Teetoncey and Ben O'Neal

  The keeper took one look at the wet, frozen consul and was puzzled. So Jabez said quickly, "Cap'n, it was real rough out there tonight. I took more water aboard than usual."

  Filene's eyes narrowed, so I left.

  6

  FILENE came over midmorning to collect Teetoncey.

  Mama asked, "How's the consul?"

  "Not good," Filene replied. "He's got a terrible cold, Rachel. I could swear there wasn't that much wind yestiddy. Jabez can take a boat down the sound in a gale without loosenin' a peg, yet he must'a half swamped last night. The consul looked like he'd been underwater half the time."

  "You need a penetrate for him?" Mama asked.

  "No, I doctored him good but he is ill today," said the keeper. "Despite that, he wants to go. But he refuses to take a boat again. I'll pass him up the line overland, station to station, an' the boys can row him acrost Oregon Inlet; then git him back to Skyco by buggy for the steamer sailin'. Where's the girl?"

  Mama replied offhandedly, "Gone visitin'."

  "Where?"

  "Don't know, Filene. We weren't expectin you this soon."

  Filene frowned. "An' you don't know where she is?"

  Mama shook her head. "I don't keep too close watch on her now."

  Filene turned to me. "Where is she, Ben?"

  I stood speechless.

  "Speak up, boy," he said.

  "Cap'n, I haven't seen her this morning," I said, which was true.

  Filene looked at both of us suspiciously, then asked a tricky question. "Why is that dog tied up out there? You never tied him before."

  I didn't know what to say but Mama took over. She laughed. "Next you'll be askin where Fid is." She stepped over to the window. "Right out there he is. Down by the marsh. Look at him."

  Filene didn't budge.

  Mama asked, "What's got into you?"

  The keeper answered, "What's into me is that I want Ben to go find her an' bring her back to the station, kit packed."

  "Ben has to work today," Mama said.

  Filene answered, "All right, I'll jus' turn the off-duty crew out an' they'll find her."

  "Whatever you say, Cousin," was Mama's answer.

  We watched Filene go. He stopped to eye Boo Dog a moment before he went on down the path.

  I started to say something but Mama held up her hand. "We best not talk about it," she said. "You might slip an' tell me where she is."

  With a case of bad nerves, knowing that Luther Gaskins and Mark Jennette were probably checking door-to-door, north to south, I worked at the Burrus store. Yet I felt Tee was safe for at least another day. Knocking on every door, it would take the surfmen that long to reach Buxton Woods. Even then, if they went to Mis' Creedy's, I had an idea she'd find a way to talk around the subject.

  At the same time, I needed information on what was happening at Heron Head Station so I went to Kilbie Oden's house after work and drew him outside. Kilbie could be trusted and was always one to come to the front in emergencies. I told him what I'd done with Teetoncey and why, then said, "I need a spy, Kilbie."

  Those light blue eyes lit up.

  "I've got to know what Filene is planning and what kind of condition the consul is in. If he's miserable enough he'll leave. If he gets too sick we might have to bury him out here. I'm hoping he'll be just miserable and not deathly; then decide to go back to Norfolk. Soon."

  Kilbie nodded. "I'll mosey over to the station after while." Kilbie had been born when the moon was coming to full, which meant he'd be thrifty and probably good at business. He had uncommonly keen intelligence.

  I said, "I'll probably ride to Buxton Woods tonight just in case I have to transfer her to that old mill at Big Kinnakeet. If they get close I'll do it. Anyway, see if you can get word to me tomorrow."

  Kilbie nodded again, happy to help. But then he eyed me sharply. "You sure you haven't fallen in love with that girl?"

  I answered truthfully. "She's been nothing but trouble." I'd been so busy with that girl I hadn't had time to go duck hunting, at which I'm inclined to be good. I also think she was ruining Boo Dog. He didn't even look at ducks anymore. But I still thought Tee could further my purpose, so she was worth the trouble.

  When I got home I found that Mama had baked two pumpkin pies. She said, "Whoever is boarding Teetoncey might like these."

  I agreed.

  After supper I left for Buxton Woods with the pies, spending the night in Mis' Creedy's back room following a long and enjoyable listening to. They discussed London Tower.

