Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont: A Short Play
This is a play about two men, Louis Riel and Gabriel Dumont. Traditionally, Louis Riel is the taller of the two, and dressed in a suit of the late 19th century. Gabriel (Gabe) is dressed in buckskins.
Approximate playing time 15 to 20 minutes.
On the stage are:
a bag with a large clock, a Métis flag, and a fur cap
a buffalo skull
an antique rifle
A surveyor’s tripod and chain
============ === == ==== PART ONE: HISTORY LESSON ==================
The stage is dark. A low spotlight illuminates two men near the back of the stage, sitting on chairs by a campfire. Gabe has a guitar.
They sing, to the tune of "Wayfaring Stranger"
[Song]
We are the sound of distant hoofbeats
On the first cold autumn night;
Half-seen shadow of a rider
On Regina’s cold back streets
How much farther, father Louis?
How much longer, cousin Gabe?
The way is further than I can tell you:
The trail is longer than I dare say.
We are the coyotes at the dawning
We are the wind in a prairie slough.
Every Métis who walks past strangers
Sheds a tear for me and you
How much farther, father Louis?
How much longer, cousin Gabe?
The way is further than I can tell you:
The trail is longer than I dare say.
Gabe gets up, walks to stage front, facing the audience. The spotlight stays on Riel.
Gabe: Over here.
A secondary spotlight, less bright, illuminates Gabe. Throughout the play, the light on Gabe will be noticeably less than that on Louis.
Gabe: Shadows and legends. [pause].
I am Gabriel Dumont, dead guy. Let me tell you about the day I died.
On my last day I went
Walking the coulees
Gun under my arm.
Touching the face of
Silence
Where the Sioux had hidden.
It’s always silent in the coulees
Now.
Knees stiffening, I followed jackrabbit trails
Till I came out on a high bluff.
The wind picked up
Threshing at my old jacket.
Far below, the river had stopped moving
Frozen curl and swirl and riffle. [pauses, puzzled]
I thought it strange, until I saw
The shadow of flames on a distant hill.
I took the bullet from my rifle
Pushed it into the dry soil
And went home to meet
Whatever God there was.
I died at the old homestead near Batoche, in the heart of a landscape empty of buffalo, full of white farmers.
We have fifteen minutes in this play. Let’s begin. [He takes the clock out of the bag, hangs it on a nail, and plugs it into the wall. It has no hour hand. He sets the minute hand at 12.]
Now let me introduce my crazy friend, Louis Riel.
Louis gets up, comes to front of stage.
Gabe: Good Evening, Louis. I was just talking about my last hours of life. What do you remember of the time just before you died?
Louis ponders thoughtfully for a moment. Then he puts his hands together behind his back, his feet together, tilts his head, sticks out his tongue, imitating a hanged man.
Gabe: I had a happier death, I think! So why didn’t your friend God rescue you? [To audience] He was always talking to God. I think he was expecting a miracle or something.
Louis:
My theory is this.
That God had it all planned
To tumble the walls of the jail
To cut the rope
But, due to a bureaucratic mix-up
A Toronto lawyer had got into heaven
And not all the golden crew there could
Move an inch until he’d
Added a few clauses
And by the time the angels
Figured out what he meant
It was too late
By a couple of years
And a neck.
I guess you’re going to do the historical background now, so I’ll just go to sleep with the rest of the audience. [to audience] Silly fart thinks he can make a play out of Canadian history. [gets a chair and settles into it]
Gabe: Slowly, as if teaching
Last part of the 1800’s. Out on the Canadian prairies, we were kings and queens, we Métis. Half-breeds, part Aboriginal, part White. Hunting buffalo and trading.
But it had to end, of course. Ran out of buffalo, so we settled down in farms along the rivers.
In the background, Louis sneaks over, advances the clock a few minutes.
Then the surveyors showed up. Driving survey stakes across the prairie, across our farms. We were kings of the prairies, but we had no deeds to our lands,
Hey, Louis - show them how you handled the surveyors.
Gabe puts on the fur hat, lays out the chain, and crouches behind the tripod.
Louis: Stepping onto the chain, staring at the surveyor.
[The Chain]
The sun was the bronze and burning disk of God
Out on the pasture seven dust devils settled
Some minor argument.
Far away, on the river, a canoe trailed a line for pike.
Aside from the wind, nothing moved.
In the oven afternoon, silence
It was dry; there was a fear of prairie fires.
Their horses were like statues in the heat.
He stood there motionless, six men behind him
Like a painting on a cloudless canvas.
I stood like a rock, my right foot on
The survey chain. Our eyes met,
Mine dark as a northern lake, his
Blue as a Scottish tarn.
The wind picked up, dusty and hot.
Our shadows moved, too slow to see.
I picked up my foot, they gathered the chain
They were young, strong, but not foolish enough
To challenge a prairie fire.
Louis bows to the audience, while Gabe turns the clock hands back a bit. Louis sits down on the chair, nods off.
