White Desert (22 page)
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
The chief spoke as if he had not heard it. “I see you still have two rifles. Will you now give us one?”
“No.”
One of the men standing behind him seemed to know that English word very well. He said something to the chief with an edge that went up my spine like a rusty blade.
Piapot didn't appear to be listening. He folded the scalp once more, taking more time with it than simple respect alone commanded. Gently he returned it to his pocket.
“This is twice you have entered the land of the Cree and refused to pay tribute.”
“I'd stop coming if I could figure out where Canada left off and the land of the Cree began. It seems to be spreading.”
“It is not. In my youth it stretched from the Great Sea of Ice to the stinging sands where only the gila and the Apache live. When the snow came we rode down to where it is always warm and when the great heat came we rode up to where the pines grow through the clouds. In all that time we saw nothing of the white man. Now there is only one way we can ride so that we do not see him: North, where the white man will not live. There perhaps we can hunt and fight our old enemies and make love to our women and not hear white men gnawing down the trees like beaver to build the railway to bring more white men. When that happens, there will be nowhere left to go but out on the Great Sea of Ice.”
He turned his back on me then and walked down the hill. The others lingered for a moment after he passed them, then followed. I was alone.
After a moment I picked up the Evans and returned it to its scabbard. When I put my foot in the stirrup, something fell out of my pocket. It was the leather pouch containing the bones of an African eagle, a charm to see me home safe. I scooped it up and put it back in my pocket. I still have it.
The firing had stopped
by the time I got back to the lake, although smoke was still billowing, eye-stinging clouds laden with sulphur and mingling with steam from men and horses. To avoid getting shot I whistled loudlyâ“My Country, âTis of Thee” was the tune I chose, but if they decided to take it for “God Save the Queen,” so much the betterâriding with my bearskin spread open with the six-pointed star pinned to my shirt for the first time since I was almost shot out from behind it in '76. Even then, I learned later, a Mountie sharpshooter had been sighting in on me with a Martini-Henry when Philippe du la Rochelle put a hand on his arm and bought a gash in his scalp from the butt of Lieutenant Ponsoby's side arm for his trouble. It was only then that someone had spotted the badge.
by the time I got back to the lake, although smoke was still billowing, eye-stinging clouds laden with sulphur and mingling with steam from men and horses. To avoid getting shot I whistled loudlyâ“My Country, âTis of Thee” was the tune I chose, but if they decided to take it for “God Save the Queen,” so much the betterâriding with my bearskin spread open with the six-pointed star pinned to my shirt for the first time since I was almost shot out from behind it in '76. Even then, I learned later, a Mountie sharpshooter had been sighting in on me with a Martini-Henry when Philippe du la Rochelle put a hand on his arm and bought a gash in his scalp from the butt of Lieutenant Ponsoby's side arm for his trouble. It was only then that someone had spotted the badge.
I was ordered to dismount anyway, disarmed, and compelled to tell my story to the lieutenant before I was taken to a tent where Inspector Urban Vivian lay on a bedroll with his shirt off, and a Mountie wearing a bloody apron in place of his tunic was tying off his bandages. A trooper was pounding home the last stake into the frozen ground when Vivian glared at me in
the light of a hissing lantern. His face was the color of water beneath his sunburn, his eyes unnaturally large and swimming. I knew the look of a corpse in the making, but I gave him the details anyway, knowing I'd have to do it all over again for whoever took his place. He was too weak to ask questions, but I could feel his irritation at my unsatisfactory report. The lieutenant made it clear that I was confined to camp until such time as my story could be passed on to Ottawa and instructions came back.
the light of a hissing lantern. His face was the color of water beneath his sunburn, his eyes unnaturally large and swimming. I knew the look of a corpse in the making, but I gave him the details anyway, knowing I'd have to do it all over again for whoever took his place. He was too weak to ask questions, but I could feel his irritation at my unsatisfactory report. The lieutenant made it clear that I was confined to camp until such time as my story could be passed on to Ottawa and instructions came back.
Vivian died just before dawn. He had served with distinction in Abyssinia and at Roarke's Drift, holding out in the latter place with a handful of British regulars against the same 40,000 Zulu warriors who had destroyed the Queen's army only a few days before at Isandhlwana. His body was packed with salt and shipped back to England for burial with full military honors, the first in a family of candlemakers and cloth merchants to receive them.
Corporal Gale Barrymore, whose mother had died during the ocean voyage to the New World and whose father lived on a government pension in Ottawa, was laid to rest in that city.
I understand the names of the Mounties who were killed at the stronghold are engraved among others on a brass plaque mounted on a marble wall in the capitol building in Ottawa. I don't know if the official record states that Inspector Urban Vivian was slain by his own men, but I approve of the honor. He led thirteen enemies of the Crown straight into police fire, knowing that it meant his own death. I admired him. I just couldn't get along with him.
