Redbird watched, an aching, empty place in her chest, as White Bear disappeared into the woods at the edge of the Rock River.
"What a fool!" Water Flows Fast, standing nearby, had spoken. "The pale eyes have steel knives and blankets and big sturdy lodges that are always warm and never leak. They always have enough food. I would be happy to go live with a pale eyes if he asked me."
"Is your prattling tongue never still, woman?" said her husband, Three Horses.
"It was my prattling tongue that agreed to marry you."
Redbird had no heart to listen to them bicker.
"Let me through!" she cried, and the crowd parted before her.
"Where are you going?" cried her mother. "It is shameful to run after him." She grabbed Redbird's sleeve. "All the people will laugh at you."
"Let me go!"
As Wind Bends Grass pulled at her, Redbird's eyes met those of Wolf Paw, standing beside his father, the war chief. He glared at her. She knew he, too, wanted to tell her not to run after White Bear. But if he showed that he cared that much, the people would make fun ofhim.
She turned her back on all of them—Wind Bends Grass, Wolf Paw, Black Hawk, Owl Carver—and began to run.
When she reached the riverbank she saw no sign of him. For one panic-stricken moment she thought,Did he throw himself into the river?
Then, downriver, she saw a canoe gliding over the glistening water. He was paddling hard and was almost out of sight around a bend.
Her own small bark canoe, on which she had painted a bird's wing in red, lay a short distance down the riverbank. She pushed it into the water, jumped into the rear and seated herself in the middle. The canoe's bottom scraped over the riverbank as she pushed off with her paddle.
She stayed a distance behind White Bear, just close enough to keep him in sight. He might not want her to follow him. She could not guess what was in his mind right now.
What would she do when she caught up with him? She had hoped to marry him, if not this summer, then the next. Ever since she was a small child she had found him endlessly fascinating. More so than ever since his return from his spirit journey. Nothing, she thought, would make her happier than living with him. Sun Woman had told her all about what happens when a man and a woman lie down together—knowledge that Wind Bends Grass had insisted that she did not yet need. It sounded painful, pleasurable, frightening and exciting. She had looked forward to lying down with White Bear.
But now she was going to lose him. How could Sun Woman send her own son away from the tribe?
And send him away from me.Redbird felt more hurt than if her own mother had turned against her.
And did White Bear truly mean to go with the pale eyes? He had smoked the calumet. He must.
The current carried her canoe through the water, brown with silt caught up in spring flooding, almost faster than she could paddle. Ahead the river divided, flowing around an island near the right bank, thick with trees. White Bear turned into the narrow channel that ran between island and shore, and she backpaddled to slow herself and watch.
His canoe rounded a huge fallen tree, whose exposed roots clutched at the island's shore like the fingers of a drowning man, and disappeared behind the trunk.
She let her paddle drag in the water, first on one side then on the other, holding her canoe back until he had time to land. Then she glided into the narrow channel and around the dead tree.
He had drawn his canoe up in a small sandy cove, and was gone. She landed on the patch of sand beside his canoe and pulled her canoe partway out of the water.
She listened, and for a moment heard nothing but the wind in the trees. A redbird, her namesake, trilled long and loud, and another answered from a more distant tree.
Then she heard a human voice. No words, just an outcry. A cry of pain.
She plunged into the forest that covered the island, pushing her way through the shrubbery toward the sound of his voice.
He was sobbing so loudly that she was sure he could not hear her coming. She had heard a man sob like that once before, a dying hunter whose leg had been torn to shreds by a bear.
She moved through some trees and saw him. He was sitting with his back against the big black trunk of an oak. He was in a grove of trees so big and so old that little grew in their heavy shade, and there was an open place to sit. The season was so young that their branches were still almost bare, and she could see White Bear clearly in the afternoon sunlight. He held a severed tree branch in his lap. His eyes were squeezed shut and his lips were drawn back from his teeth, and his cries of pain came one after another.
She stepped out of the bushes into the grove. He looked up, and the face he showed her was so twisted that she could not tell whether he saw her. He went on sobbing hoarsely.
Her heart hurt to see him suffer so. She sat down beside him.
For a long time she listened to him weep, waiting for a chance to speak to him.
She looked at the branch he was holding. It was almost as long as her arm, and, surprisingly, it had leaves at its tip, even though this was only the Moon of Buds. He clutched it as a child clutches a doll for comfort.
Gradually his weeping subsided. She reached out very carefully and patted his shoulder lightly. When he did not pull away, she rested her hand on him. She eased herself closer until they were pressed together side by side, and she slid her arm around his shoulders and held him tightly.
At first she felt no answering movement. He seemed only half alive. She wondered if he knew she was here. Then his head dropped to her shoulder. She felt the weight of his body yielding to her.
She put her other arm around him. She held him as if he were her child. In spite of his sorrow and her own, it was a great happiness to hold him like this.
He sighed and wiped his face with his hand. She stroked his cheek, brushing away the tears.
She wanted to talk to him, but waited for him to speak first.
"There is nothing I can do," he said. "I must go with Star Arrow, my father."
She studied his face as he stared off into the forest. She could see now the features of his father in him. There had always been something odd about his eyes, but she had never been quite able to decide what it was. Now she saw that they were rounder than most people's. They were shaped like his father's. His nose was thin and bony, with a high arch, and sharp at the end, like the beak of a bird. His eyebrows were thick, black and straight across. His chin was pointed. She loved the strangeness of his face.
She said, "When it gets dark we could go back to the village and fill our canoes with food and blankets and tools and weapons. There will be feasting tonight for Star Arrow. Everyone will sleep soundly after that. We could cross the Great River tonight, and tomorrow we could be far away."
He stared at her. "But I do notwantto leave my people."
She had not thought that far ahead, about what it would be like to be away from Owl Carver, Iron Knife, Sun Woman, her sisters, her mother, all the others. Yes, it would be a great loss. But she could stand the pain, she thought, if she were beside White Bear.
"But we would have each other. Would it not hurt you less if you had me with you?"
He did not answer at once, and that made her feel as if a rough hand had squeezed her heart. But then he smiled at her, and she felt better.
