"Earthmaker, you made this man,Now we ask your help for him.He is a chief whose people need him.He still has far to walk.Lift him up, Earthmaker.Give him back his life."
"Earthmaker, you made this man,Now we ask your help for him.He is a chief whose people need him.He still has far to walk.Lift him up, Earthmaker.Give him back his life."
When White Bear had danced the circle nine times, he put down the gourd. He had brought out from the château a kettle of freshly brewed willow-bark tea and a porcelain cup. It would ease the pain in Pierre's stomach and give him strength. Whenever Pierre ate solid food, blood would come trickling out of every opening in his body and he would grow weaker and paler. He was slowly bleeding and starving to death.
Smelling the tea as he poured it into the cup, White Bear remembered how he'd met Nancy Hale when he was collecting the bark yesterday along the bank of Red Creek. She'd been blueberrying. It was the fourth or fifth time he'd encountered her over the summer on the prairie near Victoire. The meetings weren't accidents; not for either of them. But he felt so uncertain about what he would do when Pierre died that he could only talk with Nancy about things of no importance.
He looked up to see his father's eyes open. They had sunk so far back in the skull-like face that they seemed like embers glowing in caves.
White Bear blew on the steaming cup and held it to Pierre's lips. He drank the tea down in small sips.
Pierre smiled faintly as his eyes traveled over his land. The nearby ground, covered with grass cropped short by sheep and goats, sloped down to the split-rail fence that surrounded the château's inner yard. To the west White Bear could see the two flags flying over Raoul's trading post on the bluff overlooking the river, and beyond that part of the river and the dark west bank, the Ioway country. In the other directions were orchards, farmlands, pastures, and the prairie, yellowing with fall, rolling on to the edge of the sky.
When Pierre had drunk most of the tea, White Bear put down the cup. He gathered up his sacred stones and put them back in his medicine bag.
Pierre said, "You did a Sauk ritual for me just now, did you not?"
"Yes," said White Bear. "It was meant to heal you. Or, if not, to give you strength to bear the pain."
"I do feel better today," Pierre said. "But I must also have a certain rite of the Church if I am to pass over into God's love. I sent a week ago to Kaskaskia for your old teacher, Père Isaac. He should be here any day. I have been a great sinner, White Bear."
It gladdened White Bear's heart that his father called him by his Sauk name.
"You are agoodman, my father," he said in the Sauk tongue.
Pierre raised his head, and White Bear saw that the effort pained him. The burning, sunken eyes turned on White Bear.
"Son, I must have my answer now. Earthmaker let me live allsummer, that you might have time to decide. Now you must tell me."
"Can you not let me go back to my people, Father? Why do you ask me to stay here and fight for something I do not want?"
"I see what Raoul has become, and I do not want him to be the master here. I am proud of you and ashamed of him. I want you to be the future of the de Marions, not him. And what of this land that we have loved together, the land that Sun Woman's people have cherished for generations? Shall it fall to Raoul?"
White Bear remembered what Owl Carver had said to Pierre at Saukenuk:If your land keeps you from doing what you want, then it ownsyou.
"Why couldn't you will the estate to Nicole? She's a de Marion."
"Nicole cannot do battle with Raoul when she has eight children to care for. Her husband is an excellent man, but not a fighter. White Bear, you are the only one."
"I still think as a Sauk, Father. Among the Sauk one man may not own land. And to claim so much would be a great crime."
"In you the heritage of the de Marions and the Sauk claim to this land are indissolubly united. You will be doing this for the Sauk as well as for me and for yourself. I believe that it was God's plan that I father you, that you spend the first fifteen years of your life among the Sauk and then these past six as a white. Now you have a chance to be rich and to have power. You can learn how to use your wealth to protect your people. You can do much for them if you stay here and fight for what I give you."
Standing over his father, White Bear lifted his head and gazed up at the great stone and log house on the hilltop. He wondered whether he was not being foolishly stubborn, refusing Victoire and the land the château governed.
Pierre looked sad and weak and very old. All summer long White Bear, heartbroken, had watched him suffer and diminish. He knew he could do nothing to cure his father, and that his refusal to give him the answer he wanted to hear was prolonging his pain. White Bear felt he would agree to anything, if only it would give peace.
Looking into his father's pleading face, he saw that Pierre was using up his last strength. White Bear could not let the final word Pierre might hear from him be no.
White Bear could no longer separate his own anguish from Pierre's.
He drew a deep breath in through his nostrils. "Yes, Father. I agree. I will take what you offer me."
The look on Pierre's face was like a sunrise. White Bear saw a warm, pink color flowing back into the pallid cheeks.
Pierre took White Bear's hand. His touch felt cool, but his grip was firm.
"Thank you, my son. I will walk the Trail of Souls with a happy heart."
Yes, you will go in peace, but I must stay to fight and suffer, White Bear thought. But he was glad that he could make his father happy. He leaned back against the tree and watched huge white clouds drift over the distant river.
"Let us make this a sacred agreement, son," Pierre said. "Bring the calumet and let us smoke together."
"Yes, Father." White Bear sighed and stood up. Slowly, as if he were dragging chains, he walked up the grassy slope to the front door of the house.
As he passed through the great hall he saw Armand Perrault, seeming almost as broad as he was tall, staring at him. Armand's eyes were as small and full of hatred as a cornered boar's. Feeling a chill, realizing this man was one of those he would have to fight when the time came, White Bear nodded to him as he went up the stairs to Pierre's room. Armand stood motionless.
A short time later White Bear was back at Pierre's side with the feather-bedecked calumet and a lit candle protected by a glass chimney. From his own room he had brought down the deerskin pouch holding his small supply of Turkish tobacco, purchased in New York. It would serve. All tobacco was a sacred gift of Earthmaker.
He dribbled the moist brown grains through his fingertips into the pipe's narrow bowl and packed the tobacco down gently. Pierre's faded blue eyes, the whites a sickly yellow color, watched him closely.
He held the candle flame to the tobacco and drew in a series of rapid puffs, feeling the smoke burning his mouth. When the pipe was well-lit, he turned it and held the mouthpiece to Pierre's lips.
Pierre took a long puff, held it in his mouth and let it out. White Bear's heart lurched with fear as Pierre began to cough. Holding his throat with one hand, Pierre gestured with his other hand for White Bear to draw on the pipe.
The sight of beads of blood on his father's lips horrified White Bear. He took a corner of Pierre's blanket and wiped away the bright red drops. Then he took the pipe from his father's hands.
Grieving for the freedom he was giving up, he pulled the hot smoke in till it filled his mouth. He let its bitterness sink into his tongue as bitterness sank into his heart—the realization that this promise would cut him off forever from Redbird, from Sun Woman, from Owl Carver, from the life he longed to return to. He let the smoke out with a long sigh and laid the pipe down. He felt as if his life was over.
