"Starting here."
Bear spirit, walk with me on the Trail of Souls.
Little Crow said, "What do they say, White Bear? Are they going to kill us?"
"It is our fate to have fallen into the hands of a bad man," said White Bear. Having to tell them hurt him all the more. It grieved him that these two good men must die along with him, their lives thrown away because of a bit of bad luck.
"We were fools to come here," said Three Horses.
"Not fools—braves," White Bear reassured him. "A man who gives his life to protect his people is never a fool. Whether or not he succeeds."
"Youarea prophet, White Bear," said Little Crow.
Raoul was staring at White Bear's chest. White Bear wondered if his heart was beating so hard that Raoul could see it hammering.
"Look at those scars. Looks like a bear tried to get you a long time ago. Too bad he didn't finish you, would have saved me the trouble."
White Bear would not talk about anything sacred with Raoul. He looked back at him silently.
"Guess you don't know all there is to know about your nephew," Eli Greenglove laughed.
"Don't call him my nephew!" Raoul shouted.
White Bear saw some of Raoul's men exchange befuddled glances.
"Well, whatever he is, I kind of think we ought to send him and these others back down the line. Let them palaver with the general. It ain't for us to decide."
"What the hell do you mean?" Raoul thundered.
The popping of rifle fire on the other side of Old Man's Creek cut short the argument. White Bear turned to look.
A moment later Perrault, his horse's legs dripping creek water, came pounding up.
"You were right, mon colonel," he panted. "Those woods are full of Indians. They were sneaking up on the camp."
"These three were supposed to distract us with peace talk whilethe others snuck up on us," Raoul shouted to his men. "First we'll shoot these Indians. Then we'll hunt down the rest of them."
"It wasn't an ambush!" White Bear cried. "There were only five of them, and they were just there to see what happened to us."
"Well, why didn't you tell us they were out there?" Raoul said, smiling. "We'd have invited them in for a whiskey."
The coonskin-capped men standing near him guffawed.
Raoul's lips stretched in a grimace. "Eli, Armand, let's shoot these three redskins."
Greenglove said, "Raoul—Colonel—I still say you ought to think this over."
"Shut up and do what I say!" Raoul growled. "I want to get this done and ride after those other Indians."
Men were running for their horses and leaping into the saddle brandishing rifles. Without leaders or orders, they rode off across the creek with drunken whoops in the direction Armand had pointed out.
White Bear felt sick as he saw that many of the men who remained were grinning avidly. How, he wondered, could their deaths give such pleasure to these men?
Desperate to find help, he searched the ring of men surrounding him for a face to appeal to. It was already too dark to see expressions clearly. Hopelessness turned his heart to lead as he saw Otto Wegner turn and walk away from the crowd. Even though Wegner had always been Raoul's man and never a friend of his, he felt betrayed.
"All right," said Raoul, staring into White Bear's eyes. "I'll shoot the mongrel. Eli, you shoot the short one with the flat nose. Armand, you take the other one."
"'Vec plaisir," said Armand, his teeth showing white in his brown beard as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder.
White Bear felt the clench of nausea in his middle. Only pride kept him from doubling up and vomiting in his terror.
"Don't do this, please," he cried. "We came to you to make peace."
"They mean to kill us," said Little Crow. "Talk no more to them, White Bear. Do not plead. It is unbecoming a Sauk." White Bear felt a rush of admiration for the strength and calm in Little Crow's voice. Here, truly, was a brave.
Little Crow raised his voice in song.
"In your brown blanket, O Earthmaker,Wrap your son and carry him away.Fold him again in your body.Let his bones turn to rocks,Let his flesh turn to grass.Give his eyes to the birds,Give his ears to the deer.Grow flowers from his heart."
"In your brown blanket, O Earthmaker,Wrap your son and carry him away.Fold him again in your body.Let his bones turn to rocks,Let his flesh turn to grass.Give his eyes to the birds,Give his ears to the deer.Grow flowers from his heart."
White Bear and Three Horses joined in. There was nothing else to do. White Bear wanted to die singing, not weeping.
What a miserable death this was, even so! And still, he found that the song made his heart feel strong and his terror give way to a stern anger. Murdered because of the simple, stupid bad luck that Raoul's band of militiamen happened to be the advance guard of the long knives. Surrounded by drunken savages—yes, they were the savages, not himself and Three Horses and Little Crow.
Infuriating to think of the love and education his father had lavished on him, all wasted now. All the years of following the shaman's path, ended by a lead ball. Before he had accomplished anything.
And Redbird and Eagle Feather and the baby to come— If not for them he might accept the inevitable. Step onto the Trail of Souls with grace and dignity. But, even more for their sake than for his own, he did not want to die.
Frantic with fear and anger, he looked for a way of escape. The camp was in the midst of prairie grass almost as high as a man's head. The sun had gone down, and twilight was deepening. But Raoul was walking toward him, holding his pistol high. And beyond him, between White Bear and the grass, was a ring of men with rifles.
All that was left for him was to die with honor.
He raised his voice to sing louder.
I must put all my strength into this. It is the last song I will sing on earth.
"Stop that goddamned caterwauling!" Raoul shouted.
White Bear watched numbly as Armand Perrault brought his rifle to his shoulder, stepped up to Little Crow, put the muzzle of the rifle to the brave's head and pulled the trigger. The flint clickeddown and sparked, and powder sizzled in the pan. The rifle went off with a roar, enveloping the brave's head in a pink cloud of smoke, blood, bits of flesh and bone.
White Bear staggered backward, dizzy with shock and terror.
Three Horses shouted, "I will not die so!" He jerked free from the men who were holding him and plunged into the grass, hands still bound behind him. He ran toward the Rock River.
Rifles boomed.
In his panic, White Bear felt as if all the breath had been knocked out of him. Three Horses might have a chance. He was a short man, and the grass was tall. And light was fading moment by moment.
If White Bear stood where he was an instant longer he would be dead. This was his only chance. No one was holding him. No one was even pointing a gun at him. All of them, even Raoul, were staring after Three Horses. Many of the men had fired and would need time to reload.
Every muscle in his body quivered. He jerked his hands. The rope was still tight around his wrists. Running would be awkward. But Three Horses had shown that it could be done.
Run!
White Bear heard the voice in his mind. His own voice or the Bear spirit's? It did not matter.
He ran.
He threw all the strength in his legs into a sudden spring, away from the distracted long knives. He dove into the grass, running away from the river; opposite the way Three Horses had gone. With his arms behind him, he ran with his head and shoulders thrust forward. The grasses and tall plants slapped his face. His feet pounded the earth. His legs pumped furiously. His breath roared in his chest. His heart thundered.