"Yes, if I could share my life with you, the pain of leaving Saukenuk would be less." Then his face darkened. "But we could not live on our own. A man or a woman cut off from their tribe can no more be happy than a flower after it is picked can continue to grow. And I would have dishonored the promise I made with the sacred tobacco. The spirits would turn their backs on me. My mother and Owl Carver say that if I go with Star Arrow, I may learn things that would help our people."
She was thunderstruck to realize that he actually wanted to go with Star Arrow. Then what was all this weeping for?
He did not care for her as much as she did for him. That made her angry. She pushed herself a little apart from him.
"I see that I have been a fool to chase after you, just as my mother said. It means more to you to go and live with the pale eyes than it does to have Redbird as your woman."
His eyes widened. "We have never before today spoken of this, you and I."
"Did we have to speak?" She felt herself getting angrier and angrier. "Why do you think I went looking for you when you went on your vision quest? Why do you think I followed you from the village today? And why did I say I would go with you across the Great River? Yes, I did want to be your woman. But you do not want me. You want to go away with this pale eyes father of yours, and maybe you want to take a pale eyes woman for yourself."
His mouth as well as his eyes opened up in amazement. "I have never even seen a pale eyes woman. How could I want one? I do want Redbird to be my woman. And I weep at leaving Saukenuk because I must leave you."
Again she reached out to him, putting her hands on his arms. "I would rather be cast out of our tribe than lose you."
He shook his head. "We do not have to lose our people or each other. It was part of the promise sealed with sacred tobacco that I am to come back. If we ran away now, Earthmaker would be angry with us."
She moved closer to him. She had seen Earthmaker in dreams. He was taller than the tallest tree, and he carried a great war club with a ball-shaped rock at the end of it and looked much like Black Hawk, with a long black lock of hair coiling down from the top of a shaved head.
"I wish I could meet and talk with the spirits, as you have," she said. "Sometimes I think I do meet them, in dreams."
"It can be dangerous to meet with the spirits," he said. His eyes seemed to be looking into the distance. He had seen so many things she had not. It was unfair, she thought sadly.
She had gone out to him in the bitter cold when the world was an endless white waste. She might have frozen to death. She might have been punished by drowning in the icy river. She had risked almost as much as he had.
"I do not say that I am as strong as White Bear, or as worthy to speak with the spirits," she said. "I only wish I had a chance to."
He took her hands in his and looked deep into her eyes.
"The real danger of a shaman's vision is not to the body."
"What is the real danger?"
"I did not want to come back."
She felt a cold wind blowing across her neck, as if spirits had quietly entered this grove with them and were standing about them, listening to them, judging them.
"It is so wondrous," he said in a voice so low she had to strain to hear it over the wind whispering in the tree branches. "You are there with them. The White Bear, the Turtle. You see them, talk to them. You see the Tree of Life, the crystal lodge of the Turtle and the spirits of all living things. Why would anyone want to return?"
Redbird shivered. But she still envied him.
"Your hands are cold," White Bear said, and he put his arm around her and drew her close to nestle on his chest. She slid her hands under the leather vest he wore and felt the smooth warmth of his skin and the firmness of his muscles. How powerful his arms were around her. She thanked Earthmaker that White Bear had found the inner strength to return from that other land.
A new thought occurred to her. "What if you find that the land of the pale eyes holds you fast? Then you will never come back to me, and to the Sauk you will be dead."
He smiled gently and patted her shoulder. She pulled herself closer to him.
"Can the land of the pale eyes, altogether without spirits, hold me, when the spirits themselves could not?"
"I do not think so."
"Can the land of the pale eyes hold me, when Redbird is not in it?Ido not think so."
Her body seemed to be melting. She wanted to flow together with White Bear as the Rock River flowed into the Great River.
His arms tightened around her. Then he raised his hand to brush the fringe of hair that fell over her forehead.
She moved against him until her cheek touched his. Slowly she slid one side of her face against his, then the other side. A hunger filled her. It was almost as if she wanted to devour White Bear, but all she could do was touch his smooth cheek with her fingertips.
His nostrils flared and his lips parted and she could hear his breathing. His hands were roaming over her body, awakening powerful feelings wherever he touched her, making her want more.
How did they come to be lying down? They must have moved without realizing it. She could see, feel and think only of White Bear. Her head was pillowed on his arm and her face was pressed against his. With his free hand he caressed her, seeking her flesh under her jacket and skirt. His hand became bolder, plucking at the laces that held her clothing together, baring places that only a husband should look at as he was looking now. And touching those places, sending ripples of delight all through her.
And she wanted him to do that. She felt no shame or fear, only happiness. She let him do whatever he wanted. She helped him. She moved her hands also, to touch more of him. Her hand found the oak branch that he had been holding just before she sat down with him. She put the branch aside and let her fingers feel the hardness pushing against his loincloth; he was ready to come into her in the way that Sun Woman had explained.
She could still stop him if she wanted to. She knew him and trusted that he would not do anything she did not want.
But she wanted this. She wanted his hand to go on skillfully preparing the way for him. She wanted this golden glow inside her to fill her more and more. This was happiness, and she was climbing toward a greater and greater happiness. She felt him move, and all at once her hand was not on his loincloth, but on his hot flesh. She wanted to open herself up to the part of him she held so tightly.
Then he was upon her, and she felt a sudden stabbing pain. She cried out. Almost at once his cry of pleasure followed on hers and his hips thrust forward violently and she felt him filling her. He let out a long sigh and relaxed, lying on top of her, resting all of his weight on her.
I am like the Turtle holding up the earth, she thought.
There had been mounting pleasure until her moment of pain. Now there was an ache and a faint memory of the good feelings. She wanted more pleasure. Sun Woman had told her it would hurt only the first time. And that from then on it would be better and better.
Slowly he withdrew from her and they lay on their sides looking at each other. His eyes were huge right before her face.
"For a moment," he said softly, "I felt as I did when I walked on the bridge of stars."
She thought of asking him whether it made him so happy that he would stay with her now instead of going to the country of the pale eyes with his father. But she knew what his answer would be, and that his saying it would only hurt him and her.
She said, "It was Sun Woman, your mother, who told me about this—about what men and women do together."
