_Most men would rather fight than work any day._

Eli Greenglove, on a brown and white pony, trotted up beside Raoul. His

silver lace captain's stripes glittered on the upper arms of the blue

tunic Raoul had bought for him. A long cavalry saber hung from his white

leather belt.

Eli grinned, and Raoul had to look away. It seemed that every other

tooth in Eli's head was missing, and the ones that were left were

stained brown from years of chewing tobacco.

And now Clarissa had taken up pipe smoking, making it even harder for

Raoul to enjoy bedding down with her.

_If only Nancy--_

But Nancy had made it plain that she despised him.

Damn shame. Of course, old Eli here would slit his throat if he had any

idea what Raoul was thinking.

Eli said, "You figger the Prophet's Town Injuns have joined up with

Black Hawk's bunch?"

"Of course," said Raoul. "And that means Black Hawk now has about a

thousand warriors behind him."

A movement on the south edge of the village in the surrounding woods

caught Raoul's eyes. He swung around in that direction, pointing his

pistol.

"Eli, get your rifle ready," he said.

"Loaded 'n' primed," said Greenglove, pulling his bright new Cramer

percussion lock rifle--another present from Raoul--from its saddle

sling, controlling his pony easily with his knees alone.

Indians walked out of the woods, four men. They held their empty hands

high over their heads and shuffled forward slowly.

"Watch 'em," said Eli. "They may just be trying to get close enough to

jump us."

Raoul studied the four advancing men. Two had their heads wrapped in

turbans, one red, one blue. All four wore fringed buckskin leggings and

gray flannel shirts. He saw no weapons.

Then he caught sight of more shadowy figures in the trees beyond the

Indians. Instantly, he straighted his arm in that direction and pulled

the trigger. His pistol went off with a boom, puffing out a cloud of

gray smoke. He handed it to Armand to reload it while he reached for his

own new rifle, a breech-loading Hall.

The Indian with the red turban was shouting something. Raoul recognized

the language--Potawatomi. The sound of it made the blood pound in his

temples.

"Those are only squaws and papooses," the Indian called in Potawatomi.

"Please do not shoot them."

Raoul felt like shooting them all, just for being Potawatomi, but he

held the impulse in check. He had to find out whatever they could tell

him.

He addressed the Indians in their language, indelibly engraved in his

mind by the acids of fear and hatred. "Tell them all to come out. We

will kill anyone who hides from us."

The red-turbaned Indian called over his shoulder, and slowly a group of

women and small children came out of the woods.

Raoul took his reloaded pistol back from Armand and walked Banner over

to the little group. They started to lower their hands.

"Keep them up." He gestured with the pistol. Slowly the copper-skinned

men straightened their raised arms again, looking at one another

unhappily.

_Probably thought we'd welcome them with kind words and gifts._ The

muscles in his neck and shoulders were so rigid they ached, and his

stomach was boiling. In his mind he saw again the scarred face of Black

Salmon, the brown fist raised, holding a horsewhip to beat him. The

sounds of Potawatomi speech brought it all back.

He handed his horse's reins to Armand, who tied Banner to an upright

post in front of a nearby lodge.

"Who are you?" Raoul demanded.

"I am Little Foot," said the Indian wearing the red turban. "I am head

of the Deer Clan. We live here in the town of the Winnebago Prophet."

Little Foot's skin was dark, and he had a wide, flat nose. He wore no

feathers on his head, probably not wanting to look warlike. Black hair

streaked here and there with white hung down from under his turban in

two braids to his shoulders. Raoul judged him to be in his fifties.

_He could have been at Fort Dearborn twenty years ago._

One thing was certain. Little Foot was Potawatomi. Raoul felt his

fingers tightening on his pistol as he held it at waist level.

Raoul turned to Levi Pope and some of his other Smith County boys who

were seated on horses nearby. "Tie them up."

Levi, who wore six pistols at his belt, all primed and loaded, got down

from his horse and unhooked a coiled rope from his saddle. "The squaws

and little ones too?"

"Put their families in one of the lodges and keep a guard on them."

Another thought occurred to him. "Eli, take some men and search these

huts. Make sure there aren't any more Indians hiding out somewhere in

this town."

Levi went to the red-turbaned Indian and pulled his arms down roughly to

his sides. In a moment he had Little Foot's hands securely tied behind

his back, while other grinning Smith County boys had done the same to

the other three Indian men.

"Ankles too," said Raoul, and Levi and his men cut lengths of rope and

knelt to hobble the Indians.

With his free hand Raoul took another long drink from the whiskey

canteen hanging from his saddle.

He walked close to Little Foot and looked him in the eye. He did not

like the way the Indian looked back at him. He saw no fear.

With a sudden movement he hooked his boot behind the Indian's hobbled

ankles and pushed him hard. Little Foot fell heavily to the ground on

his back, wincing with the unexpected pain.

As he pushed himself awkwardly into a sitting position, there was no

mistaking the hatred in the way he looked up at Raoul.

"Why did you stay here?" Raoul asked.

"We do not think Black Hawk can win. We hope the long knives will treat

kindly those who do not make war on them."

Raoul said, "Where has Black Hawk gone? What is he planning? Where are

the people who were living in this town?"

"I promised the Winnebago Prophet I would say nothing about where they

went. I will be accursed if I break my promise."

"The Winnebago Prophet's curse is nothing. You should be more afraid of

me."

Little Foot remained stone-faced and silent.

What a pleasure to have a bunch of Potawatomi right where he could do

anything he wanted to them.

A light rain started to patter down on the bark roofs and the

hard-packed earth.

While Raoul had been talking with the Indians, more militiamen had

reached Prophet's Town. Columns of men on horseback, four abreast, came

to a halt in the grassland to the south of the village and fell out at

their officers' commands. They climbed off their horses and walked them.

Otto Wegner rode up and dismounted.

"General Atkinson is going to encamp the rest of the army outside

Prophet's Town, sir," he said, giving Raoul his usual vigorous salute,

nearly dislodging the big hunting knife sheathed in a pocket of his

leather shirt.

Raoul returned the salute carelessly, went back to Banner and took

another swallow from the whiskey canteen.

Surprising that Atkinson should decide to set up camp here, when the day

was only half over. Well, Henry Atkinson had a reputation for going

slowly. Raoul had heard from friends among the regular officers that

Atkinson had already received a sharply worded letter from the Secretary

of War in Washington City reprimanding him for not moving fast enough to

crush the Indians.

_If I get a chance to take a crack at them I sure as hell won't be

slow._

The early arrivals already had their tents up. Officers' tents were of

white canvas, six feet from the ground to their peaked tops. Enlisted

men set up pup tents just large enough to cover two men lying down. Most

men didn't bother to carry tents and slept out in the open, rolled up in

the coarse blankets they all carried.

Men were wandering through Prophet's Town peering into the lodges. They

walked with slow caution, rifles ready.

Raoul watched Justus Bennett, in civilian life Smith County's land

commissioner, ordering two privates in buckskins and coonskin caps to

put up a tent for him. Bennett was always trying to make himself as

comfortable as possible. His packhorse carried his tenting, a big bag

full of fancy clothes, and a couple of heavy law books. Why on earth a

man would think he needed such things in the wilderness, Raoul had no

idea.

"Bennett!" Raoul called. "Take charge of the guard on those Indians."

Bennett looked annoyed, but gave some final instructions to the men

putting up his tent and slouched over to the four Indians. A

round-shouldered man of slight build, he looked decidedly unmilitary,

but he'd explained to Raoul that for anyone who wanted to get ahead in

politics, a war record would be a godsend.

Raoul called out, "Levi, you leave off guarding the Indians and get my

tent up."

A crowd of men had gathered in a circle around the Indians. Maybe they

wanted to give the redskins a few licks of their own.

"Afternoon, Colonel."

Raoul was used to looking down at other men, but he had to look up, a

little, at the man who addressed him. His skinniness was like Pierre's

in a way, but this man was a heap uglier than Raoul's brother had been.

He looked like a half-starved nag.

_I'll bet he trips all over himself when he walks, and when he rides he

drags his feet on the ground._

Raoul gestured to the seated Potawatomi. "You boys ever see Indians up

close before?"

"The way you've got them trussed up and guarded, Colonel," said the tall

man, "I'd say they must be pretty desperate characters."

Raoul heard the smile in the drawling voice and felt heat rising up the

back of his neck. He took a closer look at the man. He couldn't be much

over twenty, but he looked a well-worn twenty. A farmer's face,

darkened by the sun. The gray eyes, set in deep hollows under heavy

black brows, crinkled humorously. But Raoul saw cold judgment deeper in

those eyes.

