by Maia Caron
He drove his horse forward and into the shoulder of Little Ghost’s pinto pony—so close he could smell the charcoal the boy had used in his face paint. “Send two of your fastest riders,” he said under his breath. “Find the white chief’s camp.”
Little Ghost turned and spoke to his men. In a moment, a few of them broke off in a gallop to the south.
As Riel finished his prayer, a rider approached through the trees behind them. It was Emmanuel Champagne, who had ridden hard from Batoche. In a rush, he told Gabriel that one of the scouts on the trail to Prince Albert had seen police coming south. Gabriel and Riel trotted a short way off, and after a hurried discussion, Riel reluctantly agreed to return to Batoche with fifty men to supplement those they had left behind to protect the women and children.
Gabriel hand-picked men to return who he knew did not want to fight and arranged for his younger brother to lead the group back. Then he edged his horse away, eager to be off. He did not want to seem too grateful to have Riel go, but it would be a relief to finally operate the ambush his way.
“I will pray for you in Batoche,” Riel said, “as Sitting Bull made medicine for his warriors at the Little Bighorn.” Gabriel nodded but before Riel went to join the return party, he added, “You will not harm les Canadiens.”
It was more of a warning than a statement, Gabriel thought as he wheeled his horse.
“Have faith,” Riel called after him, “that God will deliver the Philistines to your hands. You will return in victory.”
But Gabriel had already given his horse free rein, and it broke into a gallop to clear the trees.
“Now we will make progress,” he said to the men who followed.
At five in the morning, they skirted a slough in the Touronds’ back pasture. Rain water had pooled in the field rows. The army of silent riders spread out across the plain, the horses’ hooves thick in the wet ground and their underbellies spattered black with mud. A lamp burned in the window of the farmhouse. As they passed, seven men rode out to join them. Riel had made much of recruiting the Tourond boys, for their late father—dead these past two years—had been with him in Red River when he had stepped on the surveyor’s chains. Gabriel could see that the brothers’ arrival emboldened the men. For the second time that night, he gave thanks that Riel was not present; he would most likely stop their march again and say a prayer to the Spirit of God.
The dawn sky had lightened as Gabriel, Michel Dumas, and Jérôme Henry left the main group and skirted the northern edge of a nearby coulee. A prairie chicken flew up before them from the newly sprouted grass in a burst of wings and frantic calls.
Michel Dumas studied the terrain. “Les Anglais are on the trail by now.”
Gabriel nodded. “Oui, but how far?” When Little Ghost’s men had not returned, Gabriel presumed they’d deserted, so he’d sent Patrice Bréland down there with a good horse. But he worried that Middleton had heard of their plans for ambush and captured the scouts he had sent to find the camp. There was another possibility. The Sioux had found Middleton’s column, and the sheer size of it had brought back memories of being hunted and driven from their lands for daring to raise arms against the whites. He looked back at Lean Crow and Little Ghost, who were circling their horses with the rest of the Sioux, singing war songs. At least they had remained. For how long? Revenge was one thing, but this was not their fight.
A faint crescent of Frog Moon hung low on the horizon. The Humboldt Trail twisted down the south side of the coulee between leafless trees and thickets and disappeared behind six-foot-high banks of scrub willow and small poplar. Gabriel could almost hear Fish Creek running in the dark, covered by a small bridge the Métis called Tourond’s Crossing. The trail then reappeared, climbing a gradual slope to where they stood. Gabriel directed his horse into the wind that brought a powerful musk scent of wet ground and rotting leaves from last year’s fall.
Word came that a rider approached and Bréland rode in, his horse in a lather. “Middleton’s column is on the trail.”
“How far?”
“Two miles.”
Gabriel turned to spit, and to hide his frustration. He spurred his horse down the north bank and through the creek. Tourond’s Crossing. It would happen here then. No better place for an ambush than a great depression in the earth, the southwest and southeast faces pitched wide. Middleton’s column would march down the trail, and the Métis would lie in wait among the bushes and the trees and a low bluff on the east face. The north lip of the coulee opened to prairie where the Tourond farmhouse and stables were placed to provide cover or retreat.
