A Deadly Distance. Heather Down

       To the memory of my great-grandparents, Jacob and Phoebe Manuel, who carved a life in a land of rock and sea

      ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

      Many thanks go to the helpful staff of the Provincial Archives of Newfoundland and Labrador in St. John’s and the personable staff at the Mary March Regional Museum in Grand Falls. Thank you, Ben Cox, for answering most of my questions about where and when people lived. Thanks also to my uncle, Harold Manuel, for taking me by boat to Exploits Island — twice.

      CHAPTER 1

      Startled, Mishbee gasped, frozen with horror. She was staring down the barrel of a musket and was familiar with the sound those weapons made. The young Beothuk girl knew muskets meant death. In an instant she vividly replayed the images of the recent burial of a cousin: red ochre smeared over his body, his most prized possessions gathered for the ceremony. She remembered, as if only moments ago, sneaking off several days after his burial to the cave where he was laid to rest. Her cousin, she understood, would sleep until his spirit travelled to the New Land. Now she wondered if he had arrived at that place yet and if she would join him there all too soon. The cousin had been shot by a settler, and here Mishbee stood facing a settler’s gun.

      How could she have been so careless? This would never have happened under normal circumstances. It was impossible for a settler to be quiet enough to sneak up on her people. Last spring her father had told her how he and several others were only a stone’s throw from a large group of them. Her people were so quiet and still compared to the loud and clumsy settlers that they hadn’t been detected. Mishbee’s father and the others had remained there until the sun had set in the sky and the settlers had gone home.

      But Mishbee was in a different world today. She was gathering blueberries and had been daydreaming. This coming winter her sister, Oobata, would marry Dematith. Her thoughts had drifted to the upcoming ceremony. Mishbee loved winters. Although the weather was cold, furs kept her warm and there were always celebrations, dances, stories, and lots of singing. This winter would be extra special with a wedding. The feast would be an entire day and night filled with wonderful festivity.

      Dematith had carved a complex geometric design on whalebone to create an intricate pendant for his future sister-in-law. He had moulded it with much care and patience, and it was Mishbee’s most valued treasure. She had been thinking, breathing, and dreaming about the coming winter for months. Unfortunately for Mishbee, it appeared now that these dreams would be all she would ever have to call her own.

      Although it felt like hours, all these thoughts raced through Mishbee’s head in a matter of a few seconds. A boy, almost a man, sighed behind the musket and said, “I should have stayed in England.”

      If Mishbee could have understand what he had said, she would have wholeheartedly agreed with him.

      “I was never good at shooting anything,” he spoke softly to himself.

      The boy was perhaps a little older than Mishbee. She was determined not to flinch as she stared into the eyes of her killer. The boy’s hair was light with a slight reddish hue. The stranger had deep blue eyes that resembled the ocean, and his cheeks were peppered with brown spots. He didn’t look like her people, yet there was something pleasant about his appearance.

      “I’ve never seen anyone like you,” the boy whispered. “Don’t tell my trout-fishing partner Allen that I didn’t shoot you. He’s on the far hill, past the pond.” The young man pointed in the direction of the pond behind him. “P-o-n-d,” he repeated, stretching out each sound of the short word. The boy shook his head. “Allen and I got separated somehow. He’d shoot you in a second, you know. His father was killed by one of your people during a raid, and he’s never gotten over it. It was a terrible tragedy.”

      The young man continued to stare at Mishbee’s jet-black hair, which was decorated with a simple feather nestling in her single braid. Mishbee wondered what he saw. She knew she was taller than most of the other girls of her tribe, and she was proud of the red ochre that glistened on her skin in the sunlight like the sparkles in the nearby pond.

      The strange boy sighed once more and shifted his weight to one hip. Mishbee wondered when her death would finally come. Even though she mustered all the control deep within her soul, her left leg began to tremble. At first it was just an irritating twitch, but the more she tried to stop it, the more her leg shook.

      The boy seemed to notice her shaking and suddenly snapped out of his trance. “What am I doing? I’m so sorry. Please don’t worry. I have no intention of hurting you. I’m not much of a hunter. The other settlers tell terrible stories and say your people kill us and raid our settlements, that you’re savage and unspeakably cruel. But looking at you, I can’t believe any of that. You’re just gathering food from the woods like anyone else would. Don’t be afraid. You can go. Please, go

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