Diann Ducharme

by The Outer Banks House (v5)

  “Everybody does,” she said, a little smile on her mouth.

  Before she could say anything else, I said, “Look, Abby, I had a notion of you that wasn’t right. But I hardly gave you a chance to explain yourself, and that wasn’t nice of me. ’Specially after all you done for me.”

  Her eyes danced in the sunlight. “You were quick to judge me. The fact that my family owned slaves must have been bothering you for some time, from the sound of it.”

  “I just wanted to know you better is all,” I said. “You haven’t been too forthcoming about yourself, and here I am, spilling my guts to you all the time. It ain’t fair.”

  “I’m not in the habit of discussing those kinds of things. You just … took me by surprise.”

  “I’d think a smart gal like you would want to mull over such notions as racism.”

  She took a deep breath and started fiddling with her thumbs. “My uncle died fighting for the South. He was a good man, Ben. I can’t just disregard everything he died for.” She dropped her voice to a whisper. “I can’t seem to let him go.”

  I looked at her, sitting there with her lower lip wiggling up and down, and I wanted to hug her tight to my body and never let go. She was struggling mightily against some unseen demons in her breast.

  “He called me Little Red Reb because I was such a dutiful defender of the cause,” she said. “I liked that he thought of me in that way. I wanted him to be proud of me.”

  I bit my cheeks with my back teeth so I wouldn’t grin at the nickname. If she was the little one, then her daddy just had to be Big Red Reb.

  She rubbed the cover of Robinson Crusoe and said softly, “I would have sent him this very book, but he died before I could do a thing to help ease his pain. I had so many books he might have liked, and now they’re just collecting dust …”

  With that, I figured she was set to cry, but she surprised me, for her eyes looked almost happy. She said, “When we first met, I felt superior to you. Me, with my clean clothes and big, important books. I thought those things meant something.” She pounded on the book cover with a little fist and said, “But I’m the ignorant one here. All my education, all those books, didn’t teach me to think with plain common sense. To question the things around me.”

  “It ain’t your fault, Abby. It’s what you were born to.”

  “I know that. But I still think the same way I always have. I don’t know why, but my mind doesn’t want to think differently. I like feeling superior! The other day, with Jacob, I tried to see past the color of his skin, to carry on as if it didn’t matter. But it was still there, his blackness.”

  I laughed. “He’ll always be a Negro. Can’t change that.”

  She slammed her hand over her heart. “It’s me that I’m afraid I can’t change. You were right to be hard on me. And I won’t begrudge you if you don’t want anything to do with me anymore.”

  “Aw, you can’t get rid of me that easy, Reb. Sounds to me like some shifting’s gonna take place up there in your brain, so that folks sit on a more even place, all together like.”

  Abby sighed and rubbed her forehead with a shaky hand.

  “Oh, come on now. Take a look at me, sitting here every afternoon, displaying my ignorance day after day in the company of a pretty gal. You’ve got to know anything’s possible if you just want to work at it.”

  She reached across the table then and grabbed my wrist real hard. It was the first time that I had actually felt her. Just like I had thought, her skin was soft as a butterfly wing. But her bones underneath were hard as nails. My whole arm burned up to the shoulder socket. She just lit me up.

  But I couldn’t even enjoy the feeling on account I heard someone cough real loud, right close to the window. It gave me pause, wondering if someone was spying on us. Abby must have worried, too, for she let go of my wrist right quick. I started to wonder if I had dreamed the whole thing up.

  We sat for a while, shy like, watching a long line of pelicans flap down the shore. After a bit she said, “I let the horse go. I couldn’t feature her pulling our cart around the very land she used to roam free. It just wasn’t right.”

  I chuckled at her newfound pluckiness. And I felt such goodness, like the pop of a backbone, thinking on that red pony wandering the beaches free again. I never should have offered her up to begin with. “Your daddy know you did that?”

  “No, not yet.” She grinned. Then she pulled out her slate, but after all that talking there wasn’t much time left for the lesson. Soon enough, though, we got to Robinson Crusoe.

