“Nothing will happen?” The fat man’s tone became shrill. “You just bet something will happen! Those French Indians up there will rise up! They’ll want to be American citizens! Why shouldn’t they?”
“Perhaps they will wish to remain British subjects,” the young man said mildly, “and there is no reason why they should not.”
“You a Canadian?” the fat man demanded suspiciously.
“I’m a Vermonter,” the young man replied, “and in Vermont we tend to look at realities. There will be fears north of the line and a lot of shouting south of the line, but nothing will happen, believe me.
“I have talked to several senators, and they do not want it. We have had our share of trouble with the war, and we want none with England. We would rather have a friend north of the line than a suspicious enemy, and we have enough to do with what we have.”
“You just wait and see! I happen to know there’s a movement up there to join up with us, and then there’s the Fenians—”
“A bunch of hotheads,” the Vermonter said.
“They’d better join up,” the fat man argued. “I happen to know there’s some as expect to get rich up there when Canada takes over the government. The only chance those folks have is to join us.
“This outfit I’m talking about, they figure to grab title to most of that farmland, and if there’s trouble they’ll have support from the Army—”
“I doubt it,” the Vermonter said. “Anyway, that’s no hide off my nose as long as we’re not involved.”
“You’ll be involved. You take them métis, they’re mighty fine rifle shots, and they can outwalk, outride, and outshoot anybody around. They’ll stop anybody tryin’ to take over, but then they’ll come to us for help. You’ll see.”
Riel was irritated. They talked like children, at least the fat man did, but he supposed there were many who felt as he did. Yet how right was the Vermonter? He glanced at him thoughtfully, and the Vermonter caught the glance and winked.
“How about you?” he said, with an amused glance at Riel, but speaking to the fat man. “Will you shoulder a rifle and get into a fight for Rupert’s Land?”
“Me?” The fat man was startled. “I am not a fighter, I’m a lover. I’m just telling you what will happen. I happen to know—”
“Nothing…just nothing at all.” The Vermonter’s smile took the sting from the words. “You make a mistake, sir. Those who talk of Rupert’s Land becoming a part of the United States are indulging in fantasy. No sober, serious student of affairs would have anything to do with it, and most of the citizens are well pleased to have the late war ended and to get down to business again without going off on tangents.
“Grant is a serious man. Despite his cronies, he is no fool. He will lead us into no foreign adventures. You will see that all this talk of annexation is so much wind.”
The fat man was not persuaded, but Riel had not expected him to be. Personally, his opinion was that of the Vermonter. If some of the border Americans and promoters wished to indulge in foolish dreaming, that was their affair. He was sure neither the government in Washington nor the rank and file of citizens had any such idea.
He wanted no part in the discussion. He simply wanted to be seated in the stage and moving toward home. He waited, shivering a little in the predawn chill, and when the stage finally drew up he was the first aboard, taking a seat on the far side, where he relaxed and closed his eyes.
—
Despite the fact that he was at last on the road home, he was uneasy. What would he find there? What would he do himself?
When the stage stopped at Sauk Centre he got down to stretch his legs. He had been very young when he had come this way before…or had it been exactly this way? He scowled, trying to remember.
Whether or not he had come exactly this way, the town had a flour mill, obviously new. There was a blacksmith shop, a lumber mill, a store, and a saloon. When they left Sauk Centre their way took them over rolling prairies dotted with clumps of oak and poplar, with occasional lakes or sloughs.
From Lake Osakis they took a road cut through the Big Woods to Alexander, and then on to a night station with a log stockade, called Pomme de Terre.
“Riel?” the stage driver said confidentially. “Better sleep in your clothes. The bugs will eat you alive.”
It was good advice, and he took it, but even so the bugs did their best, and their best was far too good.
They crossed the Otter Tail River above its junction with the Bois de Sioux and turned west to avoid the alkali and came at last to the Red River and halted at McCauleyville, opposite the fort.
