by Fred Stenson
Here in the west of England, Butler’s quiet exile, he had time to think, time in excess. What he had gradually worked out was why his Government and the War Office had sent him to South Africa a year ago. When they had asked him to command their South African army and stand in for the Cape Colony governor, he had considered it an honour. He had failed to see the ambush.
Hope so often turns a man into a fool. Butler had hoped the South African appointments were the end of a long spell of minor postings—a pattern that had begun after he was in charge of transport on the Nile, in the campaign to relieve Gordon at Khartoum. During that arduous journey, his boatmen were routinely asked to do the impossible. And, still, Butler’s flotilla might have done its work in time except for strange interfering orders from Wolseley and regular bureaucratic bungles. When the British reached Khartoum on January 28, 1885, two days after Gordon’s death at the hands of the Mahdi’s fanatics, there was a mad scramble to avoid blame. Several chose Butler as their sacrifice. The boats had caused delay, they said, critical losses of time through the Nile cataracts—and wasn’t it a strange idea to begin with, bringing paddlers from Canada?
For a long time afterwards, the War Office only trusted Butler with small things—inquiries, training, tiny foreign commands—all of which made him believe that the important double command in South Africa meant absolution.
When Butler took up his twin duties in Cape Town, he could find nothing tangible in the argument for war. On the Boer side, Kruger and the other leaders did not want their people to be politically, economically, and morally swamped by a host of foreign gold miners, tradesmen, merchants, prostitutes, and whatnot. The Boers were farmers and strict religionists. They governed themselves quite nicely. Naturally, they wished to continue.
On the British side, the concern over rights of foreign workers smacked of the disingenuous. A far more simple explanation was greed: Britain wanting South Africa’s gold and diamonds, and to keep same out of the hands of Germany. The false piety sounded worse in the mouth of capitalists like Cecil Rhodes (who just happened to own the Cape newspapers, in which the case for war was argued shrilly most every day).
The Boers did not want the war, but neither would they be an easy enemy. When Butler began saying this in letters to the War Office and to the Government, some of it was let out to the press, and he was branded a poltroon: a duffer gone limp who was afraid to fight Billygoat Kruger and his army of farmers.
Then the War Office reeled the bait (Butler) back in. Governor Milner was reinstalled at Cape Town, full of British steel and determination. Ultimatum replaced negotiation. Armies were mobilized. Everything that was found wrong with Britain’s readiness for war was blamed on Butler. The press and the public questioned nothing.
Butler could think on this only for so long before the actual crawling humiliation returned. He tossed the newspaper in the direction of the cold hearth, at the same time as he cursed his batman for letting the morning fire die. The room was as cold and moist as a morgue. In the centre of his desk blotter, he rediscovered the letter from Canada and felt an instant wash of relief. He knew what it was and that it was no threat to him. The Blood Indian Chief, Red Crow, had written with the help of his white secretary. It was a letter from a friend.
Butler found his letter knife, slit it open, and yanked out the single sheet.
Dear Butler,
My nephew tells me you are going to war. I remember when you fought the black Africans. He says it is white Africans this time. This nephew is Jefferson, son of my sister by Davis the whisky trader. Jefferson wants to fight this war. I do not know why. Years ago, he came to me wanting to be a warrior. I did my best to teach him. He is good and will be useful. I write to ask your help. Please make sure Jefferson fights and is not some white officer’s servant. It is turning cold here. We grow potatoes and grain and have more cattle, but every spring there are fewer of us. I think the whisky years when I met you were better.
Red Crow
Butler folded the letter, put it back in its envelope, pocketed it. He gave his chair a twist, stretched his legs, lowered his chin to his chest. His very deliberate intention was to reminisce about Red Crow, to think back to the long-ago time when he had met the man. If in the course of that nostalgic excursion he fell asleep, so be it. When his eyes closed, he saw brilliance: the pale naked light the Canadian prairie has in winter; a light that can literally blind you.
