The Place Read online

  Praise for Gary Collins

  Cabot Island

  “Collins’s focus on an ordinary event taking place under extraordinary circumstances sheds a tender, respectful light on how strength of character can be forged at the anguished intersection of isolation and bereavement.”

  Downhome

  “The story is intriguing . . .”

  The Chronicle Herald

  The Last Farewell

  “The writing here is at its best when the danger and beauty of the sea is subtly described.”

  Atlantic Books Today

  “The Last Farewell tells a true story, but Collins’s vivid description and well-realized characters make it read like a novel.” — The Chronicle Herald

  “Read The Last Farewell not only because it is a moving historical tale of needless tragedy but also because it’s a book enriched with abundant details of Newfoundland life not so widespread anymore.”— The Pilot

  “[The Last Farewell] is informative and intriguing, and not merely for experienced sailors or Newfoundlanders.”

  The Northern Mariner

  What Colour is the Ocean?

  “Delightful rhyming story.”

  Resource Links

  “Scott Keating’s illustrations are an asset to the book. The double-page illustrations revealing the colour of the ocean are particularly successful in conveying the moods of the ocean and the land.”

  CM: Canadian Review of Materials

  “This tale, set by the sea in Newfoundland, is told in a simple repetitive refrain that will capture the imagination of young readers. . . . Illustrations by Scott Keating, award-winning artist and illustrator, capture the beauty of Newfoundland and the many seasons and moods of the ocean.” — Atlantic Books Today

  Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine

  “There is a magic in the interior of this island that few will write about or speak of to others—an endless fascination with the land. Gary Collins is entranced in the same way that the allure of rock, tree, and bog seized the indomitable Allan Keats, and before him, his ancestor, the Mi’kmaq Soulis Joe. This book gives voice not only to these men but to the great and wonderful wilderness of Newfoundland. Read it and be prepared for the wonder and love of the wild places. It will grab and hold on to you, too.”

  J.A. Ricketts, Author of The Badger Riot

  “Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine is a number of stories in one: it’s a great mystery-adventure; it’s a fascinating look at prospecting for precious metals; and it’s a heart-warming story about the importance of family pride.”

  The Chronicle Herald

  “This tale also serves to cement Collins’s status as one of the region’s better storytellers; he has a journalist’s eye for detail, his writing is crisp and lean and the narrative arc runs smooth and seamless and is well-peppered with shakes of home-spun humour.” — Atlantic Books Today

  Where Eagles Lie Fallen

  “Some truly breathtaking stories of tragedy . . .”

  The Northeast Avalon Times

  “A gripping story,

  which cuts to the true heart of tragedy.”

  Downhome

  Mattie Mitchell:

  Newfoundland’s Greatest Frontiersman

  “[Gary Collins] weaves the various threads of the story into a marvellous yarn—all the more marvellous because it is true.” — The Northeast Avalon Times

  A Day on the Ridge

  “The 22 pieces in [A Day on the Ridge] vary considerably: a serious accident to a man canoeing with a friend down a remote and dangerous river; the life and death of a big bull moose; coming home from the woods for Christmas; the New Year’s Day Orange Parade and getting caught in an otter trap—and escaping from it. Every one of these pieces is exciting and well worth reading; each is well-written, too. This may be Collins’s best book, though his other six rank high, too.”

  The PEI Guardian

  The Gale of 1929

  “This book is gripping . . .”

  The PEI Guardian

  “Not unlike the seasoned schoonermen battling the famous gale, Collins manages to navigate his way around each story as seen through the eyes of the characters involved. It may be that I, myself, had an affinity for the characters, having been through a similar situation on a 115-foot schooner. But, it felt to me like Collins took me up and down each wave, and let me inside each heroic task of survival.” — Arts East

  Left to Die

  “Gary Collins has written a powerful, gut-wrenching book that, at least, deserves a place on the same bookshelf as Death on the Ice, if not on a shelf above.”

