Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont

by Joseph Boyden

  When Gabriel and his horsemen sneak back into the Fish Creek ravine, to his anger and shock he finds that not even fifty of the original force of 137 still remain. At the simple sound of gunfire, his army is abandoning him, disintegrating in front of his eyes. Instead of panicking, Gabriel refocuses his men through example, and as the first orderly column of Middleton’s troops present themselves in a neat line, silhouetted on the ridge above, the Métis below begin to cut them down. Middleton orders his men to hold firm and for the cannons to come forward, but just as Gabriel has predicted, the big guns are useless at such an angle, not able to fire their shells almost straight down at the Métis, who are mostly hidden only fifty or sixty yards away. Fearing big losses of his own men and having no idea of Gabriel’s strength but estimating it at five times its actual size, Middleton makes no major decisions for a number of hours, simply trying to hold the higher ground as his men are slowly picked off by Métis snipers.

  All day, almost four hundred of Middleton’s men have been trying to come to his aid by crossing the river, but unfortunately they have only one scow to contend with the freezing and swift-flowing torrent chocked with ice. But they do begin dribbling in, and Middleton continues to try to send a few new waves of soldiers to try to break the Métis’ backs.

  The Métis are desperately low on ammunition and men. Many had only twenty rounds at the outset of battle. But they shoot carefully and with great skill. No shots are wasted. This doesn’t take care of the biggest problem: Gabriel knows that although Middleton can easily overrun him any minute, he hasn’t yet because he fears Gabriel’s force is much larger than it really is. Gabriel needs back those fifty or so men who rode off last night. He sends off couriers with word to bring reinforcements with God’s speed and faster. By afternoon, Gabriel himself has only seven rounds left in le petit’s belly. He prays that more of his men will come, and come fast.

  Despite their rather grave predicament, the Métis are in high spirits as the battle and the afternoon wear on. Middleton’s troops are indeed untested. If Gabriel commanded so big and well-equipped a force, the battle would have been over hours ago. Indeed, he wouldn’t have let himself get into such a position. To keep his spirits up, Gabriel shouts out to those who can hear him, “Don’t be afraid of bullets! They won’t hurt you!” His men laugh at the silliness, but Gabriel’s wounded head aches so badly that he fears it will explode. Neither he nor his men have had anything to eat since dawn, and now the day is growing long. He can assume that Middleton’s men haven’t either. Gabriel’s men break into various French songs, taunting the English above them.

  Gabriel has one more trick up his sleeve, another old prairie ruse. His reinforcements from Batoche have still not arrived, and Gabriel has to maintain the impression of a large force. With night a few hours away now, Middleton will surely attempt one more hard push to overrun the Métis, and he will most probably succeed, especially when the Canadians discover how tiny a force is actually holding them off. Gabriel’s lost more men to casualties and desertion over the course of the day, and in this late afternoon, the tiny bit of daylight warmth turning to cold and threatening sleet and rain, he makes his gamble, ordering his men to light on fire the prairie grasses between them and Middleton. The wind is in Gabriel’s favour, and the fire spreads. Wet from the morning rain, it burns low and smoky. Gabriel orders a number of his men to advance through the blaze and fire on the surprised Canadians before they have a chance to go on the offensive. He makes it clear that they should pick up every enemy rifle and round they can find. Gabriel hopes this minor offensive will cause enough confusion in the Canadian ranks for them to panic, and they do, but not enough to go into full retreat.

  Gabriel’s trusted brother Edouard and eighty men finally arrive from Batoche not long before dusk, thus ensuring that Middleton won’t be able to flank Gabriel’s men in the ravine. As night falls it becomes too dark to see the enemy, and with both sides dehydrated and brutally hungry, Middleton begins to pull back his forces. Gabriel has done something astounding in holding them off. Much later, when he is asked how many men he thinks he shot that day, he answers simply, “I couldn’t have missed many.”

  When the dead and wounded are counted, the number, by most standards of battle, isn’t high, but it speaks of the accuracy of Métis fire and the cruel efficiency of Gabriel’s tactics. He’s lost four men this day, with two wounded. But the small Métis force has inflicted fifty casualties upon Middleton’s forces, with ten killed. Basically, one in ten of Middleton’s soldiers are wounded or dead, a literal decimation. He’s stunned by this, as are his men, and it takes two weeks for them to lick their wounds and wait for reinforcements.

