path: root/cuts.txt

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The afternoon sun was gone. The Wind began to roll ashore in gusts ar first, spitting cand off  the tops of the dunes, whiping it into the aire and then letting it settle again, some kind of dance between wind and done, one that ducked the dunes dipped the dunes, back, away from the sea, and then lifted them again in some kind of dance, light and bluri at the edges, stingin the skin of any create that might cut between them might be so bold as to cut between then. Very quickly though the dance became to fast to follow, the wind no longer let the sand dip, prefering the whirl it endlessly across the sandy shore dance floor. the sea because to instrde, waves moved higher as if draw by a tide, but it was not a tide it was wind, moved water over thousands of miles, piling it up here in th sahllows of the coastal water where it rose and surge forward., washing the frontal dunes first, then rising high enough to whipe out their camp, what was left, that the had not backed up was list, nothing more then the stones for the limns, though Birdie was sad to see them gone, pished out over the marsh. her father said perhaps they would find them, bu again, but Lyuly could not see how, the dunes were moving like soldier marching befor ethe wind, further bck buring reeds and sloughs and certainly and stones that folled down below them. 

The sy was dark, there was not trace of sun and it was impossible to tell the time, though Lulu thought it must be lat evening, her stomach gnaed at her sides , the water had made it all the way across the marsh, They'd see fish through helplessly across the reeds, left floudering when the storm surge pulled back, btu then it came again, more and more surging until it did not teceed anymore, but was simply the new leven of the sea.

The island they had chosen to make their stand was ten, perhaps twelve feet above the water line and now the water was threatening to rise hight enough to wash them off it. It was too late to move, the turned their boats over and her father started a small fire under one of them using the cials he had brought from came/ He kept it low, letting each twig burn to coals before allding more. 

Just enough to light toches later, if we need them he said to Birdie, who helped him stack twigs near the stern of the over turned boat. The wind was starting to blow sand up on the windward side of the overturned boat. Her father and Taba used their shuvels to pile up more and seal off the bow and windward side, making a reasonable windtight, perhaps even water tight barrier. They would know more about that when the rain began i. 

The all climed in, her father placed the stove pip in trought the sand to vent the fire. It was still smokey and hot under the boat, but it was bette rthan being out in the spitting sand and rain. Lulu sat down byt hte interance and let her eyes adjust to the darkness. Her omother and sister sat on the other side of the entrance tunnel, Birdie in tk's lap. Her aunt and charles were back toward the stern with tk Tamba's wife. H, Henri crawled in and paused on hands and knees loock around. He laced at lulyu but went to his mama, taking a seat on her other leg, opposite Birdie. You cant sit like this all night she said, but we can fuddle for a little while.

Her father and Tamba were still outside, she could hear them shouting to each other, trying to be heard as the wind increased aroun the. She coud hear the his of wind blown sand hittin ght full above her head. TLight flickered at the tunnel crawlspace and seconds later the sky clapped in the thunderous roat that shock the cround so hard the little mountain Lulu had been idling shaping wiht ther hands of dry sand, flattened out noticably. It was only as it sank down again that Lyuluy realized she'd been sooping up sand and letting it run out of her hand like her mother's prize timer that always hung high in the rathers, out of reach even of Birdie and Lulu. No one used the glass timer but Papa and Mama. he used it to navigate some times, though her had not in a long time. I know these waters well enough.

Then segue to the aligator at the door. First her father and Tamba come in, then the sad and curious aligator, then the brunt of the store the flashing sky, the calm of the key, the other side of the brunt, and the end of the night. Waking the next day, their hime cone, the whole cur of the shoreline different. And then the piece of tthe boat that they dind fishing the next day.

They bury him on land. The little boy, puffy and white, down. Chunks of flesh missing. Crabs eating them. They brun them in pyre, the sparks reach up like mingling wiht the stars, the after life, the next time around, etc. 

