Ghost Canoe

by Will Hobbs

  The whales were soon gone, but the herring remained. Lighthouse George had Nathan, keeping low, switch places with him. At the rear of the canoe now, Nathan paddled George toward the water seething with herring. The fisherman took a pole from the bottom of the canoe. Its last several feet were studded with bones as long as a man’s little finger and as sharp as needles.

  As soon as the canoe was among the herring, Lighthouse George began raking the water with the pole, almost as if he were paddling with it. With the first stroke he impaled seven or eight herring, and now he knocked the pole on the edge of the canoe, dropping the herring inside. In an hour of work, with Nathan paddling and the powerful Makah raking the water, they had half filled the canoe with fish. “Lotsa fish!” Nathan declared.

  Rebecca was there among the women along the shore handling the herring from earlier canoes. Nathan ran to Captain Bim, who was watching the spectacle of the village taking in the herring run.

  “Captain Bim,” he reported breathlessly, “I saw some smoke behind the rocks out at the tip of Cape Flattery!”

  “Yes…?” Captain Bim replied.

  “Couldn’t the smoke be from the burglar’s campfire? Remember, the robber took matches!”

  The trader had his eye on the old ship’s wheel that still lay across the gunwales of Lighthouse George’s canoe. “You’ve found an interesting piece of flotsam there. Did you find a name on it?”

  “Queen of Malabar.”

  Captain Bim scratched his beard appreciatively. “She wrecked on the Graveyard, over on the Vancouver Island side of the Strait, back in $$$53.”

  “Will you pay me for it?”

  “Yes, I will, but maybe not as much as you’re thinking.”

  “What about the smoke I saw?”

  “Did George see it?”

  “Only me—it didn’t last long.”

  Captain Bim was walking down to take a closer look at the old wheel.

  “But what if there is someone there, and he’s the burglar?” Nathan insisted.

  “Then he’ll have his head blown off next time he breaks in. I’m sleeping in the store.”

  The trader hemmed and hawed over the ship’s wheel and finally agreed he’d pay two dollars. Nathan knew it wasn’t a bad price. “What else will you pay for—what kind of stuff should I be looking for?”

  “Well, I pay two bits for the bricks from the old Spanish fort that stood east of where the Agency is now. Those bricks are a rarity. You see, they’re all that’s left of the fort. Those are artifacts of true historical significance, the kind of thing I can sell.”

  “The Spanish actually had a fort here?”

  “Indeed they did, Young Mac. Late 1700s. They were contending with the English at the time for control of the Northwest, before the Americans got into the act. Lots of bad blood between the Spanish and the Makahs.”

  “Did they fight?”

  “They say the Spanish had six cannons at the fort, several of them trained on the village.”

  “I thought the Makahs were peaceful.”

  Captain Bim gave a great snort, like a trumpeting elephant, and his jowls shook. “These people wouldn’t still be here today if they hadn’t descended from warriors. The Makahs in the old days had to be able to hold their own against fleets of sixty-foot war canoes that could swoop down on them at any moment. Some of those tribes way up to the north were nothing less than fierce.”

  “So what happened with the Makahs and the Spanish?”

  “The Spanish had those big guns, as I said. But it was the English who finally ran the Spanish off, or at least that’s what you’ll read in the history books. The Makahs claim they did it themselves and burned the fort. All that’s left these days are a few flat yellow bricks from the fort’s bakery—about eight inches long, five inches wide, and an inch thick.”

  Nathan was picturing finding lots of bricks. “Two bits a brick?”

  “You’d be lucky to find any. Best chance might be if that creek over there changes its course and digs ’em up for you.”

  “I’ll keep my eyes open.”

  “Well, while you’re looking around…” The big man lowered his voice, though there was no one very close. “There’s an account—no more than a legend, I suppose—that the Spanish commander, fearing capture at sea, buried a fortune in gold bullion somewhere around Cape Flattery before he and his men abandoned the fort.”

  “Do you believe this story yourself?”

