“I wanted the best for you,” Riza says to the girl in the red sari. She had fled to him for final sanctuary, to spill her blood under his roof while he slept. He could have done more to save her, his firstborn and only child. He could have stayed awake all night and cradled her with comfort in his spindly arms. “I must be a failure.” A pall of despair drags on his neck, a shroud of responsibility he has carried all his life and finally understands. A single stroke from a knife can steal away destiny, and one barren generation can obliterate the memory of mankind.
“Tell my story,” she says behind her veil, “that I might gain recompense for my suffering.” Her gaze is intense with insight, and her eyes linger like beacons of promise as the ghost fades to a mirage of shimmering noonday heat and leaves only heartache behind.
Riza bows his head in duty, pitiful servant to her passing vision of glory. He vows to write the last narrative for a lost civilization, spill his harboured burden of truth for an audience unseen. By the consummate power of the word, the keeper of the oasis will bring justification to the elders and heritage to the unborn, he will summon hope for the hopeless and conjure a future for his desolate homeland, and his daughter will lie nearby to him always, close enough underfoot that tree roots can find purchase when the rains return and the cisterns fill with life. Someday soon the heavens must break their ponderous silence and Sungod will weep with shame.
One man can plant his crystal core in the dust, and another will water the seed in season. This much can be accomplished in a single lifetime, and only this much is required from Riza as he brushes the sand from his knees and turns from his garden of earth to greet Emil for the final time.
MANITOU-WAPOW
GMB Chomichuk
(with Curtis Janzen and Thomas Turner)
From a letter to the Crown from the Hudson’s Bay Company representative at Fort Albany, 1836.
It is almost laughable now, the idea that we had entered into a treaty and that we, litigious and bold, had believed the Invaders would hold to their end. They only wanted a small piece of a great whole, we told ourselves. Who could truly own the Earth? It was a time when it did seem that any could lay claim in the vast land. Indeed that proved true. Only a few could keep it.
Journal of Colonel West, Selkirk: 1840.
When those first few cylinders fell, when those first few arrived, we looked to them as we had the French. Foreign and strange, in competition for this, the New World, conquered and claimed by the ingenuity of the British Empire. That the Colonial wanted their share was as foolish to the Crown as the French claim or the claim of the noble savage or the strange tall creatures that roamed the smoke-black hills on three legs. Each had their sovereignty. Ours was to make the world England.
Account of the Red River Rebellion, recounted to Peter Black by an Anishinabe man who has never been identified. 1848.
“This story is traded in nights without sleep. They had come long ago and soaked the mountains in a smoke like a dying fire that stung the eyes and makes one sick. We did not venture there. They did not venture far. Three-legs had taken the home of the thunderbirds in a spirit war long ago. The mountains and land beyond belonged to the tall beasts on three legs with the spirit eye. One does not go to war with spirits. Soon our lands were being taken by the people from across the water. The English and the French, then all the others. We had no place to move to, and so, like mother wolves, we fought.”
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: Spring 1845.
Today I abandon the cottage for the fort. I prefer my home for its place outside the walls. But the children need me I think, or perhaps I need them. A reason for hope. With Eden Colvile dead and his staff fled, it falls to those who are able to do what we can. What else is life for, then? I’ve not travelled across the ocean, braved the trap lines and long nights of the forest winter to die asleep, alone in my cabin, killed by cowards for my coat and rifle. Those that mean to stay need those willing to endure, if not to lead them, then to lead by example.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: January 1845.
What was left of the Council of Assiniboia has gathered here in a pile of stones that is more of a storage depot filled with pelts and sundry items than a garrison. It seems that the defence of this bend in Red River falls to us. It is strange to me how quickly our own riflemen had thrown open the gates to the Muskegon. Once we called these people by different names. We would judge them separate and make their women our country wives. Now we embrace them as we are, natives to this world, facing an invader that sees us not as tribes or monarchies, not parliaments, nor assemblies nor confederacies, but as commodities. Word has come from Foss, the Invaders mean to enslave us. We are all one people now.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: February 1845.
Lady Simpson’s piano has lifted the spirit of this terrible place. I think sometimes of the journey it took to reach here unscathed. I see in the faces of the people here who have never seen a piano the awe of the machine that makes music for them at the hands of Dr. Cowan. William learned to play in medical school in Glasgow and is a skilled hand at the keys. It was the first piano in Rupert’s Land, they say. Which may be true. Fitting, maybe, that the first may be the last to be played. We have found the music to be a simple but effective comfort in the long dark nights. If those that carried it here by ship, York boat, and canoe, had known the value to these few here in the dark, they would have brought 100 more without thought to the burden. What strength may come from a song. What comfort from a tune that stays in your whistle. Perhaps it is the forgotten purpose of music. To keep the monsters at bay during long nights.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: February 1845.
