"I hope the Army gets him and hangs him from the highest gallows in Illinois. He left me tied to that tree all day while they tried to take the trading post."
The words tumbled out faster and faster. When she had first regained consciousness she could hardly speak at all. Now her eyes glittered and she moved her hands violently. Hysteria had broken through her former numbness.
"I could see them using ropes to climb the palisade and charging in through the front gate. Every so often they would pull out some dead or wounded. Just before sunset the one you call Wolf Paw made a speech to them. Then they set fire to arrows and shot them at the blockhouse, and they all rushed in through the front gate. I thought that would be the end, but then I heard a tremendous explosion. I thought maybe somebody blew up the blockhouse. A big puff of smoke rose up over the palisade. Wolf Paw came out wounded. That very big man helped him put me on his horse and tie me there. And then we rode for four days till we got here."
Auguste began to breathe easier. He felt some relief, some hope, despite his pain for the loss of Victoire and for the people who had died there. It sounded as if many of the people of Victor, perhaps Nicole and her family, perhaps Grandpapa, might have come through unharmed.
But another fear took a grip on him. "On the way here, did Wolf Paw ... hurt you, Nancy?"
"No. I think he was too tired and too badly hurt to want to do anything like that. We rode hard, and he kept me tied on his horse all the time. We stopped to sleep long after dark and started riding again before sunup. There was always at least one man awake to guard me."
All the while she had been talking, Nancy had kept a tight grasp on his arm. Now he gently pulled away from her and stood up.
"Nancy, I must leave you for a while."
"No!" Her voice was shrill with fear.
"I must. There are many wounded who need me."
Fearful of how she would react to what he was going to say next, he hesitated. Then he spoke quickly to get it over with, as he did when he had to hurt a patient. "This is my wife, Redbird. She will care for you."
"Your wife?" Even in the semidarkness of the wickiup White Bear could see pain in her eyes.
"Yes." He had no time now to ease her suffering on that score.
He turned to Redbird and said in Sauk, "Do what you can for her. She saw her father and many others of her people killed."
"I must know who she is," said Redbird, fixing him with her slanting eyes.
He laid a reassuring hand on her shoulder. "Have no fear. I will tell you everything, tonight. See that she eats. Give her maple sugar. Help her to rest."
White Bear spent the rest of the day moving through the wickiups under the trees with his Sauk medicine bag and his bag of pale eyes surgical instruments. Wolf Paw had brought back many wounded braves. Together with Sun Woman and Owl Carver, White Bear treated those he could and made the dying more comfortable. He went to the families of the braves and warriors who had been killed and tried to comfort them, performing rituals that helped them let their loved ones go, to walk west on the Trail of Souls.
By late afternoon White Bear was sick with disgust at the suffering and death this war had brought, and wanted nothing more than to go off by himself and weep for his people. Wolf Paw's raid had brought back cattle and horses, but nearly two dozen men had died and an equal number were badly hurt.
And all for what? To make the long knives hate us more.
At sunset another war party thundered in, this one led by Black Hawk himself, with the Winnebago Prophet riding beside him. And more wounded men to treat.
In the cool of the evening a delicious scent crept into White Bear's nostrils, one that neither he nor any of the British Band had smelled for far too long—roasting beef. Now that it was dark and smoke from fires could no longer be seen, people were roasting the cattle Wolf Paw had brought from Victoire. There were so many empty bellies to feed, they had probably butchered all the steers.
By rights those are my steers, White Bear thought wryly.Raoul stole them from me, and Wolf Paw stole them from Raoul.
White Bear saw many small fires throughout the camp. In time of peace a feast like this would call for one big fire, but that would send up a glow that could be seen from a distance.
He felt a surge of resentment when he saw how calm and contented Black Hawk looked, sitting at a fire before his wickiup, chewing on strips of beef his wife had laid before him on a mat.
Until today the people had been on the verge of starvation. And scouts had reported that an army of over two thousand long knives was working its way up the Rock River toward them. How could Black Hawk bear the responsibility for bringing so much anguish down on his people?
To White Bear's disappointment, the Winnebago Prophet sat next to Black Hawk. At the sight of Flying Cloud, with his long, greasy hair and the mustache that looked something like Raoul's, White Bear's shoulders slumped. He felt an impulse to turn away, and seek Black Hawk out another time.
The Prophet's Winnebago followers were long since gone, but the Prophet himself was still predicting mighty victories over the long knives. White Bear remembered a scripture reading he'd heard at St. George's, that false prophets would arise at the end of the world. This might well be the end of the world for the Sauk; they certainly had their false prophet.
But a talk with Black Hawk about Nancy was too important to put off. White Bear sat down, silently facing Black Hawk. He waited for the war leader to speak to him.
He felt ravenously hungry watching the two men chew their beef. He himself had not had time to eat.
Black Hawk's strong hand stroked the leather cover of one of the law books he had captured at Old Man's Creek.
"You healed my son and drew spirit silver from his body," Black Hawk said. "Accept my thanks."
"I am happy to have made Black Hawk happy."
Black Hawk gestured toward the beef. "Share my food."
White Bear picked up a strip of meat, still hot. Saliva seemed to flood his mouth. He chewed ferociously, closing his eyes for an instant in pleasure. Black Hawk smiled slightly, while Flying Cloud, paying no attention to White Bear, gnawed on a rib.
After a time during which White Bear could think of nothing but the hot, juicy meat, Black Hawk called him back to his reason for coming here.
"I am told you have a pale eyes woman prisoner."
"I came to speak to you about her," White Bear said, and silently asked his spirit self to help him persuade Black Hawk to let her go.
He told Black Hawk how he had convinced the people not to kill her.
"You did well," said Black Hawk. "We must make the long knives respect us, not just fear us. Warriors should not torture and kill prisoners. The great Shooting Star would never let his men torture prisoners."
White Bear felt a glow of pleasure at Black Hawk's approval. He felt more hopeful that Black Hawk might listen to him. He decided to plunge ahead with his request.
"If we give this woman back to the pale eyes, maybe they will talk peace with us."
The Winnebago Prophet stopped eating long enough to say, "Better to keep her. If the long knives attack us we can threaten to kill her."
Aware that Flying Cloud's argument made a kind of brutal sense, White Bear felt a sinking in his chest.
Black Hawk pursed his wide mouth thoughtfully. "The Prophet speaks wisely. It is foolish to give the woman to the long knives as a gift. We should hold her until we are ready to trade her for something." He turned his sombre gaze on White Bear. "You must keep her. You must not let her escape."
