The Third Riel Conspiracy (20 page)

Steele silenced him with a hand. He drank the rest of his coffee. “You tell me that Riel says there is some secret hidden in Sun River. The trial of Terrance La Biche will not be for some time. The magistrate will be preoccupied with the appointment of a prosecutor for Riel, and the selection of a jury. I have it on some authority that the Riel trial is still at least six weeks away. You have time to ride south for Maple Creek on the
CPR
main line and catch a train for Calgary. Find Charlene. When she is safe, make the journey to the Sun River country and learn what you can about Riel's time there, and what secrets lay buried in that earth.”

“What of Dickenson?”

“I will wire ahead to our headquarters in Regina. I know men that we can trust and can work with. I will assign them the task of keeping Riel safe.”

Durrant said, “I will ask Mr. Moberly to keep watch for a traitor to the force. No doubt Garnet has spied for some king during his expansive career.”

TWENTY-THREE

IT TOOK HIM SEVEN LONG
days to ride from Fort Pitt to the siding of Maple Creek on the Canadian Pacific main line, and when he arrived, his horse was suffering and so was Durrant Wallace. His prosthetic had nearly rubbed off the protective bandage. The night before, he had cut out the stitches that Saul Armatage had sewn in a week and a half previous. Now his leg was raw, and a suspicious-looking fluid the colour of milk had started to ooze from his stump. Doctor Armatage would not be happy with him.

He boarded the horse and took his most important gear—the Winchester, his bedroll, and his personal kit that included the prized locket—and made his way to the station, where he inquired about westbound trains. One was to arrive at midnight.

He sat on the platform and waited. The prairie sky turned rose, then magenta, and finally faded to black. The stars came out, and he regarded them with suspicion. These were the same stars that looked down on Charlene, but there was no kindness in them: they reminded him of the vast distance between them still.

On time, the whistle of the train sounded. He was the only passenger to board, and he handed the pullman porter his ticket and made his way down the aisle to a compartment with an empty window seat in it. Durrant fell asleep somewhere on the prairie and four hours later awoke to the sound of the train approaching Calgary. What if he was too late? Charlene was a resourceful woman, and she knew that even if Sub-Inspector Dewalt disliked Durrant, she could turn to the
NWMP
for protection. Before the train had fully stopped, he left his compartment and lurched to the door. As the brakes billowed, he disembarked and quickly made his way down the broad wooden platform to the station's main building, where he hailed a cab. As the horse and buggy pulled up, the driver regarded Durrant's armament.

“I'm with the North West Mounted Police,” he explained, giving him the address of Charlene's employer and bidding him to make haste. The driver cracked his reins, and the single quarter horse set off at a trot, the wheels of the buggy spinning on the muddy streets. It took ten minutes to navigate through the city, and during that ride Durrant could not but help recall the time twelve years previous when he had raced through the streets of Toronto to find Mary and their child locked in a battle with death. Death had won.

When finally they pulled up in front of the house, Durrant told the driver to wait for him. He hurried up the walk and knocked on the door.

A moment passed, and then he heard the lock on the front door open and Derek Lloyd was standing there in his sleeping attire. “Durrant—”

“Derek, is she here?”

“No . . . she . . . You had better step in.”

Durrant looked back at his cab. The man seemed to have fallen asleep. Lloyd opened the door and Durrant stepped inside. He became aware that he must smell like the inside of a barn. It had been almost a month since he'd left Fort Calgary, and in that time he hadn't had more than a washbasin to clean up with, and in freezing temperatures at that.

“Would you like breakfast, Durrant?”

“Derek, I don't wish to be rude—”

“Sit and have something and I'll tell you what has transpired.”

“Is Charlene . . . is she okay?”

“I assume so.”

“You assume?”

They reached the kitchen. “Sit down, Durrant. Drink this coffee, and listen. About two weeks ago, Charlene had the children out in the afternoon, and when she came home she looked ghostly white. She said that she saw him down along Stephen Avenue. At least, she thought she did—”

“Did
he
see
her
?”

