Sundance 19

by Peter McCurtin

  Sundance liked and admired Gabriel Dumont almost as much as he did General Crook. The two men were so different on the surface, but they had the same rough honesty, the same contempt for fancy phrases. Dumont and Crook were natural leaders, born fighters with no love of fighting. True, Dumont was a rebel, but so was Robert E. Lee, and there were few men with more honors than the old Confederate.

  In the days to come, Sundance decided, Dumont was going to need all the help he could get. Hardesty was the man who was going to force the split in the métis ranks. As yet, there was no talk of the American expansionists coming into the war. They wouldn’t try to grab Canada until the war got out of control. No doubt Hardesty was counting on that. There would be big rewards for the man who delivered such a rich prize into their hands.

  The door banged open and Dumont came in, angry and tired. Sundance had a big steak waiting on the skillet; he put it on a bed of raked coal without saying a word. Dumont had a quart bottle of whiskey in his hand. He found two mugs and set the bottle down on the table. He filled both mugs and pushed one across the table to Sundance.

  “Your steak’ll be ready in a minute,” Sundance said, tasting his whiskey.

  “The hell with the steak,” Dumont growled. He didn’t take the mug away from his mouth until it was empty. More whiskey splashed into the mug. It was gone in two swallows. “The hell with everything, my friend.”

  It wasn’t the time to be talking temperance, Sundance knew, but he wondered where this drinking was going to lead. By his own word, Dumont was wild and dangerous when drunk.

  “What happened?” Sundance asked.

  Already Dumont had a wild look in his eyes. “Nothing much,” he said, going at the whiskey again. “They were all there: Louis, Hardesty, Thibault, the others. I had to force Louis to agree to offer peace to the Canadians. You would have thought I wasn’t there, the way they exchanged looks. When Louis saw how angry I was, he said, ‘All right, my dear friend, Gabriel, my old comrade, we will try to make peace with them. We will do our best.’ But he didn’t hold out much hope. That’s what Louis said.”

  Sundance didn’t think it would do much good, but he dished up the steak and put it on the table. Dumont didn’t even look at it. “I am tired,” he said. “I have done my best for the métis, and foe thanks I get strange looks.” More whiskey slopped into the mug. “You know what I think I will do, my friend? I think I will take my rifle and my traps and ride far into the north. In my time, I have been in places few men have ever seen. I think I will go far into the Yukon, maybe to the mountains of Alaska. I can live out my life there.”

  “You can’t do it, Gabriel. Everything will go to hell if you desert the métis.”

  Dumont yanked the hunting knife from his belt and stuck it in the table. “Desert! You call me a deserter? You are asking for your death, my friend.” He finished another mug of raw whiskey. By now, the bottle was nearly empty. Dumont’s eyes, red-rimmed from lack of sleep, glared across the table at Sundance, as if he didn’t quite know who he was. “Who are you to talk to me like that? I don’t know you. Who are you?”

  Dumont didn’t want an answer. He finished the bottle and smashed it against the wall. His hand was close to the knife. “I don’t like your face, you goddamned foreigner! You sit here drinking my whiskey, eating my food, and I see nothing but lies in your face.”

  Sundance’s eyes were on the knife. “It’s me, Sundance,” he said, not wanting to fight the big man he liked so much. “I eat your food because I like your cooking. You fix the best ham and duck eggs in the North West.”

  “Duck eggs?” Dumont was puzzled, his eyelids getting heavy. “Duck eggs? You are talking like a fool. Or do you think I am a fool?”

  “Never a fool, Gabriel.”

  “You’re Sundance?”

  “That’s who I am.”

  “You saved my life.”

  “It was worth saving. Why don’t you eat the steak? It’s a good steak.”

  It was the wrong thing to say, and it made Dumont angry again. He picked up the steak and threw it in the fire. “I will eat when I have killed Hardesty and Thibault. No, I will drink.”

  Dumont lurched to his feet and picked up his rifle. He bolted a round into the chamber of the Lee-Metford and pointed the rifle at Sundance. “Get out of my way or I’ll kill you,” he threatened, swaying on his feet.