The sergeant major's name was Rice. Although the bullet that smashed his pelvis gave him a permanent limp, he was promoted to inspector in 1891 for his part in a forty-seven-day manhunt resulting in the arrest and conviction of a Canadian
Army deserter named Oberlin for the ambush-murder of three wealthy excursionists on the Yukon Trail. A year later he was considered for the office of superintendent, but rejected for his extreme views on the subject of criminal punishment, notably the suggestion to revive the medieval practice of drawing and quartering. He retired soon after.
Army deserter named Oberlin for the ambush-murder of three wealthy excursionists on the Yukon Trail. A year later he was considered for the office of superintendent, but rejected for his extreme views on the subject of criminal punishment, notably the suggestion to revive the medieval practice of drawing and quartering. He retired soon after.
Four members of the Bliss-Whitelaw Gang were killed in the opening fire at Cree Lake, including young Stote, the Negro Redfoot, and the wolf-eyed man, a quarter-breed Ute named Dick Nighthunter. The fourth was not Yeller, born Gunther Braun in Pennsylvania; he was captured along with Laban and three others, tried in Ottawa, and hanged for the murder of a Metis family of four and a Roman Catholic priest named Capet on Lake Athabasca. The big Negro and one other were condemned, as well. The remaining pair were sentenced to a lifetime at hard labor in the penitentiary at Quebec.
Two more who had been with Bliss and Whitelaw at the stronghold slipped away during the fight; their footprints were traced to a half-moon-shaped cleft hollowed out by glaciers a mile east of the lake, where a number of horses had been picketed. The man who had been watching the animals was never found, but a month later a farmer named Donalbain shot to death two men he caught stealing horses from his barn below the border in Montana. Pinkerton detectives came out from Fort Benton to take pictures of the corpses and make Bertillon measurements, then sent the results to the home office in Chicago, where the two were identified from penitentiary records as Virgil Hearn and John Thomson, both of whom had served time in the territories for armed robbery. Thomson's brother Ned was the fourth man killed by the Mounties at the stronghold, and so that loose end was considered tied down for good and all.
I never saw Philippe or his family after we parted company
at the Mountie camp. I found the little Metis sitting on King Henry's wooden saddle on the ground near a little campfire, not far from where the prisoners were being held under guard, complaining in mixed French and English that Fleurette was tying the bandage too tight around his scalp wound. He wouldn't say how it happened, and Fleurette hadn't the English for it, but Claude broke his silence for the second time since we'd started out, providing a full and lucid account of how his father had managed to keep my name off a brass plaque in Ottawa; or more likely a wooden cross in Helena. (His choice of words and phrases puzzled me until years later, when I read
Wuthering Heights
for the first time.) Philippe barked at him. The boy stuck out his lip. Then his father said something just as gruff, but not as harsh, tweaked Claude's already scarlet cheek hard enough to hurt, and sent him off with a smack on the rump to look for his book and a spot by the fire.
at the Mountie camp. I found the little Metis sitting on King Henry's wooden saddle on the ground near a little campfire, not far from where the prisoners were being held under guard, complaining in mixed French and English that Fleurette was tying the bandage too tight around his scalp wound. He wouldn't say how it happened, and Fleurette hadn't the English for it, but Claude broke his silence for the second time since we'd started out, providing a full and lucid account of how his father had managed to keep my name off a brass plaque in Ottawa; or more likely a wooden cross in Helena. (His choice of words and phrases puzzled me until years later, when I read
Wuthering Heights
for the first time.) Philippe barked at him. The boy stuck out his lip. Then his father said something just as gruff, but not as harsh, tweaked Claude's already scarlet cheek hard enough to hurt, and sent him off with a smack on the rump to look for his book and a spot by the fire.
“That was taking a chance,” I said. “Once the killing starts, it's hard to stop, no matter what kind of training you've had.”
He showed his gold teeth. “I have earned those double eagles, yes?”
I fished them out of the sack. When he reached for them, I dropped them into his palm and laid the Evans rifle across his lap with my other hand.
He looked up. “You will come home with us and I will give you the buffalo robe.”
“I won't need it. After Canada, winter in Montana will feel like springtime in Missouri.”
“That was not our bargain.” He pocketed the coins and held out the rifle for me to take. I didn't.
Fleurette said something quietly. After a moment he said,
“Bon,”
and returned the rifle to his lap. “
Merci, monsieur le depute.
Deputy Marshal Murdock.”
“Bon,”
and returned the rifle to his lap. “
Merci, monsieur le depute.
Deputy Marshal Murdock.”
“Page will do. It's easier to say.” I went back into my pocket. “Good luck finding ammunition. These are as many shells as I could gather up.” I tipped the handful of brass empties into his hand. He gripped mine before letting go.
“The Métis are not without ingenuity in these things,” he said. “You will return for the trial, no?”
I glanced toward the tent where the man who had dressed Vivian's wound was working on Whitelaw. “My part ends here. Anyway, I doubt he'll live long enough to see a courtroom.”
“He will recover. A man with so much poison in him does not die like other men.”
