Ghost Canoe (15 page)

There was nothing to be done. It wasn't possible to get close enough to stop him.

Six, seven, eight, nine, ten, eleven.

The Makahs, having rested for less than a minute, gave a shout and continued the chase. Nathan pulled and pulled with his paddle, his eyes riveted all the while on Kane. Twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen.

The canoes were closing fast on Kane. Now he was paddling directly for shore, where the surging sea was exploding against rocky shelves along the base of the cliffs. Kane was aiming to land the canoe in the only possible break in the tumultuous shoreline, a tiny, sandy cove.

The Makahs, all eight whaling canoes, chased Kane as close to the cliffs as they could. With skillful paddling, Kane succeeded in beaching his canoe in heavy surf. He was hemmed in against the cliffs, but the Makahs weren't inclined to land and to chase him, not if they didn't have to. They didn't want to risk the loss of a single canoe.

The canoes hovered several hundred feet offshore and watched. Nathan saw Kane look back at the Makahs all massed there, then look up at the tall cliff above him, perhaps two hundred feet high. He watched as Kane cut the canoe's bowline loose. He used the line to tie three bars into a bundle—he'd kept three ingots! Kane took off his wide leather belt, secured the gold bars to the belt at its midpoint, then strapped the belt back around his waist.

Kane scrambled away from the cove, along the wave-splashed rocks lining the shore, studying the cliff all the while. Kane was looking for the best route up the cliff. He intended to climb it.

The fugitive chose his spot, and then he began to climb.

Nathan and the Makahs watched Kane pick his way up the cliff, hand over hand, using tiny cracks for handholds. His progress was slow and tedious. He had a long way to go, and the twilight was dimming with every minute. The canoes were too far away for the
men to hurl spears or rocks; there was nothing to do but watch.

No one spoke. They watched Kane reach the halfway point. He paused often to rest. It didn't seem humanly possible to do what Kane was doing, but Nathan knew this man had climbed Fuca's Pillar. When he'd climbed the pillar, however, he hadn't had three bars of gold tied at the small of his back. Was he strong enough to overcome the weight of the gold?

Kane was almost to the top. In the murk of approaching darkness, it was difficult to make out the features he was encountering on the cliff. Kane was little more than a shadow now, moving slowly upward. But it appeared he was having to contend with the rock face above him pitching slightly out to sea.

Thirty feet, Nathan guessed. That's all that remained between Kane and his freedom.

Suddenly Kane was struggling. An arm kept grasping for a hold, and his entire body seemed to be leaning farther and farther away from the cliff. His center of gravity, Nathan realized, had shifted to the gold at the small of his back.

What now? Nathan thought. What's he going to do now? How can he be strong enough to hold on?

He wasn't.

One moment Kane was still clinging to the cliff, and the next he was falling backward, face up, plummeting to the rocks below.

Kane never cried out. He had those few seconds left as he was falling, and then he disappeared among the jumble of rocks below the cliff.

Nathan stood up in the canoe, trying to catch a
glimpse of Kane's body. Would he have been killed instantly?

Then he saw him, utterly motionless, heaped on a boulder with his head, arms, and legs askew, like a rag doll twisted limb from limb.

It had ended so quickly. Nathan was unable to believe what he'd just seen. He closed his eyes, steadying himself against the side of the canoe. He knew he shouldn't feel sorry for Kane. This was a cruel, evil man, without pity or remorse, who would have taken Nathan's life and George's too. Yet Nathan hadn't been ready to see this. He felt exhausted, overwhelmed.

“We can go home now,” Lighthouse George said gently, his hand on Nathan's arm.

“He almost got away,” Nathan said as he sat back down.

George nodded. “Too much gold.”

July turned to August. The drying racks all over Neah Bay and across the roofs of the longhouses reflected the Makahs' great wealth—the teeming abundance of the sea. The village smelled of fish and burning alder smoke from all the smokehouses, and was filled with the sound of screaming seagulls from dawn until dark. The sun had bleached the gigantic skeleton of the gray whale a bright white.

Nathan started going barefoot like the Makahs. His feet grew as tough and calloused as Lighthouse George's, and his hands as rough. Paddling the canoe was second nature to him now, as familiar as the scent of cedar.