But he felt some relief, too, because he was no longer torn by indecision. Now Pierre and he were content to talk of small things—how full the corn bins were this year, what White Bear had seen and heard in New York City, whether it would rain again tomorrow.
Pierre's voice grew softer and softer, and gradually he drifted off to sleep. His grip on White Bear's hand was still strong. White Bear let his head rest against the tree trunk and returned to a favorite childhood pastime, trying to see animal shapes in the clouds.
He was not surprised when the Bear appeared at his side. The huge head, covered with fur white as the clouds, pushed past him, poking its black nose into Pierre's shoulder. Somehow White Bear knew that Pierre would feel no fear when he awoke, even though he had never seen the Bear before.
Pierre's eyes opened, and he looked up at the Bear and, as White Bear had expected, only sighed and smiled.
"Eh bien, je suis content." And Pierre got to his feet as easily as if he had never been sick.
Pierre did not say good-bye, but White Bear had not expected him to. They had said their good-byes already. White Bear remained where he was, sitting with his back to the maple tree.
With his left hand lifted to rest on the high hump at the Bear's shoulder, Pierre walked down the slope. White Bear saw, rising from the rim of the hill, the arc of a rainbow.
Pierre walked the rainbow path with the long, vigorous stride of a young man. The Bear accompanied him with a rolling gait, looking like the biggest dog that ever lived walking beside a hunter. White Bear smiled to watch them.
They climbed the archway of color that leaped out over the Great River until at last they disappeared in the dazzling disk of the sun.
White Bear's head fell back against the bark of the tree, and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, his father was lying beside him, still holding his hand. But Pierre's grip was without strength. He lay with his head sunk in the pillow, his mouth fallen open, the whites of his eyes showing between half-closed lids. He was not breathing.
White Bear's tears came hot. He heard a voice—his own voice—rising in his chest.
"Hu-hu-huuuu ... Whu-whu-whuuuu ..." It was the sound mourners made at Sauk funerals.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth, sobbing and keening in the way of his people. Soon he would have to get up and go into the château and tell people Pierre de Marion was dead. He must be the first to bring the news to poor Grandpapa. But for a while he would sit alone with his father and wail for him.
Sitting on the ground under the maple tree, he looked down and was not surprised to see marks in the bare, damp earth. The prints of wide pads twice the size of a man's feet. At the end of each print, deep holes left by five claws.
Raoul did not think he could put up with much more of this funeral. He had to wait till it was all over before he could make himself master of Victoire, and he wanted desperately to act now. He tried to calm himself by remembering the Indians he'd stalked and killed at Saukenuk last May and June.
Raoul and the fifty men he'd recruited to represent Smith County in the state militia had arrived at the Rock River in style, carried up the Mississippi from Victor to Fort Armstrong, at the mouth of the Rock River, on Raoul's new steamerVictory. Paid for with the profits of the lead mine, theVictorywas propelled by two side paddle wheels, and it could make the St. Louis-Galena round trip in exactly a week.
They'd come to hunt Indians and Raoul had made sure they did, camping in the woods on the south side of the Rock River opposite the Indian village and shooting at redskins whenever they had a chance. It pleased Raoul to think they'd gotten half a dozen, maybe more.
Finally fed up with talking, General Gaines had ordered a generalassault on Black Hawk's town at the end of June. The militia were eager to slaughter every Indian in Saukenuk, and they'd swept in.
And the damned, sneaking redskins were gone. Seeing themselves outnumbered, they'd slipped out of the village, down the Rock River and across the Mississippi the night before. The Smith County boys, along with the other militiamen, were in a fury of frustration. They had to be content with the poor-second satisfaction of burning the Indian town to the ground.
To Raoul's great annoyance, instead of pursuing Black Hawk, Gaines sent a message to the chief asking for yet another parley. Black Hawk and some of his braves came back across the river to talk peace. Just like he hadn't shown the whole world what a coward he really was, the stubborn old Indian had marched up to Gaines's tent walking like a peacock, with feathers in his hair.
Hang the redskinned son of a bitch, was what Raoul thought. Instead, Gaines just made him sign another fool treaty—as if the Indians ever honored any treaties—and even promised to send them corn because they hadn't had time to plant any.
The disgusted militiamen called it the Corn Treaty. Old Gaines must be almost as big a coward as Black Hawk.
Raoul and the Smith County boys hung around the Rock River, sniping at Indians in canoes till their provisions ran out; they flagged theVictorydown on her next northbound trip and rode her home.
Home, where what was going on made Raoul madder than ever. Pierre was dying and the mongrel—from the same tribe Raoul had been fighting down on the Rock River—was strutting around as if he already owned Victoire.
That would end today. If Raoul could pull it off.
Raoul eyed Nancy Hale, standing only a few feet from him among the two hundred or so mourners in the great hall of Victoire. What would she think, Raoul wondered, when he played his hand today? He pictured what the tall blond woman would look like naked under him in bed.
Oh, he'd make her sweat and moan and thank him for it.
But first, of course, he had to succeed today. He had to drive the mongrel away before he could court Nancy. Whether her preacher father approved of him or not, he couldn't turn away one of the biggest landowners in Illinois.
And that's what he'd be, after today.
He didn't see how he could fail. Surely the servants and the townspeople wouldn't take the mongrel's part.
Still warming himself by staring at Nancy Hale's straight back, Raoul thanked God he'd never been quite able to bring himself to marry Clarissa.
He felt a twinge of unease as he recalled that taking up with Nancy would mean kicking Clarissa out of his bed, andthatmight mean trouble with Eli. To his relief, Eli had accepted Raoul's not marrying Clarissa, even after she bore him two kids. But that was only because Eli figured it would happen eventually, maybe after Raoul got control of the estate.
Well, once he had the estate, he comforted himself, he could see that Clarissa and their two out-of-wedlock boys were well taken care of.
It galled Raoul to be so dependent on a man like Eli, to be—he hated to admit it to himself—afraid of him. A heap depended on Eli's playing his part today in helping him get control of the estate. Today, Eli would be leading the Smith County boys, ones who'd been at the Rock River last June. Having been offered a good day's pay, they would do a little more Indian fighting.
Raoul felt as if he were going to burst. He couldn't stand this waiting, while the priest droned on in singsong Latin at the linen-covered table that had been set up as an altar before the fireplace. Let the fight begin, for God's sake.
Indians are all cowards at heart. When I take over here, Pierre's precious little red bastard will slink away, like Black Hawk did last summer.
A chill spread across Raoul's back as he asked himself: What if Auguste doesn't slink away? He might try to rally the servants and some of the townspeople to fight for him.
They wouldn't fight for a mongrel bastard. People hated Indians. Look how many men rushed down to the Rock River to fight Black Hawk.
