Song of Batoche

by Maia Caron

  “It was in God’s hands.”

  “Did God direct you to stop the women who would give Elise herbs to check her bleeding?”

  “Pagan brews!”

  When Elise had been carried to the wagon, her skin almost blue, Josette had been shaken, sure that it was a bad sign to bear witness to death in childbed while suffering her own private agony. She had been handed the bibi, too, which was a curse of its own; she could still feel his small body in her arms.

  Josette reached across the table and pulled the cloth away to expose the salsepareille roots. “Then you are going straight to hell,” she said, matching Moulin’s tone.

  The priest began to pace, hands folded behind his back. “Of course, Father André refused to support a provisional government. Riel flew into a rage and Father André declared him the devil.” Moulin paused in front of her. “We hear he now calls himself Louis ‘David’ Riel. Ask Cleophile to tell you of King David and Bathsheba, the woman he lusted after. He killed her husband to hide the sin from God then begged Him for redemption.” He closed his eyes and breathed deeply to control himself. “Josette, he has chosen you from the Batoche Métis. You and Gabriel are his closest supporters. Yet he plans rebellion. If you both refuse him now, your people will not be dragged into this madness.”

  “You are the one who must beg God for redemption,” she said, turning to go.

  Moulin grabbed at her arm. “Riel is a false prophet.” She pulled away from him and opened the door. “Your grandfather knows it,” he said. “Why has he not come?” She hurried down the rectory steps and the priest shouted after her. “You think you walk in the Law of Love, when you have broken every one of His commandments? You do not love God. That is the requirement! You dwell in the law of sin.”

  One of the Old Crows had told her that the Law of Love was Biblical: If ye fulfill the royal law according to the scripture, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself. She turned to look at him. “You speak to me of sin and let a woman die in childbirth. A priest who drinks root teas to rid himself of carbuncles. And nobody but La Vieille knows that you do.”

  His face had turned a mottled red. She got on her horse and urged it into a fast trot away, slowing only when she was out of sight over the rise past Caron’s farmhouse. Gabriel had been riding all over the territory to muster support for the petition. She would talk to him as soon as he returned and find out what he knew.

  Despite her getting in the last word, Moulin’s vindictive remarks had stung. Only men were concerned with laws of sin and love. And judged women worthy or not to walk in them. Despair crept over her like a shadow. The memory of P’tite Marie remained, an aching hurt. She feared Moulin was right: Riel’s ceremony had done nothing to erase the darkness in her own heart. There was no way to forget that she had cast three bibis into that same formless deep to save her own life.

  i will have

  that one

  The first week of October it snowed, a slanting blizzard that kept the Métis in their cabins, wrapped in blankets by the fire. The temperature had since warmed and the snow melted, but they braced for winter, where only dances offered respite from the short cold days and long winter nights.

  The oldest Ouellette girl had married Joseph Bremner on a day in mid-October. The parents of the bride and groom could not afford to host a community wedding, and the Métis of Batoche and St. Laurent had worked together, each family contributing something to the feast. Xavier Letendre had offered his fine house in the village for the celebration; his front room furniture had been taken out to the barn to make room for dancing.

  After the meal, Madeleine Dumont dried dishes by lantern light in the kitchen, with Henriette Parenteau, Marguerite Dumas, and several other Old Crows. Some of the men had gathered around a large fire in the front pasture and shouts of laughter could be heard as they progressed from beer to Philippe Garnot’s homebrew. Madeleine paused in the kitchen doorway to watch Louis Riel, who stood near the stove with the bride and groom. Like everyone in the South Branch, she looked forward to a wedding, the chance to enjoy good food and dancing, but tonight, Riel had done his best to ruin the fun. After Father Moulin had blessed the feast, Riel provided his own version, rebuking the people for loving too much the pleasures of the flesh.

