Ghost Canoe (12 page)

Nathan gave the letter back to his father. “Kane really did murder Captain Flagg and throw him overboard!”

“It would certainly seem so. Captain Flagg's suspicions seem to have been well-founded.”

“With the storm and then the fog, the crew couldn't make it around Tatoosh and into the Strait without their captain.”

“It would appear not.”

“Kane probably has Captain Flagg's
sla hal
piece. And he's looking for the other one,” Nathan said. “He's been paying the Makahs to bring in every piece they can put their hands on.”

“Now we know why. And we know that if Fuca's Pillar is indeed ‘the place the Indians wouldn't go,' as it would seem to be from George's legend, then it appears that the Spanish priest's treasure has no basis in fact. Kane would have found it by now. Unless there's another place…”

Nathan's mind was racing. “A place the Indians wouldn't go…in the wild environs of Neah Bay…” In an instant of revelation, the ghost canoe came to mind, and the bone game pieces in the small cedar box. It would have made perfect sense for the Spaniard to hide the second map in an old Makah burial!

“What is it?” his father asked.

Nathan realized that if he told his father, his father might try to prevent Kane from finding the treasure before Kane could slip away. His father might not wait for the territorial marshal. For most of his life, he'd been the law aboard his ship. Even though his father knew how dangerous a man Kane was, he would act out of loyalty to a fellow ship's captain, even a dead one.

“I was wondering…,” Nathan replied, “does the territorial marshal have this letter?”

“He has the original. He says, to remove Kane from Neah Bay now would be to set him free, since no evidence, despite the strength of this letter, links him sufficiently to the death of Captain Flagg, the loss of the
Burnaby
and its men—or the theft of Captain
Bim's life savings, once the marshal becomes aware of that additional crime. The marshal intends to wait.”

“Who knows in Neah Bay? The Indian agent?”

“No one. The knowledge would only endanger their lives. You're the one most at risk, Nathan. You know everything now. Remember what Captain Flagg said in his letter. Kane can read people, sense their fear.”

“I won't let on, not in the least.”

His father looked hard at him. “I'm counting on it. Remember, this man has already killed for this treasure, whether it be real or not. He'll kill again without the slightest hesitation.”

“He already knows that I know about the knife that connects him to the burglary…. Would he kill me for that?”

“That would compromise his foothold at Neah Bay while he's searching for the treasure. He must assume that others, including your mother and me, know about the knife as well. With the knife now beyond recovery in the sea, you are merely an annoyance to be watched closely.”

“Thank goodness!”

“Your knowledge of this letter, however, is another matter. Don't give him the slightest indication of what you know, or further provocation of any sort, Nathan. It would mean your life.”

“I know.”

 

His father waved from the top of the cliff as Nathan got into the canoe with Lighthouse George and Young Carver. Lighthouse George handed him a paddle and said, “Are the salmon running yet?”

“Not yet,” Nathan replied, still preoccupied with the
conversation he had been having with his father. “But it's July now, and people say the salmon will run anytime.”

“
Klo-she
,” George said.

It was then that Nathan noticed George's eyes. They seemed to have returned to the present moment. Was it possible?

“Do you remember me?” Nathan asked.

Lighthouse George smiled. “Sure, Tenas Mac. You're a good puller with the paddle. We catch lotsa fish, you and me.”

Nathan looked to Young Carver, who said only, “Up in the lighthouse, he saw the whales.”

George said, “Young Carver told me what happened on the whale hunt—what you did. I thank you.”

“You would have been the first to harpoon the whale, George. If it weren't for Dolla Bill.”

The Makah shook his head. “Trouble is George, not Dolla Bill. The whale remembers. Won't come back to your house if you dishonored him.”

“We can always go fishing!”

“Salmon, Tenas Mac. Let's catch us some salmon.”

Lighthouse George wasted no time returning to his beloved country, the sea. “S'pose go fishing?” George said with a smile when Nathan answered the soft, familiar knock at the cottage door early the next morning. “I think Swimmer is back. I saw him in my dream.”

They paddled around Koitlah Point toward the Chibahdehl Rocks, to find out if George was right about the salmon entering the Strait. In the shallow waters between the rocks and shore, George's keen eyes studied the waving kelp below the canoe until finally he said, “
Tyee
.” Nathan squinted. At last he saw the flash of the large sleek fish weaving through the kelp, and understood why George had called them “chief.” These were the biggest of all the salmon, the kings.

