A Dark and Promised Land

by Nathaniel Poole

  After helping Rose on her mount, Declan leaps onto his own. He turns and with a last, angry look at the dying woman, nudges his horse into the flying snow.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The riders approach the Métis camp with a great deal of firing and screeching, and for one terrified moment, several Half-breeds believe it to be a Sioux attack. But many of the riders’ costumes are too bright for the wearer to be mistaken for full-blooded Indians, the scarlet sashes visible from a long way off.

  Arriving at the camp at full gallop, they run about the circled carts raising a swirl of dust, the people staring and wondering what is afoot. Eventually, one of them reins in his horse and drops to the ground, his men following.

  “Pierre, my friend,” he cries. “Rouse your captains. I have great news! We have taken Brandon House!”

  The men gather around a fire. Pipes emerge; they smoke and swat mosquitoes, and wait for the stranger to begin speaking, for word has passed that the great general Cuthbert Grant himself sent the messenger. A keg of rum is broached and passed around, poured into proffered tin cups.

  The stranger is standing in front of them, a cup of brandy in his hands, eyes twinkling with excitement.

  “My name is Boucher, and I bring news from our general.” He pauses for a moment, before blurting out, “The Métis have overwhelmed the garrison at the fort, and the English no longer foul the Assiniboine with their presence.”

  “Tell us the story,” a captain shouts.

  “I wish you could have seen it, my friends. The flags of the Métis Nation flying high and proud, the war songs, the sound of our drums. We made as if to pass the fort when General Grant turned and lead the charge straight through the main gates. The affray was hot; I assure you, but we had the favour of God, and soon victory was ours. After their meek surrender, we took what we wished from the invaders and many cartloads of pemmican, furs, and ammunition there were, and many Canadian slaves, whom we freed. We then put the house to the torch.”

  There is much grinning and backslapping among the captains, but the stranger interrupts them, beaming. “There is more, much more, my brothers. We intercepted the English’s brigade at Qu’Appelle and have secured countless furs and tons of pemmican without which the usurpers at Red River must starve. We have them on the run!”

  Cheers rise from most, but not all seated there; a few hats fly skyward. Brandy is poured; a gun is let off.

  “So what now? What does General Grant intend?” Dumont asks.

  “Now we will carry the furs and pemmican to the North West brigades on Missinipi. After that, only the general knows. But those trespassers of a stubborn and stupid nature will find the days warm indeed, as the general has sworn that come this autumn, there will be no English between the Bay and Pembina.”

  Alexander’s shadow stretches far ahead of him as he shoulders his pack; the prairie is lit with the rosy light of dawn. A few fading stars twinkle in the west, hugged by scarlet-fringed clouds the colour of royal velvet. Birdsong rises from the surrounding grass and, as he walks, small yellow finches burst from his path to undulate over the ground a ways before disappearing back into turf made ragged by the stampede. The sound of his footfall silences nearby crickets.

  After weeks of hard labour, the camp is breaking up, the tons of buffalo meat dried and loaded. The plain around him is scattered with reeking carcasses, the rising sun shining through arched ribs and illuminating the dark orbits of skulls. Some have been stripped of little more than hide, hump, and tongue, and glow a dullish red. Crows lift at his approach, and wolves flit from shadow to shadow. Coyotes yap nearby. Even a badger partakes of the feast, scurrying away as Alexander’s shadow moves over it.

  The field of slaughter is dappled with brown-eyed Susans that have emerged since the rains, and, nodding in the morning breeze, they seem to Alexander a memorial to the bones, red and white, that scatter like thistle seeds across the breadth of the prairie.

  Distant shouting, then the din of carts begins as the Half-breeds make their ponderous way back to the valley of the Assiniboine. His horse dead, Alexander is on foot, taking only water, pemmican, his carbine, and a bedroll. His path is more northerly than that of the hunters, to the shores of lake Missinipi, where he hopes to intercept a passing Nor’wester brigade from Montreal or Athabasca.