There was no room in Nolan’s Hotel, but Nolan advised he sleep in the hay-barn. “Damn sight better, anyway,” he admitted frankly. “They’re sleepin’ four an’ five in a bed, and some of them snore something fierce. If it were me, I’d take the hay.”
Riel shrugged. Why not? He had slept in hay before this, and enjoyed it.
The restaurant was crowded with a rough, casual crowd of would-be settlers, farmers, drifters, and trappers. He found a place at the table and helped himself to the trays of food that were continually refilled. The meat was good, the gravy and potatoes even better.
“You goin’ north?” his neighbor asked.
“Yes…to Fort Garry.”
“Me, too.” The man was a burly, affable sort, roughly dressed. “I want a piece of that land. They say the soil is deep, rich, and black.”
“Are you a farmer?” Riel asked politely.
“Hell no! I’ll just grab onto a piece of it an’ sell it to the first one offers me a good price.”
“How do you propose to get a piece of land?”
“How? Just take it. How else?”
“What of the people who live there?”
“You mean the Indians? Hell, they don’t own any land! They just drift across it. A few years from now they’ll all be settled down to farming. At least, the smart ones will.”
“They probably enjoy the life they are living,” Riel suggested.
“So would I. That there’s a good life, but it isn’t practical anymore. Times are changing, and a man, Indian or white, who won’t change with them just doesn’t have a chance.
“Look, there ain’t no way to avoid it. Folks want land, and one way or another, they’ll get it. Down here in the States, for example. How’s the Army going to stop people? Tell them they can’t go any further? They’ll slip by at nighttime. Shoot them? The public wouldn’t stand for it.
“Sure, the Indians kill a few here, and a few there, but there’s always more a-coming. Look at the Little Crow massacre. The Indians rose up when the Army was away fighting in the Civil War, and they killed nigh onto a thousand men, women, and children; now there’s twice as many living there. They just keep comin’. It’s land hunger; folks want homes, a chance to improve their lot.
“I like the Indian way, myself, but it surely isn’t practical. The Indian lives off wild game, wild seeds and roots, and in the same area that it takes to feed a hundred Indians, you can be plowing and planting and feed fifty thousand by the white man’s way.”
“I hear much of that land is lived on by the métis,” Riel offered mildly.
“The half-breeds? It don’t make no difference. From what I hear they are a shiftless lot.”
“But good with their rifles. Most of them have been hunting all their lives, and are dead shots.”
“Well, that’s another kind of thing. Me, I don’t want any land that belongs to somebody else. There’s plenty that stands empty. But I’m only one, and there’s men right in this camp who don’t care who they ride over. They aren’t much worried about the breeds, because they’re scattered and they won’t stand together. They’ve got no leader.”
“Americans?”
“Some of them. A good many are likely Canadians. Most of them don’t care if the American government takes over or the Canadian, just so they get in, and get in they will.
“But, hell…look aro
und you. See the big black-bearded one by the end of the bar? He’s a Russky, and that man next to him is a Swede. Used to be a sailor. There must be fifty Scotsmen in this crowd, and twice as many English….You can’t just call them one thing or another.
“They tell me that once you’ve seen that land—”
“I have seen it.”
“You have?” The man’s interest quickened. “Is it as pretty as they say, or is that all talk?”
“It is one of the most beautiful lands under the sun,” Riel said quietly, “and it has everything—deep soil, good grass, timber, lots of running water, lakes, ponds, game…especially game—and that’s why I think the métis will fight.”
“Look,” the man protested, “maybe they will, but whether it is the Canadians or the Americans in charge, they stand to lose. The Hudson Bay Company sold out and nobody could care less about the breeds. The Bay owned the land. The breeds just lived on it, so what title can they have?”
“They have lived on the land for generations,” Riel replied. “It is theirs by right of possession. In many cases The Bay upheld their right of ownership.”
“Maybe…maybe.” The man shoved back and got up. “Nice talkin’ to you. My name’s Graham.”
