Shaman, Robert Shea [new ebook reader .txt] 📗

a law of nature that says a bad man will do badly in the end."

Auguste was about to reply when he heard footsteps coming down the road toward the house, reminding him of how quiet it had been ever since he awakened. A good part of the town was sleeping off Raoul's Old Kaintuck, he suspected.

He heard the door open and close below. A moment later Frank[182] came into the room carrying a long rifle, with an ammunition bag and a powder horn slung over his shoulder.

"Well, I bought you a little bateau that will get you across the Mississippi," he said, "for five dollars, from an old trapper who doesn't feel up to going out this winter. And for another twenty dollars I got him to throw in his second best rifle and a good supply of ammunition." He smiled grimly at Auguste. "I expect you'll find this useful over in Ioway."

Auguste nodded. "I'll eat better. But—twenty-five dollars. Frank, that's too much for you to spend on me." He felt a warm gratitude toward the plump, sandy-haired man who was risking so much to help him. Frank's newspaper, his printing business and his carpentry all together could hardly bring in twenty-five dollars in a month, little enough to feed a family of ten.

Elysée said, "I told you I had some money salted away, Auguste. Let the boat and the rifle be my gift to you."

Auguste reached out and squeezed his grandfather's bony hand.

Frank said, "I've moved the boat about half a mile below town and hidden it. We should be able to get down there unseen after dark."

Nicole said, "If Auguste is leaving as Raoul wants him to, why wouldn't Raoul just let him go?"

Frank said, "We can't take that chance. I believe Raoul won't be content unless he kills Auguste."

Auguste shuddered inwardly at the thought that there was in the world a man who would not be satisfied until he was dead. He could not live with that kind of fear. He asked the White Bear, his spirit guide, to give him courage.

He tried to push the fear out of his mind. He stood up to go back to the room where he had slept. He would clean and repack the things he was taking, he decided. He would get busy getting ready and not give himself time to think about being afraid.

But nightfall seemed a long way off.

At nine o'clock in the evening by the Seth Thomas clock in Frank's printing shop, which he reset every day at sunset, it was dark enough and the town was quiet enough for Auguste to leave. He held Nicole's ample body tight and kissed her, shook hands with the boys and kissed the girls. His grandfather had drifted off to sleep again, but the old man had kissed him on both cheeks, and they had said their good-byes in the afternoon.[183]

The road down the bluff from the town to the bottomland was empty. Most people in Victor went to bed soon after sunset, and those who didn't would be up in the taproom of the trading post inn.

Auguste did see candlelight flickering in a one-room log cabin they passed. A silhouette appeared in the window just as he looked in. A man reached out and slammed the shutters closed.

"Bad luck we should pass that house just as he came to the window," Frank said. "One of Raoul's men. But he's more than likely still half drunk."

Frank and Auguste followed the road past fields of corn ready for harvesting, their way lighted by the nearly full moon.

Up ahead the wooded sides of the bluff came down to the water's edge. Frank led Auguste out on a shrub-covered spit.

Not until he was nearly on top of the bateau did Auguste see it. Frank had pulled it up out of the water, covered it with branches, and tied it to the roots of a tree that had toppled into the water, undercut by the river.

With sinking heart Auguste saw that though the riverboat was small, it would be heavier and harder to row than a canoe. Well, Frank had done his best, and now he would have to do his best.

His heart leaped with fear as he heard hoofbeats.

Horsemen, coming down the road from Victor.

Frank stopped working on the boat and lifted his head. "Damn! That skunk must have seen you after all."

The pounding was coming rapidly closer. Auguste's heart was beating as fast as the oncoming hooves. He saw the horsemen by moonlight—five of them, racing through the high corn.

Frank and Auguste pushed the little boat into the water bow first, pointed stern resting on the shore. Auguste put his pack in the stern and the rifle and ammunition in the bow, where they were more likely to stay dry. The current pulled the bow downstream, the flat bottom grinding in the mud.

Auguste saw a flash and heard a loud boom. Something whistled through the bare branches of a bush beside him.

He leaped into the boat.

"Here. Beef and biscuit." Frank tossed a bag to Auguste, who set it on the seat beside him. Frank pushed the bateau's stern free.

"Now row for your life!"

Pulling as hard and fast as he could, Auguste steered diagonally[184] into the Mississippi, trying to get beyond pistol range without spending all his strength fighting the current.

"Hopkins, goddamn it, I'll kill you if he gets away!"

Raoul's voice. Auguste wished he had time to load his rifle and shoot back, but if he stopped rowing they were sure to get him.

Five bright red flashes and five shots roared out one after the other from shore.

If one of those men is Eli Greenglove I'm dead for sure.

Auguste heard a sharp rap on the side of the boat and splashes in the water on his left. He felt naked sitting up in the boat pulling frantically on the oars. He could stop rowing and lie down using the side of the boat as a shield, but then he would remain within range, drifting south along the riverbank, and Raoul and his men could follow him and shoot at him at their leisure. He gritted his teeth and kept rowing, his shoulder muscles feeling as if they were about to tear loose from his bones.

He heard a ball whiz past his head. They must have stopped riding to reload and take better aim.

