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good woman who put up with his lonely ways. He became the president of the Blairmore Legion and was responsible for the building of a brand new legion hall.
    He died at age fifty-eight of a sudden heart attack. I received the telephone call late at night. “Your dad’s had a heart attack,” Lila said. I remember thinking how my grandfather had lived through three such heart attacks. “He’ll have to slow down,” I said. Only it was a little late for that. The old reaper had already slowed Dad down for good.
    I flew out to Blairmore to see him one last time. I touched his cheek in the coffin, cold and ruddy from a life spent working outdoors.
    The night before my dad died I dreamed of him. In my dream we were sitting in the living room I’d grown up in and we were watching an old western on the television. We talked and got along, as if time had not passed. And then he turned to me and said, “I’ll be going now.”
    I do not talk of this much, but that is how it happened. A night later I stood in my kitchen receiving the hardest telephone call I’ve ever had to take. Was it a coincidence? Maybe, but I tend to believe that my father’s spirit came to me in my dream to make peace and to tell me to hang onto my memories of him in any way I could.
    In the winter of 1888, a great blizzard ravaged the eastern coast of the United States and the Maritimes, dumping over four feet of snow and paralyzing transportation, yet there were far more chilling events about to transpire.
    In the tiny village of Jordan Falls, just outside of Shelburne, Ephraim Doane awoke in his bedroom, screaming as if the devil were at his very door.
    â€œAbandon ship!” he called out, sitting upright in his bed, terrifying his young wife Mabel.
    She rose and made them a cup of tea, allowing Ephraim to catch his breath.
    â€œWhat’s wrong?” she asked.
    â€œI’ve had a terrible dream.”
    Now Mabel was descended from a long line of highland women, and she knew enough about the power of dreams. Spirits talked to you in dreams, and gods and devils walked hand in hand through the mist-ridden foothills of sleep.
    â€œTell me about it,” she said to him.
    â€œWe were out at sea in the midst of a terrible gale. The ship was heel-toeing like a step dancer’s boot. I looked out into the roiled-up waters and saw your eyes looking at me, and then somewhere high above my head I heard the mainmast snap and fall.”
    Mabel sat and sipped her tea. She knew what a forerunner was. To dream of death in such a way meant death was certainly headed straight for you.
    â€œYou must stay home,” she told him. “Nothing but bad luck will come of such a dream.”
    Ephraim Doane was a stubborn Nova Scotian man, and Mabel knew that arguing with him was about as productive as ordering the wind to rest from its constant blowing.
    â€œThere’s fish out there for the catching,” Ephraim said, “and these bills won’t be paying themselves.”
    â€œWell then, wear this,” Mabel said, pulling her grandmother’s silver crucifix from her neck.
    â€œI can’t take this,” Ephraim said. “It belonged to your grand-mother.”
    â€œBring it back to me, then,” Mabel fiercely said, clasping the tiny silver cross about her husband’s neck.
    So the next morning before the crows had even gotten out of bed, Ephraim Doane pulled on his two pairs of socks and his gum rubber boots and made the journey down to the pier. His ship sailed that morning, heading for the fishing grounds, but Mabel refused to watch it sail away.
    There’s a stillness that seems to hush the very air just before a big storm rushes in on the sea or the shore. You can feel it as the sky seems to hold its breath in dread of what is about to come.
    On board Ephraim’s ship, the captain warned, “Batten the hatches and make fast all lines. There’s a heavy guster coming