Like most of the volunteers, the tall man wore civilian clothes. His

were gray trousers tucked into farmer's boots and a gray jacket over a

blue calico shirt printed with white flowers. An officer's saber hung

from a belt around his waist.

Raoul said, "Well, I reckon you signed up with the militia to fight

Indians, so take a good look at your enemy."

The tall man walked around to stand in front of Little Foot, hunkered

down and said, "Howdy."

Little Foot did not look back but gazed ahead with a blank face.

The lean man straightened up. "A mighty mean customer, sir."

Some of the other men in the ring around the Indians chuckled at this.

Even Justus Bennett snickered.

Raoul was feeling angrier and angrier. He had looked forward to

questioning Little Foot and the other Potawatomi, looked forward to

having them resist and to breaking their resistance down with fear and

pain. He'd even hoped they might give him reason to shoot them. These

strange militiamen were becoming a nuisance.

"You seem to think this is pretty funny. Who the hell are you?" Raoul

put a threat into his voice.

"I'm Captain Lincoln of the Sangamon County company, sir. We're with the

Second Battalion."

Raoul let his gaze travel over the other Sangamon County men.

"Any of the rest of you able to talk?"

One man laughed. "When Abe's around we mostly let him do the talking."

"That so? If you let somebody else do your talking for you, he may talk

you into a spot you won't like."

Abe said, "Oh, I always make sure I say what the men want said, sir."

That brought another laugh.

Raoul's anger at the Potawatomi found a new target in this bony

volunteer. The heat of the whiskey raced through his bloodstream.

There was one simple way to show this upstart who was master here, and

at the same time have his way with the redskins.

Raoul drew his pistol and hefted it in his hand.

The tall captain eyed Raoul warily and said nothing.

Raoul said, "I'm going to give this Potawatomi one more chance to tell

me now where Black Hawk went, and if he disobeys me again I'm going to

shoot him dead."

He stood before Little Foot and pointed the pistol at his head.

In Potawatomi he said, "Tell me what Black Hawk plans to do. Is he lying

in ambush farther up the trail? Does he have a secret camp for his

squaws and papooses? Tell me, or I will shoot you." Swinging the muzzle

of the pistol to the man in the blue turban beside Little Foot, he said,

"And then I will ask this man, and if he does not tell me, I will kill

him too."

The bony young man said, "With all due respect to your rank and

experience, sir, I must say that what you propose to do is wrong."

Raoul's rage threatened to boil over. Tension jerked his right arm. So

as not to risk wasting a shot, he took his finger off the trigger.

In a mild but somehow penetrating voice the Sangamon man said, "I'll

tell you why this is wrong, sir, if you'll allow me."

The man's politeness was infuriating. Raoul turned to him, letting the

pistol fall to his side.

"Go on, Captain. Preach to me."

"If you had a white prisoner at your mercy, you would not shoot him

because he refused to betray his comrades. You would think it honorable

in him to answer your questions with silence. But this red man is a

human being with the same God-given right to his life that you and I

have."

Raoul realized all at once that the lean captain's backwoods manner of

speaking had fallen away like an unneeded cloak. He sounded like a

lawyer or a minister.

"I was a prisoner of the Potawatomi for two years. I can tell you from

experience they're not human at all."

How angry Pierre had been when Raoul had said Indians were animals. But

it was true.

"They treated you badly? Made a slave of you?"

"Damned right."

The young captain looked calmly at Raoul. "If to hold slaves and treat

them badly marks a man as less than human, then you must so brand every

wealthy white man in the Southern states."

A few of the men standing around laughed. "That Abe! Got an answer for

everything."

Again Raoul's hand tightened convulsively on the pistol grip. He'd

wasted enough words on this walking skeleton from Sangamon County. He

was quivering with rage.

There was one quick way to put an end to the arguing.

He swung around and stepped close to Little Foot, holding his pistol

less than a foot from the red-turbaned head. With his left hand he

pulled the hammer back to half-cock, then full. The double click sounded

loud in a sudden, astonished silence.

And Little Foot's arms, unbound, shot up. Both his hands gripped the

barrel of the pistol and yanked it to one side. About to pull the

trigger, Raoul froze his finger as the muzzle was pulled aside from its

target.

--And knew with a sudden sinking of his heart what a deadly mistake he

had made in that instant.

The Potawatomi's powerful two-handed grip tore the pistol from his

fingers.

_I should have fired. Now I am a dead man._

Raoul saw a coil of rope lying on the ground beside Little Foot. The

Indian must have been working his wrists loose while everyone's

attention was on the argument.

Little Foot had already turned the loaded and cocked pistol around in

his hands and pointed it at Raoul's heart. Raoul stared into black eyes

that had no mercy for him.

A blurred figure seemed to fly across Raoul's vision.

The pistol went off with a boom.

Coughing, blinded, Raoul saw dimly through the gunsmoke that the skinny

captain had thrown himself at Little Foot and thrust the pistol aside.

Now Lincoln and Little Foot were wrestling, thrashing about like two

wild animals.

By the time the smoke had cleared, the lean man had full control. Little

Foot's ankles, Raoul saw, were still tied, and Lincoln's arms had snaked

up under the Indian's. The Sangamon County man's big hands were behind

Little Foot's head, pushing his chin down into his chest. His long legs

were wrapped around Little Foot's middle, holding him in a crushing

scissors grip.

Raoul stood shaking, his eyes watering from the faceful of powder smoke

he'd taken. His heart was pounding frantically against his breastbone.

"Nicely done, sir!" Justus Bennett said to Lincoln.

_And what the hell were you doing?_ Raoul thought, furious at Bennett.

With a trembling hand Raoul seized Bennett's pistol.

The four guards had their rifles pointed at Little Foot. Any one of them

could have saved Raoul's life by shooting, but none of them had reacted

quickly enough.

Only Lincoln had moved in time.

The lanky captain's comrades were cheering him. "Old Abe's the best

wrassler in this army, Colonel, and now you've seen it for yourself."

Raoul wiped his eyes and shouted, "Stand aside, Lincoln. Now I'm going

to blow this redskin's brains out." The quaver he heard in his own voice

made him even angrier.

From behind Little Foot came a calm response. "I'm going to ask you not

to do that, sir."

"He tried to kill me. Get up and stand aside, God damn you!"

"No, sir."

Lincoln did unwrap his arms from Little Foot's head and shoulders, but

still held him with his legs. The Indian sat motionless, as if his

effort to kill Raoul had taken the last of his strength. He muttered

under his breath. Probably his death song, Raoul thought.

Lincoln quickly retied the Indian, then stood up, placing himself

between Raoul and Little Foot. He held Raoul's empty pistol out to him,

butt first.

"Colonel, I believe you're a fair man, and you'll agree that I just

saved your life."

Raoul took his pistol and handed it to Armand, realizing that the tall

man was maneuvering him into a difficult position. Too many men had seen

what happened.

"Yes, you did save my life." The words hurt his throat, same as if that

pistol ball had hit him and lodged there. "And I thank you. You have my

most profound gratitude."

"That being so, and since I have done you what you might think a favor,

will you grant me a life for a life?"

For a moment Raoul could not think of anything to say or do.

All he had to do was shove this Lincoln aside, put the muzzle of his

pistol to Little Foot's head and pull the trigger.

He realized, too, that the longer he hesitated the more a fool he

looked.

What right did the skinny captain have to demand that he spare Little

Foot?

Raoul became aware that the crowd around them had grown to perhaps a

couple of hundred men. The ones he could see wore little half smiles.

Whoever came out the winner, they were having a fine old time watching.

Raoul was broader and maybe stronger than Lincoln. But how ridiculous he

would look if he had to fight the man to get past him to shoot Little

Foot.

And what if this bag of bones beat him?

_Old Abe's the best wrassler in this army, Colonel._

The truth was bitter as vinegar, but the only course that would preserve

his dignity would be to let Lincoln have his way.

"Ah, hell," he said loudly, and was pleased to hear that while he'd

stood silently thinking, his voice had regained its strength. "Sure,

I'll let the Indian live. He's nothing to me."

He noticed that his hand still shook a little as he gave Bennett's

pistol back to him. He took his own, reloaded, from Armand and holstered

it, hoping no one could see his tremor.

"My hand on it," he said, holding out his right hand, willing it to be

steady.

The grip that met his was crushing. Even though he'd seen the bony young

man immobilize Little Foot, Raoul was surprised.

He felt the men would expect him to do more to show his gratitude.