The Halfbreed Rebellion at Red River in 1869 was his first time in Canada’s west. He’d convinced Wolseley to use him as a spy. Nights of lurking around the Halfbreed settlement after Riel and his rebels had seized it. Then Wolseley’s army came (Redvers Buller was one of his officers) and the rebels fled. There was no fight. Wolseley’s army harassed the remaining Halfbreeds anyway, with the rationale that beatings and terror would stanch their national ambitions. Butler remembered an old man drowning in the river as he was pelted with stones.
But, the prairie, he thought, letting his mind refill with light. While he was still in Canada, he took a commission to investigate an illegal trade in whisky near the Rocky Mountains. Americans from Montana had been debauching the Blackfoot Indians north of the border. He was supposed to find out the facts and went all the way to Rocky Mountain House. Most people from this side of the Atlantic had no understanding of the distances involved. Red River to Rocky Mountain House was like Paris to Moscow. There were buffalo herds and the sky was black with geese. It had struck the younger Butler as a kind of rigorous paradise. Land as far as the eye could see. The sky a yawning chasm. The drama of moving storms. He had tried to capture this great lone land in one of his books.
At Rocky Mountain House, Butler had consulted Hudson’s Bay Company traders and visiting Indians. He did not meet Red Crow but heard of him: a once-mighty Blood chief, who had taken to trading the hide of every buffalo he shot for whisky. He had a reputation for indiscriminate violence when drunk.
Their actual meeting did not come until the winter of 1872-73. After the Red River campaign and his investigation into whisky trading, Butler had returned to Britain to find that many young puppies had bought commissions and leap-frogged him. No longer young himself, he was embarrassingly low in rank. He was placed with an unattached company at half pay. It was the low point of his career, and his response was to return to Canada—where he’d at least been happy. The address he gave to the War Office was “Carlton House, Saskatchewan.”
What followed was a delicious time. He had seldom been so free and so far from recognition. His book The Great Lone Land was finished and published, and he went to work on a second Canadian book documenting his private winter on the Saskatchewan. In the final version, he left several adventures out, including the winter trip to the Bow River where he met Red Crow.
His goal had been to see a whisky operation first-hand. His informants at Carlton said there were drinking forts where the Elbow and Bow rivers met. Despite it being mid-winter, Butler left his hut at Ft. Carlton and rode.
The journey was full of suffering, but he made it in one piece. It was late afternoon on a blue cold day when he crossed the Bow River. He was trying to warm up before a desperate little fire when a crew of wolfers came riding. They were terrible looking men—tobacco-stained beards, long greasy hair, buffalo coats shaggy with ice, wolf skins flapping from their saddles—pirates on horseback. They were armed to the teeth and it seemed possible they meant to kill him.
They had actually ridden over to express concern. They told him he was a damn fool to be travelling alone. Only a few weeks ago, a trader named Muffraw had been killed by Indians and his fort burned down. Butler asked whose fort it was he could see from where he stood. They said it belonged to Davis. Two hundred yards from this fort were Indian tipis, and they volunteered that the tents belonged to Red Crow.
Butler remembered his thrill at the news. A chance to interview Red Crow! So, when the wolfers left him, Butler rode to Davis’s whisky fort. Donald Watson Davis himself, a dark-bearded American,
very tall, came out of the log building dressed in a dusty swallowtail coat. He helped Butler stable his horse, then led him into the trading room, with its log walls and crude plank floor. It was dominated by a stout counter behind which Davis went to pour Butler a warming whisky. Davis had no customers today, he said, but had been doing a good business with the visiting Bloods. The result was a pile of buffalo hides in the corner, the smell subdued by the frost. Though there was a firebox with a fire in it, the room was frigid.
Davis was a somewhat handsome man, perhaps a little furtive in the dark eyes. He said he was from the southern States and had fought in the Civil War. Later, in Montana, he had left the military to become an Indian trader. While he talked, he picked up a Henry rifle from behind the counter and poked some rimfire bullets into the tubular magazine. He also divulged that he was planning to marry an Indian woman from a powerful family, who would help him shake off the competition that was gathering.
