THEY TRAVELED FAR into the night, bedded down for six hours, and were moving again by first light. Dumont let them have two additional hours of sleep, because they had been through a fierce fight and needed the rest. Many of the métis had lost relatives and friends and they were gloomy and silent. Dumont didn’t want to push them too hard, but said they would have to go back to sleeping no more than four hours a night. There was always the danger of attack on Batoche. The regulars could have arrived in Saskatchewan by now, and their commanders might not wait for the breakup of ice in the river. Dumont said they had to get back to Batoche because it was the capital of the métis nation. It was the center of their lives and had to be defended at all costs.
At night, when they stopped to sleep, Dumont posted a heavy guard on the wagon that carried the captured rifles. It was not wise, he said, to put too much temptation in the way of Big Bear and his Crees. Big Bear sulked when he saw the guards, but there was nothing he could do about it short of a direct attack that would surely get him killed along with all his Crees.
Campfires were permitted on the way back. Night after night, Big Bear insisted on sitting at the fire outside Dumont’s tent. Dumont didn’t want him there, but at least they knew where he was. He complained about the food Dumont gave him but ate as much as he could get. He kept hinting that Dumont must have a bottle of whiskey hidden away. But Dumont was adamant: There was no whiskey anywhere in camp. Forced to drink beer, Big Bear drank it by the gallon, but it didn’t make him crazy as whiskey would have done. But there was enough alcohol in it to make him boastful, and Dumont was subjected to endless stories about Big Bear’s warlike youth. Gatling didn’t know a word of the Cree language, and was glad he didn’t.
One night, while Big Bear lay snoring by the fire, Dumont said, “You know what he wants now?”
“Egg in his beer?”
Dumont laughed. “I laugh because if I don’t laugh I strangle de son of a bitch. No egg. He want me to make him a general in de métis army.”
“Did you?”
“No. I told him dat have to wait till Batoche. I told him only Louis have dat authority. Den he ask me what rank I am and I tell him I am only a colonel. Even he know de difference and it please him to tink he will be higher-up dan I am. He tink about dat for a while, den he say, ‘I will be a general soon, but I will give you my first order now. Which is, give me de capture rifle.’”
“What did you say?”
“I say he will be a general but in different part of de métis army. De Big Bear Regiment, is de name I give it. He like dat but get mad when he know he don’t get de guns.”
“Will you give him the guns?”
“Sure I give him de guns. De métis from de north are still coming, but I don’t know if dey all get to Batoche. De Gov’ment will try to stop dem. So I will give Big Bear some of de capture rifles. Like I have told you, he can make enough trouble to worry de Gov’ment. Is possible other Cree and other tribe will get into de war. Some of dem may strike out on dere own. Any trouble dey make is good for de métis.”
“What’s to stop Big Bear from working for the militia after he gets the guns? The British like to hire Indians to do their dirty work. They did it during the American Revolution.”
Dumont sighed. “More history lesson. Dat could happen, only I don’t tink it going to happen when word is spread dat Big Bear and de Cree did plenty of killing at North Battleford. Big Bear even wear dead Mountie coat to prove he was dere.”
“Who will spread this story?”
“You know damn well who will spread it,” Dumont said. “I will spread it. Have it spread. Big Bear would be big fool to go near de Mountie or de militia. De Mountie would put him in irons so he could be hung legal. De militia would just hang him from a tree.”
“I’m starting to feel sorry for him,” Gatling said.
“Dat is a joke I know,” Dumont said. “If you have any pity, my friend, save it for de white settlements Big Bear attacks. He is a cruel man but have no chance to show it till now. He will leave death and misery behind him. I would kill him myself if I didn’t need him. You tink I am as bad as he is?”
“No,” Gatling said. “It’s the way wars are fought.”
Now it was the beginning of April; it hadn’t snowed for two days. The heavy rain of a few days before had turned to drizzle. There were brief intervals of weak sunshine; the country was beginning to thaw out. The water-logged road was very bad but it froze up only at night. By midday the ice turned back to mud. It was slow going, but because of the wounded, Dumont made no effort to speed it up. He set a reasonable pace and told them to keep to it.
