Song of Batoche

by Maia Caron

  “He should take another woman,” she said bitterly.

  Moulin shook his head, searching for the right words to help her find the strength to live as a good Catholic wife. “David said in the Psalm: Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord.”

  “If I become pregnant again, I’ll die.”

  She looked so miserable, he was tempted to pat her hand but thought better of it. “If it be so you should die in childbed, that is God’s will.”

  “You sound like one of the Old Crows.”

  Moulin bristled. The pious women judged her harshly, but she brought this on herself. A devout wife was the centre of the family. If her fear of God was not plain, she was regarded with suspicion, considered a threat. Rightly so. The half-breeds demanded strong hearts from their women. And the priests required a controlling influence over men who would rather be on the trail hunting than on their knees in church. It was rare for one of them to openly question divine authority; even Gabriel Dumont and some of his faithful scouts, who did not attend Mass regularly, were brought to heel by their wives.

  He started up the stairs to the chapel on the second floor of the rectory, with Josette following close behind. The church was a stone’s throw from the rectory, but the half-breeds did not like to wait until Sunday for him to hear their confessions. She sat in one of the chairs arranged in front of the table that served as a makeshift altar. Moulin dispensed five Paters and five Aves. Josette took out a rosary he recognized as Cleophile’s and knelt on the prayer bench. She began to whisper her penance, thumbing a bead each time she finished a verse. Her head was not bowed as deeply as he might like and she did not demonstrate true sorrow, but she was here at least. He hoped that one of the good women of Batoche had seen her come in and stay. They would soon have their heads together, trying to guess what sin was so grave that she begged God for forgiveness.

  Josette, her eyes closed, swayed on her knees and murmured in Cree, “Êha, êkâkîsimoyân.” Yes, I am praying.

  His blood boiled to hear her say this. She was one of the few women breeds in Batoche who still wore a painted hide bag at her waist, and he was certain it contained more than tobacco. Most likely an old buffalo bone or wolf claw, and a lock of her dead daughter’s hair. Pagan talismans to appease the spirits. She would not dare pray to them here! Moulin decided that if the women hadn’t seen her, he would let slip (perhaps when one of them came to confession of her own), that La Vieille had finally let God into her heart. The ensuing gossip would keep them from thinking too much on Riel.

  Josette had rushed through her rosary and sat with one eye open, observing him. He shot her a warning look, but she opened the other eye and gave him her full, uncomfortable stare. He had overheard a chance comment the other day—that Riel had called for Josette at the feast. Why? Obviously for her relation to Chief Big Bear.

  “Have you met the great man?” he asked. There was a distracted, secretive look on her face and her breathing seemed to slow. Sweat had broken out on her forehead. “Are you ill?”

  Her rosary dropped to the floor and he bent to pick it up. When he gave it to her, she took it with trembling fingers and said, “I am thinking of something I read in the Spinoza.”

  He shut his eyes. She knew he would not tolerate mention of that evil book, one she had told him about years ago, hoping that he, like the Red River priest who had given it to her, would enjoy discussion on the heretical subject matter. What had possessed a man of God to give his student a book written by a Jew bent on fouling scripture? He had been required to read the book himself in seminary, but all this talk of reason! The priests were meant to dismiss these books, not gift them to Indian children under their care.

  “That book,” he said. “A vile attack on divine revelation.”

  “We are revelation.”

  Father Moulin slapped his leg. “Heresy.”

  She inclined her head. “Spinoza said the essence of that thing which can be conceived as not existed does not involve existence. If God exists as an essence, where is he?”

  He was not an ignorant man, but this kind of thinking was impossible to follow. “God exists,” he heard himself say. “He watches over us every moment.”

  “He must have many things to do. What use is someone like me, a small woman, to Him?”

  Somehow, she had steered the conversation away from her wifely sin and Riel. He could almost see her with an apple in her hand, one that she had plucked from the tree of knowledge. He caught a small louse that had broken free of a seam in his soutane and crushed it deftly between his nubbed fingers. “What do you think of Riel?” he asked, observing her carefully.

