Song of Batoche

by Maia Caron

  He decided that he would not stay in Jerusalem as David had, and in the early hours, he’d crossed the frozen Saskatchewan, bringing the prisoners with him from Batoche. The owner of Walter & Baker’s store and his clerk huddled miserably in a cutter nearby. Honoré sat beside them, babbling to himself, delirious. Riel looked away. Those eyes reminded him too much of the men who had roamed the halls at Beauport Asylum, raving.

  Gabriel had come out of the dark trees, riding his horse down through knee-deep snow. His quick eyes glinted in the firelight, took in the new men who had arrived. “Why is Honoré Jaxon in with the prisoners?”

  Riel brought his horse closer, so the others would not hear and explained how he had been with Honoré in the chapel last night. Jaxon had slipped away while they were praying, and Riel had found his moccasins in the snow outside Boyer’s. “I saddled my horse and followed, thinking I’d catch him, but he’d walked all the way to Josette’s. Barefoot. Norbert and Josette woke to find him in their kitchen. Norbert did not take well to it.” When Gabriel looked at him for the first time, Riel pressed on, told him that they had found her dousing her husband with water, and Honoré in a corner muttering that his mother was a Sioux princess. “His days in my council are finished.”

  Gabriel’s brother Isidore was riding down from the Carlton Trail leading two white men astride horses, hands tied behind their backs. Riel pushed back his new Stetson hat to get a better look. One of the men was John Astley, a land surveyor who had attended a few of the Prince Albert meetings. Riel reached for the bridle of Gabriel’s horse, and the can of milk slipped from his hand and fell in the snow. “What is this?” he asked, staring hard at Astley.

  Gabriel’s expression was watchful, eyes darting in every direction, as if he expected to see police at any moment on the trail. He turned in his saddle and said to Isidore, “Get them into Mitchell’s store.”

  The first rays of sun had filtered over the western treeline and Gabriel noticed Norbert Lavoie on a horse across the clearing, looking almost as crazed as Honoré. Norbert stared back at him and his gaze slid away. Gabriel spat. “He should go in with the prisoners.” He shot Riel a skeptical look. “If this was a buffalo hunt, I’d run him out of camp. Pray he will be killed this day and put Josette out of her misery.”

  Riel asked again about Astley, and Gabriel told him that he and Isidore had surprised the two men leading a small group of armed police sent by Crozier to protect the stores at Duck Lake.

  Riel drew a long slow breath, we want blood ringing in his ears. “What happened to the police?”

  Gabriel put his head back and raised his voice, “I told them to run back and tell Crozier he could fuck himself.”

  Men nearby had overheard this comment. They laughed, and Riel’s stomach wrenched with a sudden pain. More Métis had arrived in rag tag groups while they talked, some on horses and others on snowshoes, carrying their guns. Riel’s hands tightened on his mare’s reins, and she stepped backwards, startled at the bit hard in her mouth.

  Gabriel nudged his horse forward. “If Crozier comes, he will bring his thundering cannon,” he shouted to the men. “It makes a big noise, but we will be down in the hollows where it can’t touch us. Let him take the high ground, as les Anglais like to do. We will hem them in like rabbits.”

  Ignoring both the pain in his stomach and the threat of a fight, Riel rode up beside Gabriel. “If Crozier comes, I will parley with him,” he said and noticed that the men seemed bewildered, even frightened when he spoke. He was confusing them, confusing himself. I do not like war, Lord. Guide me.

  He was here, at an impending battle, without a gun because a prophet rode forth with the staff of God in his hands. He felt bereft of the wooden cross he’d been using to say the rosary. Charles Nolin had come out of the store and Riel got off his horse.

  “Come,” he said, “I need your help at the chapel.”

  Nolin looked unconvinced but followed without question. Riel led his horse as they passed Ambroise Wolfe, a head man from the Muskeg Lake Band, who was helping a blind elder from Okemasis’ reserve open a tin of beef.

  Nolin squared his chest and walked toward them. “It’s time you were on your way back to your reserves.”

  The old Indian turned his sightless eyes to him, expressionless. “You are on our lands now, grandson. Maybe you should go.” He and Wolfe laughed mirthlessly and packed their hide satchels with tea and sugar.

