Storm Warriors Read Online Free PDF Page A

it in my bones.”
    I raised my eyebrows at him. “Does it feel like the rheumatism, Grandpa?” I asked.
    He slapped me upside the head, gently.
    “She'll come, Grandpa,” I said, touching his hand. “One of these days she'll see your advertisement in the newspaper, and she'll show up at our cabin.”
    He nodded.
    “And will you shoo me and Daddy out of the cabin and say, ‘Me and my Dahlia, we gonna have us a time!’?”
    He tapped my knee, grinning. “That's just
exactly
what I'll say.”
    Just then I heard voices and giggling.
    “Nathan!”
    I turned my head.
    “See, it
is
him. I told you so.”
    It was William and Floyd with their sisters. Floyd's sister, Fannie, was about my age, and William's sister, Seabright, was only seven, with lively braids that stuck out every which way.
    Grandpa said he'd leave me to visit with my friends and he'd go find Daddy.
    “Nathan, did you see the
Emma C. Cotton
break up?” Fannie ran to me and stood, breathless, waiting for an answer. Her black braids framed her high forehead and wide-set eyes.
    “Did you help with the rescue?” Seabright asked. “Did you row out in the surfboat?”
    William and Floyd stood over to the side. William had grown taller since I'd last seen him. He was lanky, with arms and legs like mooring poles. Floyd had grown stockier. They both looked as if they were brooding.
    “I helped pull the beach cart and the surfboat, but I didn't row out,” I said.
    “Was everyone almost killed?” Fannie wanted to know.
    “Was it scary?” Seabright asked. She twisted the edge of her dress around her slender fingers.
    I remembered the huge wave breaking over the bow of the surfboat as it made its way out, and then the sound of the mast crashing into the water just moments after the crew was safely away.
    “Yes,” I said. “But it was probably scariest for the sailors, since none of them knew how to swim.” I looked at William and Floyd. “Mr. Meekins is going to teach me how to swim in the heavy surf.”
    William scuffed his toes in the sand and Floyd just grunted.
    “They're sore because you got to help with the rescue and they didn't,” Fannie said.
    “I am not,” Floyd snapped. “It doesn't matter anyway, because Nathan's just a helper—a fisherman volunteer. William and me, we'll be
real
surfmen, right, William?”
    William pulled up a weed and chewed on the end. “Of course that's right,” he said coolly.
    I knew better than to argue with two boys who were bigger than me. I'd had enough of arguing with Daddy about this very same thing, anyway.
    “We're coming to the auction,” said Fannie, obviously changing the subject.
    “Me too,” said Seabright.
    The auction of the wrecked
Emma C. Cotton
—broken-up timbers, sails, and any of her load of coal they'd been able to sal-vage—was scheduled for the second of January or the first good sailing day after that.
    “I'll see you there, then,” I said.
    Daddy and Grandpa walked toward us carrying our sacks of groceries. Floyd, William, and I took the sacks out of their arms and loaded them into our skiff.
    Daddy asked the children about their families. Fannie said her and Floyd's mother had been out crabbing a couple of days ago, cut her foot on a shell, and now she was in bed with her foot swelled up.
    “Has she put turpentine and fat meat on it?” Daddy asked.
    “Yes, sir,” said Fannie.
    “Has your Papa called on Doc Fearing?” he asked.
    Fannie looked down at her toes in the sand. “You know how it is around here with black folks and Doc Fearing. Nobody goes until it's too late, so they think if you call on him, you're liable to die before sunup.” She looked up at Daddy, her eyes pained. “Iwish we had our own colored doctor the way you had in Elizabeth City.”
    Daddy started to untie our mooring rope. “You tell your papa to call on Doc Fearing sooner rather than later, you hear?”
    Fannie and Floyd both nodded.
    “I'll come see your mamma next time I'm on the island,”