White Bear now had to go back to tell Nancy that the Sauk would not let her go. The thought of her terror and misery made him sick with sorrow for her.
And afraid for her too. Every day that the Sauk suffered hunger and illness, every time more men were killed, the women would want all the more to hurt the one pale eyes who was in their power. And the men would hunger to take pleasure with her fair-haired beauty. He could not guard her at every moment. How, then, could he keep her safe?
They sat in silence again. The Winnebago Prophet looked pleased with himself. Black Hawk was grim, probably brooding over how badly the war was progressing.
Desperate to protect Nancy, White Bear could think of only one way.
He said, "I want to make the pale eyes woman my wife."
Black Hawk's eyebrows rose. "Why should White Bear do that?"
"The people will not kill the wife of a shaman."
The Winnebago Prophet burst out, "This is wrong! The spirits have told me that our people must not mate with the pale eyes."
Black Hawk said, "White Bear's father was a pale eyes."
"The offspring of an impure mating should not be a shaman," Flying Cloud grumbled.
White Bear felt his cheeks burn; the Winnebago Prophet might as well have slapped him.
He remembered, so long ago it now seemed, though it was really only nine months, when Père Isaac, speaking at Pierre's funeral, had called White Bear "the fruit of sin." He had thought then that no red man would speak so demeaningly of his parentage, and here now was a shaman of the red men who did.
Black Hawk said, "White Bear has always been one of us. He has seen visions. He has saved many lives. The mark of the Bear, one of the most powerful spirits, is on him. Let him do as he thinks best."
The Prophet said, "The spirits have told me a man should not have more than one wife."
Black Hawk glared at him. "That is foolish talk. I have been content to have one wife, Singing Bird. But my son, Wolf Paw, has two wives, and many of our chiefs and braves have two or three wives. And when many men die in battle, many women need to be cared for."
Flying Cloud grunted and fell silent.
White Bear took his leave of Black Hawk and threaded his way among the shelters and past the small campfires where beef was still roasting on spits.
Redbird must agree to his plan before he could tell it to Nancy. He was afraid; afraid that she would say no, and afraid that his request would hurt her.
When he reached his wickiup he called Redbird out, and they walked through the camp together.
"Sun Woman is with the yellow-haired woman in the wickiup," Redbird said. "Sun Woman speaks to her in the pale eyes' language that she learned from your father. I think the yellow-hair is not so frightened anymore."
"That is good," said White Bear gloomily, "because Black Hawk says she must remain a prisoner."
Redbird sighed. "I feared he would say that."
They climbed a low hill north of the camp and sat on a huge half-buried boulder overlooking a small lake. A newly risen crescent moon was reflected in the still black water.
White Bear put his hand on Redbird's belly and felt the movement of the child within her.
Redbird said, "What is this woman to you?"
White Bear stiffened. Would she understand? Would she believe him?
White Bear searched his mind for a way to explain. "She was a friend to me when I lived at Victor."
"Was she your woman?" Redbird asked.
"No. She wanted to be, but I would not let it happen, because I knew that one day I must leave her."
And I feared that if I let myself love Nancy I would never return to my people, and to you.
"You did not even lie with her?"
"No."
"I would be foolish to believe that."
"I would tell you if I had done that. I did want to, and she wanted to, but I would not. Does it make you hate her to know she wanted that of me?"
Redbird's head was bowed so that he could not see her face. "You are a man many women would want. I cannot hate them all."
"When I asked you to untie Nancy today and take her to our wickiup, you could have refused me, as Running Deer did to Wolf Paw. Then the women would have cut her to pieces. I could not have stopped them. I thank you for honoring my wishes."
Redbird said, "You would have tried to stop them, and you would have been hurt. I did not want that to happen." She looked up at him suddenly, smiling. "And I knew that people would say, 'See, White Bear's wife does as he asks, but Wolf Paw's wife makes him look foolish.' It felt good to make Wolf Paw look foolish, after what he did to us."
It warmed him to hear her say "us."
"Now I want to do something more for her," he said. "But I can only do it if you will say yes to it." He held his breath.
Redbird said, "If you made her your wife, then no one in the band would dare to hurt her."
White Bear let out a deep sigh. He should have known herthoughts would move as swiftly as his own. He had wondered how to say it to her, and she had said it for him.
"Only to protect her. Not to be truly my wife. Will you consent?"
She stroked the back of his hand. "I think it would be a good thing if we keep her safe. You and I did not want our people to fight and kill the pale eyes." She pressed her warm hand against his. "At least we can keep them from killing this one."
The ripples on the lake reflected fragments of moonlight. White Bear felt he could see his love for Redbird, and it looked like what lay before him—a lake of silver. He leaned against her, and her back rested against his arm.
"I promise you I will not bed with her."
She smiled at him again. "Why promise that?"
The question surprised him. "You are my true wife and the only wife I want." He recalled Black Hawk's loyalty to Singing Bird. That was the right way to live.
Redbird said, "If you do go to her in the night, I will understand. Especially now when I am so big and we cannot get together easily. I believe you when you say you love me more than her. But she is tall and has hair like gold and very white skin, and I am small and have brown skin. Perhaps the pale eyes in you would prefer her."
"I think the pale eyes in me and the Sauk in me are one. And that one prefers you."
She took his hand and moved it down her body till he felt the warm, soft place whence, in little more than a moon, their baby would emerge.
"I want to do this with you now," she whispered. "I think we can, if you go into me only a little way."
When Redbird and White Bear returned to their wickiup, the crescent moon had reached the high point of its trail across the sky. Within the simple shelter he and Redbird had built, it was too dark to see anyone.
His mother's voice whispered, "Eagle Feather and Yellow Hair are sleeping. She is terribly frightened, but she has been through so much she is exhausted."
"I thank you for helping her," White Bear whispered. "In the morning I must tell her that Black Hawk will not let her go."
"That makes me sad for her," said Sun Woman. "She is in such misery. I sense a strength in her, but this is a very bad time for her. You must not stop being kind to her, not even for a moment."
Sun Woman ducked out through the doorway of the wickiup.
Nancy was sleeping in Redbird's bed. Redbird and White Bear lay down together on his pallet of reeds and blankets, her back against his chest, and slept.
When White Bear's eyes opened, the faint light filtering through the layer of bark overhead let him see a figure sitting up across from him. Outside, he heard the sounds of the camp stirring, men and women calling to one another, horses stamping.
