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and all.”
    That night I heard Grandpa and Daddy outside the cabin arguing. The ocean was loud and almost drowned out their voices, but I could still tell the argument was about me because I heard them say “the boy” several times. And from the sounds of it, Daddy
did
see harm in me hoping to become a surfman.

FIVE
    Even after the auction, coal from the
Emma C. Cotton
washed up onshore, a little at a time. One morning, Daddy took up a sack and told me we were going to gather coal so we'd have less to buy in Manteo next time. I knew he was also wanting to talk, to ease the silent anger that had stood guard between us since the night he'd argued with Grandpa about me.
    He gave me the sack to carry, and he, for some reason, carried a fifteen-pound red drum he'd hooked by the gills and tied a line to. I looked at the fish, swinging on the line as Daddy walked, its dead eyes staring blankly. But I didn't ask Daddy why he was taking it along.
    We made our way through the brush to the shore, then turned north. The day was cloudy, the wind light, and the ocean calm and dull green. As we started up the beach, the seagullsscreamed overhead and circled Daddy and his fish. The sandpipers ran in and out of the waves onshore, pecking at the sand for food.
    I gathered the lumps of coal where they lay scattered by the receding tide and dumped them into the sack. We walked in silence, the dead fish swinging, and Daddy looking like he was figuring something in his head, frowning a little, and squinting into the glare of the white sky. I was leaning over to pick up a piece of coal when Daddy grabbed my shoulder and said, “Watch.”
    He dropped the red drum on the sand near the water's edge, then moved back from it and motioned for me to sit with him.
    Screaming seagulls flocked to the drum and attacked it. They ripped through the skin and pecked the flesh with their strong beaks until fish guts and blood stained the sand. The hungry birds pecked at each other, too. The stronger ones squawked and flew at the weaker ones, scaring them away from the precious food. One of the gulls—one that never made it close enough to the fish to get a bite—had only one leg. I wondered if he'd lost it in a fight over food this way.
    “They don't know how to share,” I said.
    “They can't share,” said Daddy. “There's only one fish.” He flattened out the sand between us with his palm. “There's not enough to go around.”
    I watched the birds again and saw that he was right. There was not much left of the drum now except bones, guts, and head.And what seemed like hundreds of gulls still flapped and squawked at each other, trying to grab the last bits of flesh.
    “It's what I've been trying to tell you,” said Daddy. “About you wanting to be a surfman.”
    I snapped my head around to face him.
    “I better explain it to you before you get yourself beat up again … like those birds over there.” He jerked his chin toward the one-legged gull.
    “It used to be that a black man could apply for a job in the Life-Saving Service in North Carolina, and if he was qualified, he could be assigned to most any station.”
    I nodded. I knew Mr. Etheridge had come to Pea Island from the Oregon Inlet station and Mr. Wescott had come from Caffeys Inlet Station.
    “They usually kept the black men in the lowest-ranking positions—number six or seven on the roster—but the whites and blacks worked together. Those were the ‘checkerboard’ crews,” he said. “That was in the 1870s, when the Life-Saving Service first started.”
    The birds were beginning to disperse now, finding nothing more to eat.
    “That was back when we thought the war had changed everything and we'd finally get the respect we deserved.” Daddy stared out at the dull green ocean.
    “But now they've made Mr. Etheridge keeper,” I said. “That'sthe highest position. And Mr. Bowser is the number-one surf-man, and Mr. Midgett is number two….” My voice trailed offwhen I saw the