  “Implicitly!” the trader thundered. “The gold wouldn’t have originated here, you see; it would have been transported from the Spanish empires far to the south. The Spanish commanders all over the New World melted down the golden art of the Indies into bars, and then, of course, everywhere they went they had to carry their plunder with them. No safekeeping until they could get it back to Spain.”

  Captain Bim’s eloquence had winded him. He paused for several gulps of air, then remembered something. “The captain’s brother was here today,” he continued. “Jeremiah Flagg was his name. On a boat chartered out of Port Townsend. He’s already gone.”

  “Your brother?” Nathan wondered, completely confused.

  “No, no, the brother of Alexander Flagg, the murdered captain of the Burnaby. And his visit surely got off to a bad start. To begin with, neither the captain’s brother nor the crew of his chartered ship would accept the help of the Makahs. The Makahs had paddled out to bring them ashore by canoe, as is the custom at Neah Bay, with the surf as tricky as it is. The gentleman wouldn’t pay the customary fee, which is modest, and then he paid the price—oh, did he ever pay the price, he and the sailor bringing him ashore. Their rowboat was caught by a wave…. I saw it turn end over end.”

  The trader couldn’t resist a smirk and a gleeful chuckle. “A perfect loop-the-loop!”

  “What happened then?”

  “The Makahs plucked them from the sea, of course, which they always do free of charge. Once ashore, our visitor, in addition to being out of temper, was quite mysterious. Wanted to know about every bit of flotsam and jetsam the Makahs had recovered from the wreck. The Makahs believe in ‘finders keepers’ when it comes to gifts of the sea that wash up on their beaches. After all, that’s the law of Washington Territory as well as their custom. And besides, picking up salvage from white men’s ships that come to grief on their shores is one of the Makahs’ great pleasures in life.”

  “I wonder what the captain’s brother was looking for?”

  “He wouldn’t say. I’m not sure he knew exactly. Abrupt and abrasive he was—not a sympathetic person in the least, and utterly unschooled in the art of conversation. He stuck his nose into cedar boxes full of oil and boxes of dried fish. He was after some small object, would be my guess. I showed him everything I had in the store that came from the wreck, in case he cared to buy it—for the right price, you understand.

  “Before he left, he wanted me to tell him ‘where Makahs would never go.’ A mysterious question, mysteriously asked. For a price, being a trading man, I told him that place would be Fuca’s Pillar, because of a long-held superstition.”

  Captain Bim took a twenty-dollar gold piece from his pocket and held it up for Nathan’s inspection. “Not a bad return for such a common bit of knowledge.”

  “But what if that Spanish gold you just told me about is hidden there? What if he finds it?”

  “Oh, no chance of that. I’ve scoured the place myself. Nothing there.”

  Nathan guessed Bim hadn’t looked very high on the pillar.

  “Well, back to work and late for dinner,” Bim concluded.

  “What about your robbery? Do you have any suspects yet?”

  “One, I suppose,” Bim replied with a chuckle. “Or a race of them.”

  “What? Who?”

  “At dusk last night, a pack of small children came screaming in from the woods. They claimed to have seen the ‘One Who Lives in the Woods.’”

  “What’s that?”

  “A wild man they believe in. Some
times they call him the ‘Hairy Man.’ I gather he’s a cannibal. Sometimes I get the idea there’s supposed to be a whole race of them.”

  Captain Bim didn’t seem to be in jest. “Have you seen this ‘Hairy Man,’ Captain Bim?” Nathan asked. “You’ve been here more than twenty years.”

  “Glimpses,” the trader replied in all seriousness. “I suppose it’s just a tale the Makah use to keep their children out of the woods, especially at night, but let me tell you this, young man…only a fool goes off exploring in this godforsaken wilderness. You and I have no idea what’s out there.”

  6

  An Eternal View of the Sea

  In the morning it was gray and grim outside. Lighthouse George hadn’t come for him, as Nathan had hoped he would. It had drizzled off and on during the night, and now, for the time being at least, it had quit. Standing by the window, looking out to sea, Nathan realized he’d been paddling around Cape Flattery with Lighthouse George all night in his dreams. All night he’d been paddling hard to get by Jones Rock and glimpsing that plume of smoke behind the rocks. All night he’d been puzzling over the smoke. Captain Bim and the territorial marshal from Port Townsend were convinced that no one on board the Burnaby could have survived the wreck. But what if they were wrong?