He felt a rush of pity as he recognized Nancy. What she must be feeling at this moment!
"Oh my God," he heard her say. "Lord Jesus, help me." It must have taken her a moment to realize where she was.
"Nancy," he said, trying to keep his voice calm and pleasant, "come with me and let us talk."
They left the wickiup and she walked through the camp with her eyes on the ground, too frightened, he supposed, to look about her. People stared, but White Bear wore a forbidding look, and they kept their distance.
She had on a doeskin dress that Sun Woman had given her, and she had done up her two blond braids the way she always had. He felt a little catch in his throat as he looked at her and remembered those not-accidental meetings on the prairie near Victoire.
Every so often as they walked along she twisted her shoulders inside the soft leather and rubbed her arms uncomfortably. They passed a group of warriors who had felled a big oak tree and were burning and scraping its inside to make a dugout. The men stopped work to watch her go by.
Seeing the way they looked at her, White Bear thought,Yes, she must marry me. He hoped he could persuade her that it would be the only way for her to be safe.
He led her to the western edge of the high ground on which the band had made their camp. They stopped when the earth underfoot turned soft and wet. Before them lay an expanse of reeds that vanished into morning mist.
"Did you talk to Black Hawk?" she asked, her voice trembling. "Can I get away from here?"
White Bear remembered Sun Woman's admonition to be kind to Nancy at every moment. He tried to think how best to tell her the bad news, how to add only the smallest possible amount of fear to her burden.
"Black Hawk is pleased that I stopped the people from hurting you yesterday," he began tentatively. "He said the white men despise Indians when they kill their prisoners."
Her lips trembled. "He's not going to let me go, is he?" she said, and sobs began to shake her body. When she was able, she turned pleadingly toward him. "Couldn't you do anything for me?"
White Bear spread his hands helplessly. "I talked to him as best I could." He tried to tell her something encouraging. "He just wants to keep you until he can talk to the soldiers and make some kind of a truce."
She drew away from him, her red-rimmed eyes wide. "A truce? Does Black Hawk really think he can make a truce? Don't you realize whatyour people, your brave Indians, have been doing all over the frontier? Burnings and massacres everywhere. I told you what they did at Victor. Do you think the soldiers would ever be willing to talk peace with Black Hawk now?"
White Bear had listened to the returning warriors' tales of victories over the long knives at Kellogg's Grove, at Indian Creek, along the Checagou-Galena road. In despair he had realized that what the Sauk saw as battles in a war to defend their homeland were, to the white people of Illinois, bloody and abominable crimes. Who, after all, had Black Hawk's war parties been killing? Some soldiers, but mostly farmers and their wives and children.
It tormented him now, as it did day and night, that no one could see the bloodshed as he did, with the eyes of both a white man and a Sauk. To him, what the Sauk were doing was horrible, but it was done out of a desperate need to cling to the land that meant life to them.
And Nancy's capture showed him how much his years among the pale eyes had changed him. Even if Wolf Paw had brought back a captive woman who was a stranger to him, he would have tried to save her. Nor could he feel that a people willing to torture any woman to death were fullyhispeople.
Nancy shook her head. "There will be no truce, Auguste. They're coming to destroy you."
"We asked for peace," he began, "before all this killing started. I went with a white flag myself—"
Her chest heaved, and her face was a mottled red and white.
"They don'twantpeace with you. Your braves will kill me when they realize that. Or the soldiers will kill me when they kill all of your people."
"No!" he cried, knowing the truth in her words and fighting the agony within.
"Let me go!" she screamed.
She suddenly whirled away from him and threw herself into the reeds. She tried to run, and in a moment was in water up to her hips. Frantically battering at the tall water grasses, she struggled to keep going. The mist was beginning to swallow her up.
Too surprised to move, White Bear stood watching her for a moment. She would surely die out there in the marsh, and she didn't realize it. He plunged into the marsh after her. He drove his legs through the cold water. The mud sucked at his moccasins. By the time he caught up with her, he was barefoot.
He threw his arms around her. She thrashed about, turned and struck at his face with her fists. Her eyes were wild, like a trapped fox's, her cheeks bright red, her mouth twisted and quivering.
"I've got to get away!"
"Nancy, you can't." They were waist deep in water, and he felt his feet sinking into the mud.
He grabbed her shoulders and shook her as hard as he could. "Listen to me!"
She went limp in his arms, and he had to hold her up.
"I can't stay here. I won't let them kill me!"
He pulled her toward dry ground, the cold water swirling around them, slimy mud tugging at their feet.
When they were out of the water, dripping, he said, "If there were any way you could escape from here, I'd help you. If you try to get away, you'll die. There are miles of swamp in every direction. Only Black Hawk and a few braves know the way out. You'd drown or be buried alive in quicksand. Or the warriors would catch you, and they would kill you no matter what I did. And they'll kill me if I help you try to escape."
"I'll die if I stay here." Her eyes were dull with hopelessness.
"No, you won't. I'll take care of you. My family will protect you—Redbird, Sun Woman, Owl Carver, Iron Knife. You'll be safe with me."
She leaned against him. "Auguste, I can't bear being so frightened. My heart is so full of fear it will burst."
"The band will not free you, but they will not hurt you. They respect me. I talk to the spirits for them and heal them."
She took a long look at him and spoke more calmly. "You look so strange, dressed like a—like a—"
"Like a real Indian?" He tried giving her a little smile. For an instant a little life came back into her face.
I can heal her fear, too, if she will let me.
He felt an inward glow as she managed to return a tremulous smile.
She said, "But you're still that fine young gentleman who charmed me so, back at Victor, aren't you?"
"Yes, I'm that man too." He looked down at her bare feet. "You've lost your moccasins. We must get you another pair." And she was lucky not to have a leech or two clinging to her feet; so was he. His moccasins were lost too. Clothing would be hard to come by, with the band on the run in strange country, but he need not make her feel worse by telling her that.
"I have to resign myself to staying with your people, don't I?" she asked. "Thank God you're here, Auguste. Maybe it was Providence that your uncle stole your estate from you."
Yes, Earthmaker's way is surprising, he thought.
"One thing I must ask of you, Nancy. For your protection, you and I must go through a wedding ceremony. Then no one will be allowed to bother you."
"A wedding!" She let go of him and stepped away quickly.
His heartbeat quickened with anxiety over her apparent shock.
"Nothing to be afraid of. A simple ceremony." He recalled his wedding to Redbird last fall. He might be a shaman, but he'd not had the slightest premonition that he would go through the same ceremony with a different woman less than a year later.
