Sundance 19 Page 6

  Riel dismounted awkwardly, hampered by his long coat. One of Dumont’s men ran to grab the reins, and the crowd cheered the horse as it was led away. Dumont good naturedly pushed people aside as Riel walked up the steps of the schoolhouse. Now and then, Riel stopped to speak to a child or an old man; there was a cheer every time he did. At the top of the steps, he shook hands with Hardesty and the other Irishman. The two Irishman looked at Sundance with blank faces, and he knew they had been talking about him.

  “We can’t get any more in,” Hardesty said. “The place has been packed for an hour. We’d better go in. Nolin and the others are waiting.”

  Riel raised his hand. “In a moment, Colum. Some of these people have come a long way, and the day is cold.” Turning on the steps, he spoke to the crowd gathered in front and on both sides:

  “I am sorry, my people, but there is no more room inside. But I don’t want you to return to your homes. I want you to remain here. By doing so, you will give me your support. News of what is going on inside will be given to you. Today, my people, we are going to decide what must be done if we are to be free. All our leaders are present today, all gathered together for the first time. There will be speeches.” Riel made a face and the crowd laughed. “But when all the talking is done, the hard decision still has to be made. You know what that is!”

  With the applause of the crowd roaring behind him, Riel walked into the schoolhouse, followed by Dumont, Sundance, Hardesty, and the second Irishman. The thin wooden walls that partitioned the various classrooms had been taken out, so now there was one huge room. The desks had been taken out, too. All that remained was a long table supported by iron trestles on a raised platform at the back of the room. In front of the platform was another table for lesser dignitaries. Many of the seats at both tables were already occupied.

  None of the faces meant anything to Sundance. He noted that two of the men were priests; neither looked satisfied with the proceedings. The big room was filled to capacity with men and some women; no children were present. Damp clothes steamed in the heat of several hundred bodies packed together. An officious looking elderly man, who might have been a lawyer’s clerk if not for his copper skin, made a fuss about opening some of the windows. There were no benches in the room. Some people remained standing, but most had settled down on the muddy floor. Several had brought food, for they had been told it was going to be a long day.

  The crowd made way for Riel, and he walked directly to the platform. The men there rose to greet him, some with the warmth of old friendship, some with reserve. Sundance noticed that one of the two priests did not shake hands with Riel. The priest who shook his hand was lean and quick-eyed, in his middle thirties; the other cleric was an old man with a stocky build and a great mane of white hair.

  The hand shaking and hugging went on for a while. Sundance wondered where it was all going to lead. If it went far enough, it would lead many people there to death. But, Sundance decided, few if any of the men on the platform would die. That was how it worked. The politicians made rousing speeches and the foot soldiers died.

  Among the men on the platform there was an uneasiness. From time to time, their eyes darted to the two empty chairs, then to the door. Sundance stood with his back to the wall, watching while Hardesty whispered something to Gabriel Dumont. After that, Riel whispered to Dumont. Both times Dumont shook his head.

  There was more whispering. Finally, Riel took out a large silver watch, opened the face cover, and put it on the table in front of him. He was about to speak when, suddenly, there was a commotion outside the church. He leaned over to speak to Dumont, who sat beside him, and this time the big halfbreed nodded. Riel smiled, Dumont did not.

  Riel raised his voice until it could be heard clearly in every corner of the big room. “Our Indian brothers are here,” he said. “As soon as they have been made welcome, this meeting—this convention—will begin.”

  The crowd remained silent, almost fearful, while two Indians came in the door and walked toward the platform. Both were big men; the older one was handsome and looked intelligent. Sundance recognized them as Crees, tribesmen of great ferocity at one time and, from all reports, becoming increasingly hostile to the whites on both sides of the border. Looking at the two Cree chiefs, Sundance could well understand General Crook’s fear of an all-out Indian war in the North West. In the Territories alone, there were twenty thousand fighting Indians: Plains and Woods Cree, Blackfeet, Assiniboin, Stoney, runaway Sioux from Montana, and others. There had been little of the savage Indian fighting in the Territories that had plagued the Suites; but as the buffalo died out and food grew scarce, hatred was beginning to simmer. Then there was the matter of manhood. The warlike Sioux, still boasting of their victory over Custer nine years before, taunted the Cree’s and the others as “tame” Indians and “old women.” That alone would be enough to start trouble.

