The Desperate Journey (13 page)

Semple retorted, “Scoundrel, do
you
tell
me
so?” He seized Boucher’s bridle with one hand and caught hold of the man’s gun with the other. Boucher jumped from his horse and made to strike Semple. At that moment, in a panic, one of Semple’s men fired. At once gunmen replied from the Norwesters’ side, and Holte, Semple’s lieutenant, fell by his side. Both sides began firing as fast as they could.

A small crowd with Davie, Kirsty and Kate, watched from the
tower of Fort Douglas. They heard the shot fired, and saw the Norwesters raise their guns to their shoulders and fire a volley in reply.

“Oh!” Kirsty cried. “They’re killing our men!”

“Mr Semple’s shot!” Davie cried. “He’s not killed, though. He’s lifting himself on his elbow.”

“Father’s fallen!” Kirsty cried in horror-struck tones. “He’s lying on the ground!”

White to the lips, Davie turned the spyglass on his father. “He – he’s not killed, Kirsty. I saw him lift a hand just now. He’s on his hands and knees and crawling towards the river. Oh, a body of men has come between us and I cannot see him any more!”

A new horror caught Davie’s eye. “The Norwesters are rushing at them now, firing left and right as they go. There’s a man standing over Mr Semple with a pistol in his hand! He’s shot him through the chest as he lies wounded. Oh, the wicked murderers!”

“Where is your father? Can you see him yet?” Kate cried in agony.

“No, I cannot see him. There are so many bodies lying on the ground.” Davie gave a groan. “Oh, they’re killing the wounded with knives and pistols! They’re sparing no one!”

“Oh, Father! Father!” Kirsty wept.

“James! James!” Kate moaned, then slumped on the floor in a dead faint. Kirsty rushed to help her.

Just then there came a shout from below. “Bourke is taking out the cannon. Every man stand by to defend the gates!”

Davie seized his gun and rushed to the stockade. Bourke had mounted his cannon on the bank and fired in the direction of the enemy. His shot fell short, but the sight and sound of the cannon made the Norwesters draw off from killing the wounded. Six men escaped from the field of battle and came running towards the fort, only six of the twenty-eight that had gone out with Semple. James Murray was not among them.

The enemy did not advance at once as the settlers had expected, but drew off to meet the other half of their army and to make plans to attack the fort next day. All night the men in Fort Douglas stood to arms, waiting for the onslaught. About midnight a sentry was hailed by a quiet voice from some bushes on the other side of the fort away from the Norwesters.

“Hi, white men! Peguis wishes to speak with you. Open your gate to him.”

“We shall not open our gates. How do we know you are Peguis?”

“Do not shoot. I have news for you. I will come in close to the palisade to talk to you.”

“This may be a trick to draw us away from the side where the Norwesters might attack,” the sentry said to his fellow watchers.

Davie was standing on guard too. “If it is Peguis, we had better listen to what he says. He has always been our friend,” Davie observed.

“Go to Sheriff MacDonell and ask him to come here, Davie,” the sentry instructed him. Sheriff MacDonell, a relation of Miles MacDonell, was leader now that Semple was dead. MacDonell agreed to go to the river gate and speak with Peguis. Davie went with him.

“We have found a wounded man lying among the rushes of the river. His eyes are closed and he cannot speak, but he still breathes,” Peguis said. “If you will open the gate when we call out to you, we will carry him into the fort.”

“How do we know this is not a trick to get us to open the
gate?”

“It is Peguis speaking. Peguis not lie to white men.”

“I really believe it is Peguis speaking, sir,” Davie told MacDonell.

“Suppose Peguis has gone over to the enemy?”

“Peguis? Never!” Davie declared with conviction.

“Is there a lad called Davie there?” the Indian asked.

“Yes, I am here, Peguis.”

“Send the boy out to Peguis, and Peguis prove he speak truth.”

“Let me go, sir! Let me go, please!”

MacDonell hesitated. “It might be a trick of the Norwesters to get a hostage, Davie.”

“No, Mr MacDonell! They could have taken hostages among the wounded instead of killing them,” Davie said bitterly. “What good would a lad like me be for a hostage? Let me go to Peguis, sir. If you will place a ladder, I will climb over the palisade, and then you would have no need to open the gate.”

MacDonell ordered a ladder to be brought and Davie mounted it.

“Stand by to catch me, Peguis,” he called softly.

There was a rustling in the darkness below the high fence. Davie drew a deep breath, then jumped in the direction of the sounds. He was caught by ready hands before he touched the ground.

“Peguis?” he said.

“Ssh!” Peguis placed a finger on Davie’s lips. “The Norwesters not far away. Come!”

Davie followed the shadowy figures to the river bank, sometimes crawling over the ground so they should not be sighted by the enemy. On the bank, with an Indian crouching beside him, a figure was lying. Davie sank down beside him. “Father?” he whispered.