Another ball smashed into the boat just ahead of the wooden oarlock.

His body was coated with the cold sweat of fear. There was nothing he could do but sit here, a target in the moonlight, and pull on the oars with all his strength. If he missed one stroke it might be his death.

Earthmaker, do not let Raoul take revenge on Frank.

Pistol balls splashed water into the boat.

[185]

11
Redbird's Wickiup

White Bear rowed upstream on the Ioway River past stands of weeping willow whose yellowing fronds drooped into the dark green water. Even though the current was at its weakest now, his arms and shoulders felt as if they'd been beaten with clubs. If only Frank had been able to find a canoe for him instead of this heavy bateau that he'd had to push across the Great River and now up the Ioway.

His heart fluttered in his chest like a trapped bird as he sensed himself coming closer to the British Band's winter hunting camp. He had thought he would be happy at this homecoming, but he was terrified.

How would they receive him? After six years they must think he had forgotten all about them. Would they despise him? Maybe they would just make fun of him.

And in what state would he find the British Band? They'd had to get through the summer without the crops they always raised. Had any friends been shot by white snipers during the siege of Saukenuk? How many, weakened by hunger, might be ill or dead? Would his mother be alive?

And what of Redbird?

He had already met, just by chance, one member of the band, Three Horses, who had been fishing in the shallows on the Ioway shore of the Great River. And Three Horses had certainly been happy to see him. He'd jumped on his pony and had said he would ride back to the camp with the news that White Bear was back. He was so excited that he did not wait for White Bear to ask any questions about how his people had fared.[186]

So they would all be waiting for him by the time he got there. The thought frightened him all the more.

Ahead, a row of bark and dugout canoes lay bottoms up on a dirt embankment.

He saw a flash of red in the trees near the canoes. For a moment he thought, with a joyous leap of his heart, that it might be Redbird. Then a man wearing a deep red blanket stepped out of the woods. He stood over the beached canoes with his arms folded.

Wolf Paw.

His eyes were like splinters of coal, and the black circles he had painted around them gave him a terrifying aspect. The crest of red-dyed deer hair that sprouted from his shaven skull seemed strange and savage to White Bear after six years away from the Sauk.

White Bear rowed in close to the riverbank, uncertain how to greet Wolf Paw. The brave said nothing, did nothing. A maple branch swayed in the wind. Red leaves fell, and sunlight flashed from a steel-headed tomahawk that Wolf Paw was holding.

White Bear's belly knotted.

He skidded the boat to a halt on the bank a short distance downriver from Wolf Paw. He climbed out the front end, pulled the boat up on the bank, unloaded it and turned it over.

Wolf Paw watched in silence as White Bear slung his pack and bags on his back, picked up his rifle and rested it on his shoulder. Looking at Wolf Paw's red crest and blanket and buckskin trousers, White Bear realized how strange he himself must seem to Wolf Paw in the green clawhammer jacket he had worn to his father's funeral.

Now they were face to face.

I will wait for him to move, if I have to stand here till sunset and all through the night. He chose this strange way of meeting me. Let him show me what is in his mind.

He heard the boughs creaking in the wind around him. River water rippled over the stones along the bank. He heard a redbird whistling in the distance.

Wolf Paw drew a deep breath, opened his mouth and let out a war whoop.

"Whoowhoowhoowhoo!"

White Bear's heart gave a great thump, and he fell back a step. He heard rage in the whoop, and the frustration. Wolf Paw was angry at him. Why? Maybe just for coming back.[187]

Wolf Paw held the tomahawk high. Corded muscles and dark veins stood out in his rigid arm. Two feathers dyed red danced just under the steel head. He repeated his war whoop, and then his lips drew back from clenched white teeth.

He whirled and plunged into the woods, leaving White Bear shaken and open-mouthed. He stood still, listening to Wolf Paw crashing through the trees and shrubs, kicking piles of leaves, until the noise died away in the distance. No Sauk ran noisily through the woods like that, unless driven by some madness.

White Bear sighed. Oddly, he felt less frightened than he had before he met Wolf Paw. Before, he had not known what to expect. Now he felt ready for anything.

He strode into the woods following Three Horses' directions. As he walked he began to hear the sounds of people's voices and dogs barking. Gradually they drew nearer, until at last he broke through the trees into a clearing.

The sight made his eyes brim with tears.

A hundred or more women in brown, fringed skirts were facing him, and as he came forward they rushed to form a ring around him. His vision blurred as he recognized faces he had not seen in six years.

Beyond the women he could see the camp of the British Band. In his joy it seemed to him that the wickiups were bathed in a golden light. Rings of gray domes began near the trees where he stood and spread into the tall yellow prairie grass. Before the wickiups he could see what the women had been working at, tasks abandoned for the moment, clothing being mended, skins stretched, meat and fish cleaned and set on frames to dry.

"White Bear is here!" cried one woman, and he recognized Water Flows Fast, plump wife of Three Horses.

Three Horses, a short man with broad shoulders, stood beside his wife. His nose was flat and spread out. White Bear did not remember it that way. Something must have happened to Three Horses while