Read Online Mattie Mitchell by Gary Collins - Free Book Online Page A

of his titles. Howley was Murray’s protégé. Murray was
Howley’s mentor.
    Howley was always a very kind and devout man, courteous,
easygoing, and generally a very pleasant man to be around. He
was uncommonly strong, and walked tirelessly, or, as Mattie
put it with a grin, “Sage ver’ strong man. Almos’ strong as me,maybe. ’E walk my walk, too.” Howley and Mattie Mitchell
became good friends and remained together long after Murray
had gone back to his native Scotland.
    Howley followed Mattie and trusted the man’s amazing
instinct. The geologist used other guides in his travels but could
find no one to be Mattie’s equal. He relied on him exclusively
whenever it was possible to avail of the Indian’s services.
    The two men travelled and explored all along the snarl of
coves and bays and narrow inlets of the Connaigre peninsula
on Newfoundland’s rugged south coast. Mattie led the intrepid
geologist around Hermitage Bay to Gaultois Island, where the
Mi’kmaq people had found refuge from the French and English
wars hundreds of years before.
    At every night’s campfire, James Howley did his best to
teach Mattie Mitchell the mysteries of science. In turn, Mattie
told Howley the ways of his people handed down to him from a
thousand such night fires. And Howley always listened.
    With Mattie, Howley paddled in wonderment the length of
the huge glacial fjord of Bay d’Espoir. When they arrived at its
farthest reach into insular Newfoundland, the two stayed for a
time at the Mi’kmaq village of Miawpukek, or Conne River,
where Howley updated his maps.
    They were sitting by their campfire just above a gravelly
beach on their last night in the hamlet. The sea was calm here in
this deep bay. The water looked like a calm, black pond and not at
all like the tormented waters of the Atlantic.
    Howley was entering detailed accounts of his travels into his
ledger. He frequently wetted the black tip of his pencil between
his lips before each entry. Pausing in his work, he looked across
the bright fire at Mattie and asked him how it was that he could
keep everything so precise in his mind.
    â€œI don’t mean the bays themselves. Anyone can rememberbig items. What I mean is your keen knowledge of every rock and
shoal and hidden reef on salt water or fresh water, for not only
this coast, but for every coast we have travelled.”
    â€œDon’t know why,” said Mattie. “Ever’ place I bin stay in my
min’ ver’ easy.”
    Howley bent over his precious book again and turned it to
get better light on the page. “You know, Matthieu, there was an
English hydrographer by the name of Captain James Cook who
mapped this coast hundreds of years ago. I wonder if he too had
a Mi’kmaq man to guide his ship around this coast of so many
treacherous bays.”
    Mattie was looking at the black runnels of quiet night water
as they ran along the edge of the beach and didn’t answer for a
moment. Then he asked in his quiet way, “’E da same captain
man who cut ears from ’is sailors wit’ long knife?”
    Howley dropped his pencil in astonishment at the question.
He dragged the long fingers of one hand through his scraggly
beard and drew the other hand over his balding white head. It was
a move Mattie recognized as one Howley made whenever he was
excited or upset.
    Cook was the greatest of all explorers. He was the best of
navigators, and cartographer extraordinaire. He had sailed the
world over claiming many firsts for a European. He was stabbed
to death in the Hawaiian Islands by a Hawaiian chieftain while
trying to take their king hostage.
    One of Cook’s well-known punishments for disobedience—
something he would not abide—was to order one of the ears to be
cut from the offending crew member. Despite his sadistic method
of maiming as a form of punishment, Howley was one of Cook’s
greatest admirers.
    â€œHow