  “Look at your faces,” he had said, like a scolding father. “They show the unmistakable signs of sensual overindulgence.” The guests gazed regretfully at the feast laid out before them, the table piled high with roasted duck and boulettes made from deer meat that had been brought in from a recent hunt. Was he saying they could not eat their fill? Riel turned to Moise Ouellette and proclaimed, “At the wedding in Cana, our Lord Jesus was revealed as the Son of God, turning water into wine. He is not too busy to work miracles where He is needed. And so, He will bring about the miracle for the Métis to grant us our lands.” Riel had drawn back a chair at the table. “This shall be His seat.”

  Even now, the empty chair was skirted by the guests. Did they still believe Jesus might show up there? When the feast table had been moved into the kitchen, the Old Crows did not dare help themselves to seconds after Riel’s reprimand.

  Gigitte Caron came up behind Madeleine, wiping her hands with a cloth. “We’ll keep the table on all night,” she said, with a glance at Riel. “He will leave soon enough.”

  “Good the children could eat,” Judith Dumont said to the women’s laughter. “They do not bear the signs of sensual overindulgence.”

  Madeleine was affronted by Riel’s talk of miracles. Jesus had not arrived. And Josette was far from the Magdalene. Gabriel stood near Riel, drinking beer and laughing at something that Patrice Champagne had just said. She had described Riel’s strange behaviour at berry picking camp, but Gabriel ignored her claims that the man was touched in the head, and told her to trust the method in his madness. Now she struggled to control her racing thoughts, unreasonable fear that following Riel would be the death of her husband.

  Barthélémi Dumas began tuning his fiddle. Before long he was joined by three others with hand pump organ, mouth harp, and spoons. In years past, the sound of a fiddle would set Madeleine’s hips moving, but the desire had gone out of her body. Her thoughts were often confused, her limbs tired as they had been after long days on the trap lines with Gabriel. At a celebration, only weeks ago, she had to leave the floor, coughing blood into her handkerchief. A lifetime of dancing and now she was forced to watch.

  Henriette Parenteau followed her gaze to Josette, who was laughing at the edge of the dance floor. “She is beautiful tonight.”

  “Oui,” admitted Madeleine, but she could not resist adding, “for the least among us.”

  Domatilde Gravelle said, “The Lord Himself has chosen her for Riel’s disciple.”

  “And we were blind to her suffering,” said Virginie Houle. “Her grandfather will help us now he has blood in Batoche.”

  The musicians had just launched into a tune when Norbert swung Josette out on the floor. He had recently returned from the North Saskatchewan. Earlier, Madeleine had noticed that Josette avoided him, but now she danced with her husband under the linked arms of other couples, as though nothing was wrong, skirts lifted to show the beaded garters at her knees. Her hair was done higher on the back of her head, and some pieces had come loose around her face.

  The fiddler had struck up the tune for the Red River jig and Josette’s movements became less Scottish reel and more Indian war dance, swaying to search the ground, her head moving as if she danced among her grandfather’s people. When the fiddle hit a certain note, she bent and pretended to raise a spear to stab at the floor.

  Norbert glanced at her sharply. Seeing Josette make fun, the spoons player mimicked the beat of a war drum, and Charles Nolin started a high, wailing Indian cry that was taken up by some of the guests. Josette pointed at Norbert as if she’d sighted a buffalo and went toward him with her imaginary spear, jerking her body like a warrior, skirts raised. He put up his hand to warn her off, but she made a quick motion,
as if throwing the spear. The bride and groom clapped and Norbert smiled, deciding that he should go along with it. He grabbed his heart as though she’d hit him there. Everyone laughed, and the sound echoed in Madeleine’s ears.

  When the men had paused their conversation to watch Josette’s antics, Gabriel turned too, a bottle of beer halfway to his lips. He stared at Josette the way Madeleine once saw him regard a band of wild horses on the plains. Among the herd had been a grey dappled mare who had stopped on a hill and looked back on them, her fine form stark against the sky.

  “I will have that one,” he had said to his wife.

  Madeleine remembered laughing back at him. “You want her because she is the wildest.”