But many people had loved Pierre. This hall was filled, and there were more people outside who couldn't get in because there wasn't room. All of them paying their last respects to Pierre. And they knew that Pierre wanted Auguste to take his place. Would any of them fight to see that Pierre's will was done?
He felt colder still as he considered the odds. Just about every man in Smith County had his own rifle or pistol. And Raoul and the men he'd recruited for today were far outnumbered. He wished he had hired more men. But too many and the secret would be out, and then Auguste would be ready for him.
Raoul tried to calm himself. Everyone in Smith County might be armed, he reasoned, but not everyone wanted to use their weapons. A lot of men wouldn't fight unless their backs were to the wall. It was the ones who were willing to fight who got to give orders to the rest. The men Raoul had picked, Eli and Hodge and the rest of them, were born fighters.
There'd be those who would condemn him, he thought, for seizing the land the very day of his brother's funeral. It was indecent, he admitted to himself. But he had no choice. He couldn't allow Auguste to get his feet planted firmly. He couldn't allow Pierre's will to be read aloud.
He felt even better when he remembered that with Pierre dead the servants would be taking their orders from Armand. He looked around the hall for the overseer. There he was, near the door, most of his face buried by his thick brown beard. Armand's wife, Marchette, was standing next to him. Sporting a black eye, Raoul noticed with amusement.
Armand Perrault was one who didn't love Pierre.
That sanctimonious hypocrite Pierre. First the squaw, the mongrel's mother. Then he marries Marie-Blanche, and as soon as she dies, he's putting it to the cook.
Raoul took a deep breath of relief when he saw that Père Isaac had finally finished with the funeral mass. The old Jesuit was again sprinkling holy water on the black-painted coffin, heaped with wreaths of roses and chrysanthemums that lay on trestles in the center of the hall. Frank Hopkins, Raoul knew, had built that coffin of oak planks.
Old red-nosed Guichard came up to Raoul. "Your father requests that you be one of those who carries your brother's coffin to the wagon."
Raoul felt a momentary jolt of fear. Help pick up Pierre's coffin and carry it, when he was about to dispossess Pierre's son? If he laid a hand on Pierre's coffin, God might strike him dead. Or Pierre's ghost would rise up against him.
He shook his head. Fool's thinking.
"I wouldn't have it any other way, Guichard."
He was angered to see Auguste standing opposite him when he went to the head of the coffin. It was infuriating to see Pierre's features in that brown-skinned face. The half-breed was wearing a green clawhammer jacket, with a black silk band around the left arm.
His arms and back strained as they took the weight of his corner of the coffin. A chorus of grunts arose from Raoul, Auguste, Armand, Frank Hopkins, Jacques Manette and Jean-Paul Kobell as they hoisted the coffin to their shoulders. They trudged out the door with it and slid it on the bed of a flower-bedecked farm wagon. Guichard helped Elysée climb up on the wagon. A snap of the old servant's whip started the two horses moving, as black ribbons tied to their harnesses fluttered.
Raoul walked alone, following the cart the half mile south along the bluffs to the burial ground. Some of the hands had cut a track through the shoulder-high prairie grass for the funeral procession to follow. The fiddler Registre Bosquet marched right behind the wagon playing hymns, and the servants sang in French.
Raoul cast his eye back over the long line of people following the coffin. His glance slid past Nicole and Frank and their passel of kids. With a feeling of satisfaction he saw two of his key men walking near the end of the procession, Justus Bennett, the county land commissioner, and Burke Russell, the county clerk. One copy of Pierre's will was in Russell's keeping, and Raoul had already told him what to do with that. Russell's wife, Pamela, was walking beside him, a handsome woman with chestnut hair that she didn't braid as most women did but allowed to fall in soft waves under her broad-brimmed hat. Strongly attracted to her himself, Raoul wondered how a bespectacled weakling like Burke Russell had ever been able to attract such a fine-looking woman. And what she'd do if she had a sporting proposition from an equally fine-looking man.
They were at the cemetery now. Raoul liked this hillside rising out of the bluffs, where Pierre's wife, Marie-Blanche, lay overlooking the bottomland and the river. The graves of about a dozen others who had worked and died at Victoire were surrounded by a low split-rail fence. Tall cedar trees shadowed the white gravestones. The flat markers with their rounded tops, names, dates and inscriptionswere chiseled by Warren Wilgus, the mason who'd recently moved into the area. Auguste had already made arrangements to have Pierre's headstone carved.
The sight of a solid limestone cube in the center of the cemetery gave Raoul a twinge of guilt, as it always did. It was the first stone to have been placed in the cemetery, and was a memorial to his mother, Estelle de Marion, who was buried not here but in Kaskaskia, where she had died in 1802 giving birth to him.
It wasn't my fault!
Helene was also remembered, though not buried here. The Indians had thrown her poor, mutilated body into Lake Michigan. Her memorial marker stood next to Maman's stone. A carved angel spread his wings over Helene's name and dates, "HELENE DE MARION VAILLANCOURT, Beloved Daughter and Sister. 1794-1812. She sings before the throne of God." Below that were inscribed the name and dates of her husband, Henri Vaillancourt, whose body also had never been found.
Raoul carried inside himself his own inscription for Helene:Murdered by Indians, August 15, 1812. She will be avenged.
And one act of vengeance would take place today, when the half-Sauk mongrel, whose presence was an affront to Helene, was thrown off this land.
It gave Raoul an uneasy feeling to be working with Auguste, lifting Pierre's coffin off the wagon. It might be bad luck. But the time to strike had not yet come, so he had to walk beside Auguste carrying the coffin to the newly dug grave. There, crouching in unison, the six pallbearers laid the coffin on a cradle of two ropes, each end held by two servants, over the oblong pit. Bending to let his burden down hurt Raoul's back, and he glanced over at Auguste, hoping to see him having trouble. But the mongrel's dark face was impassive.
When Raoul saw Elysée shuffling through the gate, leaning on his silver-headed walking stick, he felt a new tingle of dread. How would his father greet the move he was going to make? Except for a few brief and bitter meetings at which he and Papa and Pierre had tried and failed to settle their differences, he had not spoken to his father in six years. Armand often brought infuriating news of the old man's growing fondness for the mongrel, making Raoul hate the redskinned bastard all the more. Elysée would hardly be happy withwhat he did today, of course. But would Papa try to fight his only surviving son? If he did, Raoul would have to fight back, and then he might be punished by God.
Nonsense. God doesn't side with Indians. What I am doing is right, because Pierre was seduced and deluded.
But it wouldn't hurt to try to get in good with the old man. Raoul walked quickly over to him.
"Take my arm, Papa."
Elysée looked up at him, his eyes bloodshot and red-rimmed, his face blank, his skin wrinkled parchment.
