Sundance 19 Page 15

  Dumont turned over on his side and stared at the wall. “I am sick of all this talk. No matter what I say, you keep at it All these arguments, I am sick to death of them.”

  “If you don’t want to listen, why don’t you get drunk? You’re good at getting drunk. I ought to know. I had to look at your drunken face and listen to your stupid talk. You can find a bottle if you put your mind to it. Ask one of the Irishmen.”

  Dumont swung his legs off the bed and stood up, his scarred fists swinging by his side. “I’m going to break your face,” he said. “I’m going to break your face and then throw you out.”

  “Try it, buffalo hunter,” Sundance said, getting up and bracing himself. He wasn’t sure he could beat Dumont. The man had three inches and thirty pounds on him, but there was more to it than that. Dumont was a wild man, drunk or sober, when he was roused.

  Suddenly Dumont began to laugh, a deep, heaving rumble that came from far down in his chest. His huge body shook convulsively and the laughing went on. He bent over to slap his thigh, fighting for breath.

  “What the hell is so funny?” Sundance said sourly, though a grin was beginning to twist the corners of his mouth. “Suppose you tell me what’s so goddamned funny.”

  “I don’t know. I was ready to break your face when I suddenly thought of duck eggs.”

  “That’s a hell of a thing to laugh at.”

  “You don’t think it’s funny? I do. For the rest of my life every time I think of you, I’m going to think of duck eggs.”

  Grinning now, Sundance said, “That’s a hell of a way to be remembered. But I do admit I’m fond of ham and duck eggs.”

  Dumont went into another fit of laughter. When it passed, he looked at Sundance. “All right,” he said. “I got mad at you because I knew you were fight and I didn’t want to face it. What do you think I should do?” Sundance said, “If the Canadians—Middleton—refuse to talk terms with Louis, then you have to take charge. That’s What you have to do, even if Louis objects to it. You already know that Hardesty and Thibault will oppose you. They can be handled. But first you must talk to the métis you can trust. Be very sure of them before you do anything. If word gets out, Hardesty and Thibault may try to move first.”

  “It could come to killing.”

  “It could. Chances are it won’t if you catch them surprise. Anyway, it has to be done. If and when you do talk to the Canadians, forget about Louis’s list of proposals. You want peace with honor, a pardon for all the métis, a guarantee of your rights as free men. Other demands can be worked, out later. What is important is to get them talking. But what comes first is a ceasefire, a truce, an armed truce. The métis will keep their arms until binding guarantees are given by the Ottawa government.”

  “God!” Dumont said. “Gabriel Dumont making demands on the Ottawa government! I’d be a lot happier if I had stayed with the buffalo. You think I ought to trim my beard and cut my hair?”

  “No,” Sundance said. “You wouldn’t be the same.”

  “Maybe Louis will listen to reason,” Dumont said. “In his way, he wants only the best for the métis. I would hate it if he thought I had turned against him.”

  “He’ll thank you if real peace comes,” Sundance said, not altogether believing it himself. “Anyway, the métis will be grateful.”

  “You’ll stick with me through this, Sundance? I don’t know if I could get through it without a friend. God! I hope a truce comes quickly.”

  Sundance said, “That’s only a beginning. Then we have to make sure that nobody breaks it.”

  Nineteen

  The attack began at 5:30 the next morning. This time, Middleton didn’t come directly at the town. The river road was heavily defended with trenches and rifle pits. Middleton sent a small force by the road but took most of his men in a wide circuit out onto the prairie to come in against Batoche from the east.

  Watching the movements of the Canadian troops through his telescope, Gabriel Dumont remarked, “So he’s trying to play fox at last. It won’t do him much good. It’s a good thing the high ground to the east is defended. The Gatling gun on the knob will catch them when they start to come down the slopes. If we make it hot enough for him up there, maybe he’ll fall back to the road.”

