Diann Ducharme

by The Outer Banks House (v5)

The party was dying down when I got back, but Jacob and Jimmy and Harley were still there, getting soused on the beer. I joined them in the sand. They all looked at me but didn’t say a word about Eliza.

  “Well, well, Benny. I been noticing you haven’t told us much about your new job. I heard that you were set to work construction down in Hatteras,” said Jimmy.

  I grabbed Jimmy’s cup of beer from him and took a deep pull. “You heard right. I’m a bona fide member of Mister Stetson’s crew. How’s that make you feel?”

  They all stared at me like I’d grown fins and gills. Harley hollered, “I think it’s way past high time you told us how you got that job, and if there’s any left for us! You’ve got to look out for your friends, you know!”

  Jimmy gulped the rest of the beer and waved his empty cup in my face. Then he asked, “That big bug you guiding for have anything to do with you getting that job?”

  “And what if he did? I deserve that job, fair and square. And I’m helping my pap retire. Just shut pan about it.”

  I noticed Jacob not saying much a-tall. He just sat there in the dark, smoking a pipe and watching me. “I hope you not getting in too deep with that Mister Sinclair,” he finally said. “He ain’t of no account.”

  I should have known Jacob would have more information than most. Being a waterman, he went all over the rivers and sounds and swampy inlets of northeast Carolina. He talked to all kinds of folks, black and white and yellow, rich and poor. He was naturally good-natured and helpful, so folks trusted him to keep their secrets.

  “It ain’t none of your beeswax, none of you. And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll keep out of it.”

  I was starting to feel like the surrounding trees were set to fall down on top of me and crush me into bits and pieces.

  Jacob stood up then. He glared down at me, like all possessed. “The Freedmen’s Colony is my business. I brung some of them over my own self, back during the war. Hid them in the swamps with the snakes and gators. Snuck ’em past the blockades. Got them set up in the colony. It was the least I could do, being born free.”

  Jacob had also saved my life, lugged me from the sea like ship’s wood. He said he’d help my pap out when I left for Hatteras without even clearing his throat. He was just that kind of man.

  “I didn’t know that,” I said. “I knew you were friendly with some of the colony folks, but I never knew you helped them like that.”

  “Ben, you been my friend many long years, and I never had nothin’ but the most friendly feelings for you. But I been hearin’ the craziest yarns lately—I couldn’t even make ’em up my own self. One day you’re in the freedmen’s schoolhouse. Another day you’re in the hotel having whiskey with Mister Sinclair, and sailing back and yon to the island at all times of day.”

  He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Mister Sinclair, who rides on the ship of a bona fide Ku Kluxer, a newspaperman with a Negro-hating pen. On top of guiding for Mister Sinclair and getting learned by his daughter, I think to myself, he sure in the thick of it! It don’t look good.” He looked away from me, as if through talking. But he wasn’t yet finished with me. “I can see you’re up to the devil’s work. I don’t want you messin’ with those folks on the island. Just mind your business.”

  Then it hit me. Under his anger was fear. I could smell it on him, like rotten eggs. I whispered, “You know about Mister Africa, don’t you?”

  Jacob breathed out slow and long.

  I said, “You know what he did. Damnation, Jacob.”

  Harley and Jimmy sputtered, “What in tarnation are you all yammering about? Who has done what in Africa?”

  Jacob’s face looked peaceful, though. “I wasn’t more than a boy when I brung him down the Chowan, when word got out what he’d done. Most every Negro wanted to help him out, but the difference was, I could do it.

  “What I heard was, he hid out for a few months in the attic of a freedman in Windsor. That friend set me up with him. Back then I was fetching folks and sailing them to Union land. I met him in the swamps near the river late one night. He was dirty and skinny, looked like he’d break if the wind knocked him down, and weak as a baby bird from hiding in that little spot. Had nothing ’cept a ratty old Bible, and he was just holding on to that Bible for dear life. He slept with that thing bunched up in his hands every night I was with him. You ever see anything like that? It’ll squeeze the blood right out your heart.”