I think it was Lady Simpson’s piano that brought the creatures from inside their strange conveyances. For we know now that the three-legged beasts that glare fire are machines, not creatures. They are clockwork crab shells with bits of science crammed inside. Like steam engines without steam, with legs rather than wheels. How do I know? I have seen their riders. I have seen the flesh of the horror that prey on us. They came here. By God and country they came here, and I saw them, touched them.
John Ballenden thinks it was the fault of a young black-smith’s apprentice. Baptiste Kennedy had bought a scrap of tripod shell from a trader. The man said he had found it past the rapids near Mackenzie Rock. He had thought to heat it as to ascertain if it was in fact a sort of metal as was a topic of debate. Day and night outside the wall, at the forge, he heated and struck at the thing. In the morning on the follow ing day, thick snow across the prairie grass and our breath in the air, we saw the monument to our horror. A tripod standing motionless across the river.
I tried my best to calm the people. We had all heard of them. Some had seen them at a distance, all had met someone who had. It was part of life here. But even as I said it, I knew. This was not an animal as some predicted. I felt what the Indians called its spirit eye, looking deeply at us. A cold intellect. I felt a sort of envy in it, though I cannot say why.
When the ray reached out and set the blacksmith’s shop alight it set up our powder store too and the calamity threw the stones of our wall into a tumbled heap. More of those cursed beams stabbed into the fort. From the Men’s House I could see the barracks burst into flames which roared to hungry life. Men charged from within, fire across their limbs and backs. The old man from the Sixth Regiment believed that powder was the target. A reduction in our defences before the rest occurred.
Which was to say that all who tried to venture out, to forage, to hunt, to go for water or flee for their lives, were burned down to ash out there in the open ground beyond our fort. They had laid us to siege, though for what purpose then, none could say.
I think now I understand what they waited for. It was six days later, when we were huddled and fearful in the mess hall, that Dr. Cowan thought to strike a tune on that piano. He played and, by God, he lifted us up to sing. He played a long piece full of joy an
d wit and mirth. We went to sleep that night with the lightest of hearts and a hope we had not known. That night they came.
We had slept together in the Big House as was now the custom. Watchful of each other. John Black had a cough which kept him up. Maybe that’s why they took him. To quiet the night, because we never saw him again.
First it was the spirit eye that came. I had been awakened by it. Suspended there on its long stock. It moved along as if in water, suspended in the air. A strange serpent with a lantern for a head. It had a pale red glow. When it withdrew, they came. Three of them. Of course, three. Rounded bodies with great dark eyes and curved beaks. They moved along, lifted by corded tendrils in great bunches, eight on each side which connected to the body, anchored to the side of their mouths. There seemed a great endeavour to be had in each motion. A strain to lift up and move forward.
Some others woke and, with voices caught and terror full, we shook the others awake.
The creatures heaved themselves along slowly and made their way to the piano. One watched us closely and we knew fear and silence. The other two set to examine the musical instrument with some interest. Maybe it was the magic of the thing. To them it was our strange object of worship and it brought us strength when the keys were pushed. To them it must have been very alien indeed.
I must have been trembling fiercely for Miss McLeod reached to take my hands and pulled them to her bosom. That simple act awoke in me a sort of madness for life. I would have it out. I would survive. I would not hide in the dark from monsters. I stood suddenly and found I was not alone. Mary, Captain Foss’ country wife, too had stood. She had in hand a knife, from the kitchen I think. We were at them then. Not in any unison or coordinate action. We simply entered the fray. For my part I am ashamed to set down that my fists and fury were nothing on the cold flesh I pounded. I gave everything and those tendrils laid me to the floor. While the beak snapped and took a slice of my leg, the grey cords as thick as my arms beat me down. The Muskegon woman, though, struck another beneath the eye and the knife opened a wound that sent her blow up to the wrist into the creature. The writhing explosion of motion and hot terror tore the room asunder and the creature’s death throes sent those 16 tendrils flailing. Then the rifles took the rest. Out of their skyward wagons these hateful things died as men do, with blood and pain and screams.
We shook with hate and fear and many were sick with it. But it was Dr. Cowan that saw the mark on the creatures and knew it for what it was. There on the bare grey skin he saw it. He rolled his shirt and showed us one to match it. An inoculation scar. He was obsessed with it and talked of nothing else. While others cheered our victory and set about to burn the horrid creatures, he took me aside and told me a secret I cannot set here. But it gave me hope. He bade I write a letter, setting down what I had seen and have a volunteer take it to Montreal. Graham Turner, bless him, vowed to do just that when we two, the Doctor and I, told him what we knew.
Excerpt from letter of Alexander Ross of Lower Fort Garry to the Reverend William R. Seaver of Montreal, June 1846.
Dr. Cowan is dead now, a tragic casualty of events. But as he was sure and made me promise to get word to you, so I entreat you to make some use of this information that was bought at so costly a price.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: September 1846.