  “That is not your property,” Nolin continued, stubbornly.

  “What is it to you?” Wolfe replied. He put on a pair of snowshoes and started off at a lope into the woods. The old Indian swung his satchel and turned to walk up the hard-packed trail.

  Riel fought with himself. He had wanted to punish Nolin for spying, for spreading rumours of his insanity, but Christ had not renounced Judas. He had not quenched the small light in the flax that, by grace, might grow into a great flame. “Leave them,” he said. “These men have more right to the stores than we do.”

  They arrived at the abandoned chapel and Nolin entered after him. Riel stepped over the communion rail to take the large wooden crucifix from the altar. He stared at it a moment, both in awe and sudden dismay at the bloody gash in the Christ figure’s side, one of five holy wounds the Lord suffered during his Passion.

  “This is sacrilege,” Nolin cried in protest.

  Napoléon Nault appeared at the door. “Crozier and his police are coming down the trail.”

  Riel turned, and the knot of his sash caught the altar cloth, knocking over the ciborium, the cup that held the wine.

  Nolin gaped as it hit the floor. “You’ve defiled the altar.”

  Riel ran for the door. “Come,” he yelled to Nolin. “It has begun.” He mounted his horse, the crucifix held tight to his chest and failed to notice, as he rode away, that Nolin did not follow.

  parley

  Lawrence clarke climbed out of the sleigh he’d been sharing with Police Superintendent Crozier. He took up his field glasses and trained it on a large fire that burned down near the Duck Lake stores. Shafts of early morning sun refracted through the tree branches on the other side of the clearing, and he could see the dim shapes of breeds and Indians scatter into the woods.

  “We’ve interrupted them enjoying the spoils,” he said to Crozier.

  Clarke unbuttoned his fur coat and rested the glasses on the sleigh, studying the breeds closely so that he would know who to arrest if any escaped. They leaped through the snow like jackrabbits—testament to lives spent trapping and freighting in this country. But their faces looked too similar in the dawn light. There was no sign of Louis Riel, although Gabriel Dumont rose like an apparition on his roan mare not more than half a mile away.

  Clarke lowered the glasses. Only days after he had delivered the threat to the Métis that police were coming to arrest Riel and Dumont, he’d left Fort Carlton. On the trail to Prince Albert, he had been startled by a noise behind him, and looking over his shoulder, saw a lone horseman in silhouette. None other than Dumont, who had sat motionless astride his horse until Clarke kicked his own into a gallop, like the devil was after him. It had put him on edge that Dumont had discovered in so short a time that he’d lied about the five hundred police. But not as much as it bothered him that a man who could shoot a buffalo from a galloping horse was now within firing distance.

  He turned to look at Crozier’s men and stepped off the narrow track, only to find himself up to his knees in snow. Scrambling back to the packed trail, he stamped his boots and convinced himself that the officers were finely turned out. But he did not like the way the Prince Albert volunteers, many of them young English or Scots immigrants from the east, had taken shelter behind their sleighs. They would be at a disadvantage in the deep drifts. The Métis would run at the first shell fired from the nine-pound cannon, mounted on its winter carriage. He was anxious to see it in action, and the look on Riel’s face when he came in to surrender. Last night, with the letter from Riel in his hands, speaking of exter
mination, Clarke had worked to convince Crozier to ride south and put these rebels down.

  “The Sioux who were at Custer’s fight are with Riel,” the Superintendent had offered as an excuse for not making his move. “I won’t be pressured into decisions in isolation from my chain of command.” His slow-witted eyes hardened into a suspicious glare. “These men have a legitimate claim for their lands. Do you not have reason of your own to fan the flames of revolt?”

  Clarke was not surprised that an Irishman—his men secretly called him “Paddy”—would sympathize with the French, but he had been momentarily struck dumb that the dull, predictable creature had been poking his nose in his affairs. Surely, the police were not investigating his involvement in land speculation. To put him in his place, Clarke said, “Does a son wait for his father’s permission to kill a rabid fox terrorizing the chickens?” It wasn’t long before one of Crozier’s men had arrived to say that Dumont and his breeds had looted the stores at Duck Lake and taken two volunteer scouts prisoner. When Crozier finally agreed that they must go, Clarke had insisted on tagging along, picturing himself hauling back the great Louis Riel in chains. But now he regretted his decision as he watched Crozier’s second in command, Captain Morton, order the volunteers off the trail, many of them floundering in the snow.