  As Alexander moves away from the path taken by the stampeding buffalo, he encounters an ocean of fescue, waving and billowing in the ever-present prairie wind. At times he is forced to focus on the horizon, the swaying of the grass filling him with a kind of vertigo, and, with his weakened leg, he is in danger of tipping over sideways.

  In the days since the hunt his leg has mended well, but he is careful not to exert himself and rests often, sitting so that only his head and shoulders are visible above the grass. Sometimes, he lies down, undetectable to a man walking but five paces away. He had been gored in almost the exact same spot as years ago, and the loose chunk of bone that sat inside there all that time had been popped right out. The experience brings back memories that he would rather forget: memories of community and belonging. What was the point in dwelling on what has been?

  At such times, he likes to cross his hands over his breast, like one laid out for a funeral, his head often crowned by the profusion of wild prairie flowers mingling with the grass. He stares up at the sky above, his perfect view crossed now and then by a booming bumblebee or the distant shape of a wheeling Red-tailed hawk.

  Day follows day each much as the same before, the sun arcing just a little higher, burning down on him with increasing heat. The grass parts and closes behind him, the wild, green dew-wetted scent rising. Like a schooner in the mid-Atlantic, little trace is left of his passing.

  Every emerald pond or slough he walks by is filled with ducks and geese, the surrounding marshes and reeds reverberating with the whistles and pipings and territorial cries of hidden birds. Redwinged blackbirds bob on cattail stems, flashing scarlet epaulets and scolding their neighbors. At the passing of an eagle, shorebirds wheel and slide along white alkali shorelines like schooling minnows pursued by pike.

  As day is replaced by the glow of star and moon, birdsong is supplanted by the boom of bullfrogs, ring of peepers, shriek of owl, and the singsong chorus of wolf and coyote. Badgers dig and snuffle in rodent holes and stricken rabbits scream as owl talons lift them from the grass. With the cool and damp coming of night, the delicate and bloodthirsty mosquitoes emerge in numbers that only an apocalyptic horseman can imagine. But he is a man wild of the prairie as well as forest, and is burdened only by his memories.

  The shot comes from the north, pulsing with distance, and instinctively Alexander sinks into the grass. His gun is primed and loaded, but he glances at the flint just in case; it is cracked and worn, and therefore dangerous. He wonders how he could have forgotten to check it after the hunt, but with no spare flint, there is little he can do until he meets up with a brigade or arrives at a trading post.

  The shot is not far off, perhaps a mile. He can see the shadow of a creek valley, one of the many that flows south to feed the Assiniboine River. Knowing it is better to know who they are before they chance to discover him, Alexander makes his way toward the gulley, crouching.

  The awkward stance is difficult for his game leg, already sore by heavy use, and by the time he arrives at the gulley’s edge, he is limping badly. For the last several yards, he moves forward on his elbows. A curlew bursts from the grass by his very nose, the large, long-billed bird shrieking kewkewkew as it flies away.

  Alexander flattens in the grass, his heart in his mouth. To his right, he spots the tips of a patch of shimmering wolf willow. As if swimming through the grass, he moves deep into this shrubbery. The wind hisses through the wolf willow, setting its silver leaves dancing and twisting, and Alexander is suddenly aware that the flickering might draw attention. He buries himself deeper into the little copse and waits. He does not wait long. There is movement along the gully’s upper edge, and soon a feathered,
black-haired head emerges, scanning the horizon. Almost to his immediate left and much closer, another appears, equally alert.

  Rising from the ground like spirits, the two men emerge from the gully, rotating this way and that, their muskets levelled. Their movements are lithe and predatory, and although they see nothing untoward, they remain suspicious, crouching in the grass in much the same manner of Alexander.

  He recognizes them as young Sioux, and sweat beads on his forehead. They are a people long warring on the plains with Asinepoet and Cree and Half-breed alike, but these two have been raiding deep outside their own lands. His senses become attuned to every detail of his surroundings, the chitter of grasshoppers, the rolling burble of a nearby meadowlark, the sun reflecting off the sweaty black paint adorning the nearest Sioux’s cheek.