He laughed. "It was also she who told me." His face reddened. "I feel as if my mother were here watching us."
It was Redbird's turn to laugh. "What would she see that she did not know about already?"
He shook his head. "I would not want anybody to see us doing that."
"The spirits watch us."
"That is not the same. They watch everything, so it is not special to them."
"Is it special to you?" she asked.
"Oh, yes. Something has passed between us. I have given a part of myself to you. And I have a part of you too. Now, even if I must leave you, we will still be with each other."
She did not want to hear him speak of leaving. She wanted to stay here with him in this grove of ancient trees forever. When she had spoken to him of going off and being alone together, this was what she imagined it would be like. But then a dark thought crossed her mind.
"White Bear, they might send people looking for us. They might catch us together like this." Anxiously she started to pull her clothing together.
He sat up beside her and put his hand over hers. "I do not think anyone is coming." He sounded so sure that she thought he must be speaking as a shaman.
"They know I will come back to the village," he added. "They saw me smoke the calumet. And in a few days I will leave with Star Arrow."
He said it with such finality that the sun seemed to go out.
"And so there is time," he said, "If you want ..." and guided her hand to touch him. To her joy she felt him strong in his readiness to be within her again. This time, she was sure, it would nothurt. She would know the full delight that Sun Woman had told her of. The afternoon sunlight slanting through the budding branches was warm again, bathing her and making her feel joyful and free.
Their flowing together lasted longer this time, and gave her all the happiness she had hoped for.
And it came to her, as they lay peacefully side by side afterward, that this might have happened someday, but it would not have happened today if Star Arrow had not come to claim his son.
On the morning of the fourth day of their journey north from Saukenuk along the Great River, when the sun was halfway up the sky, White Bear and Star Arrow emerged from a forest into a prairie. To their right were gentle hills covered with new green buffalo grass and prairie flowers of every color. To their left the hills stood taller, then dropped suddenly to the Great River. White Bear saw a large boat with great white wings above it to carry it along.
Star Arrow brought his tall black stallion to a sudden halt and climbed down, gesturing to White Bear to dismount from his brown and white pony.
"Look at this stone," Star Arrow said, pointing to a large gray rock that stood upright on the edge of a bluff overlooking the river.
White Bear saw carving on the rock and, remembering Père Isaac's lessons, recognized it as the pale eyes' letter M.
"M for de Marion," said Star Arrow. "We are now on land belonging to the de Marion family. You see no fences here because we could not cut enough wood to fence off all our land. There is so much of it."
He reached out and rested his hand on White Bear's shoulder, his fingers squeezing through the buckskin shirt. "But before we come to the place where I live, and where you will live, we must speak of names. Among the pale eyes I am called Pierre de Marion. My full name is Pierre Louis Auguste de Marion."
He made White Bear say "Pierre de Marion" after him.
"According to our custom you should call me Father," Star Arrow said, saying the word in English. White Bear already knew it.
"Now I will tell you what your name will be among the pale eyes."
White Bear pulled free of Star Arrow's hand and took a step backward.
"I already have a name. I was born Gray Cloud because I am neither white nor red." He could hear reproach in his voice, though he had not meant to sound that way. "But now I am White Bear. That is the name given me by the shaman Owl Carver after my spirit journey. I must keep that name."
"And you will keep that name, son. You will always be White Bear. But, just as I am happy to have the British Band call me Star Arrow, so you can have a pale eyes' name. One that tells pale eyes when you go among them who you are—that you are a member of the de Marion family—that you are my son."
He is proud that I am his son.White Bear's anger faded and he felt a warmth toward this man who wanted to give him a name. He decided that if Star Arrow could have two names, so could he.
"What is my pale eyes' name to be, Father?"
Star Arrow put his hand on White Bear's shoulder. "I wish you to be called Auguste de Marion. Auguste is a very old name. It means 'consecrated,' a sacred person, and that is a good name for one who has seen a vision and wishes to be a shaman. Say it after me. Auguste."
"O-goose."
As they rode on through the de Marion lands, people called out from cabins. Mounted men, who saluted Pierre with a wave of their hands, rode among herds of cattle and horses.
Dozens of horses!Auguste thought, realizing he was seeing wealth that would amaze any man of the British Band.
Farther along they passed fields fenced off with logs split in two and piled one on top of the other. Sheep roamed over low hills and cropped the prairie grass to its very roots. Inside a smaller plot huge gray and pink pigs rolled in mud beside a pond.
They passed fields planted with crops. The whole village of Saukenuk with all the farmland around it would fit into one of those fields. He recognized one crop, corn. Corn as far as he could see. How much corn could the de Marions eat? They must be a huge tribe.
As they rode along, Pierre said, "One more thing for you to know, Auguste. You will meet the rest of your family today—yourgrandfather and your aunt, my sister." He stopped his horse. Auguste reined up his pony and waited. Unhappiness dragged down the lines in Pierre's face.
"I must tell you that I also have a brother, your uncle, who—" He hesitated. "Who may not be friendly to you."
"Why?" Auguste asked.
"Thirteen summers ago another sister of mine and he were captured by the Potawatomi during the war between the British and the Americans. My sister was murdered by them. Raoul, my brother, suffered greatly until we found him and ransomed him. He hates not just the Potawatomi, but all red men. He did not wish me to bring you back here to our home."
"I do not understand," said Auguste. How could a man hate all tribes because of what the men of one tribe had done to him? Again he realized what a mystery the pale eyes were, and he felt fear.
Pierre said, "He probably will not be there when we arrive. I had to tell you about Raoul, but I do not want you to be afraid of him."
But hewasafraid, he told himself as they rode on. His belly felt hollow, and his heart beat faster than his pony's trotting hooves. He was afraid of the pale eyes and their strange ways. He felt more fear now than he had when he walked on the bridge of stars with the White Bear.
"There!" Pierre suddenly held out his hand. Auguste's eyes followed the gesture, and his mouth dropped open.
What at first he thought he saw was a forest of trees covered with snow. In their midst something rose like a great gray hill. Snow in the Moon of Buds? Perhaps the pale eyes did have a magic of their own.
