“Thank you.”
He went up the stairs to the room. A bed, a dresser, a white bowl, and a pitcher filled with water. Two towels, a washcloth, and a bath at the end of the hall.
He put his valise on the bed and removed his coat, hanging it over the back of a chair. When he turned about he found himself looking into the mirror above the dresser, at a reflection which regarded him seriously.
Wavy hair, a high forehead…He had been called handsome, which he was not. Five feet ten inches with shoulders so broad that he appeared shorter. He was physically powerful without wanting or trying to be. He had always been strong, yet curiously, he had never been healthy.
He shrugged. A man could not dwell on such things, but must get along with what was to be done.
In this almost bilingual town—for so it was at the moment—there should be a job for him. At this season of the year the influx of French-speaking trappers and traders was great. Each year the great caravans of Red River carts came down from the north, and after unloading their freight, prepared to load up again for the trip back.
Many Indians came as well, but he spoke several dialects so they would present no problem.
He stared at his reflection. At St. Boniface he had been considered a brilliant scholar, and so attracted the attention of Archbishop Taché. Because of him he won his chance to attend school in Montreal.
There he had done well despite the greater competition, first in his class many times, often second or third, rarely fourth.
What had gone wrong? At what point had he lost his desire to become a priest? Or had he ever desired it? Was it not simply that it offered the only road he knew to an education?
Reluctantly, he admitted to himself that he had never considered himself priestly material. There was too much in him that was impatient, restless, demanding.
Was he ambitious?
He walked to the window and stared out at the gathering darkness. No, he decided after a few minutes, he was not really ambitious. He did not want wealth. Security for his mother and sisters he did want, and his own lot sufficient enough that he was himself not a case for charity. Searching himself, he found no need for luxury or power.
Yet he did want something.
He had come from a land where all things were useful. A man had an ax to cut wood, a plow to break the soil, a canoe with which to travel lakes and rivers, traps to take fur, a pole or a net for the catching of fish.
Everything must be useful, so it followed that he himself must be so. A priest was a useful man, a necessary man. So, if not a priest, somehow he must become useful and necessary.
He removed his vest and hung it over his coat, then taking off his shoes he lay down on the bed, clasping his hands behind his head. Then he prayed.
Prayer had been his custom since childhood, but he did not always kneel or bow his head. He prayed when he felt like prayer…yet that, too, left him uneasy.
Was he actually talking to God through prayer? Or only to his better self? Did it matter?
That was always his problem: He questioned all things, even his own decisions, his own plans.
He did not lack faith. He had never lacked faith. He was, and had always been, a deeply religious man, yet he was a reasoning man as well, with a naturally cautious, judicious, measuring attitude of mind.
His eyes remained closed when his prayer ended, but his thoughts drifted like a soft wind toward his northern land. The land he loved, the land that was home.
His eyes opened to reality. He must find work. He must have something to take home, even if it was ever so little.
Tomorrow he would look. He knew a few people by name, and had friends from the north who had traded here. He would find something.
He sat up on the edge of the bed, suddenly worried. What right had anyone to survey land the métis had held for generations? What was happening up there?
If the Hudson Bay Company was leaving, and no other government stood by to take its place, what would happen to his people?
The métis numbered only a few thousand, and if The Bay no longer controlled Prince Rupert’s Land, which was virtually all that lay between Hudson Bay and Lake Superior west to British Columbia, then hordes of people from the east or from the United States could rush in and deluge his own people, taking their land, their privileges, their all.
Lepine, he realized, had been more than merely worried. The big man had been frightened.
CHAPTER 2
It was wet and cold in the morning streets. A late storm had blown down from the north, pouring rain upon the town, but he turned up his coat collar and walked along, unminding of the rain. He walked slowly down to the river and looked at the swollen waters.
This was the Mississippi, flowing away from here to the south, toward a sunny land he would never know, for it was not his river. His river was the Red River of the north, flowing out of the United States into Canada, flowing through one of the most fertile valleys on earth.
When he returned home it would be along that river by steamboat, for the Red River carts would soon be a thing of the past. He remembered those great caravans and the wild, screeching, caterwauling sounds that had come from those wooden, ungreased axles….One of the caravans had numbered as many as five hundred carts, and the sound of them could be heard for miles.
He must go home. He must hear the troubles of his people, and if necessary he must speak for them. As his father had been before him, he would be their voice.
First…a job.
When he found one it was in a store selling dry goods and hardware, a store to which the métis came, and to which more of them came when they discovered he was working there. They brought not only their trade but gossip as well, and he needed the one as much as the other.
Again, several times in fact, he heard the story of the surveyors, and always they spoke of Schultz…John Christian Schultz. Not a surveyor, but one who cooperated with them, possibly even invited them to make their surveys.
He was a doctor, a storekeeper, and a Swiss. He detested Indians, Catholics, and the métis. “Bastards,” he supposedly called them, “the misbegotten sons of riffraff and savages.”
