The Englishman’s Boy

by Guy Vanderhaeghe

  Shorty’s story fared no better in the history books I consulted when I got back home to Canada. Searching them, I found a sentence here, a paragraph there. What I learned was little enough. For a brief time the Cypress Hills Massacre had its day in the sun; members of Parliament rose in the House, hotly denouncing the wolfers as American cutthroats, thieves, and renegades. Nobody seemed to mention that among them were Canadian cutthroats too.

  Those few paragraphs always pointed to one result of the massacre. The Canadian government formed the North West Mounted Police, sent it on a long, red-jacketed march into a vast territory, establishing claim to it. A mythic act of possession.

  Chance believed character didn’t count for much in history. But, looking at the river, I remind myself the map of the river is not the river itself. That hidden in it are deep, mysterious, submerged, and unpredictable currents. The characters of all those wolfers, Canadian and American, cast longer shadows than I had any inkling of that endless night in which McAdoo made his confession, crouched on a cot in a desolate bunkhouse, an old man reliving his pain and guilt thousands of miles from an obscure dot on the Saskatchewan prairie.

  Each night I stand at the back of my theatre, watch spectres and phantoms slide across the screen. The picture done, the audience gone, I lock the doors, go out into the night.

  But the past cannot be so easily dismissed. The faces of Rachel, Chance, and Fitz, of Wylie and of Shorty McAdoo, accompany me on my long walk home in the dark. I cross the black iron bridge, my limp a little worse each year, the water rushing underneath me in the darkness, pulling for the horizon.

  32

  Pushing hard, Fine Man and Broken Horn had driven the stolen horses a two-day ride to the northwest of the Cypress Hills, making for where their band waited, the band of Chief Talking Bird. Last night they had made camp in the trees near the river, hiding the horses from sight so they might approach their people with the sun on their faces, the horses they brought revealed in the best light of all, morning light.

  As dawn broke, they removed their travel-stained clothes, the moccasins worn thin by the long walk south, the shirts they had slept in for nine nights, the leggings cut to ribbons in scrambles over sharp rocks, the blanket breechcloths snagged and torn by wild rosebushes. Naked, they waded into the shallows of the river and washed in the cold water, scrubbing themselves with handfuls of sand while the mist rose like pipe-smoke all around them and the fish leapt for a taste of the sun.

  When they had cleansed themselves, they took up hand mirrors and paint. Fine Man divided his face with the strong colours of blood and the burned-out fire, his upper lip and everything above it red, his lower lip and everything below it black. While Broken Horn was daubing yellow stripes on his forearms to record his horse raids, Fine Man stared in the glass and pondered the blue horse which had led the rest of the ponies to give themselves up to the Assiniboine. As he did, the spots where the quicksilver backing of the glass had flaked away began to swirl in his eyes like falling snow. A sign. Quickly, he mixed a pot of white paint, held it to the nose of the roan horse, letting him smell it as he softly explained what he meant to do – dab his blue coat with white spots to make a picture of the night blizzard which four days ago had frozen the wolfers to the ground in sleep, hiding Fine Man and Broken Horn behind a spirit screen of whirling, blowing snow.

  As his forefinger gently swept down the neck of the horse, dotting it with white, Fine Man decided he must not ride the blue horse into camp. Better for the horse to move in freedom, as he pleased, like a winter storm.

  As he carefully placed each flake of snow on the chest, the ribs, the back of the winter horse, Fine Man’s mind was filling with the memory of how he had gone humbly to Strong Bull, the holy man, to ask him to beseech the One Above on Fine Man’s behalf when he sought the horses of his power-dream. To have such a man pray for you, to have him ride his horse among the lodges shouting out your name so the people would not forget you were alone and far away, was a good thing.

  It was not so very long ago that Strong Bull was the one the young men went to with the pipe, asking him to lead them on their raids. In his dreams, Strong Bull could see where horses would be found, see how enemies would be overcome. All the country between the Missouri and the Saskatchewan was contained in his mind, every bend in the rivers, every poplar bluff, every buffalo wallow. Four times he had received wounds from the Blackfoot that would have killed any other man. But so great was his medicine that when he painted the sun’s healing rays around his bleeding flesh, four times the One Above had taken pity on him, closed the bloody mouths of his wounds, restored him to health.