"Hey, the other Injun's gettin' away!"
"Goddamn it,gethim!" Raoul's voice, shrill with wild rage.
White Bear's moccasined feet seemed to be flying over the ground. He felt the Bear spirit giving him strength. A curtain of prairie grass fell away ahead of him and swished shut behind him. Even the grass was helping. It was almost high enough to hide him as he ran in a crouch, as his bound wrists forced him to do.
He was already deep into the prairie when he heard the calm voice of Eli Greenglove cutting through the cool, clear air.
"Hold your fire, everybody. He's mine. Got a bead on him."
A moment later lightning struck the side of White Bear's head, sudden and stunning. He heard the rifle's roar just an instant after the bullet hit him. It struck so hard, it left him no strength to scream. His right ear felt as if it had been torn away from his skull. A blaze of agony blinded him. He staggered.
But he was alive.
Play dead!
It was the same voice in his mind that had told him to run. Now he was sure it was the Bear spirit.
He shut his eyes, threw himself at once to the ground. The earth came up and hit him in the face as hard as a fist in the jaw. Stunned for a moment, he sucked air into his chest and let it out slowly. He lay perfectly still. His ear felt as if someone had laid a burning torch on it.
"Got the sonofabitch," came Eli Greenglove's flat voice from only a short distance away.
But he was still alive. And no one was shooting at him. His body went limp with relief.
He could not believe that he was still alive and conscious.
Maybe I am dead. Maybe my spirit will stand up in a moment and start walking west.
Greenglove was supposed to be the best shot in Smith County. Could he really mistakenly think he hit White Bear square in the head? His eyes were better than that.
White Bear heard distant shots.
Earthmaker, let Three Horses live!
If Three Horses had not run when he did, White Bear would not be alive now. But White Bear remembered with anguish that he had seen Little Crow die.
Oh, my brother!Even though half dead with pain and terror himself, he mourned the brave who had died before his eyes.
Blood pounded in White Bear's head. Night was growing steadily deeper. By not moving and by taking only the tiniest breaths he might appear to be dead. He lay with his mutilated right ear uppermost. He felt streams of blood running like lines of ants over his scalp and his cheek. They tickled his neck. To lie perfectly still was agony.
White Bear heard Raoul's voice say, "Make sure of him, Eli."
"Damn hellfire nation!" Eli came back. "Don't I know when I've put a man under?"
"It's dark and you've had a lot of whiskey. Make sure of him."
"Pure waste of time," said Greenglove.
White Bear heard footsteps rustling through the grass toward him. The effort of keeping himself from moving threatened to tear his muscles from his bones. His heart beat harder as the steps came closer. Surely Greenglove could hear its thudding. But he froze himself and held his breath as the feet stopped beside him. In stillness was his only hope. The pain throbbed in his ear.
He'll see that he just hit my ear, and that will be the end.
Should he jump up and run for it? No, Greenglove would not miss a second time. Let the Bear spirit dim Greenglove's sharp eyes. Let him be deceived into thinking White Bear dead. There was no other way he could escape.
He waited for the shot that would smash into his brain.
"Right through the skull," Greenglove called out. "Ain't even enough left to scalp him."
Amazement flooded through White Bear. That couldn't be what Greenglove saw. Unless he was blind drunk. Or blinded by the Bear.
Or he doesn't want to kill me.
Hadn't he tried to talk Raoul out of shooting the three of them?
White Bear remembered Greenglove swinging the rifle at him the day of his father's funeral. If Greenglove hadn't knocked him out, Raoul would have shot him.
He was too frightened to try to understand it. He was alive, that was all he could be sure of. Alive for a little while longer.
"He's in the happy hunting ground." Greenglove's voice faded a little as he walked away. "Want us to dig a hole for him?"
"We don't bury dead Indians," said Raoul. "Let them rot. Let the buzzards get fat on them." He raised his voice. "Every man mount up and chase the ones there in the woods across the creek. This may be our chance to finish Black Hawk."
"What happened to that other Injun that ran away?" Greenglove asked.
"We got him," a militiaman said. "He made it almost to the river. But he's got enough lead in him now to start his own mine."
Grief filled White Bear's motionless body. Little Crow and Three Horses, both killed. Three Horses' death had given him back hislife. Three Horses, the first Sauk to greet him on his return to the tribe. His two comrades surely deserved to escape death as much as he did. Why had he alone been spared? He wanted to cry out, as sorrow for his fallen comrades tore into him, but he drew in his lower lip. He bit down on it hard, clenching his teeth in his flesh until he felt no pain anywhere else, in mind or body.
Good-bye, Three Horses. Good-bye, Little Crow. I will burn tobacco to the spirits for you.
Boots clumped through the prairie grass all around him. Hoof-beats pounded past him. He feared he would be trampled, and it took back-breaking effort to hold still. But the horses avoided his body.
Gradually the thundering passage of Raoul's men died away to the north.
For a long time White Bear heard nothing but the creek rippling over its bed of stones, the wind in the trees, crickets buzzing on the prairie. Tiny creatures tickled his flesh as they hurried over his face and body. To them he had already become part of the earth.
The burning in his ear settled down to a numb ache.
He heard the crack of rifle shots a long way off. Raoul's men, pursuing Black Hawk's scouts. Must more of his brothers die tonight?
He opened his eyes. It was now very dark; full night had fallen. He was lying on his left side in tall grass. He took a chance and raised his head a little way. Raoul had said he wanted no men to stay behind, but there might be someone about.
He dropped his head and tensed his hands and arms. The rope around his wrists had loosened. He could twist his wrists till the fingers of his right hand reached the knot. Pale eyes knew little about tying secure knots. After working patiently for a long time he freed his hands.
He still felt sick with grief, and did not have the strength to move away from this place where his comrades had died. Why not just lie here and wait for the long knives to come back and kill him?
But he thought of Redbird and Eagle Feather. And the fullness that had appeared in Redbird's belly before they crossed the GreatRiver from Ioway to Illinois. Using his knees and elbows to push himself through the grass, he began to crawl.
Slithering like a snake, his body and limbs flat to the ground, he wriggled along the edge of the creek till he felt sure any men that might be nearby could not see him; then he slid down the embankment. The side of his head throbbed with every movement.
He crossed the creek on all fours, the rocks biting into his palms and knees. Where the swift, cold water was deepest he lowered his head into the water to wash it. Agony exploded in his brain and he came close to fainting. But he forced the muscles of his neck to raise his head, and his arms and legs to push him along, out of the creek.