  It was a lovely spring day, with green grass sprouting and the willows and poplars budding into foliage. The sun was coming up bright and warm, and even the birds were singing. In the river, the last of the ice was being borne away on the current. There had been no contact between the two forces yet. Middleton’s soldiers were still out of range, and the métis were under strict orders not to do any random shooting. For the moment, there was enough ammunition, but unlike the Canadians, the métis had no supply wagon to bring up more boxes of bullets from the rear.

  Middleton’s men spent the best part of an hour taking up their positions for the attack. At seven o’clock, the Northcote, armed to the teeth, began to sail upriver, tooting its steam whistle, the signal that the combined land and water assault was about to begin. As the Northcote steamed into range, a hail of lead was thrown at it from the trenches and rifle pits along the bank of the river; but the boiler and the guns were protected by the double wall of planks and sacks of grain and sand. The métis riflemen kept firing, but the Northcote sailed on as if nothing were happening.

  Bugles sounded from the river road and from the high ground to the east. Immediately, the artillery opened fire, sending shells screaming into the barracks. For the moment, the town itself, which was mostly on the west bank of the river, was out of range. The Canadians attacking by the river road ran into furious fire and were driven back almost at once, while the troops charging down from the high ground were met by concentrated fire from the Gatling gun manned by Hardesty’s Irishmen.

  Peppered by rifle fire, the Northcote steamed forward until it reached the center of the town. The cannon and the Gatling gun on the upper deck opened fire at the same time. A shell tore away the side of a house and it began to burn, sending long streamers of oil smoke out over the river. Another shell blew a wagon and a team of horses to bits, while the Gatling gun, firing one thousand .58 caliber bullets a minute, raked the waterfront, chopping up everything in sight. The cannon continued to fire as fast as the gunners could drop in the shells. If the Northcote wasn’t put out of action, Batoche would be burning in a very short time. The Gatling and the cannon kept on firing until the riverboat had sailed past the limits of the town.

  Now the Northcote was turning to wreak more destruction as it steamed back through the town. The river was wide there, and the turn was effected quickly. Suddenly, a roar went up from the métis as the enormous steel cable of the ferry was raised aft of the boat. The Gatling gun opened fire at once on the wooden shack from which the winches were operated. The shack disintegrated under the rain of heavy caliber bullets, but the cable was up and the winch was locked in place.

  A short distance downriver, the second cable was coming up out of the water. In the second shack, the men turning the winch were killed when the Gatling opened fire. The cable began to rattle back into the water and would have sunk to the bottom if three métis hadn’t rushed forward. One was killed before reaching the shack; the other ran inside and worked the winch.

  Every rifle along the river bank was concentrated at the Gatling gun. It was well protected, but the furious fire drove the gunner and his helper into cover. The Gatling started firing again, but the cable in the river was almost taut. Sounding its steam whistle furiously, the Northcote headed straight for the cable, hoping to break it. The boat struck the cable held firm and the upper deck, the guns, the two smoke stacks, and the mast were torn away and fell into the river. Screams rang out from the middle of the river as men were cut by the cable or crushed under falling timber. The Northcote had shown no mercy to the town of Batoche, and the métis riflemen along the shore were ruthless in their attack on the crippled steamboat spinning in the grip of the current. Soon it was past the town, still turning crazily. The
Northcote's short career as a gunboat was over.

  All the métis who had manned the trenches and rifle pits along the river were moved back to meet the main attack from the high ground to the east. Up on the knob, the Gatling gun, manned by the Irishmen, was firing furiously. The attack from the road had failed, and Dumont called back half the men from behind the second line of defenses; when the Canadians regrouped and attacked again from the high ground, they were met by deadly, concentrated fire. They fought fiercely, but were slowly driven back.

  “It’s not going to be so easy,” Dumont said to Sundance while they were sharing a canteen of water in a forward rifle pit. The Canadians had been driven back to the high ground, from where they kept up a steady round of sniping. “Middleton seems to be using his head at last—or somebody else’s head. We’re going to have to move the barbed wire as soon as it gets dark. If they come down that slope often enough, they’re bound to break through just by numbers. They’re fighting damned well today.”