"Come and have a drink with me, Abe."

"My pleasure, sir."

Armand had finished putting Raoul's tent up. In the tent Armand uncorked

a jug and handed it to Raoul, who offered it to Lincoln. The young man

hooked his finger in the ring at the neck of the jug and raised it to

his mouth. Raoul watched the prominent Adam's apple rise and fall as he

took a long swallow.

"I normally don't touch whiskey, sir," Lincoln said, handing the jug

back to Raoul. "I've seen it ruin too many good men. But I do appreciate

this. It's not every day I grab a pistol as it goes off, wrestle an

Indian and disobey a colonel."

"Well, that's the best whiskey there is. Old Kaintuck--O.K."

"Three things Kentucky makes better than anyplace else," said Lincoln.

"Quilts, rifles and whiskey. I should know. That's where I hail from."

It was because of men like this, Raoul thought with some disdain, that

Illinoisians got their nickname, "Suckers." The weak shoots of the

tobacco plant that had to be stripped off and thrown away were called

suckers, and Illinois was said to be largely populated by ne'er-do-well

emigrants from tobacco-growing states like Kentucky.

"Then here's to Kentucky," said Raoul, loathing the tall, ugly man for

spoiling his revenge.

He lifted the jug to his lips and let the burning liquid roll over his

tongue and slide down his throat, grateful to it for the warmth that

would melt away the chill of death he still felt around his heart.

A few more swigs and Raoul found himself wanting to bring Lincoln around

to his way of thinking. The man, after all, _had_ saved his life.

"You know, you went to a whole lot of bother over that Indian now," he

said. "It's a waste of time. We're only going to have to kill them all

later anyway."

Lincoln winced, as if Raoul's words had hurt him. "Why do you say that,

sir?"

"I've got a big estate in Smith County, beside the Mississippi, miles

and miles of wonderful fertile land just begging for the plow. And too

much of it is growing nothing but prairie flowers, because I can't get

enough people to come and work it for me. They're afraid of Indians!"

"Treat the Indians fairly and there would be nothing to fear," said

Lincoln.

"Treat them fairly and they'll just continue to attack our settlements."

"I'd like to think you're wrong, Mr. de Marion."

"Why the hell did you volunteer for the militia, if you don't like

killing Indians?"

Lincoln smiled faintly. "Well, a war record won't hurt when I make a run

for the legislature."

Just another slimy politician. Same as Bennett.

A bluebelly, a blue-uniformed officer of the Federal army, pushed

through the tent flap. He doffed his tall, cylindrical shako.

"General Atkinson's compliments, Colonel de Marion. We're breaking camp

and moving on up the Rock River in pursuit of Black Hawk and his band.

And he asks you to once again take up the lead position."

"How does the general know where the Sauk are?" he asked irritably.

"A couple of Winnebago known to the general came into camp and offered

to guide us, sir. They say Black Hawk and the Winnebago Prophet are

leading their people upriver to try to persuade the Potawatomi to join

them. Black Hawk's whole band, except for the warriors, are on foot. The

general thinks that if we ride hard we can catch them."

Lincoln held out his hand and shook again with Raoul.

"Thank you for the whiskey, sir."

"Thank you for turning that pistol aside."

Lincoln grinned. "Colonel, thank _you_ for sparing that red man. I'll be

going now, or by the time we finish thanking each other, Black Hawk will

be in Checagou."

When Raoul emerged from his tent he saw that the Potawatomi prisoners

were gone. He felt a surge of fury that someone had turned them loose

without his permission. He still longed to put a ball into the skull of

that sneaking Little Foot.

_The next Indian who falls into my hands won't be so lucky._

By the time the men of his spy battalion had struck their tents and

mounted up, he had decided on half a loaf of revenge. Seated on Banner,

he held up a burning stick.

"All right, men, the Winnebago who lived here have joined up with Black

Hawk. They're running ahead of us. Let's not leave them anything to come

back to."

He drew his arm back and snapped it forward. The torch flew end over end

and landed on the bark roof of the nearest Winnebago lodge. A circle of

orange flame spread out quickly. It was still raining, but not enough to

slow the fire down much.

Raoul's men whooped. Eli and Armand led the way in hurling flaming

sticks into the dark brown Indian huts.

Armand, grinning, handed Raoul a long pole he'd pulled loose from the

wall of a lodge, afire at one end. Waving his broad-brimmed hat, Raoul

rode through the town touching the burning pole to the flimsy wall of

each lodge he passed. The men of the battalion scattered, setting fires

everywhere. Beyond the town the remaining militiamen stopped breaking

camp to watch.

Soon, the roar of the burning lodges thundered in Raoul's ears like a

big waterfall.

If they could catch Black Hawk, he thought, what glory that would be. No

matter how many fighting men Black Hawk had, Raoul felt sure his

battalion could crush them. The burning lodges, the whiskey in his

blood, the hatred in his heart, all ran together so that Raoul felt like

a prairie fire racing after the British Band.

14

First Blood

White Bear tried to think only about guiding his brown-spotted white

pony over the grasslands and watching his two companions. He tried to

put fear out of his mind.

_I did not even have a chance to say good-bye to Redbird._

Redbird was a day's ride up the Rock River from here, at the camp the

Potawatomi had allowed Black Hawk's people to set up. White Bear's body

went cold with the thought that he might be killed today, and she be

left alone and pursued by enemies.

_I should have asked Wolf Paw to be her protector if I die. He hates me,

but he cares for Redbird._

It was for Redbird and Eagle Feather, and for the baby growing inside

Redbird, that he was risking his life today. His family was going

hungry. It had been over six weeks, by pale eyes reckoning, since Black

Hawk had led them across the Great River into Illinois. White Bear and

Redbird, like other British Band families, could carry little food with

them, and most of that was gone. With the long knives pressing behind

them, White Bear had no time to hunt or fish, nor Redbird to gather food

from the woodlands.

She must not go without food, especially not while carrying their child.

The children of the British Band walked about hollow-eyed; the crying of

hungry babies rose from every part of the camp. Old people, looking

nearly dead, lay on the ground trying to husband their strength.

At a secret meeting last night the Potawatomi chiefs, despite Flying

Cloud's prophecy, had refused to join Black Hawk in fighting the long

knives or even to give his people supplies or let them remain long in

Potawatomi territory. Black Hawk himself had been forced to admit that

the only way to spare the band further hardship would be to go quietly

back across the Great River.

To do that, he had to make peace with the long knives. Frightened though

he was, White Bear, as the only member of the tribe who spoke fluent

English, felt he must go with Black Hawk's emissaries.

White Bear's shoulders slumped in discouragement as he thought how Black

Hawk and the rest of the band had been led astray. _No_ other tribes

were willing to ally themselves with the British Band. There had been

_no_ truth at all to the Winnebago Prophet's talk of aid from the

British in Canada.

A delegation headed by Broth, the tribe's best speaker, had gone to the

British fort at Malden, near Detroit, to ask for help. They had been

sent back with the advice that the Sauk had better learn to live in

peace with the Americans.

The people of Prophet's Town had left their homes with Black Hawk's band

more out of fear of the oncoming long knives than out of a desire to

help Black Hawk fight for Saukenuk. As Black Hawk's prospects worsened,

most of them drifted away, even though the Prophet himself remained at

Black Hawk's side.

Black Hawk had believed the Prophet because his promises gave the

British Band the courage to defy the long knives. To White Bear's

disgust, even now, when it was clear that Flying Cloud had simply made

it all up, Black Hawk had forgiven the Prophet.

White Bear burned with resentment.

_They mocked me when I told them the truth. That fat, posturing toad

lied to them and they still honor him. Surely a false shaman is the

worst kind of liar._

White Bear rode on Little Crow's right. As the oldest of the three men,

Little Crow carried the white flag. Torn from a sheet the braves had

found in a settler's hastily abandoned cabin, the flag was tied to a

spear shaft from which the head had been removed. On Little Crow's left

rode Three Horses.

Since they were not riding into battle, they had not taken any of the

saddles with stirrups from the band's supply but were mounted with only

blankets between themselves and the horses' backs. The three of them

had painted their faces black, because they might be going to their

deaths. But it was hard to believe that men might be killed on this

beautiful afternoon in the middle of the Moon of Buds. A warm breeze

blew over White Bear's bare chest and arms. Red, blue and yellow prairie

flowers scattered over the land, as uncountable as the stars, delighted

his eye in spite of his fear. All around him he heard red-winged

blackbirds singing their spring challenges.

