Diann Ducharme (10 page)

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.

“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 were nothing interesting to stare at.

He jumped easily off his patchy brown and white horse and tied it with a frayed rope to the fence.

“Is that your horse, Benjamin? It sure is small!” said Charlie.

“Oh, sure, this here is Junie. He’s a Banker horse, like all the rest of them here,” said Benjamin, pointing to the horses walking exhausted around the pen. They kicked up a fine dust from the hot sand.

The horses looked like a different breed of animal, with their small stature, long hooves, and matted fur. But there was something else distinctive about them, too, something to do with their jerky movements and deep, watchful eyes that hinted at their wildness.

I could tell that the horse pen was as unnatural to them as a barn filled with oats and fresh water. A periodic brand on the hindquarters signified the horses’ only contact with mankind.

Benjamin explained that the wild horses preferred to wander at will over the sandy bluffs, living out their existence on coarse sea
grasses and salt-laced freshwater, found by digging holes in the sand with their long hooves.

I thought that Uncle Jack would have enjoyed these particular animals, even though, at heart, he preferred oversized, purebred stallions.

We all crowded near the fence as the horses in the pen were examined and counted by their owners. The youngest colts, hovering next to their mothers, were held down by strong men and branded with the quick touch of a hot poker. The branded colts whinnied loudly and ran off to another area of the pen to nurse their flesh. Charlie and Martha stood with their backs to the commotion and their hands over their ears, but all around me the locals were whistling their approval and jostling for space near the pen.

As horses and a handful of humans shifted around the enclosure, the red horse that Benjamin had driven down the beach came ambling along over to us. Her coat was a remarkable russet color threaded with gold. And she looked thickly strong, in spite of her squatty height.

“Abby, look here.” Benjamin laughed. “I’ve seen this pony ever so often, wandering and foraging. She’s real spirited for such a little gal—and she ain’t got an owner. She’s authentically wild. They say her daddy was a rough one we called Dragon’s Breath. He was a huge ol’ red stallion with a whole mess of mares in his flock.”

As Benjamin handed me a small yellow apple, he whispered out of the earshot of Charlie and Martha, “I brung her over special for you. I just knew you’d like her, you both being redheaded and all.”

I reached my hand through the fence and the little horse came right over on her short, knobby legs. She took the apple and munched slowly, as if meditating on her current predicament. We looked at each other, and neither of us blinked.

Benjamin hooted loudly. “Now, ain’t that something. That pony’s usually right skittish.”

Daddy sidled up to us. “How about this one, then? She’ll give old Mungo a rest,” he said.

“She might be too wild for you,” warned a young local man who had been eavesdropping. “Even us Bankers wouldn’t deem to put a saddle on that girl. She’s feral as all get-out. Benny shoulda known better.”

Benjamin interjected, “Oh, hush up, Henry. She’ll be all right. She’s just got personality is all. Ain’t nothing wrong with that.”

Henry spat some tobacco juice away from me. “I’d pick another, I was you. She won’t do right.”

I shook my head. “She’ll do just fine.”

Daddy had never met a horse that he couldn’t break, so he ignored the man named Henry, too. He called out to a nearby rider and offered to pay him to halter and break the horse, to ready her for labor.

The crowd erupted in applause when the red horse—a local favorite—was taken by the rider. He held out his hand for her to snuff while he scratched his other hand over her ears and neck. He then slung a rough-looking saddle on her back and after a few more sweet treats and petting tried to jump on her back.

But she was wary of the maneuver. She’d probably seen this type of thing before, at a distance. She jostled away from his hold and the saddle slipped off her back. The crowd cheered loudly, and the rider just smiled. He took his time approaching her again, offering more sugar and scratching. He whispered into her ear, yet still she resisted.

I watched the rider try and try again, as the crowd got more and more rowdy, faces red and eyes straining.

“To the mud with her!” they all yelled.

The more the horse’s feisty nature was displayed, the more I felt
that I didn’t want her after all. She obviously wasn’t ready to give up the wild life, but I felt it was too late to tell Daddy to forget it. He was enjoying the spectacle, hooting with some of the other men and commenting on the horse’s particularly female attributes.

Finally the rider led the horse into the thick sand of the sound. The horse walked around and around in the muck until she grew tired. When the rider jumped on her back she remained quiet, and the crowd sighed collectively with relief. With her head hanging down and a saddle on her back, she was ours for the taking. Everyone clapped like there was no tomorrow.

When the commotion died down, Benjamin wandered off to talk to some of the local folks, and I watched him from the corner of my eye, knowing full well that I shouldn’t care what he was up to.

A couple of young men slapped him on the back with gusto, and the women smiled at him and offered him food and beverages.

I found myself wishing that he would come back to talk to us again. I guess I was used to having him all to myself on the porch. But he seemed happy to be where he was. He had taken up some horseshoes and was playing in a contest with a few other men. The clanging of the metal echoed periodically through the dusty air.