As they rode closer, the snow on the trees turned into flowers. He had seen wild apple trees in bloom and knew that many trees flowered around this time. But these trees were all planted in straight rows, and each one was a mass of white blossoms.
What he had thought was a gray hill was the biggest lodge he had ever seen. He jerked the reins of his horse to stop, so that he could sit and wonder at what he was seeing. He felt Pierre stop beside him.
The great lodge seemed to be made of three or four lodges all joined together with one central building higher than all the rest. Itshigh peaked roof was of logs split in half with the flat sides turned outward. The lower part of the lodge was made of stones, the upper part of logs.
Dread filled him, seeing that these people could do so much. They could hold so much land that a rider needed half a day to cross from edge to center. They could make the land obey their wishes, fence it, fill it with animals, plant huge fields with crops, enjoy a forest of flowering trees. And in the very center of all this they could make a lodge gigantic enough to hold a hundred families.
The pale eyes could do anything. They were magicians so mighty as to make a shaman like Owl Carver look childish. How could he ever hope to know all that they knew?
Despair crushed him. He wanted to see no more.
Pierre patted Auguste's pony on the neck, and the little horse started forward again. Numbly, Auguste felt himself being led toward the great lodge, his pony's hooves falling softly on white petals.
Pierre pointed proudly. "We call our house Victoire."
Closer and closer they came until the house blocked out part of the sky. It was gray, the logs it was built of having weathered. Auguste saw that there were many smaller buildings scattered around the giant lodge—smaller only compared to the huge one in the center. Some of the smaller houses were connected to the great one by sheltered walkways. The smallest was much bigger than the biggest lodge in Saukenuk.
In a moment they would emerge from among the flowering trees. Auguste saw a log fence ahead. The fence surrounded a low hill covered with close-cropped grass, leading up to the house. One large old maple tree shaded the south side. He checked his pony. He could go no farther.
"What is it?" Pierre asked him.
"I cannot," Auguste said. "I cannot go there." He felt a quaver in his voice and his lips trembling, and he held himself rigid.
"Why not, Auguste?" Pierre said softly.
"I do not know what to do here. I have never seen such a place as this. I will do foolish things. All those people will laugh at me. You will not want me for a son."
"Let us wait," said Pierre. "Get down from your horse."
Biting his lip, Auguste dismounted.
"We shall sit here," said Pierre. They sat, facing each other. Auguste saw people approaching through the straight rows of trees. Pierre saw them, too, and waved them away.
They sat for a long time in silence while their horses grazed nearby. Auguste held his misery in until he felt calmer.
He looked at Pierre and nodded to say that he was in control of himself. Pierre nodded back. Auguste looked at the petal-covered ground, feeling crushed.
"All this is strange to you," Pierre said.
"Yes," said Auguste.
"And it is not foolish to fear. There are some people here who will hate you just because you are a red man. There are people who will be afraid of you. But there are dangers in the life you come from—fire and flood, sickness, bears and wolves, the Sioux and Osage, enemies of your people. You fear those things, but you have been taught how to live with those dangers. There are other people here, people like myself, who will care for you and protect you and teach you how to live with the dangers of the pale eyes' world. You must come to know these people who will help you. I want you to be glad you came from Saukenuk to Victoire."
Auguste did not answer. They sat in silence for a while. Then Pierre spoke again.
"The pale eyes are here, Auguste, and you must learn to live with us."
Auguste sighed and settled down again. He listened to the buzzing of locusts rise and fall.
If my vision of this man meant something, then come to me now, White Bear, and tell me what I must do.
He carried a handful of bits of magic mushroom in a saddlebag, but several times since his spirit journey the White Bear had spoken to him without the help of the mushroom and without his mind leaving his body. All he needed to do, sometimes, was sit quietly and listen. He waited now, sometimes looking at Pierre, sometimes looking at the twigs and moss and grass on the ground.
Perhaps no spirit can reach me here in the land of the pale eyes.
He was about to give up and get to his feet. He would beg Pierre to let him go back to the Sauk.
Then a voice spoke deep and clear in his mind, and it was not his voice.
Go and meet your grandfather.
A warmth spread from the center of his body to hands and feet that a moment ago had been icy with fear. Knowing that he had not left his spirit helper behind when he left Saukenuk gave him new confidence.
He held out his hands, palms up. "Let us go to meet my grandfather."
The smile on Pierre's long face mirrored the glow Auguste felt inside himself.
They remounted and rode around to a gateway in the west side of the fence surrounding the house. Auguste, with his newfound strength, endured the curious stares of the men and women gathered at the gate to greet Pierre.
"Look, your grandfather is waiting for you," said Pierre, his voice ringing with joy.
Before a doorway sheltered by its own wooden roof, an old man, a very stout young woman and a plump young man awaited them.
The old man's eyes were blue like Pierre's but they seemed to glitter and to see deeply into Auguste. He was tall and thin and slightly stooped with age. His clothes were simple—a black jacket over a white shirt, and black trousers that tightened below his knees and ended in straps that ran under shiny black shoes. He leaned on a black stick with a silver head.
His heart fluttering with excitement, Auguste got down from his horse and took a tentative step forward. The old man approached him, his expression as fierce as a hawk's. He looked hard into Auguste's face.
The old man spoke to him in a language of the pale eyes, so rapidly that Auguste could not hope to understand him.
Pierre said, "Your grandfather says he sees at once that you are a member of our family. He sees it in the shape of your eyes. He sees it in your nose, in your chin. He sees that like all de Marion men you are very tall."
"What is my grandfather's name?" Auguste asked.
"He is the Chevalier Elysée de Marion."
"El-izay," Auguste said, and his grandfather clapped his hands and grinned.
"But you should call him Grandpapa," Pierre concluded.
"Grandpapa." That was another word Père Isaac had taught him.
Grandpapa gave a cackling old man's laugh, threw his arms wide and hugged Auguste. Auguste hugged him back, rather gingerly, fearing his bones might crack. A thought came to Auguste, and he let go of his grandfather. He hurried back to his horse and took out of the saddlebag the tobacco pouch he had packed along with his small medicine bundle.
He went back to Elysée and held the pouch out with both hands.
In his best English he said, "Please, I give Grandpapa tobacco."