"But you already have a wife. That pretty little woman who is ... expecting." She reddened. "You told me she was your wife." Soaking wet, she turned forlornly away from him.
"In our tribe men may have more than one wife."
He expected to see contempt in her eyes, her pale eyes' morality outraged.
Instead she said sadly, "Is she the reason you would not do what I wanted the night you left Victor? Were you married to her even then?"
He had to force the words out. "No, but I did love her even then. And she— That blue-eyed boy you've seen in our wickiup—he is our son. He was born after my father took me to Victoire."
She shook her head, the blond braids swinging. "You were honest with me. You didn't tell me about Redbird, but you didn't make a fool of me, as another man might have. A man like your uncle. But how does your wife feel about me?"
What did she mean,A man like your uncle? Had Raoul approached her? He put that question aside while he framed an answer to her question.
"Redbird agrees to this wedding. She, too, wants to help you. If you are part of our family you will be protected. She wants that."
She stared at him. "But I'm a Christian! I can't go through a pagan wedding ceremony to be yoursecond wife. How could I do that to my father, a minister?"
He tried to sound reassuring. "We will all know, you and I and Redbird, that it is not a real marriage. I've no doubt your Christian God will see and understand. And your father, if he sees you, surely he wants you to live."
No, Philip Hale, as I remember him, might well expect her to die for her faith. He might well want his daughter to join him in the other world. But never mind.
He went on quickly, "Of course, you will not have to—know me, as your Bible says. In the sight of the tribe you will be my wife, that is all. In our wickiup your virtue will be respected."
She laughed ruefully, but tears were running down her cheeks. "Oh, Auguste, remember how I begged you to marry me? I even prayed for it, would you have imagined that? And now my prayer has been answered. Only it didn't turn out exactly the way I hoped, did it?"
White Bear's heart filled up with a dark foreboding. Nothing had turned out as any of them hoped, but much had happened as they feared.
Tears filled Raoul's eyes, blurring the newspaper and the letter on his candlelit camp table. His hands were cold as a corpse's as he pressed them against the sides of his head.
Oh, God! A drink! I need a drink!
He reached for the jug beside the letter. A hand lifted the tent flap and Eli Greenglove slouched in.
The sight of him frightened Raoul. Did he know yet?
Not much chance there'd be a letter for Eli in the sack of two-week-old mail that had just caught up with Raoul's battalion. No one in Victor likely to write to Eli. Not now.
Eli's mouth was drawn hard. It was a hot night, and he wore no jacket, only a plain brown calico work shirt, with a pistol and a knife at his wide brown belt.
"Levi Pope got a letter from his missuz. There was an Injun raid on Victor. You hear anything?" Eli's voice was as flat as the prairie. He sat on Raoul's camp trunk.
"Yes," Raoul said, choking on the single word. "A war party attacked Victoire."
He took a swallow from the jug. A cold, aching space was growing in the pit of his stomach. The whiskey settled in the middle of the ache like a tiny campfire in the middle of a blizzard.
He handed the jug to Eli, and Eli sipped and put the jug back on the table.
"Goddammit, don't just sit there staring at me." Eli displayed his ruined teeth as his lip curled back in a snarl. "What 'n hell happened?"
Raoul picked up the letter in a shaking hand and read aloud—horrible words, written in a flowing black script.
"'It is my sad duty as your sister to send you the news that Clarissa Greenglove and your two sons have perished at the hands of Indians.'"
"Oh, Lord God an' Savior," Eli groaned. His head fell back on his neck, his mouth open. His Adam's apple stuck out.
"'Also that our beloved Victoire has burned to the ground.'"
Raoul went on:
"Clarissa and Andrew and Philip, along with other people who lived at Victoire and in Victor, were murdered on the morning of June seventeenth."In your sorrow, may it comfort you to know that your fortified trading post, where we took shelter and defended ourselves, saved the lives of most of us. The cannon that you set in the blockhouse was employed to good effect, even though we hesitated at first to use it, since no one here knew how to fire such a weapon. Nevertheless, fire it we did, and broke the Indians' last charge and drove them off."Mr. Burke Russell, whom you placed in charge of the trading post, was killed whilst fighting on the parapet. Mr. David Cooper, whom you also appointed as caretaker, gave us the leadership and strength we badly needed to see us through. He was the only experienced fighting man among us."I cannot bear to write more. The sights we saw when we came out of the blockhouse will haunt my dreams forever."Though the Indians could not lay hands on our bodies, they destroyed our property. Our house was burned down and our printing press and woodworking machines ruined."When it was all over, Frank rode to Galena, though I begged him not to, for fear there were Indians yet lurking about. But he must needs publish his paper. He arranged to have an edition of theVisitorprinted on the press of the GalenaMiners Gazette, and brought the copies back here on a wagon. I am sending you a copy of the paper under this cover. Frank's account will tell you everything there is to know about the raid, and more perhaps than you would wish to know."Our father is well. He and Guichard fought bravely in our defense."I do not reproach you. My heart goes out to you, Brother, for I know you must be suffering. Remember that all happens as God ordains. May He grant you peace."
"Clarissa and Andrew and Philip, along with other people who lived at Victoire and in Victor, were murdered on the morning of June seventeenth.
"In your sorrow, may it comfort you to know that your fortified trading post, where we took shelter and defended ourselves, saved the lives of most of us. The cannon that you set in the blockhouse was employed to good effect, even though we hesitated at first to use it, since no one here knew how to fire such a weapon. Nevertheless, fire it we did, and broke the Indians' last charge and drove them off.
"Mr. Burke Russell, whom you placed in charge of the trading post, was killed whilst fighting on the parapet. Mr. David Cooper, whom you also appointed as caretaker, gave us the leadership and strength we badly needed to see us through. He was the only experienced fighting man among us.
"I cannot bear to write more. The sights we saw when we came out of the blockhouse will haunt my dreams forever.
"Though the Indians could not lay hands on our bodies, they destroyed our property. Our house was burned down and our printing press and woodworking machines ruined.
"When it was all over, Frank rode to Galena, though I begged him not to, for fear there were Indians yet lurking about. But he must needs publish his paper. He arranged to have an edition of theVisitorprinted on the press of the GalenaMiners Gazette, and brought the copies back here on a wagon. I am sending you a copy of the paper under this cover. Frank's account will tell you everything there is to know about the raid, and more perhaps than you would wish to know.
"Our father is well. He and Guichard fought bravely in our defense.
