The Third Riel Conspiracy

by Stephen Legault

  DURRANT REACHED THE far side of the Saskatchewan River and rode up out of the breaks. The aspens were starting to set fine green buds like delicate filigree. As the sun rose behind him, the hills along the Saskatchewan looked like they had been dusted with a light green powder. Durrant pushed his horse forward and rode the short distance to where the Dakota Sioux had their encampment. There were few fires burning, and the entire camp had the feel of bereavement hanging over it. It took only a moment for Durrant to determine that something was dreadfully amiss.

  He dismounted and led his horse to the tipi of Iron Crow. He was stopped when the man’s brother-in-law stepped out. The eastern sky was just flushing with dawn, and in that half-light Stands-his-Ground’s face appeared drawn and old. “You have come too late, Red Coat. Iron Crow is dead.”

  Durrant’s face fell, and he said in his Lakota dialect, “I am sorry.”

  “Men came and stole the food you gave to us. They said it wasn’t yours to give. They said they were taking it back.”

  Durrant felt a white-hot anger rise in him. He turned away so the man would not see his rage. A moment of silence hung between them. “When was this?”

  “It was two days ago. A Red Coat and other men.”

  “Did the Red Coat say his name?”

  “No. He and some others just came with their guns and pointed them at us, at Iron Crow, and told us to give the food back.”

  “Did you notice if he had stripes on his uniform?”

  “No stripes. He wore a braid on his shoulder.” The Sioux man pointed to his own shoulder to indicate where the insignia was on the Mounted Policeman’s epaulette.

  “He was an officer,” said Durrant. “A sub-inspector.”

  DURRANT WALLACE HAD tracked men across frozen ground and in complete darkness, but this trail had been used by hundreds of horses over the last two weeks. He could not determine if Sub-Inspector Dickenson and his gang of thugs had travelled this way. All he could do was hope. It would take him four or five days of hard riding to reach Fort Pitt. His deepest desire was to catch up with Dickenson before he could be reassigned to a company that was pursuing the Cree north toward Frenchman’s Butte. It seemed equally likely that after pilfering the Sioux’s supplies Dickenson had ridden south along the Saskatchewan and doubled back toward Regina. Durrant would wire Grant Moberly and Tommy Provost. It was a long ride, and the nights were cold. One evening he knocked on the door of a farmhouse and was offered a hot meal and a bed by a Métis family. The other nights he slept rough, with his blankets clutched about him, his pistols close by, and a warming fire burning brightly.

  He had time to think. Again and again Durrant considered his parley with Riel. While Durrant was convinced that the man was no prophet, this conclusion was reached because of Durrant’s predilections, not Riel’s. For Durrant, there was no way to right the hourglass; its sands had slipped away. There was nothing Riel or anybody else could say to convince Durrant that even a benevolent God could exist. The loss of his wife and child twelve years earlier had put an end to that question. Yet, in speaking with Riel, he understood why people believed him to be a modern messiah.

  That there were those who feared Riel’s words as much as his actions came as no surprise to Durrant. The motivation of those who conspired to kill Riel rather than allow him the pulpit of his legal defence was plain to see. Riel had revealed to Durrant that there had been some business around duelling conspiracies even before he had left Montana. He confided that some trouble had occurred in Sun River and that Dumont and the others had shielded him from it. When Durrant questioned him further, the man had simply said, “Look to Sun River for your answer.”

  On Durrant’s fourth day, the trail descended toward Fort Pitt. The weather was warmer and there were leaves on the willows and alders. He let up on his horse, which he had pushed too hard these last days trying to catch up with Dickenson and his mob. Durrant’s first priority was the retrieval of the murder weapon, but he admitted to himself that the chance of finding it was slim now.

  It was early evening on May 22 when he saw the fort on the bank of the Saskatchewan River. He sat his horse just below the crest of a broad hillside. He had the sun in his face and knew that only a careful observer might skylight him. There was more to be concerned about than Dickenson’s mob of ruffians. On April 14, a skirmish between Big Bear’s two hundred-strong Cree and the handful of poorly armed Mounted Police in the fort had left one Red Coat dead, another wounded, and a third man prisoner. The fort’s commander had negotiated a truce, but it meant that he and his colleagues had to abandon civilians to Big Bear to be held as hostages while they skulked across the Saskatchewan Territory and made haste for Fort Battleford. It was not a high point for the North West Mounted Police.