Elysée took the pouch and opened it, sniffed and grinned appreciatively. He and Pierre exchanged words.
Pierre said, "I have told him that among the Sauk, tobacco is offered to honored friends, to men of high rank and to great spirits. This pleases him."
"Thank you, Auguste," Grandpapa said. "I will smoke it in my pipe after we eat together." This time he spoke slowly enough for Auguste to understand him.
Grandpapa now took the stout woman by the arm and pulled her forward.
"This is your aunt, my sister, Nicole Hopkins," said Pierre.
Never among the Sauk had he seen a woman with such broad hips and such a vast bosom. She stepped forward and placed her lips, to Auguste's surprise, on his cheek, making a little smacking sound. Not sure what to do, Auguste put his arms around the woman as he had around his grandfather. She felt soft and comfortable and not at all fragile, and he hugged her hard. He felt powerful muscles under her ample flesh. His aunt returned the embrace with strong arms. She smelled of flowers.
All at once, Auguste sensed that there was a baby growing inside the woman holding him. Not because she was so big; it had nothing to do with the way she looked. It was a sensing, and he was pleased to know that, along with the White Bear, he had not left his powers behind at Saukenuk.
Pierre said, "Now meet Frank Hopkins, your uncle by marriage."
At Pierre's gesture the sandy-haired man approached Auguste. Auguste opened his arms to hug him, but the man stuck his right hand out. The man's fingers were black. That was odd; he had never seen painted fingers before. Was this another pale eyes custom?Auguste decided he was expected to hold out his own right hand. Frank seized his hand in a strong grip and shook it up and down.
"Frank makes the talking papers from which people may read and learn things," said Pierre. "He also builds things of wood. He built some of the newer buildings here on our land. Frank and Nicole and their children live over by the river in a town called Victor. He built many of the houses there, too."
The people had been so friendly that Auguste had gotten over much of his fear, but when he saw Pierre wave him toward the door, which yawned above him like an enormous cave mouth, he felt cold once again.
But he followed Pierre through the door, and his breath left his body in amazement.
It was like being in a forest clearing where the trees towered over you and their branches met high up, blocking out the sky. In a Sauk lodge he could reach up and touch the roof without straightening his arm. Here the ceiling was hidden in shadows, and huge square-cut timbers crossed the open space above his head.
Hung by ropes from those timbers were big circles of wood that Père Isaac had said were called wheels. These wheels were turned on their sides, and set on them were dozens of the little white sticks of wax that pale eyes used to make light. A few of the more prosperous Sauk families sometimes used such wax sticks to light their lodges.
Auguste looked around in wonder. The huge room was full of objects whose purpose he could not guess. Doorways led to other parts of this house or to attached houses. Cooking smells of many kinds of good food filled the air.
Pale eyes men and women stood about in the hall and watched Auguste and his father and grandfather enter.
Two small boys and a girl running through the hall stopped to stare at him. Frank Hopkins called to them and they approached slowly.
"These are Thomas, Benjamin and Abigail, Nicole and Frank's children," said Pierre.
Their other children, thought Auguste, wondering whether Nicole herself knew what he knew about her.
Abigail stood close to her father, her mouth and eyes wide open.
Thomas, the biggest of the three, said, "Gosh almighty, I got a real Injun for a cousin!"
Benjamin walked slowly over to Auguste, suddenly reached out and gripped the deerhorn handle of the knife at his belt. Auguste tensed.
But Benjamin grinned up at Auguste and let go of the knife without trying to pull it out of its scabbard. Then he ran back to his father.
Grandpapa Elysée beckoned, and as Auguste walked toward him he noticed that the soles of his moccasins were striking a hard surface. He looked down to see that the floor of the lodge was covered with flat stones. Auguste and the others followed Grandpapa across the length of the floor to a stone hearth so big a man could stand inside it.
They passed three long, cloth-covered platforms raised as high above the floor as the sleeping platforms in Sauk and Fox summer lodges.
"Those are tables," Pierre said. Auguste remembered the word from a book of words and pictures Père Isaac had shown him. On the tables lay a confusion of shiny objects.
A man standing by the hearth, who appeared as old as Elysée, stepped forward and bowed. He had a round, bright red nose and white whiskers that stood out on either side of his face.
"This is Guichard, our majordomo," said Pierre.
"Ma-ja domo," repeated Auguste.
"Guichard came over from France with us thirty years ago."
Guichard said, "I greet you, Auguste." Auguste was amazed to hear him speak in the Sauk language. He spoke with a lisp, though, and Auguste noticed when he opened his mouth that he had no front teeth.
Pierre clapped Guichard on the shoulder. "I do not know how he does these things, but he always surprises us with what he has learned. And by his care for us in so many ways."
Guichard stepped back with another bow, and Pierre turned to a short man and a plump woman also standing before the hearth. The woman's full lips curved in a smile of greeting for Pierre; then she plucked at her skirts, lifting them a bit, and bent her knees and ducked her head.
"This is Marchette Perrault," Pierre said, and Auguste noticedthat his normally pale face was flushed. "She reigns over our kitchen." Auguste did not need to rely on his special sense to see that there was a loving secret between Marchette and his father.
The man standing beside Marchette, short and powerful-looking, with a bristling brown beard, was staring at Pierre with hatred in his face, his eyes narrowed. His mouth was invisible in his beard, but Auguste knew that his lips were pressed together, his teeth clenched. He also knew that this short man was as strong as a bull buffalo.
The look the brown-bearded man gave Pierre frightened Auguste, and he wondered if he was the only one who could see it.
"Armand Perrault, here, is the overseer of our estate," Pierre said, apparently oblivious of the man's expression. "He makes the crops flourish, the trees bear fruit and the cattle grow fat. He and Marchette come from French families who settled here many generations ago."
Armand bowed, a quick jerk of his head and shoulders, to Pierre. Somewhat to Auguste's relief, the angry man did not even look at him. Abruptly he turned his back and strode across the hall to a side door.
Pierre said, "Most of those who live and work here at Victoire are Illinois people of French descent. The town, Victor, grew up after we built our home here. Most of the people there are Americans from Missouri, Kentucky or back East. Everyone you meet in America is from somewhere else."