  “We’ll put some daylight through these half-breed rebels,” one yelled, brandishing his gun. “And send Louis Riel back where he came from.”

  Crozier had trained his own eyepiece on the Métis. “What’s this?” he muttered. Clarke turned. About three hundred yards to the south, an old unarmed Indian meandered up the trail, as if on a pleasant walk in the woods. The man stopped and squinted at them, seemingly surprised to see such a large group in his way. Crozier lowered the glasses. “It looks as if they mean for us to parley with this Indian. I think it’s a good idea—convince them to give up the provisions they’ve taken.” He glanced at Clarke. “I’m glad you’ve come—you speak Cree like a native.”

  Clarke narrowed his eyes and made a mental note not to trust him in the future. Paddy was slow in appearance only. Clarke looked to the old Indian, who continued toward them in his shuffling, sure-footed gait. “It’s a ploy—send an old man along to put our guard down.” To his relief, Gentleman Joe McKay, one of Crozier’s English half-breed scouts, said he would handle it. Clarke put a hand on his arm and said in a whisper, “Let them take the first shot.” Macdonald had been adamant that it must seem obvious that the government was forced to react to Riel’s actions, not manipulate them.

  McKay went past them down the trail and Crozier followed him, adding, “Let’s hurry things along. If we give Dumont too much time, he’ll flank us.”

  Clarke’s pulse began to race. Of course, Dumont would know this battle tactic after using it for years on the buffalo herds. At least Captain Morton had finally formed up the volunteers along the rail fence that skirted a short bluff. Clarke scanned the gully below the bluff and was astounded at the sight of half-breeds disappearing into an abandoned squatter’s cabin. Others had crossed the clearing and hunkered down behind scrub brush and trees.

  The sun was bright on the trail by the time Crozier and McKay approached the old Indian. Crozier stopped and McKay went on alone. The scout called out something in Cree. Clarke could hear the old Indian’s response, “Tesqua, tesqua.” He knew from his years in the country that this meant “Hold on.”

  McKay said a few words to the Indian, who shook his head. McKay laid his rifle across the Indian’s chest, but the old man stood his ground and the scout took a step back, his hand creeping toward the revolver hidden under his coat.

  There was another exchange and McKay yelled back to Crozier. “He says we’re on reserve land and should go back the way we came.” He gave the Indian a shove with his rifle. The old man staggered to regain his balance, pushing the rifle off his chest. Crozier had already backed up the trail and gestured for McKay to follow, but the scout continued to exchange threats with the Indian. The two were grappling for possession of the rifle when a mounted half-breed burst onto the trail behind them, yelling, “Don’t shoot,” in Cree. Clarke recognized Isidore Dumont, Gabriel’s brother, a rifle resting in the crook of his elbow.

  Panicked at the half-breed’s sudden appearance, McKay pulled out his revolver and shot Isidore full in the face. Clarke gasped as the Métis fell from his horse like a stone. McKay just as quickly turned to the old Indian and fired point blank.

  Crozier sprinted back up the trail as fast as he could in his long boots. “Load the big gun!”

  the red tide

  Seeing his brother cut down, Gabriel rode out from a copse of trees and gave an Indian war cry that sent the hairs up on his own neck. He spurred his horse and fired le Petit, not caring that guns were going off on both sides.

  Isidore lay face down just off the trail, and Gabriel forced himself to look away from the widening sweep of blood in the snow. This was no time to weaken. He glanced over his shoulder to check the position of his men.

  There was Riel, sitting on his mare, face upturned to the sky—one hand holding aloft a large wooden crucifix, other hand to his heart. “Fire in the name of God the Father,” he shouted, “fire in the name of God the Son, fire in the name of the Holy Ghost.”