It was James Murray, sure enough! For a terrible moment Davie thought he was dead, and he whispered, “Father! Father!” again, more urgently James Murray stirred a little and opened his eyes.

“Father, it’s Davie here, with Peguis.”

“Davie?” James voice was faint and bewildered. “Davie? Where are we?”

“Ssh! Peguis found you unconscious. You’ve been wounded.”

Recollection came back to James Murray. “My shoulder!” His hand went up to it. His shirt and coat were drenched in blood. “I crawled behind the bushes to the river,” he muttered.

“He’s lost much blood,” Peguis said. “He very weak. We carry him to gate of fort.”

One of the Indians hoisted James Murray over his shoulder, and the little band crept round the bushes, stopping now and again behind cover to make sure they had not been observed by the Norwesters. At last they reached the fort. David called softly through the gate, “Is Mr MacDonell there?”

“Aye, I’m here, lad, waiting,” came the reply.

“It is no trick; Peguis found my father wounded by the river. The Indians have brought him in. I beg you to open the gate.”

In a few minutes the great battens that held the gate closed were removed and one side of the gate swung open. Like shadows, without a word, the Indians carried in James Murray and set him down. Peguis gave MacDonell and Davie a brief handshake, and slipped through the gate again. Like shadows still, the Indians vanished into the night.

While careful hands placed James Murray on a stretcher, Davie rushed into the tower to tell his mother.

“Mother! Mother! Father isn’t killed after all. He’s sore wounded, but Peguis has brought him in.”

Kate’s hand went to her heart. She could hardly speak.

“He’s below in the courtyard,” Davie went on.

Kate was suddenly stabbed into life again. “Come with me, Kirsty!” she cried and sped down the steps.

James was sorely wounded, but it was found that the bullet had passed clean through his shoulder and out at the other side, so there was no need for the doctor to probe for the bullet. With
the hole plugged and bandaged, he lay on a straw bed within the fort, trying to swallow the hot milk that Kirsty brought for him. The colour came back a little into his cheeks.

“Given a day or two to rest, and plenty to drink, he’ll soon make up the loss of blood,” the doctor promised.

“Will any of us get any rest?” MacDonell asked in a low voice. “Tomorrow the rascals will attack us for sure!”

Cuthbert Grant, the commander of the Norwesters, was ashamed of the way his men had slain the wounded on the field of battle. He knew, too, that if he attacked Fort Douglas and harm befell the women and children there, the vengeance of the Hudson’s Bay Company would be swift and terrible and it would fall upon him. It would be better if he could persuade the colonists to abandon the fort peacefully. The Norwesters had taken one prisoner, John Pritchard. Grant sent for him.

“You have seen what happened on the battlefield, that we gave no quarter,” Grant said to him.

“There was no mercy shown,” Pritchard replied in a quiet voice that brought the colour of shame to Grant’s face.

“I promise you that if there is any further resistance from the garrison at Fort Douglas, neither man, woman nor child shall be spared,” Grant told him in a terrible voice.

“Is there no means by which the women and children could be saved?” Pritchard implored him.

“I will spare their lives if the colonists will surrender the fort to me. I will allow them to go away in peace and give them an escort past the Bois Brulés on their way up the river. They must give up everything in the colony. You can take these terms to Sheriff MacDonell, John Pritchard.”

Under guard, Pritchard was taken to the gate of the fort, to carry this message to MacDonell. When the Sheriff heard the terms, he was wild with rage.

“What? Give up all we have striven and worked for here for
more than five years? Give up all our homes and farms? Grant asks too much. We will not surrender.”

“MacDonell, think what will happen if you do not agree?” Pritchard begged him. “Grant has said he will spare neither man, woman nor child. Think of the women and children and what might happen to them at the hands of those half-savages. Is it not too great a price to pay? The Norwesters outnumber us both in men and weapons. Sooner or later they will take the fort. They threaten to fire it and roast alive all in it.”

MacDonell shuddered. Pritchard pressed home his argument.

“Grant has promised he will let you all go in peace, provided there is no resistance. Is it not better to live and take our families to safety, so that we may yet fight another day? Lord Selkirk himself is already on his way to bring help to the colony.”

“Very well. You can tell Cuthbert Grant we will surrender,” the Sheriff agreed with a heavy heart.

It was a pitiful procession of settlers that wound its way down to the canoes by the river bank. They were only allowed to take with them the clothes they stood up in, their blankets, and food for the journey. As they reached the canoes they were roughly searched for valuables or documents. Many of the men were questioned.

James Murray’s bandages were hidden under his tightly buttoned coat. He had recovered enough to be able to walk. Kate held his arm, pretending to lean on it herself as they passed the searchers. Just as they reached the canoes, they were stopped.

“I’ll look at the inside pockets of your coat, man,” a searcher said.

