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

knew that he was hurting her, and that deepened his own pain still more.

She let go his hand and twisted her fingers together in her lap. "Of course Redbird is first in your heart. But how can she live here with you? Where her baby was torn out of her arms and killed by a mob of white people."

"I've asked myself that many times. I will have to hear what Redbird says."

He remembered what Sun Woman had said when Pierre asked her to come with him to Victoire. I could not look into pale eyes[471] faces all day long. My heart would dry up. And surely Redbird had more reason to hate the sight of white faces than Sun Woman had seven years ago.

Could he himself live here? He talked about retaking Victoire, about living as a white man, but he recalled the heaps of dead he had seen on that blood-soaked island off the Bad Axe River. Could he live among the people who had done that?

Nancy said, "Would you still want to live at Victoire if Redbird said she would not come with you?"

He saw Redbird's small face, her slanting eyes, the fringe of black hair that fell over her forehead. He felt her slender arms around him as they had held him so many nights in their wickiup. He saw the love and fear in Eagle Feather's eyes when they parted so that he could take Nancy and Woodrow to safety. The pain of being away from them almost made him want to weep.

"I don't know the answer to that. The trail I follow is dark. I must go one step at a time."

The chill night air carried a sound to his ears. Off in the distance, on the bluff south of this hill, a man's low voice spoke a few words, then another voice answered. He heard a boot crunch on gravel. A door slam.

The hair on the back of his neck lifted.

He raised his head, and his ears felt as if they were opening wider, to take in everything that came to him. The noises were all faint; no pale eyes would even have noticed them.

"What is it?" said Nancy.

The sounds seemed to come from the town. Who would be up so long after midnight?

"Some men talking, a long way off." He listened for the space of a few breaths. "I don't hear anything now."

Victor, he decided, was making him overly fearful.

Nancy said, "If Redbird does come to live with you, what will become of you and me?" She took his hand in both of hers, stroking his fingers. "I love you, Auguste. Now more than ever. Before, my life depended on you. Now I know that I love you of my own free will."

"And I love you, Nancy."

"But you love Redbird too. More than me."

"Not more than you. In another way. Sometimes I seem to be two people."[472]

"Among the Sauk you could have both me and Redbird as wives. And when I was a captive, and I thought I might die at any time without ever having loved you, then I accepted your way. But if Redbird lived here, you and I would have to be together in secret. And I couldn't live my whole life that way."

He had known it would hurt like this. This was the very reason he had tried again and again to renounce Nancy's love.

"I understand," he said, and the words seared his throat.

But now I would never give up a moment I spent with her, even to escape this pain.

He ached to put his arms around Nancy and to feel her holding him. But he made himself sit rigid, fingers digging into his thighs.

Nancy spoke, and he could hear the iron of grief in her voice. "If Redbird comes here as your wife—I'll leave here. Maybe we'll go back East. Woodrow and I."

She stopped abruptly, too choked by tears to speak. The fence rail they were sitting on shook with her sobs.

Something broke inside Auguste, and he felt his eyes burn as the wetness trickled down his cheeks. He slid from the fence and held out his arms to her.

"To see you again and hear you say you'll leave me forever," he said. "It hurts too much."

She came into his arms, pressing her wet face against his. Her lips twisted against his, burning, devouring. Her arms slid around him, her hands stroking his neck. He could feel her pulling at him as he held her and her legs gave way.

He knew they were going to have each other and could not help themselves.

He pressed his hand on her breast, loving its softness, feeling her risen nipple push against his palm through silk and calico.

Footsteps crackled in the shrubbery at the bottom of the hill.

He froze, all his senses straining.

The hot blood in his veins turned in an instant to icy water.

"Auguste, for God's sake," she whispered.

"Someone's coming," he said. He felt her shiver against him.

He heard many men. They were trying to move quietly, filtering up the hill through the woods. But few pale eyes could walk unheard among shrubs and trees and piles of fallen leaves, especially at night.

Along with fear, he felt a sudden anger at himself that made him[473] want to pound his fist on his head. He'd heard the voices before, farther off, in the village. He should have listened. He'd have known who and what they were.

His ears told him the approaching men had formed a semicircle, slowly closing as they climbed toward Elysée's cottage. His heart fluttered in his rib cage, skipping beats, then pounding hard.

Nancy seized his hand.

"God protect us, Auguste!" she whispered. "I hear them too. Your uncle must have found out that you're here. You've got to get away."

"Into the house. Hurry."

In the front room of Elysée's cottage Frank and Nicole were sitting by the embers of the fire. The others had gone to sleep. Nancy flew into Nicole's arms.

"We've got to get word to the Regulators," said Frank when Auguste told him about the men coming up the hill. He shook Woodrow, who had been napping on the chaise longue.

"Go by way of the ravine on the other side of this hill," Frank told the boy. "Tell Judge Cooper Raoul and his men are coming to kill Auguste." He turned worried eyes on Auguste. "Perhaps you'd better go with Woodrow. You'd be safe at Cooper's."

"No," said Auguste. "If I run for it and they catch me, they'll surely kill me. I'm going to do what I came to do. When Raoul gets here, I will challenge him." His heart pounded so hard that his voice shook.

"Oh, no, Auguste!" Nancy cried.

Woodrow stood hesitating by the door, listening.

"They're almost here."