The old man's had his share of grief. Too bad he couldn't find reason to be happy with me. But that's his fault.
In a low, hoarse voice Elysée said, "Thank you, son. It was good of you to come today."
Raoul sensed an accusation.
"Why wouldn't I come to my own brother's funeral?"
"Because you hated him," Elysée said softly.
At least the old man didn't seem to suspect that he had another reason for being here today. Containing his anger, Raoul helped his father walk to the grave. There he left Elysée with Guichard and went around to stand facing north, where he could see the château.
His nagging fear eased a little. So far he had seen no sign that he would meet with any opposition. It was hard to believe that the mongrel and his supporters could be planning anything in secret. Still he knew his heart would not slow down till this was all over.
Père Isaac stood at the head of Pierre's grave, next to Marie-Blanche's tombstone. A faint breeze from the river didn't disturb his gray-black hair or his beard, but rustled the tassels of the purple stole around his neck, the winglike sleeves of his white surplice and his ankle-length black cassock.
Trying to hold still as his heart pounded and his hands trembled, Raoul watched Père Isaac shake holy water over the coffin, which now lay at the bottom of the grave. The priest gave his sprinkler to one of the boys assisting him, opened a prayerbook bound in black leather and began the graveside prayers.
Will this never end?
Raoul stood with his head bowed. He puzzled over what Elysée had said about hating Pierre.
Papa always loved Pierre more than me. Thought I was some kind of savage because I don't have all those French ways like him and Pierre. I'm the most American member of this family, and he should be proud of me.
I didn't hate Pierre. It was just this damn business of him caring more about redskins than about his own people.
And he wasn't there when I needed him.
Raoul found himself wishing he could talk to Pierre one last time, try to make him understand why he felt as he did and had to do the things he did. Looking down at the coffin in the grave, Raoul thought back to the last time he had seen Pierre. In early spring after the last of the snow melted on the ground, out riding Banner on the prairie, alone, he'd come upon Pierre, also riding alone. They had stared at each other and passed without a word.
I didn't know then that was my last chance to speak to him.
Raoul's eyes traveled over the people standing by the grave. Auguste stood between Elysée and Nicole, looking down into the pit. It pleased Raoul to see that apparently Auguste had no idea what was about to happen to him.
But how could he besureAuguste was unprepared?
Raoul looked over the heads of the mourners, and his heart beat faster with anticipation. There, across the flat prairie land, he saw tiny figures surrounding the château.
Raoul's fingernails dug into his palms as he clenched his fists to hold himself together. What if the secret had gotten out? If Auguste knew what was about to happen, he would surely have prepared some kind of counterattack. Indians were damned sly.
Père Isaac closed his prayerbook and put it into his coat pocket.
"This man whom we consign to American soil was, like so many of us, born on the other side of the ocean," he said. "He came of one of the oldest and noblest families of France, fleeing the Godless revolution that tormented their homeland, which was also my homeland. The de Marions gave themselves soul and body to this new land where they had to make their own way. Here titles and ancient lineage meant nothing."
Get on with it, dammit!
"God saw fit to try them sorely after they came here to Illinois. The mother of the family died in childbirth. A daughter died a horriddeath at the hands of Indians, and a son"—he gestured at Raoul, who stared back at him, keeping his face expressionless—"held captive, a slave, by Indians for two years."
It was good that Père Isaac mentioned that. It would prepare people to accept what was about to happen.
"Pierre de Marion was a good man, but he was also a sinner, like all of us. He fell into the sin of lust, and that sin bore fruit. But Pierre did not hide his sin as so many men have. He reached out to his son through me and helped him. Eventually he acknowledged his son and brought him out of the wilderness to be educated for civilization."
Raoul looked across the open pit at Auguste. The half-breed's red-brown face was flushed an even darker color, but still he stared fixedly down into the grave.
Time to start.
It was an immense relief to begin to move. First, he had to get back to the château ahead of the funeral procession and join his men there. Slowly, so as not to attract attention, Raoul drew back from the graveside.
Auguste's feet felt heavy and confined in his cowhide boots as they crunched over the short stubble. He walked alone on the newly cut track back toward the great stone and log house. He could hear the sound of spades biting into the mound of dirt beside Pierre's grave and clods of earth thudding onto his coffin.
Auguste led the procession of mourners. The others let him walk apart, to be alone with his grief. Behind Auguste, he was aware, were Nicole and Frank and Nancy Hale and Père Isaac, and then a long line of servants and farm hands and village people. Near the end of the procession Registre Bosquet played a sprightly tune, as was the custom among the Illinois French, a way of saying that life goes on. In the rear was the cart that had carried Pierre's coffin, with Elysée and Guichard.
As Auguste walked, he brooded about Père Isaac calling him the fruit of sin. Why did the priest have to dishonor his mother and father so? In the eyes of the Sauk people he was no "bastard," as he knew some pale eyes called him. Still, he was glad that the priest said Pierre had done the right thing in bringing him here. Perhapspeople would remember that, when Raoul tried to take the estate away from him.
As he surely would.
Auguste knew, with a sinking feeling in his stomach, that it was only a matter of time before Raoul would strike at him.
He felt himself wishing for Black Hawk and Iron Knife and the other Sauk warriors, even Wolf Paw, to be here to stand by him. And Owl Carver and Sun Woman to advise him. Now he wished he had not agreed, at his father's insistence, to have no contact with the band. While he was being educated, being cut off from them had helped him become more quickly a part of the white world. But now that Pierre was gone he felt so terribly alone.
A chill fell over him like a cold downpour. Looking up, he saw men standing just outside the fence that surrounded the château, strung out in a line along the west side, where the gateway was. He had noticed them as he was leaving the graveyard, but had thought they must be hands, with field work of some sort important enough to keep them from the funeral. Now he was close enough to see that they were carrying rifles. Auguste recognized Raoul himself standing squarely in the gateway. How had he gotten over there? Auguste had thought he was with the funeral procession.
A cold hollow opened in his stomach as he grasped what was happening.
The moment my father is buried. What a fool I was to think Raoul would wait awhile.
He heard people murmuring behind him.
"Oh my God," Nicole said. "Not now."
"Auguste!" It was Nancy's voice, shrill with fear. He shook his head, trying to tell her that he would not turn back, and kept on walking.
In a moment, thought Auguste, he might be joining his father on the Trail of Souls. He heard footsteps behind him crunching on the dry grass. It was a comfort to know that there were others near him, although he knew no one could really help him.
He had no idea what he would do. He asked Earthmaker to show him how to walk this path with courage and honor.
Keeping his stride firm and steady, Auguste went around the fence to approach the gate, glancing up at the maple tree under which Pierre had died.