  The room spun as she looked hard at him. He had regained his composure before anyone saw what was in his mind, but Madeleine could read his face better than anyone. When had this begun?

  To the great amusement of the guests, José Ouellette, who was ninety-three, began to jig at the edge of the dance floor. He was still able to give a good kick, but soon waved his hand and went back to his beer. Couple by couple got in and the fiddler played faster and faster until the bow began to fray.

  There was a burst of laughter from another part of the room. Three men who had been on a wood-cutting trip with Norbert decided he should continue to be made fun of in front of the crowd. A story was told of him drinking his weight in rum in their camp. He listened with an expression of tolerance and crossed his arms, laughing too, but Madeleine was unconvinced. Josette had called open season on him, and it would not go well for her.

  Maxime Lépine came in to the kitchen and said, “Eat, eat, Riel has gone upstairs.”

  Henriette threw a cloth in the air. “What is he doing there?”

  Lépine went to the feast table and popped a boulette into his mouth. “Down on his knees, praying.”

  On the way home in the wagon, Madeleine drew the blanket around her head against a cold wind that had come up from the north and held a handkerchief to her mouth, suppressing a cough. Gabriel glanced at her, noticing, she thought, that her fingers were twitching, restless. It would not be long before she must tell him the truth, but she couldn’t do it, not now.

  “Josette looked beautiful,” she said.

  He frowned and snapped the reins. “Did I tell you I went to see Norbert? Said I’d kill him if he touched her again.”

  She was convinced that he would not be so outraged if he did not hunger for Josette. Or was it something else? It occurred to her that she had not fully understood her husband’s losses of the past few years. He had been captain of the buffalo hunts for decades before the herds had disappeared. Gabriel did well with the saloon and their few crops, but it was in his blood to be out on the prairie, not powerless in a struggle with the Dominion over their lands. Riel’s arrival had given him renewed purpose and Josette’s need—the lovely vulnerable female—had only made his masculine heart beat stronger.

  She finally succumbed to a cough. What would she do come winter? She had not been warm for months, and her handkerchiefs had come away with more blood. Gabriel had noticed her weight loss and said that she resembled the bony white women in Prince Albert. Suzanne Guernon had died of consumption last year and Madeleine nursed her through to the end, when nobody else would. Some feared it was catching, but she had laughed them off. If it were so, every one of them would have it. Surely it was not her fate to waste to a shadow and die choking on her own blood.

  Madeleine glanced at her husband’s hands on the reins. The sight of them still made her blood rise, remembering his touch on her body. She felt guilty for suspecting Gabriel of lusting after Josette. The poor girl lived in fear of her own husband. Although becoming Riel’s Mary Magdalene had made Josette think too much of herself, Madeleine would let her enjoy a status that would not last. The girl had no idea that Riel needed her only for Big Bear’s mark on a petition.

  The lung disease had affected Madeleine’s memory, but a fragment came to her, Josette admitting something years ago about her mother, something over a cup of tea in the kitchen. Madeleine struggled to recall the details. The story came to her in pieces, Josette telling of Big Bear and Little Pine in their youth, leading their Cree warriors on raids into Blackfoot territory, fighting for control over the Cypress Hills. Josette’s mother orphaned on one such raid and adopted by Big Bear, taken in by the band.

  Madeleine slipped her hand into Gabriel’s. Josette was not the celebrated blood grandchild of the great chief Big Bear. She was of the Blackfoot Confederacy in the western territories, her ancestors nameless. It was on Madeleine’s lips to tell her husband, but she would not. Josette’s secret was safe with her, for she was Gabriel and Riel’s only hope of getting Big Bear’s mark on the petition.

  the making of

  a country

  On an overcast day in early December, Lawrence Clarke, Chief Factor for the Hudson’s Bay Company, stroked his exuberant moustaches and looked with polite suspicion at Riel, who sat across his desk. He had been told that the Métis leader had spent time in a madhouse, but Riel appeared exhausted, ashen, no more insane than he was himself. Clarke glanced at William Jackson, who had refused a seat and stood near the door. After months of reports from Nolin that the two of them had been holed up debating the finer points of constitutional law, Clarke finally had the Métis petition.