Charlie, Martha, and I sat on the back of the cart and spread out the picnic lunch Winnie had packed for us. The children had hardly eaten a mouthful when the old cart driver came over to ask them if they’d like to ride some of the ponies still corralled in the pen.

So with their chicken gathering flies, I watched Charlie and Martha ride as if their lives depended on it. They called out, “Buy this one, Daddy! This one! No, this one!” They wanted them all.

But Daddy and Mr. Viceroy were absorbed in quiet conversation with a couple of other men. As the dust swirled around their boots, they pressed themselves into a watchful circle, horselike.

I was busy gnawing on a drumstick when I heard Ben say, “This is her, boys. Abigail Sinclair.”

I looked up to see two men about Ben’s age gawking at me as if I’d grown a beard and mustache. I quickly choked down the chicken meat and wiped my hands on a linen napkin.

Ben directed a thumb left, then right. “This here is Harley Stickle and Jimmy Juniper, my best buddies. I told them just now about our learning hours on the porch of your cottage, and they didn’t believe one word I said. So you think you can set them straight?”

I smiled and said, “It’s true. I’m teaching him how to read and write.”

Harley and Jimmy snickered. Harley said, “Pardon me, but what in tarnation are
you
doing setting on a porch with the likes of Benny Whimble? I just can’t feature it. If it’s boredom that’s got you in its grips, I’ve got better cures than learning a fisherman every afternoon!”

Jimmy counted on his fingers. “You like fishing? We may not be better fisherman than Benny here, but we got better boats, for sure. We can take you—and some of your fine lady friends, of course—down to the New Inlet, or over to Roanoke Island, or how ’bout cart rides on the beach? Ladies like you sure do fancy a good cart ride down the shore of an afternoon. You like pork barbecues? You drink beer? Probably not …”

Ben hollered, “All right, that’s enough out of you. I didn’t know you were going to act so simple. You’re humiliatin’ me in front of Abby here. Get lost.”

Harley and Jimmy looked shocked at Ben’s dismissal. “Well, okay
then. But listen, Abby, if you need something to do to occupy yourself when Benny’s tiny brain dries up, just give us a hoot and we’ll come running!”

Ben turned them in the opposite direction and pushed them away. They started laughing to themselves on their way back to the horse-hoe game.

“Sorry about that. I just thought it would be nice if you met some of my friends. They’re good people, but sometimes they act denser than driftwood.”

“That’s all right. I enjoyed them. It’s been a while since I’ve enjoyed such an easy conversation. My uncle and I used to horse around a lot, but I think I’ve forgotten how. Maybe I
will
go for a cart ride with them sometime.”

“Well, I wouldn’t give ’em too much encouragement, if I was you. They’re not much different than stray dogs looking for the odd belly rub.”

I giggled, thinking that they did have a sort of doglike affectation.

Ben’s tone dampened suddenly. “Those men friends of your pap’s?” He pointed to the group of men, still in conversation.

I shrugged. “I’ve never seen them before in my life.”

He stopped and looked around before continuing. Concern edged his words. “They ain’t locals. You have any idea what they’re talking about?”

I laughed and took a sip of lemonade. “No, I couldn’t imagine. Perhaps politics. The state’s current political chaos is Daddy’s favorite topic of conversation.”

He continued to watch the men. Then he spoke tenderly, saying, “You be careful ’round him, Abby, you hear?”

I looked away in confusion. Why would he warn me against my own daddy? “Benjamin, you need a rest from the sun, I think.”

He reached over to scratch the red horse’s neck. After some silence, he said, “I’m sorry. I sure don’t like to mess around in other folks’ business.”

He fiddled around with the horse for a while, as if he wanted to say something else, but he never did.

As the event was drawing to a close, Ben offered to tie up the horse on
White Storm
so that we could take her back to the cottage with us, but it took a long time to get the job done. Even though she must have been exhausted, she whinnied and jerked around, and her muddy legs shook something awful, causing her long hooves to scrabble around on the slippery deck.

Benjamin kept stroking her and talking in a low, soothing voice, and when he looked to me it was with a twinge of regret in his eyes. “Reckon she’ll be all right after a week or so.”

I nodded. “It’s probably the first time she’s met with a boat. I’ll take good care of her.”

As we set sail back to Nags Head, Ben called out from the docks, “Hey, Abby, some of us are getting together at the ocean for the fireworks tonight—not too far from your cottage, matter o’ fact. Why don’t you all come out to see them? There’s to be a barbecue and beer. Should be a real fun time, ’cause Snuffy Hobbs is hands down the best fireworks man alive.”

I was sure that Daddy would not want to mingle with the locals on such a grand occasion as Independence Day. “We have plans to go to the hotel, for the fireworks party on the sound.”

“Well, that’s all right. The hotel fireworks won’t be nearly as sparky, but you all have fun, hear?” He gave a mock salute as we drifted out into the Currituck Sound.

I could barely hear him as he hollered, “See you on Monday, Miss Defoe!”