XXVA. D. 1896THE OUTLAW
Dawnwas breaking of a summer’s day in 1896, when Green-Grass-growing-in-the-water, a red Indian scout, came trotting into Fort MacLeod with a despatch from Standoff for Superintendent Steele, of the Mounted Police. He brought news that the body of a Blood warrior, Medicine-Pipe-Stem, shot through the skull, and three weeks dead, had been found in an empty cabin.
The Blood tribe knew how Bad-Young-Man, known to the whites as Charcoal, had three weeks before come home from a hunting trip to his little cabin where his wife, the Marmot, lived. He had found his wife in the arms of Medicine-Pipe-Stem, and by his warrior’s right to defend his own honor, had shot the intruder down. Charcoal had done justice, and the tribe was ready to take his part, whatever the agent might say or the Mounted Police might do for the white man’s law.
A week had passed of close inquiry, when one of the scouts rode up to the ration house, where the people were drawing their supplies of beef, and gave warning that Charcoal was betrayed to the MountedPolice. Charcoal demanded the name of his betrayer, and learned that Mr. Wilson, the agent, was his enemy. That evening Charcoal waited outside the agent’s house, watching the lighted windows, where, on the yellow blinds there were passing shadows cast by the lamp within, as various members of the household went about their business. At last he saw Mr. Wilson’s shadow on the blind, fired and shot the agent through the thigh. The household covered the lamps, closed the shutters, sent for help and hid the wounded man on a couch behind the front door, well out of range from the windows. Next morning, in broad daylight, Charcoal went up to the house with a rifle to finish Wilson, walked in and looked about him, but failed to discover his victim behind the open door. He turned away and rode for the hills. The Mounted Police, turned out for the pursuit, were misled by a hundred rumors.
D Troop at the time numbered one hundred seventy men, the pick of the regiment, including some of the greatest riders and teamsters in North America, and led by Colonel S. B. Steele, the most distinguished of all Canadian frontiersmen. After he had posted men to guard all passes through the Rocky Mountains, he had a district about ninety miles square combed over incessantly by strong patrols, so that Charcoal’s escape seemed nearly impossible. The district however, was one of foothills, bush, winding gorges, tracts of boulders, and to the eastward prairie, where the whole Blood and Piegan tribes were using every subtlety of Indian craft to hide the fugitive.
Inspector Jervis, with twenty police and some scouts, had been seventy hours in the saddle, and camped atBig Bend exhausted, when a rider came flying in reporting Charcoal as seen at Kootenai. The white men rallied for the twenty-eight-mile march, but the Indians lay, and were kicked, done for, refusing to move. The white men scrambled to their saddles, and reeled off on the trail, unconquerable.
One day a Mormon settler brought news to Mr. Jervis that while cutting fence rails, he had seen Charcoal creep out from the bush and make off with his coat. So this Mormon led them to a little meadow, where they found and surrounded a tent. Then Mr. Jervis took two men and pulled aside the door, while they covered the place with their revolvers. Two Mormons were brought out, shaking with fright, from the tent.
Further on in the gray dawn, they came to another clearing, and a second tent, which they surrounded. Some noise disturbed the Marmot, who crept sleepily to the door, looked out, then with a scream, warned her husband. Charcoal slashed with his knife through the back of the tent, crept into the bush, and thence fired, his bullet knocking the cap from the officer’s head; but a volley failed to reach the Indian. The tent was Charcoal’s winter quarters, stored with a carcass of beef, five sacks of flour, bacon, sugar and deerskin for his shoes, and there the Marmot was taken, with a grown daughter, and a little son called Running Bear, aged eight.
So far, in many weeks of the great hunt Charcoal had his loyal wife to ride with him, and they used to follow the police patrols in order to be sure of rest when the pursuers camped. Two police horses, left half dead, were taken up and ridden by this couple anextra forty miles. An officer and a buck were feeding at Boundary Creek detachment when Mr. and Mrs. Charcoal stole their chargers out of the stable. But now Charcoal had to face the prospect of a lone fight, and with the loss of his family, fell into blind despair. Then all his kinsfolk to the number of thirty-seven, were arrested and lodged in prison.
