Last Light over Carolina

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September 21, 2008, 4:00 a.m.

McClellanville, South Carolina

For three generations, the pull of the tides drew Morrison men to the sea. Attuned to the moon, they rose before first light to board wooden shrimp boats and head slowly out across black water, the heavy green nets poised like folded wings. Tales of the sea were whispered to them in their mothers' laps, they earned their sea legs as they learned to walk, and they labored on the boats soon after. Shrimping was all they knew or ever wanted to know. It was in their blood.

Bud Morrison opened his eyes and pushed back the thin cotton blanket. Shafts of gray light through the shutters cast a ragged pattern against the wall. He groaned and shifted his weight in an awkward swing to sit at the edge of his bed, head bent, feet on the floor. His was a seaman's body -- hard-weathered and scarred. He scratched his jaw, his head, his belly, a morning ritual, waking slowly in the leaden light. Then, with another sigh, he stiffly rose. His knees creaked louder than the bedsprings, and he winced at aches and pains so old he'd ma ... read full excerpt from: Last Light over Carolina ebook