As Auguste got closer, Raoul threw open his jacket, showing his gilt-handled pistol holstered on one hip, his huge knife, the one that had scarred Auguste, sheathed on the other. His eyes were shadowed by his broad-brimmed black hat, and the black mustache hid his mouth. His face was a mask.
When they were about ten feet apart, Raoul spoke. "Now that my brother is in the ground I can speak plain to you. It's over for you here. You're Pierre's natural son, and this is his burying day, so I won't kill you unless you force me to it. I want you off de Marion land right now. I want you out of Smith County by sundown. Get back to the woods where you came from."
You cannot know how happy it would make me to do just that, Raoul.Auguste stood with his feet planted firmly on the stubble. He did not try to think. He would rely on the spirits for help. He waited for the knowledge of what to do to come to him.
He felt people coming to stand beside him. He heard the creaking of wagon wheels and the soft clip-clop of horses' hooves as the cart carrying Guichard and Elysée rolled past the funeral procession and drew up alongside him. He glanced at the people standing beside him, to his right Frank and Nicole, their children behind them, to his left Nancy Hale and Père Isaac.
Auguste went colder still as he saw Eli Greenglove, who had been standing by the gate in the fence around the château, walk across the open space, the tail of his coonskin cap bobbing. Greenglove carried a long Kentucky rifle. Auguste had heard many a tale about Greenglove's deadly accuracy. The Missourian took a position to one side, between Raoul and Auguste.
He won't even need to be a good shot to kill me from that distance.
Words came suddenly to Auguste's mind. He spoke loudly, so everyone could hear, and he felt good that his voice was strong. He looked Raoul in the eye as he spoke.
"I am proud to be a son of the Sauk people. But my father told me I was his heir. It is in his will. He gave me this house and all this land. You have no right to force me to leave."
Raoul laughed and slapped the pistol and the knife. "These give me the right." He waved a hand at the men standing in a line along the fence. "And them."
Frank Hopkins cleared his throat and spoke. "Raoul, maybethere's no law around right here and now to make you honor Pierre's will, but there are courts in Illinois, there's a legislature, there's a governor."
Raoul made a sound halfway between a laugh and a grunt. "Take your half-breed friend to the governor. John Reynolds wants the Indians out of Illinois as bad as anybody does. He was there with the militia on Rock River last June. Hell, go to the President. I'd like to see what an old Indian killer like Andy Jackson would say to you."
All too true, Auguste thought sadly. He had learned in New York of Jackson's "removal" policy, aiming to drive all the red people to the west side of the Mississippi. The work of the white chiefs was to take land from Indians, not help them keep it.
Père Isaac said, "To rob the orphan is a sin that cries out to Heaven for vengeance. If you came to me in confession I could not give you absolution."
"My conscience is clear," Raoul said. "Victoire is my rightful heritage. Do you know that this Indian boy you feel so sorry for isn't even a Christian? I am, Father. A Catholic."
"A very bad one," said Père Isaac. "I have known Auguste since he was a small boy. He behaves more like a Christian than you do."
A woman's voice, Nancy Hale's, rang out over the field. "Raoul de Marion, if you won't listen to your own priest, you'll still have to face my father. When he hears what you've done he'll preach against you and he'll stir people to make you do the right thing."
Raoul's face changed. He looked pained.
"Now, Miss Nancy. It isn't proper for a lady like you to concern herself with what happens to trash like this. You know well and good that your father may have a low opinion of me, but he has an even lower opinion of Indians. He won't side with this Indian bastard."
Suddenly Nicole rushed past Auguste.
"You're the one who's trash, Raoul!" she cried, and ran across the intervening space and swung her hand to slap her brother. Raoul grabbed her arm and pushed her away roughly. Frank rushed to her side to hold her, his ink-stained fingers digging into her sleeves.
"I wouldn't want to fight with you, Nicole," said Raoul with a cruel grin. "I believe you've got the weight advantage on me."
"You're a murderer and a thief, Raoul," she shot back. "And the day will come when people will have enough of you and drive you out of this county."
Waves of heat and cold ran through Auguste's body, and when he clenched his fists he felt the sweat on his palms. He had to speak out. He owed it to his father to fight, somehow, for this land. But how could he drive away some twenty armed men?
A sudden thought came to him. "Raoul, I challenge you to fight me for the land. With pistols or knives or barehanded. Any way you want it."
Raoul grinned, white teeth appearing suddenly under the black mustache. "You've gotten big in the last six years, but I'm a better shot than you are, and I'd slice you to bits with my knife. In a barehanded fight I'd bite your ears off and ram 'em down your throat. We don't need a fight to prove what anybody can plainly see."
"If you won't fight me you're a coward as well as a thief."
Raoul's eyes narrowed, and his shoulders hunched forward, as if he was about to attack.
"Dueling is also a grave sin," said Père Isaac. "And it is against the law of this state. I forbid you to fight."
Raoul laughed and lifted his empty hands. "Too bad, mongrel. The father won't let us fight."
Auguste turned to Père Isaac. "How can you take from me the only way I have of fighting for this land?"
"If God wants you to have it, He will see that you get it without doing wrong," said Père Isaac calmly.
The face of Black Hawk appeared in Auguste's mind, and suddenly he understood the wrath that had always seemed to smoulder just below the war chief's skin. This must be how Black Hawk felt when the pale eyes told him he could no longer come to Saukenuk. That was why Black Hawk had been leading his people back to Saukenuk year after year. He would not give up.
And neither would Auguste.
I must fight. I promised my father I would fight for this land. I smoked the calumet with him.
He remembered Pierre's words:Now you have a chance to own land, to be rich and to have power. You can learn how to use your wealth to protect your people.
And he was losing that chance. As he saw these rich acres being torn away from him, more and more he felt himself wanting them.
But how to fight for the land? To charge Raoul's pistol and the rifles of his men would simply mean death. Surely that was not what Pierre wanted for him.
An unfamiliar voice said, "Is this really how you settle land disputes in Smith County?"
Auguste turned to see David Cooper, a lean, hard-eyed man he had met several weeks earlier when Cooper had visited Pierre to pay his respects.
Raoul said, "Don't you like the way we do things here, Cooper?"
Cooper's cold expression did not change. "Just requesting information, Mr. de Marion. That's all."
Cooper had brought his family to Victor from some place in Indiana three years ago, buying a choice piece of bottomland from Pierre. Auguste had learned that he was a veteran of the War of 1812.
Justus Bennett, the county land commissioner, who Auguste knew to be one of Raoul's creatures, said, "Mr. Cooper, I've been reading law most of my adult life, and I can assure you Mr. Raoul de Marion has as sound a case under common law and English precedent as I've ever seen."
Auguste doubted that anyone here knew what that meant, impressive as it might sound.
The whites know how to twist any law to their advantage.
Cooper said nothing further.