Soon he was in the shelter of the woods. He stood up and staggered through the shrubbery. Now that he was safer, the pain in his torn right ear pounded harder than ever.
He remembered that Raoul and his hundreds of mounted long knives had ridden toward the place where Black Hawk, with only forty braves, was waiting to learn how his peace emissaries fared.
He had stayed alive so far by luck, but he had no real hope of escaping to his people. Probably some of the long knives who had ridden out with Raoul would come across him, and that would be the end. As he neared the farther edge of the woods, a newly risen half-moon, like a white wickiup in a black field, shone at him through the trees ahead.
He was about to step out on the prairie when he heard the rumble of hooves coming toward him. He stopped in the shelter of the trees. He heard shots, screams of pain and terror.
Against the lighter prairie grass, men on horseback were dark shapes rushing at him from the horizon.
Their voices were high-pitched, fearful. They were crying out in English.
"Make a stand in the woods!"
"No! There's too many of them!"
"Just keep a-running. Follow the river."
White Bear looked about for a hiding place. The moon showed him that he was standing beside a big old oak, with branches low enough for him to jump to.
Grandfather Oak, will you shelter me?
Just before he jumped for a branch he noticed that a hollow had rotted out in the base of the tree. It was big enough for him to hidein, but then he would be on the same level as the militiamen. Safer up high.
He forced his tired legs to spring, managed to grip the lowest limb, one hand on each side of it, bark scratching his palms. He pressed the soles of his moccasins flat against the trunk and walked his body up, panting, until he was able to pull himself up over the limb and reach for the next one. The branches were stout and close together, and soon he was high above the floor of the wood.
You made a ladder for me. Thank you, Grandfather Oak.
Dozens of mounted militiamen were streaming past his tree, galloping right under him. The hoofbeats of the horses and the shouts of the men to one another, pitched high with terror, shattered the night air.
He saw the black shapes of more horses and riders swimming through the prairie grass. Their elated cries were Sauk war whoops.
The braves of his tribe, racing toward him as if to rescue him. A sun rose in his breast.
Rifles boomed and arrows whistled through the air after the fleeing militiamen, and he was thankful that he was up this high. He heard screams. Somewhere nearby a body crashed into shrubbery.
Some long knives, he saw, were trying to go around the woods, but the greater distance they had to travel gave the Sauk riders time to catch up with them. Rifle shots flashed like lightning in the darkness.
Two shadowy figures on foot, so close together they seemed one, stumbled out of the tall grass and pushed their way into the woods, careless of the noise they were making. White Bear held his breath, hoping they would not discover him above them.
A voice below him said, "You got to keep going. They'll catch you and tomahawk you sure."
Now the two men were standing by the tree in which he had taken shelter. He strained his ears to listen.
"Save yourself," said another voice, rasping with pain. "I cannot run. The arrow is under my kneecap. I will stay here and try to hold them off."
I know that voice, that accent. It is the Prussian, Otto Wegner.
White Bear remembered how Wegner had disappointed him back at Raoul's camp. Now his life was in danger; he deserved that.
"Hold them off? There's hunnerds of them." He'd heard the otherman's voice before, but he sounded like so many long knives, White Bear could not be sure that he knew him.
"Well, maybe if I shoot a few of them, you can get away."
At that White Bear felt anger heating up in his chest. So Wegner would like to shoot a few Indians, would he? Being willing to stay and fight while his comrade got away, though—that was worthy of respect.
"Damn! I don't like leaving you, Otto."
"You have a wife and children."
"So do you."
"But you have a chance to get away. I don't. What good is it, two of us dead? Go!"
White Bear heard a sigh. "All right. Here's all my powder and shot. I ain't planning to stop to use them. Remember, keep your head low so you can see them above the horizon. If they ain't wearing hats, you can figger they're Injuns."
"Please, Levi, my wife and my children, tell how I died."
That was who the other man was—Levi Pope, another of Raoul's men.
"I'll tell them you was brave. Make sure they don't catch you alive, Otto. You know what Injuns do to white people. Use your last bullet on yourself."
White Bear felt his cheeks burn with shame. For himself, the idea of torturing a prisoner was unthinkable, and he did not believe Black Hawk would allow it. But he could not be sure. Many men and women of the British Band, he supposed, would enjoy making one of the dreaded long knives suffer.
White Bear heard Pope scurry off through the brush while Wegner, gasping with pain, settled himself in position at the base of the tree.
The boom of Wegner's rifle below him so startled White Bear that he almost fell from his perch. He heard an agonized cry from out on the prairie, saw a brave fall from a horse.
He killed one of my brothers. I can't let this happen.
He heard quick, metallic sounds of clicking and scraping below him, the sounds of a man loading his rifle.
In a moment another Sauk warrior will fall.
The racking grief White Bear had felt since the deaths of Little Crow and Three Horses changed all at once into a whirlwind ofrage. He remembered Little Crow, bound and helpless, his head blown apart. He pictured Three Horses' body, torn by bullets. In his whole life up to now he had never killed a man, but surely now, after what he had suffered and seen, he had to kill.
Kill him how? He is armed and I am not.
But Wegner was in dire pain. White Bear could jump out of the tree on the Prussian's back and bring his foot down hard on the knee with the arrow in it. That should hurt Wegner enough to loosen his grip on his rifle, so that White Bear could get it away from him and shoot him with it or smash his skull.
More Sauk braves were riding closer, and Wegner must be taking aim in the darkness down there. White Bear scrambled down the ladder of tree limbs he had climbed.
As he reached the lowest limb, moonlight showed Wegner rolling over, his eyes gleaming. The rifle barrel swung toward him.
He heard me.
White Bear leaped.
The flash blinded him for an instant. In a suffocating cloud of powder smoke he hit Wegner's chest with knees and hands, an impact that knocked the breath from him. Wegner screamed in pain, a high, womanish sound that made White Bear's ears ring more than the shot had.
The Prussian, under him, battered him with the rifle, trying to turn it so that he could hit him with the butt. White Bear had both hands on the stock, and tried to kick Wegner's knee as their bodies bucked and thrashed at the base of the oak.
White Bear remembered that militiamen often carried hunting knives in shirt pockets. Gripping Wegner's rifle with one hand, he reached down the front of the Prussian's leather jacket. Wegner's eyes widened in fear, and he thrust frantically with his rifle. White Bear felt the handle of a knife and pulled it free. The broad steel blade twinkled, reflecting moon and stars.
Now. One thrust into his enemy's throat.
White Bear slid the point under the bandanna around Wegner's neck and pressed it into the soft place just above the collarbone. The man's eyes seemed about to pop out of his head. His thick, dark mustache was drawn back from his clenched teeth.