Run them like buffalo through the pounds.
Jérôme Henry gestured at the coulee with his chin. “The ground is good, non? Half of Middleton’s army across the river and his ‘crack shots’ over here.”
The ground was not just good, it was perfect. The coulee was a natural buffalo pound—one way to come in, one way to get out. Long ago, before the arrival of horse and gun, the Indians drove herds toward a cliff or butte, where the jump would kill the buffalo or they could easily be shot with bow, arrow and spear. But sometimes you found a herd on land that offered a narrow passageway through trees or rock, a pound to trap as many animals as possible with the least effort. You could steer them to that natural chute and assemble them for the kill.
The sun was not yet visible, but the sky above the eastern horizon was streaked with clouds the colour of fire. Gabriel rose in his stirrups, calling to the Métis. Within minutes, they had left their horses tied to the small poplars in the north edge of the coulee and began to dig rifle pits in the bush along the creek, using their knives to burrow holes beside trees and then hacking at branches to form a shooting screen.
As they worked, Gabriel rode up the south bank and yelled down. “The soldiers will descend toward us on the trail. Do not fire until they have gone past you.”
Daniel Charette stood in the creek, where he’d rolled a few boulders to create a barricade. “We will squeeze down here then,” he said with a laugh. “Like pigs in a ditch.”
“Oui,” Gabriel cried. “The strongest at the bottom.”
Sioux warriors thought it beneath them to hide in holes and had positioned themselves above the low bluff. The Métis found perfect spots to rest the barrels of their rifles. Nobody spoke. The only sound was the swollen gurgle of the creek and the odd wakening bird. Gabriel and his twenty capitaines rode out through the trees that skirted the trail. Without warning, Alexandre appeared beside him. The boy had sneaked away despite Madeleine’s worry, but it was too late to send him back. The men took off their coats, as they would before riding out on a buffalo hunt, and draped them over their saddles, the horses blowing and pulling at their bits for enough rein to crop grass.
Gabriel turned his mare, intending to make for the top of the ridge when his quick eye caught the movement of brush four hundred yards to the west. A lone rider came along the creek, the green and red and yellow stripes of his Hudson’s Bay capote visible through the trees. Gabriel regarded him with bile rising in his throat. An Anglais half-breed working for the enemy. The scout held his reins in one hand, rifle cocked in the other. The sky rapidly darkened as great clouds banked over their position. Gabriel had devised a code of bird calls to direct the men, and he gave one short whistle, the signal not to fire.
But behind them, another Anglais scout emerged from down the creek, and an Indian on the bluff could not resist a shot at him. The first scout wheeled and galloped, not seeing Gabriel and his men until too late. Several of them fired to take him down as quickly as possible. Clearly hit, he fell forward over the saddle horn, but kept his horse on a run, bursting past them up the bank and over the south lip of the coulee. Gabriel and his men thundered after him, riding through the crisscrossed tracing of smoke from their rifles.
Gabriel reined in his horse and stuck his head over the edge of the coulee. A confused first line of Middleton’s column had drawn up two hundred yards along the trail. The scout who
had been shot rode toward them and his horse stopped so suddenly, the man fell out of his saddle in front of one of Middleton’s officers, who looked up with outrage. Within seconds, Gabriel had registered the might of the Anglais army, winding back for over a mile. And across the river, the other half of Middleton’s field force, already called to a halt.
“Ah-hai,” he shouted and jerked his reins, sending his horse careening down the bank. His cry was taken up by the Indians and Métis. Blankets and coats flew out of the rifle pits. He had forgotten his head wound and now ran on pure instinct. He glanced back. Mounted soldiers had advanced to the edge of the coulee and looked down on them. A horn sounded and the soldiers lifted their rifles, but they did not bring the stocks tight against their shoulders and the guns bucked as they fired, throwing them off balance in their saddles. Gabriel rode like a fury, yelling at his men to get down.