Not my people, Auguste thought.
Marchette made another bow to Pierre and left, too, to go into another connected house in which Auguste saw a fire burning under a huge metal pot in another hearth. There was much smoke and steam in that lodge, and he could not see everything, but the good smells were coming from there, and he remembered that he had eaten nothing today but a little dried venison.
Pierre took Auguste by the arm and led him to a place at the table near Grandpapa. Guichard pushed a wooden seat made of sticks toward him. A "chair," Auguste remembered, from Père Isaac's picture book.
Why do they sit up high and raise their food up so high?Auguste wondered. Perhaps pale eyes did not keep their floors clean enough to sit on and eat from. But these appeared very clean.
"This is a special meal in your honor," said Pierre. "Most of the people who work on our land will be eating here with us." Men and women were seating themselves at the other tables.
A feast!thought Auguste. Perhaps there would be dancing afterward.
"How many people live on your land, Father?" he asked in Sauk.
"About a hundred men, women and children live and work here," Pierre answered. "Beyond the hills to the west, by the river, is the settlement called Victor, where another hundred people live. Many of them work for us too. Nicole and Frank live in Victor."
Two hundred, thought Auguste. That was not so many, after all. There were nearly two thousand people in the British Band.
Nicole sat beside him, Pierre across the table from him. Nicole went through the names of the objects on the table—"plate," "glass," "knife," "fork," "spoon." Guichard was going around the table behind the people sitting there, filling each glass with a red liquid from a pitcher.
Auguste had seen beads and other small objects made of glass at Saukenuk, but here glass was everywhere. What was glass, and how did the pale eyes make things from it?
Even as he was wondering about glass he saw his father take out of his coat pocket an oval silver case hanging from a purple cord around his neck. Pierre opened the case and took out yet two more small, round pieces of glass in a metal frame. To Auguste's bewilderment, he put these over his eyes, like a transparent mask. He smiled when he saw Auguste staring.
"Spectacles. I have trouble seeing things that are near to me, and these help. I like to see what I'm eating."
Last night, as Auguste lay beside the sleeping Star Arrow in the tall prairie grass, he had thought of quietly climbing on his pony and fleeing back to Saukenuk, in spite of the tobacco-sealed promise. Now he was glad he had not run away. The people all looked kindly at him, except for that man Armand, and there were so many wonders to see. He could feel his heart beating hard and his hands trembling with excitement.
When Guichard filled his glass with the red liquid, Auguste drank from it. The liquid was cool and burned at the same time. It was bitter and puckered his lips, but was sweet in his throat. He was thirsty, so he drank more of it.
"Wine," said Pierre. "You've had it before?"
This must be like that burning water the pale eyes call whiskey that I tasted at the council last Moon of Falling Leaves on the other side of the Great River.The chiefs and braves and warriors had drunk much of the burning water from a barrel, he remembered, and they had grown merrier and merrier. The women and boys were each allowed one small sip and the young girls none at all.
"I have tasted it," he said. Pierre frowned and seemed about to speak, but he said nothing when Auguste held his empty glass out for more wine to Guichard, who was going around again with the pitcher.
Men and women brought food to the table on big plates and in bowls. There was turkey, duck, fresh venison, flat bread and round bread, dark bread, white bread and yellow corn bread, cooked fruit and raw fruit, loaves of maple sugar, fruit baked inside crusts, heaps of mashed-up vegetables. There were slices of fish burned almost black and piles of boiled crawfish. The food, Auguste saw, was coming from the connected lodge Marchette had gone into, where the big pot was with all the smoke and steam.
Auguste watched the way the people at the table with him were eating. He tried to use his knife and fork as they did and saw Pierre smile approvingly. The sight and smell of the food made water fill his mouth and his stomach growl. But when he put a slice of meat in his mouth it was unexpectedly very hot to the taste. Not just hot from being cooked, but hot because of something cooked into it.
Peppers, he thought. His mother kept some, traded up from the south, in her collection of medicine plants, and he had tasted their fire.
Pierre himself, Auguste noticed, put very small portions of food on his plate and ate little of what was there. Auguste was saddened. If only there was something he could do for his father. He had consulted Owl Carver before leaving Saukenuk, but the old shaman had only said gloomily that in his experience such an evil spirit in the belly was usually fatal.
The hot food made Auguste thirsty, and he drank more wine. Each time he held his glass out, Guichard, smiling toothlessly, seemed to be there with the pitcher.
Still hungry, he grew impatient with knife and fork and beganpicking the food up with his hands. He tried to take small pieces with his fingers and eat quickly so that people would not notice, but then he caught the two boys and the girl, at the other end of the table, watching him and giggling and whispering to each other. His face went hot.
Nicole, sitting on his right, asked him short, simple questions about how the Sauk and Fox lived, and he answered with the little English he had. She smiled and nodded at him many times as he told her the Sauk names for things, and she repeated them after him. She seemed to find pronouncing them easy.
The other people mostly talked among themselves in their own language. The pale eyes never stopped talking, it seemed. Would there never be a moment of thoughtful silence? The voices, all speaking so fast, gabbling like a flock of turkeys, made him dizzy.
A strange feeling was coming over him. He heard a buzzing in his ears, like locusts on the prairie. His face felt numb. He reached up and touched his cheeks with his fingertips, and it was as if he felt his face through a thin, invisible cloth.
His stomach started to churn. He felt with a sudden panic that he could not hold all the food he had eaten. The peppers and the wine were burning together in his stomach. He lurched to his feet, swaying from side to side. The vast room seemed to be spinning like a canoe in a whirlpool, and the voices around him faded away.
He felt Nicole quickly stand up with him, her hand firmly on his arm, steadying him.
He shut his eyes and held his hand tightly over his mouth, wanting to die of shame and embarrassment. His belly bucked like a wild pony. Hot liquid spurted through his fingers.
"Here, son, here," a voice said. He opened his eyes to look into the face of his father, full of pain for him. Pierre held a large wooden bucket under his chin. On the other side of him Nicole had a strong grip on his shoulder.
Auguste took his hand away from his mouth and let his belly give up what it had held. Stained red by the wine, the food he had just eaten poured into the bucket. The smell of vomit filled his nostrils, making him feel even sicker.