  Gabriel, head pounding, barely makes it back to Batoche in his own saddle. But he does. Many of his men are forced to walk the long way home. More than fifty Métis horses were slaughtered in the ravine today, their large bodies picked off by Middleton’s soldiers.

  Having not just seen but battled the enemy that Louis “David” now calls Goliath, Gabriel can only wish that he’d acted much earlier and against his friend’s demands. Goliath is certainly real. And when news reaches the Canadians that they’ve been handed a second defeat, Goliath will certainly come full on.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Ordained

  While Gabriel and his men fight General Middleton at Fish Creek, the battle waging all day, Louis fights his own battle back in Batoche. He fervently prays hour after hour, kneeling with his arms outstretched, petitioning God and His son, begging the Virgin Mary and Saint John the Baptist, patron of the Québécois, as well as Saint Joseph, newly minted saint of the Métis, to protect all his people, to protect Gabriel and the other brave soldiers, and especially to protect the women, the children, and the old ones of Batoche and surrounding areas. When Louis’s arms grow tired, he implores the women around him to help hold them up. Word arrives in the early afternoon that Gabriel needs more men desperately. Louis doesn’t want the ones who rode back with him last night and who now guard Batoche to leave, but Gabriel’s brother scoffs at this. He will not see his dear Gabriel die alone at the hands of the English. The force meant to protect Batoche gallops off, and Louis prays harder that these defenceless ones around him are not now surpriseattacked by the serpent that is the Canadian military.

  Body shaking from exertion, Louis knows that through prayer he’s helped usher in a victory for the Métis. When Gabriel and his men return, exhausted but happy, Louis is ecstatic. In order to thank the Lord properly, Louis declares four days of fasting. He hopes to purify his people for the upcoming struggles. For the next days he keeps a thorough diary, seeking answers and feverishly praying to God that Middleton not become the victor, that his cannon be broken into three, and that the Métis understand that the loss of fifty-five horses at Fish Creek, a horrible blow, is God punishing them for their love of gambling on the animals in races. Louis believes it is a small price to pay in that so few Métis lives were lost on the battlefield.

  Louis, in these days following Fish Creek, finds much solace in defining his new church. The new church is, literally, a freshly built, rough-hewn log structure in a willow copse near town, since the priests who run the church in Batoche no longer get along with Louis or want him there. He knows that priests are simply instruments of God, and that instruments often break. Those men are certainly broken, and it’s Louis’s place now to construct the new church. He knows that hell cannot last forever, for this goes directly against God’s divine mercy. Eventually all sinners will end up in heaven, reconciled with the creator.

  Louis replaces the fallen priests with his own ministry consisting of members of the Exovedate. Each is given some of the important holy obligations of the church: the ability to administer the sacraments, the ability to hear confession. Gabriel and the others are now, basically, priests. They must scratch their heads over this newest turn of events. From here on out they will have to be on their best behaviour.

  Louis’s decision to change the names
of the days of the week now that the new Rome is rising makes good sense to him. Using the old names is akin to worshipping false idols, and so Louis renames Monday, Christ Aurore; Tuesday, Vierge Aurore; Wednesday, Joseph Aube; Thursday, Dieu Aurore; Friday, Deuil Aurore; Saturday, Calme Aurore; and Sunday, Vive Aurore. His fascination with the Old Testament allows him to change the Sabbath from Sunday to Saturday. With General Middleton and the Canadian army at their doorstep, the Métis around Louis don’t appear overly concerned with his innovations, or interested, really. There are much more pressing issues.

  The priests of the area, though, are frightened and furious. Their people have taken up arms. Killing has begun. The villages are in anarchy. The priests are being ignored by the majority. There will be hell to pay. They finally do, on April 30, what some say they should have done a long time ago. Louis is officially excommunicated, along with all of his followers. The priests can stand for this no longer. Order must be restored at any cost, and if this means, in the near future, giving information about Métis strength—and weaknesses—to General Middleton, then so be it. What’s most important is that the Canadian government and the Church in Rome clearly understand that the priests of the North-West have nothing to do with this rebellion. Louis, rather than exploding in anger when he hears the news, answers quite calmly, “Priests have been ordained to support the spirit of religion. Priests are not religion.”