Trying to make himself kill the man, White Bear felt as sick in his stomach as he had when he was waiting for Raoul's bullet.
And he remembered again, the night after Raoul had driven him out of Victoire and offered fifty pieces of eight for his death, what he had heard Otto Wegner say.
He did not push the knife any farther. But he realized that Wegner would still kill him, given any chance. He held himself ready to strike.
"Drop your rifle," he whispered. "Slide it away from you. Make a sudden move and I'll cut your throat."
Wegner did as White Bear told him.
He said, "You are keeping me alive to torture me."
If he brought Wegner back to the Sauk, White Bear thought, the warriors would want to kill him slowly. Again he felt that hot shame.
"Do you know who I am?" he asked.
"You are Raoul de Marion's nephew, Auguste. How can you be still alive? I saw Greenglove shoot you."
White Bear ignored the question. "Three of us came to you under a white flag to talk peace, and you shot us."
"It was wrong."
"You say that now, when I hold a knife on you. Why didn't you speak up then?"
"Colonel de Marion is my commanding officer. Kill me, damn you. Is it not your duty?"
"A warrior does as he pleases with his captives."
White Bear heard all around him, on the prairie and in the woods, the war cries and whistle signals of the Sauk braves. It would not be long before someone discovered White Bear crouched on top of this man, holding a knife point to his throat.
Wegner said, "If I could, I would kill you."
"Yet if you had caught me the night my uncle offered fifty Spanish dollars for my death, you would have let me go."
"How do you know that?"
It amused him to answer Wegner's question by saying, "I am a shaman—a medicine man. We know things."
"Dummes Zeug," Wegner muttered. "Rubbish," he said louder, but his eyes wavered.
White Bear said, "I am a healer. That is my work. I will not kill you unless I have to. Give me your word you will not attack me, and I will take the knife from your throat."
Wegner closed his eyes and sighed. "You are civilized. Maybe I can trust you."
White Bear could not help laughing. "You saw today what civilized men do to their prisoners. You can trust me because I am a Sauk."
"And why do you trust me?"
"Because I think you are a man of honor."
"All right. You have my word."
White Bear slowly drew back and stood over Wegner. The Prussian sat up, then groaned. In the moonlight White Bear saw tears streaming uncontrollably from his eyes. White Bear had him sit with his back to the hollow tree. He brought his face close to the knee. With his eyes adjusted to the darkness, the half-moon's rays were enough to show him that Wegner had broken off the end of the arrow, and the rest of it protruded from his kneecap. The arrow had gone into the joint. It hurt White Bear just to look at it.
"I can try to pull this out," White Bear said.
"Go ahead."
"Give me that cloth around your neck."
With Wegner's bandanna White Bear wiped the blood off the arrow to make it less slippery. It would have been easier if Wegner had not broken the arrow. The protruding end was only long enough to let White Bear grip it with one hand. He wrapped his left hand around his right to give him a tighter grip, and pulled with all his strength.
Wegner fell over on his side in a faint.
Thank Earthmaker he didn't scream.
The arrow had not moved at all.
When Wegner came around, White Bear said, "There is nothing I can do for you. You need to get back to your own people."
Wegner's eyes widened. "You would let me go?"
"I have to. Or else kill you. If our warriors got you I couldn't stop them from killing you. Climb into this hollow in the tree and stay there till morning. By then, I think, our braves will be far from here."
He helped Wegner to stand and boosted him up into his hiding place. Wegner let out a groan as he drew his wounded leg inside the opening.
Take care of this pale eyes, Grandfather Oak.
"I will never forget this," said Wegner.
"Then remember my people."
He took Wegner's knife and rifle. He might have left the Prussian a weapon to defend himself, but he thought that would be going beyond kindness into foolishness.
He heard Sauk victory shouts coming from the other side of Old Man's Creek, where Raoul's camp had been. Little though he wanted to go back there, it seemed the surest way to safety. Carrying the rifle with one hand, the knife in his belt, he made his way through the woods to the creek.
Soon he was back in the center of what had been the long knives' camp, at the place where he had nearly been killed. A small fire burned here. Near it lay two bodies stretched out. The head of one was covered with a cloth. That, White Bear thought, must be Little Crow. Beside him lay Three Horses, a blanket draped over his short body, his face with its flattened nose uncovered. Standing around the bodies were half a dozen warriors.
By all rights he ought to be lying there too. He put a hand up to his ear, forgotten in the excitement of the encounter with Otto Wegner. The pain had settled to a dull pulsing. Gingerly, he felt the wound. The middle part of the ear was gone. The intact upper and lower parts were covered with crusted blood. He had washed the wound once in the creek. He must wash it again and bandage it.
Greenglove did that so blood would flow and it would seem to anyone who looked at me in the twilight that I'd been shot in the head. He was trying to save my life. Why?
One day, White Bear hoped, he would meet Greenglove and find out why he had spared him.
And that other time—when he hit me with his rifle just as Raoul was about to shoot me—did he do that, too, to save my life?
A solitary warrior sat before the fire, a long scalplock adorned with feathers hanging down the side of his head. The firelight gleamed on his shaven head and glittered on the beads around the rims of his ears. The bowl of the pipe he smoked was part of a steel tomahawk blade; the stem of the pipe was the tomahawk handle. He looked up, and his eyes widened when White Bear stepped into the firelight.
"White Bear!" came Black Hawk's gravelly voice. "Are you truly alive or do you come back from the Trail of Souls?"
White Bear felt an immense warmth as the firelight showed him Black Hawk's teeth flashing in one of his rare smiles.
"I am alive," said White Bear.
"I am happy! I am surprised!" Black Hawk cried, waving his pipe. "I thought all three of you were dead."
Sudden elation dizzied White Bear, and the flesh of his back prickled as he realized what it meant to see Black Hawk sitting quietly smoking his pipe in the center of Raoul's camp. Victory! The long knives routed. How had it happened? Black Hawk might have made a terrible mistake leading the Sauk across the Great River, but at that moment White Bear loved him.
Owl Carver stepped out of the shadows carrying a bundle of goods he had been gathering from the tents of the long knives. He dropped his bundle to throw his arms around White Bear.
"My son is restored to me."
White Bear sat down at the fire.
"How did you escape?" Black Hawk asked.
White Bear explained how he had played dead when Eli Greenglove claimed to have hit him. He said nothing about meeting Otto Wegner. He felt good about having spared Wegner's life, but he was not sure Black Hawk would understand. In fact, White Bear was not sure he himself understood.