Jean Caron junior’s black mare had been shot out from under him. After a panicked struggle, Caron freed himself from beneath the horse’s motionless body and rushed headlong down the hill. A young Sioux warrior foolishly got up in full view on the bluff and danced, singing his war songs. His brothers added their yips and cries, but soon pleaded with him to take cover. As he jumped down, he was shot in the back by a soldier on the ridge and fell with blood pouring from his mouth. Charles Trottier ran out to grab the Indian’s gun, horn, and shot bag and sprinted back to cover.
Gabriel looked around for Alexandre, and signalling him to keep close, headed toward the creek rifle pits. They dismounted, whipped their horses away, and ran, bent double, along the creek bed. Another horn went off up on the plain. The mounted men had withdrawn and foot soldiers rushed forward. They stood, some in red uniforms, some in dark green, like a herd of deer, silhouetted against the dawn sky.
“Hit them in the bunch,” Gabriel yelled in Cree. A deafening volley was let off from the bush around the creek. Several soldiers fell on the ridge, and the trumpet sounded again. More ran forward to replace those who had been shot, then cowered when faced with immediate fire. One soldier had been hit and pitched head first into the coulee. Gabriel lifted his rifle and waited for the horn to go off again. But the soldiers were no longer presenting themselves as targets, and he whistled twice, a signal for his men to conserve their ammunition and only shoot at a sure mark.
Baptiste Sansregret pulled both him and Alexandre into a rifle pit, just as a small group of soldiers were sent over the east side of the ravine under the cover of relentless sniper fire. The soldiers ran from tree to tree, the first few making it to the scrub thickets near the creek. The Métis who were in those rifle pits abandoned them in a hurry, running low in the creek bed and attracting fire from the ridge. Isidore Dumas jumped into Gabriel’s pit and knelt in the mud, four bullets arrayed in his mouth, loading and shooting as soldiers ran between the trees, a few spinning backward when bullets hit their mark. Isidore told him that Jérôme Henry had already been wounded up on the bluff, taking a shot in the back of his shoulder.
After the echo of the last barrage faded away, Gabriel would have liked to raise his head and see how many soldiers had made it down, but did not want what was left of his head blown off.
A voice yelled from somewhere in the thickets, “Is there lots of people?” Gabriel recognized it as Tom Hourie, another Anglais half-breed, who he had heard was Middleton’s Cree interpreter. “Don’t shoot,” Hourie said. “I will come to you.” Quiet again. “Why do you not answer?”
The men in Gabriel’s pit smirked at each other. “Hourie, bâtard,” they muttered under their breaths. A few aimed at the bushes, waiting for his face to appear. Gabriel thought of Bloody Knife, one of Custer’s Sioux scouts, and the first to die at the Little Bighorn. Hourie had balls coming down. If he was caught in the open, it would not go well for him.
More soldiers appeared on the east ridge, and a small group of Sioux warriors, forced to seek cover in the next pit, fired with precision, reloading with enviable speed. Gabriel levelled le Petit on his shoulder and joined them. After each shot, he threw himself down to earth, avoiding the savage fire in his direction, and when that fire had cooled, he ventured up again. His gun was soon empty, and he threw it to Alexandre, who handed him a freshly loaded repeater.
It began to rain. Gabriel’s head wound had opened up—he could feel the blood seeping through his bandage. “Cover your guns with blankets,” he called, cursing the old muzzleloaders. Now only those who owned single shot or repeater rifles could fire. He squinted through the downpour, shivering now and regretting the loss of his buffalo coat in the charge up the coulee.
From above came a sudden barrage of bullets fired with such intensity, the men around him dove into creek mud to escape the fusillade. A tree near him had its bark stripped in seconds, bullets ricocheting off the trunk. An officer on a white horse surged over the lip of the ravine and drove down the embankment, a look of terror on his face. He was closely followed by twenty soldiers yelling a foreign battle cry. Gabriel raised his rifle to shoot him out of the saddle, but the officer dismounted in a hurry and Gabriel missed, hitting the man behind him.
