AT 7:30 THE next morning it was still dark except for streaks of gray light in the eastern sky. Snow was still falling. Breakfast was venison stew and strong black tea reheated over a tiny charcoal fire that glowed red, but gave off no smoke.
They were in a wide, flat ravine with high sides, about nine hundred yards off the road. Between the ravine and the road were trees; they had to edge around the trees to get in there without damaging the wagons. Snow already covered the tracks made by the wagon wheels. After they ate, two guards would be posted in two shifts while the rest of them slept through the short daylight hours. It would be dark before five.
During the night when they halted to rest, grain, and water the horses, Gatling pried open the crate where the modified Light Maxim was packed. He had used it against the Apaches in New Mexico. The original gun had been made with a tripod; a metal seat was attached to the back support. The gun was very light—a man could hold it out at arm’s length—and it was fired without a water jacket. The barrel was thick enough so the gun could fire three hundred rounds without overheating. No water jacket, no spilling. The colonel’s gunsmiths, working to Gatling’s specifications, had fitted a short bipod to the end of the barrel, to replace the tripod and the seat. A steel and hard rubber grip was attached to the underside of the barrel, forward of the cartridge feed. The gun had a pistol grip and a trigger; the first shot put the gun on full automatic fire. To the right of the cartridge feed was a light metal box that held the 300-round canvas belt. This had not been changed. When the bipod was extended the shooter could lie behind the gun without showing too much of himself. Best of all, the shooter could pick up the gun and move in firing from the hip.
“What you do?” Dumont asked when he saw the machine gun. “We don’t want militia to know we have machine gun and bolt rifle before de war start. If militia attack us, we will fight dem with rifle we have.”
Gatling said, “If there’s enough of them, we may never get to deliver the guns.” He still didn’t want to get mixed up in this war, but he wasn’t going to stand there and let the militiamen kill him. Dumont had killed a few militiamen on the way south from Batoche, and he had killed two more at the border, which had been easy enough for a man of his cunning and ferocity, but what if they had to fight a militia patrol of twenty or thirty men armed with bolt-action rifles?
He told Dumont what he was thinking and Dumont said, “No patrol dat big. I know how de militia do things.”
“All right,” Gatling said. “Suppose it’s not a patrol but a large force sent out to get us. Some farmer going home late could have seen us.”
“Nobody saw us coming down from Batoche.”
“You make better time coming down from Batoche. The wagons were empty and moved faster. Now the wagons are loaded down and we’re moving like snails. Look, we have the best guns in the world in these wagons. We won’t use them if we don’t have to. But if we do use them, we have to make sure nobody runs away to tell what he’s seen. Everybody has to die. If we kill a lot of them, there will no time to bury the bodies. Anyway, the ground is frozen. The best we could do would be to cover them with snow, but animals would just dig them up.”
Dumont agreed that was what the carrion-eaters would do. “So we don’t bury dem, we move on. When de bodies are found, the militia will know dey have not been killed with old guns.”
“If they dig out the bullets,” Gatling said.
Dumont smiled. “I tink the real war will start den. But dat is not so bad. The métis from the north will have join us. Louis will move fast when he get de guns.”
Breakfast was over and Gatling was showing the métis how to operate the clip-loading bolt-action Mauser rifles. Dumont translated. “You pull back the bolt, then strip the bullets in the clip into the magazine. See how I do it. Then the bolt is pushed forward and the bolt turned down. Like that. These rifles use smokeless powder, so don’t be surprised if you don’t see smoke. These rifles are very powerful and have a kick, but nothing like the old rifles you’ve been using. Now I’ll tell you about the sights ...”
Gatling went through it three times, then asked if they had any questions. “No question,” Dumont said in English. “Dey understand. Dey are excited by dis new rifle and hope plenty militia will attack.”
Nobody wanted to sleep. An hour later the métis were still examining, loading and unloading, looking through the sights, when the man who had been sent to watch the road came skittering down the side of the ravine and spoke to Dumont. The young sentry’s eyes were wide with excitement.