  Maybe it was just me, but I felt she read the words with a new fire in her voice. She read right loud, too. She was rooting for Friday, I could tell.

  Eliza lived close by Pap and me, out in the scrubby wooded flats just a touch south of the Nags Head Hotel, with her mama, her two young brothers, and her old granny. Their diggings was near to as small as ours, but had a real fine view of the sound through an opening in the trees.

  Taking the view, I waited on a rotten step for Eliza to freshen up after work at the fishery, where she spent her days mending the seine nets. She was real good with needle and thread—her granny having taught her back when her eyes were good—and was now making regular pay doing what she was good at. I was right proud of her.

  But I was starting to sweat with nerves, thinking on what I was about to do to the woman I’d thought to marry someday. I tried to black out the memories I had of Eliza as a youngun, full of grit, with her dark eyes and brown body, running the sand hills and swinging on the treetop grapevines with me.

  She always took to playing with the boys, having no desire at all for more feminine accomplishments. We were so alike, looking at Eliza was like looking in a mirror. We guzzled moonshine, snuffed tobacky, swam naked in the ocean, ran away to Roanoke Island and hid in the marshland—we did all that with each other. Now a grown woman, she shot, rode, fished, and managed the boats as good as any strong-armed Banker man.

  But as good a woman as she is, she never made me want to look inside her brain, to see all the things that she knew piled up like freshly cut firewood. She never made me want to reach inside her and pull out a long-lost treasure, swipe the sand off it, and hold it up to the sun to admire its quality.

  And her touch never burned down to my bones, the way Abby’s touch did today.

  Soon I heard the screen door slam and her old boots clomping. I smelled her particular scent of woodsmoke and chicken fixings. But when I turned to see her, she was wearing a real fine dress I’d never laid eyes on before. And her brown hair was pinned up on top her head in a circular fashion. I just stared at her, my mouth agape.

  She guffawed. “My, my, I never seen a man so dumbfounded for words. What d’you think, Mister Whimble? You like me in it?”

  She twirled ’round two whole times so I could see the full display of the white dress. It hung a little in back, where a gal like Abby might have worn something or other underneath, but otherwise it fit her just fine.

  “I think it might make a real fine wedding dress …” she hinted, a twinkle in her eye.

  I had trouble convincing my mouth to spurt out its words. “Wedding dress? Oh, well, I don’t know … Where did you come by it? Did you make it yourself? I could believe that, with your fingers.” Eliza spun her own cloth and made her own clothes, long as I could remember.

  “Some housekeep gave it to Mama at the market a while back, said there was no need for it anymore in her lady’s house. Mama—who’s not much for handouts from townsfolk, you know—looked it over and declared it to be almost brand-new and made right well, so she agreed to take it off her hands. The dress being as fine as it is, I think she was looking ahead to the day of our nuptials, too. Whenever that may be!” She kicked me in the left hind cheek with the toe of her boot, and not so gentle, neither. “But I don’t care for it that much—it don’t even have pockets. There’s nowhere to put anything. And I’m bound to get it dirty in a split second.”

  I knew my face was
a block of stone about then. The dress looked all wrong on her, like she was playacting in the theater. Can’t say why, but it made me angry, seeing Eliza trying on a dress that didn’t suit her.

  I mumbled, “Ain’t it bad luck for the groom to see the bride in her wedding garb before the wedding?”

  “Pshaw—I don’t believe in that foolishness, and with our good fortune lately, who need worry about silly tales like that?”

  Oh Lord, I couldn’t even look at her pinned-up hair. My guts filled with guilt, and the damned gallnippers started biting on my ankles.

  “Something wrong, Ben? You look poorly, all a sudden … You still tuckered from that ocean swim?” She sat down on the step with me, caring nothing for her white dress on this moldy wood. She ran her rough hand over my cheek.

  The half moon rode low in the sky tonight, filling the spaces between the pine trees with cool light. The marsh frogs sang their night songs. I reached over for her hand, started stroking its work-tough skin.

  I took a big breath. “Eliza, I got bad news for us. I hate hurting you, you know I care much for you and have for a long while, since we were younguns.”

