Ghost Canoe (13 page)

The next day, the Makah fishing canoes were bobbing everywhere up and down the Strait. All the fishermen, and every boy old enough to accompany them, were bringing in the salmon to fill the drying racks and the smokehouses.

Nathan and Lighthouse George were trolling for the salmon now. The salmon hooks were simple compared to the bentwood halibut hooks. Spruce-root lashing secured both the bone barb and the leader to a wooden shank. The fishing lines of inner cedar bark, weighted by a sinker stone, were tied to the canoe's thwarts and then held against the shaft of the canoe paddle with the hand closest to the water. With each paddle stroke, the baited hook trailing behind would jump forward as if alive. The abalone-shell lure forward of the hook would twist and flash in the water,
providing a reason for the big salmon to come and investigate. That was when they would discover the piece of herring wrapped around the barb of the hook.

The trading post was closed again, for the third consecutive day. Lighthouse George didn't seem very concerned about it. Nathan wished he could explain to George why it was closed. He wanted to tell him that Kane was a treasure-hunter and a murderer, not a trader. He wished George had been able to understand when he'd explained it to him before. But he couldn't say any of these things now. He had to keep it all to himself. Telling would only endanger more people, and Nathan was sure something awful would happen.

The salmon fishing should have been a dream come true, but Nathan couldn't keep his mind on it. He was catching twenty-, thirty-, forty-pound salmon, yet it was as if he wasn't there.

Whenever they found a ghost canoe, he wondered, would they also find bone game pieces? He wished he could ask Lighthouse George. He wished he could quit thinking about Kane and the map he was after, and Kane finding treasure and getting away with murder.

But he couldn't.

On the afternoon of the third day, after they'd come in from fishing, Nathan and George helped Young Carver soak the inside of the canoe with whale oil, to keep the wood from splitting. The canoe maker had added dye to the whale oil, which was turning the inside of the canoe red. Nathan kept looking around to see if he could see Kane and Dolla Bill returning from the forest to the trading post.

He helped scorch the bottom of the canoe with cedar bark torches, to harden the wood. George said they wouldn't go fishing the next day. Young Carver needed some more help with the canoe.

In the morning, on his way to the canoe, Nathan saw people going into the trading post. The store was open again. He knew what that must mean—Kane had found what he was after. The realization made Nathan's temples throb. He felt light-headed and sick in his stomach as well. He made himself walk on by. He couldn't stand to see Kane gloating.

Lighthouse George was sanding the blackened exterior of the canoe with the dried-out skin of a fish. The skin of the dogfish, he said it was. Behind him, where George had sanded, Young Carver was patiently applying oil from a canoe bailer to the canoe's hull with a paintbrush.

Nathan got ready to help with the sanding. He took a sheet of the dogfish skin from the basket under the cedar tree and started sanding with it, down toward the squared-off stern of the canoe. He had a lot to think about. He'd never been so frustrated or so angry in his life.

The next time the
Anna Rose
visited, Kane and Dolla Bill would leave Neah Bay. Kane's sea chests would be extraordinarily heavy. Had they already found the treasure, or merely the map? It was bad enough that Kane had gotten away with murder!

He wanted a glimpse of their faces. He would be so cautious; he just wanted to see if anything could be learned from looking at them. Kane wouldn't be so dangerous now either, not if he already had what he
wanted. There was a little money in Nathan's pocket. He only needed a reason for visiting the store.

The dogfish skin in his hand provided the excuse. Real sandpaper would probably work better anyway, he thought.

As Nathan opened the trading post's screen door, Kane's piercing blue eyes were on him. Seated at the table, Kane was lifting a coffee cup to his mouth, and his eyes were staring over the top of the cup. Unnerved, Nathan looked away. Dolla Bill, lying full length on top of the long counter, rolled his eyes in Nathan's direction and said, “Poor Bill is so tired. Poor Bill, so tired.”

Nathan told himself not to talk to either of them any more than he had to. He walked directly toward the hardware section at the back of the store and found the sandpaper. He selected the coarsest grade, ten sheets. Young Carver would be happy to have real sandpaper.

