Deadman’s Island
by
It is dusk on the Lost Lagoon,
And we two dreaming the dusk away,
Beneath the drift of a twilight grey–
Beneath the drowse of an ending day.
And the curve of a golden moon.
It is dark in the Lost Lagoon.
And gone are the depths of haunting blue,
The grouping gulls, and the old canoe,
The singing firs, and the dusk and–you,
And gone is the golden moon.
O! lure of the Lost Lagoon–
I dream tonight that my paddle blurs
The purple shade where the seaweed stirs–
I hear the call of the singing firs
In the hush of the golden moon.
For many minutes we stood silently, leaning on the western rail of the bridge as we watched the sun set across that beautiful little water known as Coal Harbor. I have always resented that jarring, unattractive name, for years ago, when I first plied paddle across the gunwale of a light little canoe, and idled about its margin, I named the sheltered little cove the Lost Lagoon. This was just to please my own fancy, for as that perfect summer month drifted on, the ever-restless tides left the harbor devoid of water at my favorite canoeing hour, and my pet idling place was lost for many days–hence my fancy to call it the Lost Lagoon. But the chief, Indian-like, immediately adopted the name, at least when he spoke of the place to me, and as we watched the sun slip behind the rim of firs, he expressed the wish that his dugout were here instead of lying beached at the farther side of the park.
“If canoe was here, you and I we paddle close to shores all ’round your Lost Lagoon: we make track just like half moon. Then we paddle under this bridge, and go channel between Deadman’s Island and park. Then ’round where cannon speak time at nine o’clock. Then ‘cross Inlet to Indian side of Narrows.”
I turned to look eastward, following in fancy the course he had sketched; the waters were still as the footstep of the oncoming twilight, and, floating in a pool of soft purple, Deadman’s Island rested like a large circle of candle moss.
“Have you ever been on it?” he asked as he caught my gaze centering on the irregular outline of the island pines.
“I have prowled the length and depth of it,” I told him. “Climbed over every rock on its shores, crept under every tangled growth of its interior, explored its overgrown trails, and more than once nearly got lost in its very heart.”
“Yes,” he half laughed, “it pretty wild; not much good for anything.”
“People seem to think it valuable,” I said. “There is a lot of litigation–of fighting going on now about it.”
“Oh! that the way always,” he said as though speaking of a long accepted fact. “Always fight over that place. Hundreds of years ago they fight about it; Indian people; they say hundreds of years to come everybody will still fight–never be settled what that place is, who it belong to, who has right to it. No, never settle. Deadman’s Island always mean fight for someone.”
“So the Indians fought amongst themselves about it?” I remarked, seemingly without guile, although my ears tingled for the legend I knew was coming.
“Fought like lynx at close quarters,” he answered. “Fought, killed each other, until the island ran with blood redder than that sunset, and the sea water about it was stained flame color–it was then, my people say, that the scarlet fire-flower was first seen growing along this coast.”
“It is a beautiful color–the fire-flower,” I said.
“It should be fine color, for it was born and grew from the hearts of fine tribes-people–very fine people,” he emphasized.