A Good Man (5 page)

The secretary drew himself up in his chair; his hand fumbled about on the desktop and found a pencil. It broke in his fingers with a savage crack. When he spoke again, his voice was soft and menacing. “Assistant Commissioner Irvine has been made aware of my displeasure. But that does not mitigate the fact that the Cypress Hills is your beat, Sub-Inspector Walsh. I am gravely disappointed.”

“If I may speak frankly, I am not a mind reader, Mr. Secretary, nor a crystal ball gazer. I could not foresee a future when we would bundle into bed with the Yanks. If I had sent a message to Fort Benton, and Custer hadn’t gotten himself so soundly spanked, perhaps our neighbours would have accused me of spreading rumours intended to disrupt their commerce and terrify their population.”

“You do not have a crystal ball? Then let me be your crystal ball. I will predict your future. From this day forward you will not keep the Americans in the dark about anything whatsoever that might affect them. You will provide the commander of the garrison at Fort Benton with any and all intelligence that could conceivably assist the Americans in conducting a successful campaign against the Sioux. And, sir, you will do it expeditiously and with good grace.”

“So you are ordering me, who has sworn an oath to our majesty the Queen, to put myself in the service of a foreign power – to ferry information to Major Ilges, that ass in Fort Benton, like a servant carrying plates to the master’s table?”

“Let me remind you that I too have sworn an oath to Her Majesty,” the secretary said frigidly. “It is her interests that I am entrusted to safeguard. Both the Dominion of Canada and the government of Great Britain wish no friction to arise with the United States. We wish no outburst of that anti-British feeling which so frequently is excited in the American public and in the Congress. That would be highly regrettable.”

“These are very vag principles for my poor soldier’s head to con. I’m a straightforward man and I’d like a straightforward answer. If the Sioux take refuge on the Canadian side, how am I to respond to their presence?”

“Do everything possible to persuade them to return to their country.”

“If your aim is to please the Americans, I do not think that would do it.”

“You should recall who you are speaking to, sir. Do you permit your subordinates to address you so impertinently?”

“I apologize,” said Walsh, “but I am struggling to make a point. If I were Sitting Bull, I’d sure as Christ want a safe harbour from the American Army. I think persuading them to give up such a refuge would fall on deaf ears. If they refuse to go, what am I to do? Do you expect me to expel thousands of Sioux warriors with the ninety men I have at my disposal at Fort Walsh? Or is it the government’s plan to reinforce us with militia and British Regulars?”

“No military will be deployed; it would impose too great a cost on the Treasury. Besides, we have no desire to incite a war with the Indians, to repeat mistakes that have been made south of the border.” Scott tangled his fingers in his beard and gave it an irritated tug. “However, if the Sioux do come, it is imperative that we do everything to prevent them using Canada as a base of operations against the United States. If we fail in this, we provide an excuse to the American Army to deal with the problem, not on their soil, but ours.” Scott paused. “This cannot be allowed to happen. When Americans pay a visit, they have a habit of staying. Think of California, New Mexico, Arizona, all lost to Mexico. There are still plenty of annexationists in Congress looking for a justification to relieve us of territory.”

“Britain is not Mexico. She would not sit idly by and allow such a thing to happen. It would mean war.”

“Perhaps. It is true Britain is not Mexico. She possesses a vast empire. Which is to say there are many pots on Britain’s stove that require tending. One may boil over before it is noticed. I,” said Scott primly, “do not want to be that pot.”

“A mere three hundred police scattered over the entire North-West, how are we to do what you demand? Custer lost nearly that many at the Little Bighorn. You expect us to do the impossible – me in particular.”

Scott hunched forward, enunciating very slowly, very clearly, “If you are not up to the task then I must find a man who is.”

For the first time, Walsh felt how unbearably hot and humid the room was. He realized he was sweating profusely. Yet the old man across the desk from him looked cool as a cucumber. Maybe it was the thinness of his vegetable-nourished blood. He caught a whiff of Scott’s musty suit, the distinctive odour of mothballs. That stink summed up the old codger, a man who gave more thought to protecting a threadbare suit than he did to ensuring the safety of the North-West Mounted Police he had sprinkled all over the West. “Such a man does not exist,” he finally replied, after a stubborn silence.