Owl Carver made White Bear hold his head close to the firelight while he examined the wound, muttering.
"Truly, the things the long knives do pass all understanding," he said. "It was dark. You were in grass. Maybe he missed."
"He missed on purpose. He has great fame as a marksman; he sees very well. He came and stood over me, and must have known I was alive."
Owl Carver searched through his bundle of loot and found a Frenchman's kerchief and tied it around White Bear's head to protect the wounded ear.
Chills of exultation rippled up White Bear's spine as he looked around and saw Black Hawk's braves plundering the very camp where Raoul's men had swarmed and had killed his two companions at sunset.
"Earthmaker has given us a mighty victory," he said.
"We never expected it," said Owl Carver. "We were camped on the Rock River north of here when Iron Knife rode in after sunset to say that you three had been killed, and also two of the braves who had gone with him. He told us that a whole army of long knives was riding toward us."
Black Hawk said, "I was angry. They had killed my messengers of peace. I did not care that there were hundreds of them and only forty of us. I wanted vengeance for the blood they had shed."
White Bear laughed. "I heard them crying out as they fled your attack. They thought there were hundreds ofyou."
"The Hawk spirit flew with us, blinding them and striking fear into their hearts," said Black Hawk.
Owl Carver said, "And the spirits in their whiskey befuddled them too."
Black Hawk said, "I was surprised to see them turn tail and run. I thought Americans were better shooters and fiercer fighters than that. They outnumbered us many times over, but they showed no fight at all."
The Winnebago Prophet lumbered out of the darkness and sat down at the fireside opposite Black Hawk. The silver nose-ring lying against his mustache glittered red.
"It is well that you are here, Flying Cloud," said Black Hawk. "We must look along the trails that lie ahead of us."
White Bear turned away in disgust. After the Winnebago Prophet had misled Black Hawk so badly, how could he still rely on him?
A gruff voice said, "See, Father, I have lifted more hair from our enemies." White Bear looked up. Wolf Paw was standing over them, holding up two hanks of hair, each with a bloody, circular patch of flesh attached to it. White Bear hoped that one of those scalps did not belong to Otto Wegner.
Black Hawk stood up and seized Wolf Paw's shoulders. "My heart is big when I see my son is so mighty a warrior."
Sitting down beside his father, Wolf Paw stared at White Bear, and White Bear had to explain all over again how he came to be still alive.
After a moment of silence Black Hawk spoke. "Until tonight, there was no blood spilled between the long knives and us. But when we tried to surrender, they shot our messengers." He gestured to the bodies near the fire and to White Bear. "And now we have killed many of them."
White Bear felt himself trembling with rage. He remembered Raoul coming toward him, grinning, pistol raised—right on this spot—and he prayed that now his uncle might be lying dead somewhere on the prairie. An arrow in his back, killing him as he fled Black Hawk's warriors. A hole in his scalp, and his hair dangling from some brave's belt.
O Bear spirit, O Turtle, O Earthmaker, let it be so!
Then his fury faded away and became fear as he realized that he had just done, in his mind, a thing more terrible than murder. A man might call on the spirits for the strength and skill to fight an enemy—but to direct the power of the spirits against another man, no matter how wicked, was forbidden. He prayed no harm would come to him because of it.
Black Hawk said, "We have no choice now. The long knives have forced war upon me."
White Bear spoke up quickly, before Wolf Paw or Flying Cloud could call for war, as they were certain to do.
"It was my uncle, the brother of Star Arrow, who ordered us three to be killed. He has hated our people all of his life. He especially hates me. A different long-knife war chief might have opened his arms to us. Now that Black Hawk has shown the long knives that they will be hurt if they come against us, let us offer peace again. I am ready to go again with a white flag to talk of surrender with other long-knife war chiefs."
Black Hawk made a flat, rejecting hand gesture. "You have seen what happened. Pale eyes warriors would not let you get close enough to talk to their chiefs."
A warrior came over to the fire, holding a tin cup. He offered it to Black Hawk.
"The long knives left five barrels of whiskey, but they are almost empty."
Black Hawk turned the cup over, letting the whiskey soak into the dirt.
"Pour that poison on the ground," he said. "Whiskey made the long knives so foolish that when they looked at one of our braves they saw ten."
Wolf Paw said, "They abandoned wagonloads of food and ammunition. Even some rifles."
"We will need them," said Black Hawk. "Without more provisions we cannot go on."
After the warrior went away, Black Hawk gave his pipe tomahawk to Wolf Paw to smoke. Owl Carver and the Winnebago Prophet brought out pipes of their own. Owl Carver offered his to White Bear, who declined it. Given what he had been through this day, and troubled by the fear that Black Hawk was determined to plunge his people into worse calamities, White Bear felt his stomach could not stand tobacco smoke.
Flying Cloud broke the thoughtful silence. "If forty Sauk warriors could chase away two hundred long knives, then all the Sauk warriors can chase away the long knives' whole army. I say call out the six hundred warriors who wait at our main camp. We will drive the long knives all the way back to the Great River."
White Bear wanted to answer the Winnebago Prophet with angry words, but he felt light-headed and nauseated. He decided to wait and see what the others would say.
"The Prophet of the Winnebago speaks well," said Wolf Paw. "My blade is hungry for more long knives' scalps."
Of course, thought White Bear.
Owl Carver said drily, "We routed some drunk pale eyes who hardly deserve to be called long knives. Let us not waste any more of our young men's lives. Let us follow the northward curve of the Rock River to its very headwaters, far beyond any pale eyes' settlements, then travel westward toward the Great River. If we can cross the Great River safely, I do not think the long knives will chase us farther."
The five men sat in silence. A sudden thought struck White Bear.Thiswas why Earthmaker had ordained that he be educated among the pale eyes—so that he could help his band understand how pale eyes thought. If they kept going north along the Rock River they would soon cross the northern border of the state of Illinois. That might seem to them to mean very little, but it could mean much to their pursuers. The country where they were headed did not belong to any state; it was part of a large land of many waters that was called the Michigan Territory.
Eagerly he said, "We may be able to escape the long knives by going north. Most of the long knives who are pursuing us were called out by the Great Father of the Illinois country. Once we are out of Illinois, maybe they will not follow."
Wolf Paw grunted, clearly insulted at the thought of their not being pursued.
The Prophet bestirred himself. "Many of my Winnebago brothers dwell in that country to the north. They will join us in fighting the long knives."
Like your people from Prophet's Town, who've been deserting us?White Bear thought.