Dumont turned to Gatling. “They’re coming in from the road, militia, big party. Baptiste did not wait to count dem. But he say a lot. Hey! We talk about dis and now it happen. Your machine gun is ready, Gatling?”
Gatling nodded. They were about nine hundred yards from the road, had enough time to get set. Hampered by knee-high snow, the militiamen couldn’t get there in less than fifteen minutes. He climbed up the side of the ravine, kicked a foothold in the snow, and set up the gun. Dumont was pointing this way and that, telling his men where to take their positions. Their bandoliers bulged with clips. Dumont said his men would hold their fire until Gatling opened up with the Light Maxim.
“I am de general of de men, but you are de general of de machine gun,” Dumont said with a ferocious smile.
The colonel had been right after all, Gatling thought. You never knew what was going to happen. He brushed snow from the barrel of the Maxim. So much for not wanting to get involved.
The trees out there were jack pines, with slender trunks that wouldn’t give the militiamen much cover, and they grew far apart. A good setup anyway you looked at it, a hell of a lot better than being caught on the road in slow-moving wagons.
A cold wind blew the trees. There wasn’t a sound except for the wind. So far there was no sign of the militiamen. Gatling rubbed his gloved hands together and used his binoculars to scout the half mile of trees. Holding his hands over the lens, to keep the snow off, he saw them moving forward in a well-spaced line, their Lee-Medford rifles held across their chests, ghostly shapes in the drifting snow. Too soon to open fire; they had to get closer.
They must have figured it out, he thought. One of their officers had. Somehow they’d learned the métis were moving a big shipment of guns, traveling by night, sleeping by day. Now they were hoping to catch the métis snoring in their blankets, empty whiskey bottles by their sides, too drunk or lazy or stupid to post guards.
In spite of the wind-blown snow, Gatling was able to count thirty men. There could be more. But there were thirty for sure.
He looked at the eight métis waiting below the edge of the ravine, then he opened fire, swinging the barrel of the gun from left to right. A row of militiamen went down in the snow, dead or wounded. The métis opened up with the Mausers, firing fast and accurately for men who hadn’t handled the weapon before. Gatling fired long, spaced bursts so the barrel wouldn’t get too hot. Surprised and confused, the militiamen tried to make a fight of it, but they didn’t have a chance. They were dropping all along the line.
The métis were firing steadily, stopping only to strip fresh clips into their rifles. Gatling had linked two cartridge belts and the Maxim was jetting lead without interruption. He saw the second linked belt move into the cartridge feed. The light gun chattered, and he held it steady with the pistol grip and the forward grip. More militiamen went down in the hail of bullets. Then suddenly those who hadn’t been hit turned and ran back through the tracks they’d made coming in.
Dumont looked over at Gatling and laughed like a madman, then he clawed his way up and over the edge of the ravine. His men followed. Gatling picked up the light gun and ran after them. Dead militiamen were sprawled among the trees. Three men were behind a fallen pine, firing through the withered branches. Holding the Maxim at hip level, Gatling chopped them to bits with .303-caliber bullets. Then he moved fast to catch up with the métis. Gunfire was coming from all directions. Not all the militiamen were running straight for the road; some were trying to lose themselves in the woods. But they left tracks, and the métis followed the tracks. Somebody was screaming off to the left. The firing continued; there was shooting all through the woods. Gatling machine-gunned a corpse that didn’t look right. The “corpse” screamed and kicked and died. The métis had swept past a militiaman hiding behind a rock. He raised up now and fired at Gatling. He missed and ducked back into cover. Gatling blew his head off when he raised up for a second shot.
Suddenly Gatling found himself alone. The second cartridge belt wasn’t used up yet, and he ran on until he reached the road. Dumont was flat in the snow, firing at three militiamen who were shooting back from the cover of a drainage ditch. They fired at Gatling because for a few seconds he made a better target. Then he was flat behind a rock, the light gun trained on the ditch, waiting for them to show themselves. Dumont crawled over to where he was. He kissed the light gun and laughed. In the woods the firing was beginning to slacken off except for an occasional shot.