  He stopped for a minute, then lowered his voice.

  “I hid him in a barrel during the day, case the boat got searched. He never did complain against it. He never talked of what he done to get in the spot he was in, and I never asked. He knew trouble was in it, for both of us.

  “What I didn’t know was how much I’d get on with him. We spoke about all manner of things those long days. Got to know him right well, good enough for my uncle to book him passage on a whaling ship, take him out of here for good. But he come back, you see. He wanted to help his people.” He whistled low and shook his head. “I never met a man like him in my life, and I doubt I ever will.”

  “He’s a killer, Jacob. You can’t just close your eyes on what he did.”

  “I don’t forget, and I know he don’t. But now you can see he’s helping those folks on the island. Somebody’s got to do it, and he’s the best man for the job.”

  I shook my head. “He’s done bad, Jacob. He’s got to pay.”

  “Oh, he paid all right. He been paying up his whole entire life.”

  I stared at him, trying to find the right words. “I’m sorry, Jacob. I don’t want you to take it personal. I …” This was just too much for me. I rubbed my face with sandy hands, dirtying myself up again. “There are things I just had to do.”

  He laughed. “You didn’t have to do nothin’. That whole entire family got you all mixed up. You need to square yourself, or you never going to be right again.”

  Then he left us there. I thought about what he said as Harley and Jimmy peppered me with questions. I knew that what I’d done went against my better feelings on the matter. I couldn’t think about that brand on the preacher’s shoulder without getting sick to my stomach. I couldn’t smell the leaves of yaupon bushes without getting a pain between my eyes.

  But I had good reasons for doing the things I did. Least I thought they were good reasons. And the man had it coming. You just can’t kill folks and expect to get away with it, even if you did happen to turn preacher.

  That is what I would keep telling myself, in the heavy dark, with the shadows of trees watching me squirm like a dying goose.

  Abby didn’t nurture the slightest notion I was building her a house, even though I was covered in sawdust and riddled with splinters every night. I wanted to surprise her someday soon. I wouldn’t think about her leaving the Banks, not anywhere near it. And I sure couldn’t think of her marrying that Hector.

  At night, when we sailed back to Nags Head after long hours of teaching, she kept up her reading of Robinson Crusoe by lamplight, and the closer we got to the finish, the slower she read. Words dripped off her tongue like hot butter.

  I was happy, on account we had finished the book. Abby gave it to me for keeps when she closed it up for the last time. I figured I might be able to make a go of it on my own, and I never would have thought such a thing at the start of it.

  But I didn’t want to make a go of it on my own. I wanted her there with me, every little book I read in the coming years. Even if she wasn’t sitting right next to me, I wanted her there, somewhere close by.

  Old Robinson and Friday got rescued at the end, twenty-eight years after the shipwreck. Can’t feature going back to a country full of highfalutin folks after that. Must have been a real shock to their systems, living like they had.

  Likely wished for the little cave house, after a while of being surrounded by too many comforts. Thought of the dwelling as a home, even though it was just a cave with some wood built over the door. It took him over six months to make, and by his own
hands at that. Had all of his worldly things in there, lined up neat and pleasing. It wouldn’t be easy to leave a home like that.

  But I reckoned home was one of those words with lots of different meanings. To me, home was where I found myself most happy. Could be a boat, could be Pap’s shack, could be a porch by the sea. Now I’m featuring it to be this house of oak.

  It was mighty peculiar, the place where I found myself raising the dressed logs. It was in a space clear of trees, and much closer to the ocean than to the sound. I put all the windows and a little porch on the side of the ocean. I planned to make two chairs and a table for us, but I didn’t have time to do all that just yet.

  I did pick out two strong oak trees in back of the house, where I hung the old hammock. Used to be my ma’s, that she never used the whole time she was living. Had too much work to do, said Pap. I thought that was a shame. The hammock spot had sight of the ocean and the sound through the trees. I thought of Abby a-laying there reading a big book, then maybe fixing cooter stew for our supper.