"I do not reproach you. My heart goes out to you, Brother, for I know you must be suffering. Remember that all happens as God ordains. May He grant you peace."
What the hell does she mean, "All happens as God ordains?" God wanted my woman and my kids murdered by Indians?
"Oh, Christ Jesus," Eli said. He shook his head, then resting his elbows on his knees, pressed his hands to the top of his head.
Even Papa had to fight.
Raoul's heart felt bruised, as if beaten with a hammer.
I do not reproach you.That was reproach enough. He had taken every man who would sign up for the militia. He had promised them their wives and children would be safe. He'd led them away in pursuit of Black Hawk, vengeance and glory.
Eli looked up. "What does it say in the newspaper?"
Raoul started to hand it to him.
"You read it to me."
Raoul had forgotten that Eli couldn't read. Clarissa couldn't either. Now she'd never learn. Nor would the boys.
He shook his head and brushed his hand across his forehead. "Ican'tread this out loud."
Greenglove's eyes were hard as bullets. "You wipe your damned eyes and read that damned newspaper."
Raoul rubbed his eyes and took another pull from the jug. Greenglove held out his hand and Raoul passed him the jug.
Raoul picked up the newspaper, hating the sight of it, and began to read the column headed with the single word,MASSACRE!
Frank's story told how the people in the trading post held the Indians off all day and finally drove them away by firing the cannon. Then came the grievous task of finding and burying those who had not had time to reach safety.
Then, for Raoul, the most dreadful lines of all:
In the ashes of Victoire, it appeared from examination of the charred remains that the skulls of the men and women had been cloven by tomahawk blows. Parts of the children's bodies were scattered about the ruins, as if they had been chopped to bits before the Indians set fire to the great house.
In the ashes of Victoire, it appeared from examination of the charred remains that the skulls of the men and women had been cloven by tomahawk blows. Parts of the children's bodies were scattered about the ruins, as if they had been chopped to bits before the Indians set fire to the great house.
Why hadn't Clarissa gotten away? She'd taken to drinking heavily in the last year, so much so that he'd had to hit her more than once for letting the boys run loose without keeping an eye on them. She had probably been lying abed in a drunken stupor while everyone was fleeing the château, the boys sleeping in the room with her. Hadn't anyone tried to wake them?
Those faithful French servants who loved Elysée and Pierre so much, they didn't give a damn about Raoul's whore and his bastard sons. After all, he had thwarted Pierre's dying wishes. And he had struck his aged father with his fist in front of all those Victoire people.
Still, they'd have been human enough to try to dosomething. If they'd had time. They'd holler and bang on the door. Try to wake them up. But there wouldn't have been time. A hundred or more Indians galloping down on the château. The servants who saw them coming would barely have time to get away. Some of them hadn't made it. Some of them had died with Clarissa and the boys; maybe the ones who'd stayed behind to try to warn them.
That was how it must have been.
Frank's article in theVisitorsaid that some of the people in the distant farms had saved themselves by hiding in root cellars or in nearby woods. The Indians were in too much of a hurry to get to Victor to bother searching carefully. One family, the Flemings, had ridden to the shut-down lead mine. Some Indians pursued them to the mine but didn't follow them in. The Flemings hid so deep in the mine they had trouble finding their way out again, but they did survive.
But one person had neither hidden nor been killed:
While the body of the Reverend Philip Hale, D.D., was found in the burnt wreckage of his house, his daughter, Miss Nancy Hale, has not been found. It is feared Miss Hale may have been kidnapped by the Indians. Both the church and the house Reverend Hale built on the prairie were burned down.
While the body of the Reverend Philip Hale, D.D., was found in the burnt wreckage of his house, his daughter, Miss Nancy Hale, has not been found. It is feared Miss Hale may have been kidnapped by the Indians. Both the church and the house Reverend Hale built on the prairie were burned down.
As Raoul read aloud the list of the dead, he thought of Nancy and then of his sister Helene. Did they dothatto Nancy? The red devils! Probably did. Horrible!
He saw the naked, slashed, violated body lying on the prairie. Nancy Hale's body. Just like Helene's.
But it could be, too, she was alive. And if he kept after Black Hawk, he might be the one to rescue her. There was comfort in that.
A little comfort.
And then a black bile of hatred for himself trickled up into his throat.
Great God in Heaven, this man he was sitting with—he'd had this man's daughter in his bed for six years. And now she was murdered. And already he was figuring how to replace her.
Maybe I am as bad a man as Papa said I was.
That's what Nicole meant by "All happens as God ordains." This was to punish me.
He took a drink to wash that thought away.
He winced when he came to the name Marchette Perrault on the list of dead. Maybe she had died trying to help Clarissa. Did Armand know yet?
Eli stood up. "Well, poor Clarissa. Poor little boys. It was a black day in our lives when Clarissa and me met up with you, Raoul de Marion."
The words tore at a wound that was fresh and bleeding.
"Look here, now, Eli. Don't you know that I feel as bad as you do?"
"No, I don't know that. Clarissa was all I had in the world. I kept hoping you'd find it in your heart to marry her, but you never treated her decent. Never cared enough for them kids to give them your name. Your brother, he did more for that half-Injun son of his than you did for your two that was all white."
All white they were, but half Puke, Raoul thought, feeling his disdain for the man who stood slumped before him.
Puke, a good nickname for Greenglove's breed. Missouri puked up the worst of its people, and they landed in Illinois. Clarissa's breasts flattening and sagging, her shoulders round, her teeth stained by pipe smoke. So slatternly she'd gotten to be, he hardly cared to take her to bed. And Phil and Andy growing up with that same washed-out, weak-boned Greenglove look.
How could I think that way about my own kids? What kind of a man am I? And now they've been murdered, and I'm still despising them.
He had to quit this. He was torturing himself. Wasn't it bad enough? It was the goddamned Indians he should be hating.
"We'll have our revenge, Eli. We'll kill a hundred Indians for each of ours who died."
"Like you murdered them three at Old Man's Creek. I warned you not to do that. That was what got Clarissa and her kids killed. I won't be helping you get your vengeance, Colonel Raoul de Marion. Because if I did stay around you, sooner or later I'd want blood for blood of mine that's been spilled."
Raoul felt a chill, facing Greenglove's implacable, dull-eyed hatred. But he was damned if he'd back down before this human weed.
"You'll leave this company when your term of enlistment is up and not one damned day sooner. You're captain of the Smith County company."
Greenglove's mouth curled in a cold smile.
