Prairie Grass

by Joan Soggie

  Madeline disappeared wordlessly into the house.

  Olivia turned to me. “I suppose it’s because of my 102-year-old mother that you are here interviewing Madeline. Poor Mother, I doubt if she knows one day from the next, and probably couldn’t tell you her own name. Or would tell you that she is ‘Belle La Prairie’, her father’s pet name for her. Thinking she is still a little girl. Mother idealized her father and had a ridiculous reverence for his tall tales. Maddie and I never knew him, he died long before we came along. But Mother always tried to instill in us the same idolization of him, as though he were some sort of Old West hero. I’m sure my sister can amply supply you with stories. But as I have said a thousand times, if you want to make a good life for yourself and your children, you have to accentuate the positive. Did you know that one of our father’s French-Canadian relatives founded a very successful brewery in Montreal? His family is now worth millions! If Maddie wants to do genealogy, that’s where she should focus her attention. Not on those shiftless half-breed ancestors.”

  “‘Accentuate the positive, eliminate the negative.’ The pop mantra you live by, Olivia. Yes, I remember what you told Mother.” Madeline came through the door carrying the familiar wooden tray with pitcher of iced tea, glasses and a plate of her gingersnaps. “But not everyone agrees with your definition of success.”

  Those two certainly didn’t agree on much, except in their determination to show me, the innocent outsider, the correct way of seeing the world. To Olivia, that included seizing opportunities, aligning yourself with the established political or economic power, and cutting ties with anything that might pull you back.

  “I don’t suppose Mad has told you the truth about the reserve schools she taught in. Kids who came to school only occasionally because their parents were too hungover to get out of bed. Rampant vandalism, violence, glue-sniffing, suicide …”

  Madeline interrupted her. “Gabriella studied sociology at Mount Allison. She’s seen the data. She attended a Truth and Reconciliation hearing. She knows the sad statistics that have been used to pigeon-hole recent generations. But she also knows that isn’t the whole story. It is not the beginning. Or the end. In fact, that’s not the full truth about any part of history.”

  I waved my arms, laughed, got up and paced the length of the verandah. “Ladies! Stop! I don’t know yet what I think about all this.” I turned to Olivia. “My boyfriend would agree with you. Archaeology and history should be studied, but belong in the past, you can’t right old wrongs, everyone has to move on. But …” I glanced at Madeline, saw the lines in her face deepening. “But. Maybe it’s this delving into the past with the Centenarian Project that has opened my eyes. I never was all that interested in history. But I love stories. People’s stories. And I guess I’m beginning to feel that all our stories are connected somehow. And if I don’t know at least some of them, I’ll never really understand who I am. Or who you are.”

  Until I said it out loud, I had not even realized that was what I was thinking.

  But yes. That was true.

  Trying to sort out one life story led inevitably to others. The Metis story was tied to the aboriginal story, individuals like Jean-Jacques and Broken Arm were inextricably bound together, and both melded into the settler story of old Eric Tollerud. And I was beginning to feel connected to all of it. It was changing who I, Gabriella Mackenzie, was. Or could become.

  After Olivia had left, Madeline urged me to stay another night. I was grateful for that. Another evening and at least part of a day making notes and asking questions might give me an adequate sense of Jean-Jacques’s life. Then I might be able to put him out of my mind. I reminded myself that, by Tuesday, I needed to be back in sync with Eric’s story if I hoped to get it finished before his birthday. As I had promised him.

  The troubled world of Olivia and Madeline and my generation receded that evening as I dived back into an exceedingly interesting, and uncomfortable, era: colonial Canada circa 1865.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Sweetgrass. Grows from Labrador to Mexico in low prairies, wet meadows, along sloughs, streams and lakeshores. Roots slender, creeping and shallow. Short flat leaves surround stem, seed head shiny and open. The entire plant has a sweet odour. Excellent for controlling water erosion. Used in sweats and other traditional ceremonies. Gabriellas’ Prairie Notes

  Jean-Jacques (1865)

  Jean-Jacques stamped his feet hard on the stone slab at the door of the cabin. Clumps of snow flew off his winter moccasins. They were new, the most elaborately decorated he’d ever owned.