He fell to his knees, coughing, choking, tears streaming from his eyes. Pierre knelt beside him, still holding the bucket for him. Auguste'sstomach heaved again and again, forcing the remnants of his meal through his throat and past his slack lips.
As he recovered a bit, he heard someone laugh softly in a distant part of the room, and someone else speak in the pale eyes' language. The tone of contempt was unmistakable.
He was overwhelmed with shame. He had made a fool of himself before his entire de Marion family and their whole tribe. He had disgraced the Sauk. He had embarrassed his father.
It was as he had feared. He could not stay here. It was too painful.
Tonight, he promised himself, holding his aching belly.Tonight I leave the land of the pale eyes forever.
Reproaching himself, Pierre knelt beside Auguste, trying through the pressure of his hand on the boy's back to tell Auguste that he loved him.
He said he had tasted wine, but I should have known he could not drink so much. The poor boy must be dying of shame, and it is all the fault of stupid Pierre.
Auguste coughed and wiped the back of his hand over his face. Pierre patted him gently on the back.
Nicole, kneeling on Auguste's other side, suddenly turned her head toward the door and drew in a frightened breath. Pierre looked up to see what it was.
A figure filled the doorway, silhouetted in the yellow rectangle of afternoon sunlight.
Pierre at once recognized the truculent set of Raoul's broad shoulders, the forward thrust of his head under the wide-brimmed hat.
Pierre had time for one more anguished thought of self-reproach as his younger brother strode toward them.
For this, too, I should have better prepared Auguste.
Raoul's boots sounded on the flagstone floor.
Pierre tugged on Auguste's arm, helping him to his feet. He heard Nicole whisk away the bucket.
"So, this is the little mongrel?" Raoul's deep voice boomed in the cavernous log hall.
"Raoul," Pierre said, "this is your nephew, Auguste."
Pierre turned to Auguste and in Sauk said, "This is your uncle, Raoul. He lives here with me and your grandfather. He speaks with a rough tongue, but do not fear him."
How could the boy not fear a man like Raoul?
"Auguste, is it? A fine French name for a redskin." Raoul set his fists on his hips, throwing back his blue jacket to show his gilt-handled pistol and a huge knife in its scabbard. At the sight of the weapons Pierre's heart pounded.
Raoul went up to Auguste and stared into his face as Pierre stood tensely.
Raoul said, "Well, brother, you actually did it. You made yourself a son."
"I'm glad you admit that," said Pierre.
"Oh, I admit that. He's got de Marion written all over his dirty face. But don't call him my 'nephew.' I reserve that title for legitimate kin."
Pierre hoped Auguste's knowledge of English was not enough to let him understand how he was being insulted. The boy looked from Pierre to Raoul as they spoke, his large, dark eyes watchful, his face expressionless.
"Raoul, stop this." It was Nicole, back from getting rid of the bucket. "I'm Auguste's aunt and you're his uncle, and you might as well get used to it."
"And you are spoiling our dinner, Raoul," Elysée said. "Either sit and eat with us like a civilized man or leave us alone."
"Spoiling your dinner?" Raoul gave a bellow of laughter. "Mean to tell me it doesn't spoil your dinner to see that savage puking in our great hall? Mean to tell mehe'scivilized?"
Pierre glanced across the table at his father and Frank Hopkins, who had both risen to their feet. Elysée's eyes burned with anger. Frank held his little girl's hand and looked sombrely at Raoul. The two Hopkins boys stared at their uncle.
I pray God they don't admire him. Boys have a way of looking up to men who behave like brutes.
Raoul turned to Nicole, his teeth flashing white under his thick black mustache. "You really want an Indian nephew? Have you forgot what Indians did to your sister?"
"No, I'll never forget what happened to Helene," Nicole said. "None of us will. But Auguste had nothing to do with that."
"You didn't watch your sister die," Raoul said. "So that just the sight of an Indian makes you want to kill."
Pierre saw that Raoul was working himself up into a rage. He would talk and talk, and every word he said would make him angrier, until at last, the explosion. A spasm of pain shot across Pierre's stomach.
Not now, he prayed.God, let the illness leave me alone until I can be alone with it.
Nicole's cheeks were an even brighter red than was usual for her, but she spoke gently. "Raoul, you do have a living sister. If it had been me at Fort Dearborn instead of Helene—if I had been raped and murdered—I would be looking down from Heaven, and I would be hoping your wound would heal. I would pray that you would welcome Pierre's son, your nephew, into your home."
"Stop saying that this filthy savage is my nephew," said Raoul. "Look at him standing there, staring at me. You know what the word mongrel means, redskin?"
Pierre felt a surge of pride as he saw Auguste standing straight and slender, gazing levelly at Raoul. Savage? Even though he had been sick only a moment ago, Auguste held himself as regally as a young prince.
"As for you, Nicole," Raoul went on, "don't ever think you can speak for Helene. She may be in Heaven now, but she got there by way of Hell. No decent woman could imagine what she suffered."
Pierre almost screamed aloud as the pain in his belly stabbed him again. He clutched at his stomach. Just when he needed all his strength!
Auguste looked into his eyes, then down at his hand.
"You hurt, Father," Auguste said in English. "Must sit down."
"Oh? He's already got a few words of English?" said Raoul. "You're training him to talk, eh? Like a parrot? Going to put him in a medicine show?"
Elysée suddenly spoke in a loud voice, "My friends—those who were invited to dine with us here today—will you please excuse us and give us privacy? We have family matters to discuss."
Silently, eyes cast down, the thirty or so servants and field workers who had been invited to celebrate the coming of Pierre's son filed out of the hall.
Pierre thought,In so many things I have failed today.
"Raoul," Elysée said, "I have not forgiven Helene's killers. But I am not stupid enough to hate all Indians, and neither should you be. Do you think whites have never tortured and killed Indian women?"
Raoul bared his teeth again. "If you can't hate the Indians for what they did to your daughter and to me, then you never loved either one of us."
Pierre felt a sudden surge of anger. "Raoul, I forbid you to speak that way to our father. You are cruel and unjust."