  The Southern Gazette

  “Gary Collins delivers a powerful reminder that the 1914 sealing disaster shouldn’t be dismissed as an act of God or a freak tragedy. The men on the SS Newfoundland, and their fathers and grandfathers before them, faced treacherous working conditions and risked their lives every year just to get by. Left to Die helps to ensure that their struggle and stories will be remembered.”

  Canada’s History

  A Time That Was

  “Collins’s gift is that of capturing real people and real lives.” — The Northeast Avalon Times

  “A book to re-read every Christmas.”

  The PEI Guardian

  “Readers disheartened by the panic of shopping and often forced conviviality of the holiday season will rejoice in the sagas of family, community, triumph and travail that native Newfoundland writer Gary Collins delivers in A Time That Was.” — The Chronicle Herald

  Desperation:

  The Queen of Swansea

  “I loved this book, I could find no fault with it, no low points, no extraneous material and, certainly, no boring passages or ramblings. Mr. Collins is clearly at the top of his storytelling game.” — The Miramichi Reader

  “Desperation: The Queen of Swansea is a must-read.”

  Edwards Book Club

  The Last Beothuk

  “The Last Beothuk, which includes some photos, a bibliography outlining [Gary Collins’s] research, and a select glossary of Beothuk words, is a novel addition to the subject.” — The Telegram

  “Gary Collins has given life to the saga of Kop and his family. Their search for others of their dwindling tribe, and the losses Kop faces at the hands of encroaching white settlers, makes a gripping story. Collins has obviously done his research, and I learned a great deal about Beothuk life, culture, and language as I read of Kop’s heartbreaking struggle. The author’s knowledge of his native Newfoundland—the geography, flora, and fauna—provides a rich and detailed backdrop to this moving tale.” — Historical Novels Review

  “The Last Beothuk has come to us, not only from the pages of history but from the brilliant mind of Mr. Collins, as he tells yet another forgotten story of Newfoundland. The record of relations between Europeans and any of Canada’s Indigenous peoples is definitely not a pleasant one, so the reader may be left somewhat disheartened after finishing The Last Beothuk. Nevertheless, we can take eminent satisfaction in the certainty that the now extinct Beothuk’s story has been well-told by one of Canada’s master storytellers.” — The Miramichi Reader

  The Crackie

  “If you’ve never read a Gary Collins book, The Crackie would make an excellent introduction to his storytelling and writing ability. Another five-star gem from Mr. Collins! As such, I’ve added it to the 2019 long list for a “Very Best!” Book Award for Fiction. — The Miramichi Reader

  By Gary Collins

  The Place

  The Crackie

  The Last Beothuk

  Desperation

  A Time That Was

  Left to Die
r />   The Gale of 1929

  A Day on the Ridge

  Mattie Mitchell

  Where Eagles Lie Fallen

  Soulis Joe’s Lost Mine

  What Colour is the Ocean?

  The Last Farewell

  Cabot Island

  Flanker Press Limited

  St. John’s

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Title: The place : a novel / Gary Collins.

  Names: Collins, Gary, 1949- author.

  Identifiers: Canadiana (print) 20190164875 | Canadiana (ebook) 2019016493X | ISBN 9781771177696 (softcover) | ISBN 9781771177702 (EPUB) | ISBN 9781771177719 (Kindle) |

  ISBN 9781771177726 (PDF)

  Classification: LCC PS8605.O4647 P53 2019 | DDC C813/.6—dc23

  —————————————————————————————— ————————————————————

  © 2019 by Gary Collins

  All Rights Reserved. No part of the work covered by the copyright hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means—graphic, electronic or mechanical—without the written permission of the publisher. Any request for photocopying, recording, taping, or information storage and retrieval systems of any part of this book shall be directed to Access Copyright, The Canadian Copyright Licensing Agency, 1 Yonge Street, Suite 800, Toronto, ON M5E 1E5. This applies to classroom use as well. For an Access Copyright licence, visit www.accesscopyright.ca or call toll-free to 1-800-893-5777.