White Bear had left with Owl Carver everything he valued: his medicine

stick, his Sauk medicine bag and his other bag of pale eyes' medical

instruments, his megis-shell necklace, his brass and silver ornaments,

his _Paradise Lost_, the deerhorn-handled knife his father had long ago

given him. He had nothing with him but the clothing he wore, fringed

buckskin leggings and a buckskin vest decorated with blue and green

quillwork in diamond patterns.

He looked back and saw five mounted braves an arrow flight behind him on

the prairie. Even from this distance he could tell that the tall one in

the middle was Iron Knife. They would watch from hiding and would report

back to Black Hawk how the long knives treated his peace messengers.

Black Hawk himself, with Owl Carver, the Winnebago Prophet, Wolf Paw and

about forty braves, waited a few miles farther up the Rock River at the

place where he had met with the Potawatomi chiefs.

White Bear saw a small stand of woods ahead. Scouts had reported that

beyond those woods, across Old Man's Creek, the long knives had set up

camp. Glowing from behind young green leaves, set aflutter by the

breeze, the setting sun dropped flecks of gold onto the blackened faces

of White Bear's two companions. It would be almost nightfall by the time

they encountered the long knives.

Three Horses said, "A man must be more brave, I think, to do this than

to ride up to an enemy in battle and strike the first blow at him." His

nose curved inward where the bridge should have been. White Bear had

learned that a Sioux war club had done that to him while Auguste was

studying Latin and geometry at St. George's School.

"I would much rather be fighting the long knives than trying to make

peace with them," said Little Crow. "I do not trust them."

White Bear tried to reassure them and himself. "We must do this. It is

the only way we can get our people safely back across the Great River."

Little Crow said, "It seems you were right and we who wanted to take up

the tomahawk were wrong."

In spite of his fear, White Bear felt a satisfied glow at Little Crow's

words. Little Crow had been the one who brought the woman's dress that

Wolf Paw had put on him that wretched night of the council.

_They did not listen to me that night. The Turtle told me I would not be

able to persuade the people not to cross the Great River, but I tried my

best._

They entered the wood by way of a narrow trail, riding single file.

Little Crow lowered the white flag to keep it from getting caught in the

branches.

As they rode among the trees, the tightness of fear in White Bear's

chest and stomach grew worse, until he had to struggle for breath. His

palms sweat so much, the reins were slippery in his hands.

He turned and waved farewell to Iron Knife and the four other braves

following them, who had halted their ponies at the edge of the woods and

dismounted. They waved back. A moment more and White Bear looked back

and could see them no more.

_At least if I die today Iron Knife can tell Redbird how it came about._

He tried to guess how the long knives would greet them. They might shoot

them down in spite of the white flag. He hoped they would be glad to

learn that Black Hawk wanted to surrender and return in peace to Ioway.

After all, that was what they were trying to force him to do, was it

not? But some of the long knives, undoubtedly, wanted to kill "Injuns."

Men like Raoul.

When they came out of the south edge of the woods, they found themselves

on a grassy rise sloping down to a winding stream called Old Man's

Creek. The sun was lower now and directly in White Bear's eyes. Across

the creek was a sight that made him want to jerk his pony's head around

and ride back into the trees as fast as he could go.

On high ground he saw the silhouettes of peaked tents and many men, some

on horseback and some on foot, rifles in hand. The smoke of campfires

drifted like gray feathers into the pale blue sky. He heard voices

calling to one another in English. One man shouted and pointed in their

direction.

White Bear said, "Don't wait here at the edge of the trees, or they will

think we are attackers. Ride forward slowly, waving the flag."

The men across the creek were yelling excitedly now. Rifle fire crackled

and smoke billowed. A ball whizzed past White Bear and cracked a tree

limb behind him. He held himself rigid.

Long knives rode toward them, urging their horses down the far side of

the creekbank. White Bear and his companions rode into the creek to meet

them.

In a moment bearded white faces, angry eyes, coonskin caps and straw

hats were whirling about the three emissaries in the middle of the

creek. Rifles and pistols were pointing at them from every side. Little

Crow, his face tight, held the white flag high with both hands.

"We surrender!" White Bear shouted. "We are not armed. We have come to

talk to General Atkinson."

"Listen to that, he's talking English," a blond boy exclaimed.

Another man yelled, "Shoot 'em. Then let 'em surrender."

White Bear's knees trembled against his horse's flanks. These were not

regular U.S. government soldiers, but the volunteers, the armed settlers

who had come out in answer to their governor's call. They would not wait

for orders from their commanders. They would do whatever they felt like

doing.

A red-bearded man stuck his face in White Bear's. "Get down off that

horse, Injun! Now!" His shout blew a stink of whiskey into White Bear's

face.

Others joined the outcry. "Get off them horses!"

"Ought to put a bullet in them right here in the creek."

"Look at them black faces. I thought they was niggers at first."

"Not even useful like niggers, damn redskins."

The man with the red beard grabbed White Bear's arm and jerked him half

out of his saddle. White Bear slid down from his horse.

He stood up to his knees in the cold, rushing water of Old Man's Creek.

"We want to surrender," he said again. "We want to talk to your

officers."

"Just shut up!" the red-bearded man roared, eyes rolling drunkenly.

White Bear felt a man grab him from behind. A rope scratched his wrists

and tightened around them till the bones were crushed together.

He turned to see whether Little Crow and Three Horses were all right.

The militiamen had bound them too. Both braves' black-painted faces were

expressionless, but White Bear read fear in their eyes and in the set of

their mouths--the same fear he felt, and tried not to show.

The red-bearded man leaned down from his saddle and grabbed a handful of

White Bear's long hair. He jerked on it, dragging White Bear toward the

bank. White Bear stumbled on the stony creekbed, bruising his feet

through his moccasins.

"You wanna see our officers? Then step along!"

What had happened to the white flag? Without it, what did they have to

show that they had come in peace?

"Will you bring our white flag?" he called desperately to a clean-shaven

man wearing spectacles, who looked a little calmer than the others.

The man's face twisted into a snarl, and White Bear's heart fell.

"You'll get your white flag up your ass, redskin!"

"You sound just like a white man," said another militiaman. "You sure

you ain't a white man in paint?"

"Listen to me," White Bear said hopelessly. He wanted to say, _If we

don't fight it will save your lives as well as ours._ But how could he

talk to these men, maddened by whiskey and war? His eyes met those of

Little Crow and Three Horses. Again the red-bearded man jerked his hair,

so hard White Bear thought he would pull it out of his scalp. He had to

bite his lip to keep from crying out. Worse than the pain was the

indignity.

Horses splashing water, mud and pebbles on them, long knives shouting

curses and threats, the three Sauk stumbled out of the creek and through

shoulder-high prairie grass into the militia camp.

The sun's last rays fell on flushed, sweating white faces, on glistening

rifle barrels. To White Bear, most of the men looked younger than he.

"Somebody get the colonel," said the man with the red beard. "Tell him

they claim they want to surrender. Might be we could catch old Black

Hawk himself."

The three Sauks' only hope, White Bear thought, was that the commanding

officer might be more willing to listen to them than his men were.

The Sauk and their captors stood in a circle where the grass had been

trampled flat. A short distance away stood supply wagons and tents. The

prairie surrounded them.

Some militiamen went to one wagon on which five kegs with spouts stood,

filled tin cups from the kegs and drank from them. Whiskey, White Bear

thought, seemed to be as important to these men as food.

The sun was down now, and the three stood in twilight, in the midst of

the shouting mob.

"Look alive, you men! It's the colonel!"

The crowd opened up, and two men came through.

One of them, short, skinny, wearing a coonskin cap and a blue officer's

coat, came up to White Bear and peered at him.

"I know you!"

Half his teeth were rotten and the rest were missing. White Bear knew

him too. Eli Greenglove.

"By God, Raoul! I'll be a son of a bitch if it ain't that half-breed

nephew of yours."

And there stood Raoul de Marion, gold epaulets glittering on his broad

shoulders.

At the sight of that broad face with the black mustache, last seen

looking at him over a pistol barrel, White Bear knew his life was about

to end.

_Could my luck be any worse?_

All hope vanished as light faded from the sky.

Raoul stood before White Bear with his thumbs hooked into the white

leather belt that cinched his blue uniform coat. His huge knife--the one

that had cut White Bear's face years ago--hung at his left side, a

pistol at his right. He grinned at White Bear.

"Well. I was hoping to meet you. I'd have liked it better on the field

of battle, but here you are, in my camp. What were you doing, spying on

us?"

White Bear sighed. Something crumbled inside him.

"Do you know this long knife?" Little Crow said in Sauk.