"By tomorrow there won't be any company. The Smith County boys heard about what happened at Victor. Most of them'll be quitting."
Raoul felt the heat rising in his neck and head.
"The hell they will! My Smith County boys will want Indian blood just like I do. And just like you would if you hadn't taken a notion to blame Clarissa's death on me."
Auguste. The half-breed. Raoul felt his blood boiling as he saw the olive-skinned face mingling Pierre's features with Indian looks. The face he'd never stopped hating from the moment he first saw it. Auguste was dead. Eli, here, had shot him. His body was rotting away somewhere on the prairie behind them.
But the Indians of the British Band were alive—Auguste's people. They snuck up on Victoire, Raoul's home. Burned it to the ground. Tomahawked his woman. Chopped his children, his two boys, Andy and Phil, to pieces.
To pieces.
He saw that, for a moment, too vividly, and almost screamed. He grabbed the jug and burned the bloody picture out of his mind with a swallow.
Auguste's band, skulking around up the river somewhere.
Why, Auguste might have given them the idea. Told them all about Victoire and Victor. Lots of helpless women and children there. A rich trading post. A big white man's house to burn down.
My uncle kicked me off the land, Auguste might have said.Avenge me. Go kill his woman and his children and burn his housedown. And while you're at it, kill every one of those white dogs in Smith County.
Sure, he probably put the idea in those devils' heads before he got shot.
It hadn't been enough to kill Auguste. Wasn't enough.
He had to kill off every last one of Black Hawk's Indians. Exterminate the whole band—bucks, squaws and papooses.
And he would shoot any shirker who refused to go with him.
Greenglove shrugged. "Go chase Injuns, then, if that's your heart's desire." Then he smiled in a knowing way Raoul found strangely disturbing. "But you'll maybe find a surprise waiting for you up there in Michigan Territory. Almost makes me want to stay with you, just so's I could see the look on your face."
Raoul felt a chill. Why the hell was Greenglove grinning like that?
"Damn you, you can't just walk off, Eli! You took an oath. You signed up for another thirty days when your enlistment was up in May. I can have you shot for desertion."
"Go ahead. Shoot me yourself."
Eli slowly raised the tent flap and stood there a moment, turning to give Raoul one last, strange, unmirthful smile. Raoul eyed the pistol at Eli's belt. Most likely all primed and loaded. His own pistol, unloaded, was hanging from a tent pole behind him.
If I went for my pistol, that'd give him an excuse to put a ball in me. And he'd do it before I could even get a damned cap in place.
Eli gave Raoul one final nod, as if he knew what Raoul had been thinking, and let the tent flap fall behind him.
Raoul reached for the jug. It felt light in his hand, and he shook it. Empty.
Everything. Empty, empty, empty!
He got up, weaving slightly, and walked to the opening of the tent.
"Armand!" he shouted.
Oh my God, now I'll have to give Armand the news about Marchette.
Raoul awakened, sweating. One side of his tent was glowing white, the sun beating down on it; he had been sleeping in an oven. He satup, and his vision went black and his head spun. He swung his feet, still in dirty gray stockings, over the side of his cot. He nearly stepped on Armand, who was lying flat on his back on the straw-covered floor, his beard fluttering as he snored through his open mouth.
Standing, Raoul saw Nicole's letter and theVictor Visitorlying on his camp table beside a burned-down candle and four empty jugs. He remembered what had happened at Victor. He fell back onto his cot and pounded his fist on his chest, trying to numb the pain in his heart.
God damn the Sauk! Damn them! Damn them!
Armand, when he learned what happened at Victoire, had not blamed Raoul as Eli had. He'd wept over Marchette—whom he'd beaten almost daily when she was alive—and had sworn vengeance on her murderers, the British Band. And he had sat with Raoul till both of them were drunk enough to sleep.
Raoul's head and body felt as if they were on fire. His fingers curled, grasping at empty air.
He buckled on his belt with his pistol and his Bowie knife, stumbled out of his tent and stood beside it, pissing in the tall grass.
He was facing the Rock River, less than a quarter-mile wide here, a sheet of sparkling blue water bordered by forest. Lined up along the bank before him were a dozen big box-shaped flatboats. The tents of his own militia battalion and of two others were spread over the grassland around him.
He suddenly sensed that something was wrong. He hadn't heard the bugler blow the dozen notes signaling the start of the day. He saw now that the men weren't assembled but were wandering aimlessly about the camp.
What the hell was it Greenglove had said?
By tomorrow there won't be any company.
Down near the flatboats a big crowd was gathered. One man, standing on a barrel, was addressing them. His voice, shrill and insistent, carried to Raoul on the warm June air, but he couldn't make out what the man was saying.
Raoul didn't like this. He didn't like this at all.
He started walking toward the river and found Levi Pope and Hodge Hode squatting in front of a fire, making coffee simply by boiling water with coffee grounds in it.
"Sorry for your loss, Colonel," said Pope.
Hearing Pope speak of what happened at Victoire was like being kicked in a spot that was already bruised. Raoul had to pause a moment before he could speak.
"Thank you. Your family come through all right?" He dreaded what he might hear in answer.
"Your sister wrote a letter for my missuz," Pope said. "They came through tolerably. Thanks to the way you fortified the trading post. That was mighty foresighted, Colonel."
Raoul's chest expanded and he felt a little better. This was how he'd hoped the men would react, not blaming him for the tragedy as that bastard Greenglove had.
"Levi's letter told as how my boy Josiah made it to the trading post too," Hodge said. "Mr. Cooper even let him do some shootin' at the redskins."
Mr. Cooper? Since when did David Cooper get to be so high and mighty?
"I need some of that coffee," Raoul said. Hodge strained the grounds out of the coffee by pouring it through a kerchief into a tin cup and handed the cup to Raoul.
The black liquid scalded Raoul's lips and tongue, and didn't treat him any better when it bit into his whiskey-burned stomach.
"Anything to eat?"
With a bitter grunt, Levi Pope took a square biscuit out of a paper wrapper and held it out. "These worm cakes is pretty lively, but dip 'em in the coffee a couple of times and you'll boil the little buggers to death."
Raoul shut his eyes and waved the weevil-riddled hardtack away.
"What the hell is that bunch doing down by the river?"
Hodge Hode grinned. "They call it a 'pub-lic in-dig-nation' meeting." He drawled out the words, amused. "Say they won't go across the river into Michigan Territory. Say they want to go home."
"Any of our men talking that way?"
"Oh, a heap of them, Colonel," said Levi.