  And if you’ve never looked up and seen a cloudless blue sky through the green leaves of trees, then you haven’t seen much. The view of the world from a hammock is just about the best there is.

  When the house was more or less done with, doors hung and gaps chinked, I walked around and around it, trying to find weak spots in the floor boards. Didn’t take me long to cross the breadth of it. It was a small thing, only one little square room. But I had built it strong, and the front windows would let in plenty of sunrise.

  It had the makings of a happy house. With the roof and porch just so, it looked like it was smiling.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  Abigail Sinclair

  August 31, 1868

  “Well,” says Friday; “but you say God is so strong, so great, is he not much strong, much might as the devil?” “Yes, yes,” says I, “Friday, God is stronger than the devil, God is above the devil, and therefore we pray to God to tread him down under our feet, and enable us to resist his temptations, and quench his fiery darts.” “But,” says he again, “if God much strong, much might as the devil, why God no kill the devil, so make him no more do wicked?”

  —ROBINSON CRUSOE

  THE EVENING AIR WAS STAGNANT IN THE SCHOOLHOUSE. The Day’s temperature had reached nearly a hundred degrees, and the room still bore the aftereffects, smelling powerfully of body odor, mine included.

  But the students were oblivious to everything except the work at hand. I now knew how to harness the power of literature. I had begun Uncle Tom’s Cabin, at Elijah’s request. He had handed his own copy to me, with both hands, as if handing me a dead loved one’s personal effects. The day after he gave it to me I read it through from cover to cover, with a sticky pit in my stomach. Suffice it to say, it wasn’t a popular book in Edenton when I was growing up.

  Winnie, or I should say Asha, was enjoying the novel when I read it at the end of the lessons. I watched her more than I watched anyone else. She was easy to find in the sea of brown faces, for she still wore her white head scarf.

  Already twice tonight I had called her Winnie. Everyone turned about, wondering who it was that I had called on. And Winnie refused to even look up until I called her Asha. Then she would laugh.

  To begin the night lessons, Elijah led the students in a spiritual, the same kind of songs they sang in their church. Luella told me that their singing and chanting were more subdued in the schoolhouse. She said that everyone really let loose in church, and I had a hard time featuring it.

  Hold your light, Brother Robert,

  Hold your light,

  Hold your light on Canaan’s shore.

  What make ol’ Satan for follow me so?

  Satan ain’t got nothin’ for do with me.

  Hold your light,

  Hold your light,

  Hold your light on Canaan’s shore.

  It was a beautiful song. Dark night on the water, lanterns pushed out, hopeful people looking for the promised land before Satan lured them away. The students repeated the simple song over and over, clapping and stamping their feet.

  Elijah sang last. His soulful tenor caused many of the students to stand and sway, eyes closed and hands in the air. I stood, too, and Ben. We looked at each other and smiled at ourselves, standing in this extraordinary place.

  With a final ruckus of feet on the floor as we drew out “shore” on the last verse, the rickety door to the schoolhouse, already propped open with a brick to bring in the coolish night air, smacked all the way back against the wall. I thought perhaps it was a student, running late.

  But when I turned to see who it was, I gasped in confusion. Two broad men wearing costumes and sandy boots clomped in. Long red robes that buttoned up the front covered their bodies up to their necks, and their masks looked to be dark red cloth painted with grotesque white noses and mouths. They both had pointed horns twisted atop their heads. And they each carried a long rifle.

  The students jumped up in panic and scattered to the walls, but all I could do was stand at my post in the front of the room. I looked over to where Ben stood, but he remained queerly motionless, almost as if he had been expecting them.

  The squattier devil said, “Well, well. Lookie what we have here. A schoolhouse full of niggers. Never thought to see that in my lifetime. But here it sits. Sure does reek in here, though. Reeks like niggers.”