  Printed in Canada

  Cover Design by Graham Blair

  Flanker Press Ltd.

  PO Box 2522, Station C

  St. John’s, NL

  Canada

  Telephone: (709) 739-4477 Fax: (709) 739-4420 Toll-free: 1-866-739-4420

  www.flankerpress.com

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  We acknowledge the [financial] support of the Government of Canada. Nous reconnaissons l’appui [financier] du gouvernement du Canada. We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $153 million to bring the arts to Canadians throughout the country. Nous remercions le Conseil des arts du Canada de son soutien. L’an dernier, le Conseil a investi 153 millions de dollars pour mettre de l’art dans la vie des Canadiennes et des Canadiens de tout le pays. We acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador, Department of Tourism, Culture and Recreation for our publishing activities.

  For my grandson Dillon,

  who writes well

  and for whom

  I will forever hold a place

  Thou shalt bring them in, and plant them in the mountain of thine inheritance, in the place.

  — Exodus 15:17

  1

  The Catholic

  A large white draft horse, her right hindquarter stained with manure from sleeping on the barn floor the previous night, and a gaudily bedecked rider with a plumed hat on his head sitting astride her back, went plunging down the narrow lane. The rider was brandishing, high over his head, a glistening sword of steel in his right hand, and with his left he was trying to dislodge the steel bit clenched between the animal’s hay-stained teeth. A cry of pain and fear burst from the animal’s mouth but was cut short by the jolt of a rowelled spur driving into her sweating flanks. The cruel bit was yanked from her square teeth and sawed across the horse’s tender inner jaws. From beneath her short, tightly braided tail, the panicked horse let loose with a profusion of steaming, pale-green buns that tumbled down onto the gravel road.

  Two smaller horses heard her neigh of misery and went galloping along inside the lungered fence framing the lane and paralleling the curveting horse. They stopped at the stile, kicked hind legs high, farted with excitement, and whinnied back at the terrified white charger.

  Behind the horse and rider was a column of men accoutred in red, yellow, and black V-shaped collarettes. They wore sashes and elaborate orange cuffs and flourished swords and staffs, flags and ornate banners. They marched in scraggly formation, shouting and singing as they came. A drummer with a battered snare drum tried to keep time with the untrained feet. They stopped, and the drummer kept the beat as the marchers all yelled as one, “Down with the Cat’lics!”

  Gunfire erupted all around them. The troops yelled like banshees as they held their weapons high. The white charger, resembling Cervantes’s horse, Rocinante, which had been tasked a duty beyond its capacity, bolted down the lane with its rider clinging to its withers for dear life. The ponies inside the fence fled down the meadow in terror. And Michael, a young Catholic boy who had been watching the marchers from his hiding spot in the green tuckamore on a hill above the lane, fled for his life.

  It was late afternoon on July 12, 1891—Orangeman’s Day—all across the British Empire, and here in this small outport fishing village on the northeast coast of Newfoundland, fourteen-year-old Michael Kelly had come to see the young Protestant girl he loved. Michael didn’t run far, since the roar of gunfire stopped as quickly as it had begun. The shouting from the marchers subsided, and Michael resumed his vigil. He knew all about the Orangemen’s march, which his parents had told him about and who warned him not to be caught around their parade. Though he was from a small place just up the trail over the wooded ridge from this one, he knew most of the marchers by sight and many of them by name. He knew the shots were not aimed at him but skyward, in a celebratory burst of black powder and shot to commemorate good King Billy’s battle, more than 200 years before and a world away from this tiny community.

  But for that moment—the explosion of a dozen guns and along with dozens of hard men shouting “down with the Cat’lics”—Michael had been frightened.