"I'll see about that."
"Hodge and me ain't quittin'. We won't go home till we've killed us some Injun trash." Levi lovingly stroked the handles of his six holstered pistols, three on each side of his belt.
But Levi and Hodge made no move to get up and join Raoul.They would go with him across the river, he saw, but they were not about to help him discipline the other men. He thought of ordering them to come with him, but decided not to test their loyalty that far. Eli had walked out on him. He didn't know who he could trust.
Hell, he could do it without these two, anyway.
For reassurance Raoul took a grip on the handle of his Bowie knife as he approached the crowd. Could he cow dozens of men if they were determined not to obey him?
Sure. Might have to carve a few bellies, but the rest will fall into line.
That was how he ran Smith County.
The man standing on the barrel was saying, "You know what the Injuns call that country up there? The Trembling Lands. It's all swamp, water and quicksand. You take a horse out on what looks like solid ground, before you can blink, he sinks belly deep."
That kind of talk made Raoul want to use his knife. But that would probably only rile these rebellious bastards all the more.
Got to put a stop to this. Line them all up by the boats. Tell the first man to get in. If he won't, shoot him. Then go on to the next. That'll change their minds in a hurry.
He told himself disgustedly to quit dreaming. Not even in Smith County could he get away with shooting white men just because they wouldn't obey him. Not in broad daylight, anyway.
The man standing on the barrel said, "If Black Hawk has holed up in that country, that means he's finished. Hell, his people will starve to death up there. What do we got to follow him for?"
Pushing his way through the crowd, Raoul heard a man near him call out, "Volunteers is what we are. That means we serve at our own pleasure. Well, I'm not volunteering for any more."
A chorus—"Right!" "Yeah!" "Me neither!" "That's telling 'em!"—rose all around Raoul, maddening him as a swarm of biting flies would madden a horse.
He saw a familiar stoop-shouldered back in the crowd—Justus Bennett. Ever since Old Man's Creek, Bennett had been whining about the fine suit of clothes and the two expensive law books he'd lost, demanding that the state of Illinois pay for them. Now he was standing here, encouraging would-be deserters just by listening to them.
Raoul grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around. "You're alawyer. You know damned well this meeting is illegal. Get over there with Pope and Hode, or you're no more a lieutenant in my battalion."
Bennett stared back at him with beady eyes. "That's immaterial, seeing as we're all going home."
"No one's going home," said Raoul, loud enough to make the men around him turn to look. "Get the hell back to your outfit."
He gave Bennett a shove. The lawyer glowered at him, but slunk away.
Raoul pushed his way to the front of the crowd. The men fell back, making way for his blue jacket with its officer's gold stripes. But the sun beat down on his head. He realized that he had forgotten to put on his hat, and he wasn't shaved and his jacket was unbuttoned.
And, nothing. Hell, he could handle men. He didn't have to dress up for that. He drew his knife and faced the man on the barrel.
"Get down off there."
"Now listen, Colonel, this is a public meeting."
Raoul waved the knife. "You've had your say. Jump."
The man stared defiantly at Raoul. Raoul thought he might have to cut him up a little, and wondered if he was up to it. The man's eyes wavered from Raoul's down to the thirteen-inch blade. And he jumped.
But he wasn't quite done talking. "It's a free country, Colonel. Man's got a right to speak his mind."
Raoul said, "Tell that to Black Hawk."
He wasn't quite sure what he meant by that, but he heard several chuckles and was encouraged.
He scrambled up on the three-foot-high barrel. It rocked under him, and the dregs of whiskey sloshing around in his body made him feel dizzy. He decided, after he got his feet set near the rim of the barrel, that he would be safer if he sheathed his knife.
"You men's term of enlistment is not up. Any man who won't cross that river is a coward and a deserter, and I'll see you're dealt with."
"Go to hell!" one man shouted.
"You talk about cowards," another man called. "Didn't your whole battalion run all the way from Old Man's Creek to Dixon's Ferry, from forty Injun bucks?"
"They don't call it Old Man's Creek no more," a raucous voice cried. "Now it's de Marion's Run."
Raoul pulled his knife again.
"The man who said that about de Marion's Run—come up here and say it again." He shook the knife.
"Quit wavin' that pig sticker around and get down off that barrel, de Marion. We heard enough from you." Raoul saw a rifle pointed at him. The blood pumping through his body suddenly went from hot to cold.
A new voice broke in.
"Lower that rifle!"
The tone was deep, easy and confident in command. It offered no alternative. The rifle came down as quickly as if in response to a drill sergeant's order.
A short, plump officer with thick black eyebrows came up to stand beside Raoul's barrel. He wore a stained, broad-brimmed wool hat and a blue Army jacket over fringed buckskin trousers. The gold stripes on his upper arm identified him as a colonel. The saber at his side nearly dragged on the ground. He might have been comical looking, but somehow he wasn't. Raoul had seen the officer at command meetings and knew that despite his mixed dress, he was Regular Army. This morning, though, he couldn't remember his name.
Movement in the distance caught Raoul's eye. A long line of blue-uniformed troops was marching across the prairie about a hundred yards away, their shakoes bobbing. They came to a halt, turned and faced the militiamen. They came to parade rest, each man with a rifle at his side. The morning sun glittered on bayonets.
Some militiamen glanced over their shoulders at the line of Federal soldiers, and a nervous muttering of "Bluebellies!" spread through the crowd.
"You can get down from there now, Colonel de Marion," said the short officer. "I'd appreciate it if you'd let me handle this."
Raoul hated to admit it to himself, but he was relieved. Crouching slowly and carefully, so as not to make an ass of himself by falling, he climbed down from the barrel.
"That's Zachary Taylor," Raoul heard someone in the crowd say as he moved, now unnoticed, to stand apart on the riverbank. Raoul felt foolish that he had forgotten Taylor's name, especially when Taylor knew his.
Instead of standing on the barrel, Taylor hitched himself up and sat on it, gesturing in a friendly way to the men to gather around him.
He spoke with an easy southern drawl, but he made his voice carry.
"Now, men, I don't set myself up as your superior, even though I am a Federal officer. We're all equal Americans here." He nodded as if thinking something over. "In fact, many of you are important men in civilian life, and I have no doubt some of you will hold public office and be giving orders tomesome day."
Raoul's eyes traveled over the crowd, and he noticed one figure taller than most, eyes grave as he listened intently to Taylor. That Lincoln fellow, who had been such a nuisance at Prophet's Town. Raoul wondered if the young man was for or against crossing the Rock River today.