These people might feel sorry for him, Auguste thought, and resent what Raoul was doing. But he'd get no help from any of the men who were standing around behind him. Raoul and his men were armed and determined, and the rest of the people here were not ready to give up their lives to help a half-breed.
But Auguste had taken advantage of Raoul's distraction with Cooper and Bennett to cut the distance between himself and his uncle in half. If he could get close enough to Raoul he might have a chance to get at him with his knife. He'd worn the deerhorn-handled knife today only because his father had given it to him.
As he hesitated, he heard footsteps in the grass and turned to see his grandfather walking toward Raoul with slow but firm steps, thumping his walking stick on the ground.
"No, Grandpapa!" Auguste called out to him.
"This is my son, I very much regret to say," said Elysée. "And I must administer correction."
Auguste started to follow Elysée, but Raoul dropped his hand warningly to his pistol.
"Don't come any closer, half-breed."
"I was with Pierre when he wrote his final will," said Elysée. "And I have a copy of it. I know his mind was sound. He gave the whole estate—except for the fur company, which we have always agreed would be yours—to Auguste."
"You gave the fur company to me when you divided the estate between me and Pierre years ago," Raoul said. "So my own good brother left me nothing. Thirty thousand acres of the best land in western Illinois go to a mongrel Indian, and you say his mind was sound? The more fool you."
"You are un bète!" Elysée shouted. "You are proof that there is no just God. If there were He would have taken you and let Pierre live."
"Monsieur de Marion!" the priest cried. "Think what you are saying. On this day of all days."
Raoul said, "I've always known that you loved Pierre and not me, Papa."
"You make it impossible to love you!" Elysée answered. "Now listen to me. Victoire is my home. I built this place. Those I love are buried here. I command you, leave at once. Get off this land."
Raoul, a head taller than the old man, took a step toward his father. "If you wanted it to be yours, you shouldn't have given it to Pierre. You have nothing now, you old fool."
Elysée swung the stick at Raoul's head. The thump resounded over the field, and Raoul staggered back, his broad-brimmed hat falling to the ground.
Raoul bared his teeth, drew back his fist and smashed it into his father's face. The blow knocked Elysée hard against one of the upright logs of the gateway. He cried out and fell heavily to the ground. He lay moaning and jerking his head from side to side in agony. The priest rushed to him, dropping to his knees.
With a scream Nicole threw herself down beside her father.
A red curtain swept over Auguste's eyes, blinding him momentarily. When he could see again he saw only the face of one man, Raoul, looking down at Elysée with triumph and contempt.
Knife in hand, Auguste threw himself at Raoul.
Raoul's pistol was out. His dark eyes gleamed with triumph as he pointed the muzzle at Auguste's chest.
He was hoping I would attack him, Auguste realized, knowing he would never reach Raoul before the pistol went off.
A sudden movement to his side caught his eye. In a glance he saw Eli Greenglove swinging a rifle butt at his head.
Auguste woke.
He was in a room he had never seen before. A plain black cross hung high on one white plaster wall. He lay on a bed with a straw-filled mattress, on top of the quilt. He wasn't wearing his coat. Or his pale eyes' boots.
Pain throbbed in his head, and with each pulse his vision momentarily blurred.
He rolled his pounding head on the pillow and saw Nancy Hale sitting beside him. Her long blond braids glistened in the pale light that came through the oiled paper window.
The way she was looking down at him startled him. The blue of her eyes burned like the blue center of a flame. Her lips seemed fuller and redder than he'd ever seen them, and they were slightly parted. This was the way she had been looking at him while he lay unconscious, he realized, and he had seen it only because he had awakened suddenly and taken her by surprise.
"What happened?" he asked.
"That man of your uncle's, Eli Greenglove, hit you with his rifle. Your uncle said he'd kill you next time he sees you awake. So we took you out here to my father's parsonage."
"How long have I been asleep?" he said.
"A long time. Hours. I'm awfully glad to see you wake up, Auguste. I didn't know if you ever would. Greenglove hit you hard enough to kill you."
He remembered Elysée lying on the ground, writhing. Rageboiled up inside him again as he thought of Raoul striking Grandpapa down.
"How is my grandfather?" He tried to sit up, and the room started to rock and pitch. The pain pounded on his head like a spiked war club. Nancy put a hand on his shoulder, and he lay back against the pillow. He shut his eyes momentarily to get his equilibrium back.
"We don't know—he may have broken his hip. But try not to worry, Auguste. Nicole and Frank took him back to their house."
That searing gaze of a moment ago was gone, but there was still a warm light in her eyes.
He heard a footstep on the other side of the bed. He turned, bringing back the ache in his head full force, to see the tall figure of Reverend Philip Hale standing in the doorway of the small room. Hale, dressed in a black clawhammer coat and black trousers with a white silk stock wrapped around his throat, stood with his arms folded, gazing at Auguste with pursed lips and a deep crease between his bushy eyebrows.
"You can thank the Lord's mercy you're not hurt worse, young man. I suppose you'll want to be on your way soon."
"Father!" Nancy exclaimed. "He just came awake. He might have a fractured skull."
"I think I'm all right," Auguste said. He tried to sit up again. He managed it, but he felt suddenly dizzy and sick to his stomach. He put his hand over his mouth. Nancy picked up a china chamber pot from the bedside and held it for him, but after a moment the spasm of nausea passed and, gingerly, he shook his head at her. His first afternoon at Victoire, when he had thrown up his dinner before everyone in the great hall, flickered through his memory.
He looked up and saw Hale staring at him with even deeper distaste. Clear enough that the reverend didn't like to see Nancy's care for him.
Grandpapa's hurt, and I'm the only one around here with medical training.
Auguste lifted his head again, determined to get up in spite of the pain. "I must go to my grandfather. He may die if he isn't cared for properly."
A spear of horror shot through him. His medicine bundle, containing his precious stones and the bear's claw, was still at the château.All his spiritual power was collected in that bag. Whatever the risk, he must go back and get it. And he wanted the bag of surgical instruments he'd brought back from New York.
"I'll be out of here as soon as I can stand, sir," he said. "I have much to do."
"No!" Nancy cried. "Auguste, you're not well enough to go anywhere. And, Father, I told you what happened at the funeral. We've got to help Auguste. If you speak, people will listen."
"I don't know the rights and wrongs of it," said Hale, looking irritated, presented with a problem he did not want to try to solve.
Auguste said, "My father wanted me to inherit Victoire. There are witnesses. There are two copies of his will, if Raoul hasn't already destroyed them."
Reverend Hale glowered at Auguste. "What if Raoul de Marion's men come looking for you?"
Suddenly, as when facing Raoul at the gateway to Victoire, Auguste felt terribly alone. Nancy would do anything she could for him; after seeing her loving look when he awoke he was sure of that. But there was little enough she could do. Especially because of the way her father so obviously felt about him.