  “You need another drink. I have a bottle in my warbag,” Sundance said. “Over there.”

  When Dumont turned, Sundance drew his Colt and hit the big man across the back of the neck and caught him before he fell. The rifle clattered to the floor.

  “You need some rest,” Sundance said.

  Eighteen

  Gabriel Dumont groaned and opened his eyes as the good smell of strong tea and frying steak filled the cabin early the next morning. He closed his eyes and felt his head. Stooped in front of the fire, Sundance turned the steak with a fork. He filled a mug with bubbling hot tea, added brown sugar, and brought it over to Dumont’s bunk.

  Dumont took the mug and shouldered himself up on the pillows. “Thanks,” he said, not wanting to look at Sundance. “My head.”

  Sundance grinned at Dumont, who looked, for all the world, like a sick bear. “Drink your tea. The steak’ll be cooked in a minute. If you don’t want steak, I can fix ham and duck eggs.”

  Dumont drank the hot tea noisily. “I remember something about duck eggs.”

  “You wanted whiskey more than duck eggs. That hurt my feelings, you hairy drunk.”

  Feeling the back of his neck, Dumont winced, then grinned with embarrassment. “You hit me, halfbreed. Thanks for hitting me.”

  “Don’t mention it, friend,” Sundance said, still grinning. “Always glad to do a favor. You were mad and getting madder by the minute. In case you don’t recall our little party last night, you were all set to kill Hardesty and Thibault. Can’t say that I blame you. Still, I couldn’t let you do it. You were drunk, and they might have killed you. You still planning to head for the Alaska mountains? You were fixing to become a hermit the last time we talked.”

  “Hurry up with that steak,” Dumont complained. “One won’t be enough.”

  When the first steak was half gone and the second one was frying, Dumont held out his mug and Sundance filled it with tea again. “I’d still like to kill the sons of bitches,” he said. “I don’t trust them, no matter what they say. How does it look out there?”

  “Quiet. I was out at first light.”

  “I wish Middleton would attack. I’d like to get it over with.” Reading Sundance’s thoughts, Dumont said quickly, “I won’t do any more drinking. Last night I thought I’d go crazy if I didn’t have a drink. I had my drink—my bottle—and I’m all right now. Did I … did I threaten to harm you?”

  Instead of answering, Sundance took the second steak off the fire. “I don’t see how any man can eat so much. You sure this will hold you for a while?”

  “I’m a savage,” Dumont said quietly, his eyes full of hurt. “To threaten a friend!”

  “That’s all right,” Sundance said. “I’m a savage, too. When I drink I am.”

  “That doesn’t make me feel any better.”

  “Eat the goddamned steak before it gets cold.”

  “I still don’t know what to say.”

  “They don’t say it. You know, Gabriel, you could get on my nerves if you tried a little harder. And by the way, general, you aren’t fixing to stay in bed all day, are you?”

  “Have some respect for a great leader,” Dumont said, and they both laughed.

  ~*~

  When they went outside, a group of men waved at them. Dumont yelled at them, to come forward. One of them was scout from downriver. “The riverboat has arrived at Fish Creek,” he said. “It got there this morning after sailing all night. Bugles are sounding everywhere.”

  “At last,” Dumont said calmly. He called his leaders and told them what was happening. “The attack may come today. None of Middleton’s
men are on the move yet, but they will be moving soon. If they don’t get here until late today, they won’t attack until early tomorrow. That is my guess, but we won’t count on it. They may hope to surprise us with a night attack. Double the scouts and strengthen the advance parties. All we can do now is wait.”

  Dumont and Sundance walked along the outermost line of defense. “Middleton has a thousand men,” Dumont said. “We are half that number. This will be the first head-on battle we have fought. The next few days will decide how well courage and determination stands up against numbers and supplies. If we win, that will be just the start of our troubles.”

  Spirits were high in Middleton’s camp. Well rested and well fed, the Canadian forces were eager to do battle with the métis. They had learned by their mistakes and had taken a measure of the enemy. Batoche, they swore, was not going to be like the other battles they had been through.