Dr. Kane, the elderly Irishman, did his best for the wounded. Some of the wounded cried out when the wagons jolted over rough places in the road. Others bore their suffering with strained resignation. Dr. Kane dosed the worst cases with drugs and whiskey, and there were nights when he didn’t sleep at all. Three of the wounded died and they buried them by the side of the road. The subsoil was still frozen and they covered the shallow graves with rocks.
Late on the following evening the camp was attacked by a large force of mounted men who came in blasting with six-shooters and ran off some of the métis horses. The attack was so sudden and unexpected that the raiders were gone before the métis could get off more than a few shots. Four men guarding the rope corral had been killed. The Indian camp hadn’t been hit. Big Bear showed up wanting to know if the raiders had taken his guns. Dumont told him to go to hell.
The métis wanted to mount up and go after the night riders. Dumont said no. “Dat’s what dey want us to do. We go on to Batoche. But not in de dark.”
Later, Baptiste and two scouts found a dead man in the woods and carried the body into camp. Looking at the body, Dumont said, “So de militia play trick on us. Dey don’t kill or jail de gunslingers. Dey give dem guns and send dem back to fight us. Is something I didn’t expect dem to do. Now dey got nuttin’ to lose. De militia on one side of dem, de métis on de other. Pret’ smart officer tink dis up, eh, Gatling?”
“Maybe a regular,” Gatling said. “One thing the bastards know is night-raiding and bushwhacking. They came and went so fast, they must have good horses.”
Dumont looked at the dead man. “I should have kill all of dem. My mistake. So I am not such smart man. I tink ’bout killing dem, but I don’t do it. Big mistake.” Gatling said everybody makes mistakes. My mistake was letting Towers live too long.”
Dumont waved sympathy aside. “No real damage done. We kill Towers, we take de fort. Least you had good idea. Me, I don’t tink ahead. Only one more day to Batoche, but maybe take longer if dey snipe at us from de high ground. We are going to lose more men, Gatling.”
“Looks like it,” Gatling said.
Dumont and Gatling walked over to the Cree camp and asked Big Bear if he and his men would act as flankers. “All your men have rifles,” Dumont said. “But we will give you fifty new rifles from de fort. Get between them and us, pull back if you have to. Is it a deal?”
It wasn’t. Big Bear had a morning-after beer head and he was treating it with the dog that bit him. He downed a pitcher of beer, then said no. Fifty rifles were an insult. Unless his three hundred men got three hundred rifles, he wouldn’t do it. He seemed to think he was in a strong bargaining position.
“But we didn’t capture dat many rifles,” Dumont argued.
“The métis have rifles,” Big Bear said. “They don’t fight this time. Take rifles from them and give them to my men. They will get them back after we have killed or scared off the raiders.”
Dumont was so disgusted he turned and walked away without another word. “I swear I kill dat fat Indian. Never in my life have I deal with such a sneaky, slippery snake.”
Dumont rejected the idea of traveling by night; too much danger of an ambush, he said. They moved on the next morning, with métis flankers walking through the woods, far back from the road. Dumont pushed the column hard and the wounded suffered, but there was no help for that.
They came under sniper fire about noon; it came from a brush-covered ridge a good way back from the road. Two men were killed and one wounded. The gunmen were using long-range rifles. Dumont told his men to find some kind of cover behind the safe side of the wagons. But they had to keep moving no matter what.
The sniping stopped after the ridge petered out. It started again when the snipers found more high ground to shoot from. A wagon driver was killed. Two scouts were sent ahead to look for an ambush. Half an hour after they rode out there was heavy gunfire. They found the scouts lying dead in the road; their horses and weapons were gone.
They got to the river in the late afternoon. Batoche was on the other side; only a few lights glimmered in the half darkness. Men were waiting with rafts to take them across. The ice was starting to break up, but there were long stretches where the ice remained solid. Dumont said the Canadian Army would have to wait a few weeks before sending gunboats.