  Gabriel turned in his saddle in time to see Gentleman Joe McKay duck behind a tree, revolver still in his hand. Lawrence Clarke had torn off his fur coat and was running back up the trail ahead of Crozier. Gabriel sighted along the barrel of his gun and fired one round after another, the spent bullet casings flying so high, they skimmed the brim of his hat. The smoke hadn’t cleared from his shots when the cannon on the trail went off, its first round just missing the cabin. Clarke had grabbed the reins of two horses and was dragging them along, using their bodies as a shield. Police were frantically reloading the cannon. It was fired again, but made an odd noise and bucked on its sleigh. The gunners had panicked, loading a shell before the powder charge.

  Gabriel rode closer, but couldn’t get a clear shot at McKay or Clarke. Turning his horse, he whistled and waved his arm for the Métis to come up. “Capture the gun,” he yelled and threw the rifle to his shoulder again to pick off one of Crozier’s volunteers, hiding behind a sleigh. The man went spinning backward, blood spraying the air. Gabriel’s son Alexandre rode forward to throw him his own loaded gun. Without missing a beat, Gabriel targeted more volunteers that had jumped over the rail fence and were making a desperate charge, but they struggled through the snow and were cut down by Métis hiding in the cabin. As Alexandre reloaded le Petit, Gabriel quickly counted half a dozen enemy down, either dead or dying.

  Rifle fire continued from the cabin, shots issued from windows and doors or between chinks in the walls. Baptiste Montour charged on his horse from around the back and poised with his gun to take a shot when a bullet slammed into his chest and he fell out of the saddle. Gabriel turned to see who had hit him. It was one of Crozier’s police, who had braced himself behind a tree. Their eyes met for a moment before Gabriel whipped his horse forward and fired, bringing him down. Another policeman yelled a string of words in English, and the volunteers fell back in retreat. Gabriel urged his mare back onto the trail. The police had to get their horses hooked up to the sleighs, and he took his chance to search for Clarke and McKay, but neither could be seen.

  To galvanize his men, Gabriel called out, “Look, I will make the red coats dance.” He pulled the lever action of his rifle and was about to squeeze the trigger when a jolt to his head blew him off his horse. It plunged away and ran, leaving him in the snow.

  “Gabriel’s been hit,” someone shouted from what seemed like far away.

  With effort, he slowly lifted his hand and shuddered to feel a wet gash in his hair, blood pulsing against his fingers. The top of his head was ripped open, exposed to the cold. He closed his eyes and willed himself to get up. But he could not move.

  Off to his left, a Métis yelled, “He’s dead.”

  Gabriel opened h
is eyes and tried to speak, his tongue thick in his mouth.

  “The police are getting away,” said a voice he recognized—one of the Sioux. “Go after them.”

  Riel answered from the other direction, “Non, for the love of God—there’s too much blood spilled already.” He had come closer. “We have lost men, and Gabriel here … you will not take revenge.”

  A scream rose from the trees above the trail. Isidore alive, Gabriel thought in his delirium. With help from his younger brother Édouard and Riel, he propped himself up, and held a hand to his forehead to stop the stream of blood that ran down his face and into his eyes. Years ago, on a buffalo hunt, his horse had collided with an old bull he’d been riding alongside. Gabriel had broken ribs and wrenched his neck enough to see stars, but had managed to get back on his horse without help. This was different.

  The scream came again. “Isidore,” he whispered.

  “It’s the man that killed Montour,” said Michel Dumas from somewhere out of his vision. “He’s waiting to be finished off.”

  “Do it,” Gabriel said from between clenched teeth. Within moments, he heard a single shot and the man’s last cry echoed in the trees. He surveyed the field, his vision clouded by blood. Prince Albert men’s bodies lay in attitudes of death or dying, great pools of red against the snow.

  Riel stared down at Gabriel. “We must send a letter to Crozier,” he said in a daze, “to come for his dead.”

  Gabriel wiped blood off his face and took note of the men who had fought and were still here with rifles in their hands—many that he had known would be courageous, and some he thought would run at the first shot. “Where is Nolin?” he asked with effort.

  Theophile Caron said, “I saw him take a cutter heading north. I thought you sent him to Prince Albert.”