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the sounds if the tide did not accomplish it first. On more than one night, Rachel and Ben had listened to seawater gushing under the house; gotten up in the morning to find the high-ground garden ruined. Only collards could stand that water.
    It was certainly no place to raise crops, although across the sounds on the mainland the earth was black and fertile. Com grew seven feet high over there and Rachel often thought about what life might have been had she been born thirty miles west.
    There were still some wide-bladed windmills around to grind grain brought over from the mainland, traded for fish. But most were falling in disuse. People were buying meal instead. She even thought the Banks were showing signs of becoming modern. Telephone lines were hooked between all the lifesaving stations. Telegrams could be sent. The Atlantic & North Carolina railway ran to Morehead City; Norfolk & Southern into Elizabeth City. Steamships of the Old Dominion Line plied the sounds, whistling hoarsely. There was actually a gas engine banged off in the sounds the year before. Perhaps someday the men would do more than fish or make rescues.
    And there was a rugged beauty to the Banks that she acknowledged, one that Ben didn't appear to see. On calm days, there was a quiet over the flats and dunes; over the ridges on down toward Buxton; a feeling of great peace and contentment.
    Although mainlanders laughed at it, there was some scraggly vegetation from around Kill Devil Hills and Kitty Hawk on down to Ocracoke Island. Real thick woods around Buxton's high ground. There was gnarled big holly and the scrubbier yaupon with scarlet berries; deerberry, wax myrtle, cedar and dogwood, loblolly pine. Wild flowers grew in some places; wild coffee fern and wild rose. Long grass waved in the silent marshes and ponds, interrupted by foxtails, spike rushes, and mincing heron. Roanoke Island, over in the sounds, was bestowed with much green; muskenong grapes big as walnuts.
    Because the Gulf Stream ran so dose, hitting head-on with the Labrador Current off Hatteras Point, there was even the miracle of palmetto and yucca, a few orange trees on south; hibiscus, too. Spanish moss hung in the limbs as it did in South Carolina and Florida.
    Here and there were squirrel, rabbit, raccoon, and whitetail deer. There was an abundance of gulls and fish hawks; canvasback ducks, redheads, buffleheads; even Canadian and snow geese.
    If only the sea was gender and there were no wrecks.
    Rachel looked east, wondering what was happening down on the beach. Ben had disappeared over the dunes.

7
    T HE SUN WAS OUT strong now and the day was sparkling. The wind had died to a mere steady breeze, setting around to its usual prevail, west of south.
    As Ben walked along, he thought about Reuben but firmly believed his brother was still down in the Caribbean, safe enough from any gale blowing up here. He didn't come ashore very often, but when he did Ben would try to make him talk about how it was out there. He didn't talk very much at that and for some odd reason always wanted to work in the garden patch when he got home, if it was spring or summer. Ben couldn't understand it, but Reuben would contentedly hoe and sift the sandy loam in his fingers; even put some in his mouth.
    The story of his that Ben liked best was the one of his first trip, when he was still a boy of thirteen. On a bark out of Norfolk. They ran into a storm four days from last landfall at Cape Henry, and Reuben was so sick he thought his belly button would come up.
    They ordered him aloft to help furl the topgallant sail, which was more than midway up the mast, beneath the skysails and royals. It was night, raining, and the big square-rigger was heeling over. He went up the forerigging and got to the foretop. He was so green he didn't know how to get around the running rigging but finally made it to the topgallant yard.
    Two old sailors were already up there and ordered him to go out on the yardarm, but he