Gabe: Louis Riel took charge, and the next thing you know, he’s running a Métis government in Winnipeg and the whole thing seems like it’s blown over. He even gets elected to the house of commons in Ottawa, and the rest of us Métis go back to settling down. [Long pause]
Problem solved, eh?
Louis: Wrong.
Gabe: Wrong. A few years later, Louis’ in exile, European settlers are eyeballing the prairies, and them damn surveyors are back at it again, driving stakes all across our farms.
So the Métis come to me to lead them. Gabriel Dumont, last of the Dumonts that led the greatest buffalo hunts the continent has ever seen. [pause]
Hell, I didn’t even speak English! Try negotiating with them bloody Scots in Ottawa in French or Cree or Sarcee!
What to do? [He points at an audience member, who steps forward to display a sign that reads, "GET LOUIS RIEL". After a moment the audience member sits down.]
Louis: Right on! [he sneaks back and advances the clock, then stands behind Gabe.]
Gabe: Four of us rode to Montana, where Louis was teaching school.
[Roads]
Saddle-sore and dry when we arrived.
It had been a long ride
And a hard trail.
Riel came out of the schoolhouse
I recognized him from the description -
He had a prophet’s eyes
We wondered if we were doing the right thing
Even in a dry climate
There are many wrong paths
But, far to the north, a prairie fire was burning
And behind me, dust devils were
Erasing our old road.
Louis: I think he’s almost done the history part.
Gabe: I am. Mr. John A. McDonald sent in the troops. We fought. We lost.
In a little place called Batoche we Métis lost forever. [He points to Louis] Dickhead here was still telling us not to fight, to negotiate. But them troops weren’t in a negotiating mood, you know.
Louis: A slight miscalculation, possibly.
Gabe: I escaped. They caught Louis, and put him on trial for a few petty infractions. End of the history lesson. [he walks to the clock, moves the hand back.] What were the charges, my crazy friend?
Louis: Treason, for one, and murder. Nothing serious
Gabe: He tried to give the west to the United States. How’s that?
[Audience member comes out, displays sign, "Hang the Bastard!", returns to stands.]
Louis: I hate that sign. Anyway, I wasn’t serious. And I’m not crazy!
Gabe: [to audience] Oh no, not crazy, not my friend Louis Riel! On our way back from Montana we had meal breaks twice a day, pee stops three times a day, and prayer stops every ten miles.
Louis God found me. He hasn’t found you yet, but that’s not my problem.
Gabe: The hero of the Métis. After his first success he’d gone to Montreal. He got off the train bellowing like a bull and shouting "I’m a prophet, I’m a prophet. He spent the next two years in a nuthouse in Montreal.
Louis: Now they’ve got a Louis Riel trail and a Louis Riel statue. I’m a hero to the Métis and practically a father of confederation. Not to mention top billing in this play of yours.
And you, the wily Gabriel Dumont, are forgotten. [he picks up the buffalo skull, contemplates it]. Alas, poor bison. Dumont knew you well…. [turns to Gabe]
[Beware the Shadows]
You grew old, my friend.
I wish I had. Tell me this:
When the savage wind came down the Missouri
Thundering in the night, carrying
Boxcars of Canadian snow,
When you sat beside the fire, gray and nodding,
Did you dream of the time when you were young
And the most famous of buffalo hunters?
Did you remember the man with fiery eyes
And his impossible, crazy dream?
As you drifted off to sleep, did you imagine
In the corner of the shack, you could see
Moving shadows, crazy eyes.
Gabe: Fame everlasting. And a noose. Was it worth it, Louis Riel?
[My Own Free Trail]
You always sought walls, Louis -
I was after paths,
Trails, highways, the faint mark of the last buffalo,
The keen edge of the October wind, while
Making my own free trail across the shortgrass land.
This Métis was born to step over surveyor’s chain and
Thick sisal rope
On the day they hanged you,
With walls and walls around you
I rode out of the valley
To a high grassy knoll
Where I could sit in a medicine wheel
And watch all the suns go down..
They could wall in Gabriel Dumont
Only by mountains and sky.
After dark that day, I watched the stars
Making their own trail across the free and endless dark.
Louis: What can I say? Some talk to the wind, some talk to eternal fire. [looks significantly at Gabe. Looks at the audience] Who’s ever heard of Gabriel Dumont?
Gabe: You’re trying to tell me something.
Louis: I was chosen. God and I may have had our disagreements, but, all in all, I was chosen. I started my own church.
Gabe: Not many remember that.
[Your Church]
It’s not that founding a church
Wasn’t one of your better ideas
But you had only the Mother Church
As an example.
Yes, Louis, your own church, but you couldn’t compete
With Big Mama from Rome.
A bit more foresight and we
Could have had the donut franchise.
We could have had Louis Riel’s instead of
That damn hockey player
And more branch parishes than the pope
Could ever dream of.
You were probably dropped on your head as a kid. Remember Fish Creek? The battle?
[The Bullet]
A bullet creased my skull, tearing off
A slab of my hair and spraying blood onto
The grass at Fish Creek
I looked around. The Métis were still firing
And the laughter of the gattling still mocked
Our desperate petition.
I had a sudden desire for the morning
Along the river, the fog clearing out.