They had eaten, but there was some rabbit left and Fleurette insisted on warming it over the fire even though I was hungry enough to eat it cold, or for that matter with the fur on. We said good night and I cleared a space nearby for my bedroll and went to sleep immediately. When I awoke at dawn, the family had pulled out for home.
Three years later, the Métis rebel leader Louis Riel Jr. returned from exile to lead a second insurrection against British rule in Canada. The civil war came to a head in May 1885 in the village of Batoche, where two hundred Métis held out for four days against nearly a thousand militiamen and Canadian regulars before they were overrun. During the standoff, Métis sharpshooters supplemented their waning ammunition with pebbles, nails, and metal buttons against some seventy-thousand Gatling rounds and hammering blows from seven-pounders. I did not hear if Philippe Louis-Napoleon Charlemagne Voltaire Murat du la Rochelle and his marvelous Evans rifle were among the sharpshooters, or if he was one of those tried in Regina for treason and sentenced to life at hard labor, but I remembered what he had told me about Métis ingenuity. Riel himself was convicted in Regina of treason and incitement to rebellion and hanged.
At about the same time, eight members of the Cree Nation were hanged in Regina for their part in an attack on the Mountie stockade at Battleford in conjunction with Métis rebels. Chief Piapot was not among them, having died of natural causes the year before near the Arctic Circle, the place the Cree called the Great Sea of Ice. Construction on the Canadian Pacific Railway resumed and sped to completion.
The free African community of Shulamite barely survived the century. In the nineties the generation that had grown up since slavery went to the cities to look for work. Their children joined the Canadian colored regiments during the World War, and when they returned they did not go back to the settlement except only briefly, to visit elderly relatives who spoke of nothing but life on the plantation and the adventure of the Underground Railroad. By then developers had bought and torn down the cabins and the great lodge, replaced them with proper houses, and renamed the place in favor of something less contentious. Its current residents have never heard of Brother Hebron or Queen Fidelity. The leading church is Southern Baptist.
Nothing was heard of Lorenzo Bliss after the night of the Mountie assault on the Sioux stronghold at Cree Lake, although the legend grew up that he had somehow escaped Indian justice to rob Canadian trains with Bill Miner's gang in 1906. They say Jesse James and Billy the Kid were never killed either. I suppose somewhere there's a private club where these latter-day Lazaruses gather to drink and play cards and compare stories of life on the scout.
Charlie Whitelaw, the renegade Cherokee who with Lorenzo Bliss led a band of murderers on a bloody rampage from the Nations to the wilderness of Canada, beat all the odds and recovered from his injuries. After six months he was declared medically fit to stand trial, but the proceedings were delayed for
another year while the U.S. State Department and the Canadian Ministry of Justice fought over who got first crack at him. Finally, in response to a letter from President Arthur, Sir John Macdonald, the prime minister, agreed to remand the prisoner over to the American authorities once a verdict had been reached in Ottawa. He was quickly found guilty on twenty-three counts of armed robbery, rape, arson, and murder, and sentenced to death, whereupon he was transported under guard to Helena. There Judge Blackthorne ordered him to hang following his conviction on thirty-eight counts of capital crime in territories belonging to the United States.
another year while the U.S. State Department and the Canadian Ministry of Justice fought over who got first crack at him. Finally, in response to a letter from President Arthur, Sir John Macdonald, the prime minister, agreed to remand the prisoner over to the American authorities once a verdict had been reached in Ottawa. He was quickly found guilty on twenty-three counts of armed robbery, rape, arson, and murder, and sentenced to death, whereupon he was transported under guard to Helena. There Judge Blackthorne ordered him to hang following his conviction on thirty-eight counts of capital crime in territories belonging to the United States.
As it turned out, though, he didn't hang even once.
In June 1883, while awaiting execution in the Montana territorial penitentiary at Deer Lodge, Whitelaw strangled to death a guard who passed too near his cell and used the guard's key to unlock the door. He got almost to the end of the cellblock before Halloran, the captain of the guard, stuck a sawed-off ten-gauge shotgun between the bars of the block door and blew him to pieces at a range of three feet. What was left of him was shoveled into the ground in the prison courtyard without so much as a plain wooden cross to mark the spot. He was twenty-four years old.
They say you always remember where you were when you heard such news: I suppose I'm the exception. All I know for sure is I wasn't in a room that contained a billiard table.
CITY OF WIDOWS
THE HIGH ROCKS
BILLY GASHADE
STAMPING GROUND
ACES & EIGHTS
JOURNEY OF THE DEAD
JITTERBUG
MURDOCK'S LAW
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN MOVING
PICTURE ASSOCIATION
THUNDER CITY
WHITE DESERT
THE HIGH ROCKS
BILLY GASHADE
STAMPING GROUND
ACES & EIGHTS
JOURNEY OF THE DEAD
JITTERBUG
MURDOCK'S LAW
THE ROCKY MOUNTAIN MOVING
PICTURE ASSOCIATION
THUNDER CITY
WHITE DESERT
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