“Ah, by God we have show the bastards what de métis can do.” Dumont stroked the polished butt of his Mauser. “What a dangerous, beautiful baby, dis rifle. But your gun, your beautiful machine gun, never have I heard a gun make such music. It make me tink of woodpecker—rat-rat-rat.”
Gatling wished Dumont would shut the hell up. But Dumont was sighting in on the ditch as he talked, and he squeezed the trigger and killed a man.
“Dis gun was made in heaven and blessed by God,” he said. “I would like to finish dis and get some sleep.” His tone was casual. “You want to walk over dere, Gatling?”
Gatling nodded. More than a hundred rounds were still in the belt. Dumont stripped in a fresh clip of bullets, and they were ready. They stood up and walked forward through the snow. In the woods the shooting had stopped. They were only thirty yards from the ditch when a shot rang out, but the bullet wasn’t fired at them. Dumont laughed and the last militiaman ran up onto the road and tried to get to the ditch on the other side. Gatling brought him down with a short burst.
In the ditch, the man Dumont shot was dying. Dumont shot him in the head. The other man had shot himself. One foot was bare. His military rifle had a long barrel. He had used his big toe to press the trigger after he put the muzzle of the rifle in his mouth. There was a ragged hole in the top of his head.
Dumont laughed. “He tink métis torture him if he is captured. Maybe he tink right. Now we drag bodies into de woods. De bodies freeze solid, no stink. De snow hide ever’ting for a while. Dey will find dem, but we have travel plenty mile by den. Dark will not come for six-seven hour, but I tink we take chance and move on.”
They kept to the back roads east of Regina and Saskatoon. North of Saskatoon they could travel during the day; this was métis country, and they made better time. The British settlers had abandoned their farms and gone south for safety. Some of the German and Russian settlers had stayed on, hoping to keep out of the war. The métis let them alone, although they did levy a tax of grain, beef, and horses. They also seized their weapons.
They reached the Saskatchewan River and followed it north. The river was wide and pewter-colored, still frozen over and covered with snow. Dumont said the Dominion forces would send armored gunboats up the river when the ice started to break up.
Gatling got his first look at Batoche, the métis capital, late on the afternoon of the ninth day out from North Dakota. What had been a small river town was now a fort. It stood on high ground above the river and was enclosed by stout log walls with double rows of sandbags piled all the way up to the firing platforms. It was getting dark and the massive gate was closed.
Métis armed with old rifles and spread out along a shallow trench challenged them when they were within five hundred yards of the fort. They were passed on through, and the gate opened in front of them. Lights showed in the houses; torches in metal sconces gave off flickering light and oily smoke. Men crowded around as the wagons moved into a sort of town square and halted in front of a black-painted barn.
They climbed down and Gatling saw men there who were not métis. The Irish Fenians he recognized by their appearance and accents, but it wasn’t so easy to place the other foreigners. Some were mercenaries, professional gunmen who had fought in range wars and Central American revolutions. Now they had a nice little war very close to home. And among all these men, métis or otherwise, was a spy. Gatling knew he had his work cut out for him.
Dumont put a young métis named Baptiste in charge of unloading the wagons. It was Baptiste who had warned them of the militiamen advancing through the woods. He looked tough and capable. Dumont gave him the weapons list and a pencil. He posted two men from the wagon crew, now armed with Mausers, to keep the foreigners away from the crate containing the handguns.
“You don’t trust them?” Gatling said.
“I trust dem when I can see dem,” Dumont said. “Is a temptation to steal a beautiful new pistol, so I post guards. Not such good men, some of dem. I don’t mean de Irishmen. Dey drink when dey can get whiskey, but dey don’t steal or bodder de women. They can fight pret’ damn good, I tink.”
“Do you need them?”
“Louis tinks we do. Ever’ man we can get. De Irishmen get paid, but not by de métis. Dere money come from de United States.”
“How many foreigners, in all?”
“’Bout two hundred. Hundred and thirty Irishmen, seventy gunmen. Some of dem have the police after dem, you bet. Louis don’t care long as dey fight.”
They came to Riel’s headquarters, a one-story log cabin. No guard at the door. Dumont knocked and they went into a smoky room with a camp bed in one corner. Riel and a portly man sat at a desk with a stack of money on it. Gatling recognized the portly man right away: a confidence man and all-around swindler named Earl Riggs. Riggs was the curse of the arms trade.