  Louis doesn’t pin his hopes on these priests. He pins his hopes on something else entirely: Louis still believes that John A. will sit down at the table and make a deal with him to treat the Métis fairly and with respect. Surely the people of Canada, even the Protestant Orangemen, see that what the Métis ask for is fair and just. Surely they will see that the police fired first back at Duck Lake and rode against the Métis at Fish Creek. It’s not too late to find peace and to find fairness in that peace. Louis writes in his diary on April 29, just five days after Middleton’s routing at Fish Creek:

  O my God, for the love of Jesus, Mary, Joseph and Saint John the Baptist, grant me the favour of speedily reaching a good arrangement, a good arrangement with the Dominion of Canada. Oh, mercifully arrange everything that this may be. Guide me, help me to secure for the Métis and Indians all the advantages which can now be obtained through negotiations.

  Grant us the grace to make as good a treaty as Your charitable and divine protection and favourable circumstances will permit. Make Canada consent to pay me the indemnity which is my due, not a small indemnity but an indemnity which will be just and equitable before you and men!

  LOUIS STILL HOPES BEYOND HOPE for a peaceful end to all of this for the Métis, the Indians, and himself. That he still holds out for John A.’s payment of what he believes he is due certainly speaks to Louis’s desperate desire for some kind of security, a real promise that he might have a sane and simple future. This provisional government will not last and is not meant to be looked upon as an act of treason. It has been created to force John A. to enter negotiations, and as soon as he does, the government will be disbanded. But just as importantly, Louis is asking that this battle—a battle he’s fought all his adult life—be recognized by the Canadians as truly just.

  As each day passes and April turns into May, and as Middleton’s army reorganizes and plots to crush the Métis, half-breeds continue to trickle in from the farms out on the land. They bring stories of how Middleton’s men have destroyed everything, burning homes and stealing all the livestock, leaving the French and Michif speakers with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Middleton has no reason to do this. He is making this into a war between not just the Métis and the Canadians, but also the French and the English. Of all the people in Canada who watch this rebellion unfold in the newspapers, the only other ones who are in any way sympathetic to the Métis are the Québécois. Canada’s future relations with the Québécois will be deeply affected by the actions, and inaction, of the next few months.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Goliath

  Gabriel knows that he, not Louis, truly understands the gravity of what they’ve allowed to happen. Middleton has marched to within miles of Batoche, and despite the Métis bruising them badly not once but twice, the next battle will be decisive. Middleton has spent the last two weeks licking his wounds while encamped at Fish Creek. Gabriel has been forced to begin preparations for the defence of Batoche, something he should never have had to resort to. His guerrilla tactics would have slowed Middleton to a stop, and within months John A. would have had his hand forced politically to make a deal and negotiate with the half-breeds. Hell, Gabriel could have staved off the Canadians till next winter and let the prairie cold destroy the green, citydwelling Protestant troops. But it is Gabriel who’s allowed this to happen—his men digging rifle pits on the town’s edges and the women and children digging caves into the banks of the South Saskatchewan River—because he did not argue fervently enough with Louis. Louis is a prophet, and Gabriel will not complain about what has passed and what he cannot change. The quickest route to defeat is in mourning what can’t be undone or worse, allowing it to weaken you like consumption. Louis has promised that God will listen to the Métis’ pleas for justice, and Gabriel knows to put his faith in Him. Dumont has changed in this last year. Louis has given him a focus and a newfound understanding for that which is holy.