  I tried to keep her hand in mine, but she pulled it right away.

  Her eyes were so dark now. Little black stones. “You’re leaving me, ain’t you.”

  I nodded, head hung down in shame. This was the second time today that I had let down someone I loved. “I can’t lie to you. I never have been able to. For some time now I have felt strong feelings for someone else. It’s mighty strange, given that I still care for you. But I don’t want to lead you into thinking about marriage with me, knowing that I can’t enter into it with a truthful heart. Which is what you deserve.”

  She let out such a terrible screech it nearly popped my eyeballs outta their holes. “It’s that Abigail, ain’t it? I knew this was going to happen, I did! She had her claws into you from the get-go! I saw how she looked at you, come running down there on July Fourth to find you, and all the while knowing you were with me! I declare, she’s a no-good, calculating, slick little witch! And with her leaving at the end of the summer, too! She’s not worth it, Ben! Don’t pine over someone that don’t deserve your affection!”

  I saw Abby in my mind as she appeared that day of the shipwreck, with her long hair water-logged like red seaweed all ’round her white face, with pride for me written all over it. I felt then that I’d won some sort of carnival prize, even though a man’s life was gone.

  “I can see how you’d think unkindly of her, but she ain’t like that. To tell you the honest truth, I ain’t sure if she’d ever have me. But I can’t find out, knowing I’d be dodging behind your back.”

  “You can’t find out, and expect me to be waiting on you when it all goes to shit,” she hollered. “I ain’t that kinda woman, Ben! You can’t treat me so, and expect me to swaller it down and ask for more!”

  The cicadas in the trees seemed to ratchet up their music all of a sudden. The pine needles on her porch smelled musty and dark.

  “Well, I know that, Eliza. I want you to have a good life with a man that can love you, I do. I thought it would be me. It’s awful for you to hear, but there it is.”

  “What do you s’pose is gonna happen when you declare your affections for little miss fancy skirts? You think she’s gonna throw her books in the air and swoon with happiness? She’ll probably laugh you right offa that porch, featuring herself with a poor fisherman. She won’t ever love you like I do, Ben.”

  It was true, Abby might not ever take to me in that way, but I didn’t care none. I had to go whole hog.

  Eliza’s face was peaked in the moonlight. “And here I thought that wearing this dress would make you see me the way you see her. I wanted to look nice for a change, thought that would make the difference with you.” Tears ran all over her thin brown face.

  “And you look pretty as a picture, believe me. But it ain’t her dry goods, Eliza.”

  She cut her dark eyes at me. “Maybe it’s what’s underneath those fine clothes you’re hungering for. Maybe you’ll get a taste of the top crust and find it a little too tough. Then what’ll you do? Come find ol’ Eliza, sample her wares?”

  “No, it ain’t like that, either. It’s mighty hard for me to explain. She just has some quality that’s … worth wondering on.” I couldn’t say it all to her, the way Abby and I just went together, and helped each other along, like two oars moving a boat.

  “Is it ’cause she can read? That ain’t no circumstance! I could learn my letters, if I wanted to. Problem is, I don’t want to! I like who I am, unlike you, who can’t stand himself and who’s reaching for things he can’t have!”

  She was having herself a conniption fit, with her hands stuck flat over her watering eyes, and I was sore afraid that Mama Dickens was gonna pop out to see what the matter was. She’d prob’ly lash me there on the spot. So I thought to take my leave, slink away like a scolded dog that’s shat in the house. Eliza’s sadness was too awful to witness.

  I searched and struggled for the proper good-bye. “I still want to know you, Eliza. When we get over this rough patch, I mean. You’re my best friend. Oh Lord … I’m sorry to botch us up like this …” I trailed off.

  She looked out to the slapping sound and whispered my name over and over. Nearly set me to crying myself. I had to leave her then.

  CHAPTER TEN

  Benjamin Whimble

  July 23, 1868

  I descended a little on the side of that delicious vale, surveying it with a secret kind of pleasure (though mixed with my other afflicting thoughts)—to think that this was all my own, that I was king and lord of all this country indefeasibly, and had a right of possession; and if I could convey it, I might have it in inheritance, as completely as any lord of a manor in England.