“She didn't think so. But she got scared. She mostly stayed about the house after that. A few days later, we got this.” Lloyd took a sheet of paper out of an envelope on the sideboard. He handed it to Durrant.

I know where you live. I been watching you. You'll be coming home soon.

Durrant stood up. His twisted right hand was white from the exertion of pushing hard on his cane. “Blue Jesus,” he exclaimed too loudly.

“She left that night. She packed a small bag and left. She wouldn't tell me where she was going.”

“What did she take?”

“Nothing much, Durrant. Very little of her clothing.”

“Let me see.”

They went to the back of the house where the servants' quarters were, and Durrant stepped into Charlene's room. He could smell her soap and the detergent she used to launder her clothes. The room was simple, with a small bed, a table and chair, and a tiny stove. In the corner was a plain armoire with a mirror. Durrant opened the doors and moved a few dresses aside. He looked on the floor of the closet. What he was searching for was not present. He walked back past Derek Lloyd.

“Where are you going, Durrant?”

“I can't tell you, Derek.”

“Is she safe?”

“I don't know.” Durrant stopped by the door. “Derek,” he said in a low voice. “Do you have a firearm?”

“Well, yes, I have an old Remington.”

“Get it out. Keep it handy. If he comes to the house, shoot him between his eyes.”

DURRANT WOKE THE
cabbie and they set off at a hard trot. The city was coming alive and there were other carriages and horse traffic to contend with, so it took them longer than expected to cross the Bow River and reach Fort Calgary. The new buildings of the fort had been completed over the course of the last year, and the sprawling complex was much grander than the palisade-bordered buildings Durrant had arrived at more than two years before. Now the fort resembled a modern Hudson's Bay Company establishment. There was no defensive structure, just a neat quadrangle comprising barracks and housing for officers and non-commissioned men, a double stable and the quartermaster's store. Durrant told the driver where at the Fort he wanted to go and when they arrived paid him his fare.

Durrant stood in front of the stable. The pine boards had matured and no longer wept sap. He walked with his cane to the broad double doors, unlatched the main entrance, and let the day's first light fall across the dark space.

He stepped inside, his cane tapping on the wooden floorboards. He walked the long aisle of stalls that housed the fort's quarter horses, making for the tack room. He was breathing hard, and his heart beat in his throat.

“Charlene?” he said slowing as he approached the room. “Charlie? It's Durrant.”

He heard nothing. He drew his Enfield and held it at his side. “It's Durrant,” he said again, and stepped into the tack room. The smell of leather and brass polish hit him in the nose, and he forced his eyes to adjust to the gloom.

He heard the hammer of a shotgun click. In the darkness he saw it: under a blanket in the corner was the shape of a person.

“It's Durrant,” he repeated.

The figure moved. “It's about time.” Charlene Louise Mason pulled herself out from beneath the blanket. She held the familiar shotgun in her hands, the spoils of a previous conflict won on the shore of Tom Wilson's Lake Louise.

“Are you all right?” asked Durrant.

“Of course I'm all right. Haven't you eyes to see?” She was standing now, placing the shotgun against the wall. She was dressed as she was when he had first met her: like a stableboy. Her long hair was tucked up under a cap, and she wore men's trousers, shirt, and waistcoat. But there was no mistaking her eyes, blue as mountain waters.

“I was worried—”

She stepped forward and planted a kiss on his grizzled cheek.

There was a sound behind them. Durrant whirled, his pistol coming up in a sudden arc. The barrel of it came to the forehead of a man standing there. He lowered the gun.

“Hello, Durrant,” said the square-shouldered man.

“Hello, Paddy.”

“Met my new stable hand?”

“Yes, we've been introduced.”

“This one talks. Sometimes too bloody much.”

Durrant looked back at Charlene. “Let's get you ready to travel.”

“Where are we going?” Her eyes lit up.

“Montana.”

“I LET HIM
go. There was nothing I could hold him on.” Sub-Inspector Raymond Dewalt was sitting behind his desk.

“I had him on charges of horse stealing,” protested Durrant.

“There wasn't any evidence. None of the witnesses would come forward. Not without—”

“Without what?”

