Song of Batoche

by Maia Caron

  There was a loud cheer and bugling from the village. “There are still English to kill.”

  “Promise me you’ll escape.”

  “We’ll go together.”

  Marguerite had come around the bend of the road with their youngest daughter on her hip, and Riel looked back at her. The skin around his eyes twitched. “Gabriel, you will be pardoned by both God and men.”

  Gabriel’s fingers felt numb on his gun stock. Riel meant to surrender. Alone. “Did you know we would lose?” Riel didn’t answer. He had already retreated to some dark place, and in a moment he turned and walked quickly away. Gabriel called after him. “Do not let that be the last words I say to you.”

  Riel paused to adjust the hold on his son and lifted his hand in a strange kind of salute before continuing up the old road. He caught up to his wife and they disappeared out of sight.

  Gabriel choked back his rage and disbelief. When all this was over, he’d find Riel, convince him to escape. Shots still came from the direction of the village, and he forced himself into a loping run. He wanted to hold the English off a little longer so the women and Riel could get away. In the small aspens bordering Champagne’s hayfields, he came across Moise Ouellette and Charles Thomas. Moise had a rosary in one hand, gun in the other.

  “We thought you were dead,” Thomas cried. “Where is Riel? Did he say that we’re going to win?”

  “What are you talking about?” said Ouellette. “Haven’t you noticed we’re running away like rabbits?”

  They told him that soldiers had swarmed the village, and the men left in the gully had escaped. Riel was right. What good would it do for more to die?

  “I just saw him,” Gabriel said. “He wants us to run.”

  The men stared at him, confounded. The looks on their faces were what he would remember months later when he heard that Riel had been hanged for treason.

  an attack of resolute

  whites, properly led

  Near the ferry crossing, twenty women crouched with their children in the willow bushes beside an old cow trail. Smoke still hung in the air over the river, acrid and stinging their nostrils. The children did not have to be told to remain quiet and disclose their presence to soldiers in the village, who were celebrating the English victory with shouts and short bursts of gunfire.

  Josette was on her knees, holding Wahsis in one arm, the other around Eulalie. Cleophile huddled close by with Patrice. After leaving the village, Madeleine had suffered a debilitating coughing fit and Josette would not abandon her. Many of the women had disappeared along the trail, but those with sick children—and Virginie Tourond, a new bibi in her arms—had also lagged behind. A few, like Marguerite Caron, were among them, slowed by age or advanced states of pregnancy. Several of the younger mothers were whimpering their fears that the English would rape them. Eulalie buried her head in Josette’s shoulder.

  “Hush,” Henriette Parenteau said from somewhere behind them. “The soldiers are up there getting drunk on our whiskey.”

  “They won’t think to look down here,” said Josette to her children. “And find us so close.”

  Cleophile whispered, “Did Alexandre bury the council papers?”

  Madeleine, who had been in a bush across from them, scrambled out onto the cow trail, as if she meant to look for him, when a loud cheer came from the village.

  “Men, you are to be congratulated,” a man shouted over the din, his English accent distinctly cultured. “Indeed, you are to be celebrated.”

  More cheers went up following this pronouncement, and women whispered from close by. “Josette. What does he say?”

  “It’s Middleton,” she told them, “praising his troops.”

  “You have made me the happiest man in Canada to be at your head,” the general continued. “Your gallantry will be remembered. This day’s victory proves the correctness of my opinion that these great hunters, like the Boers of South Africa, are only formidable when you play their games—bush fighting—to which they are accustomed. They cannot stand a determined charge.”

  When Josette related this as best she could to the women, a few of them began to mutter with worry over their men. Had they been killed, or taken prisoner? Josette looked dazedly across the river. Gabriel had said he would not let himself be taken. Despite putting himself in the heat of battle, hoping to die, Norbert had surely managed to escape while other men stood to the last in the pits.

  The general was speaking again, and Josette closed her eyes to hear better.