  The two Indians stopped in front of the platform, and Riel reached down to shake hands with them. It was all done with great dignity. Then they sat in the two empty seats and folded their arms across their chests. Sundance looked at their faces and saw nothing but masks. He wondered what they were thinking; there was no way to tell.

  Louis Riel stood up and raised both hands above his head. His voice was shaking with emotion when he spoke:

  “Let us begin.”

  Nine

  First, Riel introduced the men on the platform. “You know some of them, my people. Everyone knows Gabriel Dumont, good Gabriel of the rough tongue and the good heart. If war with the Canadians must come, Gabriel will lead our men. Does anyone object?”

  The crowd thundered its applause. Riel nodded and motioned the people to be quiet. “That is good,” he went on. “I am your leader. I returned from exile because you sent for me, but I rule only with your consent. If at any time you are displeased with my leadership, then you must tell me. I will step aside in favor of a better man.”

  The crowd roared, “No! No!”

  Riel was very good, Sundance thought. Maybe he was a little too good. He was playing the crowd like a melodeon, squeezing out the notes and watching them dance. But that’s what all politicians, even honest ones, did or tried to do. It was a tricky trade, no matter how you looked at it.

  Next, Riel introduced the two priests, though everyone knew who they were. Sundance knew that, in a French-Canadian community, the priests should have come before Dumont. Riel, the politician, was making a point no one there could miss. The priests were in a place of honor at the meeting—only as long as they didn’t get in the way.

  Riel spoke their names: Father André and Father Grandin. Both men nodded. The old one with the white hair was Father André. Grandin, the priest who was eager to please Riel, smiled nervously and half rose from his chair.

  Then the other men were introduced: Charles Nolin— “my cousin”—Riel said to loud applause. Moise Ouellette, Michel Dumas, James Isbister. And there were others.

  Riel said, “These men have been with me from the beginning. Through the years, we have been harried by the police and insulted in the newspapers. At one time, an attempt was made on the life of Michel Dumas. They say the Mounties always get their man, but somehow they let this one get away—because, of course, he was known by certain men in the Canadian government. Michel still carries the bullet, a reminder of Canadian democracy in action.”

  After Riel let the crowd laugh fora while, he protested, “It isn’t funny. Michel’s only crime was that he talked too freely in the name of freedom. Yes, my people, for more than fifteen years they have been trying to stop us. Petitions, genuine letters of complaint, have been sent and never received—so they say—and always never answered. And when there is some, sort of response, it is unfailingly the same: Be patient! Trust the good men in government! Trust in John A. Macdonald, Prime Minister of the glorious Dominion of Canada! Soon, everything will be wonderful! All you have to do is wait!”

  Riel raised his fist. “Do you want to wait?”

&n
bsp; Looking at the excited faces turned toward the speaker, once again Sundance decided that Louis Riel knew his business. His voice was clear and deep, but it was his hands the crowd watched, fascinated by the way he used them. All Frenchmen used their hands when they talked. Riel had gone far beyond the usual gestures; maybe he had practiced this spellbinding, and maybe it was natural. It didn’t matter. The effect on the crowd was the same.

  Continuing after the noise died down, Riel said: “For more than fifteen years we have been patient. Is that not long enough? Now the Canadian Pacific Railroad is complete, and the government in Ottawa has plans to bury us under tens of thousands of immigrants. Not just Scots and English and Irish, but Germans, Russians, and Swedes—people who do not know our ways and would despise them if they did. If we wait any longer, it will be like trying to fight a plague of locusts. And like the locusts in the Bible, they will fill the land until they occupy every square inch of it. When that happens, there will no longer be any chance for a métis nation. Instead of living as free men and women, you will be crowded off your land.