  After nine in the morning, Kilbie rode up on his papa's mule and just by the bubbling-over looks of his face, I knew he had information. We all chatted a minute and then I went outside with Kilbie.

  He said, "That consul is sick an' miserable but not dyin'. All he wants to do is git that girl an' leave here. Forever. He's sleepin in that room with Filene an' is beside himself. You know how hot Filene keeps his room with that kerosene heater, an' how bad he snores..."

  I nodded.

  "Also, the consul is mad at Filene because he can't produce the girl an' now Filene is mad at him. Last night at supper the consul cleaned his specs while the keeper was blessin' the food. An' Filene looked out o' the corners o' his eyes an' caught him. You know that no one moves at that table while Filene is prayin."

  I did know that and had to laugh. The consul couldn't have made a worse mistake. Things were working out fine.

  "So Filene wants him to leave, as much as he wants to go. But..." (Kilbie always had an annoying habit of leaving the bad news until last) "...there's a problem, Ben. They all figure you're hidin the girl now, an' Filene thinks he knows how to find her."

  "How?"

  "He's gonna turn Boo Dog loose this mornin an' he's bettin that hound'll come right to Teetoncey."

  I steamed. I'd never heard of such a dirty trick. Filene was using my own dog to trap the girl. "I wish that dog would go to Pea Island and stay."

  Kilbie said, "If you brought her down here with Fid, an' she didn't walk any of the way, Boo might not be able to track her."

  Boo was smarter than that. "He'll get a whiff of Fid and come straight here, and Filene'll be watching every wag of his tail." I could picture the keeper loping along behind Boo as he zigzagged and sniffed his way south.

  We sat for a moment on Mis' Creedy's split-rail fence and then Kilbie had an idea. "Why don't I take her to the mill on the mule, an' you walk Fid north in the water for a while, so Boo will lose his scent. Then turn Fid loose. That hound'11 circle hisself crazy."

  It was a good Kilbie idea, as usual, and we accomplished it, borrowing several blankets from Mis' Creedy plus some food. Teetoncey wasn't upset at leaving Mis' Creedy's, though she had enjoyed staying there. She now looked forward to spending several nights in the mill. I did not tell her that some Hatteras rats also liked to live in that mill, dining on old corn leftovers.

  Of course, I was not at Mis' Creedy's when Filene arrived in early afternoon, courtesy of the gold hound. But I heard some of the story later. Mis' Creedy, not wanting to tell a lie, admitted to the keeper that Teetoncey had been there but had gone again, to where she did not know. Then, as Kilbie predicted, Boo went in circles along the edge behind Mis' Creedy's cottage. No one was with Filene so I do not know his reactions but I must guess that he called Boo Dog every possible stupid name, short of cussing him. They deserved each other for trying such an underhanded trick.

  There were some tow sacks of cornhusks underneath the millhouse and we carried them up and inside, spreading the husks on the floor for a mattress. Then I found an old bait trap down on the sound bank and brought it up to store our sack of food, so the rats wouldn't change their diet.

  Close together under the blankets to keep warm, lying on the floor of the mill on the husks, near the heavy stones that had ground corn for a half century, Tee and I talked a lot that night. There was enough light breeze to make the tattered vanes, tied down so they wouldn't rotate, rattle and creak. We could hear the surf
faintly from across the island but being winter, the marsh was quiet. It was very peaceful in the abandoned mill.

  "You know, I've never been outside this old Tar Heel state. I want to go everywhere, Tee. I want to see what this world is about. I'm going soon, I swear, and be a cabin boy, then get mate's papers like Reuben and sail for twenty years or so. Then come back here when I'm an old man and be a surfman, like my papa and Filene and Jabez." I'd dreamed of doing this for a long time.

  "You really want to leave here?" she asked.

  "I cannot wait."

  Tee said, "Ben, some people would like to trade lives with you. City dwellers, I mean."

  I had to laugh. "Stuck out here on sand, without a railroad; not even a steamship dock within ten miles. Not even a street with a lamp on it. We don't even have a chamber toilet on these islands."

  Tee looked over. "There are boys in London who'd give anything to have what you have. I think it's the most exciting place I've ever been."