  Nathan stared at a canoe out in the bay. The graceful canoe was disappearing into the mist in the direction of Waadah Island, only a mile offshore but invisible this morning. Could that be Lighthouse George? Nathan wondered. Would he go out fishing on a day like this? Without knowing the answer, Nathan felt left behind. Nothing in the world compared to navigating the waters of the Strait in George’s canoe!

  “You’re restless,” his mother said from her rocking chair. She was reading The Tempest, by William Shakespeare.

  “That’s for sure,” he agreed.

  “You could read a good book. What about Robinson Crusoe? It’s a perfect day just to stay warm and tend the fire, don’t you think?”

  “It’s not really raining,” Nathan said. “The drips off the roof are from the fog.”

  “I know. There’s just so much moisture in the air.”

  “I’m glad you’re staying indoors today. How do you feel?”

  “Warm,” she said. “Comfortable. Content.”

  Nathan was pleased that his mother felt warm. On Tatoosh, that had never really been possible. For him, the cottage felt too snug this morning. With the coal heater radiating so much warmth and the embers glowing in the cookstove’s firebox, it was a wonder his mother could tolerate the blanket over her lap and the shawl around her shoulders.

  “I feel more like exploring,” he told her. “It’s springtime, even if it doesn’t feel like it. Captain Bim will pay two bits for every brick I can find from an old Spanish fort. Besides, I’d like to take a look around.”

  His mother understood how hard it was for him to stay inside. “Dress warmly,” she said. “And pack a lunch in case you stay out. We have bread and cheese, and dried cod from Rebecca. Take a few boiled eggs and an orange.”

  “I’ll put some tea water on for you.” Nathan leaned down and kissed his mother on her forehead. Her skin was fragile, like her delicate pastry crusts. “Thanks,” she whispered. He took the empty coal scuttle outside and filled it from the bin, then replaced it by the stove for her.

  He dressed quickly for the raw day. In just a few minutes his lunch was packed and he was bundled in the same foul-weather gear, down to his rubber boots, that he wore on Tatoosh. He slung his satchel over his shoulder and fitted his waterproof sou’wester over his head.

  “Hope you find a ton of bricks,” his mother said.

  “Or Spanish gold!” he declared. “I probably won’t be back until dark, unless the weather turns awful.”

  Nathan walked east at first, along the shore and away from the Agency buildings. Past Baada Point, he found the creek Captain Bim had told him about. According to Captain Bim’s story, the fort had stood on the headlands near the creek’s mouth, yet he couldn’t find the slightest trace of it. He began to suspect that it was purely legendary. Nonetheless, he kept his eye peeled for the yellow bricks that were supposed to be vestiges of the fort’s bakery. He paid extra attention as he waded up the creek bed, starting from its mouth on the beach. Here and there he leaped the creek when he needed to cross. Perhaps no one had looked for bricks since the last big rains.

  At last he found one in the creek bed, exactly the sort of brick Captain Bim had described. Flat, thin, yellowish, about eight inches long. So the Spanish had been here after all!

  He was certain he’d find more bricks. But after a half hour’s search up and down the creek, he hadn’t added any to his satchel. He realized he hadn’t even been thinking about the bricks. All the while he’d been thinking about that plume of smoke out near the tip of Cape Flattery. The smoke had come from the base of the cliffs, behind the rocks. It should be possible to walk all the way out to the tip of the Cape and investigate. From above the cliffs, it might be possible to see smoke and to look down and see where it was coming from.

  Maybe he’d find a column of water vapor that only looked like smoke, formed perhaps by the peculiar action of the surf constricted in a crevice. But something had made that plume. And he had to know.