Since his raid on the horses at Boundary Creek, all police stables were locked, and visited frequently at night. Corporal Armour, at Lee’s Creek came out swinging his lantern, sniffing at the night, bound for the stable, when he saw a sudden blaze revealing an Indian face behind the horse trough, while a bullet whisked through his sleeve. He bolted for the house, grabbed his gun and returned, only to hear a horse galloping away into the night. Charcoal for once, had failed to get a remount. Sergeant Wilde was universally loved by the tribes. The same feeling caused his old regiment, the Blues, at Windsor, to beg for Black Prince, his charger, after his death, and sent the whole body of the Northwest Mounted Police into mourning when he fell. Tradition made him a great aristocrat under an assumed name, and I remember well how we recruits, in the olden times, were impressed by his unusual physical beauty, his stature, horsemanship and singular personal distinction. Ambrose attended him when he rode out for the last time on Black Prince, followed by an interpreter and a body of Indian scouts. They were in deep snow on a plain where there stands a line of boulders, gigantic rocks, the subject of weird legends among the tribes. Far off against the sky was seen riding fast, an Indian who swerved at the sight of the pursuit and was recognizedfor Charcoal. Wilde ordered Ambrose to gallop the twenty miles to Pincher Creek, turn the people out in the queen’s name, send a despatch to Fort Macleod, and return at once. The Indians tried for Charcoal at long range, but their new rifles were clogged with factory grease hard frozen, so that the pin failed of its impact, and they all missed fire. Wilde’s great horse was drawing ahead of the ponies, and he calledback:—
“Don’t fire, or you’ll hit me by mistake!”
As he overtook Charcoal he drew his revolver, the orders being to fire at sight, then laid the weapon before him, wanting for the sake of a great tradition, to make the usual arrest—the taking of live outlaws by hand. Charcoal’s rifle lay across the saddle, and he held the reins Indian fashion with the right hand, but when Wilde grabbed at his shoulder, he swerved, touching the trigger with his left. The bullet went through Wilde’s body, then deflecting on the bone of the right arm, traversed the forearm, came out of the palm, and dropped into his gauntlet where it was found.
Wilde rolled slowly from the saddle while Black Prince went on and Charcoal also, but then the outlaw turned, galloped back and fired straight downward into the dying man. Black Prince had stopped at a little distance snorting, and when the Indian came grabbing at his loose rein, he struck with his forefeet in rage at his master’s murderer. Charcoal had fired to disable Wilde as the only way left him of escaping “slavery”; now he had to conquer the dead man’s horse to make his escape from the trackers.
Some three weeks ago, Charcoal’s brothers, LeftHand and Bear Paw, had been released from jail, with the offer of forty pounds from the government and ten pounds from the officer commanding, if they could capture the outlaw. The tribes had decided that Charcoal’s body belonged of right to the police, and after Wilde’s death he could expect no mercy on earth, no help or succor from any living man. From the slaying, like a wounded beast to his lair, he rode direct for home, came to the little cabin, tied Black Prince to a bush and staggered toward the door. Out of the house came Left Hand, who ran toward him, while the outlaw, moved by some brute instinct, fled for the horse. But Left Hand, overtaking his brother, threw his arms about him, kissing him upon both cheeks, and Bear Paw, following, cast his rope over the helpless man, throwing him down, a prisoner. The brothers carried Charcoal into the cabin, pitched him down in a corner, then Left Hand rode for the police while Bear Paw stayed on guard.
It was Sergeant Macleod who came first to the cabin where Bear Paw squatted waiting, and Charcoal lay to all appearance dead in a great pool of blood upon the earthen floor. He had found a cobbler’s awl used in mending skin shoes, and opened the arteries of his arm, that he might take refuge from treachery in death. From ankle to groin his legs were skinned with incessant riding, and never again was he able to stand upon his feet.
For four months Charcoal had been hunted as an enemy by D Troop, now for a like time he was nursed in the guard-room at Fort Macleod, and, though he lay chained to the floor in mortal pain, his brothers of the guard did their best. As he had been terrible in thefield, so this poor hero was brave in suffering—humble, and of so sweet a disposition that he won all men’s hearts. Once he choked himself with a blanket; once poisoned himself with a month’s collection of cigarette stubs; each time nearly achieving his purpose, but he never flinched, never gave utterance even to a sigh, except for the moaning in his sleep.
At the trial his counsel called no witnesses, but read the man’s own defense, a document so sad, so wonderfully beautiful in expression, that the court appealed to the crown for mercy, where mercy had become impossible.
When he was taken out to die, the troop was on guard surrounding the barracks, the whole of the tribes being assembled outside the fence. The prisoner sat in a wagon face to face with the executioner, who wore a mask of black silk, and beside him was the priest. Charcoal began to sing his death song.
“Stay,” said the priest, “make no cry. You’re far too brave a man for that.” The song ceased, and Charcoal died as he had lived.