“Mine is Riel…Louis Riel.”
“French?”
Riel smiled gently. “Yes, it is, Mr. Graham. I am a métis.”
—
The International was lying a hundred miles from Fort Abercrombie at Frog Point.
At breakfast Graham came around and straddled the bench beside Riel. “You catchin’ the boat? If you are you’re welcome to ride with me. I got one of those Red River carts and I’ll be pullin’ out in maybe thirty minutes.”
“Thank you. I will appreciate the ride.”
Graham glanced around. “Can’t carry more than you and one more. Get your bag and slip away. Meet me down the road maybe two hundred yards into them trees. All right?”
Riel glanced after Graham as he walked away. For a moment, he hesitated, then shrugged. The man seemed honest enough, and probably was. He wanted no trouble, but if attacked, he felt himself strong enough to handle any one man.
Borrowing a cord, Riel hung his bag from his shoulder and walked out from the settlement as though starting to hoof it. If anybody noticed, they apparently did not care, for there was no comment. Soon he was lost in the oaks and giant cottonwoods along the river.
He had walked almost three hundred yards and was prepared to give up when a voice called, “Hold up there!”
Glancing quickly to his left he saw a Red River cart drawn by a single horse waiting in the shadows under a tree, but well hidden by brush.
“Climb in.” Graham glanced around apprehensively. “If they guessed I had me a cart hid out there’d be fifty men wantin’ a ride to Frog Point,” he explained, “and some of them I’ve known for a while. Seemed to me, you going home and all, that you might need the ride most of all.”
“Thank you.”
Creaking and groaning, they pulled out into the muddy road.
“You’ve ridden this way before? I mean in a cart?”
“I came down from Fort Garry in one, a whole caravan of them.”
The carts, with two giant wheels, were made entirely of wood cut from the forest. No oil could be used on the wooden axles, for it caught the dust and sooner or later the axle would “freeze” in place. The sound of such a cart was like what one imagined a tortured banshee would sound like.
“Been wet,” Graham commented. “You being from this country know what that means.”
Riel nodded. It meant mosquitoes…and mosquitoes in such clouds they had been known to kill a horse or an ox that was left tied and unable to escape. Mosquitoes so thick they drove both men and animals wild in their efforts to escape.
“Got an oilcloth. If it gets too bad we’ll tie the horse behind and cover cart and all with the oilcloth. It won’t keep ’em out, but it will help some.”
Prairie chickens flew up and away. Within the first mile after leaving the forest they started a dozen coveys. The groaning and screaming from the wheels was such that it precluded conversation, and Riel was just as pleased. He wanted time to think, time to get the feel of the country once again.
They met no one. Once, off in the distance, they glimpsed a buffalo…perhaps two.
“Don’t see many this far east,” Graham commented. “Getting mighty scarce.”
They stopped to eat at Georgetown, then moved on, then camped alongside the road, but it was just a brief rest, and then they were moving once more. The steamboat would not remain long, nor would there be another for some time.
Graham seemed tireless. Twice, for brief periods he handed the reins to Riel and dozed, but the horse needed little guidance, and just a slap of the reins every now and then to keep him moving. The trail wound in and out of the brush, allowing glimpses of the river from time to time through the willow, chokecherry, and cottonwood that lined the stream.
Finally, they caught a glimpse of white through the green. It was the steamboat. The International was tied to the bank, moored to a couple of large trees, and already crowded with passengers.
To Riel’s surprise, Lepine was one of them. The big man moved to him at once. “Got to talk to you,” he said, low-voiced. “Trouble’s brewing.”
They stood together in the stern near the huge paddle-wheel.
“What is it, Ambroise?”
“Some of this crowd are landing at Pembina. Listen to them when you get a chance. They’re all going north after land…our land.”
—
The International backed slowly out of her berth along the bank and swung into the current. The big stern-wheel reversed itself and slowly the steamboat began to edge upriver, gaining speed.