"Yes, he is my father's brother." A glimmer of hope appeared in Little

Crow's eyes, but vanished when White Bear added, "And he is my worst

enemy."

"Talk English around me!" Raoul shouted. "No Indian jabber."

"Black Hawk sent us," White Bear said. "He doesn't want to fight. We've

come to make peace."

"The hell with that!" one of Raoul's men yelled. "We come out to fight

Injuns."

"Well, hold on now!" cried another. "If they come peaceable, that means

we can all go home and nobody hurt."

Raoul turned on the man. "I'll be the one to decide why they're here."

White Bear realized that the men with Raoul were barely under his

control. There was no hope of talking to Raoul, but there might be

others in this crowd, like the man who had just spoken, who would

listen. He must keep trying.

Raising his voice White Bear said, "Chief Black Hawk knows you

militiamen outnumber his warriors. He doesn't want to fight you. All he

wants is to be allowed to go back down the Rock River and cross the

Mississippi. He will never come back."

"Where'd that black-faced redskin learn to speak English so good?" one

of the militiamen said.

"He's a renegade," said Raoul. "A part-white mongrel. He ought to be

hanged as a traitor. Don't believe a word he says."

"They did come with a white flag," one of the men said.

"White flag, hell!" Raoul shouted. "They're trying to put us off guard."

He swept a pointing finger across a group of men that included

brown-bearded Armand Perrault. Among them White Bear recognized Levi

Pope and Otto Wegner, the thick-mustached Prussian who worked at the

trading post. He remembered Wegner had not wanted to kill him when Raoul

offered a reward for his death, and he felt a little tremor of hope.

"Get on your horses," Raoul told his men. "Go out across the creek and

look. If you don't find Indians skulking about in those woods, I'll be

mighty surprised."

As Raoul's men rode off, White Bear was torn by indecision. Should he

tell Raoul that other braves had followed them here, to see how they

were treated? Or would that just endanger the lives of Iron Knife and

the others?

_He'll use everything I tell him against me._

Raoul's eyes stared death at White Bear. "Black Hawk's a damn liar. He's

broken every treaty we ever made with you people. There's only one way

to deal with your kind. If you can't be trusted to keep treaties, you

have to be exterminated." He drew his pistol.

"Starting here."

_Bear spirit, walk with me on the Trail of Souls._

Little Crow said, "What do they say, White Bear? Are they going to kill

us?"

"It is our fate to have fallen into the hands of a bad man," said White

Bear. Having to tell them hurt him all the more. It grieved him that

these two good men must die along with him, their lives thrown away

because of a bit of bad luck.

"We were fools to come here," said Three Horses.

"Not fools--braves," White Bear reassured him. "A man who gives his life

to protect his people is never a fool. Whether or not he succeeds."

"You _are_ a prophet, White Bear," said Little Crow.

Raoul was staring at White Bear's chest. White Bear wondered if his

heart was beating so hard that Raoul could see it hammering.

"Look at those scars. Looks like a bear tried to get you a long time

ago. Too bad he didn't finish you, would have saved me the trouble."

White Bear would not talk about anything sacred with Raoul. He looked

back at him silently.

"Guess you don't know all there is to know about your nephew," Eli

Greenglove laughed.

"Don't call him my nephew!" Raoul shouted.

White Bear saw some of Raoul's men exchange befuddled glances.

"Well, whatever he is, I kind of think we ought to send him and these

others back down the line. Let them palaver with the general. It ain't

for us to decide."

"What the hell do you mean?" Raoul thundered.

The popping of rifle fire on the other side of Old Man's Creek cut short

the argument. White Bear turned to look.

A moment later Perrault, his horse's legs dripping creek water, came

pounding up.

"You were right, mon colonel," he panted. "Those woods are full of

Indians. They were sneaking up on the camp."

"These three were supposed to distract us with peace talk while the

others snuck up on us," Raoul shouted to his men. "First we'll shoot

these Indians. Then we'll hunt down the rest of them."

"It wasn't an ambush!" White Bear cried. "There were only five of them,

and they were just there to see what happened to us."

"Well, why didn't you tell us they were out there?" Raoul said, smiling.

"We'd have invited them in for a whiskey."

The coonskin-capped men standing near him guffawed.

Raoul's lips stretched in a grimace. "Eli, Armand, let's shoot these

three redskins."

Greenglove said, "Raoul--Colonel--I still say you ought to think this

over."

"Shut up and do what I say!" Raoul growled. "I want to get this done and

ride after those other Indians."

Men were running for their horses and leaping into the saddle

brandishing rifles. Without leaders or orders, they rode off across the

creek with drunken whoops in the direction Armand had pointed out.

White Bear felt sick as he saw that many of the men who remained were

grinning avidly. How, he wondered, could their deaths give such pleasure

to these men?

Desperate to find help, he searched the ring of men surrounding him for

a face to appeal to. It was already too dark to see expressions clearly.

Hopelessness turned his heart to lead as he saw Otto Wegner turn and

walk away from the crowd. Even though Wegner had always been Raoul's man

and never a friend of his, he felt betrayed.

"All right," said Raoul, staring into White Bear's eyes. "I'll shoot the

mongrel. Eli, you shoot the short one with the flat nose. Armand, you

take the other one."

"'Vec plaisir," said Armand, his teeth showing white in his brown beard

as he brought his rifle up to his shoulder.

White Bear felt the clench of nausea in his middle. Only pride kept him

from doubling up and vomiting in his terror.

"Don't do this, please," he cried. "We came to you to make peace."

"They mean to kill us," said Little Crow. "Talk no more to them, White

Bear. Do not plead. It is unbecoming a Sauk." White Bear felt a rush of

admiration for the strength and calm in Little Crow's voice. Here,

truly, was a brave.

Little Crow raised his voice in song.

"In your brown blanket, O Earthmaker,

Wrap your son and carry him away.

Fold him again in your body.

Let his bones turn to rocks,

Let his flesh turn to grass.

Give his eyes to the birds,

Give his ears to the deer.

Grow flowers from his heart."

White Bear and Three Horses joined in. There was nothing else to do.

White Bear wanted to die singing, not weeping.

What a miserable death this was, even so! And still, he found that the

song made his heart feel strong and his terror give way to a stern

anger. Murdered because of the simple, stupid bad luck that Raoul's band

of militiamen happened to be the advance guard of the long knives.

Surrounded by drunken savages--yes, they were the savages, not himself

and Three Horses and Little Crow.

Infuriating to think of the love and education his father had lavished

on him, all wasted now. All the years of following the shaman's path,

ended by a lead ball. Before he had accomplished anything.

And Redbird and Eagle Feather and the baby to come-- If not for them he

might accept the inevitable. Step onto the Trail of Souls with grace and

dignity. But, even more for their sake than for his own, he did not want

to die.

Frantic with fear and anger, he looked for a way of escape. The camp was

in the midst of prairie grass almost as high as a man's head. The sun

had gone down, and twilight was deepening. But Raoul was walking toward

him, holding his pistol high. And beyond him, between White Bear and the

grass, was a ring of men with rifles.

All that was left for him was to die with honor.

He raised his voice to sing louder.

_I must put all my strength into this. It is the last song I will sing

on earth._

"Stop that goddamned caterwauling!" Raoul shouted.

White Bear watched numbly as Armand Perrault brought his rifle to his

shoulder, stepped up to Little Crow, put the muzzle of the rifle to the

brave's head and pulled the trigger. The flint clicked down and

sparked, and powder sizzled in the pan. The rifle went off with a roar,

enveloping the brave's head in a pink cloud of smoke, blood, bits of

flesh and bone.

White Bear staggered backward, dizzy with shock and terror.

Three Horses shouted, "I will not die so!" He jerked free from the men

who were holding him and plunged into the grass, hands still bound

behind him. He ran toward the Rock River.

Rifles boomed.

In his panic, White Bear felt as if all the breath had been knocked out

of him. Three Horses might have a chance. He was a short man, and the

grass was tall. And light was fading moment by moment.

If White Bear stood where he was an instant longer he would be dead.

This was his only chance. No one was holding him. No one was even

pointing a gun at him. All of them, even Raoul, were staring after Three

Horses. Many of the men had fired and would need time to reload.

Every muscle in his body quivered. He jerked his hands. The rope was

still tight around his wrists. Running would be awkward. But Three

Horses had shown that it could be done.

_Run!_

White Bear heard the voice in his mind. His own voice or the Bear

spirit's? It did not matter.

He ran.