Taylor said, "The best assurance you have that I'll obey your orders when it comes your turn is that I'm obeying the orders I've got now. I will tell you in a moment what those orders are. But let me refresh your memory about what Black Hawk and his savages have done to the people you and I are sworn to defend."
He pulled a folded paper from the side pocket of his blue jacket and read from it.
"One man killed at Bureau Creek. One man at Buffalo Grove, another at the Fox River. Two on the Checagou Road. A woman and two men killed on the outskirts of Galena. Apple River Fort besieged, four dead. Seven men massacred at Kellogg's Grove. Three whole families, fifteen people, wiped out at Indian Creek. Victor besieged, and seventeen men, women and children massacred."
Raoul saw the shamefaced glances of men who knew him shift his way. He looked down at the ground angrily. He didn't want these men pitying him.
But an image of burned and scattered flesh and bones reared up suddenly in his mind. It struck at him like a rattlesnake. He almost threw up. He clenched his fists and held himself rigid.
One man called out, "Colonel Taylor, that's why we don't want to cross the state line. The Indians are attacking all over the place, and we want to be back home to protect our people."
Taylor nodded. "That's understandable. But I've been fighting Indians for a long time. I came up against old Black Hawk nearlytwenty years ago in the war against the British. I've got a score to settle with him, because he whipped me then, and I promise you he will not whipusthis time. Yes, that's wild country up there, no doubt about it. But we'll have a band of Potawatomi scouts led by one of their chiefs, Billy Caldwell, to guide us. And General Winfield Scott is coming across the Great Lakes with five hundred more Federal troops. With all that help, we'll finish Black Hawk.
"And we must finish him. The murders and massacres will not stop as long as Black Hawk and his tribe are on the loose. If you go back to your farms and settlements, there'll be a dozen of you in one place and twenty in another. And one morning or night you'll find yourself facing a war party of a hundred, hundred fifty braves, like the people at Apple River and Victor did. Our strength is in our numbers, and while we are three thousand and more together, we've got to seek out the British Band of the Sauk and Fox and destroy them."
Raoul heard a murmur of assent. His heart lifted. The little colonel was winning them over, and the war would go on.
"In plain English, gentlemen and fellow citizens, my orders from Washington City are to pursue Black Hawk wherever he goes, and to take the Illinois militia with me. I mean to do both. Now, there are the flatboats drawn up on the shore." He paused, then slid down from his perch on the barrel and, standing very straight, pointed over their heads. "And here are Uncle Sam's men, drawn up behind you on the prairie."
Taylor was so short that only the men near him could see where he was pointing. They turned first, and then in an ever-widening ring the men in the farther reaches of the crowd turned to look at the long, blue-clad line stretched behind them like a chain.
Raoul heard resignation in the militiamen's voices.
"Boys, I'm for the flatboats."
"Me too. I signed up to fight Injuns, not Americans."
A man called out, "Hell, Colonel, we'reallUncle Sam's men."
Taylor smiled, reached up to settle his mottled hat on his head, and said, "Then I will be proud to lead you."
He strode through the assembly.
At the edge of the crowd he turned and raised his voice. "Officers, assemble your men. We'll take the troops over first, then the horses. I want everyone on the other side by noon."
Taylor walked over to Raoul, squinted at him and sniffed audibly.
"You look like the backside of hell, sir. You been drinking this early in the day?"
"I haven't touched whiskey this morning," Raoul said, not adding that it was only because when he woke up all the jugs in his tent were empty.
"Well, then you were drinking damned late last night. Appearing in front of these unruly men looking like a sot is no way to get them to obey you."
Raoul eyed the short colonel's mismatched uniform parts and wondered where he got the gall to criticize. But he wanted to be on this man's good side.
"My wife and two sons were murdered by the redskins. At Victor. They've been dead for two weeks, and I just found out about it last night."
Taylor reached out and gripped his arm. "Damn! I am sorry, Colonel de Marion. I should have realized you might have lost loved ones there. I'll see thatyouget leave to go home."
Back to Victor? Raoul trembled at the thought of having to see the ruins of Victoire and the town—the graves of Clarissa and Phil and Andy. Having to face people who, like Eli, might believe that he put them in harm's way. Besides, he had a mission to carry out. Kill Indians. And there were no Indians to kill in Victor now.
"No, Colonel, no," he stammered. "I want to go after Black Hawk's people. We can't let them get away."
"Nor will we. General Atkinson and I were talking about that just yesterday—and about you, as it happens. You own a Mississippi steamboat, don't you?"
Puzzled, Raoul answered, "Yes, theVictory. It makes a regular run from St. Louis to Galena."
"We're certain that if we don't catch up with Black Hawk, wherever he's hiding up in the Michigan Territory, that he'll try to take his band west, to the Mississippi. If he gets across it, we'll have a hell of a time catching him." Taylor's eyes glinted hard as glass marbles. "We are determined, Colonel, not to allow him to make a successful retreat. We have to show all the tribes that they can't murder white people and then light out for Indian country and get off scot-free."
Taylor's words, now that the near-mutiny was over, lifted Raoul's heart. He had left Victor in April hoping for revenge for Helene and for his own sufferings of years ago. But now there were more slaughtered innocents to avenge—and now he had the army of the United States to help him do it.
"I'll do anything to get those redskins."
"With your ship patrolling the stretch of river where they're likely to cross, we could be sure that Black Hawk won't escape us."
"You want me to go back and get theVictoryready?" He felt himself trembling again.
"For now you'll go along with us into the Michigan Territory," Taylor said. "But if it looks as if Black Hawk is making a run for the Mississippi, you'll see that we cut them off. TheVictory, eh? Aptly named."
Raoul's grieving, vengeful heart rejoiced. When the time came, he'd have the cannon from the trading post mounted in the bow of theVictory. Then let any damned Indians try to cross the Mississippi. He'd pay them back for what they did to Victoire.
But he remembered Nicole and Frank coming to him, telling him the militia was needed to guard Victor. He'd laughed at their fears. If he'd listened to them, Clarissa and Andy and Phil and those other people might still be alive. Victoire and Victor would still be standing. Hadn't he had some hand in bringing death and destruction upon his home?
No, it was all the Indians' doing.
I'll get you, Black Hawk. If I have to follow you all the way to Hudson's Bay. There won't be a one of your damned British Band left alive when I'm done.
He would make them suffer. From this moment on, he had only one thing to think of and only one thing to do: kill Indians.