A Dark and Promised Land (30 page)

Governor Semple moves to the front of his column. They are outgunned, at least three to one. He pulls his proclamation out of his pocket.

Alexander watches the Half-breeds move along their flank, aware of the danger they are in; he has faith in neither their position nor Semple's authority. His heart grieves when he sees many men opposite that he knows by name, people who mean far more to him than these foolish Highlanders.

A Half-breed leaves his line, nudging his horse toward Semple. He wears a beaded deerskin vest with a scarlet sash wrapped about his waist, the tasseled ends flapping in the wind. Feathers dangle from the barrel of a musket draped across the horse's back.

“I am Boucher,” he says to Semple, in a tone thick with insolence. He looks down at the small sortie, the cannon his people feared nowhere in evidence. “What do you want, old man?”

“What the hell is this?” says Semple. “What do you mean by speaking to me this way? Do you know who I am?”

“I care not. You are English pig, and that is enough.” Boucher leans over, spitting beside his horse.

“Why, you son of a dog, I'll have you whipped; get down from there.” Semple grabs for the reins, and Boucher's startled horse rears with a cry onto its hind legs.

A shot goes off beside Alexander. Another follows, and the Highlanders let loose a scattered, disorganized volley. When the gun smoke at last blows clear, a cheer goes up, and muskets lift in triumph; there is not a Half-breed still sitting on a horse.

Alexander throws himself into the waving grass. “Get down,” he shouts to the exulting men, but is ignored. Seeing several valuable prizes among the Half-breed horses, many Highlanders begin running towards them. Alexander flings out his rifle, tripping Declan.

“What the devil …?” Declan begins, turning towards Alexander. His eyes widen. “You! By Christ …” Another volley erupts from around them, and many Highlanders go down. One man, shot through the eye, collapses onto Declan. “What the hell? What is going on?”

Alexander worms his way towards him. Gunfire surrounds them now, balls whining furious and hot. “Fool. I warned you,” he says, around the shot carried in his mouth. He spits a ball into the smoking barrel of his carbine. “They have us now.”

Semple kneels in the grass, stunned and uncomprehending while blood pumps from his thigh. A Half-breed runs him through the breast with a spear and he falls onto his back, the protruding shaft waving with the last tremors of his heart. Behind his prostrate men, Cuthbert Grant carries the black Half-breed flag, exhorting them in the battle.

Alexander takes aim and fires, sees him flinch. “Just a nick, Grant, but that'll learn you not to be so damned cocky,” he says under his breath. Beside him, Declan shoots wildly at a hidden foe. Alexander spits in another ball. “Get out of here. There's not a chance. For your life!”

Declan's face is a ghastly yellow and marked with a long, red weal where a ball has creased his cheek. “I … I believe I have pissed myself,” he says, looking down at the dark stain in his breeches. He looks up again, and both men suddenly laugh. There is the sound of approaching hooves, and a Half-breed runs through the line, turves flying. Spying Declan, he levels his musket; Alexander's carbine barks, and the man flies backwards off his horse.

“Now!” says Alexander. Declan stares at him a moment, shaking, then begins an awkward backward shuffle on his belly through the grass.

Shots become scattered, as few of Semple's men remain alive either as targets or as defenders. Alexander reloads as fast as he is able, the Baker hot in his hands. Whenever a Half-breed head pops up, he sends a ball whistling through a hat or nicking off a feather.

Soon all survivors who are able have crept away and he finds himself in the absurd position of his carbine being the only response to the shooting around him. The Half-breeds are crawling closer, their balls clipping grass stems and thudding into the ground beside him, sprinkling him with dirt. He is almost obscured by a fog of Half-breed powder smoke, and his ears ring with the reports. A man rises to get a clearer shot, and Alexander takes a bead on his nose; he freezes as he recognizes Jacque, remembering his words: “I wanted to with all my heart, my friend, but not here, not now. I will spill your blood another day
.
”

A puff of smoke from Jacque's gun, and Alexander's world bursts in a riot of burning, red light.

Rose lies on her back, her knees high. Her face glares puffy and red, sweat glittering on her forehead. The small window has been covered, the only light from a sputtering tallow dip resting on a nearby table. Several women surround her, scurrying about and pretending to help. The popping of distant gunfire carries into the room, bringing with it the faint hellfire reek of burning powder. With each new volley, Rose cries out and strains, her body convulsing; her head rocks from side to side. Women take each of her hands as if to comfort, to give her strength, but they are not really with her, focused as much as she at the sounds of battle and the sound of their men cut down with the ease of running buffalo.

With each shot a contraction waves through her, leaving her gasping. As blood spills scarlet over the waving, yellow grass, so too it flows from her womb, following the emerging child.

Hands wring in concern as the head crowns, announced by a wail of grief and pain. A deer hide is placed before the emerging life: a head, an arm, a red fist clenched tight. While the last fleeing man falls into the grass with his heart pierced by a ball, the infant slides onto the wet cloth accompanied by a warm, living flow.