  Maybe she was still daft from hitting her head on the hard bottom in the surf.

  "There's nothing out here except birds, fish, sand, and wrecks," I protested.

  "It's very beautiful in its own way. You just don't see it."

  Just then a rat, about a foot long, came edging down a beam for a look around. His beady eyes glittered.

  Tee saw him and sucked a breath. "Whats that, Ben?"

  Knowing that women do not take very well to rats, I said, "Just an old beautiful coon snooping around."

  Her voice was jumpy. "What's a coon?"

  "Raccoon. I used to have one. Tame."

  I slammed the palm of my hand into the floor boards, raising some dust that made us both sneeze, and the fellow took off. He'd be back, I knew, but I had not heard of these Hatteras rats biting any live human so they weren't anything to worry about.

  We talked on and then went to sleep.

  While there are vicious storms in the winter, there are also gentle rains that fall on the Banks. The skies lower down without a cloud boil anywhere; the rains fall for a day or two, filling the cisterns and giving the sparse vegetation a welcome drink without drowning it.

  I woke up just after dawn to a pitter-pat and a drip-drop, getting splashed on the cheek. The roof was leaking from a dozen places and I looked out through the cracks at early gray light. It was going to be a damp, cold, miserable day, I knew. Some cornhusks could plug the holes in the roof but trying to heat the place was something else.

  Tee was still asleep and I eased out from under the blankets, pulled on my shoes and went outside, down the short ladder. After answering nature's call, shivering a little, I stuffed my jacket pockets with husks and climbed up to the edge of the roof. There was no way to find those holes in the wet shingles and I gave up on that. But there was an old lard tin under the housing for a make-do stove and some scraps of wood. Then it dawned on me that I had no matches nor a way to start a fire. I kicked the tin away and climbed back into the millhouse.

  Tee had awakened and was sitting up. She said, "It's leaking in here, Ben."

  "Is that so?" I said, feeling none too good.

  Mama was now putting on breakfast in the dry warmth of our kitchen. Filene was eating grits and sausage gravy in the dry warmth of the station, and we were stuck out in a wet mill.

  Tee went out to answer her own call and I sat down on the edge of the framework around the grinding wheel, promptly getting hit in the top of the head with a cold drop. When she got back, looking a little soggy, I said, "Pass me up some husks," and climbed into the rafters, which were loaded with mud nests for waspies, to plug the leaks. That took about twenty minutes. We weren't speaking very much. While I was up there, she asked, "Will this rain last long?"

  I answered, "Ask the rain."

  After I was down, she said, as a complaining woman, "I'm cold, Ben."

  I said, "Well, heat a brick and stick it in your frock." I was just as cold.

  She stared at me and that made me even madder. I said, "We got no tweeny maids out here. You have to take care of yourself."

  She didn't say anything but huddled like an orphan in a blanket while I got out what food was left. Cold livermush sandwiches. On biting into hers, she made a face and I blew up.

  "You should have brought your cook from London."

  It went on that way for a while and then a rat scampered across the floor. She shrieked and I got really disgusted. "Stop yelling," I said. "Nothing but a rat."

  Teetoncey let loose, little white lines of anger around her eyes. Try as I might, as good Methodists should do, I cannot easily forget what she called me: A "naughty, mean, rude, selfish, thoughtless oaf." That was not all. She also screamed, "I wouldn't stay another moment in that smelly house, in your smelly room, and your smelly bed, eating this awful food, if it weren't for the silver..."

  Then she clapped her hand over her mouth as if the Hatteras cat had just jumped out.

  What silver? I thought. Now, what was that about?

  I couldn't inquire. Teetoncey was now toppled over in sobs that must have been wrenching her ribs. I stood there a moment, plagued by the thing that plagues all men—a crying woman. I am not always mean and selfish and I mustered up and went to her, touching the blanket and saying I was sorry about the rat. I sat down by her. It was miserable and damp enough in that mill without a lot of hysterical tears.

  I said, "I know it's cold in here and I wish we had eggs for breakfast..." I didn't know what else to say to her. However, I suppose that was plenty, a gesture of some friendship on my part. She raised her head and sniffed and swallowed; sniffed a little more, wiped her eyes and nose, and pretty soon said, "Ben, I didn't mean to call you those names. I do sincerely apologize." So British.

