Excerpt from The Bully of Order by Brian Hart, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

The ship chugged on and I turned toward the sea and watched the gulls and thought I saw a seal but wasn't sure. There had better be whales and sharks too. My hand hurt. We went by Sentinel City with its dock practically halfway across the harbor. No one was there, not a soul. The whole project had been abandoned. The hills were logged to the water­ line and plotted for streets and graded for a railroad but none of it ever came. Father had worked there and had helped build the dock. We'd almost moved because he was offered land instead of pay but Mother wouldn't let him take it. She liked our place and told me Uncle Matius no longer had any claim. I didn't remember my uncle at all. They said I had a cousin too.

Mr. Tartan's big hand reached over my shoulder and patted me on the chest. I turned to see his face but the sun was in my eyes. Something tapped me on my chin and I looked down and there was a silver dollar resting in the folds and calluses of Mr. Tartan's hand. He leaned over and whispered with vinegar breath. "Take it, boy. Hard currency to remind you of our independence." His breath was hot in my ear.

I took the offered coin and quickly tucked it into my vest pocket.

"Good. Keep it safe."

"What'd you give him?" Mother asked.

"Between me and the boy."

"Let me see, Duncan."

"Don't show her. Keep it private. Me and you."

And I didn't show her. I kept it hidden.

Long before we arrived at Westport, Mr. Tartan had disappeared back into the crowd. I followed Mother down the gangplank and onto the pier. The high clouds and mist were burning off even at the coast and the sun would be out soon. The slow-­moving crowd went on like a funeral pro­cession. I couldn't see anything but legs and backs and hands. Mother kept a tight grip on the collar of my coat. We fell in with a group of women and their children and to my wonderment one of them was Zeb Parker. He was supposed to be at home watching his new baby sister but his mother was with him and she had the baby in her arms.

"Thought you'd have it to yourself, didn't you?" Zeb said, grinning.

I smiled at him but didn't say a word. I always felt lonely and I regret­ted what I'd told Mother about being smarter than Zeb. The best thing that'd happened to us was the Parkers moving in down the road.

We went through the trees to the veterans' grounds where tables were set up among the cabins and tents. A band was playing. We found an open place and spread a blanket and had lunch. Me and Zeb finished our chicken legs and then ran off. Everyone was dressed up and smiling. The sun was out now and the cedar grove was golden and warm and the wind couldn't get at us. I ran through the crowd with Zeb behind me and shoved people in the legs to get them to move. Cedar needles covered the ground and we got pitch all over our hands and pants crawling and wrestling and later trying to climb the trees and their yarny trunks. I could smell the salt of the ocean like a cooked meal drawing me in. Mother was yelling for me, Duncan you come back here Duncan. I laughed and smiled at Zeb and we ducked low and used the crowd for cover and snuck into the madrones.

We followed a sand path out of the trees and over the bluff and stopped dead in our shoes when we saw the open water. Bigness required bound­aries but this water had none save the shore we stood upon and the end of my eyeball's reach. It looked like the end. There were more people on the beach, all down it to where the shipwreck sat askew, not so big, and so fragile. It was like a gift given to me, that ship. I couldn't be happier if it were my birthday.

As the sand hill sloped away, it lost its grass covering and flattened into low dunes and beach. It went on for as far as I could see. I knew from Mother's books that we weren't anywhere but in a corner of the big world. Like the corner of the corner tack room in the barn, where the boards met and made a poor joint and in the void was the spider nest, that's where we were. Outside the ocean. I shouldn't have left Mother alone, even though Big Edna Parker was with her, but that man Mr. Tartan, she called him Lucas, he could come back and bother her. He seemed bothersome, like a bear in a trash pit. I touched the coin in my pocket. Zeb was ripping the flowering heads off a handful of sea­watch. When he was done, he smelled his fingers and made a face.

Excerpted from The Bully of Order by Brian Hart. Copyright © 2014 by Brian Hart. Excerpted by permission of Harper. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.