  “Maybe these will make you so handsome, some poor girl will fall for you and you’ll finally have a wife to sew your clothes,” his mother had complained. Virginie had made him new moccasins with high leather uppers every winter he could remember. And every winter in recent years, she had also made some pointed remarks about his single status. It was all very well to travel far and wide during the warmer seasons, taking life as he found it, but she made it plain that, in her opinion, he needed a woman to take care of him during the winter.

  There had been girls, some very inviting to him. But his life was too unsettled. He couldn’t imagine being tied to one person or one place. Pierre and Virginie’s cabin remained the only home he wanted. He might not see or hear anything of his family for months, but Jean-Jacques knew his mother’s face would soften and Pierre’s eyes crease in a smile at the sight of him coming through their door.

  However, this year, instead of a visit of weeks in cold midwinter, Jean-Jacques had come to them during the autumn hunt and stayed.

  “Not much hauling this fall,” he told them. “Too much sickness.”

  And it was true. Contagion had once again swept through the western tribes, brought, some said, by refugees from the south. The war tearing apart the United States seemed to produce epidemics of disease along with agitation spreading beyond its own borders. Ragged bands of Lakota, Saulteaux, and other plains tribes fled northward to their allies. Measles, scarlet fever, smallpox followed close behind.

  Adding to the general anxiety was the uncertainty at Red River. What once seemed assured was now precarious. Unsettling rumours circulated. Travellers hinted at a power struggle between the Hudson’s Bay Company and the colonial government. Agreements negotiated behind closed doors in Montreal or London could change their world overnight.

  When Jean-Jacques met up with Jacob at Red River this summer past, the old dray man had spat when Jean-Jacques asked if he had work for him.

  “Work, sure. But pay? No one knows from Tuesday to Saturday who’s in charge. Old Rupert’s Land might belong to anyone this time next year. The country’s goin’ to hell in a handbasket, if ya ask me.”

  Jean-Jacques knew that, independent as they were, whatever happened elsewhere affected all the people of the plains. War to the south. Epidemics in the west. Worry and uneasiness in the east. It would all reach the Saskatchewan eventually. When it did, he wanted to be there to make sure Virginie and Pierre were alright. Without wife or child to distract him, his attachment to them was still as strong, and as unspoken, as when he’d been a boy.

  But their cabin was too small to hold him for long.

  “Mama, I saw Gabriel this afternoon,” he said, kicking the snow from the door’s sill before closing it. “He’s just come from Carlton, has a packet to take to Fort Edmonton. I think I’ll go with him.”

  Virginie shook her head, looking up from her stitching to smile knowingly at him.

  “I wondered how long you would last here, you, our wanderer! You are like my brother. Always planning another hunt or adventure.”

  Jean-Jacques grinned back at her, pleased as always when she compared him to his favourite uncle. People still told stories of his uncle’s feats while leader of the young men’s warrior society two decades ago.

  Of course, Jean-Jacques had been involved in more than a few skirmishes himself, any wagoner on the plains had to be ready to fight. Who else was there to protect your car
t and goods? But it was one thing to defend yourself and your property, quite another to invite violence purely to earn prestige and honour. He’d often felt a little twinge of envy, hearing about exploits of the warrior societies. There was nothing in his world to quite match that.

  But a mid-winter adventure with his old friend Gabriel was the next best thing. That evening, as they tied the last bundles to their sled, he remarked, “Hey, Gabriel, remember the first time we headed off on a sledding trip?”

  Gabriel laughed. “Don’t worry, I’ve learned a few things since then.”

  He and Jean-Jacques would do the first leg of the trip by moonlight. The night was still, the sky clear, the moon full. Frozen leafless branches cast sharp blue shadows on snowbanks gleaming pale in the moonlight, the firm surface crust snapping beneath their leather-clad feet. The dogs, anchored in their traces, yipped and hopped in anticipation. It was, as Jean-Jacques repeated once again, “A grand night for a run.” Gabriel grinned indulgently. Employed by the HBC to carry gear or mail between posts, he made this run too often to think anything other than a blinding blizzard or incapacitating January thaw as worthy of comment.