Whether Schultz actually said such a thing Riel did not know, but it was widely quoted and widely believed.
He had been behind the counter but three days when a lean, dark man came in and stood about, waiting until Riel was alone. “You are Louis Riel?”
“I am.”
The man glanced quickly right and left. “Come across a man from up your way. He was buyin’ rifles.”
“It is a country where all men are hunters,” Riel replied mildly.
“This man wanted a hundred rifles for delivery at Pembina. He was gettin’ them through some of them whiskey-peddlers at Fort Whoop-Up. He said somethin’ about showin’ a bunch of breeds who was boss.”
“Why do you tell me?”
“Heard you was a breed, although you surely don’t look it. I’m half-Sioux myself, an’ just figured you should know.”
“Thank you,” Riel said, and the man left.
One hundred rifles…It was a lot, yet the métis could muster several thousand if need be. If there was someone to call them out and to direct their actions.
There had always been rough characters along the border, men who would lend themselves to any action if the price was right or if there was a chance of loot. The Fenians, too, had been talking of invading Canada again. They were an Irish organization inspired by hatred of all that was British.
Of course, they had been talking for years, threatening and blowing off steam, yet there were hotheads among them prepared for any desperate action, and if there was an invasion there would be violence…and his mother and sisters were there.
The thought disturbed him. What if some such an attempt were made? Who was there to stop it? If the Bay Company was stepping down, who would act? Who could act?
There was no one.
The métis were men accustomed to the quick, iron
discipline of the buffalo hunt and the fur brigade. Such groups could move like a well-oiled machine, but so far as he knew they had no leader, nor any plan of action.
Such lawlessness as was known in the mining and cattle towns of the American West had never existed in Prince Rupert’s Land because of the Hudson Bay Company. From the beginning The Bay had complete authority, and it was there first, firmly established and in command before there was any possibility of others coming into the country.
Their authority had been complete, and from their decision there was no appeal. Without The Bay no supplies were to be had, no ammunition, food, or liquor available. Access to these things depended on conformity to a pattern of behavior that suited the Bay officials. They also offered the only market for furs west of Montreal.
Any westward movement had been held in check by that desolate wilderness that lay between Hudson’s Bay on the north and the Great Lakes on the south, and particularly that area north of Lake Superior.
If one wished to migrate westward it was far easier to go to America, as many were doing. The Ohio, the Missouri, and the Platte offered easy access to the heart of the plains country and the mountains that lay beyond.
There was talk of a railroad that would join British Columbia to eastern Canada, but thus far it was no more than talk, and most of those who knew the land ridiculed the idea. The easiest way to go west, or even to Rupert’s Land, was to take the Grand Trunk Railway from Toronto to Detroit, then westward to Chicago and La Crosse, Wisconsin. From there it was a short ride by steamer to St. Paul.
He shook his head irritably. It was madness. All men needed some restraint, for few could restrain themselves. If there was no government there would be anarchy, and he was a man who believed in order.
If Rupert’s Land was abandoned by the Bay Company and no other government existed, settlers might rush in, and he could see fighting and confusion, for none of the inhabitants of Rupert’s Land would relinquish their lands without a fight. Yet if the area was to become a part of Canada, it should be as a province, with its own government and proper representation at Ottawa.
Several days passed. He was paid, and carefully put aside all but what was needed for the bare necessities. He was doing well at his job. His quiet dignity and reserve were perfectly suited to selling to the métis, Indians, or settlers. They came seldom to town, but one and all they loved shopping, fingering the materials, wandering through the stores and trading posts to see what was available.
He knew his people, and he let them look, offering suggestions only when asked or when there seemed some hesitation; at other times he simply listened to them talk.
Between the store, the hotel, and a boardinghouse where he ate most of his meals, he was gradually coming to understand what had happened in his homeland, and what seemed about to happen.
The fur trade was no longer as bountiful as it had been, and although there were buffalo, even they seemed to be thinning out. The great profits the Hudson Bay Company had once known no longer existed, and the problems were increasing. The Bay, wisely, was stepping out to avoid an impossible situation.
—
Lepine came around to the hotel when several weeks had gone by. The big leather chair creaked when he dropped into it. “Louis? When do you come home?”
“Soon, Ambroise.” Riel leaned his forearms on the table. “Have you heard any talk of rifles? A lot of rifles?”
The big man looked up. “I have heard such talk.”
“Who would want so many rifles? Who do they plan to shoot?”
Lepine leaned forward. “Look, my friend, you must have forgotten your homeland. Think, man, is it not a prize worth taking? Do you think those who talk of confederation are thinking of anything but our land?
“Who cares about us? We have no voice in Ottawa! We are scattered people on a far frontier, and those who would take our land from us have voices to speak for them. I think you had better come home, Louis, and see what can be done.”
“Do you think there will be fighting?”
“Louis, they have sent surveyors, and we have stopped the surveyors. I do not think they intend to be interfered with again.”