  The farther Sioux makes hand signs to the nearer, who responds by crouching in front of the very willows covering Alexander. Behind him, Alexander wishes that he knew an appropriate prayer, forced to silently plead with a crude and generic begging.

  The further Indian stiffens and aims his musket for a moment before slowly lowering it. “Shit,” he says.

  “What is it?” the other says in a low voice.

  “Just a coyote.”

  “Fuck all coyotes.”

  “I told you, Wah-pah-shaw; you’re as nervous as a jackrabbit on a hilltop.”

  “Do you blame me? We shouldn’t be here. This is Cree territory. Those assholes will split and gut you faster than you can shit.”

  “I told you; I have to find my horse.”

  “Never mind the horse, we must get out of here.”

  “There’s the jackrabbit again.”

  “Say that again, and I’ll whip you. I’ve had enough. Bring up the horses, and let’s get out of here.”

  There is something in Wah-pah-shaw’s voice that tells his brother that there is no more room for argument.

  “You know father will beat us when we return,” he says, as if that fact somehow helps his argument.

  “I know it, Chan-ta-pe-a. Just get the fucking horses!”

  Looking sullen, his brother’s musket droops, and he slouches down into the gulley.

  Wah-pah-shaw moves farther back into the bushes and squats. A fart carries from beneath his loincloth, and the dried leaves rustle as he drops dung. With a sigh, he stands up and rearranges the cloth. At the smell, Alexander pulls slightly back, and a branch snaps beneath his foot. Wah-pah-shaw freezes.

  Alexander erupts from hiding and claps his hand over the youth’s mouth, cutting his throat; the heat of the man’s life bursts over Alexander’s hand and down his arm. He hurls the body aside.

  He grabs the Indian’s gun, a very worn trade musket, and removes the flint. He tosses the weapon aside and, with shaking hands, picks up his carbine, loosens the hammer screw, extracts the old flint, and inserts the other, just as Chan-ta-pe-a climbs out of the gully on horseback, another following on a lead.

  Alexander raises his gun and fires, the Indian disappearing behind a cloud of smoke. The well-trained horse barely flinches as its master falls to the ground. Alexander runs over, prepared to thrust his knife into his throat. With a heaving sigh, he drops down on his haunches. The top of the man’s head is missing, the eyes staring at the uncomprehending sky.

  He spends that night camped in the gulley, the ringing of crickets punctuated by the sound of coyotes fighting over the two corpses. He passes the night tending the tiny fire and staring into the flames. The murder of the two men does not particularly concern him as much as the significance of their presence and the feeling of impending disaster. He cannot find the answer in his heart or mind, but something tells him that darkness is coming fast. As he watches the flames consume stick after stick, he wonders what it all means.

  At first light, he is awakened by the nearby flutter of pipit wings; his legs are stiff and sore. He rouses the ashes of the fire and lights his pipe, counting in his head the miles left to the Great Water. He had contemplated stopping at the Nor’wester post of Fort Gibraltar for provisions — located across the Red River from Fort Douglas, to the great ire of the Hudson’s Bay Company — but with those left by the dead Sioux, it will no longer be necessary. He will take a more northerly route, bypassing the Red River settlement, and all the misery it represents.

  After a breakfast of dried buffalo tongue and another pipe, he loads his pack onto one of the horses and rides up to greet the morning. A herd of feeding pronghorn antelope gallops off, and at a distance they stop to turn and stare at him, white rumps flaring. Nearby, there is a noisy flapping of wings as several crows protest the interruption of their scavenging. Alexander ignores them, turning his face to the sun.

  On horseback his progress is much faster, and soon he finds himself back in the valley of the Assiniboine River. He descends into the cottonwoods and follows a well-worn path along the shore until arriving at a ford. He edges his horse into the river and soon the two animals are swimming, Alexander floating alongside and clinging to his horse’s mane, holding his Baker carbine aloft. When the horse finds its footing on the opposite shore, he climbs back on, and all three emerge from the river, cold and dripping. While checking his rifle, he hears a dog bark, and frowns, realizing he is closer to the forks and the Half-breed settlement than he had intended.