  She got up, her shawl trailing from her hand. “I think nothing of him.” Her lips were pale, bloodless, the expression on her face one of contempt.

  “Riel wanted you at the feast,” he persevered. “Why?” Still she did not answer. It occurred to him that she might think Riel was a bad one. At least one of the breeds had seen his true nature. Moulin was now sitting on the edge of his chair. “We wouldn’t wish for him to do more harm than good.”

  “He has already done enough harm.”

  Moulin started. She was a puzzle. Why did she hate Riel? He did not trust Josette, but here was his chance. “The Bishop himself would put you in his prayers if you let us know what Riel plots behind our backs.”

  Josette looked down at him as if she were a queen and he a mere subject who dared insult her. “I might let you know—if you offer me an indulgence.”

  He was stunned, first that she had agreed and second, the presumption to plead for such a thing. She had never before confessed to him and yet here she was, a woman Riel wanted to see, who had agreed to spy on him for the Church. It felt as if he were about to make a deal with the devil, but he stood reluctantly and placed a hand upon her head, whispering a lesser indulgence.

  She smiled distractedly while receiving it, as if the blessing was for his benefit not hers. After he finished, she turned to the window. When he made a comment about looking forward to Riel’s presence at Mass on Sunday, she said she was tired of hearing about the man, and hurried off without so much as an à bientôt.

  He watched her slight form as she went across the meadow in front of the church and did not notice that one of his hands was at his mouth again, fingers creeping past his lips. Nolin and Clarke could be trusted to keep their counsel, not like this Jezebel.

  I might let you know.

  He bit at what was left of his nails. Josette could not possibly think her future sins were pardoned or that she had avoided hell by appealing to God’s eternal mercy. She was already in hell. Her fate was set.

  she is so

  That sunday, riel stepped into the church vestibule and shook Father Moulin’s hand. “I enjoyed your sermon, Père Moulin.” When the priest tried to pull his hand away, Riel used it to draw him closer. “‘Just as through the disobedience of the one man, the many were made sinners,’” he said with a smile. “Such a message for the day I am in your congregation.”

  Riel stared into Moulin’s pale blue eyes and thought he looked too much like one of his old teachers from the seminary in Montreal. Father Moulin raised his chin to meet his gaze, but blinked and looked away. “So also,” the priest managed, “through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous.”

  Riel masked his uneasiness with a laugh before moving outside. Christ had been hounded by priests during the three years He travelled preaching the Lord’s gospel. And He had also been betrayed by His disciples.

  Riel was still recovering from an unexpected blow to his pride. The Métis runner, whom Gabriel had dispatched before they had left Sun River, rode in yesterday from Manitoba, saying that André Nault and Ambroise Lépine would not come, but had pledged to send a delegation of Red River Métis to form a religious society of support for the cause. Riel did not want to hear of delegations and societies. He needed his old patriots now. He suspected they had been talked out of coming by Archbishop Taché an
d Father Ritchot, men of the cloth who had once been his trusted allies.

  New purpose shone in Riel like a flame. God was showing him that he was being tested by the clergy here and in Red River for a reason. He must finally prove his own abilities. These good Métis, his people, were being manipulated by the tyrant, Macdonald. They were at risk of losing their language and culture, driven from the promised land.

  He closed his eyes, entreating the Spirit who guided him. They will not agree to leave their church.

  Without hesitation, the answer came. Arouse their wonder.

  Clouds had gathered and there was an air of excitement among the parishioners. Months with no rain and their farms were scorched dry as a desert. It could just as quickly turn and pour for weeks, filling the brackish sloughs with alkaline water that would stink of rotting flesh and give their horses and cattle the scours. Yet in January, great sheets of snow would shift across the plains. Enough water for them all to drown in when it melted come spring.