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Scene of lulu and Bridie sailing with their father. The boat is a small coastal cruiser, junk rigged perhaps, or liek a dhak from the aftrican, Tamba and her father build the boat, cata maran single outrigger, oah rigged, triangular inverted sail, fast, stable, next to no draw, can handle some open water, but good at navigating inlet and marshes and rivers. Big enough to hold a descent catch, but also fast and capable to runnig good in from a ship to shore under the cover of sarkness. Her father helps unload ships that sail that come in the beginning. The firls see their father take the boat out at night. Meet the sail. He helps bring treasue and men ashore. Load it into wagons and smuggle it into Owen twon. guns and run. Lulu and Birdie get to help , this is their fist time. perhaps, something similar to ricing camp disaster? does that fir or do they simply see it happen and her father tells the story abroudn the fire. 

Need to get wise old Tamba in camp and telling stories. Not necessaryly all african stories. He;s sailed widely, all around the world and knows stories from nearly every culture. He becomes a way to get out of the rut of any one point of view. He tells tails I can borrow from the myths of many cultures. Thwich means I can't be accursed the approation, or at least not any one appropriation. If you steal from everyone everyon will be mad. Might as well I suupose. What's the harm. If you're going to go, go all the way.

Cuthie was swinging on the vine at the edge of the clearing as Birdie approached. He called out to her as he leaped off the limb and swung out wide over the racks of drying meat and lines of linens hanging in the noonday sun. His white teeth gleamed in the light and made his smile seem like it was a thousand times brighter than her own. She laughed and ran across the compound, jumping at his legs as he passed over her. She scrambled up the tree to the limb he'd leapt from. The branches of the TK were worn smooth from Tamba's hands and hers and Lulu's and Henri's and Francis'; and Charles's and countless other children who'd made the same climb to leap from the rope swing that Tamba had built. The tk nuts around the branch were she stood were gone already. She climbed up one branch higher, where the bark was still rough, fewer hands and feet had tread and she picked a tk nut. Tamba was still swinging, slower now, ever closer to equilibrium. 

When his swing had lost it's momentum he lowered himself hand over fist until he reached the end of the line and then he dropped to the forest floor. The line was just long enough, with a heavy knot at the end, that he could throw it up and over the branch where Birdie stood. 

She waited while he climbed back up and joined her on the limb. She handed him a nut and took the rope. She kept her eyes on his as she casually fell backward gripping the rope. Still, she knew her eyes betrayed her as she left the branch, no matter how many times she did it there was a jolt of fear that went shooting up her spine when all her weight settled onto the line, there was a lot ridding on that instant, it was the instant where you found out if the line would hold, if the branch would still bear your weight and then it was gone and you were with it, chasing the arc of an invisible pendulum out over the clearing Cuthie's family called home. 

Birdie looked down on the garden, the corn still only knee-high, not yet supporting the threading tendrils of bean plants. tk look up food crops of coastal carolina pre-contact. 

Eventually they realized he was not coming, he and samuel and charles and gone off hunting in the woods. They sometimes managed to bring back a rabbit, or a partiage or woodcock, but usually the returned empty handed with hard to believe stories of their nearly amzing feats. Lulu and Birdie usually just nodded and went on with whatever they were doing, though henri was ndid not otherwise tend ot exagerate or make up stories, which always made Birdie wonder if at least the stories he told might actually be true. Especially the stories about Tamba's people living deep in the woods. 


At the helm Birdie was de Graffe, fearless and fair, loved by the crew. 


They crested the last dune before the beach and all went tumbling, cartwheeling down to the firmer sand of the shoreline, along which lay the 




A groan escaped her. It was going to be a long, hot day made even hotter by the fires. IT was time to start making tar, a task Birdie loathed, though truthfully there weren't any tasks she didn't loath. She wanted to spend all day at the Arkhangelsk, with the new pot, with her sister, even her brother, even her cousins and her brother combined would be better than fetching wood and dried reeds all day and feeding them into ovens.
She stood up and wiggled her feet, letting them sink into the sand up to her ankles.