Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens Read Free Book Online Page A

Taller by a hand than the other men, Scupper scooped up three wire crates at a time, carrying them across the plank, going back for more. His fists were bear-sized, knuckles chapped and split. In less than forty minutes the deck was hosed, nets tied, lines secured.
    He told the crew he’d join them another day for beer; he had to do some tuning up before going home. In the wheelhouse, Scupper put a 78 record of Miliza Korjus on the player strapped to the counter and turned the volume up. He and Tate went below and squeezed into the engine hold, where Tate handed tools to his dad as he greased parts and tightened bolts by a dim lightbulb. All the while the soaring, sweet opera lifted higher into the sky.
    Scupper’s great-great-grandfather, emigrating from Scotland, had shipwrecked off the coast of North Carolina in the 1760s and was the only survivor. He swam to shore, landing on the Outer Banks, found a wife, and fathered thirteen children. Many could trace their roots back to that one Mr. Walker, but Scupper and Tate stayed mostly to themselves. Didn’t join the Sunday picnic spreads of chicken salad and deviled eggs with their relatives often, not like they had when his mother and sister were still there.
    Finally, in the graying dusk, Scupper slapped Tate on the shoulders. “All done. Let’s get home, get supper on.”
    They walked up the wharf, down Main, and out a winding road to their house, a two-story with weathered cedar-shake siding, built in the 1800s. The white window trim had been painted fresh, and the lawn running almost to the sea was cut neat. But the azaleas and rosebushes next to the house sulked in weeds.
    Pulling off yellow boots in the mudroom, Scupper asked, “You tired of burgers?”
    “Never tired of burgers.”
    Tate stood at the kitchen counter, picking up globs of hamburger meat, forming patties, and placing them on a plate. His mother and sister, Carianne, both wearing baseball caps, grinned at him from a picture hanging next to the window. Carianne loved that Atlanta Crackers cap, had worn it everywhere.
    He looked away from them, started slicing tomatoes, stirring baked beans. If not for him, they’d be here. His mother basting a chicken, Carianne cutting biscuits.
    As usual Scupper got the burgers a bit black, but they were juicy inside and thick as a small city phone book. Both hungry, they ate in silence for a while, and then Scupper asked Tate about school.
    “Biology’s good; I like it, but we’re doing poetry in English class. Can’t say I like it much. We each gotta read one out loud. You used to recite some, but I don’t remember them.”
    “I got the poem for you, son,” Scupper said. “My favorite—‘The Cremation of Sam McGee’ by Robert Service. Used to read it out to y’all. Was your mama’s favorite. She laughed every time I read it, never got tired of it.”
    Tate looked down at the mention of his mother, pushed his beans around.
    Scupper went on. “Don’t go thinking poetry’s just for sissies. There’s mushy love poems, for sure, but there’s also funny ones, lots about nature, war even. Whole point of it—they make ya feel something.” His dad had told him many times that the definition of a real man is one who cries without shame, reads poetry with his heart, feels opera in his soul, and does what’s necessary to defend a woman. Scupper walked to the sitting room, calling back, “I used to know most of it by heart, but not anymore. But here it is, I’ll read it to ya.” He sat back down at the table and began reading. When he got to this segment:
    “And there sat Sam, looking cool and calm, in the heart of the furnace roar;
    And he wore a smile you could see a mile, and he said, ‘Please close that door.
    It’s fine in here, but I greatly fear you’ll let in the cold and storm—
    Since I left Plumtree down in Tennessee, it’s the first time I’ve been warm.’”
    Scupper and Tate chuckled.
    “Your mom always laughed at that.”
    They