  ~*~

  Encouraged, prodded by his aide, General Middleton was in a fighting mood. Winfield, young and ambitious, had hooked his wagon to the General’s train. It would not do his career any good if they were defeated at Batoche.

  He flattered the old man while hinting that a decisive victory was necessary for the sake of the General’s reputation. For several years, Middleton had been talking vaguely of retirement, not to England but to the rich farmlands he owned in Ontario.

  “A fitting conclusion to a great military career, sir,” Winfield had said the night before. “You will be remembered in Canadian—Empire—history as the man who saved Saskatchewan, perhaps the entire North West, from savagery. You will be the man who wrote finis to Riel’s monstrous career. After you have taken Batoche, sir “

  Middleton recognized the hint, the indirect threat conveyed by his aide. “Of course, Winfield, we will take Batoche. All that has gone before was merely preparation for the big battle ahead. Now we will strike quickly and decisively—supported by the Northcote. That’s our trump card! We will batter down their defenses and take the town.”

  “I can see many rewards from a grateful government, sir,” Winfield said blandly. “I can easily envisage a fine house built by popular subscription. The hero of Batoche! I can’t see them doing less.”

  “Is that a fact, Winfield? Well, damn, why not? Lesser men have been rewarded for a lot less. And there will be a promotion and a decoration for you, my boy.”

  “Boldness, sir.”

  “Yes! Yes! Winfield. That’s it, boldness!”

  Early in the morning, Middleton’s forces moved from Fish Creek toward Batoche. When the teamsters and scouts were included, his small army came to just over eleven-hundred men, supported by Gatling guns and cannon. There were six-hundred horses and thirty supply wagons. Signs of spring were everywhere; it was a beautiful day, sunny and fairly warm. The first spring, crocuses were out, purple and yellow on the prairie.

  ~*~

  The steamer Northcote moved north at the same time as the troops. Six miles from Fish Creek it tied up to complete its fortifications. Bags were filled with river sand and added to the upper deck of the makeshift gunboat. Extra ammunition and shells were loaded aboard for the Gatling gun and the cannon, as well as cordwood for the boiler. The Canadian force moved north again through thick brush, willows, and poplars. The trail followed by Middleton’s force was hilly all the way from Fish Creek. As it neared Batoche it flattened out. There, Dumont added a line of rifle pits to the town’s defenses that ran down to the bank of the river. They stretched south of the town for nearly a mile. Behind them was the main position, along the range of hills parallel to the valley. The slopes of the hills were thickly wooded and slashed by ravines. The rifle pits were four feet deep with breastworks of clay and logs. In the forward pits, two-hundred métis were positioned. Supporting them closer to the town were other métis and Hardesty’s Irish forces. Hardesty had split his force; some were in the ravines, while others remained in the town.

  All day long the métis knew exactly how far Middleton’s force had progressed. Scouts reported back the General’s every move. But they would have known even without the scouts, for the Canadian force was making no pretense of a surprise attack. Besides, it would have been futile to try to conceal eleven-hundred men and six-hundred horses, wagons, cannons, and machine guns.

  Just as Dumont had predicted, Middleton’s army reached the outskirts of Batoche late in the day. The light was thickening fast, too late for an attack. The Canadian force camped for the night, out of range of the métis rifles, but the sound of bugles carried all the way into the center of the town. Both sides passed an uneasy night as they waited for the dark hours to drag on toward dawn.

  In his tent, General Middleton turned a glass of brandy and soda in his freckled hand and wondered what they would say about him in the London newspapers. The Atlantic cable had already flashed news of the rebellion to all parts of Europe. The French newspapers would attack him, of course, because the French could never forgive the British for having taken Canada. Damn the French! General Middleton decided. A bunch of jabbering, excitable foreigners who couldn’t talk without waving their hands.