He threw all the strength in his legs into a sudden spring, away from

the distracted long knives. He dove into the grass, running away from

the river; opposite the way Three Horses had gone. With his arms behind

him, he ran with his head and shoulders thrust forward. The grasses and

tall plants slapped his face. His feet pounded the earth. His legs

pumped furiously. His breath roared in his chest. His heart thundered.

"Hey, the other Injun's gettin' away!"

"Goddamn it, _get_ him!" Raoul's voice, shrill with wild rage.

White Bear's moccasined feet seemed to be flying over the ground. He

felt the Bear spirit giving him strength. A curtain of prairie grass

fell away ahead of him and swished shut behind him. Even the grass was

helping. It was almost high enough to hide him as he ran in a crouch, as

his bound wrists forced him to do.

He was already deep into the prairie when he heard the calm voice of Eli

Greenglove cutting through the cool, clear air.

"Hold your fire, everybody. He's mine. Got a bead on him."

A moment later lightning struck the side of White Bear's head, sudden

and stunning. He heard the rifle's roar just an instant after the bullet

hit him. It struck so hard, it left him no strength to scream. His right

ear felt as if it had been torn away from his skull. A blaze of agony

blinded him. He staggered.

But he was alive.

_Play dead!_

It was the same voice in his mind that had told him to run. Now he was

sure it was the Bear spirit.

He shut his eyes, threw himself at once to the ground. The earth came up

and hit him in the face as hard as a fist in the jaw. Stunned for a

moment, he sucked air into his chest and let it out slowly. He lay

perfectly still. His ear felt as if someone had laid a burning torch on

it.

"Got the sonofabitch," came Eli Greenglove's flat voice from only a

short distance away.

But he was still alive. And no one was shooting at him. His body went

limp with relief.

He could not believe that he was still alive and conscious.

_Maybe I am dead. Maybe my spirit will stand up in a moment and start

walking west._

Greenglove was supposed to be the best shot in Smith County. Could he

really mistakenly think he hit White Bear square in the head? His eyes

were better than that.

White Bear heard distant shots.

_Earthmaker, let Three Horses live!_

If Three Horses had not run when he did, White Bear would not be alive

now. But White Bear remembered with anguish that he had seen Little Crow

die.

_Oh, my brother!_ Even though half dead with pain and terror himself, he

mourned the brave who had died before his eyes.

Blood pounded in White Bear's head. Night was growing steadily deeper.

By not moving and by taking only the tiniest breaths he might appear to

be dead. He lay with his mutilated right ear uppermost. He felt streams

of blood running like lines of ants over his scalp and his cheek. They

tickled his neck. To lie perfectly still was agony.

White Bear heard Raoul's voice say, "Make sure of him, Eli."

"Damn hellfire nation!" Eli came back. "Don't I know when I've put a man

under?"

"It's dark and you've had a lot of whiskey. Make sure of him."

"Pure waste of time," said Greenglove.

White Bear heard footsteps rustling through the grass toward him. The

effort of keeping himself from moving threatened to tear his muscles

from his bones. His heart beat harder as the steps came closer. Surely

Greenglove could hear its thudding. But he froze himself and held his

breath as the feet stopped beside him. In stillness was his only hope.

The pain throbbed in his ear.

_He'll see that he just hit my ear, and that will be the end._

Should he jump up and run for it? No, Greenglove would not miss a second

time. Let the Bear spirit dim Greenglove's sharp eyes. Let him be

deceived into thinking White Bear dead. There was no other way he could

escape.

He waited for the shot that would smash into his brain.

"Right through the skull," Greenglove called out. "Ain't even enough

left to scalp him."

Amazement flooded through White Bear. That couldn't be what Greenglove

saw. Unless he was blind drunk. Or blinded by the Bear.

_Or he doesn't want to kill me._

Hadn't he tried to talk Raoul out of shooting the three of them?

White Bear remembered Greenglove swinging the rifle at him the day of

his father's funeral. If Greenglove hadn't knocked him out, Raoul would

have shot him.

He was too frightened to try to understand it. He was alive, that was

all he could be sure of. Alive for a little while longer.

"He's in the happy hunting ground." Greenglove's voice faded a little as

he walked away. "Want us to dig a hole for him?"

"We don't bury dead Indians," said Raoul. "Let them rot. Let the

buzzards get fat on them." He raised his voice. "Every man mount up and

chase the ones there in the woods across the creek. This may be our

chance to finish Black Hawk."

"What happened to that other Injun that ran away?" Greenglove asked.

"We got him," a militiaman said. "He made it almost to the river. But

he's got enough lead in him now to start his own mine."

Grief filled White Bear's motionless body. Little Crow and Three Horses,

both killed. Three Horses' death had given him back his life. Three

Horses, the first Sauk to greet him on his return to the tribe. His two

comrades surely deserved to escape death as much as he did. Why had he

alone been spared? He wanted to cry out, as sorrow for his fallen

comrades tore into him, but he drew in his lower lip. He bit down on it

hard, clenching his teeth in his flesh until he felt no pain anywhere

else, in mind or body.

_Good-bye, Three Horses. Good-bye, Little Crow. I will burn tobacco to

the spirits for you._

Boots clumped through the prairie grass all around him. Hoof-beats

pounded past him. He feared he would be trampled, and it took

back-breaking effort to hold still. But the horses avoided his body.

Gradually the thundering passage of Raoul's men died away to the north.

* * * * *

For a long time White Bear heard nothing but the creek rippling over its

bed of stones, the wind in the trees, crickets buzzing on the prairie.

Tiny creatures tickled his flesh as they hurried over his face and body.

To them he had already become part of the earth.

The burning in his ear settled down to a numb ache.

He heard the crack of rifle shots a long way off. Raoul's men, pursuing

Black Hawk's scouts. Must more of his brothers die tonight?

He opened his eyes. It was now very dark; full night had fallen. He was

lying on his left side in tall grass. He took a chance and raised his

head a little way. Raoul had said he wanted no men to stay behind, but

there might be someone about.

He dropped his head and tensed his hands and arms. The rope around his

wrists had loosened. He could twist his wrists till the fingers of his

right hand reached the knot. Pale eyes knew little about tying secure

knots. After working patiently for a long time he freed his hands.

He still felt sick with grief, and did not have the strength to move

away from this place where his comrades had died. Why not just lie here

and wait for the long knives to come back and kill him?

But he thought of Redbird and Eagle Feather. And the fullness that had

appeared in Redbird's belly before they crossed the Great River from

Ioway to Illinois. Using his knees and elbows to push himself through

the grass, he began to crawl.

Slithering like a snake, his body and limbs flat to the ground, he

wriggled along the edge of the creek till he felt sure any men that

might be nearby could not see him; then he slid down the embankment. The

side of his head throbbed with every movement.

He crossed the creek on all fours, the rocks biting into his palms and

knees. Where the swift, cold water was deepest he lowered his head into

the water to wash it. Agony exploded in his brain and he came close to

fainting. But he forced the muscles of his neck to raise his head, and

his arms and legs to push him along, out of the creek.

Soon he was in the shelter of the woods. He stood up and staggered

through the shrubbery. Now that he was safer, the pain in his torn right

ear pounded harder than ever.

He remembered that Raoul and his hundreds of mounted long knives had

ridden toward the place where Black Hawk, with only forty braves, was

waiting to learn how his peace emissaries fared.

He had stayed alive so far by luck, but he had no real hope of escaping

to his people. Probably some of the long knives who had ridden out with

Raoul would come across him, and that would be the end. As he neared the

farther edge of the woods, a newly risen half-moon, like a white wickiup

in a black field, shone at him through the trees ahead.

He was about to step out on the prairie when he heard the rumble of

hooves coming toward him. He stopped in the shelter of the trees. He

heard shots, screams of pain and terror.

Against the lighter prairie grass, men on horseback were dark shapes

rushing at him from the horizon.

Their voices were high-pitched, fearful. They were crying out in

English.

"Make a stand in the woods!"

"No! There's too many of them!"

"Just keep a-running. Follow the river."

White Bear looked about for a hiding place. The moon showed him that he

was standing beside a big old oak, with branches low enough for him to

jump to.

_Grandfather Oak, will you shelter me?_

Just before he jumped for a branch he noticed that a hollow had rotted

out in the base of the tree. It was big enough for him to hide in, but

then he would be on the same level as the militiamen. Safer up high.

He forced his tired legs to spring, managed to grip the lowest limb, one

hand on each side of it, bark scratching his palms. He pressed the soles

of his moccasins flat against the trunk and walked his body up, panting,

until he was able to pull himself up over the limb and reach for the

next one. The branches were stout and close together, and soon he was

high above the floor of the wood.