“How will you ever be able to use your fish harpoon?” Nathan wondered. “They're all spread out.”

In reply, Lighthouse George took out his knife and smiled.

With a series of dives, while Nathan handled the canoe above, George opened a lane through the kelp bed. Then they anchored the canoe with heavy stones across the end of the lane. Within minutes, the king salmon were using the path, the easiest way through the kelp, and passing directly under their canoe. George brought up a thirty- or forty-pound king with his first try, and clubbed it smartly with his fish club. “This one special,” he said, and marked it by passing a short piece of line through its mouth and gills.

Soon it was Nathan's turn to wield the harpoon and then haul the heavy kings over the side of the canoe.

As they were touching the beach at Neah Bay, with the canoe full of salmon, George held up that first salmon he had caught. It didn't take long for hundreds of people to appear on the beach. The first salmon signaled a welcome ceremony and festivities. There would be singing and dancing that night, and a feast of roasted salmon, George explained.

Rebecca was there on the beach, excited as everyone about the salmon. She waited patiently until the commotion died down, and then drew George away and spoke to him softly in Makah. She was obviously troubled about something she thought only George should hear. Nathan thought at first it might be his mother that Rebecca was talking about, but when he followed George to the gate of the village graveyard, he found out it was Kane. Kane was on his
hands and knees, in broad daylight, pulling objects out of one of the little spirit houses built over the graves.

Nathan saw that Kane had pulled out plates, teacups, saucers, and a toy rocking chair. He was reaching inside the miniature door for something else. What in the world was he doing? Nathan looked quickly to Lighthouse George. The Makah was outraged.

George waved with his arm and called, “Get away, you!
Pelton tillicum!
”

Nathan guessed that Kane didn't know enough Chinook to realize that Lighthouse George had just called him a crazy person. But Kane knew well enough that he'd been chastised in no uncertain terms. “I'm putting everything back,” he called to George.

George waited for Kane at the gate of the little cemetery. As the new trader approached, he said innocently, “Did I do something wrong? I was just so interested in the charming little houses. I didn't take anything. I wasn't sneaking around at night, as you can see.”

Lighthouse George had no patience for Kane's explanation. “Wrong,” he said. “Very wrong.”

“I'm sorry you feel that way.” It wasn't really an apology, Nathan realized. He could feel Kane's eyes on him.

Lighthouse George wasn't satisfied. “You show no respect for the dead.”

Nathan had never seen George angry before.

“No harm was intended, I assure you.” Suddenly the man's blue eyes flickered, and his tone became aggressive. “You shouldn't put those cute little houses
on the graves, really. Visitors and newcomers will get the wrong idea.”

Nathan was furious that Kane was acting as if the Makahs had entrapped him in some way. He was nothing but a scheming murderer! “What were you looking for?” Nathan blurted, and wished just as quickly he'd held his tongue.

Kane looked right at him, and then at Lighthouse George. Kane's disguises were stripped, or he had cast them aside. There was nothing showing in his blue eyes now but anger and hatred and contempt. “Get out of my way,” he snarled, and pushed his way through the gate.

“Stay away from that one,” George said as they watched him go.

“I will,” Nathan agreed. This time he told himself he meant it.

It was Dolla Bill who suffered the brunt of Kane's wrath. Late in the day, Nathan went to see what finishing touches Young Carver had added to the canoe. Even from a distance he could see that the canoe maker had pegged the prow piece to the body of the canoe. Defying gravity, the prow continued the graceful lift of the canoe and carried it, tapering, far forward of the hull. As Nathan got closer, he heard a man moaning from inside. It was Dolla Bill in his blue jacket with brass buttons. He'd been severely beaten.

Dolla Bill's pocked and tattooed face was a swollen mass of cuts, welts, and abrasions. One eye was swollen shut, his lip was cracked open, and he'd bled from his nose down his neck and onto his jacket. Nathan was moved to pity. He fetched cold, clean water from the
creek in a canoe bailer and climbed into the canoe with it. He helped the battered outcast to sit up, and then he poured water on Bill's face. “
Chuck, chuck
,” Dolla Bill moaned, using the Chinook word for “water.”

