly whites, and seemed to relax her backbone some.

  “All right … Ben.” She paused and squinted at me, kind of like she would a beetle she was thinking on squashing with the heel of her nice boot. “How old are you? I’m sorry to say that I can hardly tell,” she said.

  “Well, I’m nineteen years of age, but I probably look seventy-nine, being out in the sun all day. It’s common knowledge ’round here that fishermen start growing scales on their faces after a few hard years on the sea.”

  “You do look older than nineteen, I will say. But I don’t see any scales.” She laughed and called into the house, “Mama, Mister Whimble is here!”

  She rolled her green eyes at me and said, “I mean, Benjamin. I’ll get used to it.”

  But the house was quiet as a tomb. She said, “Mama isn’t feeling well at all today. We might be on our own.”

  I shrugged. “Okay by me.” I’d just as soon not have the woman listening in.

  So we set to work with no one to eavesdrop except the gulls. Out loud I listed every single letter in order. Then I set to writing them all down on the slate, big ones and small ones. I only made one bitty mistake, much to Miss Sinclair’s astonishment. Forgot to cross the little t. I said that wasn’t a circumstance, but she said it was important to do so, or folks would think it was the little l.

  Then she set to schooling me on the sounds of the letters, writing short words on her slate and pointing out their sounds to me with her clean, white fingers, and that’s when I started to get confused.

  Con-sonnets were all right. Having the same sounds word after word, you usually knew what to expect with them. But those vowels were tricky little sons-o’-guns, changing up their sounds to suit their places in a word. Or that silent E, the way she plops herself at the end of a word, like “Lookie here, I’m the letter E!” but she don’t even make a sound. I’ll be doggoned if that makes a bit of sense.

  But I tried hard to learn all that she tried to teach about the sounds of letters, either by themselves or paired up with others, until finally she declared that I had learned more than she had expected me to in just one day.

  She then wet the nib of her pen in ink and wrote down my whole name on another piece of her real nice paper. She told me to take it home and learn it and to come back tomorrow knowing how to write it by heart.

  “But I don’t own a writing instrument, Miss Sinclair. How am I to practice?”

  She thought on this snag a moment, her rosy lips pursed up, then said, “You can take one of my pencils home, and some paper, too, for practice. Free of charge.”

  “Free of charge? That’s a good one.” I laughed.

  She cut her eyes at me. “Well, paper isn’t cheap these days. I just can’t be handing it out whenever you have a need for some.”

  “My, my, aren’t you the thrifty one. I never would have thought a lady wearing yards and yards of rich cloth would care about the price of paper!”

  She looked down at her slippery green dress. “It’s just that times are hard lately.”

  I rolled my eyes. “Oh, sure, it’s a rough life for you. Let me fetch my fiddle. A big house on the beach don’t look too hard to me.”

  She looked up at the porch roof over our heads and started to grin. “You should see our home in Edenton.”

  “She’s a big one, huh? I wouldn’t doubt it,” I said. “What’s she like, then?”

  She said real soft, almost to her own self, “Oh, it’s a lovely home. Old, and so grand. You should have seen it in its prime, before the war.”

  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 he
r 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.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Abigail Sinclair

  July 4, 1868

  Accordingly I went, and found [the goat] where I left it; for, indeed, it could not get out, but almost starved for want of food. I went and cut boughs of trees, and branches of such shrubs as I could find, and threw it over; and having fed it, I tied it as I did before, to lead it away. But it was so tame with being hungry that I had no need to have tied it, for it followed me like a dog; and as I continually fed it, the creature became so loving, so gentle, and so fond, that it became from that time one of my domestics also, and would never leave afterwards.

  —ROBINSON CRUSOE

  THE 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.”

  I heard the commotion before I saw it, like a distant rumble of thunder announcing a coming storm. The hollering of the riders and the snorting, whinnying stampede of horses, shuffling quickly through the sand, could be heard for several hundred yards down the island. Riders were scattered throughout the herd, wielding sticks. The crowd quieted, amazed by the sight of the horses all running in the same direction.

  I found myself squinting into the sun, checking the faces of every rider to see if I could find Benjamin. But I was having trouble getting good looks at the men because they were turning this way and that on their horses and calling out to the volunteers who were helping narrow the column into the enclosure. And most of the riders wore wide-brimmed hats.

  It wasn’t until the very last rider came trotting up the beach that I saw him, driving a scruffy little red horse along in front of him. He was riding bareback on a wide Banker horse, and unlike any rider I’ve ever seen, he was barefoot, and digging his rough, sandy heels into the horse’s sides for support.