  “There is Prince Albert to secure then we must catch these troublesome Indians,” he cried. “Big Bear and Poundmaker, who have doubtless heard already of Riel’s defeat and pointed themselves in another direction entirely. What say we give them a good drubbing?”

  Josette was saved from translating this disturbing message when a single shot went over their heads and into the village—sniper fire from the direction of the west bank of the river. Several of the women stood to see if it was one of their men.

  Josette could hear the general add something in a blustering tone, as if to prove that he was undaunted to remain a target of rebel guns.

  “What is it?” Madeleine asked her.

  Josette hesitated a moment before answering. “He says Gabriel and Riel are already across the river.”

  There was a commotion above on the bluff. Alexandre and Pierre Parenteau leapt bushes straight down the bank toward them, a group of soldiers following close behind. Alex and Pierre were only yards from the women when the soldiers caught them. Parenteau let go of the council papers and an officer chased around the bushes, snatching them up. Expressions on the soldiers’ faces changed from surprise to resentful curiosity to find families of the men they’d just been fighting hiding so close to the village.

  The priests and nuns had ventured out from the rectory and stood in a tight group, peering over the bluff. They seemed unsure whether they should join the victors or the defeated.

  Madeleine tore forward, screaming in French that her son had not been in the fight. She stopped only when one of the soldiers warned her away with his rifle, the knife fixed to its end hovering dangerously close to her face. He turned to shove Pierre hard with the butt of the gun, and the old man fell backward, his hat falling off. Wahsis had begun to cry. Josette picked him up to shield him from the sight.

  Breaking away from the priests, Father Vegreville came down the riverbank trail, shouting in his bad English, “The boy was not with Riel—and that man is old. He cannot be held.”

  The officer motioned for Alexandre to be let go, but said to Pierre, “Too old to fight, but not too old to bury the evidence. You are under arrest for high treason.”

  When Pierre was led away, Judith Dumont muttered, “Bon Dieu va vous écraser.”

  The officer turned to his men with a smile. “Doesn’t sound like any kind of French I’ve heard. Anyone know what she said?”

  “God will crush you,” Josette replied in English.

  The officer received the threat with a derisive laugh. “If God wished to crush us, Madame, He would already have done so.”

  “Des beaux bonhommes,” added Marguerite Caron. Fine men you are. But even she was cowed by a group of soldiers from the same regiment, who were coming along the riverbank from the south, blood smeared on their uniform jackets.

  One approached La Rose and Mary-Jane Ouellette. “The women are better looking than their men,” he said, grinning around at his friends. “A pity we can’t take the soldier’s reward.”

  “Dusky things,” said another, “pretty in their way.” He reached behind La Rose, yanking at the tightly wound knot at the back of her head. It finally released and her long black hair fell down to her waist. “It’s said they’re like animals in bed. I’d like a go at this one.”

  The officer overheard this and ordered the men back to their unit. He turned to Josette and told her the women had to remain in camp until their men came in. He started up the trail, and the women filed back to
their dugouts on the riverbank to salvage what they could from the camp. Josette followed behind Madeleine, who was suffering another bout of coughing. When Middleton had said that Gabriel and Riel were already across the river, he’d added something that she did not think Madeleine needed to know.

  “Tomorrow we will hunt them out.”

  spoils of war

  Madeleine bent to the ashes of a cooking fire in the riverbank camp to retrieve a small pan that had not been melted down for ammunition. Alexandre, still shaken by his ordeal with the soldiers, stood looking around at the damage done during the last four days, the tents in disarray, half of them down. At least she still had him. She scanned the trees along the west bank. Storm clouds had gathered and it was raining far to the east, a dark haze that poured veiled mist to the earth. Gabriel, across the river. She could feel his eyes on them.

  Madeleine eyed Josette, grubbing with her children in the remains of their dugout, gathering blankets and clothes. She seemed to desperately search for something and fell upon what looked like a book, tucking it quickly into a saddlebag.