The dying man's shriek mingles with the cries of the child, and in that small dark room on the prairie, birth and death are conjugated.

Alexander lies on his back and stares up at the day's blue firmament that seems without end, his eyes taking him to a height that seems to continue on forever. He wonders if heaven indeed exists in that blue depth; even the clouds and the wheeling hawk above him seem hopelessly earth-bound when compared to the heights he feels within his breast. As life prepares to abandon him, he reaches a bloodied hand skyward, feeling impossibly remote from that high, lovely place.

The Métis sit upon their horses, the settlers and Company men filing out through the fort gates, their dragging feet lifting a saffron-coloured cloud of dust. A few children cry. Now and then, a widow shrieks and faints, seeing the damp scalps — red, brown, or yellow — hanging from several of the Half-breeds' horses. Above them all, the new flag of the Métis nation snaps in the rising wind.

Rose walks with Declan limping beside her. She lifts her pale face to see Cuthbert Grant at the head of his men, presiding over the surrender and abandonment of Fort Douglas. His grey eyes meet hers, and with a great effort of will she returns his gaze; tears gather, but she refuses them freedom. She pulls her infant tighter to her breast and looks to the horizon, Declan's arm moving around her. Together with the rest of her people, they shuffle from the fort.

Do you want to hear sung

A song that is true?

Last June the 19th

The band of
bois-brûlés

Arrived like a band of warriors.

Arriving at la grenouillère,

We took three prisoners.

Three prisoners from the Orkneys,

Who are here to steal our homeland.

We were about to dismount

When two of our men arrived.

“Here are the English,

Who are coming to attack us!”

Right away we turned around,

And we trapped the band of grenadiers.

They are caught; they all dismounted.

We acted like honourable folks.

We sent an ambassador.

“Mr. Governor, would you stop for a moment?

We want to speak with you.”

The governor who was enraged.

He told his men to shoot.

The governor who thought himself emperor,

He tried to take tough action.

Having seen go by all the
bois-brûlés
,

He set out to scare them

Having set out to rout them.

He made a mistake and got himself killed.

He well got killed

A number of his grenadiers

We killed almost all his army

From this mistake

Four or five escaped.

Oh, if you only had seen these Englishmen

And the
bois-brûlés
after them.

From hill to hill the English stumbled.

And the Bois-Brûlés let out shouts of joy!

And who has composed this song?

It is Pierriche Falcon this good lad.

It has been made and composed

About the victory that we have won.

— Métis National Anthem by Pierre (Pierriche) Falcon

The writing of any full-length work of fiction is an arduous task, especially when writing about a location and period where there were few literate witnesses, and even fewer records kept. The explosion of information on the Internet has helped writers a great deal, but most of the research for this novel was done when the Internet had yet to find its wings. It was a slow, plodding process.

Part of the challenge was not only discovering the information, but also locating it in the proper time and place. I tried wherever possible to use the correct language of the era, but when quoting Aboriginal terms, at times I had to reference modern sources because I could not find records from that early period. Even if I could, often the language had specific dialects; those speaking Swampy Cree on the coast might be quite different from those inland. Sometimes it just becomes an educated guess.

But I had a lot of help. I'd like to thank Hilda Fitzner for sending me her hand-written dictionary of common Swampy Cree terms and expressions. I'd also like to thank the knowledgeable staff of Fort Carlton Provincial Park in Saskatchewan, who showed me many small details of life during the fur trade that I had not found elsewhere

This book couldn't have happened without the firm and wise hand of Bernice Lever who edited my manuscript before submitting it to Dundurn. She greatly improved the manuscript, and even suggested Dundurn as a perfect fit for the book. One is always very grateful for the publisher who first takes a chance on an unknown author, and I know Bernice's support facilitated that. It is a debt I shall never be able to fully repay.

Lastly, as we all know, the real power lies behind the throne. I likely would have spent my declining years labouring in salt mines or marching on foreign battlefields if my ever-patient, ever-supportive, lovely wife had not deigned to allow me to play the Bohemian and dedicate a large chunk of my life to drinking too much and chasing ideas in fiction. Livers can be replaced, but stories are priceless. I hope this work proves worthy of her faith.

Copyright © Nathaniel Poole, 2014

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

All characters in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Editor: Shannon Whibbs

Design: Courtney Horner

Epub Design: Carmen Giraudy

Cover design by Laura Boyle

Cover photo
© wynnter/iStock

Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

Poole, Nathaniel, 1961-, author

A dark and promised land / Nathaniel Poole.

Issued in print and electronic formats.

ISBN 978-1-4597-2200-2

I. Title.

PS8631.O633D37 2014 C813'.6 C2014-901025-7

a C2014-901026-5

We acknowledge the support of the
Canada Council for the Arts
and the
Ontario Arts Council
for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the
Government of Canada
through the
Canada Book Fund
and
Livres Canada Books
, and the
Government of Ontario
through the
Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit
and the
Ontario Media Development Corporation
.

Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

J. Kirk Howard, President

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