  The day dragged on. Several hours passed. The only action was heavy sniping from the high ground. Then, at two o’clock, another attack was launched from the river by men brought down from the slopes. At the same time, there was another fierce attack from the high ground to the east. The Canadians came charging down the slope, firing as they came. Like the métis, they were armed with Lee-Metfords. The fire from the bolt action British rifles was fast and steady. For the first time, they had fixed bayonets attached to their rifles, and the bright steel flashed in the rays of the sinking sun. It took everything the métis had to beat them back. When the retreat was over, the slope was dotted with corpses. Just before the sun went down, a Canadian officer came out with a flag of truce and asked to be allowed to remove the wounded.

  Watching the stretcher bearers working on the slope, Gabriel Dumont said to Sundance, “I think these militiamen are turning into soldiers. Only a few weeks ago they were farmers and storekeepers, drilling once a week so they could smoke and spit and tell stories away from their wives. Now they are getting the feel of it. Some are even getting to like it. I am thinking there may be a night attack. They will break through if we don’t move the wire.”

  It got dark very fast. Winter was just over; the nights were still long and cold. A wind came off the river. Far up on the slope, the campfires of the Canadians could be seen. Down in the métis camp, great iron pots of pea soup were bubbling. The métis campfires were protected by trimmed tree trunks buried upright in the ground that prevented the men from being sniped at from above while they ate. After the men ate, they melted back into the darkness to listen for sounds of the enemy, to watch for an attack.

  “What time do you figure to start on the wire?” Sundance asked. The ham he was eating was hot and well peppered. He decided he was getting tired of thick pea soup, the favorite food of the métis.

  “Not long after the men have eaten,” Dumont said. “The Canadians, too. The Canadians are tired after the long day. Maybe even their officers are tired and not so eager for night fighting. We will move the wire into the new position and hope we don’t make too much noise.”

  “They have flares.”

  “I was thinking about the flares. It can’t be helped. The wire must be moved. I don’t think there will be any more attacks from the road, so we will move even more men from the positions there. It’s taking a chance, I know. I don’t think there is anything else we can do. If they overrun the defenses, they have the numbers to finish us.”

  At eight o’clock, Dumont and Sundance led a party of fifteen men out to the first line of defense on the river road. Another fifteen followed. The first party was to lift the X shaped wooden supports, the second was to drag the coiled up wire. They all wore leather gloves as protection against the long, glittering barbs.

  “There is no way to do it quickly,” Dumont warned them. “The wire will dig into the ground, so we must take our time. Don’t get nervous if flares go off overhead, because our support will open fire immediately. So will the Gatling gun on the knob. I hope they will not hear us, but I know they will. If they open fire and some of you arc hit, the others are to keep going. This whole fight is changing. We can no longer be sure of beating the Canadians. All right now, we begin.”

  Like a long steel centipede, the line of barbed wire began to move in the semi-darkness. Here and there it twanged as the barbs caught on something, a tree stump or a dump of brush. Dumont urged them to be more cautious. “If we can get it into position without the Canadians knowing, they will destroy themselves on it when they attack. If a flare goes off, get down as fast as you can and don’t move. From so far up, they may not see the wire. Move!”

  It took a full thirty minutes to get the wire away from where it had been. Up where the Canadians were camped; it was quiet. Métis riflemen with bullets already in the chambers of their rifles watched the dark slope while Dumont, Sundance, and the thirty men slowly moved the wire. The men cursed softly as the barbs cut through their leather gloves. They stopped to rest watching for flares, and then went on.

  Soon, the long line of wire had been brought parallel to the bottom of the slope. Then it was stretched across the wide opening on the slope, through which the Canadians would have to attack, since the rest of the slope was slashed with fissures and jumbled with rocks.

  Dumont whispered, “I would like to anchor it more securely with stakes, but it’s all right. It’s not something you can break through or jump over. Get down!”

  A flare arced up into the night sky and exploded with a soft popping sound, bathing the slope in garish light.

  Sundance and the others threw themselves down behind the wire while the métis opened fire. The flare hung suspended in the sky while the brief exchange of rifle fire went on. A second flare went up, and the shooting continued until it went out.