  When Gabriel had wept in Madeleine’s arms on the eve of the battle, she suspected that some of it had been guilt for daring—with an ill wife—to look at another woman. But she could not forget Father Moulin when she’d gone to seek Gabriel’s absolution, the priest wishing to remember him as the good man who had brought Josette in, broken from Norbert’s beating. Josette had told her a story of how she had received the cut on her lip, a black eye. Norbert had punished her and she had managed to escape. Both she and Gabriel had neglected to mention that it was he who had saved her. Madeleine could understand Josette lying, but not Gabriel. Why hadn’t he told her?

  Because his rescue of Josette had been an act of love.

  It was no wonder the girl kept looking at the other bank, even now, yearning for a glimpse of him. The great Métis buffalo hunter had charged in like a knight on a white horse to protect her from harm. What woman could resist? There was the issue, the impending certainty of her own death within the year. Maybe sooner. She would not begrudge Gabriel marrying again. But she was not dead yet.

  Another group of soldiers appeared on the bluff above and descended the trail, their tall boots kicking up mud. One of them, an officer by the looks of his uniform, had noticed Josette’s saddlebag and shouted, “All supplies are to be requisitioned.” There followed a brief scuffle as one of his men decided he would take the bag, but she held on to it, scratching and kicking.

  “Let her have it,” said the officer. “The squaws are harmless. It’s their husbands we want.” He took her chin in his gloved hand. “You are pretty enough to be the wife of Louis Riel.”

  Josette said nothing, only stared insolently into his face. When the other women ranged away, trying not to attract attention, Madeleine glanced across the river.

  Gabriel, do not be reckless.

  The officer laughed. “What of Gabriel Dumont’s wife? Is she here? If any of you give up the wives of these two men, you will receive provisions for a year.” When he got no answer, he released his hold on Josette.

  Sudden screams came from Marie Boyer, who had found her husband Isidore lying face down under their tipi cloth. A soldier drew his revolver and another lifted Boyer by his arms. But he was dead, blood staining his shirt and coat. Sometime during the last charge, another Métis had brought him down here, wounded, out of the line of fire. Boyer had staggered to the dugout his family had shared, almost tearing down the cloth in an attempt to crawl inside. He had died with his hand twisted in the fur of an old buffalo hide.

  Marie had drawn his head up on her lap, stroking his hair back from his forehead. Her young children stood around, staring dumbly, not yet understanding that their father was dead. Madeleine turned away, appalled. The soldiers rooted in the dugouts for a few minutes, decided there was nothing of value there, and trudged back up the trail. Josette, still clinging to the saddlebag with one hand, gave Wahsis into Cleophile’s arms. The girl was pale, devastated by the death and dying all around her and by her mother’s neglect, yet Josette continued to use her as a p’tite mère. With her luck, Norbert had survived this war when better men had not. That was how Riel’s God worked.

  It had begun to rain. Madeleine went up the riverbank with Alexandre, only to find that some of the women had followed the priests back to the rectory. Mounted soldiers had chased down a herd of the Métis cattle and were shooting them for sport. Alexandre took a step forward, as though he might stop them. Madeleine put a hand on his arm, urging him to search for provisions in a wagon that had been left near the rectory gate. When he looked inside, he shook his head and turned away.

  Heart in her mouth, she glanced in, only to find the body of old Joseph Ouellette, the front of his coat soaked red with blood. Rain was falling on his ancient face, which still wore an expression of surprise and regret. “Ninety-three years on this earth,” she said. “And he ends like this.”

  Alex had just covered Joseph with one of their blankets and said a prayer over his body, when Father Fourmond came away from the ruins of the Caron and Gareau houses on the ridge. He broke into a trot when he saw them, holding up the length of his soutane. “Two more of your men have been found,” he said, gesturing behind him. “Their wives must claim the bodies, so they can be buried with the others.”

  A group of officers had set up a table near the church, behind which Father Vegreville sat in an officious manner. Josette had come up from the riverbank camp. “What goes on there?” she demanded of Fourmond. “Métis lie around us dead, and the priests are all at once thick with les Anglais.”