  —ROBINSON CRUSOE

  NAGS HEAD WOODS IS, IN MY HUMBLE OPINION, WHAT HEAVEN MUST LOOK like, except it’s here on Earth for us to enjoy. You have never seen such a forest, ’specially one situated between big sand dunes like it is. The woods grow up real thick in the dunes’ shadows, out of the sea spray and wind.

  When you’re inside the woods, you’d never guess the spot was midway between the Roanoke Sound and the Atlantic Ocean, it’s that much like a true forest. There’s near to about five miles or so of pine trees, and oak and hickories, too. Beeches, red maples, dogwoods, hollies bigger ’n those on the mainland. It’s unusual they grown so tall out here on the island, and I sure do respect their rebellious natures.

  Everyone who’s anyone goes to the freshwater ponds in the woods to fish and carry on, since they’re only about three miles or so from the Nags Head Hotel. Folks take horse and cart through a winding sand trail along the sound to get there.

  The Fresh Ponds are so wide and deep you’d think you were in the mountains, and today we were heading for Great Pond, the biggest one of them all.

  At times during the summer there were more fishing rods than fish in the water. The fishing ain’t like it used to be, that’s for certain. Pap’s told me some legends of yore about catching all kinds and sizes of fish in the ponds, but I’ve never seen such glory there, myself.

  Feeling all out of sorts, I tagged along this morning with my buddies Harley and Jimmy on Jimmy’s daddy’s ol’ buggy. Even Jacob agreed to come along for a bit of a holiday.

  We fished for a couple hours in the quiet early morning, afore the vacationers came along to scare the few fish away. It was just the fish and us, breathing the cool forest air. Harley decided he was fit to be famished, so we got off the dory to fry up some of the perch we caught. While the fish and doings of bacon and onion was sizzling up nice, I told the boys about breaking it off with Eliza.

  “That mean she’s free to go out with me, then?” Jimmy jibed. “All the good women on this island are spoken for.”

  “No, that ain’t what that means. You keep your stinking catfish whiskers offa her if you know what’s good for you,” I said.

  Jacob said, “Why
’d you do it, Ben? You ain’t hankering for that Abigail, are you?”

  Harley called, “’Course he is! Pretty piece like that. Wouldn’t you? I see you’re a Negro and all, but still. She could make you happy. You could have some nice yellow-skin babies, with freckles galore.”

  I popped some corn bread into my mouth and said, “Listen, don’t go wagging your tongues all over the island now. But there is something ’bout a smart schoolmarm that sets the heart afire.”

  They punched each other in the arms as I turned the fish over in the pan. “I couldn’t go behind Liza’s back. And you know, I surely couldn’t get caught cheating on Mama Dickens!”

  They all guffawed at that one. Eliza’s mama’s bad temper was legend ’round the Banks. She ran off her husband, old Jonas Dickens, over ten years ago. Folks used to hear her screeching and hitting him with the frying pan way past the middle of the night, some nights. I thought he was a decent man, but Mama Dickens always said he was a good-for-nothing sack of potatoes, couldn’t even clean fish proper. Last I heard, he took up with a roughshod clam-digger gal over on the mainland somewhere. Eliza hasn’t seen him since, so I guess he was a bad catch, at that.

  Jacob said, shaking his head back and forth, “Abigail must have learned you those letters of the alphybet real good.”

  “That she did, Jacob. That she did.”

  But instead of looking happy for me, Jacob looked right sad. I never knew he favored Eliza that much.

  After that we ate our food in the peace of the cool woods. Then the boys started working at their musical instruments. Me lacking any sort of musical ear, I dove on in the pond for a swim. I splashed ’em after a while, bored all by my lonesome, so they quit their plucking and blowing and jumped in, too.

  We were dunking each other and having a frolic when a cart chock-full of dressed-up ladies and gents came rolling into the woods, pulling a boat behind them. We all poked each other under the water and spoke low about how dense it was to dress up like that for a day of fishing and visiting. We just could never understand those folks from the mainland towns and their mixed-up ideas of fun.