“What Pegman saw” is a weekly challenge based on Google Streetview. Using the location provided, you must write a piece of flash fiction of no more than 150 words. You can read the rules here. You can find today’s location on this page, from where you can also get the Inlinkz code. This week’s prompt is Tasmania, Australia.
Image from PixbayBlade by Pixabay
Redemption
Reverend Luke spoke sternly to Matt. “You should not have seized Lowanna from her home and family. That is against God’s law.”
Matt went white, his finger twitched and the gun roared, deafening in the confined space of the cabin. Disappointment stained the face of the priest as he slumped.
“I forgive you,” he gasped. “Now put right the evil you have done.”
His eyes closed, he shuddered and his chest stopped heaving.
Matt Cox stared aghast. The gun rattled against the table as he laid it down.
He buried the body in his kitchen garden. He could feel Lowanna watching from the room in which he’d locked her.
Reverend Luke’s face haunted him, day and night. Suddenly, Matt realised that the sadness in the priest’s eyes was for him and nobody else. On Sunday morning, as the church bell rang through the clear air, Matt restored Lowanna to her family.
Note
During the first quarter of the nineteenth century, British settlers – where men vastly outnumbered women – used to seize aboriginal women as ‘wives’. Occasionally the aboriginals would strike back, killing a few settlers, whereupon they faced massive reprisals and many deaths. This conflict was known as the ‘Black War’.
Autumn Leaves 