"You owemejustice, Pierre, you and Papa. Where was he when you abandoned me to the Indians? Where were you?"
Pierre's legs shook. He could feel the rage radiating from Raoul; it was like standing too close to a red-hot stove.
Auguste said, "Father."
Pierre turned and looked into the dark young eyes.
Auguste spoke in Sauk. "Father, I am the cause of this man's anger."
"There is much to explain, son," said Pierre. "Be patient and quiet, and all will be well."
Pierre saw fear struggling with resolution in his son's face. A pallor in the fine olive skin showed that Auguste had not yet gotten over being sick. Auguste squared his shoulders and took a step toward Raoul. He raised his right hand in greeting.
"I greet uncle," he said solemnly in English.
"Keep this mongrel away from me, Pierre," Raoul said.
"Frank," said Nicole, "take the children out of here."
Frank picked Abigail up and carried her, with Tom and Benjamin trailing. He walked off toward the kitchen, looking back over his shoulder at Nicole.
Elysée said, "Remember, Raoul, this is my grandson."
"Your grandson!" Raoul spat.
Auguste held out his right hand to Raoul. "I sorry you angry. Want be friend."
In a moment, Pierre thought, he would have to get between them. But his stomach hurt so badly that he could hardly move.
"If you want to be my friend, you mongrel bastard, get as far away from this house and from me as you can," Raoul said.
Auguste took another step toward Raoul, still holding out his hand. He'd learned about shaking hands from Frank Hopkins just a little while ago, Pierre remembered.
"Auguste, no!" Pierre cried.
"Don't you try to touch me, redskin."
Raoul thrust out his own hand and struck at Auguste's. He grabbed Auguste's shirt, twisting the buckskin in his big hand.
Raoul had lost all control. The fury was upon him. Pierre forgot about his own pain and tried to throw himself between Raoul and Auguste. His chest hit Raoul's arm, hard as an iron bar.
"Let go of him, Raoul," Pierre said.
"Raoul, stop it!" Elysée shouted.
"All right." Raoul punched his fist into Auguste's chest and released him, sending the boy staggering backward to fall to the floor.
Rage blazed up inside Pierre. The sight of his son knocked to the floor swept away all constraint. To the Devil with trying to reason with Raoul. He rushed at Raoul and swung his arm with all his strength, bringing his palm against Raoul's mouth.
Though open-handed, it was a blow that would have knocked many a man down. Raoul only staggered back half a step.
But a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.
"You still fight like a Frenchman, Pierre," said Raoul with a grin, wiping his mouth. "Slapping a man. Think you're still a count or something? Fight like an American."
He lunged at Pierre. Pierre barely saw, out of the corner of his eye, the fist coming at him. A cannon went off at the side of his head.
He was on the floor, flat on his back.
Nicole screamed, "No! No, Auguste!"
Pierre rolled his aching head to one side to see Auguste standing over him, his hand on the deerhorn hilt of the knife that hung at his belt, the knife Pierre had left for him when he was a baby. Nicole held his arm with both hands.
"Want to fight with knives?" Raoul said. He slid his own huge hunting knife out and held it upright, the point glittering in the candlelight.
"Come on, redskin!" Raoul shouted, but even as he spoke he charged at Auguste, as Auguste struggled to break free from Nicole. Raoul's knife flashed and Pierre heard a cry of pain, and Nicole was between Auguste and Raoul, and Auguste had his hand to his face and blood was running through his fingers.
Raoul stepped away from Auguste and wiped his knife on a white tablecloth.
"What have you done?" Pierre shouted.
"I was kind," Raoul said with a white-toothed grin.
Pierre rushed to Auguste. Blood flowed from a long cut that ran straight down Auguste's cheek from just below his eye to the corner of his mouth. The front of Auguste's tan buckskin shirt was stained red.
"If he'd pulled that knife, I would have taken his eye," Raoul said softly. "I just left a mark on him. So he won't forget me."
"Let go of me, Father," Auguste said in Sauk, in a level, terrible voice. "I have to kill him."
"No!" said Pierre, holding Auguste tighter.
You're a brave boy, but I'm afraid it's you that would be killed, my son.
Blood pounded in Pierre's head. He wanted to take Auguste's knife—the knife he'd given Auguste long ago—and drive it into Raoul's chest.
If I were like Raoul, I would do just that. Or try to.
"Raoul, for this I will never forgive you."
"Forgive me?" Raoul shouted. "Can I forgive you for bringing this savage here to cheat me?"
Nicole took Auguste from Pierre's arms. She pressed a white napkin to his bleeding face and took him to a chair to sit down. As he sat, Auguste turned to shoot Raoul a look of pure hate.
"Cheat you? What are you talking about?"
"Just remember, when you die—and I hope God makes it soon—Iwillhave this estate."
Pierre felt Raoul's words as if that blade had plunged into his heart. That his own brother should wish him dead ...
Pierre went to stand by Auguste, seated in a chair with Nicole wiping his slashed face.
Pierre said, "In the will I wrote years ago I named you as my heir. I never thought to change that will. Until today."
Raoul, still wiping his knife, snorted. "No court in Illinois would let a man disinherit a legitimate white brother in favor of a half-Indian bastard."
Pierre let his hand rest on Auguste's shoulder. The boy's eyes burned up at him. Pierre looked down at the blood-soaked napkin that Nicole pressed to Auguste's cheek.
Auguste, speaking in the Sauk tongue, broke the silence that hadfollowed Raoul's words. "Even if he is your brother and my uncle, this man is our enemy, Father. I will stand side by side with you against him." Auguste put his hand over the hand that lay on his shoulder.
Raoul slammed his knife into its sheath. "You've driven me out of my home, Pierre. I'm not living under the same roof with an Indian. I won't be back till I can come back as master of this house."
He strode to the door and turned again. "And then I'll bring my own family with me."
"What do you mean—your own family?" Elysée called across the long hall.
"I'm marrying Eli Greenglove's daughter," Raoul said with a grin. "And that mongrel had better not try to touch my children's birth-right."
He was gone, leaving the door hanging open behind him, sunlight pouring in.
Pierre looked miserably down at Auguste and thought,I hope your shaman's skills make you better at predicting the future than I have been, my son.