  I accepted.

  After a short time, sitting close to her, a blanket around me now, I got back to what was still on my mind. "You said something about silver..."

  Tee was silent a moment and then sighed deeply before unburdening her heavy secret. "You remember I said my father chartered the Malta Empress to take us to Barbados and back to New York?"

  I nodded.

  "We went there so my father could sell his holdings. They were inherited but he could not manage them from London. They included sugar plantation land, a molasses factory, and a rum distillery. Our estate was in Christ Church, between Ealing Grove and Graeme Hall, a very lovely place. It's in the tropics, Ben, so warm and green. I would have preferred to live there but we couldn't. Anyway, the estate shipped dark crystal sugar, white crystals, pan molasses, rum..."

  Sitting in the drafty mill, listening to her, I decided I'd have to visit the Barbadoes someday.

  "We stayed four months and then a Dutchman sailed over from Curaçao and bought the estate for twenty thousand pounds."

  Pounds of what? "What's a pound?" I asked.

  "A sovereign. Twenty shillings. Each pound is equal to about five American dollars."

  I figured quickly. That was a lot of money. About a hundred thousand dollars. You could buy the whole state of North Carolina for that much. Maybe South Carolina, too.

  "The Dutchman paid us in East India silver bar, bullion, and my father placed it in two chests ... and about a week later we boarded the Empress near the careenage in Bridgetown..."

  "What's a careenage?"

  "Part of the port where they tilt ships to work on them."

  Tee knew more about the sea than I thought. "Go on," I said.

  "Then we sailed. A few days later, my father, in a jolly mood and laughing, said, 'Wendy, in case a carriage runs us down in New York, keep an eye on those chests. There's a fortune in them, as you know.'"

  I had to ask, "Were they aboard when you hit Heron Shoal?" She nodded. We'd had a Boston vessel, the Richard Kent, founder with twenty thousand in gold on it. Now, a hundred thousand in silver. "You sure, Teetoncey?"

  She nodded again.

  If the cracks in the mill floor had been wide enough, I would have plummeted to sand. A hundred thousand dollars
was sitting on a bar not more than three miles from our house.

  7

  I WAS NO LONGER cold or damp or miserable, seeing the possibility of a fortune before I reached the age of thirteen. But there were some problems and they were large ones. I said, "Tee, of all the places in the world to drop a hundred thousand in silver, this might have been the worst."

  "Why?" she asked.

  I shook my head. "Long before us Outer Bankers were lifesavers, we were wreckers. Salvage people. It still runs deep in the blood. After a ship wrecks, I've seen people root around like wild hogs for ten dollars in gold coins. These Banks are poor. If it was known that much silver was on Heron, they'd shovel a hole to China to get it."

  "What shall I do?" Teetoncey asked.

  I didn't rightfully know at the moment but just then I heard a loon cry. I knew Kilbie was out there somewhere because it had always been our signal in times when we needed to communicate that way. I walked over, creaked the door open, and gave him a laughing gull screech. In a moment, he came up on his papa's mule. He was sensibly dressed in a sou'wester and rubber coat but that brown mule was pretty wet. I beckoned Kilbie in.

  He climbed up and said "Howdy" to Teetoncey and then said to me, "I think your troubles are over, Ben. The consul left this mornin', telling the keeper that Wendy Appleton could stay here the rest of her life so far as he was concerned. He was mighty upset, Ben. Mad at everybody. He had to get back to Norfolk after wasting three days and getting an awful cold."

  "He left in this rain?"

  Kilbie nodded. "Filene borrowed the Farrow buggy, fitted him out with oilskins, an' got him on his way overland. They'll row him across Oregon Inlet. I think it's lucky he got off the Banks alive. He called Filene an ignorant peasant last night..."

  Consul Calderham was lucky. So far as I knew, Filene would jerk an oak tree out for less than that. I felt a great weight off all of us. I said, "That's good news, Kilbie."

  Kilbie added, "Filene is still roastin' about you but he'll calm down in a day or two, Jabez said."