It is bad here. Many colonials have joined with the Invaders. Once they fought us to shake off tyranny. Now they embrace it to destroy their own people. As people lose their lands and loves, so too their allegiances now suffer.
Yet the world I fear is at war with these creatures. The red weed has stopped up the rivers and closed the trails. It gets thicker and taller each day. Our oxen have eaten the red weed and died of it. Now none will eat any food that has come from soil mingled with those tangled roots. We must work tirelessly to keep our wells clear of it too, it seems to seek water not to draw from but to trap it. A strange plant that wishes the landscape was a barren desert. Those who lay still near the red weed, to rest or sleep sometimes, grow tangled in it after only an hour’s time, as if it seeks them out and grows toward them.
In the thickest areas of the red weed, great stocks as tall as pine trees grow with pods like tulip bulbs the size of ox carts atop them. The Colonials that have turned have begun a sort of harvest of pods for their new masters. They hew them down and sheer away the bulbs’ husks with axes to expose a pulpy fruit. Our Muskegon scouts have observed that the Colonials then bring the harvested fruit into the smokelands where the braves do not dare to travel. I have arranged a troop of volunteers to seek answers beyond the scorched boundaries of the Invaders’ territory.
We have begun a careful collection of munitions from allies and scavengers. Few heavy guns, but many small arms and kegs of powder. A Hudson’s Bay Company man has come into the fold and secured a large number of supplies meant for the garrison at Two Rivers. Word is they are gone now, reduced to a cinder. Somehow, for some reason, the creatures have not returned here.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: October 1846.
Fort Riley is in flames. A handful of survivors have made the journey across 700 miles to bring news that the tripods roam the Americas far and wide. I once envied the American cavalrymen and their fleet horses. But a scarred man from the south told me of a detachment of American cavalry moving to reinforce Pembina that were caught out in the open. Men and horses lit like candles and charging, burning, across the fields. To die smouldering and screaming from the fearsome Martian ray.
Decoded Letter. November 19, 1846: Sent from Alexander Ross of Lower Fort Garry to ________ of Montreal.
Your people have made it here. They are safe. But they have told me their appointed duty and I see now that you, sir, must be mad. Either by hunger or grief or drink. But you are surely mad. Bless you. By the time you read this your plan will already be concluded. In victory or failure.
The red weed chokes the river nearly to death. We huddle in this, the first stone fort built in Rupert’s Land, and wonder if it is not better to dig a place to live beneath the earth. For surely no hope remains for those that live above it. One man jokes and laughs in the grip of fear that we could build a new world of men underground. Tunnel our way to a safe land. The others took to his ideas as jests. But some feel he believes it. A madman is no good to me.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: January 1847.
I understand now why the things leave us be. We live in the looming shadow of a dead machine. It stands vigilant there day and night and for a year we struck on ways to tip it over. Thank God no such invention equal to the task occurred to us.
The machine provides for us a sort of camouflage from the other machines that stalk the land with increasing frequency. Perhaps they are territorial? Once they see another here, with the trapped human slaves at its feet, they move on. Perhaps they are fearful of it. Maybe the ghosts of their dead ward them off. I cannot judge now.
Letter from Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: February 1847 to W.R. Seaver of the Montreal Resistance.
As you thought, the black smoke is a protective screen. Your plan to send a small group in quickly with no thought to attack has succeeded. They have returned with a device. None of your men are fit to travel after the deed you bade them perform. Sick with symptoms of the black smoke that hangs over the territory of Assiniboia. I fear I must concur with our doctor and medicine men: your brave men will not last out the moon.
With this note are three volumes of the work of Edward Anthony Jenner whom your own man called the father of immunology. I don’t claim to understand what you are working at. But as always I remain one willing to get what needs accomplishing settled to the last.
Should these pages reach you, then they are carried by my servant still. You can trust this man. He is a loyalist and a humanist. You can verify his identity with the phrase I spoke to you on the deck of the Countess of Darlington on our crossing of the Atlantic. He has been running missives for me since the ri
ver garrison at Fort William fell. He has with him the device your men procured. I understand a little of what I am told. The device bears closer scrutiny. May God be with you in your endeavour. Please do so with all haste.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: April 1847.
We found a great pit and in it were, I think, the great majority of the Muskegon who had lived anywhere within 100 miles of the fort. They had been drained to husks. I am sick with the sight of it. Yet I am also sick with guilt. I was glad they were not my people. The thought rose in me unbidden and I was ashamed of it. How hot must a fire be to re-forge a man? I cannot bear the thought.
Diary of Alexander Ross: Lower Fort Garry: June 1847.
You are right to have me inspect the device. It appears to be a type of inoculator. I believe the Invaders have set a curative against earthly illness. Perhaps that is why they attacked the hospitals and quarantines first. When first I saw the tripod over the triage tent of Fort William, I feared they simply had no mercy. But I see now a terrible design. I have spoken to Dr. Trent who himself witnessed a similar attack and spoke to two others who did as well.
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