Free Diann Ducharme by The Outer Banks House (v5) Page A

OF THE Currituck Sound, its white sails yawning in the early-morningbreeze. 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 wereset 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