  Louis Riel bent over a table in his cabin in Batoche; he was writing in his diary, the record of his life that he had kept for many years. “I have decided that I shall be known as Protector of my country after victory is assured and a government has been established. Government is not the correct word, for I shall be the sole ruler, and it is not fitting that I should preside over a quarrelsome assembly of men with differing opinions. I shall begin my rule by ...”

  Hardesty, oiling and cleaning his revolver, stopped now and then to take a sip pf whiskey. It was after midnight and he would go to bed soon. There was a slow drip of light spring rain outside his cabin. Soon, Hardesty thought, soon it will all begin to fall into place. He had left Ireland so many years before, had been all over the world, and had enjoyed small successes and endured small defeats. Now, for the first time, greatness, fame, and power were within his grasp. He loaded the revolver and spun the chamber. He would kill to keep from losing it

  “Indeed I would,” Hardesty told himself quietly.

  Sundance and Dumont were still talking; the supper dishes had long been cleared away. They lay in their bunks, the fire banked high. Dumont was smoking his short, cracked pipe.

  “You know what you have to do, don’t you, Gabriel?” Sundance said.

  “About the peace offer?”

  “If Hardesty and Thibault get in your way, you have to move them. If the talks don’t get started with Middleton, they won’t get started at all. If they do get started later, the only terms you’ll get from the Canadians will be to surrender or be wiped out.”

  Dumont said, “I have been thinking about it. Louis has agreed to talk to Middleton.”

  “Middleton may have orders not to talk to Louis— about anything. If Macdonald is as angry as you say he is, somebody else will have to approach Middleton.”

  “But Louis is our leader. If there is a métis nation, Louis is its leader. No one else can talk to the Englishman—to the Canadians through the Englishman.”

  “And if they refuse to talk to him?”

  “Then that finishes it. It would be an insult to the métis if they refuse.”

  “No,” Sundance said. “You could talk for the métis.”

  Dumont stared at the ceiling, at the smoke curling up from his pipe. “That is foolish talk, Sundance. All my life I have been a buffalo hunter.”

  “For a buffalo hunter, you’re a pretty good general. You could speak for the métis, as well as anybody else—better than anybody else. The métis look up to you.”

  “If the Canadians won’t accept Louis, why should they accept me?” Dumont said. “I think they would rather hang me than talk to me. They won’t forget Duck Lake or the other battles. Why would they deal with me?”

  “I’m not saying they will, but it’s more likely than they’ll deal with Riel. You are the general in this war. You give the orders. You could ha
ve slaughtered the Canadians at Duck Lake, Fort Carlton, Battleford. Instead you showed mercy and let them march away to safety. You held back the Indians at Battleford when they were ready to butcher every man, woman, and child. How can the Canadians not recognize those facts?

  Dumont sounded irritable. “All right! All right! I know what you’re saying. You preach more than a priest. What I’m trying to tell you is that Louis must make the peace offer.”

  “And if he can’t or won’t or drags his feet? What then?”

  “How the hell do I know? I already told you: no Louis, no peace offer.”

  “That’s no answer, Gabriel. You have to take over, if necessary. I don’t mean push Louis out. I know he’s your friend and you love him. But this is one time you can’t allow loyalty to get in the way.”

  “If Louis asks me to speak in his place, I will do it. Nothing else. I won’t go behind his back.”

  Sundance said, “That’s just fine. But what happens to the métis? You know Louis won’t ask you to speak for him. You have to do it yourself—when and if the time comes. Look, I know how you feel, but there’s no way out of it, unless you want Thibault or Hardesty to do the talking.”

  “Those dogs!”

  “I know. You’d like to kill them. Fine! Kill them later, and I’ll help you. This is one time when guns and knives won’t help. Face it, Gabriel!”

  “Face what?”

  “Your responsibility to your people. The other night you were saying that men like Hardesty always manage to survive. That’s true, and it’s also true of you. Right now, you could go to the States and do just fine. Whatever you want to do: army scout, hunter, a guide for sportsmen. The rest of the métis aren’t that lucky. If this war goes wrong for them, they could end up starving like the Indians. I’m talking about the métis who are left alive.”