_You made a ladder for me. Thank you, Grandfather Oak._

Dozens of mounted militiamen were streaming past his tree, galloping

right under him. The hoofbeats of the horses and the shouts of the men

to one another, pitched high with terror, shattered the night air.

He saw the black shapes of more horses and riders swimming through the

prairie grass. Their elated cries were Sauk war whoops.

The braves of his tribe, racing toward him as if to rescue him. A sun

rose in his breast.

Rifles boomed and arrows whistled through the air after the fleeing

militiamen, and he was thankful that he was up this high. He heard

screams. Somewhere nearby a body crashed into shrubbery.

Some long knives, he saw, were trying to go around the woods, but the

greater distance they had to travel gave the Sauk riders time to catch

up with them. Rifle shots flashed like lightning in the darkness.

Two shadowy figures on foot, so close together they seemed one, stumbled

out of the tall grass and pushed their way into the woods, careless of

the noise they were making. White Bear held his breath, hoping they

would not discover him above them.

A voice below him said, "You got to keep going. They'll catch you and

tomahawk you sure."

Now the two men were standing by the tree in which he had taken shelter.

He strained his ears to listen.

"Save yourself," said another voice, rasping with pain. "I cannot run.

The arrow is under my kneecap. I will stay here and try to hold them

off."

_I know that voice, that accent. It is the Prussian, Otto Wegner._

White Bear remembered how Wegner had disappointed him back at Raoul's

camp. Now his life was in danger; he deserved that.

"Hold them off? There's hunnerds of them." He'd heard the other man's

voice before, but he sounded like so many long knives, White Bear could

not be sure that he knew him.

"Well, maybe if I shoot a few of them, you can get away."

At that White Bear felt anger heating up in his chest. So Wegner would

like to shoot a few Indians, would he? Being willing to stay and fight

while his comrade got away, though--that was worthy of respect.

"Damn! I don't like leaving you, Otto."

"You have a wife and children."

"So do you."

"But you have a chance to get away. I don't. What good is it, two of us

dead? Go!"

White Bear heard a sigh. "All right. Here's all my powder and shot. I

ain't planning to stop to use them. Remember, keep your head low so you

can see them above the horizon. If they ain't wearing hats, you can

figger they're Injuns."

"Please, Levi, my wife and my children, tell how I died."

That was who the other man was--Levi Pope, another of Raoul's men.

"I'll tell them you was brave. Make sure they don't catch you alive,

Otto. You know what Injuns do to white people. Use your last bullet on

yourself."

White Bear felt his cheeks burn with shame. For himself, the idea of

torturing a prisoner was unthinkable, and he did not believe Black Hawk

would allow it. But he could not be sure. Many men and women of the

British Band, he supposed, would enjoy making one of the dreaded long

knives suffer.

White Bear heard Pope scurry off through the brush while Wegner, gasping

with pain, settled himself in position at the base of the tree.

The boom of Wegner's rifle below him so startled White Bear that he

almost fell from his perch. He heard an agonized cry from out on the

prairie, saw a brave fall from a horse.

_He killed one of my brothers. I can't let this happen._

He heard quick, metallic sounds of clicking and scraping below him, the

sounds of a man loading his rifle.

_In a moment another Sauk warrior will fall._

The racking grief White Bear had felt since the deaths of Little Crow

and Three Horses changed all at once into a whirlwind of rage. He

remembered Little Crow, bound and helpless, his head blown apart. He

pictured Three Horses' body, torn by bullets. In his whole life up to

now he had never killed a man, but surely now, after what he had

suffered and seen, he had to kill.

_Kill him how? He is armed and I am not._

But Wegner was in dire pain. White Bear could jump out of the tree on

the Prussian's back and bring his foot down hard on the knee with the

arrow in it. That should hurt Wegner enough to loosen his grip on his

rifle, so that White Bear could get it away from him and shoot him with

it or smash his skull.

More Sauk braves were riding closer, and Wegner must be taking aim in

the darkness down there. White Bear scrambled down the ladder of tree

limbs he had climbed.

As he reached the lowest limb, moonlight showed Wegner rolling over, his

eyes gleaming. The rifle barrel swung toward him.

_He heard me._

White Bear leaped.

The flash blinded him for an instant. In a suffocating cloud of powder

smoke he hit Wegner's chest with knees and hands, an impact that knocked

the breath from him. Wegner screamed in pain, a high, womanish sound

that made White Bear's ears ring more than the shot had.

The Prussian, under him, battered him with the rifle, trying to turn it

so that he could hit him with the butt. White Bear had both hands on the

stock, and tried to kick Wegner's knee as their bodies bucked and

thrashed at the base of the oak.

White Bear remembered that militiamen often carried hunting knives in

shirt pockets. Gripping Wegner's rifle with one hand, he reached down

the front of the Prussian's leather jacket. Wegner's eyes widened in

fear, and he thrust frantically with his rifle. White Bear felt the

handle of a knife and pulled it free. The broad steel blade twinkled,

reflecting moon and stars.

Now. One thrust into his enemy's throat.

White Bear slid the point under the bandanna around Wegner's neck and

pressed it into the soft place just above the collarbone. The man's eyes

seemed about to pop out of his head. His thick, dark mustache was drawn

back from his clenched teeth.

Trying to make himself kill the man, White Bear felt as sick in his

stomach as he had when he was waiting for Raoul's bullet.

And he remembered again, the night after Raoul had driven him out of

Victoire and offered fifty pieces of eight for his death, what he had

heard Otto Wegner say.

He did not push the knife any farther. But he realized that Wegner would

still kill him, given any chance. He held himself ready to strike.

"Drop your rifle," he whispered. "Slide it away from you. Make a sudden

move and I'll cut your throat."

Wegner did as White Bear told him.

He said, "You are keeping me alive to torture me."

If he brought Wegner back to the Sauk, White Bear thought, the warriors

would want to kill him slowly. Again he felt that hot shame.

"Do you know who I am?" he asked.

"You are Raoul de Marion's nephew, Auguste. How can you be still alive?

I saw Greenglove shoot you."

White Bear ignored the question. "Three of us came to you under a white

flag to talk peace, and you shot us."

"It was wrong."

"You say that now, when I hold a knife on you. Why didn't you speak up

then?"

"Colonel de Marion is my commanding officer. Kill me, damn you. Is it

not your duty?"

"A warrior does as he pleases with his captives."

White Bear heard all around him, on the prairie and in the woods, the

war cries and whistle signals of the Sauk braves. It would not be long

before someone discovered White Bear crouched on top of this man,

holding a knife point to his throat.

Wegner said, "If I could, I would kill you."

"Yet if you had caught me the night my uncle offered fifty Spanish

dollars for my death, you would have let me go."

"How do you know that?"

It amused him to answer Wegner's question by saying, "I am a shaman--a

medicine man. We know things."

"Dummes Zeug," Wegner muttered. "Rubbish," he said louder, but his eyes

wavered.

White Bear said, "I am a healer. That is my work. I will not kill you

unless I have to. Give me your word you will not attack me, and I will

take the knife from your throat."

Wegner closed his eyes and sighed. "You are civilized. Maybe I can trust

you."

White Bear could not help laughing. "You saw today what civilized men do

to their prisoners. You can trust me because I am a Sauk."

"And why do you trust me?"

"Because I think you are a man of honor."

"All right. You have my word."

White Bear slowly drew back and stood over Wegner. The Prussian sat up,

then groaned. In the moonlight White Bear saw tears streaming

uncontrollably from his eyes. White Bear had him sit with his back to

the hollow tree. He brought his face close to the knee. With his eyes

adjusted to the darkness, the half-moon's rays were enough to show him

that Wegner had broken off the end of the arrow, and the rest of it

protruded from his kneecap. The arrow had gone into the joint. It hurt

White Bear just to look at it.

"I can try to pull this out," White Bear said.

"Go ahead."

"Give me that cloth around your neck."

With Wegner's bandanna White Bear wiped the blood off the arrow to make

it less slippery. It would have been easier if Wegner had not broken the

arrow. The protruding end was only long enough to let White Bear grip it

with one hand. He wrapped his left hand around his right to give him a

tighter grip, and pulled with all his strength.

Wegner fell over on his side in a faint.

_Thank Earthmaker he didn't scream._

The arrow had not moved at all.

When Wegner came around, White Bear said, "There is nothing I can do for

you. You need to get back to your own people."

Wegner's eyes widened. "You would let me go?"