  Yet a time came when Strong Bull refused to carry the pipe. Many, like Broken Horn, said that Strong Bull’s heart had withered inside him, afraid that if its blood was let loose to flow one more time, it would die. The strong medicine which had brought the Assiniboine scalps and horses was gone and no one knew why. Neither did they know why Strong Bull now played with the white man’s drawing sticks and paper like a child. He was a man after all, a man who owned a better gun than any of them, the Many Shoots Gun, the gun the white men called the Henry.

  But he bought no bullets for it. It was true bullets were costly, one buffalo robe for three cartridges, but that did not explain why Strong Bull traded his prime robes for drawing sticks and the books the white men made the marks in, the lying marks which told falsehoods about how much you owed the trader.

  Where once three buffalo runners had stood tethered before the entrance of Strong Bull’s lodge, now there was only one thin horse to drag his teepee poles and coverings when camp moved. Now he walked beside the travois and the sight of a proud man eating dust was like sickness to the young men.

  Still, Fine Man could not believe that strong medicine could ever be wholly taken from a man as holy as Strong Bull; that is why he had gone to him to request his prayers. And when Strong Bull had promised his help, Fine Man had asked him another thing too, asked him why it was he spent his days drawing pictures in the lying books.

  For as long as it took to smoke the calumet Fine Man had filled for him from his own tobacco pouch, Strong Bull made no answer. Then he laid aside the pipe, drew his blanket about his shoulders, and spoke in a solemn voice. Two years ago his power-dreams had stopped, making him lonely and afraid. Many times he prayed, begging the One Above to send dreams as before, but the dreams remained lost and wandering in the Mystery World.

  He decided then to make a great trial of his spirit. He built a raft, anchored it in the midst of a lake, laid himself naked on it. For two days he suffered without shade, food, or water. He lay there with the sun scorching him, his empty belly howling for food, his tongue and lips thirsting for a taste of water, knowing all he needed to do was reach out, cup his hand, and drink. But he did not. Instead, he called to the One Above, his mouth moving like blowing dust, his eyelids glowing red as hot iron from the heat of the sun. And when night fell, he shook like a reed in the cold wind blowing off the lake.

  On the second night of this ordeal, a terrible thunderstorm began to gather, the clouds rolling like black boulders down a hill, boulders which struck sparks of lightning all around him. At first the Thunderbird shot only splinters of lightning at the raft, but the darkness of Strong Bull’s mind was so deep that these were not enough. So the Thunderbird struck his chest with a blue-yellow bolt, splitting him, opening him wide with a fierce burning. From this wound nothing flowed out but much flowed in. All his other power-dreams were as nothing compared to it.

  Strong Bull stopped then and a long, worshipful silence followed. At last, Fine Man found the courage to ask what it was he had seen.

  Strong Bull shook his head. What was given to him, he said, was the knowledge of things to come, a knowledge which had filled him with sadness. Perhaps it would be better not to speak of it. “I will only say this,” he told Fine Man. “Everything changes. There was a time the Assiniboine had no guns, no steel hatchets or knives, no glass beads to deco
rate our clothes.” He paused. “There was even a time there were no horses. My grandfather told me that when his grandfather’s father first saw horses the people did not know what name to give them. Some called them big dogs, some hornless elk. The new beings puzzled the people. But when the Assiniboine studied their natures, we learned they were neither dogs nor elk; we understood that the One Above had given us horses to hunt the buffalo and to carry us wherever we wished to go.”

  “Yes,” agreed Fine Man.

  “Everything changes in this world,” Strong Bull repeated, “but in the Mystery World all things live as they were before death. In the Mystery World all things wait for us – our grandparents, our dead brothers of the Soldier’s Society, our infants who died at birth. And the horses, the deer, the elk, the birds of the air, the buffalo wait for us, too. Someday you will go to the Mystery World and see these things for yourself.”

  Fine Man nodded this was true.