A wide channel had been cleared so the huge rafts could get through. A thick rope anchored to stout posts stretched across the river. An overhead trolley ran along the rope; the rafts were pulled across by three huge métis. Dumont had posted a rear-guard to hold off the guerrilla-gunmen if they attacked.
The wagons with the wounded in them went across first. Then the three rafts came back for equal numbers of Crees and métis. Big Bear crossed over with his men. After that, there were only eighty or ninety men to be ferried to the other shore. The Maxim and Hotchkiss guns were in the wagon with the captured rifles. The rear-guard, the last métis soldiers on the western side, pulled back to the water’s edge and waited with Dumont and Gatling.
Gatling lay behind the Light Maxim just below the bank of the river. Dumont and the riflemen were spread out on both sides of him. There wasn’t a sound except for ice cracking in the river. Gatling turned and looked at the rafts moving slowly across the wide, dark river. They were approaching the halfway point when the gunmen opened fire. Orange flashes jetted from the trees that stopped about fifty yards from the river. At the same time, dynamite exploded not far upriver. They were trying to break up the ice so it would move, trapping the rafts in midstream.
Gatling opened fire. All along the riverbank rifles cracked as the métis fired back at men they couldn’t see. They fired at the muzzle flashes. So did Gatling. More dynamite exploded upstream. Gatling turned and looked. The fissures in the ice still hadn’t reached the channel. So far the channel remained open, but for how long? Men were yelling on the rafts and on the other shore. Then there was wild cheering as the first raft got across and the men jumped ashore. The other rafts pulled in.
Heavy fire still came from the trees, but the gunmen stayed where they were, in good cover, making no move to attack. Gatling knew they would move in fast if a raft managed to come back. One final explosion sounded upriver, and then the dynamiting stopped. The métis stepped up their rifle fire; a raft was coming back to get them. Some of them prayed as they worked the bolts of their rifles and fired. Gatling wasn’t much for prayers, but he knew how they felt. If the raft got trapped by ice, they’d all be in a bad fix. After the ammunition ran out, the gunmen would attack.
A long stretch of ice cracked with a sound like artillery. It didn’t split all the way to the channel. One of the men on the raft was hit and toppled into the water and went under. The other two raft men had to work harder to get the raft close enough so it bumped against the riverbank. They kept yelling, “Get moving! Hurry up! Jump down quick!”
Dumont yelled and the métis slithered down the muddy bank and threw themselves onto the swaying raft. Gatling was still firing the light gun. Dumont yelled at him. Gatling yelled back and kept on firing. Dark shapes were running from the trees. Gatling continued to fire until there was no more ammunition in the feed box. He slid down the bank and jumped onto the raft, which was starting to move. Dumont caught him before he fell.
“Idiot!” Dumont roared in French.
The gunmen got to the riverbank and opened fire. Jammed in together, the métis did their best to return fire. Gatling took a belt of bullets from around his neck and clicked the connector into the feed slot. There wasn’t time to coil it and put it in the feed box. “Feed it in steady,” he told Dumont, who slung his rifle over his shoulder. “Don’t push. Keep it level and let it run through your fingers.”
Gatling elevated the barrel of the gun and opened fire. Rifles cracked and flashed on the riverbank. A few métis went down and Dumont had his right earlobe shot away. He cursed a blue streak but held the cartridge belt steady. Three of the gunmen had been killed and lay with their heads in the water. Another burst killed or wounded others. It was too dark to say how many.
Savaged by the light gun, the hardcases flopped to their bellies in the mud. By now the raft was well out into the dark river. Gatling stopped firing and Dumont ordered the riflemen to do the same. The hardcases continued to fire, but there was nothing to aim at, and they finally gave up.
The last of the métis were jumping off the raft when the ice broke loose. Thousands of tons of ice buried the raft in seconds. “Son of a bitch!” Dumont roared. “We make it just in time. T’ank you, God. After dis I go to confession. I go to Mass. I light candles.”