  Fort Pitt was now back in Dominion control, but there was little left. The Cree had burned it to the ground. Durrant could see that there were tents arranged around the charred buildings. The Union Jack flew high above the stockade’s blackened walls.

  Durrant rode down the hill and was soon stopped by a picket of Dominion soldiers. They let him pass when he identified himself as a member of the North West Mounted Police. He boarded his horse in the makeshift stable. A company of men from the Alberta Field Force had arrived just two days before him, but already they were at work restoring the fort to a working operation, rebuilding the palisade and stringing telegraph wire where it had been burned in the fire. He crossed what was once the parade ground to where he had been told he might find the sergeant-at-arms, and inquired after Commander Steele; he had not yet arrived. Then he asked after his quarry.

  “Dickenson?” The man consulted his records. “Well, Commander Dickens fled the fort a fortnight ago—”

  “Not Dickens, Dickenson.”

  “Let me see . . .”

  Durrant knew that Dickenson had doubled back and was already on his way to Regina, where he would be waiting when Riel arrived.

  DURRANT SLEPT THAT night rolled in his blankets near the stable. He was woken by a tap on his shoulder. He sat up abruptly, his hand falling to the British Bulldog. He heard a gasp in the darkness, and looked into the face of a boy not more than fourteen. “Sir, you are to come with me,” the boy croaked.

  “What is it?”

  “There is a wire from Fort Calgary.”

  Durrant pulled on his prosthetic and noted the boy watching him. “Show me the way, lad.”

  They walked to a buckboard wagon serving as the fort’s impromptu telegraph station. There was a tarp over it, and an oil lamp provided illumination. Durrant was handed the wire.

  Durrant. He is looking for me. I am in hiding. Calgary cannot conceal me. Will remain as long as able. Charlie.

  Durrant lowered himself on a crate of canned fruit. Suddenly, the boy snapped to attention. Durrant, shaken from the contents of the wire, followed his gaze, then stood and saluted. “Superintendant Steele.”

  “Sergeant Wallace. It’s very good to see you, son.”

  “I was told that you were hunting the Cree, sir.”

  “I arrived an hour ago. We’re here to resupply and then will track Big Bear north once more. What’s the news, Durrant?” Steele pointed to the wire clutched tightly in Durrant’s hand.

  Durrant looked down at the wire. “Nothing, sir, a personal matter from Fort Calgary. I was just making preparations to double back for Regina. It seems the man I am hunting has given me the slip.”

  “Come, Sergeant, let’s see if there is a coffeepot in the cook tent. I’ve known you long enough to know when you are lying to me.”

  “BIG BEAR IS going north. Strange is a good commander, but slow, and cautious. Later today I will lead the Scouts toward Frenchman’s Butte, where the Cree are believed to be holed up with their prisoners,” said Steele.

  “Would you like for me to accompany you, sir?”

  “No, Sergeant, but thank you. I have no doubt you’d prove your worth and then some, but Crozier has given you a far more important task.”
/>   “Yes, sir.”

  “You disagree?”

  “No, not insofar as proving the Métis man La Biche’s innocence goes. I believe there are other lives at stake, too. Wake was devilish in nature. I’ve never seen a situation where so many were eager to kill a man, and for good reason.” Durrant quickly filled Steele in on his investigation and his conversation with Riel.

  “It’s a harsh business. Who do you suspect?”

  “There were many with powerful motivation and great passion to see the man six feet in the ground.”

  “It may be that these passions are blinding you, Sergeant. Sometimes it’s those who display little passion for the crime that we must give consideration to. Now, about this wire.”

  “It’s nothing.”

  “Let me read it, Durrant.”

  The sergeant reluctantly handed the wire over to Steele.