  Strong Bull smiled to himself. “Sometimes I think of our people long ago, how strange it must have been for them to see horses for the first time. Were they frightened of them? Did they suppose horses ate meat like dogs? Everything changes. Perhaps these beings will pass out of this world the way they came into it. Maybe some day there will be no more horses. Or elk. Or buffalo. You and I have seen these beings, but what if our grandchildren have no knowledge of them? I do not want the grandchildren to be frightened when they pass into the Mystery World and encounter beings which may be strange to them. Of course, the black robes who wear the man on the sticks say the spirits of animals cannot enter the Mystery World, but that is foolish.”

  “Yes,” said Fine Man, “very foolish.”

  “And I have thought something else,” said Strong Bull. “If the grandchildren do not recognize these beings, perhaps they will not recognize us either.” He reached behind him and lifted up a bundle wrapped in the hide of an unborn buffalo calf, undid the bindings, took out a trader book, passed it to Fine Man. “That is why I draw the pictures – so the grandchildren will recognize us,” he said.

  Fine Man began to carefully turn the pages of the book. Here was a picture of the women dancing, he knew each one by her dress. Here men were skinning buffalo in the snow. Here was a feast in which Left Hand could be seen passing his plate of meat to Broken Horn with a token stick. This signified Left Hand was bursting with food, and if Broken Horn would eat his portion so as not to insult the host, Left Hand would repay his kindness by giving him a horse. Last of all, he found a picture of himself, Fine Man in his best black leather shirt embroidered with green and white seed beads.

  He handed Strong Bull the book and thanked him for the honour he had done him by showing him the pictures. Strong Bull said, “No one has seen this book but you. I have shown it to you because the One Above has given my old dreams, the dreams of horses, to you. Perhaps when I die and pass on to the Mystery World, the dreams of what is to come will also pass to you. When I am dead, my wife will put this bundle in your hands because you know its meaning. It will be for you to keep it safe for the sake of the grandchildren.”

  Fine Man could hear Broken Horn stirring restlessly behind him. Horn was an impatient, proud man, and he was eager to ride to the band and tell the story of how they had lifted these horses from under the noses of the white men, to hear the acclaim of the people, and eat the fat pup which his Sits-Beside-Him wife would cook to welcome him home. Only the cannons of the blue horse’s hind legs needed to be done, but Fine Man did not hurry, he worked on attentively, with precision. Then, when he was finished, he stood and signalled to Horn it was time to go.

  They rode out, Fine Man on a paint horse and Broken Horn on a sorrel he had picked because it was the colour of the white man’s new penny. Each man managed a string of eight ponies, the tail of the horse he led knotted to the halter shank of the horse that followed, its tail knotted in turn to the shank of the horse behind it, and so on. The sun was bright and sweet on the skin, but Broken Horn couldn’t stop watching the blue horse running beside them, anxious it might escape in the last moments of the long journey. But the winter horse only trotted a short way off, nickering to his brothers and they nickering back. For two miles they rode in this fashion before glimpsing the teepees of Chief Talking Bird’s camp. So close to the promise of home, Broken Horn could not contain his excitement and broke into the lead, swinging his file of ponies back and forth in the zigzag by which an Assiniboine party announced a successful raid. A boy on the outskirts of the camp spotted him and ran back to the village calling out their names to the people. Hearing this proclamation, Broken Horn urged his string of horses into a gallop, cracking the line from side to side so that the dust boiled up under their hooves in a cloud which, lit by the sun, glowed in celebration of their arrival.

  People began to spill from the camp, shouting; dogs barked and howled while children laughed and galloped in zigzags like Broken Horn and his horses. Fine Man smiled and held his ponies to a trot, the blue horse close, snowflakes gleaming. The sun was a hot blanket across his shoulder and his feet jogged up and down in time with the life of the horse which bore him. Broken Horn had halted now and Fine Man could see the people crowding in to praise the ponies’ beauty and strength, crowding in to caress them. A little way back from the crowd he could see his Sits-Beside-Him wife holding the little one in her arms, and his second wife, her sister, waiting to greet him.