It was then an Indian man entered without knocking. He was small and homely, with a big nose. His blanket coat looked as if he’d been rolling in horseshit and blood. But something in the man’s eye was so challenging that Butler treated him with deference. Davis introduced the Indian as the great Blood warrior Red Crow. When Butler countered with his own military pedigree, Red Crow asked if he knew Queen Victoria. Luckily, Butler had met his monarch. After almost having died of fever in the Ashanti War, Butler had completed his recovery in England, at Netley Hospital. It was there he was visited by the Queen.
Butler told Red Crow this—Davis translating—and Red Crow at once took Butler more seriously.
Up until Red Crow’s entrance, Davis had not yet asked Butler’s name, and Butler had been intending to use an alias. But he found himself unable to lie to Red Crow. He sensed the Indian would know if he did.
Davis poured Red Crow and Butler a drink. Red Crow looked at his before downing it with a shudder. He nodded at Davis and the trader poured another. No payment was asked or offered. Butler was settling in, thinking what interesting insights he was about to gain, when Red Crow made to leave. “I will remember you,” he said to Butler before letting himself out the door.
By then, it was dark outside, moonless and black. Davis had lit two oil lanterns. Butler had drank quite a bit of Davis’s whisky and, bathed in the yellow light and the whisky’s false warmth, felt in the mood to drink more. After a time, a banging on the door heralded the entrance of several more Indians: a woman leading five men. They had frost in their tangled hair and more ice glittering in the skins and blankets they wore. Intense cold emanated from them. The woman, a rough but attractive creature, approached Davis and demanded something, probably liquor. Though it was obvious they had brought nothing to trade, Davis surprised Butler by going into his backroom, pouring a can most of the way full, and giving it to them to pass around.
Possibly Butler had left this story out of his eventual book because of the shameless way he had flirted with the woman. He had smiled at her and winked, and touched her elbow when it was beside him on the bar. When Davis’s gift of whisky was gone, Butler put money on the counter and told Davis to give them another round on him. Davis did so, but reluctantly. The Indian woman offered Butler the first drink from this can, and it was a shock. It was not what Davis, Red Crow, and Butler had been drinking but something raw and ghastly. He tasted Mexican peppers, maybe even coal oil.
Davis was at this point showing bad temper. He annoyed Butler by not translating a good deal of the flattery Butler was wanting to exercise on the woman. When Butler suggested another round for the Indians, Davis refused to get it. He was about to lose control of the situation, was what he said.
With no more drink forthcoming, the Indians left. They said they had a cache and would bring back skins to trade. Davis went to the door and watched them go; to ensure, he said, that they did not steal Butler’s horse.
Several revelations followed, some embarrassing. The woman was called Revenge Walker and was Red Crow’s sister. Two of the men with her tonight were her and Red Crow’s brothers. This sister had not spoken to Red Crow since he had killed another of their brothers a year ago, for touching Red Crow’s face and calling him ugly. Revenge Walker was as hard-drinking as anyone in the family, and when drunk was almost as dangerous as Red Crow. What’s more, and Butler’s ears burned to hear this, she was the woman Davis intended to marry.
What came next was nothing Butler could have anticipated. Outside, gunshots rang out. In the cold crisp air, they sounded very close. Davis reached down and brought up not one but two Henry rifles. He offered one to Butler and said, “Can you handle this?” His opinion of the British army was implicit. They stood together behind the counter, waiting, and it took some time before anything more occurred. When the door banged open, Revenge Walker entered, supporting one of the Indian men who’d been with her earlier. The front of his blanket was soaked in blood. Butler set his rifle down and went to help. He and the woman lowered the Indian to the floor.
All through this, Revenge Walker was talking to Davis. The wounded Indian was her brother Not Real Good. Sheep Old Man, her other brother, had mistaken him in the dark for an attacker and had shot and stabbed him before realizing his mistake. Davis translated no more after that, though the conversation went on at length.