“Major Walsh,you wish to tender your resignation?”

Walsh shifted on his chair, cleared his throat. Mary’s hopes were two ticks away from being fulfilled. Who was James Morrow Walsh if he wasn’t
Major Walsh?
“No,” he said quietly, “I do not wish to tender my resignation.”

“Are you prepared to follow the directions of this department, faithfully, without hesitation or mental reservations? Think carefully before you reply.”

“I am.”

Scott leaned back in his chair; the stench of camphor retreated. “You have many admirable qualities, Sub-Inspector Walsh. Commissioner Macleod thinks very highly of you. You are an efficient officer, you are brave, you have inspired a remarkable loyalty and admiration in the men of B Troop. In a word, you are a leader. But I have heard other reports on your character and seen proof of them today. You go your own way; you act as if you were a law unto yourself. I am here to inform you you are not a law unto yourself. You are an instrument of government policy. That is all. You are a tool.
My
tool. You are on trial.”
On trial
. Exactly Mary’s words when she told him there was a job waiting for him as superintendent of hotel chamber pots. “Do you wish to correct any of my observations?”

“No, let them stand.”

“Very good. I am glad we see eye to eye. I think it advisable that you seize the earliest opportunity to embark for the West. If you require travel funds, apply to my clerk for a chit.”

“Thank you.”

Scott fished a hunter watch out of his vest pocket, glanced at it. “I believe I am running behind in my appointments.”

“Of course.” Walsh stood abruptly; his chair skidded back.

“Good day, Sub-Inspector.”

“Good day, Mr. Secretary.”

It was a little before six o’clock when Walsh walked out into the sweltering day, hand tightly gripped to the handle of his bag. The sky was grey and heavy; he felt as if he were drawing breath through a steaming-hot washcloth. Shivering with rage, he stalked along the bank of the Rideau Canal, his anger slowly bleeding away into bleak despondency. He stared numbly at the heavily laden boats wallowing their way somewhere. His mind, struggling to parse what had just happened to him, was as sluggish and difficult to steer as a coal barge. He couldn’t understand what had just transpired. Scott had as good as called him untrustworthy, a harum-scarum fellow. Absolute rubbish; he is sound as British sterling. Who had answered the call to duty before you could say Jack Robinson? James Morrow Walsh. He could have begged off, pled illness; there were plenty who would have done it, and kept their soft seat in Arkansas. Not a speck of gratitude tendered to him; instead he had been scolded, chided, threatened like a jam-fingered child.

Was he suspect because he had received his commission from Sir John A.’s Conservatives? Did the Liberal Scott read treachery in his face? It couldn’t be that. Plenty of other officers had received their appointments from the Tories. Surely it was known he didn’t give a fig for politics.

It had to be that Scott objected to him on moral grounds. Heard that on occasion he avails himself of the services of sporting women in Fort Benton, does a little of what the men like to call “tipi creeping” when he visits Indian camps. One look at Scott was enough to tell you that the twig between his legs hadn’t had its bark peeled back in a coon’s age. Mr. Secretary ought to read Surgeon Kittson’s annual medical report with more attention. That would give him an education in human nature: the number of cases of clap Kittson treated every year at Fort Walsh.

Perhaps somebody had told the old teetotaller he keeps a bottle in his desk. The Territories may be officially dry, but circumstances require the law to be winked at now and then. Sometimes difficulties arise between officers, and a drink is called for to settle them. Whiskey eases disagreements. It’s a question of sustaining morale. As the actress said to the bishop, “One spot is always wet and welcoming, milord.” In the Cypress Hills, that wet and welcoming spot is his office.

Enough, thinks Walsh. With a violent jerk, he rakes his boot off the desk and snatches down his pant leg. Enough returning to past humiliations like a dog to its vomit. He thrusts himself off the chair and hobbles to the window. Gazing out the dusty, spy-speckled pane, he sees men going from bakery to mess, their arms stacked high with loaves of bread. Walsh feels the erysipelas throb in his own knees as he watches the veterinary surgeon run his hands up and down the cannon of a horse, examining it for swelling. The square of the fort is a bright box of noonday sun; the Union Jack hangs limply from the flagpole like a dishcloth on a peg. Louis Léveillé, his favourite scout, sits on the stoop of the guides’ quarters, contentedly sucking on his pipe. There’s a man who could teach Scott a thing or two about loyalty, how it’s earned. If you’re foursquare, straightforward, Léveillé is yours until kingdom come. If he asked Léveillé to douse himself in kerosene and set himself afire, the guide would ask for a match. But underhanded, sneaky sorts like Scott can’t grasp the power of frankness to bind men together. They dance you down a tightrope and are only too pleased to see you fall.