  He walked around the front of the room, breaking pieces of chalk and throwing books and Bibles to the floor. He smashed two of the oil lamps, casting the room into almost complete darkness.

  The other devil looked to me. “And a white schoolmarm, to boot. She must be a Yankee transplant.”

  The short one walked over to me and sneered, “What’s your story, gal? Why you learning these darkies?”

  Ben hollered out from the back of the room, “She’s got nothing to say to you! Leave her be!”

  He drawled, “What do we have here? You her beau or something? Ain’t that sweet.” He walked over to Ben, reared the rifle back casually, and hit him in the gut with the butt. I watched in shock as Ben slumped to the floor, coughing in pain and holding his stomach.

  I squeaked out a “no” through my fingers. The taller, less vicious man standing next to me peered into my face through the darkness. “You look familiar to me,” he said.

  The short one snickered. “After a few minutes outside, I’ll make her familiar.”

  “Lay a hand on her, you bastards, and you’ll live to regret it!” cried Ben from the floor.

  The squat devil cocked his head back and hollered, “I thought I told you to quit your ballin’!”

  The other man looked at me again. “No, I’ve seen her before, I’m positive of it. What’s your name, darlin’?”

  I couldn’t speak. My eyes started squeezing out tears but my body was as immobile as a tree buried in sand. I didn’t understand what was happening. The stewing apprehension I’d dragged around during the war felt like a silly game compared to the hot fear I now felt.

  He placed his hand on my arm and squeezed. “I won’t ask you again.”

  “Abigail. Abigail Sinclair.” I had no control over my voice. It was much louder than I meant it to be. And it trembled like a gull’s wing in the wind.

  “Dear God,” he said flatly. The devils looked at each and backed out the door. I heard them murmuring anxiously to someone outside.

  Then the door banged again, and another masked man walked in, stooping a bit to get through the door. I could see his shiny leather boots peeking out from the bottom of his red robe.

  The man took one look at me and stopped short. He rasped, “Abigail?”

  And I recognized his voice. It resounded through my entire body. My mouth said, “Daddy?” even though it still didn’t make sense to my head.

  He spoke through the cloth over his face. His voice sounded strangled. “What in God’s name are you doing here?”

  The other two men skulked in the doorway, watching. I reached out for th
e wall, to brace myself. For the briefest of moments I questioned what I was doing here. Seeing myself through Daddy’s eyes, I made no sense at all. I was a traitor to the Southern force. But the moment passed, with the wave of pride I now felt.

  I said calmly, “I’m teaching the freedmen.”

  He was silent for a while, as he regarded me. He was terrifying in that costume, in the flickering darkness. He shook his head back and forth, waggling the horns.

  He began pacing. “Who did this? Who put you up to this?”

  Ben was standing up now, one hand gripping his torso. He said, “I did, Mr. Sinclair. I brought her over here.”

  Daddy turned toward the voice and barked, “Ben? What in the sam hell is going on here?”

  “It’s all my doing. I talked her into coming here—”

  I interrupted, “No. That’s not true.” I looked at the cowering horde of people in the room, at the weeping children. I couldn’t see Luella or her mother, or even Asha.

  I said, “I want to be here. These people deserve an education.”

  Daddy started laughing, a whiskey-laden snicker I had heard many times before. His horns jiggled with amusement. The other two men started snorting along with him. “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. My own daughter, a teacher of the darkies! What ever happened to Little Red Reb? What would your uncle Jack say?”

  I responded angrily, “He’d likely ask you what you’re doing here, dressed like that. And carrying a gun.”

  He looked directly over to Elijah, who was standing quietly in the back of the room with two of the children who had lost their parents in the war. “We came for Elijah Bondfield. Or Elijah Africa, as you know him.”

  We all looked at Elijah with fear in our eyes. Then the students cried out and rushed to him, blocking him from view. I could name each of them, both their first and last names. But I still could see how they must look to Daddy and the men. Black, and in the way.