A warrior set a long knives' saddlebag before Black Hawk, who opened it. The war chief pulled out an expensive-looking black wool suit and some white silk shirts with ruffles. Finally he took out two books bound in red and white leather. White Bear leaned over for a closer look.
"Bundles of the pale eyes' talking paper," said Black Hawk.
Wolf Paw said, "They are worthless, Father. Keep the clothing and put the talking paper on the fire."
But Black Hawk handed one of the books to White Bear. "What do the talking papers say to you, White Bear?"
White Bear picked up a book and read on the spine,Chitty's Pleadings, Vol. I. He opened and saw close-packed type, his eyes skimming over many legal terms in Latin. White Bear wondered whether the lawyer who owned these books was still alive. At the sight of books his heart gave an unexpected lurch. He felt a longing to be not in a plundered enemy camp on the prairie, but in a library, with books, pen and paper. The feeling took him by surprise. It had been many months since he had missed the pale eyes' world. A few pages ofParadise Lostnow and then had satisfied any hankering for what they called "civilization."
"These papers tell about the pale eyes' laws," he said. "It is sometimes said that they have no magic. But there is powerful magic in their books and in their laws. It is the magic that binds them together."
The Prophet said, "The pale eyes' paper is bad medicine."
Black Hawk held out his hand, and White Bear gave him the book. It pained White Bear to think Black Hawk might throw it into the fire.
White Bear had seen many white leaders—mayors, congressmen, military officers, once even Sharp Knife himself, Andrew Jackson, the President of the United States. He had learned about them in school and read about them in newspapers. He felt Black Hawk was a match for any of them. More than a match in some ways; he was stronger and healthier than any white man his age that White Bear had known. What pale eyes of nearly seventy years could personallylead a cavalry charge against an enemy outnumbering him by ten to one and rout them? Black Hawk's great weakness was one that he shared with most people, whatever their race or their position in life: if he wanted a thing to be true, he believed it. That was why last winter he had listened to the Winnebago Prophet and not to White Bear.
Now White Bear hoped Black Hawk would show his intelligence by respecting the value of the book. Black Hawk frowned at the leather-bound volume, weighing it in his hand. He picked the other book up with his other hand.
"They are heavy. But since there is magic in them, I will keep these talking-paper bundles by me. And I will bring them with me when I speak in council."
White Bear breathed a small sigh of satisfaction.
Black Hawk laid the books down, one on each side of him, and put one hand on each book. He sat like that for a time, staring into the fire.
"I have done with trying to surrender to the long knives," he said, and it seemed to White Bear that his face became a fearsome mask in the firelight. "They have left me no choice. Yes, we will retreat from them. But we will not run like hunted deer. We will send out war parties, big and small, in every direction. We will lie in ambush on every trail. We will fall upon every settlement. We will attack every traveling party of long knives. No pale eyes north of the Rock River will be safe from us. Until we have crossed the Great River, we will give the pale eyes no peace."
At Black Hawk's words White Bear felt that an ice-cold hand had laid itself flat on his back, between his shoulder blades. With those words Black Hawk was condemning to cruel death hundreds of people—pale eyes and his own.
And one of the largest settlements north of the Rock River was Victor.
"What is the use of more killing?" he said. "It will only madden the long knives. They will come after us till they have destroyed us."
"I have decided," Black Hawk said. "We must fight back. We must be avenged. They stole our land. They burned Saukenuk. They burned Prophet's Town. We asked them for peace, and they killed us. Black Hawk will show them that they cannot do this and go unpunished."
"So it shall be!" the Winnebago Prophet growled.
And after that the long knives in their turn will have to be avenged.
Hopelessness lay like a heavy sodden blanket on White Bear. He saw the old warrior's determination, and said no more.
He could only pray that Earthmaker spare those he loved. On both sides.
Black Hawk stood up. "Let us go back to our camp."
Wolf Paw said, "Father, I want to stay here till tomorrow with a party of warriors. There are dead long knives scattered all over the prairie, but we cannot find them in the dark. In the morning we can take their scalps and their weapons."
His words stopped White Bear as he was about to turn away from the fire. Otto Wegner might still be hiding in that hollow tree, waiting for dawn.
Hurriedly, White Bear said, "I, too, will stay. I will help Wolf Paw search for the dead."
What could he do if Wolf Paw and his men captured Wegner? Perhaps not save the Prussian's life, but at least persuade the warriors to kill him cleanly and not torture him.
Haven't I done enough for Wegner? I want to go back to Redbird.
But his impulses were a shaman's impulses, and the harder to explain they were, the more he trusted them. It was important, for some reason, that he stay at Old Man's Creek a while longer.
Owl Carver looked surprised. "After all you have suffered, do you not want to return to your family?"
White Bear thought quickly. "There is a chance that murdering uncle of mine is one of those lying on the ground somewhere around here. It would be good to see him dead."
Owl Carver grunted. "I will tell Redbird that you are safe."
Fear and exertion had exhausted White Bear beyond ordinary fatigue, and he had barely enough energy now to roll himself in a blanket by the small fire. Unconsciousness hit him instantly.
In the morning he watched, sickened, as Wolf Paw not only scalped a long knife who lay dead in the tall grass, but slashed open the man's woollen trousers and sliced off his manly parts. Blood spattered over innocent prairie flowers of violet and yellow, and a swarm of flies buzzed around Wolf Paw, waiting to settle on the dead man when he moved away.
"Why do you do that?" White Bear demanded. "The Sauk have never done such things to a dead enemy before."
"The Winnebago Prophet says that the long knives are planning to kill all Sauk men, and then bring up black men from the country to the south to mate with our women. That way they hope to breed a race of slaves. This is our answer to that."
The story sounded absurd to White Bear. The pale eyes in Illinois didn't even keep black slaves. Just more of the Winnebago Prophet's babblings. But Wolf Paw firmly believed it.
At a sudden drumming of hooves, Wolf Paw and White Bear both looked south at Old Man's Creek. A Sauk warrior splashed through, waving his arm.
"Long knives coming!" he shouted.
Wolf Paw picked up two rifles, his own and the dead man's. They had found eleven bodies scattered along the edge of the Rock River, none of them Raoul's.
White Bear was disappointed, but not surprised, that Raoul had managed to escape. Surely he deserved killing more than any of his followers who did die. But White Bear had not stayed behind just to see Raoul dead.
In fact, it was a relief that the spirits had not answered White Bear's forbidden prayer.
He kept looking for movement out of the corner of his eye, trying to see whether Otto Wegner was anywhere about. But he saw no sign of him.
"How many long knives?" Wolf Paw said to the scout as he rode up. "Can we fight them?"