  “Bravo,” he said, looking down at the document. “This is quite an accomplishment.” Riel did his best to look humble, but it was obvious he felt proud of the thing. Clarke was not being facetious. The petition had been a joy to read. Even better than he expected. He had in his hands the reward for all of the years he’d suffered in this wilderness building the Métis’ trust as their government representative.

  “And you’d like me to take it to Ottawa?” he said, perhaps a little too keen.

  He was aware that his old rival Jackson had been watching him closely. What bad luck that he’d paired up with Riel. Jackson was a pasty-faced insurgent from the east, fancying himself a voice for the common folk of Prince Albert. But after time spent in St. Laurent with Riel, Jackson had become an honorary Indian with dark hair plastered to his head, a pair of moccasins, and one of their flamboyant red sashes tied around his waist. There had been rumours that, if he changed his religion, he would marry one of the Métis girls.

  Clarke put his attention back to the petition. It was fair enough, asking Macdonald to uphold the rights he’d promised the breeds under the Manitoba Act and honour their land claims, but when the prime minister saw that Riel demanded provincial government, he’d throw it across the room. Surely even Jackson knew that Old Tomorrow’s Canada would be unified by federal authority.

  “We do not trust Father André,” Riel was saying. “We think he sends letters to Ottawa, working against our cause. You know our land grievances as well as we do. And you are almost one of us.”

  Clarke winced. It was true that he had married an English half-breed, but she was worlds away from the French squaws of the South Branch. She possessed real elegance and dressed like a white woman. But Father André? There was a useful man. He’d met him for dinner last week, and the old priest had gone on at great length, saying that Riel had come to see him, demanding the Church’s support, and flown into a rage when he had refused, saying he’d establish a provisional government if Macdonald ignored the petition. There was no sign of that temper now, as Riel sat holding his hat, expression gaunt and hopeful.

  Clarke frowned over one clause in the petition. “Do you really think the Dominion will grant the Métis representation in Cabinet?”

  “They will if you are the one to press our cause,” said Riel.

  And if you showed up in Ottawa, you would be shot, thought Clarke, with some amusement.

  Jackson crossed his arms and regarded him with distrust. He had obviously told Riel about the land speculation going on in this agriculturally rich territory. Bringing European settlers here to farm wheat was key to settling the country. Macdona
ld had crushed the hopes of businessmen in Prince Albert by running his Canadian Pacific Railway to the south, but now the push was on to build a feeder line north. Riel and Jackson had included it in the petition when complaining “that no effective measures had been taken to put the people of the North-West in direct communication with the European Markets.” But they were ignorant of one important detail: businessmen in the east had their eyes on land from Regina to Prince Albert by way of Saskatoon. Close to one million acres had already been earmarked for the line, cutting through sections in already settled districts. Acreage the breeds squatted on and farmed in French river lots.

  Clarke humoured Riel because it benefitted him. He had not been in this territory for years without learning there was money to be made if you carefully played both sides. Charles Nolin had proven himself useful in Batoche, sending him dispatches on what Riel was plotting. Using government code that referred to Riel as “the lawyer,” Clarke had contacted Macdonald’s offices directly, and with the news of a threatened provisional government, had received a summons to Ottawa. He planned to present the petition, brief Macdonald on Riel’s mindset, and how this could work in their favour.

  “You’ll see that we are concerned with the current state of the Indians,” Jackson said rather smugly.

  Clarke smiled and lowered his eyes to re-read the first point in the petition. Flowery language about how the Indians were so reduced that the settlers were compelled to furnish them with food to preserve the peace of the Territory. It might be coincidence that Big Bear was not done stirring up trouble, refusing to go to his reserve and a guess that Riel had promised the old chief that Ottawa would listen, but looking at him now—his face showing both strain and a shrewdness that could not be denied—Clarke felt that he’d hit the nail on the head. He was on the verge of rebellion.