Free Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont by Joseph Boyden Page A

younger man. Inexplicably, McKay shoots the unarmed chief dead as Crozier screams for his men to begin firing upon the Métis. Gabriel watches in horror as his own brother is shot dead from his horse. The first blood has been spilled. Gabriel’s own blood. There will be no turning back.
    Outnumbering the enemy so decisively, and boiling with anger upon witnessing his brother’s murder, Gabriel and his marksmen begin picking off the exposed policemen. He later states that he was reloading le petit when the police appeared, and that they would retreat once again, realizing that they were outnumbered and nearly surrounded. After a good half hour of men shooting wildly at each other, with Gabriel’s troops slowly tightening the noose around the enemy, he senses the crushing defeat the police are about to endure. It’s at that time that he spots one of the most striking—and one of the strangest—images of his life. Louis himself has emerged on horseback from the woods behind and trots bravely among the men, completely exposed to police fire, carrying a cross raised above his head, exhorting the Métis: “In the name of God who created us, answer their fire!”
    Ever the tactician, even in the heat of battle Gabriel recognizes that the police are going to have to retreat through a clearing, and as they begin to do so, in his own fog of war, not sixty paces away, he exposes himself to too much of their fire. His men watch as Gabriel takes a bullet to the skull and immediately drops, blood gushing from his head. They can only believe that he is dead. His cousin eventually makes his way over to try to see, and as he discovers that Gabriel is alive, that the bullet has ricocheted off his thick buffalo skull (leaving a deep scar for the rest of Gabriel’s life), his cousin is shot dead by a retreating policeman. Gabriel has lost two family members in less than an hour.
    Gabriel’s other brother, Edouard, takes control of the men and is about to deliver the coup de grâce by pursuing and killing the rest of the police force when Louis stops him in his tracks, declaring that enough death has happened for one day. Gabriel desperately wants Edouard to go ahead regardless, in part out of retaliation, in part knowing that Fort Carlton, then Prince Albert, and eventually Battleford will fall to the Métis and they will, in essence, control a huge swath of the North-West. Once again the warriors bow their heads to Louis even though their guts tell them not to.
    The aftermath of this first battle finds twelve police and militiamen dead and many wounded. The Métis, after witnessing the slaughter of Isidore and Assiyiwin, lose three other men in the fierce fighting. It is a clear victory for the Métis, and Gabriel, tied to his horse and still bleeding profusely from the head, listens as Louis commands a cheer from the men for their brave general.
    In this, the first violent uprising in Canada in fifty years, the Canadians of the North-West have suffered their first military loss. Crozier, who attacked instead of waiting for reinforcements that he knew were on their way, is blamed for his foolish decision and berated in reports accordingly.
    As for the Métis, they have started on a road they’ve not taken before, one that they can’t turn back from now. Suddenly, the worst possible situation has begun to unfold. Gabriel knows this, knows that the choices have diminished to one: his people must hold off the might and anger of the Canadian military, and the only way to accomplish this will be through guerrilla tactics. This is no longer a billiards game. And more men are going to die before it is over.

CHAPTER SIX
    Quickening
    A week before blood reddens the snow at Duck Lake, on March 19, Louis instates the provisional government of Saskatchewan. He sees himself as taking on the role of a political and spiritual leader and appoints Gabriel as the adjutant-general who will be in command of the Métis army. Louis has put much thought