It might have gone ill for James, but just then a shout went up, “There’s Bourke. The man who fired the cannon at us! Get hold of him and place him in irons!”

The searcher ran to help in his capture of Bourke. The Murrays stepped quickly down into their canoe and Davie pushed off at once from the bank. Even as they paddled downstream, the smoke from the settlers burning houses rose behind them. Frightened
and bewildered, the settlers left their Red River colony for the second time for the Jack River. Nothing was left to them of their colony but the bodies of a score of brave men lying on the ground by the oak trees. In the dead of night, when the Norwesters had departed, Peguis and his Indians went to bury the men who had been their friends.

At Jack River the settlers gave themselves over to despair.

“Let us go back to Scotland!” was the cry of most of them. “Let us ask the Hudson’s Bay Company to send us a ship to take us home again.”

Almost to his own surprise, James Murray spoke against this.

“What is there in Scotland for us now?” he asked. “We shall yet make homes in this new country if you have courage enough.”

“What is the use of building houses to have them burned down by the Norwesters every time?” one man asked.

To her own surprise too, Kate found herself siding with James. “Were not your homes burned in Scotland?” she asked. “Who is to say it could not happen again there?”

Suddenly the look of the one with “the sight” came into her eyes. “I tell you that even yet this land will be a land of promise for us all, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

“I would rather have the promise of a ship to take us away,” a settler sneered. “I say, let us all go to York Factory to wait for any ship that might come.”

“You had better stay where you are,” an officer of the Hudson’s Bay Company advised them. “You will be worse off if you have to winter on the shores of Hudson’s Bay.”

They decided to build huts and stay by the Jack River, but never had they spent such a miserable winter. They were short of food and clothing. They had to catch white fish through holes they made in the ice. Now and again they got supplies of pemmican and rice from Norway House. With the coming of spring, however, hope began to lift in their hearts again.

“Maybe we’ll get back yet to the Red River in time for me to plant my garden,” Kirsty said.

Suddenly, in the middle of March, great news came for them. A man of the Hudson’s Bay Company arrived at the Camp.

“Good news, folk! Take heart! Miles MacDonell and a company of soldiers have taken Fort Douglas back from the Norwesters!”

An eager crowd surrounded him, asking questions.

“Aye, it’s true enough,” he told them. “Ye’ll be able to start back right away.”

“But will the Norwesters come down on us again?” someone asked.

“If they do, there’ll he a warm welcome waiting for them! Lord Selkirk is bringing a company of soldiers with him, a small army who’ve seen service abroad. They’re to have land at the Red River too, in return for protecting us all.”

A loud cheer went up from the colonists.

“Well, folk, what will ye do now? Ask for a ship, or go back to the Red River?” the official asked.

“Go back! Go back to the colony and our farms!” most people cried.

“What shall
we
do, Kate?” James asked.

She did not hesitate. “We have come so far on this journey, James, that it is as far to go back as to go on. We’ll make our home at the colony again.”

“And you, Kirsty?”

“I’d like to plant my garden and see it bloom.”

“And you, Davie?”

“The Red River was a grand place for fishing and – and I’d like to see Peguis again.”

Though the ice was still on the rivers, the colonists travelled back. As soon as the frost had gone from the ground they set to work to dig and plant potatoes and barley and wheat. There was little food in the colony, but Peguis and his Saulteaux Indians hunted for them, and even dragged meat to them on sledges. The soldiers worked alongside the settlers and built homes for themselves too,
and planted fields. The Norwesters knew they could never hope to turn out the settlers for a third time, and they left them in peace, save for stealing an occasional cow.

On June 18, 1817, Lord Selkirk arrived at the Forks to visit the colony. A great feast was held at Fort Douglas to which the Indians of the Cree and Saulteaux and Assiniboine tribes were invited. Among them was Peguis. A tremendous “powwow” began.

“We come here in peace to be your friends and neighbours,” Lord Selkirk told the Indians. “I thank you for the protection and help you have so faithfully given to my people. Especially do I thank Peguis, the Chief of the Saulteaux Indians, who has been the friend of the colony and to whom many of us owe a debt that can never be repaid.”

There was a tremendous burst of cheering at this. The old chief rose to his majestic height and spoke in reply.

“Great Silver Chief!” he addressed Lord Selkirk. “We have seen with sorrow the sufferings of your people. The Saulteaux tribe has always been your friends. I hold out to you the hand of friendship now, and I ask you to smoke the pipe of peace with me.”

Lord Selkirk and Peguis shook hands, then the long pipe was puffed ceremoniously by Peguis and then by Lord Selkirk. Then it was passed from hand to hand, everyone in the circle taking a puff or two at it. To his surprise Peguis passed the pipe over his shoulder. Davie took his ceremonial two puffs, then returned the pipe to Peguis.

“You handed that pipe back right quickly!” Kirsty teased him.

“You be glad you’re a girl and that you were not asked to smoke it!” Davie retorted.