Ghosts of C. A. Thayer
by
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Fully committed to our passage and less than a quarter-mile from the channel entrance, the fogbank came down like the final curtain at an opera. Just before that happened, I could see the fully illuminated tug waiting inside, barely into the harbor. But from that point forward, there was nothing to help guide me in, other than the compass. The ship was silent, with only the sails making any sound, plus the lessening sound of the ship’s movement through the water, as some of those sails were lowered. Fog did strange things to sound. At one point, I could even hear surf, although we were not near the beach – I hoped. With the exception of Pat, the rest of the crew was involved in lookout duties and lowering sail and preparing to throw lines to the tug awaiting us into the harbor. With the crew all but working blind in the dense fog, the halyards on the foremast gaff hadn’t been lowered together. The result – the gaff jammed. Two men had gone aloft to free it, but they weren’t having any success. Pat went forward to help, leaving me alone. The fog had progressed to the point where I couldn’t even see that errant foremast and of necessity, was navigating only by the compass. We were also fully committed, with no secondary plan or escape possible. I was sweating, totally frightened at what could happen – and my responsibility in it. The fog lifted only slightly, but enough that I could see the base of the foremast as it met the deckhouse roof just forward of the galley. Just as I saw that, I could feel our keel scraping across an underwater bar. I didn’t know if I was off-course or if the bar was just an errant one that had risen and would again recede and disappear. Barely, I could still see the top of the galley. We scrapped bottom again, this time with more force and impact. Pat should have been there to tell me what to do, but he’d not returned. Looking forward, I could see two crewmembers atop the fo’c’s’le. They were standing to either side of the foremast, using it as a safety hold. I didn’t know how, but they could apparently see forward, because they were both pointing in the same direction, and with some animation. Clearly, they were telling me to bring the ship around to port. Blind myself, I turned the wheel until they signaled for me to bring her back to starboard, which I did. In a hundred yards we broke out of the fog, and by some piece of good luck, only about two hundred feet short of the standing-by tugboat. I waved to thank the men for their timely direction, but they were already gone – to their other duties, I assumed.
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About the Book
The story starts in the year 1725, with a couple of natives of the Humboldt Bay region. What happens to them will propel the story to its end – in peculiar ways. Of interest, perhaps, the names and words from the language of the Wiyot Nation are genuine. This tale of C. A. Thayer is seen through the eyes of a young man named Scotty McGowen, from his youth until his last years. As a young man of nine years, Scotty sees the schooner and dreamily falls in love with her. Even then, his mind is set on sailing aboard the schooner. He will grow into a man while in and around that same schooner. But when he hears about or personally experiences the vessel’s uninvited guests, he’ll also chase the reason for those ghosts’ presence, the ones who apparently live aboard and are masters of Thayer - for at least a part of the time. It’s also the story of a young man’s life, and especially, of the unusually close friend and loving lady who comes into his life during his first-ever train ride – she’s named Katie O’Brien. Katie is impulsive and headstrong and sometimes seems almost brazen. She’s also a most wondrous lady whose entire life is dedicated to her Scotty and his Thayer. Loosely based on the real life of C. A. Thayer, many of the basic facts and dates and some of the original people are factual, as are the various lives that Thayer lives. Beyond that, it’s a novel of a ship and the man who follows her for his entire life. Every bit as much, it’s the story of the remarkable love between a man and his lady. More than all the other parts; however, it’s the story of a string of remarkable and sometimes eerie coincidences – if they indeed are.
About the Author
I live in Livermore, California. My wife and I share our Children-vacated home with Sam, a wonderful companion that we rescued from the local animal shelter. I am recently retired from 38 years in the construction aggregates industry, and now look forward to weeks spent in the Sierra Nevada and Cascade Ranges of our country’s West Coast. Our tent trailer will also follow us to our grandchildren, Cameron and Anna Kathleen. They reside in Wilsonville, Oregon. When not camping or with those wonderful youngsters, Virginia and I enjoy traveling across America by train, and visiting the many places along the way. A footnote - my father, a native of Dublin, Ireland, sailed in the same manner of vessel that is the hinge-pin of this story, and later in his life, on the very same West Coast.