The scout's hand slashed a no. "Too many. Fifty at least. All on horseback. And they have a wagon with them."
"Coming to collect their dead," said Wolf Paw. "They will not like what they find." He grinned down at the corpse he had just carved.
"Better mount up and ride away from here," said the scout. "If they see us, they will chase us."
"They will not chase us," said Wolf Paw. "They will be afraid of an ambush." His smile broadened. "Maybe we will give them one."
At Wolf Paw's shouted command the six warriors who had remained with him moved into the trees north of Old Man's Creek, the same trees where White Bear had taken refuge last night. WhiteBear tried to see the tree where he had hidden Wegner, but the woods looked different in daylight.
Wolf Paw ordered his party to mount their horses, tied up amidst the trees, and ride north to Black Hawk's camp. But though he swung into the saddle, he did not ride off with them. He sat on his white-spotted gray pony facing the direction the long knives would be coming from. A screen of low-hanging maple branches and wild grape vines concealed him. White Bear, on a brown mare captured in Raoul's camp last night, drew up beside him.
"Why are you staying?" White Bear asked.
"I counted only eleven dead long knives," said Wolf Paw. "I want to make it twelve." He put the hammer of his flintlock on half-cock, poured fine-grained priming powder on the pan from a small flask, and closed the fizzen over it.
White Bear sensed that something very important was about to happen and that he must wait with Wolf Paw.
"Why doyouwait?" Wolf Paw demanded. "You have never killed anyone."
"Here they come," said White Bear, choosing not to answer him.
The two horses pulling the wagon, a flatbed with railed sides, halted at the creek. Most of the long knives dismounted and began to search through the remains of Raoul's camp. A few others rode across the creek. Wolf Paw raised his rifle.
The long knives cried out to one another and cursed as they found the mutilated bodies of their comrades.
Now they hate us more.
The long knives had rolled-up blankets tied across their horses' backs. They opened the blankets and used them to pick up the dead. One pair of men on foot was already carrying a blanket-wrapped body across the creek to the wagon.
One long knife rode slowly toward them. He was so tall that his legs dangled down from his horse almost to the ground. He came to the body Wolf Paw had just been stripping, and climbed down. He took off his broad-brimmed gray hat and stood holding it in both hands as he looked down at the body.
White Bear heard the click of a flintlock hammer being drawn back to full-cock. Wolf Paw sighted along the barrel.
The militiaman raised his head, and White Bear saw tears glistening in the morning sun as they ran down his cheeks.
White Bear knew this man.
A gaunt brown face with strong bones, deep-set gray eyes, a young face aged by grief. In White Bear's vision of last winter this man had a black beard; now he was clean-shaven. But this was the man the Turtle had shown him.
A sudden shout from the woods made both White Bear and Wolf Paw jump with surprise.
"Help! Help me, please!"
White Bear saw Otto Wegner stagger from the trees about a hundred feet to his right. He was trying to run toward the tall man.
He limped badly and let out an "Oh!" of pain with every step.
The tall man set his hat back on his head and ran toward the Prussian, who fell forward on his face in the grass a short distance from the edge of the woods.
Wolf Paw swung the rifle toward Otto, but before he could fire, Otto fell and was almost obscured by the tall grass. The blue-black rifle barrel lifted toward the man going to his aid. White Bear heard Wolf Paw draw a deep breath through his nostrils and saw his finger tighten on the trigger.
Even as the hammer fell and the spark set the powder sizzling in the pan, White Bear thrust his hand out. In the instant between the pulling of the trigger and the firing of the rifle White Bear pushed the barrel off target.
The rifle went off with a boom and a flash and a puff of blue smoke.
The lanky man jerked his head around and stared into the trees where Wolf Paw and White Bear sat hidden on their horses. He shouted and pointed. The long knives spread out between the creek and the woods brought their rifles to their shoulders. Some of them jumped on their horses.
"Why did you do that?" Wolf Paw shouted. It no longer mattered that the long knives could hear him.
He raised his rifle as if to hit White Bear with the butt end, as Eli Greenglove had done many moons ago.
"Come on," said White Bear, ignoring the threat and kicking his horse's sides to start him galloping through the woods. Wolf Paw, who had no time to reload, thundered behind him, uttering shouts of inarticulate rage.
White Bear was certain Wolf Paw would strike at him with rifle butt or tomahawk or knife before they cleared the woods, but Wolf Paw was wholly bent now on escape.
Now I understand!
The realization hit White Bear so suddenly and surprisingly that he sat up in his saddle. A tree limb flying toward him nearly hit him in the face. He ducked under it at the last moment.
This was why he had wanted to stay behind with Wolf Paw, even at the cost of delaying his reunion with Redbird, even at the risk of his life. It was not just to protect Otto Wegner. The Turtle—or perhaps even Earthmaker himself—had ordained it. If he had not been there Wolf Paw would have killed that tall, thin man who came to bury his fallen comrades.
White Bear remembered the rest of his vision—hundreds of blue-coated long knives charging and dying. Would this man send those long knives or their enemy into battle?
It was impossible to puzzle out. He might never know the answer.
They rode over the prairie on the other side of the woods, heading for Black Hawk's camp. The long knives following them had dropped away, doubtless afraid, as Wolf Paw had predicted, of an ambush.
Still expecting to feel a tomahawk blade split his spine, White Bear slowed down.
"So!" Wolf Paw shouted. "You are still a pale eyes!"
"No," White Bear tried to explain. "It was a vision I had. I had to save that man."
"A vision," Wolf Paw sneered. "I should kill you. If you were not a shaman— A warrior needs all his luck. But, since your pale eyes people are so precious to you, I will killthem. You heard what my father said. I will lead the war party that goes to your pale eyes' home. And this time you will not be along to save anyone."
They spoke no more. Though the morning sky was bright, a cloud of dread settled over White Bear. What would become of Nicole, Grandpapa, Frank and all the people of Victoire and Victor who had been his friends? At the prompting of some spirit, he had saved the tall, thin man, a stranger to him. And he had saved Otto Wegner, one of Raoul's hired men.
Was therenothinghe could do for his own loved ones?
The devil's reek of gunpowder seared Nicole's nostrils. Arrows flew over the trading post palisade to fall in the courtyard, some quivering upright in the ground. She heard the piercing shrieks of the Indians above the steady crackling of rifle fire.
She stood in the open doorway of the blockhouse, her body tense with fear as she watched Frank, up on the catwalk above the main gate. He crouched behind the pointed logs of the palisade. Frowning with concentration, he was slowly reloading his rifle.