One hundred and thirty feet long, the International drew but two feet of water. Already a veteran of seven or eight years upon the river, she showed the harshness of hot summers and the bitter cold of winter when she lay idle.
The green banks slipped away behind them, now and then permitting a glimpse of the prairie beyond. There were many twists and turns in the river, so actual progress in miles amounted to very little.
Riel walked aft and stood watching the great wheel turning, crystal drops falling back into the water. For two hundred years the Hudson Bay Company, under a charter granted in 1670 to Prince Rupert and his associates, had ruled the vast territory known as Rupert’s Land which lay east of the Rockies to the shores of Hudson Bay.
Not that their control had been unlimited, for in 1783 a group of “free-traders” had combined to form the North West Fur Company, and there had followed for nearly forty years a bloody rivalry.
In 1812 the Earl of Selkirk planted a colony upon the Red River, a colony of Highlanders displaced from their own land in Scotland. They were viciously attacked, and many, including the governor of the Hudson Bay Company, were shot down.
Later, the earl imported portions of two bodies of foreign troops, marched them west, and took possession of Fort Douglas. They in turn were attacked, and peace was not finally resolved until the two companies merged to leave only the Hudson Bay Company in the field.
The inhabitants of what was called Assiniboia were not all métis. Many were retired Hudson Bay Company factors and servants, others their descendants, often of mixed blood. Aside from occasional disputes over religious matters the colony was singularly peaceful, considering the time and the place. Now all that was to change, and Louis Riel paced the deck, hands clasped behind his back, considering what might be done.
Graham found him on the top deck. “Looking for you,” he said mildly. “You’d better go ashore at Pembina. That’s my advice for whatever it’s worth. You listen a mite. There’s talk to be heard there that’ll teach you more about your country than weeks of living in it.”
“Where do you stand, Mr. Graham?”
For a moment, he seemed to be thinking about it. Then he said, “I’m not a well-off man, Riel, not at a
ll well-off. I’m an American, but there’s little choice, seems to me, whichever side of the border a man decides on.
“I’m looking for land, and I’ll be looking there, I imagine.” He paused a moment. “But I’ll look for unsettled land, and that’s more than most of them expect to do.”
COMMENTS: Louis Riel went on to lead two resistance movements in Canada, seeking to preserve the rights of the métis people. He was elected three times to the Canadian House of Commons, though he was never able to attend due to being forced to live in exile in the United States. One of the most controversial figures in Canadian history, he was executed by the Canadian government for high treason in 1885.
Growing up in North Dakota with a father who had spent a good deal of his life in Canada, Louis L’Amour was raised on stories of Louis Riel, debates on his sanity, and discussions of French versus British and Catholic versus Protestant Canadian identities.
The idea for this book was suggested to Louis by Governor William L. Guy of North Dakota in 1972, and fairly quickly a motion-picture production company jumped on board, taking an option on Louis’s yet-to-be-written novel. Dad went and did something like this every once in a while, and it nearly always got him into trouble.
He loved making the deal, or the idea that he could make the deal (he’d struggled for so many years), and there was that part of him that always figured it would be easy. And often it was easy, when he’d had time to get the whole story settled enough so he could write with a minimum of conscious thought. In this case, he seems to have optimistically assumed that he could research, plan, and write this book just about as fast as he might have written a story he’d had in mind for years. The further he got into the research, the more interesting yet more demanding the story became, and the more he realized that the schedule was simply not going to work. Almost as soon as he started writing he was offering to return the option money. In a letter to his movie agent he wrote:
I have to take my time on these projects. I have worked very hard and given a lot of time to this one and look forward to completing it, but I simply can’t work with demands being made on me for pages or such things. I am sorry. I would like to have completed it in the time specified, but new materials kept developing and new aspects of the story that deserve consideration.
Volume 1: Unfinished Manuscripts, Mysterious Stories, and Lost Notes from One of the World's Most Popular Novelists Page 23