  The country was uncommonly beautiful. A majestic bluff over the river, poplar and birch and willow ringing the small prairie meadows that pitched in rises and draws. The lots were staked in the old French seigneurial system, allowing each farmer access to the river. Beyond the whitewashed houses and neatly plowed fields, beyond the trees that shaped the borderland, flat prairie stretched to the horizon. Across the river, a few stores and more farms dotting the bank. Progress.

  A group of older Métis women surrounded his wife and children, and Riel used the moment to scan the parishioners who had come out of the church. Key to the Indians was Big Bear, the only chief who still clung to his freedom in the North-West. The only way to him was a woman who had so far proved elusive, but whose determined figure was heading out on the grassy meadow in front of the church and rectory with her children. Maxime Lépine had pointed out Josette Lavoie to him earlier, and when Father Moulin had droned on in his sermon, Riel observed her and her children in the row across from him. He had not been able to take his eyes from her profile as she stared down at a Bible, strands of dark hair escaping the knot at the back of her head. Maxime had told him that she was viewed as an outsider in the community because of her beauty and education. The men desired her and the women thought her too full of herself.

  When he had first heard that she was rebellious, often flouting the priest’s authority and dancing madly at the Métis celebrations, Riel had been dismayed. He hoped the woman he needed above all others here would be an exemplary Christian, a devoted wife and mother. But as he looked at Josette now, wind whipping her long skirts, he thought of Christ’s greatest disciple, the Magdalene, who had also been an outcast before Jesus brought her into His fold. God had showed him that he would find no better woman to fulfill this role. He thought of how the Magdalene might have appeared when Christ first saw her: wild hair and eyes tortured by sin, not unlike Josette Lavoie’s.

  Mary loved the Lord, who called her to a new life.

  Mary Magdalene, the lost rebel, had been with Jesus from the moment He cast out her demons, had accompanied Him throughout His ministry, and been at Golgotha when He was nailed to the cross. She was there when the other disciples ran away in fear. There to the end.

  A group of Métis from Duck Lake headed his way, but he held up his hand with a smile and called Josette’s name as he walked toward her through the prairie grass. She turned, and her expression gave way to a frown, which disturbed him. Surely, she would find him intimidating. He imagined that even white men, with their British ideals of beauty, must have given her a second look. He met her gaze and was stunned. Marie-Julie. The resemblance was there in Josette’s eyes, the colour of a cat’s, and in the look of them—both willful and tragic. He could not recall the happiness in his heart when he and his first love had signed a contract of marriage in Montreal, only the devastation that followed when her parents forbade the union. You will never marry a half-breed.

  Josette’s eyes also said that she would not tolerate a fool, and the old fear gripped him. “Gabriel tells me you are the granddaughter of Big Bear.” He waited, but Josette said nothing, and his glance lingered on the shadow of a bruise on her cheek. “I admire him for being the last Cree chief to take treaty.” Josette stared at her hands, which still held her Bible. Was she stubborn or simply shy? “Do you have influence with your grandfather?” he persevered. “Does he listen to you?”

  She waved her young sons away from her skirts and shot her daughters a look. The girls took their brothers off to the trees near the rectory, where other children were playing. “Influence?” she replied carefully. “He welcomes me to camp when I come in.”

  He smiled, relieved to hear her finally speak. “If you could talk to him—”

  Josette seemed taken aback. “Why?”

  “To support our petition.”

  “My father followed you in Red River and came to regret it,” she said with sullen reproach.

  “Who was your father?”

  She said his name and Riel’s stomach cramped violently. For a moment, he was back in one of his nightmares, the prairie around him disappearing, this woman, the parishioners, like ghosts haunting a deserted house and him alone there. After he had escaped Red River, some Métis had suffered at the hands of the soldiers sent by Macdonald to punish him. Of all the people that God could have chosen, why the daughter of one of these men?

  He looked up to find Josette looking at him strangely. “Papa suffered because of you—for what you did to Thomas Scott.”