They went up into the town; everybody cheered and slapped Dumont on the back. Even Gatling got slapped on the back. Big Bear and his Crees were waiting in the town square. Big Bear looked angry when he saw the captured rifles being carried into the barn that served as an arsenal. He tried to intercept Dumont and was brushed aside.
“Tomorrow we talk about ever’ting,” Dumont said. “Wait. Be patient.” Dumont raised his voice and shouted, “Ever’body be quiet! President Riel has a few words of praise for us. Pay attention.”
Riel came out of his house following Baptiste. It was warmer than it had been, but it was cold enough, and Riel wasn’t wearing a coat over his serge jacket. Under the porch lights, he looked as self-conscious as the métis riflemen who guarded his door. The métis in the square started to cheer, but choked it off when Riel raised his hand.
“You have won a great victory,” he declared in a dramatic voice that was very different from his normal speaking voice. “Our oppressors have tasted métis steel and now lie dead and defeated. Our flag now flies above North Battleford and other key positions our forces set out to capture. This campaign has met with complete success; I am proud of you. In years to come ...”
Mercifully, Riel kept his speech short; he concluded by welcoming Big Bear and his men to Batoche. “Métis and Cree, together we will win this war.”
Big Bear was pushing forward to take a bow, but he was too late. Riel turned abruptly and went into his house. Big Bear tried to follow, but his way was barred by the sentries. The crowd started to break up.
Dumont and Gatling found Riel behind his desk reading a book. “Sit down, gentlemen,” he said, waving them to chairs. “Baptiste has already made a report. Do you have anything to add to it? Forgive me, but I don’t feel quite well.”
Dumont glanced at Gatling, who kept his face deadpan. “Louis, did Baptiste tell you we lost forty men? Dat some of de wounded died? Did he tell you dat we were sniped at by de American gunmen we chased out of here?”
Riel nodded. “He told me. Regrettable.”
“Regrettable?” Dumont gave the word another meaning. Gatling didn’t know what Dumont was trying to accomplish. Maybe he expected Riel to show more interest, to give the returning métis a warmer welcome. Dumont was a lot older than most of his men; he pushed himself to the limit. He liked to think of himself as an iron man, but Gatling knew he was very tired.
“About Big Bear and his Cree. I am going to give dem some of de captured rifles and use dem as ... what is de word?”
“Irregulars,” Riel said.
“As irregulars. Do I have your permission to do dat?”
“Military decisions are your responsibility, Gabriel. I have told you that more than once. Now if that is all ...”
Dumont refused to be put off. “Big Bear will torture and murder and steal. I just want you to know.”
“Yes, yes.” Riel picked up his book. Gatling looked at the title embossed in gold lettering on the spine. Riel was reading Essays in Constitutional Law.
Riel looked up from his book. “I understand what you are saying. If Big Bear’s activities help our cause, then so be it. Goodnight, gentlemen.”
Gatling was glad to get back to Dumont’s warm house. Hot food was on its way; it felt good to pull off his wet boots and stretch out on the camp bed. Dumont drew a tankard of beer for Gatling and poured whiskey for himself. He got up to refill his glass. The fire was going good and he piled on a stack of logs. His bullet-torn ear was a bloody mess, but he ignored it.
“What’s the matter with Riel? He looks sick.”
“He have consumption,” Dumont answered. “I get mad at him and forget he have consumption. Years ago it strike him in de lungs and it never go away. But he don’t complain, so I forget he have it.”
“You think he knows what he’s doing? Just a question.”
“Like hell just a question.” Dumont was angry. “Don’t ask no more question like dat.”
“Whatever you say. It’s not my war.”
That set Dumont laughing. “You would never know dat, de way you been fighting. Dat gun of yours, she is a real terror. I like de way you stay behind while de rest jump on de raft.”
Gatling had nothing to say to that. It had seemed a good idea at the time.