Every day he felt himself getting stronger, and he relished all the fishing with Lighthouse George. He knew it wouldn't last. Each day was shorter than the
one before, each night a little longer and a little colder.

While the sea air was making him grow stronger, it was having the opposite effect on his mother. Summer was almost gone, and his mother's health still hadn't improved. To Nathan and his father, she seemed weaker than she had in April, when she'd first moved from Tatoosh to Neah Bay. The Indian agent finally announced the long-postponed visit of the doctor from Port Townsend. In the last week of August he arrived at last to spend a week tending to the people of Neah Bay. Nathan and Lighthouse George paddled out to Tatoosh to bring his father to Neah Bay to hear what the doctor would say about his mother's health.

Nathan's mother was examined at the Indian Agency. Nathan and his father were called into the doctor's temporary office after the examination was completed so they could all hear the results together. The doctor's expression was solemn. Nathan had the panicky feeling that his mother was mortally sick.

“I regret that I am about to frighten you,” the doctor began, looking over his reading glasses. He was an old man, thin and bald. Nathan's mother was trying to quell her cough as the doctor spoke, but she couldn't.

Nathan felt himself being overcome by grief, as if he'd already lost her.

“I am too old and have seen too much to be indirect,” the doctor continued. “Tuberculosis is on the rise again in every little town up and down the coast. Mrs. MacAllister has been sick for some time now, and in her weakened condition, she will contract it soon, in my judgment. With the turn of the weather and the advent of the fall storms—”

“What you are saying, Doctor,” Nathan's father interrupted, “is that Mrs. MacAllister does
not
have tuberculosis?”

“That's correct. But I would say she is highly disposed toward it.”

“Thank God. It was my worst fear. Then she can still get well—she can recover fully?”

“That's correct,” replied the doctor. “But her illness is serious, make no mistake. She must leave this climate, in my opinion.”

“We will, then,” Captain MacAllister said without hesitation, his large hand reaching for his wife's shoulder.

The doctor nodded approvingly. “That would be my advice, and soon.”

Nathan's mother objected, “You can't give up the sea, Zachary.”

“It's time,” his father said. “It's just as well. I'm weary of the confinement that comes with the lighthouse life. It's like being on a ship that never arrives in port.”

That evening back in the cottage, Nathan's parents talked of the warm valley of California, where his mother had been raised, and they talked of a farm, and orchards, and cattle. His father thought they had enough savings to buy a very small farm, and if they were successful after some years, it would become a ranch. He could see his mother's habitual determination being rekindled as they spoke.

Nathan listened carefully. He willed himself to picture the farm and the fruit trees and maybe a horse for him.

It was a good picture, but it lacked the sea. Salt water was in his veins. His heart was full of the surging Pacific and the screaming gulls and the fragrance of cedars. He would even miss the power of the winter storms. But he would miss Lighthouse George most of all.

He said none of these things. He thought about the vision of the farm. They would have their own land; they would make it productive. His mother had spoken occasionally over the years of the beauty and fertility of the great valley of California, watered by mountain rivers on their way to the ocean. In the heat of California, his mother could grow all the flowers and vegetables she ever wanted. In the heat of the valley, she would regain her health.

His parents paused, waiting for his reaction. He knew his mind. More than anything, it was important that he pull his share. “I want to help build that farm,” he said decisively.

“You make me proud,” his father said.

“When will we go?”

“We'll not wait for the Lighthouse Service to replace me. That will take until spring, unless they are forced to act by my absence. I'll let them know immediately that I'm leaving. Then they'll find another head keeper in a month. Perhaps one of the assistants might even be suitable.”

“The valley of California…,” Nathan's mother repeated. Spoken from her lips, it was a hopeful and magical phrase.

She turned to her only child and studied his face. “Are you just being brave about leaving, Nathan?
What do you really feel? You'll miss the sea, I know. We all will. You'll miss Neah Bay. And I fear you will miss Lighthouse George terribly.”

He knew how hard it was going to be for him to leave. But he found his answer in something his mother had once told him, a saying he now repeated back to her: “Everything passes, everything changes.”

And it was true. His time at Neah Bay seemed to have passed like fog blowing out to sea. It hadn't become his home, yet the people and the place had become a part of him, a part that he would keep with him wherever he went.

Perhaps he'd return, one day. Return and visit Lighthouse George.