“Sergeant, none of the men who had bought horses from Jeb Ensley would testify to that without the assurance that the Ensley brothers wouldn't come looking for them.”

“And you couldn't assure them that the law in Fort Calgary would protect them?” Dewalt just stared at him. “How long ago?”

“It's been three weeks or so, I suppose.”

“Hell, I hadn't even reached Batoche!”

“Mind yourself, Sergeant. You might be the favourite of Superintendant Steele, but you're under my command at Fort Calgary.”

The two men glared at one another for a moment before Dewalt broke the uncomfortable silence. “And what is your next assignment?”

“You mean, in addition to recapturing Jeb Ensley?” asked Durrant as he turned and left the room.

TWENTY-FOUR

MAY 31, 1885. THE MACLEOD TRAIL.

They rode the Macleod Trail for ten days. On the fourth night they reached the trail's namesake: Fort Macleod. Upon departing Calgary, Charlene had travelled under the guise of stableboy and aide-de-camp, but she happily abandoned the masquerade when they reached the fort and it was announced there would be a dance. Durrant watched as she spun around the compound with the young constables, the flames from a giant bonfire reflecting the light in her eyes. Durrant felt a stab of envy that he could not join in the fun. And then he felt something most peculiar: jealousy.

In the morning they agreed that she could abandon the disguise for good, given that everybody in the town knew who she was after the long night of merrymaking. They rode out on the prairie once more and made for the Medicine Line. At noon on the sixth day they crossed the demarcation that indicated the border. Charlene commented on the splendour of the country: the blue line of mountains to the west, and the deep valleys where the trail plunged down and forded creeks and rivers and rose up out of the hollows and crested broad plateaus.

After ten days of riding Macleod Trail, Fort Benton appeared in the distance. Traffic on the road had increased as teams travelled north with the opening of cattle season. The broad Missouri River lay between high banks of prairie. Durrant knew that the fort at Benton had been abandoned now for some time. It had once been the pivotal trading post of the American Fur Company, and later a military outpost, but was now crumbling into ruin. Even the squatters had abandoned it to the rats. The town that surrounded it was thriving, though, and as Charlene and Durrant rode across the bridge and onto Main Street, Durrant began to scan the faces of the men on the wooden walkways and on every buckboard that passed.

They had agreed to find a hotel for the night and Durrant pressed the horses toward the far end of town where he had been told there was a reputable establishment called The Grand Union that had been built three years before. They tied their horses and stepped inside. Durrant crossed the lobby to the clerk and inquired about a room. “Two beds,” said Durrant.

DURRANT WALKED ALONG
the streets of Fort Benton and stopped into several saloons to ask his questions. Nobody knew where Jeb Ensley was. In the third establishment he entered, he decided on a new tack. He stepped to the bar, rested his arm on the polished wood runner, and regarded the room. Half a dozen tables were filled with men drinking and playing cards. The air was thick with smoke.

He turned to the bartender. “My name is Durrant Wallace. I'm looking for Jeb Ensley. He been around lately?”

The bartender was cleaning a glass. “What do you want him for?”

“Horses.”

The bartender looked him up and down. “You don't look like no horse buyer. You look like the law.”

“Is Jeb in town or not?”

“What's in it for me?”

“Long life and continued prosperity.”

The bartender stopped cleaning the glass and shook his head. “Jeb hasn't been in these parts for a month. His little brother got himself in some trouble north of the line, and Jeb has cut town. He's gone farther west, into the Awahee country in Oregon. He's trading up and down through the Kootenay. That's all I know.”

“What about his brother? I heard he cut loose in Fort Calgary.”

“If he did, he didn't come back here.”

“Any of his known associates still in this neck of the woods?”

“Hell, I'd be surprised if any of them was still alive.”

“That good bunch of fellas? Who would want to cause them trouble?”

CHARLENE WAS SLEEPING
when Durrant returned. She sat up when he came into the room. “Did you find what you were looking for?” He didn't light the lamp. He removed the belt that held the Enfield pistol and hung it over the post of the bed. He took the British Bulldog and laid it on the table next him and sat down, breathing a heavy sigh.