  To avoid being detained by the talkative Captain Bim, Nathan steered wide around the trading post and kept to the back of the longhouses. The poles of the drying racks all stood empty, the fish having been taken inside to be strung high above the cookfires. A few ravens were walking around, picking up the scraps. Only a couple of naked little kids and a few old women in their long dresses and shredded cedarbark capes saw him pass, but they ignored him. With the exception of Lighthouse George, the Makahs never seemed to wave, even to each other.

  Even the young Makahs his own age looked past him. Once in a while he got a shy smile. If he really learned to speak Chinook, it might be different, he thought. It was a lucky thing George could speak English. He was thankful for Lighthouse George. Neah Bay would feel so strange and lonely if he didn’t have him. His mother must feel the same way about Rebecca.

  With swampy ground sucking at his boots, Nathan picked up his step and soon entered the dark, dripping forest of giant spruce, fir, and cedar. From somewhere nearby came a dull, repetitive pounding. After winding around the hill toward the sound for several minutes, Nathan came upon a team of Makahs working on one of the massive cedars. Two men and two boys were standing around the base of the ancient tree looking up at two men working above, who were perched on logs that had been leaned up against the big cedar.

  Nathan recognized the two men on the ground. The white-haired old man with abalone-shell earrings had been among those in the canoe when Lighthouse George brought the whale oil for the lighthouse. Another man, with a wispy gray beard, was known as Young Carver, even though he wasn’t young.

  Almost every day Nathan had paused by the village creek just up from the beach, where Young Carver was making one of the great canoes. The canoe-maker was a man of great seriousness and dignity. Nathan had tried at first to speak to him, greeting him with a few words of Chinook, but Young Carver had made it apparent he didn’t want to talk. That’s the way it had been with all the Makah except Lighthouse George and Rebecca. No one was unfriendly; it was more like he was invisible, even to the children.

  The men and the boys working on the tree acknowledged him now, with the faintest signals. One nodded; one might have smiled. They continued to talk among themselves in their own language. He didn’t understand even a syllable of Makah. He tried to fathom what the two above were doing, as they pounded on long wooden wedges with hand-held stone mauls.

  Previously, Nathan could see, two horizontal notches had been chopped a quarter of the way into the tree. One of the deep notches was five or so feet above the ground, the other a full twenty feet higher and directly above it. The men up in the air were stripping a plank from the living tree between the two notches. This, he realized, was how the planks on the longho
use walls and roofs had been made. These Makahs were making lumber!

  Fascinated, Nathan sat on a log and watched. The men and boys on the ground, in pairs, began to pull on ropes that had been looped over the high end of the plank, already freed from the trunk with the wedges. Bit by bit they were prying the plank of green wood away from the tree.

  When the four at last freed a plank, and it came falling to the ground, Nathan applauded. They looked at him strangely, as if they had never heard applause before. Nathan felt foolish.

  “Tenas Mac,” Young Carver said with a friendly smile, surprising Nathan.

  Grateful that the dignified canoe-maker had acknowledged him, Nathan opened up his satchel and asked, “Muck-a-muck?” He proceeded to spread the contents on the log: a loaf of bread, three boiled eggs, a hunk of cheese, the dried cod, the orange. “Generous with food,” he remembered. He gestured with his hand for them to join him.

  He sat in a circle with the Makahs, and they ate, speaking softly in their own language. None of them reached for the orange. That would be his lunch, he realized. The Makahs weren’t dressed nearly as warmly as he, but they didn’t seem to be cold either. They didn’t attempt to speak any more Chinook with him, so he didn’t try it with them. When they had finished the food, they didn’t thank him. But as he walked away, he saw several bob their heads, and the old man with the white hair repeated his name: “Tenas Mac.”

  Nathan retraced his footsteps to where he had first entered the forest and began to climb. Captain Bim had warned him to stay out of the woods, but he had always prized being off on his own outdoors. As he plunged deeper into the forest, he noticed, here and there, the profiles of living cedars with vertical portions of their trunks missing. Most of the scars on the ancient trees were themselves ancient, healed over and covered with moss. The Makahs, Nathan realized, went to their trees for lumber as if they were milking cows. The trees kept on living. The Makahs could always come back for more.