 

Two more weeks were all that remained, the first two weeks of September. Two weeks of fishing with George during the last salmon run of the season. The silvers were running in abundance; the drying racks and the smokehouses were once again full. During this interval Captain Bim returned to reopen the trading post, surprising no one more than himself by how much he had missed Neah Bay. He was happy simply to be back, happier still when he discovered the place where Kane had hidden the remainder of his twenty-dollar gold pieces.

Young Carver finished the new whaling canoe, and Nathan helped to launch it and paddle it out into the bay and around Waadah Island.

On the day before they were to leave on the
Anna Rose
, Nathan's mother baked a birthday cake for his father. His father's fifty-second birthday was still a week away, but they would be on a steamer heading
south then, and among strangers. His mother invited Lighthouse George and Rebecca to be their guests for their last evening in Neah Bay.

George brought several fresh silver salmon, which Rebecca roasted the Makah way, upright on small frames of cedar sticks, by a small campfire outside the cottage. Nathan's father and mother told George and Rebecca that they'd never tasted such delicious salmon, which brought a smile to Rebecca's face. After supper, as the sun was setting, Nathan went inside to bring out the cake, which his mother had hidden in the cupboard.

Nathan disregarded the birthday candles his mother had set out. He had a surprise for his father, the sort of birthday gesture that would strike his fancy. Earlier in the day, Nathan had gone to the longhouse for half a dozen dried eulachon. He'd been wanting to perform this experiment for weeks and had never gotten the chance. His father's birthday provided the perfect opportunity.

He stuck the small smeltlike fish into the cake, heads first. Then he lit the tails of “the fish that burns,” and was delighted with the outcome. Every tail was burning brightly as he stepped outside and presented the cake to his father.

His father, for a certainty, had never seen such a sight. Barely able to contain his laughter, he managed to blow out the burning tails.

The evening held another surprise, this one from Lighthouse George. After they finished eating their cake, George reached under a piece of cloth in Rebecca's basket and brought out something wrapped in an embroidered piece of linen. Nathan guessed it was
a loaf of bread, a gift for his father. Instead, George handed it to Nathan, who wasn't prepared for its improbable weight. A bar of solid gold fell to the ground.

One of the ingots that had been on Kane's body, Nathan realized immediately.

“It's for the new farm,” George said proudly. “Lotsa land.”

Nathan's father was speechless.

“The Makahs only have three bars,” his mother said to Nathan.

“I know,” Nathan replied, looking at his fishing partner. “You want us to have one?”

Both George and Rebecca nodded, and Nathan knew he couldn't refuse this gift. His parents knew it, too.

“Thank you,” Nathan said.

Lighthouse George shrugged. “We give away the others sometime, too. Big potlatch.”

The next day, Nathan and George paddled out to the
Anna Rose
. As they neared the steamer, Nathan knew the last of his time in the canoe was running out, his time with George. His family's household goods and their trunks of clothing, ferried out to the steamer on platforms of cedar planks spanning two canoes, had already been loaded aboard the ship. His parents had gone ahead as well, after saying their good-byes in the village.

It was time for Nathan to climb out of the canoe. At first he couldn't find words to say to George. All he had was feelings, far too deep for words. Then he said, “Thank you,” and he took his paddle out of the water and rested it inside the canoe, against the thwart. His eyes went misty, and he said, “Good-bye, George.”

“Keep that paddle,
Yaw-ka-duke
, to remember me. You're a good puller, good fisherman, good friend.”

“I don't have anything to leave with you.”

George smiled and tapped his heart.

“I'll come back one day. I know I will.”

George nodded. “I'll save a place in the canoe for you.”

Nathan stepped out of the canoe with his paddle. He didn't look back until after he'd disappeared inside and climbed to the ship's upper deck, where he joined his parents.

The
Anna Rose
sounded its horn, reminding Nathan of the great fog trumpet on Tatoosh.

George paddled his graceful canoe safely clear of the ship, and then he spun it around and watched the huge steamer pull out, spouting dense black smoke from its stacks.

Nathan kept his eyes fixed on Lighthouse George and his canoe. Within minutes the man and the canoe were melding together and blurring in the distance. Neah Bay's longhouses, behind, were blending into the forest. Nathan lifted his paddle high and waved it three times in the air.

He was able to make out a paddle waved three times in reply.