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

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 dothey 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 Isaw 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.
    “There’s Benjamin, Abby!” squealed Martha. “Doesn’t he look grand? Just like Sir Lancelot!”
    I snorted. With a stick for a lance, a broad-brimmed hat for a visor, and shabby rags for armor, he certainly did not look like a knight. But men perched up on horses always seemed gallant, somehow.
    We all waved hello to him and he gave us a big smile as he drove the red horse into the pen and shut the gate.
    “Hey, Sinclairs! Bet you haven’t seen the likes of this afore!” he hollered. The high rip of the sleeves on his shirt showed the muscles in his tanned arms, shining with sweat. I couldn’t look away from those arms, hard as I tried to tell myself that arms