  They stopped for an hour’s rest sometime after midnight. Then, once more on the trail, their sleds hissed over ice crystals as the moon sank and northern lights pulsed into brilliance overhead. A pack of wolves materialized out of the forest dimness, ran alongside their sleds for a few minutes, then silently melted back into the gloom.

  In the cold of dawn, they made camp, and, like their dogs, curled into their furs close to the fire. The short daylight hours passed in the familiar rhythm of run, eat, rest, run again.

  Late in the afternoon, Jean-Jacques’s lead dog pricked her ears and leaned with renewed energy into her traces.

  “Someone else out on the trail,” Gabriel called from behind him.

  They had been following the frozen river for several hours and were not surprised to cross paths with other winter travellers. Soon they smelled wood smoke. Both men slowed their teams and loosened a weapon, Jean-Jacques a hatchet, Gabriel a standard issue Bay Company musket, before continuing.

  Jean-Jacques laughed out loud when they rounded a bend and came upon the camp. He recognized the voice that greeted them, even before Maskepetoon rose from a knot of figures resting by the fire. The old chief was greyer and leaner than when he had last seen him, with Palliser’s group at Fort Carlton more than seven years earlier. But his dark eyes were as keen, his voice as strong, his words of welcome as sincere as ever. Somehow, all the scarcely acknowledged anxiety of previous months melted away as Jean-Jacques and Gabriel accepted the mugs of tea offered them.

  Gabriel joined a small group watching a game of chance between two serious gamblers, while Jean-Jacques sat down beside the old chief, elbows on his knees, warming his hands on a tin tea mug.

  He wanted to ask, Why are you out on the trail instead of in your winter camp? What mission are you on this time? But a direct question would be rude. Instead he commented, looking down at the packed snow, “It has been long since I last saw you, old friend.”

  “Yes, many years. But I have heard tales of your travels from that rascal Jacob. And my heart is glad to see you again.” Maskepetoon’s face crinkled in a slow smile. “I think you may even have been sent by God to help me.”

  Jean-Jacques looked up. Had he ever before heard the old chief speak of God? Not that he could recall. Except for that time so long ago, when he lay with throbbing head, eavesdropping on the Cree’s conversation with the picture-man Kane. Maskepetoon had told a story of a man who had chosen the white man’s God but regretted it when he reached their heaven. His spirit grew sad, and he begged to be allowed to return and choose again.

  “I have not been idle all these years, Jean-Jacques,” continued Maskepetoon, in his low Cree tone. “God has given me a work to do, and I have done it as I’ve been able.”

  “Do you mean your work as Peacemaker? Or as leader of your people?” asked Jean-Jacques.

  “Both.”

  “But I did not hear you call it ‘God’s work’ when you got the Blackfoot to make peace with the Cree all those years ago, or when you went to council with the Americans in the Judith Basin,” Jean-Jacques protested. Maybe Maskepetoon is not the man I thought he was. Maybe he is not so brave or clever, maybe he is just another mouthpiece for the Bay Company and their preachers, who don’t like war because it disrupts business.

  Suddenly Jean-Jacques was aware that he was cold and very tired.

  “Maybe I did not know it myself, in those years,” replied Maskepetoon thoughtfully. “I did the only true thing I could do. None of my people seemed to understand how strong the white man’s world was, how far it reached. I did what I could to tie a cord between Blackfoot and Cree so we might understand each other. And fight as brothers against the English and Americans and other white tribes.” He shook his head. “But now my eyes look back over the trails I have followed, and I see God was pushing me here, chasing me there, calling me over the next hill or around the next bend of the river. In the thirst dance, God told me I was weak and useless without him. I threw myself on his mercy, as all great warriors must do. Then I met him again in the white man’s God.”

  “But,” Jean-Jacques protested feebly, “but you said — I heard you! I was just a boy, but I recall your words. ‘I will not follow the white man’s god until all the preachers agree with each other!’”