  “You wire Dewalt at Fort Calgary and ask that he look in on the lady, and tell him that these are my orders,” Steele instructed.

  “I will.”

  “I doubt that will do it. After the business in Holt City last year, and what with Charlene taking up residence in Calgary, I am concerned for her safety, as I know you must be.”

  “She fled this man two years ago,” said Durrant. “She took up her station as a mute stableboy to avoid detection. Though we’ve never spoken of his monstrosities, we didn’t need to.”

  “If he has tracked her to Fort Calgary, then he will find her there, Durrant. It’s too small a town for her to remain secreted away for long.”

  “Could Dewalt find and arrest him?”

  “The magistrate would require a charge, and that would be difficult to fabricate. Locating the man would put Charlene at risk.”

  “I could send a wire and ask that she take the train to Regina to be safe with Garnet.”

  “No doubt Mr. Moberly would keep her safe. Durrant, if you don’t mind me saying, it seems that this is your job.”

  “My job is to find the man who killed Reuben Wake and determine to what extent a threat still exists. That is my duty.”

  Steele silenced him with a hand. He drank the rest of his coffee. “You tell me that Riel says there is some secret hidden in Sun River. The trial of Terrance La Biche will not be for some time. The magistrate will be preoccupied with the appointment of a prosecutor for Riel, and the selection of a jury. I have it on some authority that the Riel trial is still at least six weeks away. You have time to ride south for Maple Creek on the CPR main line and catch a train for Calgary. Find Charlene. When she is safe, make the journey to the Sun River country and learn what you can about Riel’s time there, and what secrets lay buried in that earth.”

  “What of Dickenson?”

  “I will wire ahead to our headquarters in Regina. I know men that we can trust and can work with. I will assign them the task of keeping Riel safe.”

  Durrant said, “I will ask Mr. Moberly to keep watch for a traitor to the force. No doubt Garnet has spied for some king during his expansive career.”

  TWENTY-THREE

  DESPERATE MEASURES

  IT TOOK HIM SEVEN LONG days to ride from Fort Pitt to the siding of Maple Creek on the Canadian Pacific main line, and when he arrived, his horse was suffering and so was Durrant Wallace. His prosthetic had nearly rubbed off the protective bandage. The night before, he had cut out the stitches that Saul Armatage had sewn in a week and a half previous. Now his leg was raw, and a suspicious-looking fluid the colour of milk had started to ooze from his stump. Doctor Armatage would not be happy with him.

  He boarded the horse and took his most important gear—the Winchester, his bedroll, and his personal kit that included the prized locket—and made his way to the station, where he inquired about westbound trains. One was to arrive at midnight.

  He sat on the platform and waited. The prairie sky turned rose, then magenta, and finally faded to black. The stars came out, and he regarded them with suspicion. These were the same stars that looked down on Charlene, but there was no kindness in them: they reminded him of the vast distance between them still.

  On time, the whistle of the train sounded. He was the only passenger to board, and he handed the pullman porter his ticket and made his way down the aisle to a compartment with an empty window seat in it. Durrant fell asleep somewhere on the prairie and four hours later awoke to the sound of the train approaching Calgary. What if he was too late? Charlene was a resourceful woman, and she knew that even if Sub-Inspector Dewalt disliked Durrant, she could turn to the NWMP for protection. Before the train had fully stopped, he left his compartment and lurched to the door. As the brakes billowed, he disembarked and quickly made his way down the broad wooden platform to the station’s main building, where he hailed a cab. As the horse and buggy pulled up, the driver regarded Durrant’s armament.

  “I’m with the North West Mounted Police,” he explained, giving him the address of Charlene’s employer and bidding him to make haste. The driver cracked his reins, and the single quarter horse set off at a trot, the wheels of the buggy spinning on the muddy streets. It took ten minutes to navigate through the city, and during that ride Durrant could not but help recall the time twelve years previous when he had raced through the streets of Toronto to find Mary and their child locked in a battle with death. Death had won.

  When finally they pulled up in front of the house, Durrant told the driver to wait for him. He hurried up the walk and knocked on the door.