  Hanging his rifle along the side of his horse, he knees it forward through thick buck brush; he has no intention of following the trail any farther. At first it hesitates, then pushes forward, the branches scraping along its side. Alexander lowers his head, protecting his face with his hat.

  Soon they climb out of the bush, horses and rider looking rather dishevelled for the effort. The upper edge of the valley is mounded and rolling, and to his right he sees smoke rising from a nearby fold.

  They climb out of the valley. A gust of wind hits them, and Alexander snatches at his hat to keep it from blowing away. While down in the valley the air felt stifling and hot, but now the open prairie feels fresh and cool, especially in his wet clothes.

  He pauses long enough for a pipe and a scan of the sky. A thin layer of cloud veils the sun, and the usual effulgent blue sky is pale and uncomfortable, heralding a coming change in the weather. As he stares, he sees a red-tailed hawk soar against the watery sun, its backlit tail feathers seeming on fire.

  He knows the Red River settlement is many miles eastward, and so he turns north. But soon the land dips again, and he finds himself in wet, bogging land — not the well defined alkali-lined sloughs, but a region of amorphous earth where water lurks close to the surface; cattails and sedges and coarse grasses stretch from horizon to horizon.

  He can go no further; the Indian horse is sinking past its fetlocks, its beautiful tawny hide stained black. To turn west could take him many miles out of his way, while eastward would take him close to the settlement, closer to her. Angrily, he shakes his head and knees his horse forward. Suddenly he pulls it up; faint in the distance, a large body of horsemen also follow the southern edge of the bog. He watches them for a while and sees that they are heading east, away from him.

  Nor’westers or Half-breeds. With an inner shrug, he knees his horse forward. But, as he follows, his unease increases; the group of men is proceeding very slowly, encumbered by a large cart pulled by an ox, a cart uncharacteristically silent. They are heavily armed, even for Rupert’s Land, with guns bristling in all directions. But even more than their weaponry, it is their attitude; although they have not yet spotted their shadow, they are nervous and on their guard. Men continually rise on their horses and stare east, and they are in close formation as if expecting attack. Sioux territory is far to the south, and the Cree and Stonies of the region are not violently ill-disposed to the Whites and Half-breeds squatting on their lands.

  For some reason he is unable to define, Alexander feels a need to hide himself. He moves the horses into the cover of several willows and dismounts. Leaving them behind, he hurries through the edge of the bog as quickly as possible, m
aking his way closer to the slowly moving brigade.

  After a long, sneaking march interrupted by more than one misstep into deep, gurgling mud, he is close enough to hear voices; one is louder than the others, giving orders. Although the words cannot be made out, the tone of the voice is concerned and impatient, the ox and its cart apparently slowing them far more than the man feels proper.

  Alexander watches him closely. He has dark, arching eyebrows and a stern gaze. Clean shaven unlike his fellows. A young, handsome face, especially for this part of the world where exposure to ice and wind and heat erodes a face like the land itself. Suddenly, he realizes that this must be the famed Cuthbert Grant; no wild Half-breed or itinerant fur trader, the face and voice is that of authority and learning. The dam has burst at last. This must be a war party intent on driving the settlers out of the Forks once and for all.

  There had been talk all spring, a rousing and a muster that had disturbed him greatly. Divided in his loyalties, he had wanted to warn the settlement, but such intervention would result in his becoming a traitor to his own people, men and women who valued community and fealty above all else. The fact that it might also bring him face to face with Rose was an additional deterrent that he refused to acknowledge to himself. He wonders why he even gave a damn, but a part of him still feels that the souls he had guided from York Factory are still his responsibility, despite his abandoning them at Jack River House. Guilt plays a large part of this, his conscience unmoved by whatever rationalizations he offers his burdened heart.

  Teasing out the threads between the North West Company, the Hudson’s Bay Company, and Selkirk’s adventures at the Forks is not simple in any case, regardless of what Cuthbert Grant had to say about it.