Shadows in the Cove

By 1829 Chedabucto Harbour, which had sheltered the Mi’kmaq since the end of the last ice age and more recently their European trading partners, was now called Guysborough. Newly home to Loyalists both black and white, the British shiretown became a place of prosperity and ruin, of opportunity and opportunism, of fish and lumber, gardens and wharves, taverns and churches and at least one unsolved murder.

Young Dr. Henry Inch, an émigré from Ulster, was charming, duplicitous, generous, ambitious and mysterious. On a deep winter morning he was found run through by a British cavalry sword, his corpse left alone to freeze all night in the town square. Why? Who?

All were there, yet none can say…

Not his protégé, Archy, the young Mi’kmaw whose trust he abused, nor Archy’s wife Gertie, known for her fierce skill with a knife.

Not his wife, Mary, a middle-aged widow of means, whom he married despite a twenty-year age gap.

Not her oh-so-respectable sister Cassie, a lady who would do anything to protect her family.

Certainly not midwife and medicinal rival, Mrs. Hannah Hawk, who knew how to kill when necessary, a lesson she learned while fighting her way up to freedom from slavery.

Not his rival in romance, Hagrain, the impetuous horse trader.

Why will no one speak in the name of justice for poor old dead Henry Inch?