  “For some of you it has already happened. And how will you live then? I will tell you how. The men will work as hired hands, slaving from dawn to dust, on farms across which their ancestors roamed freely. There will be no more joy in life, nothing but these sour-faced Scotchmen with their hellfire hymns. And, men, if you don’t work on their farms—their farms, mind you—you will be forced to load their wagons, sweep out their stores, or break your backs in their lumber camps and mines. And what about your women and children? I will tell you ...”

  Beating on the table and raising his eloquent voice as the moment demanded, Louis Riel continued to stir Tip the crowd. Some of the other men at the table were given a chance to speak, but it was clear that Riel’s talk of out-and-out rebellion frightened some of them. It frightened fames Isbister, the English halfbreed from Prince Albert, a skinny sallow-faced man with the nervous habit of coughing after every few words. He argued that freedom, or at least partial independence, could be gained without bloodshed. First, he said, they had to show the Canadians how determined they were. On the other hand, they had to move cautiously.

  Some man in the crowd who knew Isbister yelled, “You say that because you have more to lose than we have. You are a townsman with a hardware store. What do you know about the land or what it is to be really free?”

  Michel Dumas, the man who had been wounded, was even more extreme than Riel. His dark eyes glittered with hatred, his knobby fists clenching and unclenching as he spoke:

  “The time has come to wash the Saskatchewan Valley in blood. There is no other way. They call us stupid, dirty, careless. We are half starved now because we wiped out the buffalo in our stupidity. Serves us right, they say, so we should be glad to eat their salt bacon instead of real meat. But what about the railroad? Everyone knows the railroad wiped out the buffalo. The buffalo will not cross a railroad track unless driven over it by fire. So the herds were split into north and south, divided and scattered. They talk of our stupidity! And I will say now what I have often said before: The Canadians don’t just want to control us. They want to exterminate us!”

  A wild roar went up from the crowd. Sundance noticed that Riel stood up quickly, as if to prevent any more firebrand outbursts from Dumas. He was getting too much attention. No clever politician could let that happen. Sundance knew Riel was going to say something that would startle and infuriate the crowd.

  His voice was low and penetrating: “My people, I do not know if they want to exterminate us, as Michel says, but I do know they want to get rid of me. Wait! Wait! Let me continue. Most of you know who D. H. MacDowall is—a powerful man in the Territories, a man who would like to become even more powerful. When I first returned from Montana, word came to me that MacDowall wanted to have a meeting with me. I refused. I know MacDowall and have never had any reason to trust him. I did not think there was anything to discuss. Another messenger came, and again I refused.” Riel paused. “Then a third go-between came to me. I will not reveal his name, but he is in this room at this very moment. Wait! I will not reveal his name because I leave what he did—tried to do—to his own conscience. This great friend of our people said MacDowall and his friends—meaning, I suppose, the Canadian government—were willing to pay me one-hundred thousand dollars in cash on condition that I leave the Territories, never to return. Think about it, my people, one tenth of a million dollars just to get rid of a poor schoolteacher!”

  Riel spoke quickly now. “Do you have any idea how much money that it? I am what they call an educated man, and it is almost beyond my understanding.” Finally, the shouting faded. Riel said: “I have worked as a store clerk and a prairie schoolteacher, and for several years I roamed with the buffalo hunters of Montana and Wyoming. I have never had more than two-hundred dollars at once in my life.”

  He laughed. “And I thought myself rich when I had that much. But one-hundred thousand dollars! My God! The figure danced in front of my eyes! And do you think I was tempted?”

  The crowd roared, “No!”

  Riel smiled slyly, as though taking them into his confidence. “Yes,” he said, “I was tempted. You don’t want to think your leader is a fool, do you?”

  The crowd remained silent.