Gatling knew Riel hadn’t mentioned his name or Riggs would have made for the door. Now it was too late to dodge off, and he stood his ground. With his smooth red face and carefully trimmed mustache, he was every lonely widow’s idea of what a gentleman should look like.
Dumont told Riel who Gatling was. “He have deliver de hardware,” Dumont said, glancing at Riggs. “Ever’thing.”
“Good,” Riel said, getting up to shake hands with Gatling. “Was it an easy trip?”
Dumont burst out laughing. “Sure, Louis. We tell you later.”
Riggs was trying not to look at Gatling. Riel said, “Mr. Gatling, you and this gentleman have something in common—the arms business. I’d like you to meet Mr. Henry Beederman of Cincinnati. His father founded Beederman and Blake.”
Riggs offered his hand, but Gatling didn’t shake it. “Hello, Riggs,” he said.
“No, no, Mr. Gatling.” Riel looked over the top of his half-glasses. “This gentleman’s name is Beederman. Why do you address him as ‘Riggs’?”
“Because that’s his real name. Isn’t it, Riggs? Mr. Riel, I don’t care what papers and identification he showed you. They’re as fake as he is. He’s a con man and a fraud. Don’t give him a cent. He’s been swindling people all over the country for years. His main swindle is guns, but he’ll pull any swindle that looks good. He even swindled the State Guard in Minnesota.”
Rigg’s bland face had turned beet-red. “President Riel, I protest. I can’t imagine what this man is talking about. He must be drunk or has me confused with someone else. I am a legitimate businessman respected all over the United States.”
“You mean you’re wanted all over the United States. Now you’re working Western Canada.” Gatling’s coat was open, swept back behind the butt of his gun. Most con men didn’t go in for gunplay, but Earl Riggs was no ordinary swindler.
If his glib tongue failed him, he was always ready to shoot his way out of a tight spot. He’d killed one man who’d recognized him from somewhere else and tried to hold him for the sheriff. And he was wanted for other murders.
Riggs glared at Gatling, the picture of affronted dignity. Riel looked from one man to the other, then at Dumont, who shrugged in a very French way. The President of the métis nation understood what was being said, but wasn’t taking it in.
“You, sir,” Riggs blustered. “I don’t know who you are, but I demand an apology. If this is a joke, it’s in very poor taste. I have come to Canada to conduct a business transaction with President Riel. Let me tell you here and now that your accusations are as false as your motives are transparent. In short, what you want to do, sir, is cut me out.”
Riggs was up on his high horse, hanging on for dear life. Gatling was getting tired of his bluster. He hadn’t come all this way to listen to a slimy crook. Anywhere else he wouldn’t have wasted his time on Riggs. If people were stupid enough to be swindled, then let them. But this was different: the métis were up against terrible odds.
“Get out,” Gatling said. “Get out now, you crawling son of a bitch! These people have enough trouble without you. ”
Later, Gatling still didn’t know why Riggs had tried to draw on him. Maybe he felt he was at the end of his rope. He was well-dressed, as smooth-talking as ever, yet there was something hangdog about him, as if his confidence games were beginning to go sour. Whatever the reason, he went for his gun.
Gatling shot him twice in the chest before he got it out, and he died falling to the floor. His red face became pale almost immediately. Riel didn’t move, too shocked to do anything. He looked at Gatling with astonishment. Dumont took the ivory-handled .38 Colt Lightning double-action from Riggs’s holster. It was silver-plated and had cost a lot of money.
“Son of a bitch, he have nice little gun,” Dumont said. “You want it, Gatling?”
Gatling said no, and Dumont put the fancy gun in his pocket. Riel was getting over the shock of having a man killed a few feet from where he sat.
“But he showed me a photograph of his factory in Cincinnati.” Riel picked up the photograph from his desk. “See the names above the gate: Beederman and Blake.” Gatling looked at the photograph. “This is a doctored—faked—photograph of the Gatling Company factory. Richard J. Gatling owns it. No kin to me. I ought to know what the place looks like. I worked there at one time. There are thousands of copies of this photograph. The company gives them out as advertising.”
