Free Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont by Joseph Boyden

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    And so, instead of taking the fort by force, Louis writes the commander there, demanding he give up. Nothing comes of it. Louis, it seems, will go out of his way to avoid bloodshed, but in a rebellion it is bound to come, and indeed, not too long afterward, the dark wings of violence throw a shadow over the country.
    As the last week of March arrives, Gabriel’s scouts report that they have spotted police across the river and toward Duck Lake. Gabriel knows the strategic importance of Duck Lake: it lies on the trail between Batoche and Fort Carlton, and so whoever controls it can use it as a vantage point, a place to spy on the other. He obtains Louis’s okay to raid some stores there and to scout it out more carefully. Once accomplished, that evening Gabriel and his men capture two policemen scouting for Crozier, who commands Fort Carlton. One scout lies and tells Gabriel that he’s simply a land surveyor, but Gabriel scoffs at the notion of a surveyor working late at night in the moonlight. The policemen are taken prisoner and, as dawn arrives, with Gabriel and company stabling their horses, a shout goes out that more policemen have appeared.
    According to Gabriel, he is slower than some of the others in bridling his horse, and by the time he’s done, a few of his men are on their way to meet the police. Gabriel hates not being in the lead and tries to take a shortcut through deep snow, slowing him even further. By the time he catches up to his men, they are in a standoff with the police. Each side numbers approximately thirty, and all are well armed and nervous. Gabriel jumps off his horse, admonishing his own men for not knowing to take this defensive position. That’s when he recognizes a Scottish Métis named Thomas McKay who rides with the policemen. Gabriel’s shouted insults are hot. He threatens to shoot McKay and makes it clear that he believes McKay is a coward and a turncoat. Gabriel goes so far as to try to strike McKay from his horse with his Winchester, the one he long ago nicknamed le petit. But in the scuffle the rifle misfires, almost bringing the standoff to a bloody crescendo. The police, realizing that nothing good can come of this situation, retreat. Gabriel and his men fire a volley over their heads for good measure as the Métis celebrate.
    Exhausted, they return to Duck Lake, only to once again hear the shout of yet another police convoy spotted a short time later. As Woodcock points out in his Dumont biography, Crozier, the commander of Fort Carlton, immediately rallies his full strength of troops, fifty-six policemen and fewer than fifty inexperienced volunteers, Lawrence Clarke among them, the troublemaker and instigator demanding that the Métis be taught a swift and painful lesson. Crozier believes that if word of the police’s earlier retreat gets out, this will embolden not only the Métis but the neighbouring Indian reserves, and so he acts impetuously, not knowing that at least three hundred Métis have arrived at Duck Lake, including Riel himself.
    With his beloved brother Isidore at his side, Gabriel heads out once more to meet the police. This time they’ve pulled their sleighs off the road and lined them up in a defensive position. Gabriel immediately realizes that the police have come to fight, but still he tells his brother, “We mustn’t shoot first; we’ll try to take them as prisoners; it’s only if they defend themselves that we’ll shoot too.”
    Isidore, carrying a rifle but also a white blanket to show that he means only to talk, and his Cree friend, the wise old chief Assiyiwin, who is unarmed, approach the line of police while Gabriel and his outfit hang back and slyly begin to surround them. Crozier himself, along with another Scottish Métis, this one named Joseph McKay, rides up to meet them. Assiyiwin, seeing how well-armed McKay is, calls him “Grandson” and asks him where he goes with so much weaponry, at the same time reaching his arm out to the