  “For about ten seconds I was tempted,” Riel shouted, “and then I told MacDowall’s emissary to go back and tell his master the answer was no. Not for a million and not for ten million!”

  Father Andre stood up shakily. The crowd stopped yelling and stared at him, unsure of what he was about to say. Riel’s dark eyes flickered from face to face. It was very quiet in the big room.

  UI am the man Louis is talking about,” the old priest began. He waited for the yelling to start again, but there was only silence. “MacDowall is not my master. Only God is my master, and I serve Him willingly. When Louis first returned from Montana, I welcomed him because I know how much you have suffered and how much you respect him. Louis is back, I thought, and he is fifteen years older, not so hotheaded as he was. He has been a schoolteacher, is married, with a wife and two daughters in Montana. He is even an American citizen. We talked, and at first I like what he had to say. Then, as weeks and months passed, I saw that he was more hotheaded than ever.”

  Michel Dumont started to say something. Riel silenced him immediately: “Let the friend of the people speak.” Father André said, “I began to see nothing but bloodshed ahead. I still do. When I heard of MacDowall’s plan, I went to him; he did not come to me. I thought it would be best for everybody if Louis went back to Montana. I knew he would talk to me if not to MacDowall. I was empowered to offer him five thousand dollars if he left the Territories. Louis said he would leave for nothing less than one hundred thousand.”

  “Lying priest!” Michel Dumas shouted. “You always take the side of the rich!”

  Sundance’s eyes narrowed as he looked over at Riel, who was taking it calmly. Father André remained on his feet, badly shaken by the ordeal. Disregarding him completely, Riel stood up, saying, “Hold your tongue, Michel. He is still a priest. However, in the interest of truth—not to dirty his name but to clear mine—I would like to ask him if it’s true that D.H. MacDowall has promised to build him a new church and parish house?”

  Father Andre’s voice faltered. “That was months before.”

  Riel turned quickly and shouted like a prosecuting attorney, “Why would a Scotch Presbyterian want to build a Catholic church for the métis! Why would a Scotch Presbyterian want to do anything for the métis? Sundance knew that the crowd was squarely on Riel’s side, and he knew the whole thing had been carefully planned.

  The old priest held out both hands toward the sullen crowd. “Mr. MacDowall is a good man, a kind man. He came to the Territories as a poor boy from Scotland. He became rich here and wants only good for everyone here. When the Indians left the reservation and were starving, Mr. MacDowall fed them with his own beef. A wagonload of blankets was provided.”

>   Michel Dumas, the priest-hater, was up on his feet again. “We all know that story. You know damn well the only reason MacDowall fed the Indians was to keep them from raiding his herds and his storehouses. He bought your trickery with the promise of a church. What is the cost of a church? I don’t know, but a man like MacDowall would carry enough money to build it in his pocket. But your worst lie is when you said MacDowall tried to bribe Louis with a miserable five thousand. Answer me, priest. How much money would you say the North West Territories are worth? How many hundreds of millions of dollars? And you say MacDowall could spare only five thousand!”

  Dumas turned to the crowd. “We know the Scotch are tight with their money. But only five thousand for a whole country!”

  Riel slammed his hand on the top of the table. He continued to thump the table until there was absolute silence. “That will be enough, Michel. I do not want to hear any more about it. If this disruption could have been prevented, I would not have mentioned it at all.”

  Suddenly, Riel’s voice rose almost to a scream. “I will allow no man, priest or not, to accuse me of treachery to my people. Because, my friends, honor is all we have. The world outside our borders is trying to destroy us, suppress our customs, push us aside as old fashioned and primitive. To hell with the rest of the world is what I say!”

  Riel’s voice became quiet, almost sad. “I don’t want the world to go to Hell. I just want it to keep out of the North West Territories.” He raised his arms as if trying to hug everyone there. “We are all we have. That is why we must remain faithful to one another in all things. Without honor, there is nothing. In my mind I see a great host of enemies arrayed against us. To prevail over these destroyers, we must be strong as never before in our long history.”