I have a tough skull, Louis. Think: A slight
Change in the angle of a piece of lead
And I could have leapt up yelling,
"Shoot me, hang me;
God wants me!".
Louis: What God asked of me, I tried to do. What the people see in me, they see in me.
[The Three Riels]
There are three Riels, you know:
The crazy prophet torching buildings
Till he gets to jig a bit
At the end of a rope
The quiet boy just out of school
Who said, "Yes, Lord, I will
If you ask."
And the one they made out of me
Ashes starting to stir
On every wind.
Gabe: And the husband. Or did you forget that, again.
Louis:
[For Marguerite]
Heresy, treason, and madness:
Oh, Marguerite
My only sin.
Was in the leaving
Marguerite
I leave you my wool coat.
For me
Plant a flower
Walk away
Don’t look back:
Heresy, treason, and madness
Make fine fertilizer
But the memory of a fire
Brings little warmth.
Gabe: [To audience] Louis left his wife his wool coat, and memories. It was all he had. Neither kept Marguerite warm enough; she died a few months after him.
Louis: [Tapping Gabe on the shoulder.] Hey, did you leave Madeline any more than that? I left her my fame. Which is more than you could do.
Gabe: Madeline. A daughter of the prairies.
She was born in a Red River Cart, of a Scottish trader
And an Indian woman, somewhere on the wide lands
As the last great buffalo hunt came home
From Montana. Twelve hundred carts, Louis,
Of dried meat, and hides. One priest.
I was three, then, and rode with my parents
In another cart.
When I was twenty-one, I was a Dumont
There were none like us, on the prairie, but
The buffalo were gone.
Madeline, that young man would have hauled
A thousand carts for you, but all you asked
Was for a strong hand as a world rolled over us.
Louis: You outlived your wife. You took her into exile in Montana
Gabe: After we Métis lost the war, I hid Madeline on an island. Then we made our way into Montana.
Early that November I looked out the window
To see our world had become white with snow.
I was newly an exile
You were in the ground, Louis
I was long ago, far away
Madeline was reading poetry in English, by the fire
She had the cough then
We both knew what that meant
She read some Shelley, and Wordsworth
Trying to translate it into Cree and French for me
It made little sense
I sang her a Blackfoot song
She smiled at me, then we watched
Our last winter coming in.
Madeline died within a year of leaving Canada, of tuberculosis. She was gone. The buffalo were gone. The world didn’t need Métis any more. The white people had their eyes on the prairies. The Indians were all being herded onto the reserves. Us half-breeds - well, we were half-breeds.
Louis: We lost. I became history. You became a footnote. I hear you joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Circus. The Gabriel Dumont, forgotten revolutionary of the plains.
Gabe: It was a job.
I remember the shooting. A lot of shooting.
There were horses galloping around and
Dust clouds rising and
Indians falling over
Kerplop. Kerplop.
Mostly Indians, of course,
Or anybody who looked enough like one
To qualify to be shot.
After a year, the excitement wore off
And I figured the good folks had had enough
Of the wild and wily Métis Gabriel Dumont.
I left Buffalo Bill’s show in Pennsylvania
Riding back west
Into my own sunset.
Frenzy and dust. Dead natives.
That was the problem;
It was just too much like my first
Wild West melodrama.
Louis: [Points to the clock] Time’s up. Play’s over. One parting thought?
If the soil heaves and we
Crawl out of the crypt
Covered in cobwebs and dust
Dazed in the sunlight…
Two good ol’ halfbreeds
Planning revolutions…
Put us back.
Put prairie willow through our hearts,
Duct tape over our mouths.
Gabe:
Remember this
The prairies were made for love
Its days for humming of bees and laughter
In the coulees.
On long August days
Life is short, and every day
Is one less day for bumblebees and love.
Louis:
If we do not offer love and laughter,
Put us back.
Gabe:
Lock the door
More securely this time.
Louis: God calls. [Starts to leave.]
Gabe: One more song for my play. Before you go.
They sing, to the tune of "Red River Valley"
[song]
There are ghosts in the winds of the prairies
There are bones in the black prairie loam
There’s a cry in the hearts of the Métis
For the loss of their wild prairie home
Sing the songs that are lost now forever
Sing songs that are over and done
We were the hope of the Métis
And the fire in the bright prairie sun
We are the bones in the soil of the prairies
We are ghosts in the winds of the night
We’re the song that is lost now forever
We’re the fire that once burned so bright
Sing the songs that are lost now forever
Sing songs that are over and done
We were the hope of the Métis
And the fire in the bright prairie sun
Louis bows to audience, leaves, spotlight stays on his exit point
Dim light on Gabe
Gabe: [removes hat]. One day, we were revolutionaries. The next, we were only history.
Suddenly the stage was empty
The audience filed out, leaving
One lone spotlight on the magician’s trapdoor
Behind the curtain
In the cobweb darkness
The stage hand, hat in hand, exits.
[Gabe exits. Fade to dark]
(Lenny will be happy to email you the play in Word 97, PDF, or other formats.} everson@golden.net