Dumont went through Riggs’s pockets and turned up a pigskin wallet, a cigar case, wood matches, an old silver watch. There was thirty dollars in the wallet. Behind the faded photograph of a plain young woman, inside the lid of the watch, was an inscription: “To my son, Earl, on his graduation from the Iowa College of Practical Engineering.” Dumont put the silver watch in a barrel marked ARGENT. The other barrel, marked OR, was for gold.
“You eat bear steak?” Dumont asked Gatling. “No more stew for a while, okay?”
They had been eating reheated stew, jerked deer meat, and hard oatcakes three times a day for more than a week. Gatling didn’t care if he never saw a bowl of venison stew for the rest of his life. And that goddamned black tea!
“Bear steak is fine,” he said. “Got any beer?”
“Gatling don’t like tea,” Dumont told Riel, who had a cup of tea on his desk.
“Is that so?” Riel said politely. “I’ve always found tea very invigorating.”
“We got beer,” Dumont said. “We have coffee, but I think it is stale. We get beer when we drive de militia out of Cudworth. Plenty barrel of beer. Ever’body like beer ’cept me.”
Riel took off his glasses and began to rub his eyes. He looked as if he had a bad headache. Gatling wondered how long he had gone without sleep.
“The food, Gabriel,” he said. “And take care of ...” He pointed to the body on the floor.
Dumont went out and came back with two métis, who carried out the body. “Ten minutes we eat,” he told Gatling. There was blood on the muddy floor and he scuffed at it with his boot. “Dat Riggs, he have some nerve, by God!”
Riel made an impatient gesture; he didn’t want any more talk about Riggs. Baptiste came in and spoke to Dumont in French. Riel said, “Speak English, Baptiste. Mr. Gatling may not speak French.”
“We have unload de guns,” Baptiste said. “Is all check out with de list. Ever’ gun she have number, so is easy. Beautiful guns! How can we lose with guns like dat.”
Dumont placed a huge hand on Baptiste’s shoulder. “Now I have anudder ’portant mission for you. See what is happening to de steaks and de beer.”
“Sit down, Mr. Gatling,” Riel said. “You must be tired. I know I’d be very tired.”
Dumont turned a chair around and sat with his arms resting on the back. Riel cleaned his glasses with a handkerchief and put them on. The wind was blowing across the top of the chimney and smoke was backing up, making the room smokier than it had been.
“Mr. Gatling,” Riel said. “You have saved us a great deal of money. For which we are grateful.”
Gatling didn’t want gratitude. “Glad to do it.”
“That’s all very well and good, but I was about to give that man twenty-five thousand dollars in American dollars and British pounds. He suggested very forcefully that I pay the entire amount in advance, but I am not a complete fool.”
Gatling grunted. Riel was foolish enough. Nobody paid in advance for undelivered goods, not even guns. Riggs was so brazen he hadn’t even brought a few samples.
Dumont didn’t like to hear his leader criticizing himself. “You are not a fool, Louis. You are an honest man, not a businessman. Your life have not prepare you for a man like dat.”
“He was offended when I offered to pay half in advance,” Riel continued. “He said his reputation would suffer if his business associates heard that I didn’t trust him completely. Finally he said he would break his own long-standing rule and accept the half payment as a favor to me. He had, he said, the utmost sympathy for our cause. Once again I thank you, Mr. Gatling. The loss of so much money would have been a serious blow. Now let us put this unpleasantness behind us. I wish they’d bring the food. I’m not hungry, but I’m sure you are. Gabriel is always hungry.”
“And thirsty,” Dumont said. He got a bottle and a glass from a cupboard and looked at Gatling.
“I’ll wait for the beer,” Gatling said.
“Louis don’t drink anything stronger than tea,” Dumont said. He put the bottle and the glass on a table used for eating.
Two métis women knocked and brought in the bear steaks and a huge tankard of beer for Gatling. They set out the food, put a bowl of salt on the table, and left. Gatling took his chair over to the table.
“Dig in,” Dumont said.