  “Yes, I remember talking with the man Kane. I was not as old and wise as I am now. Jean-Jacques, don’t you see? God is everywhere. Bigger than this land, bigger than my people or your people, bigger than all the whites with all their toys piled together. He led me when I did not know Him. It was His voice that spoke to me in the tortures of the thirst dance, when I suffered before the Great Spirit to make my warrior spirit strong. He told me I must become Bras Casse, the One Whose Arm is Broken. To become Peacemaker, I had to become weak. To let God work through me.”

  His voice had sunk almost to a whisper, then was silent for so long that Jean-Jacques wondered if the old chief had forgotten he was not alone. A few minutes passed, the voices of Maskepetoon’s friends and Gabriel scarcely penetrating the profound silence that enveloped the two seated by the fire.

  “Never will the white god-preachers all agree, I know that now. They are just men., no wiser than you or me. But some — you will meet them tomorrow, if you stay with me — speak truth. And this I know. As I let my fighting arm grow weak, God has put a strong spirit in me to work for my people, for my land. I do not know why He did this, or how this will end. All I can do is what He has put in my heart to do.”

  The group watching the gambling game dispersed as the pair of gamblers settled their debts. Gabriel came over to squat beside Jean-Jacques, exchanged a few friendly words with Maskepetoon, and then straightened up as he laid his mittened hand on Jean-Jacques’s shoulder.

  “We must be on our way. We still have two days journey to the Edmonton post.”

  “Go on without me, Gabby,” said Jean-Jacques, “I’ll try to catch up with you on your return trip. I need to go with Bras Casse.”

  The next day, just before noon, as Maskepetoon predicted, the friends he had summoned from their mission house north of Fort Edmonton caught up with them.

  “George Mac-Doug-al, welcome!” Maskepetoon’s rich slow Cree voice boomed across the snowy expanse.

  Jean-Jacques stood beside Maskepetoon as the chief introduced him to the Methodist missionary George McDougall and his son John. The third member of their party was a welcome surprise to Jean-Jacques. Peter Erasmus, a Danish-Cree country-born, had been Jean-Jacques’ favorite companion during the few weeks he had traveled with Palliser’s expedition.

  “Peter! I didn’t think to see you again. Did not M’sieu the doctor take you with him, across the big water, overseas?”

  “Not so, my friend,” Peter rubbed his scraggly-bearded chin. “It was more than enough to travel across the mountains with them. Dr. Hector o
ffered to pay my passage to Britain, but I was not inclined to become just another interesting specimen added to his collection.”

  “But it seems you are still comfortable among the Anglais,” remarked Jean-Jacques, with a meaningful nod towards the McDougalls, deep in conversation with the old chief.

  “Ah, these are different. I have never met such people. At school in Red River, you know, I saw that the country-born with English-speaking fathers looked down upon those whose fathers spoke French or Michi, or other strange ducks like me, whose fathers spoke some language they’d never heard before. And everyone preferred their own kind over the Cree, Assiniboine, Saulteaux or any other. And would sell their best friend for preferment with the Company bigwigs!”

  Peter looked past Jean-Jacques to the McDougalls and Maskepetoon. “Just look at them. You would think they were one family. Maskepetoon speaks of John as his son. Reverend McDougall calls Maskepetoon brother and refers to him as ‘that Godly man.’ And he means it. Believe me, he wouldn’t come two days journey, leaving his wife and the girls alone, for anyone else but Maskepetoon.”

  “Mais oui,” replied Jean-Jacques, “All very well. So, they came when he called for them. But why? Why are they here? Why did you come? I know nothing!”

  Peter Erasmus threw back his head and laughed out loud. “I thought you had come for the adventure. You didn’t know? We leave today for a Blackfoot winter camp on the Battle River. Maskepetoon wants witnesses, representatives of his Cree band and the English, to give backing to new peace treaty with the entire Blackfoot confederacy.”

  “What? He has got them to agree to another peace treaty?”

  “Not yet, Jean-Jacques,” grinned Peter. “We are going to MAKE a peace treaty with them. Let’s just hope they’ll agree.”

  Chapter Twenty

  With prairie plants, what you see is only a part of what you get. Up to 90% of the weight of prairie grass is below ground in the root system, storing carbon, water, energy. Western wheat grass roots commonly descend at least 1.2 meters. Gabriellas’ Prairie Notes