  A moment passed, and then he heard the lock on the front door open and Derek Lloyd was standing there in his sleeping attire. “Durrant—”

  “Derek, is she here?”

  “No . . . she . . . You had better step in.”

  Durrant looked back at his cab. The man seemed to have fallen asleep. Lloyd opened the door and Durrant stepped inside. He became aware that he must smell like the inside of a barn. It had been almost a month since he’d left Fort Calgary, and in that time he hadn’t had more than a washbasin to clean up with, and in freezing temperatures at that.

  “Would you like breakfast, Durrant?”

  “Derek, I don’t wish to be rude—”

  “Sit and have something and I’ll tell you what has transpired.”

  “Is Charlene . . . is she okay?”

  “I assume so.”

  “You assume?”

  They reached the kitchen. “Sit down, Durrant. Drink this coffee, and listen. About two weeks ago, Charlene had the children out in the afternoon, and when she came home she looked ghostly white. She said that she saw him down along Stephen Avenue. At least, she thought she did—”

  “Did he see her?”

  “She didn’t think so. But she got scared. She mostly stayed about the house after that. A few days later, we got this.” Lloyd took a sheet of paper out of an envelope on the sideboard. He handed it to Durrant.

  I know where you live. I been watching you. You’ll be coming home soon.

  Durrant stood up. His twisted right hand was white from the exertion of pushing hard on his cane. “Blue Jesus,” he exclaimed too loudly.

  “She left that night. She packed a small bag and left. She wouldn’t tell me where she was going.”

  “What did she take?”

  “Nothing much, Durrant. Very little of her clothing.”

  “Let me see.”

  They went to the back of the house where the servants’ quarters were, and Durrant stepped into Charlene’s room. He could smell her soap and the detergent she used to launder her clothes. The room was simple, with a small bed, a table and chair, and a tiny stove. In the corner was a plain armoire with a mirror. Durrant opened the doors and moved a few dresses aside. He looked on the floor of the closet. What he was searching for was not present. He walked back past Derek Lloyd.

  “Where are you going, Durrant?”

  “I can’t tell you, Derek.”

  “Is she safe?”

  “I don’t know.” Durrant stopped by the door. “Derek,” he said in a low voice.
“Do you have a firearm?”

  “Well, yes, I have an old Remington.”

  “Get it out. Keep it handy. If he comes to the house, shoot him between his eyes.”

  DURRANT WOKE THE cabbie and they set off at a hard trot. The city was coming alive and there were other carriages and horse traffic to contend with, so it took them longer than expected to cross the Bow River and reach Fort Calgary. The new buildings of the fort had been completed over the course of the last year, and the sprawling complex was much grander than the palisade-bordered buildings Durrant had arrived at more than two years before. Now the fort resembled a modern Hudson’s Bay Company establishment. There was no defensive structure, just a neat quadrangle comprising barracks and housing for officers and non-commissioned men, a double stable and the quartermaster’s store. Durrant told the driver where at the Fort he wanted to go and when they arrived paid him his fare.

  Durrant stood in front of the stable. The pine boards had matured and no longer wept sap. He walked with his cane to the broad double doors, unlatched the main entrance, and let the day’s first light fall across the dark space.

  He stepped inside, his cane tapping on the wooden floorboards. He walked the long aisle of stalls that housed the fort’s quarter horses, making for the tack room. He was breathing hard, and his heart beat in his throat.

  “Charlene?” he said slowing as he approached the room. “Charlie? It’s Durrant.”

  He heard nothing. He drew his Enfield and held it at his side. “It’s Durrant,” he said again, and stepped into the tack room. The smell of leather and brass polish hit him in the nose, and he forced his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

  He heard the hammer of a shotgun click. In the darkness he saw it: under a blanket in the corner was the shape of a person.

  “It’s Durrant,” he repeated.

  The figure moved. “It’s about time.” Charlene Louise Mason pulled herself out from beneath the blanket. She held the familiar shotgun in her hands, the spoils of a previous conflict won on the shore of Tom Wilson’s Lake Louise.