Kane glided to the counter to take Nathan's money. Dolla Bill was still lying on his back on the counter, and now he was sighing, “Poor Bill, poor Hundred-Dolla Bill.” Nathan saw enough of Kane's eyes to tell him what he wanted to know. Kane wasn't gloating. He was still angry.

Nathan said offhandedly, “They're using fish skin to sand the canoe.”

“They are ignorant,” Kane replied with a sneer. “What did you expect?”

Kane had completely discarded his mild, warm manner. This was the real Kane.

Nathan knew it would be a mistake to act afraid. He
had to act normal. “Have you been taking a vacation? The store was closed for three days….”

“Precisely,” Kane agreed. “Exploring the countryside, while it's nice and dry. Winter comes, we'll be cooped up in here.”

“Will the store be open tomorrow, or closed again?”

“I'm still sightseeing. A day's rest might be all I need. Or I might even decide to climb Mount Olympus, and that could take a week or more. Of what concern is all this to you?”

“I guess it's none of my business.”

On his way back to George and Young Carver, Nathan thought hard. There were only two possibilities. The first: Kane and Dolla Bill hadn't found the right ghost canoe yet. The second: They had found the right one, and they had the map in their possession. In that case, Kane had already put the two maps together and had determined the location of the treasure, but they were waiting before they actually went after it. Remembering Kane's eyes, he rejected the second possibility. Kane hadn't yet found the
sla hal
piece he was after.

This led Nathan to the thought he'd been trying to push out of his mind ever since he'd read the dead man's letter: What if the
sla hal
piece Kane needed is in the ghost canoe on the mountain above the Cape? What if the map is inside one of the bone pieces he'd once held in his hands? It would be difficult to find that canoe, that was certain—he himself had been lucky to glimpse it from that one angle, through a break in the trees. But wasn't it only a matter of time before Kane and Dolla Bill discovered it?

With both of them in the trading post today, it was his one chance to take the prize away from Kane.

He could throw the bone pieces into the forest, or, better yet, into the sea. Or maybe keep them in a safe place where Kane could never possibly get hold of them. On Tatoosh, with his father. Then he'd be able to explain at last to his father all about the ghost canoe. His father would be amazed that he'd snatched the lost map away from Kane. The other map might be recovered from Kane some other time, maybe by the territorial marshal….

He'd been so deep in thought he hadn't realized he was standing at the side of the canoe, just standing there with the sandpaper in his hand. Young Carver and Lighthouse George were looking at him strangely.

“I got some sandpaper,” Nathan explained. “I think it'll work better.”

Young Carver was wagging his head. “Tried it,” he said with a shrug. “Not as good.”

Lighthouse George, who was the one who was sanding, didn't seem inclined either to use the sandpaper. “Well, I'll try it out,” Nathan said.

He went back to the spot on the stern where he'd been working. After a few minutes he discovered that Young Carver was right. The sandpaper dulled easily, tore easily. He picked up the piece of dogfish skin again. He had no patience today. The canoe was too big. Anyway, he should be using this day to get back to the ghost canoe. It was his only chance.

It wouldn't be a problem simply to walk away with no explanation; it would be the Makah way. But he couldn't just walk away from Lighthouse George, and there was something he needed to know. It would be
too dangerous to keep the map even for a short time, even overnight. He had to know that they could paddle to Tatoosh just as soon as he returned, if he had found it. “I think I'm going to go for a hike,” he told Lighthouse George.

“
Klo-she
,” Lighthouse George responded, though he seemed a little surprised.

“Will you be here when I get back? Here or at your longhouse?”

“Sure.”

“You're not going anywhere in your canoe?”

George shook his head.

“Not going fishing? I wouldn't want to miss any fishing!”

“Tomorrow,” George said. “We go again tomorrow.”

“
Klo-she
,” Nathan agreed.

Confident that they could paddle directly to Tatoosh upon his return, Nathan started up the village creek, and he didn't look back. That would draw attention to himself. He didn't look back until he'd entered the trees. No one was heading his way from the edge of the village. But what if Kane or Dolla Bill had seen him go, and they were just biding their time to catch up with him?