  “Riel’s council documents are being checked,” he said. “When your men come in to surrender, any whose name is on those lists will be brought to justice.” He noticed the Ouellette girls crying near the wagon and patted Mary-Jane on the back. “Your grandfather will have his own coffin—he will receive the last rites.”

  “And the others?” asked Josette. “What will they receive?”

  Fourmond’s eyes rose to meet hers. “They will be buried together.”

  “In a hole!”

  “They were excommunicated for following Riel.”

  She pointed at him, an accusing finger. “Your throat is an open grave,” she said. “The venom of asps is under your lips.”

  Fourmond stalked away. Madeleine expected the women to rail against Josette for using scripture to accuse their priests, but even a few of the Old Crows seemed to have attached themselves to her, as if she were the only one with courage to say what was on their own minds. Madeleine overheard them talk among themselves, of how they might escape along the river after dark.

  Other women had gone out on the meadow between the church and Jean Caron’s burned-out house and stood around the dead bodies that had been found. A few of them wept and turned away, as if they could not stand the sight. Alexandre, in the way of boys, was curious and Madeleine let him go.

  Domatilde Gravelle had just come from there, a handkerchief over her mouth. She whispered to Madeleine, “Keep Marie Carrière and her children away.”

  Marie was Damase Carrière’s wife, one of Gabriel and Riel’s finest scouts. Madeleine could not resist venturing out to see. The rain had stopped by the time she arrived, and as the women parted to give way for her, she saw the two bodies on the ground. Damase lay on his back, head at an unnatural angle, a rope buried tight in the flesh of his neck. The other man had come to rest face down, rope still tied around broad shoulders, which were dislocated forward in a kind of supplication. Prairie grass had been trampled all around, the mud thick here, as though a herd of horses had passed.

  Both men’s clothes had been ripped in places, the skin showing through almost raw, as if burned by fire. Flies had already collected on the wounds. Madeleine pitied the woman who must find her husband like this.

  The women did not have the courage to move the other body, so Alexandre and one of the boys pulled it from the mud. When they turned it over, Madelein
e stared down in horror at a face she had seen a million times, and knew by heart.

  Norbert.

  those who are eaten

  The next evening at dusk, Louis Riel searched the barn for eggs that he could bring to his family. He had come out from a day of hiding in the root cellar under the abandoned house of an Anglais half-breed near St. Laurent. It had finally dawned on him that Marguerite’s persistent cough had a more disturbing cause than drafts or dust. Both children were ill, as well—Angélique was anemic, too weak to cry and Jean sat staring at nothing, saying only that he was hungry, could they get more to eat. Riel felt through a haystack, his fingers finally closing around an egg, smooth and warm in his palm. He held it up to the last light filtering in the door. Now the earth was formless and empty, darkness was over the surface of the deep.

  Moise Ouellette had found him this morning with a letter from Middleton. Riel had almost memorized the words, but he took it from his pocket again to read in the fading light.

  I am ready to receive you and your council and protect you until your case has been decided upon by the Dominion Government.

  Riel had sent Moise back with a note of his own, telling the general that his council was dispersed, and that he wished the government would let them go quiet and free. But no answer had come. Middleton would not leave until he had captured Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont.

  Moise had said the Métis were angry with him for destroying their lives and families. The same men who had invited him here, pledging to fight to their last drop of blood. Moise had admitted that Gabriel was searching the woods, trying to find him. “Do not tell him I am here,” Riel said, remembering the look on his war chief’s face on the trail yesterday, begging him not to surrender. Gabriel had asked a question that might have been on his lips since the first day of battle: Did you know we would lose?

  Riel hesitated in the doorway of the barn. Last night, he had been haunted by a dream where the angel of divine mercy had chanted, “Riel! Thirty years of Purgatory.” Desperate to mortify himself, he had come out in the dark to kneel in a horse stall, praying, weeping, the chalice of his spirit drained. But anger had slowly replaced his despair and he had emerged an hour later, convinced that by surrendering and standing trial in Quebec, with good lawyers, he could win the case for the Métis and Indians of the North-West.