Davis barred the door and went to his storeroom, bringing back blankets. They placed Not Real Good on two of these and covered him with more. Davis also brought whisky, a pot of boiled water off his stove, and clean cloth for bandages. He uncovered Not Real Good’s wounds, carefully washed them, and tamped them with clean bandage. Butler had seen many wounds in his life and judged neither of these to be mortal.
After the doctoring was done, Davis went to his stores and brought out more blankets for Butler. None looked or smelled clean. With nothing more said, Davis went through the only other door into his quarters, and Revenge Walker followed. The door squawked shut.
Butler rolled himself in the blankets on the floor and had a miserable night. The fire died; he could find nothing with which to rebuild it. When the first grey light penetrated the room, he was up and out the door. He saddled his horse and rode for Carlton.
In his office above the parade ground, Butler got up from his chair and went to the window. It was raining so hard he could barely see, but the drill sergeant was still there and so were the sodden recruits. In the tradition of his kind, the sergeant would not stop for something as meek as rain.
Remembering the frozen night at Davis’s whisky fort had given Butler a chill. Cursing his batman, he balled up Redvers Buller’s picture and the rest of the newspaper and set it alight with a scoop of coal. He had transferred Red Crow’s letter into his pocket. Now he drew it out and fed it to the flames.
It was possible that he could find Red Crow’s nephew in the great emptiness of South Africa, and the officer in charge of him. But he would not write a letter on the fellow’s behalf. Given General Butler’s present reputation, Jefferson Davis was better off without him.
Regina
On the parade ground at Regina, the Canadian Mounted Rifles marched in their civilian clothes. More than half of them carried rifle-shaped pieces of wood and even broomsticks. The commissioned officers and the NCOs did their best to make the drills military through loudness and shrillness, but they were often confused, trying to remember procedures and commands they had not practised since military college or the militia drill halls of their youth.
Present arms. Slope arms. Shoulder arms. Change arms.
Open order.
By the right, quick march. Double time. Right turn. Left turn.
Halt. Close order.
Fix bayonets.
Had there been a moment of forgetfulness, Frank wondered. Had someone forgotten this was a horse outfit? Mounted Rifles? True, they were mounted infantry, supposed to ride in, dismount, and fight on the ground, but when he came to that part, Frank imagined himself dug in, or firing over a big rock. When was all this shouldering and slo
ping of arms to take place, except on parade day?
The thermometer on the wall of the barracks was stuck at thirty below Because of the shortage of Lee-Enfields, they had to take turns breaking them down and cleaning them, then shoving in the rounds with stiff, numb fingers, bullet by bullet into the heavy brute’s magazine. Then, very important too, said the sergeant, they had to pull the bolt and run the cleaning rod through the barrel. The rifling on the Lee-Enfield was five deep grooves. These kept the barrel from being wrecked by the heat of the smokeless cordite cartridges. The same square-shouldered grooves could foul unless the men were scrupulous. And so Frank poked the giant pipe cleaner through the heavy barrel until it shone.
Once they got to the outdoor arena for horsemanship training, it was still too damn cold but things made a bit more sense. They were taught how to ride in groups, dismount, and deploy. One man in four would be a horse-holder. The rest of the time was devoted to teaching them how to ride, something Frank and most others considered themselves adept at since childhood. Whenever the sergeant was out of earshot, they would grumble. They should be getting the time off. Their horses should be back in the barn with a blanket on. Frank did not join in the talk but agreed with it. On the Cochrane Ranch, you would never work a horse hard at thirty below unless wolves were eating your calves or the cows were racing for a cliff.
For green riders who had no horse, mounts were drawn from the free pool. The Cochrane Ranch had sold horses to the army buyer, and Franks father and Mr. Billy Cochrane had made sure the army got value. Clearly, other ranches had done otherwise. Sold as broke, some of these horses were as wild as buffalo.
Like everything else in Regina, the ground of the riding arena was frozen solid. Though the officers ordered the sharpest ruts hacked off and straw strewn around, little impact was absorbed when the flailing greeners hit. Their training consisted of bucking off until they were banged up enough for the infirmary.