The army’s big cannon had been rolled to the southern lip of the coulee and was fired. But its aim was too high, and the shell hit the trees behind Gabriel’s pit. He emptied his rifle at those loading and reloading the cannon, aware that Métis to his left and right were crawling out of the pits. The soldiers tried to lower the barrel of the cannon. One grew frustrated and exposed himself in the task and a Métis sniper took him out. The next man was not so eager to replace him and the cannon was wheeled back.
Gabriel went hoarse from whistling. He looked around to find too many of his men running up the north end of the coulee. Some could be seen disappearing inside the Tourond farmhouse. How could he hope to win the battle with less than half his force in the creek, and maybe a dozen sniping in the bluffs? He cursed again, wishing that he had the extra men that had gone back with Riel. If Middleton hadn’t sent half his army across the river, he might launch a full-blown assault and discover there weren’t many Métis down here. Jérôme Henry had said the old man had taken three days to ferry his soldiers to the other side. He’d need at least the same amount of time to haul them back. Until then, it was five hundred to fifty.
Hourie again shouted from somewhere in the bushes. “Your relations are running away—you should surrender.” The soldiers and their officer were still hidden in the coulee. From within the bush, Gabriel sighted a few running through the trees, but could not get a clear shot. Where were the rest? He cursed when he realized that Hourie and the soldiers had dropped into the same east rifle pits his men had just abandoned.
He sent Basile Primeau to find a horse and ride to Batoche for reinforcements. “Send back any of our men that have run away,” he told him. Primeau left as another shell burst near them, shattering a boulder to dust and chunks of flying rock. A gunshot echoing too close to his head sent Gabriel diving for cover in a tangle of willow bush. Dozens of Métis rifles went off, and as he twisted sideways, he saw three soldiers fall.
An officer yelled, “Goddamnit move,” to one of his soldiers, who could be heard whimpering like a child. A Métis down the creek fired at the officer, and missed. Little Ghost charged out from the bluff yelling something in Sioux that the wind carried away. He ran from tree to tree, his rifle held close to his chest. Gabriel fumbled in his pocket for bullets and pressed a few into his gun’s magazine, looking up in time to spot the officer rise out of a rifle pit and aim a pistol directly at him. Little Ghost came up behind him and the man shouted, “My God, my God,” as both he and the Sioux fell back out of sight. A strangled cry and then nothing.
He heard one of the Métis yell, “Good, good, back down to earth, back down to earth.”
True what Jérôme had said: Middleton’s men were cowards, although Gabriel thought some were better shots than he’d been told. Judging their rifle pit too exposed, he and Alexandre retreated deeper into the bush. They listened as some of
the soldiers spoke French in a strange accent.
“These dogs, can’t we kill any of them?” one said from somewhere in the trees. Another replied, “We should rush them with our bayonets—” At that instant his voice was cut off, and a war whoop issued from Little Ghost.
There was a barked order from one of the officers that Gabriel did not understand, and a Métis yelled, “They’re going to run.” Soldiers bolted in a panic up the east slope of the ravine, flushed out like rabbits. A flurry of Métis rifle shots found them as they scrabbled and clutched at any rock or tree that would get them back sooner. One of them, wearing a red uniform, was carrying a buffalo coat that Gabriel recognized as his own. He sighted carefully and shot the man, whose body fell backward, letting go of the coat.
“Do not tell Riel we are harming his Canadiens,” he said to Alexandre.
After the last soldier had disappeared, the Métis cheered and someone began to sing Pierre Falcon’s song from Red River.
“They could not move those horseless cavaliers
You should have seen those Englishmen—
Bois-Brûlé chasing them, chasing them!”
A few war cries followed from the Sioux and then an ominous quiet. Ignace Poitras and a dozen other Métis who had deserted, straggled back down through the trees at the north side of the coulee. When they were close, Ignace yelled over to him. “We thought the ambush was rien, nothing, and that we should go back to Batoche.”
Gabriel refused to look at him. The sky had blackened and rain turned to sleet. He powered backward through the willow scrags and found himself alone in a small clearing near the creek. He propped his gun against his knee, thought of removing his slouch hat. It protected his wound, but was now sodden and heavy.
