forest, the edge of the Cedar Island 

 community. Shaped like a giant 

 wishbone, with 18 miles of uninhabited 

 soundfront beach jutting into 

 Pamlico Sound, Cedar Island 

 is Down East's most isolated, 

 and perhaps most insular, 

 community. 



Once a thriving whaling 

 center, this is still largely a 

 fishing village, with boats 

 and crab pots and nets and all 

 the other tools of the trade 

 decorating its yards. There is 

 a motel and a convenience 

 store and a persistent rumor 

 that this is where the Lost 

 Colony went when it 

 disappeared from Roanoke 

 Island. In winter, duck 

 hunters crowd the Driftwood 

 Motel, but visitors the rest of 

 the year are few. 



And that makes it all the 

 more peculiar that one of the 

 area's biggest tourist draws 

 has set up shop on Cedar 

 Island. From here, White 

 Sands Trail Rides offers 

 hour-long or weekend-long 

 horseback trips on 2,000 ares 

 of uninhabited barrier island. 

 I've signed up for a sunset 

 dinner ride. 



Dressed in blue jeans, cowboy 

 boots and starched white shirt, owner 

 Wayland Cato III leads me to a gentle 

 mare with a dun coat. Once behind the 

 pommel, I have exhausted my under- 

 standing of horsemanship. But the mare 

 knows to follow the horse in front and 

 disregard my weight above, and we 

 proceed at what can only be described 

 as a circumspect gait. 



We trace the beach, stirring gulls 

 from sandbars as we cross stirrup-deep 

 inlets, trading stares with the wild 

 cattle that roam the islands. It occurs to 

 me, astride, that this is one of the few 



Storm clouds gather 

 above the Thorofare, 

 the channel that separates 

 Cedar Island from the mainland. 

 In the foreground, 

 a modified workboat of local design 

 is moored in scenic solitude. 



ways to get a sense of what yesteryear 

 was like Down East. Later, from the 

 topside lookout at the secluded horse 

 camp, I can see the first stars twinkling 

 over Core Sound and mile upon mile 

 of deserted island, marsh and water. 

 It is a scene like those that defined the 

 childhoods of Fulcher and Gillikin, 

 and one that brings Guthrie sharply 

 back to mind. 



Before I left Harkers Island, 

 Guthrie had asked me to go with her to 

 the home where she was born. It was a 

 handsome, two-story frame house with 

 a widow's walk overlooking pecan 



trees and the nearby sound. Like so 

 many Harkers Islanders, Guthrie had 

 lost her patrimony when soaring values 

 proved too tempting to other 

 family members. 



She parked her car out 

 on the dirt road and walked 

 to the small fenced cemetery, 

 resting place for her parents, 

 grandparents and great-grand- 

 parents. "There's room for 

 seven more," she told me, 

 and pointed to the headstone 

 where her husband is buried. 

 Her name is inscribed next to 

 his, with a blank spot for the 

 year of her death. 



We spoke for a few 

 moments about nets drying 

 in the front yard and skiffs 

 turned upside down on the 

 beach. She talked about how 

 she would sometimes spend 

 the night in a tiny shotgun 

 house on the cape, watching 

 the lighthouse beam flash 

 through the bedroom window- 

 panes until she fell asleep. 

 Then, with not a word of 

 explanation, she suddenly 

 turned to me and softly sang 

 these lines: "Backward, turn 

 backward. Oh time in thy 

 flight. Make me a kid again, 

 just for tonight." 



Now 35 miles away, surrounded 

 by horses shuffling in the dark, I look 

 up into a Down East sky brilliant with 

 starlight and a Milky Way streaking 

 across the heavens, and I think of 

 Guthrie's little song. 



Make me a kid again, just for 

 tonight, I mutter. And while you're at 

 it, give me a good, long look at a place 

 called Down East — before it changes 

 forever. □ 



This article first appeared in 

 Mid- Atlantic Country, June 1995. 



COASTWATCH 7 