  Thomas Scott. Riel resisted the urge to shout, what I did? Me? Images flew at him—Scott dragging Norbert Parisien to death behind a horse … Scott lunging from his prison cell as Riel passed. He could still feel the man’s fingers tight around his throat. His Métis guards saying, “Get rid of him, or we’ll murder him in the night.” Riel had agreed to form a tribunal, as they had in the days of the hunts, and the council had voted in favour of execution. It had been carried out the next morning. Riel had not voted, nor pulled the trigger, yet he would be blamed for Scott’s death for the rest of his days.

  Churchgoers had congregated in the meadow, visiting, but some were now close enough to hear this talk about Thomas Scott. Who else would condemn him? Riel took Josette by the elbow and steered her out of earshot. He feared losing his temper and turned to search for the figure of his wife, who still stood in front of the church. Marguerite was already looking at him, and although he was too far away to see her eyes, he imagined her kindness, was soothed by the thought of her soft hand on his brow.

  “I was forced to leave Red River,” he said, trying to keep the sting out of his voice. “And rode for my life—exiled and hunted by assassins.”

  She pulled her arm away and rubbed the place where his hand had been. “Papa was beaten to death on the riverbank by soldiers.”

  He stared down at his moccasins, prairie grass waving against his knees, and could feel his anger fade, only to be replaced by a kind of loneliness. It struck him that he and Josette were alike, some part of them regretful and tortured, dark with anguish. The way she stood there, wind blowing the strands of her hair. It would not be easy to convince her, but when she finally came to him, she would prove his closest ally.

  “Do you remember the names of the soldiers who killed your father?” he asked. “Were they arrested for their crime?” He did not like to think on his years at the insane asylum, locked in a barren room. His doctor had refused him a Bible, and he had sought comfort in the few books of poetry allowed to him. “Grief knits two hearts in closer bonds,” he muttered to himself, “than happiness ever can.”

  She gave him a curious look. “Lamartine.”

  Marvellous are thy works. A woman in this wilderness who knew of the French poet. He would not deny the miracle. Mention of poetry caused a profound change in her. She drifted closer, light in her eyes, and wanted to know if he’d brought any books from the Montana Territory. He heard himself confess to bringing too many and writing verse of his own. When he s
aw the look of wistful interest on her face, he asked if she wrote poetry.

  She smiled and said a shade cautiously that such a thing wasn’t possible without the use of paper. But her smile disappeared as quickly as it had come, and she broke away from him without ceremony or propriety, wading with bitter disdain through the grass.

  Riel could feel the people’s eyes on him, their judgement.

  And his undeniable need for her.

  mistahi-maskwa

  Marguerite riel was besieged by well-wishers after Mass, but it did not prevent her from keeping an eye on her husband, who watched Josette Lavoie stalk away from him out on the meadow. Louis, like all men, was not above noticing a pretty woman, but when his gaze had turned to Josette again and again during Mass, Marguerite’s heart had churned with resentment at Josette’s beauty, anger at Louis’ disrespect, and a kind of shame, too, for not being good enough to keep him from wanting better.

  After the service, she watched with a rising sense of dread as he went after Josette and spoke to her with surprising deference. It had been obvious by her insolent stance that she refused to give him the respect he was due. But there was a moment when Josette stepped closer to Louis, her hair blowing across her face.

  Her husband had stared back at Josette, obviously agitated, and Marguerite thought of the day, not two moons past, when the delegation from the North-West had arrived in Sun River. Louis had sat at the kitchen table long after supper, brooding over a letter they had brought. That night, he had woken out of a nightmare, speaking of his sacred cause and whispering scripture. His life and his blood. Would it come to that? The thought frightened her and she shifted Angélique on her hip, still feeling the ache in her back from the long wagon ride north.

  Louis now walked across the meadow toward her and the children, his hat in hand. He was a difficult man to understand in certain ways—ways of the mind—yet she yearned to protect him now as she did when he was taken by one of his fits, tested by God, and she would put out her hand or look at him and feel his struggle, his great effort pass through her.