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Fog enclosed the island until it was hidden from view. Nathan and his father spent most of the day cleaning the lens, and they kept the foghorn going. Midafternoon, Nathan's mother called them in for an early supper.
Every so often there was a slight break in the fog and the misty shape of Cape Flattery appeared through the south-facing window. Every twenty Seven seconds came the three-second resounding blast of the foghorn. Nathan had never felt so weary in his life.
As his mother was gazing toward the mainland through one of the brief openings in the fog, her face suddenly registered the utmost astonishment. She pointed toward Cape Flattery- Nathan and his father were shocked by the sight of a three-masted square rigger under full sail emerging from the mist where a ship never, ever should have been- Like an apparition, the lumber schooner was sailing through the narrow gap between Tatoosh and the mainland.
"They've missed the Strait!" Nathan's mother cried. Nathan and his father went running outside, as fast as they could, toward the edge of the cliff.
They could see the men on the ship, even read the name, the L. S. Burnaby, on the side. The sailors were so close Nathan could make out the men's faces, shocked beyond amazement to discover their situation. Paralyzed by the sight of Tatoosh's looming cliffs, the crew stood unmoving on the deck like actors in a tragic drama, staring up at Nathan and his father. A dense bank of fog was engulfing the ship from behind. Only the helmsman was in motion as, realizing their situation, he spun the ship's wheel away from Tatoosh.
Nathan knew instantly what the result of the correction would be. The helmsman was now steering the Burnabydirectly toward the barely submerged reef known as Jones Rock, invisible in the fog ahead
"Jones Rock!" Nathan exclaimed under his breath His father had realized the same thing and already was waving the helmsman to steer close under Tatoosh's cliffs, where the schooner would find deep water.
The helmsman saw and understood the waving of the lighthouse keeper's arms. He responded with a frantic reversal of the ship's wheel. Like a scattered flock of sheep, the crewmen were now scrambling this way and that. Moments later, the square-rigger disappeared in the fog, engulfed like a ghost ship.
"What will happen to it?" Nathan asked anxiously, his eyes fixed on the spot where the ship had disappeared.
His father's ruddy features, carved by the sea over decades as he'd stood at the helm of sailing ships, were so grave they reminded Nathan of a minister he'd once seen presiding at a funeral. "God help them," Zachary MacAllister whispered.
Nathan and his parents prayed that night for those sailors, not knowing what had become of them, fearing the worst.
During the night, Nathan and his father again took turns at the watch in the lighthouse. The fog dissolved during Nathan's watch, and the stars came out.
With daylight came no hint that a ship had passed between Tatoosh and the mainland. Filled with relief, Nathan hurried to tell his parents. "They cleared Jones Rock," he said, bursting into the kitchen. "They must have passed safely into the Strait. They're probably in Port Townsend by now."
"It's a miracle," Nathan's mother declared.
His father nodded, then added, The captain shouldn't have needed a miracle. He should have heard the foghorn."
The next afternoon Nathan and his parents finally learned the sailors' fate from Lighthouse George, the Makah fisherman who delivered their mail once a week in his dugout canoe. The men hadn't been lucky, after all. Lighthouse George said that the ship had foundered in the fog, breaking up on the Chibahdehl Rocks, to the east of Tatoosh, just a few miles past Jones Rock.
The Makahs had found the bodies of fourteen drowned men. And one set of footprints on the shore. Ghost Canoe. Copyright © by Will Hobbs. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.