"I'll be gone as quick as I can, Reverend Hale."
"If they come here while Auguste is here you'll have to tell them he's not here and refuse to let them in," said Nancy firmly.
"Lie to them? I'm not a Jesuit."
"Father! Would you let Auguste be killed?"
The word "killed" set a storm of frightful thoughts whirling through Auguste's head. Raoul's pistol had been pointed right at his chest. And Greenglove had tried to brain him. They wouldn't stop until they had killed him. Only then would Raoul be secure in his possession of Victoire. Dazed and hurting though he was, Auguste had to get out of Smith County if he was to live another day.
Hale turned and went back to his own room, shaking his head.
"Your father is no friend to me," said Auguste.
Nancy's face was like a lake whose surface was troubled by a wind. "He's very strict. He didn't go to your father's funeral because it was a Catholic service. But if anything happens he'll do the right thing. You can count on him for that."
Auguste said nothing. But he didn't share her confidence.
Early that evening, Auguste, Nancy and Reverend Hale weresitting in the front room of the Hales' one-story house. They had eaten a rabbit stew with potatoes, onions and beans from the Hales' garden and hominy grits on the side that Nancy had pounded from corn. They washed it down with fresh-squeezed apple cider.
"I allow no spiritous liquors in my home," said Reverend Hale.
Now that it was dark Auguste wanted desperately to be off to see Grandpapa at Nicole and Frank's house. The old man had been badly hurt. He might be dying.
By candlelight Hale read the Bible aloud to Nancy and Auguste. It was his nightly custom, Nancy explained.
Auguste heard the soft clip-clop of a horse's hooves and the creak of carriage wheels and raised a hand to alert the others.
Putting a finger to her lips, Nancy went to the door. She opened it a crack, then pulled it wider and went out.
"Who is it?" Hale called anxiously.
His heart pounding, Auguste was on his feet, looking for a weapon or for a place to hide.
No answer came from Nancy, but a moment later she came back, one arm around another woman's shoulders, supporting her. A blue kerchief covered the woman's head.
"Who is this?" Hale said again.
"Bon soir, Reverend Hale. Forgive me for disturbing you."
It was a moment before Auguste recognized the battered, swollen face of Marchette. One of her eyes had been blackened this morning, but now there were ugly bruises around both eyes, her whole face was swollen and her lips were cut and puffed.
Heartbroken at the sight of her, Auguste rushed to the cook and took her hands in his.
"Marchette! What happened to you?"
"I cried very much when you and Monsieur Elysée were hurt today, Monsieur Auguste. Armand did not like this, and he beat me. Itlooksvery bad, but he did not beat me hard, Monsieur. Whoever Armand beats hard, dies. But I resolved to do something for you. Monsieur Raoul, he had barrels of Kaintuck whiskey carted up to the château. Many guests and servants got very drunk. After a while Armand was lying on the floor beside the table, so then I went to fetch your things. Your trunk was unlocked, and I gathered up your clothes and books and put them in it and locked it. I had Bernadette Bosquet, the fiddler's wife, she is my friend, help carry your trunk down to the carriage."
Auguste felt as if a sudden bright light had flooded his room. His medicine bundle had been in the trunk. And his surgical instruments. They were safe.
He jumped up from the table. A throb of pain went through his head, and he felt dizzy and had to cling to the table for support. Marchette's eyes widened in alarm, and she put her hands out to him.
Recovered after a moment—and feeling much better now than he had a few hours ago—he took Marchette's hands in his.
"I can't tell you how much this means to me, Marchette. There were things in my trunk—sacred things—very important to me. Very precious. I thank you a thousand times."
Her swollen lips parted in a half smile. She reached into a pocket in her apron and brought out a large pocket watch gleaming a dull gold. Then she took out a familiar oval silver case with a velvet ribbon.
"These were your father's, monsieur. I believe he would wish that you have them."
Auguste opened the case and saw the round lenses for only a moment as his eyes blurred. He put his hand over his face and held it there until he no longer felt like weeping. Then he looked at the engraving on the watch—"Pierre Louis Auguste de Marion, A.D. 1800"—and his eyes filled up with tears. This, he thought, should go into his medicine bundle with the other sacred objects.
"Where were Raoul and Greenglove when you took my trunk and things in the carriage?"
"Before Armand got drunk, Monsieur Raoul made him look through Monsieur Elysée's room for the paper that says you are to inherit the estate. Armand found it and gave it to your uncle, and he threw it into the fire while Armand and Eli Greenglove watched and laughed. Then Monsieur Raoul, he got into a most furious argument with Eli Greenglove about Greenglove's daughter. They nearly fight, but I think they are afraid of each other. They are both great killers. So finally they went down to town. Monsieur Raoul agreed to bring his woman, Greenglove's daughter, and the two boys to the château."
"Disgraceful!" snorted Reverend Hale. "Publicly living in sin."
"I wonder why he didn't bring them to the funeral?" Nancy said.
Auguste thought he knew why. Clarissa Greenglove had been a pretty, full-bosomed girl when he first arrived at Victoire. But inthe years during which she had borne two boys to Raoul, she had turned into a lank-haired, snuff-sniffing slattern. Years ago Raoul had said he was going to marry Clarissa, but he never had. And Auguste had seen Raoul bending a hungry look on Nancy throughout the funeral mass this morning. The thought of Raoul laying even a hand on Nancy angered him. It would anger Eli Greenglove, too, for a different reason.
Eli Greenglove, it was said, could shoot the wings off a fly one at a time at fifty yards and was wanted in Missouri for over a dozen murders. He might take orders from Raoul, but it would not do for Raoul to offend such a man. So if Eli persisted, Raoul probably would take Clarissa into the château.
Auguste felt a sinking in his stomach as he touched his fingers lightly to his throbbing head. He was alive now only because Greenglove had chosen to hit him instead of shooting him down—or instead of letting Raoul have that pleasure.
"Will you stay the night, Marchette?" Nancy asked.
"No, I must go back to the château before Armand wakes up. Otherwise he will beat me worse."
"I'm going with you," said Auguste.
"No," said Nancy. "They'll kill you."
Auguste looked across the table at Nancy, staring at him with round blue eyes full of the yearning, now mixed with fear, that he'd seen in them earlier. "Pale eyes," the Sauk term for her people, did no justice to her eyes, the color of the turquoise stone he kept in his medicine bag. Her blond hair made his blood race. His fingertips tingled with the desire to touch the white skin of her cheek.
Though Nancy's very differentness made him desire her, he knew that he and she could never belong to each other as completely as he and Redbird did. He could have a deep and lasting union with Redbird, a union that would make him feel whole.
But it had been six years since he had seen Redbird, and no woman of the Sauk would go without a man for that long.
My mother did, he reminded himself.