Using his fingers, Nathan tried to wash Dolla Bill's wounds clean and clear his face of dried blood.

“
Olo kopa chuck
,” Dolla Bill pleaded. He was thirsty. Nathan went back to the creek for another bailer full of water. Dolla Bill drank what he could as Nathan spilled water slowly into his mouth.

“Kane?” Nathan whispered.

“
Mamook solleks
.” Dolla Bill's words were thick, strangled.

“You made him mad? How? What did you do?”

Dolla Bill rolled his head around, as if to see if anyone else was nearby. Reassured, he whispered, “
Memaloose illahee
.”

“The graveyard? What about the graveyard? Tell me in English, Dolla Bill. No one can hear. What about the graveyard?”

Nathan lifted the canoe bailer, and waited as the beaten man drank a few more swallows.

“Dolla Bill was afraid. Wouldn't go in graveyard. Bad thing,
hyas cultus
,” he whispered.

“You wouldn't search the graveyard for him? He had to do it himself?”

Dolla Bill nodded. “Kane mad at Tenas Mac, too.”

“He's mad at me? Why?”

Dolla Bill rolled his one eye that remained open. “He knows you have
sla hal
bones.”

“I don't have any bones!”

“Why won't you give them?” Dolla Bill whispered
hoarsely. He raised himself and peered over the edge of the canoe.

“He's not around. There's no one here. I told the truth. I don't have any of those bones. They're someone else's.”

“Lotsa dollas, Tenas Mac. Kane give lotsa dollas!”

“Those
sla hal
bones are practically worthless if you ask me.”

“Not the bones. Inside bone, it tells secret place. Lotsa dollas at that place, must be.”

“I don't understand,” Nathan said.

Dolla Bill wasn't listening. Suddenly an enormous smile came over the outcast's face, as if he were the happiest man in the world.

“What is it?” Nathan asked. “What do you have to suddenly be so happy about?”

“Dolla Bill knows!” he cackled. “Dolla Bill remembers! Long time ago, when Dolla Bill was a
tenas
man!”

“You remembered something from when you were a child with the Makahs?”

“Place no one will go! Dolla Bill remembers!”

“Remembers what?”

“Things that live in the trees,” Dolla Bill answered mysteriously.

He knows
, Nathan thought. “Birds?” Nathan asked. “Like birds? Or do you mean birds' nests?”

“Like birds' nests,” Dolla Bill agreed with another cackle. “Kane pay lotsa dollas for birds' nests. I say to him, ‘No pay, no say!'”

There's no doubt he remembers, Nathan realized. As soon as he tells Kane, they'll search all through the
forest, looking for ghost canoes. How many were there? A few, Bim had said. And one of them, up in some tree, will have the bone piece Kane is after. It will take a while, but they'll find it.

“Just because you remembered the thing that Kane wants to know,” Nathan said, “that doesn't mean you have to tell him.”

“No pay, no say!” Dolla Bill chortled. “Lotsa, lotsa dollas. One hundred dollas!”

“Kane's the one who did this to you! How could you help him?”

Dolla Bill shook his arms and legs, and stretched, then stood up to go.

“You're selling your soul to the Devil!”

“Dolla Bill's soul not worth anything,” the outcast replied with a twisted grin. “Dolla Bill, he's only a
cultus siwach
.”

“Lighthouse George doesn't think so. Remember, he took you in. He saved your life.”

For a few moments, Dolla Bill reflected on what Nathan had said. A peaceful, almost hopeful expression showed through from beneath the battering and disfigurement of his features. In those moments it seemed as if his insanity might be merely a mask he'd created as part of his circus act. Dolla Bill said, quietly and simply, “George waits for me to do right, like him. Then he love me, maybe so. Take me fishing, like you.”

“See? That's what I've been saying. Think what that would be like.”

“Like you, Tenas Mac?”

“Not like me,” Nathan said. “You could live here your whole life, be home. Me, I'll leave here one day.”

Dolla Bill touched his hand to Young Carver's beau
tiful canoe. “Same, same, Tenas Mac!” Dolla Bill stepped over the side of the canoe and started into the darkness.

“Remember what he did to you! You don't have to help him!”

“No pay, no say!”