  He was very near now, his heart big in his breast with pride as the blue horse flew into the surprised eyes of the people, moving like a snow squall too strong for the hot sun to melt. When he reined in behind Broken Horn, the winter horse did not hesitate, but kept moving, head carried high, ears pricked as he trotted by all those who had fallen into silence, awed by the picture he made. Even the jaws of the snarling, snapping dogs snapped shut at the sight of the horse pushing into the ring of teepees, a blizzard with a purpose, hooves sure and certain as they skirted cooking fires.

  Then Fine Man understood his power-dream, completely, perfectly, understood why the winter horse had summoned him across all those miles to come to him, understood who it was the horse had wished to give himself to from the beginning.

  The drum of the Mystery World, the drum of this world, of the sky, of the earth, of his wives and his child, was beating, swelling in him, throbbing wildly against his breastbone, filling Fine Man with happiness. Sitting his horse, he began to sing a song of praise for the man to whom the winter horse was giving himself.

  The faces of the people bobbed up in astonishment and the sun bowed down when he sang the name of the great holy man, the man who lived now for the sake of the grandchildren. Between the lodges Fine Man could see the horse moving like a storm readying to empty itself, blowing from lodge to lodge, searching while he sang.

  Then the blue horse stopped. And Fine Man did too.

  Acknowledgements

  The works I consulted while writing this novel are too numerous to cite, but I would like to make particular mention of several. Paul Sharp’s Whoop-Up Country: The Canadian-American West, 1865-1885 (University of Minnesota Press, 1955); Wallace Stegner’s Wolf Willow (The Viking Press, 1962); James Willard Schultz’s My Life as an Indian (Beaufort Books, 1983); and articles in the Montana Magazine of History: Jay Mack Gamble’s “Up River to Benton,” and Hugh A. Dempsey’s “Cypress Hills Massacre” and “Sweetgrass Hills Massacre.”

  I would also like to acknowledge Richard Schickel’s D.W. Griffith: An American Life (Simon and Schuster, 1984); Frances Marion’s Off With Their Heads!: A Serio-comic Tale of Hollywood (Macmillan, 1972); Diana Serra Cary’s The Hollywood Posse: The Story of a Gallant Band of Horsemen Who Made Movie History (Houghton Mifflin, 1975); John Tuska’s The Filming of the West (Doubleday, 1976); Neal Gabler’s An Empire of Their Own: How the Jews Invented Hollywood (Crown Publishers, 1988); and Christopher Finch’s and Linda Rosenkrantz’s Gone Hollywood (Doubleday, 1979).

  I would especially like to thank my editor, Ellen Seligman, and my agent, Dean C
ooke, for all the advice and the assistance they have given me.

  Excerpts from this novel, in slightly different form, appeared on CBC Radio’s “Ambience” and in the journal Planet: The Welsh Internationalist.

  Guy Vanderhaeghe

  Guy Vanderhaeghe was born in Esterhazy, Saskatchewan, in 1951. He is the author of four novels, My Present Age (1984), Homesick (1989), co-winner of the City of Toronto Book Award, The Englishman’s Boy (1996), winner of the Governor General’s Award for Fiction and the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Book of the Year, and a finalist for The Giller Prize and the prestigious International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, and, most recently, The Last Crossing (2002), a long-time national bestseller and winner of the Saskatoon Book Award, the Saskatchewan Book Awards for Fiction and for Book of the Year, and the Canadian Booksellers Association Libris Award for Fiction Book of the Year, and a regional finalist for the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Best Book. The Last Crossing was the winner of CBC Radio’s Canada Reads 2004. He is also the author of three collections of short stories, Man Descending (1982), winner of the Governor General’s Award and the Faber Prize in the U.K., The Trouble With Heroes (1983), and Things As They Are (1992).

  Acclaimed for his fiction, Vanderhaeghe has also written plays. I Had a Job I Liked. Once, was first produced in 1991, and won the Canadian Authors Association Award for Drama. His second play, Dancock’s Dance, was produced in 1995.

  Guy Vanderhaeghe lives in Saskatoon, where he is a Visiting Professor of English at S.T.M. College.