"Look at Frank up there," Nicole said to Pamela Russell, who stood beside her. "Oh, God, I hate to see him out in the open. Frank," she said, though she knew he couldn't hear her, "get into one of the towers!"
"Burke too," Pamela said. "Why do they do it?" She pointed to the east side of the palisade where her husband, a stocky man wearing spectacles, stood on the catwalk. With the Indians attacking the front gate, he was left alone to guard the east parapet. The rest of the men, ten of them, were at the front part of the palisades, banging away.
Twelve men. Twelve men who know how to use rifles. That's all we've got.
And four were Nicole's husband, two of her sons and her father.
She gasped.
She saw a loop of rope fly through the air above the eastern wall and catch on one of the sharpened logs. A moment later a dark head crowned with feathers appeared above the palisade. And Burke Russell was looking the other way.
"Burke, look out!" Pamela screamed.
Burke heard that. He swung around, raising his rifle to his shoulder.
"Please, God!" Nicole cried.
The Indian leaped over the parapet. He seemed twice as tall as Burke, with bulging muscles that gleamed with oil. He wore only a loincloth, and his walnut-brown body was painted with red, yellow and black stripes. His scalplock flew out behind him as he rushed Burke, swinging a war club with a glittering metal spike protruding from its thick end.
Burke's rifle went off with an orange flash, a boom, a cloud of smoke.
The Indian wasn't stopped. The war club came down on Burke's head. Nicole heard the hollow thud and heard herself cry out.
Pamela screamed. "Oh, no, oh God, no! Burke! Burke!"
Burke's glasses flew from his face, hit the catwalk and caromed off to the ground. With his free hand the Indian giant seized the rifle as Burke crumpled. He raised both arms over his head, rifle in one hand, bloodstained club in the other, and shouted his triumph.
Nicole's stomach heaved.
Pamela fell against her, fainting. She threw an arm around Pamela and eased her to the ground, and she saw half a dozen more Indians waving rifles and tomahawks leap over the eastern parapet and land on the catwalk near Burke Russell's body.
"Frank! Behind you!" she screamed.
Frank turned, took aim and fired at the Indians. He ran for the nearest corner tower.
Nicole didn't see whether he hit any of the Indians. She dragged Pamela out of the doorway with the help of Ellen Slattery, the blacksmith's wife. They got Pamela sitting on a bench by the wall. Her thick chestnut hair tumbled forward as Nicole pushed her head down to revive her.
I don't know why I'm doing this. It's a mercy she's unconscious.
Frank!
Her heart in her throat, Nicole pushed herself to her feet and ran back to the door. An arrow whizzed through the open doorway. It clanged off the iron muzzle of the cannon that stood in the center of the blockhouse hall.
I'd make a mighty big target for those Indians, she thought, the wry little joke helping to keep her from crying in her terror.
She peered around the edge of the doorway to see a fury of brown bodies on the southern catwalk where Frank had been standing. In the center of the catwalk, one brave with a rooster's comb of red-dyed hair shouted and brandished a steel-headed tomahawk, sending parties to hammer at the doors of the corner towers with clubs, tomahawks and rifle butts. Black rings painted around his eyes and yellow slashes on his cheekbones gave him a terrifying look.
Even in the midst of her fear and hatred she could see that his body was magnificent. The most beautiful man's body she'd ever seen.
To her relief Nicole saw no dead white men anywhere—except for Burke Russell, who lay still, his head a bright red mess, one arm hanging down over the edge of the eastern catwalk. She looked at him quickly and then looked away, feeling sick again.
What made it even more of a shame that Burke had died on the palisade was that the men never planned to hold it. They just wanted to delay the Indians a bit. Here in the blockhouse was where they hoped to be able to hold out.
With God's help.
"Oh, Burke! Oh, my Burke!" Pamela Russell was awake and screaming. Ellen Slattery looked helplessly at Nicole.
Nicole felt heartbroken for Pamela, but she had to let her be. There was too much to do. She ran through the people crowded into the main room on the ground floor of the blockhouse. There must be four hundred people here, mostly women and children, she thought.
And Raoul's got over a hundred men from Victor with him. God knows where.
Here they had more rifles than men. Two dozen rifles leaned against the stone wall. Many families owned two or three rifles, and people had grabbed them as they fled to the trading post.
Well, a woman can ram a ball down a muzzle and pull a trigger too.
And miss, she thought, her heart a ball of ice. She hadn't seen one Indian hit yet.
Nicole spoke loudly to the women around her. "The Indians will be shooting down from the catwalk at our men when they try to get back here to us." She started to load a rifle. "We've got to shoot at the Indians and drive them to cover."
She had not held a rifle in her hands since marrying Frank, who would not have a firearm in the house. But Elysée de Marion had taught his daughter how to shoot, and she had not forgotten.
Piled by the rifles were flannel bags, powder horns and five small barrels, all full of gunpowder. In that frantic dawn, after fleeing here, the men and women had formed a relay line to rush the bags and barrels of gunpowder from Raoul's stone magazine to the blockhouse.
Feeling a bit more hopeful, Nicole noticed lead ingots lying beside the ammunition—probably from the lead mine that Raoul had shut down just before leaving Victor. And she saw scissor-shaped bullet molds. They had some of the things they needed.
If only they knew how to use these things.
"Who knows how to mold bullets?" she asked the group of women who'd been standing silently, watching her.
"I know," Elfrida Wegner said. Of course, thought Nicole. Her husband had been a soldier, over in Europe.
"Take some others and show them how to do it," Nicole said. "We're going to need all the bullets we can make."
Elfrida and two other women carried the lead bars and the molds to the huge fireplace at the rear of the hall.
From the hundred and more women crowded into the hall Nicole collected ten volunteers who knew something about rifles, five to shoot and five to load.
She called two of the bigger boys to carry baskets of shot upstairs. But carrying powder—that was dangerous. She couldn't make herself ask anyone else to do that.
She filled a bushel basket with sacks of cartridges, added a powder horn on top, swung it up to her shoulder and charged up the stairs, terrified all the way.
"Judas Priest, you'restrong, Missuz Hopkins," said one of the boys carrying shot. It gave her a warm feeling to hear that; she figured most people thought of her as just plain fat.
She still couldn't believe she was going to do this. Going to try to kill people. She picked out a slot in the log wall and pushed her rifle barrel through it. She could see a bit of the courtyard below. White men were falling back from the towers. Indians were coming at them. All of them were moving slowly. White men backing up a step at a time. Indians matching them step for step. A dance. Thebrave with the red crest was still standing on the catwalk above the front gate, waving his tomahawk and shouting orders. The caller.