  Most people in Michael’s village were Catholic. The one Protestant family in the place, who lived up in the deep arm of the harbour, never went to Mass. They never trudged up the path over the ridge to the Protestant place of worship, either. Nor did they take part in Orangeman’s Day celebrations. They just lived their lives without religion playing a major part. The family was a friendly lot and got on well with their neighbours.

  Michael knew all about the Orange Order. Though young, he had an insatiable thirst for knowledge. The priest in the place where Michael lived was an old man who had few minds willing to listen to the teachings of Catholicism and its eclectic, brazen, battered history, with its age-old conflict that still persisted between Catholic and Protestant Christianity, all handed down from a Jewish Christ. When Michael asked questions far beyond the keen of a fourteen-year-old, the old priest was surprised but elated to teach him. He found Michael an eager listener with a sharp mind for history. Michael was especially interested in the crusading years of the Christians, when they tried in vain to wrest the ancient scrolls away from the infidel in the Holy Lands. Cruel conflicts, all in the name of the bringer of peace. It was the old priest who explained this to Michael, as well as everything he had studied about the Order of Orange, starting with the Battle of the Boyne.

  The Boyne River, with its trickle of headwaters near the ancient Trinity Well, spewing out of the dark bogs of Northern Ireland, wending its sure way past estates of wealth and a hundred hungry crofts toward the clear, salty waters of the Irish Sea, had seen many battles. None were more entrenched in history as the battle fought between the Protestant William of Orange, the Dutchman, and the Catholic James II on July 1 in the year 1690. The priest explained to Michael the fight was more a power struggle between the houses of British royalty than it was about religion. Both the Catholic and Protestant Churches were the real powers of the day. Books that dared question the teachings of the Christian Bible were banned and burned. Neither scholar nor inquisitive mind could publicly debate the mysterious heavens. People wouldn’t even dare question the daily tides. To suggest they were caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and not by the will of God was sacril
ege and blasphemy. If a person voiced such thoughts aloud, or, God forbid, published contrary views, they were imprisoned as heretics. And heretics were burned alive at the stake, while the masses cheered on.

  The cheering in the lane below Michael’s hiding place faded as the Orangemen disappeared around the cove like a last troupe of mummers on Twelfth Night, taking their revelry with them. And scurrying down the hill in a rush of parting alders and tumbling leaves, young Michael, the Black Irish Catholic, walked up the road behind the unsuspecting Protestants.

  Her name was Ruth, and she was sitting on the bank on the lee side of a small brook that ran beneath a bridge. The Orange parade had just passed over it. Ruth’s father played King Billy in this year’s parade, and the horse he rode on was their own, Prince. Michael tossed a pebble into the water below Ruth’s feet. She looked up in surprise. Seeing who it was, she looked up the road where the Orangemen had gone and then back at Michael. Her flashing green eyes met his before staring down into the stream again. Michael stepped from the road, splashed across the shallow brook, and stood beside her. Every time he saw her she appeared more beautiful than before.

  “Hello, Ruth.”

  “Hello, Michael.”

  Ruth didn’t raise her head. The sound of the stream was louder here in the quiet glen. The air had become intimate. Young Michael hardly knew how to start a conversation, but he came up with, “How come you’re not chasin’ after the parade?”

  “’Cause they’ve frightened Prince something fierce,” came Ruth’s ready reply. “He’ll be off his feed for a week. Besides, I don’t understand what ’tis all about when they shout ‘down with the Catholics.’” Ruth glanced up at Michael at this, her voice suddenly lowered to a whisper, her head askance. She whispered that she had been waiting for him, knowing he would be at the tail end of the marchers.

  Michael could have told Ruth all about the Catholic King of England who beheaded Protestant unbelievers, or about the Protestant Queen who burned heretics alive. Instead he said, “I doubt if any of the Orangemen in that march could answer that for you. Few of them know the real history surrounding the movement. ’Sides, the only real harm done is to Prince. His bowels will betray his fear of this day for days to come.”