But Redbird had probably given in to Wolf Paw and married him. After all, she hadn't had a word from White Bear in all that time.
Marchette's urgent tone refocused his thoughts. "Monsieur Raoul, he stood up on the table and held up a bag full of Spanishdollars—he said there were fifty—and said he would give it to the man who shoots you. And there were many men who cheered at that and boasted they would be the one to win the silver."
Auguste pictured men scattering out all over Smith County, hunting for him. He could almost feel the rifle ball shattering his skull.
"I can't hide in your house forever, Nancy. Sooner or later they'll come looking for me, and I don't want to bring that down on your heads."
Reverend Hale said nothing, but Auguste saw relief in his square face—and grudging respect. But Hale's respect, he thought, would do him little good when he lay dead on the prairie.
Nancy's full lips quivered as she said, "You'll go to the château and let them shoot you?"
Auguste realized that his hands were cold with fear, and he rubbed them together to warm them. Hale's house was about ten miles across the prairie from the Mississippi. Could he cover all that distance without being seen and shot?
"I'm not going to the château. I'll just see that Marchette gets there safely. Traveling at night, she should have someone go back with her. Then I'll go on to town. To Nicole and Frank's house. To Grandpapa. I must see him." He turned toward the cook and felt a stabbing in his gut at the sight of her bruised face. She'd suffered that out of love for his father, he thought, and for his sake too.
"If you're seen you'll be shot," said Hale.
Don't you think I know that?he wanted to scream at the minister. What choice did he have? He was like a rabbit surrounded by wolves. He forced calm on himself and spoke with sarcasm.
"Surely you know, Reverend, that Indians are good at getting about unnoticed."
He felt his fear turning to a rising excitement as he recalled the lessons of stealth and cunning he'd learned as a child of the Sauk.
"But what will you do then?" Nancy asked. "How will you get back here?"
Auguste hesitated. Remembering that he was a Sauk had moved his thoughts in a new direction.
I have been dispossessed. Just as my people have been dispossessed.
Nancy was waiting for him to speak.
"Raoul told me to go back to the woods with the other Indians. Even though the advice came from him, I think that is just what I should do."
Nancy gasped as if he had struck her. There was silence in the cottage for a moment.
"How will you get back to your people?" she said. "How will you find them?"
He smiled, trying to get her to smile back at him. "I know exactly where they are. They've crossed the Mississippi to their hunting grounds in the Ioway Territory. I spent the first fifteen winters of my life there with the British Band."
Auguste remembered his dream of becoming a shaman. It had come back to life a bit with his effort to heal Pierre. Among the pale eyes there was no room for magic. But now he felt he could go back to his own people and find magic again.
Hale said, "An unwise decision, it seems to me. You've been educated. You've had an opportunity to learn about white Christian civilization. Your uncle can't take that away from you, and you should not throw it away."
Auguste said, "Reverend, you know what I'm leaving behind. But you don't know what I'm going back to."
Nancy started speaking rapidly, as if she was trying to hold back tears. "Well, what about these things of yours that Marchette brought here? There's no way you can carry a trunk on foot even as far as Nicole and Frank's house. Would you like us to keep your things here for you? Perhaps someday, after you've settled with your tribe"—she swallowed hard—"you could send for them."
Auguste heard the anguish in her voice but decided to take her words at only face value. "Yes, I'd be truly grateful if you'd keep them for me. The only thing I want to take now is my medicine bundle."
Reverend Hale pursed his lips and snorted, but Auguste ignored him.
Auguste thought a moment. "And I can use the surgical instruments. And at least one book."
"Let it be a Bible," said Hale. Auguste made no answer to that.
As Eli Greenglove struck him down, Auguste remembered, he had been charging at Raoul with his knife in his hand.
"What happened to my knife?"
"I picked it up," said Nancy in a clipped tone. She stood up and went over to an elaborately carved oak sideboard, a handsome piece of furniture that seemed out of place in this simple cabin, and took Auguste's knife out of a drawer. She handed it to him and he slipped it into the leather sheath at his belt.
"Thank you, Nancy. My father gave that to me a long time ago." Their eyes met, and he felt a warmth spread through him. It was going to be hard to leave her.
Nancy remained standing. "Let's go out to the wagon and see what Marchette has brought. I can help you carry your trunk in."
Marchette and Reverend Hale both said at the same time, "I can do that!" The coincidence made everyone laugh nervously.
"No," said Nancy firmly. "Marchette, you're hurt and tired. Father, why don't you see what consolation you can offer this poor, mistreated woman. Auguste's trunk can't be that heavy. Come on, Auguste."
Before either Hale or Marchette could answer, Nancy had Auguste out the door. He glanced back into the room just before the door closed and saw Hale's fists clenched on either side of his open Bible.
Auguste stood for a moment, letting his eyes adjust from the lamplight inside to the darkness out here. A fat moon hung overhead; he judged it would be full in two nights. With this much light he'd be in even more danger tonight. The white-painted steeple of Reverend Hale's little church, next to the cottage where he and Nancy lived, gleamed in the moonlight.
Beside him in the dark Nancy whispered fiercely, "I don'twantyou to go."
Sadly he said, "I know." He took her hand and squeezed it. Perhaps it was a mistake to do that, but he could not stop himself.
"Come away from the house," she said.
Now he could see the wagon Marchette had come in, the horse tied to a fence post beside the Hales' garden on the south side of the house. The horse shifted from foot to foot and burbled its breath out through its lips.
Holding tight to his hand, Nancy led him around to the rear of the house, beyond which rows of corn stood, their tassels silvery in the moonlight.
"You and your father grow all this corn?" Auguste asked.
"It's our land, but a neighbor does the work. He sells it in Victor and we share the proceeds." She led him into the corn, brushing past the crackling leaves. The concealment of the leaves and stalks made him feel closer to her than ever. He wanted to reach out to her.
But the corn evoked another feeling, as well.
She can't know it, but this field reminds me of the corn bottoms around Saukenuk. It makes me want to go back all the more.
When there were leafy stalks all around them, hiding them from the house, she turned to him again and said, "Please, Auguste, I don't want you to go away for good." Her eyes were bright in the moonlight.
Her nearness was thrilling. He wanted to forget the worries that made him hesitate, and take her in his arms.
"You don't want me to stay here and risk getting killed," he said.
"You could go to Vandalia," she said. "Tell Governor Reynolds what happened. If he can't do anything for you himself, maybe he can help you find a lawyer who will fight Raoul for you in the courts."
How innocent she was, he thought bitterly. "It was Governor Reynolds who called out the militia to drive my people from Saukenuk. It's just as Raoul said, he would be the last man to want to help an Indian fight for land with a white man."
"Your father sent you to school in the East because he wanted a different future for you than just spending your life hunting and living in a wigwam. You'll be throwing all that away."