  “I don’t think they saw the wire,” Dumont said. “Nobody was shooting at us. I don’t think there’s much else we can do now. If they want some night fighting, then let them come.”

  They were back in camp, behind one of the walls of logs that protected the fires. It was about ten o’clock, with many long hours to go until dawn. “You’re right about the Canadians,” Sundance said. “They are fighting better. It’s all a matter of getting used to it. That’s how it was in the Civil War. The Confederates sneered that the Union volunteers from the northern cities couldn’t fight. They said they’d wet their pants at the sound of the first shot, and so on. And they were right at first. But a little later in the war, those city men showed them how wrong they were. How long do you think this will go on?”

  ‘They’re not beaten yet. There’s no use trying to talk to them till they’re good and tired. They’ll think about talking when there are so many dead they’ll have trouble getting them all buried. If they get mad enough, they may not talk at all. If that happens, if they decide to sit it out and wait for reinforcements to arrive from the south, we’ll probably have to abandon the town. We don’t have the strength to counterattack and destroy them. Now we better get some sleep.”

  Wrapped in blankets, Sundance and Dumont slept by the fire. It rained along about midnight, but the fire dried them quickly. At one o’clock, they walked the lines of defense where the sentries reported nothing unusual. One old métis with a sour sense of humor said, “All I can tell you for sure, Gabriel, is they’re still up there. If you don’t believe me, you can climb up there and look for yourself.”

  Dumont said he would take the old man’s word for it. “You know how old that man is?” he asked Sundance while they continued their tour of inspection. “He admits to being sixty-five, but I know he’s at least seventy. I hope I can let him die in his bed with his grandchildren gathered around him.”

  Then it was three o’clock, and it was still quiet. Dumont threw a twig in the fire. “I’m thinking there won’t be any night attack after all, but I have a feeling—a feeling and nothing more—that they will come a little earlier than usual. Before it is completely light.”


  “Why do you think that?” Sundance asked, knowing that Dumont trusted his feelings as much as he did. They were both half Indian; there was no need to explain. If you examined your feelings too deeply, the meaning was lost.

  Dumont smiled. “Two reasons. I feel it, and that’s the most important The second reason is this: Middleton attacked at five-thirty yesterday morning. Exactly first light, very exact. Now Middleton will want to do something different, something to surprise us. Of course, it’s all stupid. He can’t very well attack after first light, so he will attack before. In the end, it makes no difference. We’ll be waiting for him. The camp will be very quiet when he comes, with all the lazy good-for-nothing métis snoring in their blankets.”

  At four o’clock, Dumont quietly roused every man in camp and issued whispered instructions. The fires had been allowed to die down a little. It was quiet up on the ridge, in the Canadian position.

  “If I’m wrong, there is nothing lost,” Dumont whispered to Sundance. “Ah, but if I’m right “

  At four-thirty, it was still dark, with just a tinge of gray light appearing in the eastern sky. Gripping their rifles, the lines of métis waited. It began two minutes after four-thirty. Three flares exploded over the camp, washing it in blinding white light. They were followed by a wild roar from hundreds of men as the Canadians began their charge from the top of the slope. They had moved one of their Gatling guns to a forward position. Its six rotating barrels began to spit out bullets at the rate of a thousand a minute. Down the long slope they came, firing fast. A boy carrying the Canadian flag faltered and died as a bullet struck him in the stomach. Another soldier was killed before he could pick up the fallen flag.

  The bugler was blowing the charge, and the attackers came on bravely, straight into the concentrated métis fire. From the knob, the Irishmen kept the Gatling in constant action, firing as fast as bullets could be loaded into the hopper. Still the Canadians kept coming, stumbling over their dead and wounded as they swept down the slope. They didn’t falter until they saw the wire. If they had been attacking by daylight, they would have seen it long before. The wire stopped them at last. The first wave of men ran right into it and were immediately entangled in its coils, fighting madly to break loose. All the time the métis kept up a steady fire. More flares went up, making it easy for them to kill the helpless Canadians. Now there was even time to aim, to shoot carefully.