Dumont’s smile faded; he became serious. “Gatling, I tink maybe you should get out. Dat’s what you told me to do. You know I can’t do dat. You are different. Get out, my friend. Go back to your own country.”
Gatling propped himself up on his elbow and drank beer. “Easier said than done. South of here the country is crawling with militia. We got through, but that was three weeks ago. They’ll be watching the border.”
“Dat is bullshit talk and you know it. You could get across. If you don’t want to cross from Saskatchewan, go west to Alberta and take de Canadian Pacific to Vancouver. Cross de border dere. Nobody even look at you. You are not dat handsome.”
“Sure I am,” Gatling said. “You don’t mind if I stay a while longer?”
Dumont gulped whiskey and smacked his lips. “Stay all you like. Your business what you do. But I tink you should go.”
“Why? What the hell is eating on you?”
Dumont said, “I have bad feeling about dis war.”
“Since when?” Gatling asked.
“I don’t know, Gatling. It kind of build up in me. I tell you not to make things complicate. Now I’m de one dat feel complicate. Was a time I tink we could use Big Bear. Keep him under some kind of control. Always know he is a bad man, but after I listen to him talk for a week I know he is worse dan ordin’ry bad. I argue with myself. Say to myself, what difference do it make how cruel and mean he is? If he murder white settler family … if he murder a lot of settler family, rape dere women and girl-children, de militia have done as bad to us. Louis leave it up to me. Louis is quiet man, have never kill nobody, but he don’t want to tink about tings that upset him. You understand what I am saying?” Gatling just nodded.
“Well I will give Big Bear de rifles, not all he want, but enough to kill plenty people. I will feel bad, but I will do it. If he kill de enemy of de métis, den he have to be de métis, friend. Son of a bitch, Big Bear would kill his mother if dat would make him big cheese of de Cree nation. You mind if I don’t talk about Big Bear?”
“I don’t mind,” Gatling said. “What’re you going to do about the gunslingers?”
“Have to do something,” Dumont said. “Dey know how to make war better dan de militia. Experience men. Not so easy to kill dem, I tink. Dey are worse dan de militia because nobody have control over dem. Dey fight for money, anything dey can steal. I tink dey kill and rob settler family if dey tink dey don’t get caught at it. De métis get the blame. It get into de newspaper dat métis is a bloodstain savage. All Canada, one end to de other, hate de métis. Kill all chance to make fair peace with Gov’ment.”
“There won’t be any fair peace,” Gatling said quietly. “None at all. They won’t settle for anything but your unconditional surrender. The best the métis can hope for is some kind of self-rule under the Canadian flag. It’s doubtful the Government will go that far, but there’s always a chance. But it won’t even be considered till long after the war.” Dumont thought for a while. “Self-rule would be better dan nuttin’. All de métis want is to live like a free men. But Louis will never agree to self-rule. He want an independent métis nation. Make our own laws, have our own gov’ment and courts, our own soldiers and police. Louis say white Canadian must have passport to enter our country.”
Gatling said, “That’s not going to happen. The Canadian Government won’t stand for it.”
Dumont scowled at Gatling; he was angry again. “If you have decided métis will lose ever’ting, why do you stay? De guns have been paid for, okay. You have showed us how to use de guns. What is keeping you here?”
“I’d like to see what happens.”
“Den you run if tings get too hot?”
“That’s right. I’ll help you all I can, but I won’t die for your cause. Or any cause, if I can help it. You asked a question. There’s your answer.”
Dumont shrugged his indifference. “Do what you like, Gatling.” Dumont went to the door, opened it, and yelled, “Where is our goddamn food?”
His temper improved after he put away two bear steaks, fried onions, and boiled potatoes. He poured whiskey into his black, sugary tea and loosened his belt.
“By God, I am not so hungry since I broke my arm and could not hunt for four week. Gatling, you got any idea what we do ’bout dese American gunslingers?”
“Not right now,” Gatling said. “I’ll have to think about it.”