And that thought turns Walsh to Michael Dunne. A sneaky, conniving, underhanded bastard if he’s ever seen one. Two days ago, Dunne had slid into his office, stuffed into that tight black suit of his like a sausage in its casing, the staring, glassy-eyed son of a bitch. Started bombarding him with insinuations, hinting at political and diplomatic tangles that Scott had never breathed a word about. Baffling him with what ifs, hints that the wicket was stickier than he could have dreamed, and suggesting that if Dunne’s palms were greased he could see to it that the roof didn’t fall down on the good Major’s head. It was all so exasperating he had ordered the fellow out of his office, and Dunne had risen to his feet, a smile pasted on his mug that said: More fool you, Walsh. The next day he departed Fort Walsh, gone like fog in the sun. But not without leaving behind something that had ripened into doubt.

What he wants is advice, and he thinks Case may be the man to give it. Politics is the storybook his father read him on his knee; he’s sucked its tricks up with his mother’s milk. If there’s anyone familiar with the backstairs of power and sensitive to its cold rafts, Wesley Case is that man.

And then, the man he has summoned appears. Francis is steaming across the square, looking fit to explode a vein, and Case, wearing a bemused smile, is trundling along behind him. Walsh returns to his desk and makes a show of being occupied with paperwork. In moments, he hears the Sergeant Major’s gravelly voice muttering something to Case, followed by a tap on the door.

“Come in!”

Francis and Case enter; the Sergeant Major quivers like a tuning fork when he gives his salute. Case’s obeisance is more perfunctory and lackadaisical.

“Constable Case, sir!” Francis’s voice booms in the small room.

“Thank you, Sergeant Major,” Walsh says. “You may leave us now.”

“Very good, sir.” Whipping off another salute, Francis wheels round and marches smartly out of the office, so forcefully that the floorboards shake.

Walsh catches a glimpse of Case’s blistered palms. He shakes his head. “You must see if Surgeon Kittson has some salve for you. A fine fellow, Sergeant Francis, but given to extremes.” The Major gestures towards a chair. “Come, no standing on ceremony. Take a seat.”

Case does, gingerly places his hands on his knees. Taking a bottle of whiskey and two glasses from his desk drawer, Walsh says, “Let us pull a cork. There’s something on my mind that needs airing. It requires the wisdom of Solomon, which means you.” He sends Case one of his famously winning smiles. “And maybe you’ll be good enough to do this old campaigner a service when you’ve heard me out.”

For a half an hour Case listens closely as Walsh expatiates on what happened in Ottawa between himself and Secretary Scott. As the Major talks, he grows more and more agitated, comes out from behind his desk and begins to stalk furiously round the room. He fulminates against the dismissive way he has been treated, how he has been asked to make bricks without straw, and how, worst of all, he has been ordered to play handmaiden to Fort Benton’s commander, Major Ilges. Then the storm spends itself; he drops down on the chair behind his desk, refills their glasses, and, without preamble, raises another topic. To Case’s surprise, he begins to question him about his plan to set himself up as a rancher near Fort Benton with Joe McMullen.

“I expect that’s on hold for the time being,” says Walsh with circumspection, “that you’ll hang about here until things quiet down in Montana.”

“No. I want to start looking for properties as soon as possible. McMullen will accompany me. He won’t hear of me making the trip alone,” Case confesses ruefully. “Joe thinks that without him, I’d blindly ride into the whole Sioux nation. He’ll have to come back here to wrap up his affairs as quickly as he can, before returning to join me in Fort Benton.”

Walsh is unable to suppress his distaste. “Yes, B Troop’s horse breaker has announced he has quit on me. Good luck with him. I warn you, the man’s so lazy he wonșt trouble to scratch his ass – just in case it might stop itching on its own – he’d hate to waste any effort. Why you hired that layabout is beyond me.”