Border War (A Gatling Western #3) by Jack Slade

Author:Jack Slade [Slade, Jack]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: action hero, American Frontier, Colt.45, ebook, fiction, Gatling, Gunfighters, Peter McCurtin, Piccadilly cowboys, Pulp fiction writing, the Old West, Western series
Publisher: Piccadilly
Published: 2022-09-30T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

THEY TRAVELED FAR into the night, bedded down for six hours, and were moving again by first light. Dumont let them have two additional hours of sleep, because they had been through a fierce fight and needed the rest. Many of the métis had lost relatives and friends and they were gloomy and silent. Dumont didn’t want to push them too hard, but said they would have to go back to sleeping no more than four hours a night. There was always the danger of attack on Batoche. The regulars could have arrived in Saskatchewan by now, and their commanders might not wait for the breakup of ice in the river. Dumont said they had to get back to Batoche because it was the capital of the métis nation. It was the center of their lives and had to be defended at all costs.

At night, when they stopped to sleep, Dumont posted a heavy guard on the wagon that carried the captured rifles. It was not wise, he said, to put too much temptation in the way of Big Bear and his Crees. Big Bear sulked when he saw the guards, but there was nothing he could do about it short of a direct attack that would surely get him killed along with all his Crees.

Campfires were permitted on the way back. Night after night, Big Bear insisted on sitting at the fire outside Dumont’s tent. Dumont didn’t want him there, but at least they knew where he was. He complained about the food Dumont gave him but ate as much as he could get. He kept hinting that Dumont must have a bottle of whiskey hidden away. But Dumont was adamant: There was no whiskey anywhere in camp. Forced to drink beer, Big Bear drank it by the gallon, but it didn’t make him crazy as whiskey would have done. But there was enough alcohol in it to make him boastful, and Dumont was subjected to endless stories about Big Bear’s warlike youth. Gatling didn’t know a word of the Cree language, and was glad he didn’t.

One night, while Big Bear lay snoring by the fire, Dumont said, “You know what he wants now?”

“Egg in his beer?”

Dumont laughed. “I laugh because if I don’t laugh I strangle de son of a bitch. No egg. He want me to make him a general in de métis army.”

“Did you?”

“No. I told him dat have to wait till Batoche. I told him only Louis have dat authority. Den he ask me what rank I am and I tell him I am only a colonel. Even he know de difference and it please him to tink he will be higher-up dan I am. He tink about dat for a while, den he say, ‘I will be a general soon, but I will give you my first order now. Which is, give me de capture rifle.’”

“What did you say?”

“I say he will be a general but in different part of de métis army. De Big Bear Regiment, is de name I give it.

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