  If Gabriel knew how troubled Middleton and his men are—the Canadians are hunkered down near Fish Creek, many of them fearful for their lives in this foreign land—he might have pushed beyond his night harassments. Middleton didn’t take into account how to deal with his wounded and is forced to try to create a field ambulance from nothing. He writes to Ottawa that the war skills of the Métis in that first confrontation were such that he is lucky his whole army wasn’t slaughtered. He also realizes that his troops’ initial rush to join in order to crush heathens has turned into something quite different now that they are on the Métis’ doorstep. The government’s propaganda—that evil Riel and his hordes are bent on the destruction of the commonwealth—was not at all borne out as the troops came into contact with farmers and families fearing for their lives, or encountered abandoned farmhouses, livestock still grazing the fields and clothes still in drawers, as the people fled the approaching army. These Métis live a tough but honourable life of backbreaking work. This much is clear from the simple, clean farms. It doesn’t stop many of the troops from ransacking them, though. After all, this is war. And even Middleton gets in on the action, collecting some of the finest pelts he can and shipping them back east. But to most of his men, it’s clear that these western people are not at all the animals they’ve been painted to be.

  Regardless, they have begun open rebellion, and open rebellion must be crushed. On May 7, Middleton finally feels confident enough to begin a slow and careful march along the South Saskatchewan River toward Batoche with 850 soldiers and a 150 wagon–long line of supplies. Teams of horses pull four cannons and an American Gatling gun, a deadly weapon for the time that sprays an unending fire of large-calibre lead at the enemy. All of this is arrayed against fewer than two hundred poorly armed and equipped Métis hiding in rifle pits dug less than two feet into the ground. Gabriel prays that the miracle Louis speaks of will come to fruition. Apparently, it won’t come in the form of Indian allies. Poundmaker and his men are busy routing and defeating the contingent of Canadian soldiers sent to squash him near Battleford, but, like Riel, he doesn’t have the stomach for a full-on slaughter of the Canadian troops, even when the possibility presents itself.

  What Gabriel probably doesn’t know is that a group of reporters from back east travels with Middleton and his army, reporting every move to the hungry masses who devour Ontario newspapers. This is not just a first test for the young country’s military against an enemy—an enemy from within, no less—it’s also the first time that the Canadian media travels embedded with its troops. Gabriel and Louis are becoming more and more infamous with every headline demonizing or romanticizing them in turn. One day
the Métis fighters are snivelling cowards, the next marksmen and horsemen of such skill that surely more troops will soon be needed.

  Soon after Middleton breaks camp, his troops begin looting and burning every farmhouse they come across, regardless of whether it is Métis or white-owned. The troops take special pleasure in demolishing the house they find sitting at Gabriel’s Crossing. It is thinly but nicely furnished and contains two oddities: a foot-powered clothes washing machine and, most interesting, a full-size handcrafted billiards table. After a few games they dismantle it and haul it away before burning down Gabriel’s home.

  Middleton understands that word will spread as quickly as fire that nothing in his army’s wake will be left standing. It’s a message to the Métis, most of them women and children, who cower and wait in Batoche for what must feel like the approaching apocalypse. While Middleton forges his path of destruction, he also remains extremely wary and even fearful of Métis prowess. Twice they’ve whipped Canadian troops, and a third whipping will prove devastating. His plan is simple. It’s a two-pronged manoeuvre, and the first—and only—naval attack on the Canadian prairies. The steamer Northcote slowly plies its way down the Saskatchewan River, weaving its way around sandbars and crawling through the constantly shifting shallows. Middleton has ordered it fortified with wooden armour against Métis rifle fire and stocked it with Canadian troops and artillery. It drags two barges of armaments and supplies behind it. Middleton believes that word of the approach of the steamer will draw a large number of Métis out of their fortifications and down to the river to attack it. And that’s when his main army will sweep in from the south, overrunning Batoche quickly. If all goes as planned, the battle will be won within hours.

  But Middleton is so cautious in his advance on Batoche early on the morning of May 9 that the steamer arrives a full hour early, and Métis scouts announce its approach. Gabriel himself rides down to the bank and orders his marksmen to fire on it from both sides of the river. He sees that the Northcote is clearly well armed and it pulls barges of sorely needed resources. As his men fire from the two banks, Gabriel dashes along the river on horseback, shouting for his men to drop the ferry line at Batoche landing. The heavy cable will rip the top half right off the steamer and with any luck, it will then ground itself in the shallows where Gabriel and his men can pirate away much-needed supplies.