"Go!" Frank snapped at him. Woodrow ran out.

"Go carefully, Woodrow," Nancy called after him.

"Challenging Raoul is just—just madness," said Frank. He went to the mantel and reached for Elysée's pistol.

"Frank, you can't!" Nicole cried.

"What choice do we have?" he said. He took one of the powder horns down and sat to load and prime the pistol.

Auguste said, "Frank, there are too many of them. If you try to fight them you'll only fire that pistol once, and then you'll be dead."

Frank said, "In a few minutes Cooper and the Regulators will be here. All we have to do is hold Raoul and his men off a bit."

"Please," Auguste said. "Let me go out and meet Raoul alone."[474]

Elysée said, "Absolutely not." He stood in his long nightshirt in the doorway of his bedroom. He gestured to Guichard, who had followed him out.

"Load my rifle, Guichard."

"Grandpapa, no!" Auguste cried. He wanted to throw his arms around the old man and protect him.

Elysée shrugged. "Perhaps as Frank says, we can face them down without shooting. You stay out of sight, Auguste. They cannot know for certain that you are here."

"I will not let this happen," Auguste said. "I'll leave now. I'll follow Woodrow." He strode to the door.

They could be out there.

If they are, then I can face Raoul as I first planned.

He yanked the door open and saw Raoul grinning at him, his face yellow in the candlelight from the cottage.

And beyond Raoul, filling the clearing, a crowd of men with rifles.

Raoul couldn't see the mongrel's face. The light spilling out of Elysée's house left Auguste in shadow. But he did see the split right ear, partly hidden by Auguste's long black hair. He hefted the cap-and-ball pistol held loosely in his right hand. This time there would be no missing.

Now. Point the pistol and pull the trigger. He isn't even armed.

But behind Auguste, Raoul saw Frank Hopkins with a pistol and Papa with a rifle. If he shot Auguste, he'd have no time to reload. They'd have the drop on him. And even if they didn't shoot back, they'd be witnesses against him.

Looking past Frank he saw Nicole and Nancy Hale glaring at him, wide-eyed. At the sight of Nancy his jaw muscles clenched and his hand tightened on the pistol grip.

How could she turn away from me and take up again with that redskin bastard?

"Come on out, mongrel," he said to Auguste. "Maybe a jury found you not guilty, but we know you're guilty as hell. You sent that Sauk war party here." He raised his voice. "And you, Papa, Frank—you're fools to defend him. His Indians were trying to kill you too."[475]

Auguste said, "Raoul, you were the cause of the Sauk coming to Victor. You are a liar and a fool and a coward. And a thief and a murderer."

Auguste stepped forward and slapped Raoul's face.

The blow came too suddenly for Raoul to react. It wasn't even hard enough to hurt much. It was purely a gesture of contempt.

Then Raoul's rage came. It flared up like a forest fire. He brought up the pistol. Auguste's unprotected chest was less than a foot away.

But Auguste spoke again before Raoul could fire. "Will you shoot an unarmed man now, Raoul? Go ahead, prove yourself a coward. When you took Victoire away from me, you wouldn't fight me. At Old Man's Creek—de Marion's Run—I stood before you with my hands empty, and then you tried to shoot me. You don't have the sand in you to face me fairly."

Raoul sensed that Auguste's words were aimed not at him, but at the men behind him. He felt angry, trapped.

Shoot, dammit! Shut him up.

No, it's too late. All these men heard what he said.

"You're afraid to fight me man to man. I challenged you the day you drove me away from Victoire, and you backed down. I challenge you again, Raoul."

An answer sprang into Raoul's mind. "I accept. Let the weapons be your neck and a rope."

But even as he spoke he had a sinking, uneasy feeling.

He did not hear any of his men laughing.

Armand said, "What the hell, Raoul. You've killed hundreds of Indians, some of them a lot bigger than this one. Give him his duel."

For a moment Raoul felt like turning his pistol on Armand. The overseer was paying him back, he realized, for the contempt he'd endured.

"I'm ready to meet you now or any time, mongrel. Let it be tonight. But where there will be no witnesses to charge the winner with murder."

Auguste said, "I would be a fool to trust you and your men."

"You have to," said Raoul. "I'm not giving you any choice. The men will see to it that it's a fair fight. That's what they want." He couldn't keep the bitterness out of his voice. "Come with us, or I'll shoot you down on this doorstep."[476]

Frank Hopkins, pistol pointing at Raoul, crowded into the doorway beside Auguste.

The black O of the muzzle pointed at him chilled Raoul. He'd heard that Frank had fired on the Indians attacking the trading post. Seemed that day had changed him. Now he was a man like any other, taking up the gun like any other.

Frank said, "Auguste is not going with you. There will be no duel. Get away from this house now."

Seeing Frank's foolish defiance in the face of over twenty armed men, Raoul almost laughed.

But that pistol in Frank's hand could end his life. He couldn't shoot Auguste while Frank held it on him.

Raoul swung the barrel of his own pistol to cover Frank's chest.

"Get back inside, Frank," he said, putting a steel edge into it.

Instead, with a sudden movement that almost made Raoul squeeze the trigger, Frank came forward, stepping in front of Auguste.

Raoul saw another movement in the doorway, and then he was staring into his father's glittering eyes. Elysée's rifle, long barrel trembling only slightly, was leveled at him.

Raoul decided the