They couldn't have seen me, he thought. They're in the trading post, and Young Carver's canoe can't be seen from the trading post. They think I'm working on the canoe.

Go, he told himself. Now is the time. Tomorrow will be too late. Go!

He soon reached the cedar where Young Carver and Jefferson and the others had been stripping
planks on that foggy day in his first weeks at Neah Bay. The freshness of the scar had already dulled. He remembered potlatching his lunch with the silent Makahs, and the strangeness of it all. So much had happened in only a few months. Much of it was still new, but it wasn't so strange anymore.

He started climbing. The climbing caught his breath short. He shouldn't be breathing so loud, he realized. It was midsummer now, and not so easy to walk quietly in the forest. In the rainy season, the forest had absorbed sound, like a sponge. Everything had been so soggy—the great trees, the giant ferns, the salal and berry bushes, the mosses, the mushrooms, the rotting logs, the ground itself.

A small twig cracked underfoot. The dry, brittle sound carried. He stopped and looked around. Nothing.

Nathan waited, beginning to wonder if he might have been followed after all. He couldn't afford to be stepping on twigs, not with Kane.

He scared himself picturing Kane as a mere shadow in the woods. All spring and into summer, Kane had been ghosting around Neah Bay from his cave in the Hole in the Wall or from who knew how many hiding places. Kane was a man who knew his way around the woods, knew how to travel soundlessly in the woods, even at night. And Kane was a killer.

Nathan fought the urge to give up, to go back to sanding the canoe. Stay out of this, he told himself. You know you shouldn't be doing this.

He heard the croaking call of a raven from the steep slope below him. Ravens could speak in so many different voices. For a moment Nathan imagined he'd
heard a warning call, and it sent a shiver up and down his spine.

Within a heartbeat of his turning back, his desire to thwart Kane overcame his fears. Don't give up, he told himself. You can do this. Be careful. Keep watching.

When he reached the top of the first mountain, he rested. He was trembling, he realized, and not from cold. He couldn't think straight, he knew. If Kane caught him with the map, Kane would kill him. There was no question about that. Then why was he continuing toward the ghost canoe as if he couldn't stop himself?

The raven called again, more urgently than before. He knew that the Makahs held the raven in high regard, but he didn't really know why. All the same, he decided to circle back, to watch the route behind him, and see if he was being followed. Quiet as he might, he came down off the mountain, ducking under giant ferns and crawling the length of a downed giant spruce. Then he contoured his way back to the route he had first taken to the summit, and he waited, crouching in the ferns. Nothing.

He was just about to move when he heard the snap of a twig. Where, he couldn't tell. His heart pounded like a drum; he could barely breathe. He made himself calm down. He waited, five minutes, ten minutes, watching through the ferns. Nothing.

A deer, he told himself. That's all it was. A deer or something else that lives in the woods.

Go home! he told himself. You can't think. You're too scared.

He'd never let his fear get the better of him his
whole life. He resisted it now. Go back to the ghost canoe, he told himself. Find out once and for all, or you'll always regret it. You'll always think you could've stopped Kane, but you were afraid.

Nathan crept his way back up to the first summit. It was almost as if he didn't have a choice anymore. Looking all around, he satisfied himself that he was alone, and he started to breathe easier. Quiet as a cat, he dropped into the saddle between the summits and then picked his way up the second one, more confident now and making not even the slightest sound.

From the second mountain he could see emerald green, fortresslike Tatoosh encircled by its gray cliffs. He could see the lighthouse and all the little white buildings with their red roofs. He could see the surf surging over Jones Rock in the gap between the tip of the Cape and Tatoosh. The image of the square-rigger under full sail appearing there in the fog came suddenly to mind. He imagined the fright of the sailors at finding themselves under the looming walls of Tatoosh. As if he'd been aboard the
Burnaby
himself, he heard the sickening crunch when the ship struck the Chibahdehl Rocks. He saw the sea pouring in on them….