“I want no fighting.”
“There need be none. But we must have someone to speak for us. There is enough land for all, but we wish to keep that land we have….Let them take other land.
“However, there are some who threaten violence. That Orangeman named Thomas Scott is a troublemaker. He had trouble when he worked for Snow on the road they are building, and he threatened Snow. He is forever starting fights and threatening to kill people.”
“He is a leader?”
“Only of a few like himself. He has no intelligence. He is a child. He worries me because he could start trouble. He could begin trouble where there need be none.
“Then there is Schultz. Schultz uses Scott, and Scott follows him as much as he will anyone, but Schultz is no fool. He is very intelligent, but I think he has no scruples….I think he would stop at nothing, but that is only my idea.”
Riel was silent and worried. If there was trouble—and certainly all the ingredients were there—his mother and the girls might suffer. Also, his people were regarded by many Easterners as people of no account. They had had a great hand in building the country, in gathering the furs, laying out the trails. Without them there would have been no Hudson Bay Company, and no opening of the West for many years. But in Canada, as in the United States, the Indian was regarded as an obstacle to be brushed aside, with only a slight claim to the land on which he lived. He had heard such arguments in Montreal.
The white man was taking the land, using it. Just as the Indian had taken the land from those he found when he came, other varieties of Indians or aborigines of some kind. From the beginning of time it had been so, a weaker people displaced by a stronger.
In England the Celts had pushed back the Picts, the Angles and the Saxons pushed in their turn, and then there was the Norman invasion.
Yet this was not conquest. Rupert’s Land—for so it had been called for many years—was being sold by the Hudson Bay Company without any thought for the rights of those who lived there.
There was no question of fighting for what was theirs—it was simply being sold out from under them. Of the open lands, well and good…but what of their homesteads? Their villages?
“I will want a place to stay, Ambroise. My mother will be crowded, with the girls growing up. I would not be a trouble to them.”
“I will speak to Schmidt. I think he has room enough to spare. He is a good man.”
“He is. And I would like that.”
He remembered Schmidt. They had been in school together and he was an easy man to be around, one who did not intrude upon another man’s thoughts.
Mentally, he counted his money. The sum was small, but soon he would be paid again, and he owed very little.
He would go north. He would take the steamer.
“Tell me about Schultz,” he asked.
Lepine hesitated, then said, “You will have to meet him, to hear him. He used to operate a newspaper, The Nor’wester. Ran it four years, from ’64 to ’68. He’s anti-métis, he’s for annexation, and he thinks we’ve nothing to say about it. Near as I can get it, he was born around 1840 and started to practice medicine when he was twenty, but he’s been so busy with his store and the newspaper that he’s had little time for medicine except what he prescribes over the counter.
“He was thrown into jail when he refused to pay a judgment the court declared against him, and he simply broke out and stayed out, defying them to move against him.
“Whatever he says, Louis, do not take him lightly. He is an ambitious man and he refuses to be balked by law, custom, or anything that gets in his way.
“There’s a man named Mair who is or was living in his home who is a very able journalist. Some of his writings about this part of the country have been getting into the Toronto papers. Of course, he’s preaching the Schultz s
ide of things.”
Lepine hunched his shoulders and folded his hands before him. “He is one of a small group,” he explained, “who wish to set themselves above all others. They would like to bring to us again what our fathers escaped in coming to America. They want a small aristocracy, Schultz and his friends, to be the ruling class. He has frankly said that when Rupert’s Land, or Assiniboia as it is called, becomes a part of Canada, he will rule.”
“He and MacDougall?” Riel said wryly. “I think we will have too many kings, when all we want are citizens.”
He sat silent, brooding. There were too many complications, and he wanted simplicity. He wanted only to be home, to see his mother and sisters, and to find a place for himself.
“It is all right, Ambroise,” he said, finally. “I shall come home now.”
CHAPTER 3
He stood on the street before the Hayward Hotel in St. Cloud and waited for the stage. A dozen others waited beside him, one of them a fat, amiable man with an elk’s tooth on his watch-chain.
“The Northwest’ll be part of the United States soon,” he was saying, “and that will solve problems for them as well as us.”
A lean, sour-faced young man glanced at him. “Where’d you get an idea like that? Do you suppose the British would let all that country slip through their fingers? Besides, you don’t know how the people feel about it. It is their decision.”
Riel glanced at him. The man was perhaps thirty, or even younger. In the hotel lobby he had seen him reading Vico, a writer on the philosophy of history too little known.
“Sure it’s their decision!” The fat man waved a hand. “But how else could they decide? Most of their trade is with us; lots of them have relatives this side of the line. You just wait until the U.S. government moves in—”
“It will not ‘move in,’ as you say.” The young man was impatient. “Do not be misled by such windbags as Alexander Ramsey and his like. Grant will have no part of it, nor will any of the others. There will be a lot of hot air over it, and then nothing will happen.”
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