"I have to. Or else kill you. If our warriors got you I couldn't stop

them from killing you. Climb into this hollow in the tree and stay there

till morning. By then, I think, our braves will be far from here."

He helped Wegner to stand and boosted him up into his hiding place.

Wegner let out a groan as he drew his wounded leg inside the opening.

_Take care of this pale eyes, Grandfather Oak._

"I will never forget this," said Wegner.

"Then remember my people."

He took Wegner's knife and rifle. He might have left the Prussian a

weapon to defend himself, but he thought that would be going beyond

kindness into foolishness.

He heard Sauk victory shouts coming from the other side of Old Man's

Creek, where Raoul's camp had been. Little though he wanted to go back

there, it seemed the surest way to safety. Carrying the rifle with one

hand, the knife in his belt, he made his way through the woods to the

creek.

* * * * *

Soon he was back in the center of what had been the long knives' camp,

at the place where he had nearly been killed. A small fire burned here.

Near it lay two bodies stretched out. The head of one was covered with a

cloth. That, White Bear thought, must be Little Crow. Beside him lay

Three Horses, a blanket draped over his short body, his face with its

flattened nose uncovered. Standing around the bodies were half a dozen

warriors.

By all rights he ought to be lying there too. He put a hand up to his

ear, forgotten in the excitement of the encounter with Otto Wegner. The

pain had settled to a dull pulsing. Gingerly, he felt the wound. The

middle part of the ear was gone. The intact upper and lower parts were

covered with crusted blood. He had washed the wound once in the creek.

He must wash it again and bandage it.

_Greenglove did that so blood would flow and it would seem to anyone who

looked at me in the twilight that I'd been shot in the head. He was

trying to save my life. Why?_

One day, White Bear hoped, he would meet Greenglove and find out why he

had spared him.

_And that other time--when he hit me with his rifle just as Raoul was

about to shoot me--did he do that, too, to save my life?_

A solitary warrior sat before the fire, a long scalplock adorned with

feathers hanging down the side of his head. The firelight gleamed on his

shaven head and glittered on the beads around the rims of his ears. The

bowl of the pipe he smoked was part of a steel tomahawk blade; the stem

of the pipe was the tomahawk handle. He looked up, and his eyes widened

when White Bear stepped into the firelight.

"White Bear!" came Black Hawk's gravelly voice. "Are you truly alive or

do you come back from the Trail of Souls?"

White Bear felt an immense warmth as the firelight showed him Black

Hawk's teeth flashing in one of his rare smiles.

"I am alive," said White Bear.

"I am happy! I am surprised!" Black Hawk cried, waving his pipe. "I

thought all three of you were dead."

Sudden elation dizzied White Bear, and the flesh of his back prickled as

he realized what it meant to see Black Hawk sitting quietly smoking his

pipe in the center of Raoul's camp. Victory! The long knives routed. How

had it happened? Black Hawk might have made a terrible mistake leading

the Sauk across the Great River, but at that moment White Bear loved

him.

Owl Carver stepped out of the shadows carrying a bundle of goods he had

been gathering from the tents of the long knives. He dropped his bundle

to throw his arms around White Bear.

"My son is restored to me."

White Bear sat down at the fire.

"How did you escape?" Black Hawk asked.

White Bear explained how he had played dead when Eli Greenglove claimed

to have hit him. He said nothing about meeting Otto Wegner. He felt good

about having spared Wegner's life, but he was not sure Black Hawk would

understand. In fact, White Bear was not sure he himself understood.

Owl Carver made White Bear hold his head close to the firelight while he

examined the wound, muttering.

"Truly, the things the long knives do pass all understanding," he said.

"It was dark. You were in grass. Maybe he missed."

"He missed on purpose. He has great fame as a marksman; he sees very

well. He came and stood over me, and must have known I was alive."

Owl Carver searched through his bundle of loot and found a Frenchman's

kerchief and tied it around White Bear's head to protect the wounded

ear.

Chills of exultation rippled up White Bear's spine as he looked around

and saw Black Hawk's braves plundering the very camp where Raoul's men

had swarmed and had killed his two companions at sunset.

"Earthmaker has given us a mighty victory," he said.

"We never expected it," said Owl Carver. "We were camped on the Rock

River north of here when Iron Knife rode in after sunset to say that you

three had been killed, and also two of the braves who had gone with him.

He told us that a whole army of long knives was riding toward us."

Black Hawk said, "I was angry. They had killed my messengers of peace. I

did not care that there were hundreds of them and only forty of us. I

wanted vengeance for the blood they had shed."

White Bear laughed. "I heard them crying out as they fled your attack.

They thought there were hundreds of _you_."

"The Hawk spirit flew with us, blinding them and striking fear into

their hearts," said Black Hawk.

Owl Carver said, "And the spirits in their whiskey befuddled them too."

Black Hawk said, "I was surprised to see them turn tail and run. I

thought Americans were better shooters and fiercer fighters than that.

They outnumbered us many times over, but they showed no fight at all."

The Winnebago Prophet lumbered out of the darkness and sat down at the

fireside opposite Black Hawk. The silver nose-ring lying against his

mustache glittered red.

"It is well that you are here, Flying Cloud," said Black Hawk. "We must

look along the trails that lie ahead of us."

White Bear turned away in disgust. After the Winnebago Prophet had

misled Black Hawk so badly, how could he still rely on him?

A gruff voice said, "See, Father, I have lifted more hair from our

enemies." White Bear looked up. Wolf Paw was standing over them, holding

up two hanks of hair, each with a bloody, circular patch of flesh

attached to it. White Bear hoped that one of those scalps did not belong

to Otto Wegner.

Black Hawk stood up and seized Wolf Paw's shoulders. "My heart is big

when I see my son is so mighty a warrior."

Sitting down beside his father, Wolf Paw stared at White Bear, and White

Bear had to explain all over again how he came to be still alive.

After a moment of silence Black Hawk spoke. "Until tonight, there was no

blood spilled between the long knives and us. But when we tried to

surrender, they shot our messengers." He gestured to the bodies near the

fire and to White Bear. "And now we have killed many of them."

White Bear felt himself trembling with rage. He remembered Raoul coming

toward him, grinning, pistol raised--right on this spot--and he prayed

that now his uncle might be lying dead somewhere on the prairie. An

arrow in his back, killing him as he fled Black Hawk's warriors. A hole

in his scalp, and his hair dangling from some brave's belt.

_O Bear spirit, O Turtle, O Earthmaker, let it be so!_

Then his fury faded away and became fear as he realized that he had just

done, in his mind, a thing more terrible than murder. A man might call

on the spirits for the strength and skill to fight an enemy--but to

direct the power of the spirits against another man, no matter how

wicked, was forbidden. He prayed no harm would come to him because of

it.

Black Hawk said, "We have no choice now. The long knives have forced war

upon me."

White Bear spoke up quickly, before Wolf Paw or Flying Cloud could call

for war, as they were certain to do.

"It was my uncle, the brother of Star Arrow, who ordered us three to be

killed. He has hated our people all of his life. He especially hates me.

A different long-knife war chief might have opened his arms to us. Now

that Black Hawk has shown the long knives that they will be hurt if they

come against us, let us offer peace again. I am ready to go again with a

white flag to talk of surrender with other long-knife war chiefs."

Black Hawk made a flat, rejecting hand gesture. "You have seen what

happened. Pale eyes warriors would not let you get close enough to talk

to their chiefs."

A warrior came over to the fire, holding a tin cup. He offered it to

Black Hawk.

"The long knives left five barrels of whiskey, but they are almost

empty."

Black Hawk turned the cup over, letting the whiskey soak into the dirt.

"Pour that poison on the ground," he said. "Whiskey made the long knives

so foolish that when they looked at one of our braves they saw ten."

Wolf Paw said, "They abandoned wagonloads of food and ammunition. Even

some rifles."

"We will need them," said Black Hawk. "Without more provisions we cannot

go on."

After the warrior went away, Black Hawk gave his pipe tomahawk to Wolf

Paw to smoke. Owl Carver and the Winnebago Prophet brought out pipes of

their own. Owl Carver offered his to White Bear, who declined it. Given

what he had been through this day, and troubled by the fear that Black

Hawk was determined to plunge his people into worse calamities, White

Bear felt his stomach could not stand tobacco smoke.

Flying Cloud broke the thoughtful silence. "If forty Sauk warriors could

chase away two hundred long knives, then all the Sauk warriors can chase

away the long knives' whole army. I say call out the six hundred

warriors who wait at our main camp. We will drive the long knives all

the way back to the Great River."

White Bear wanted to answer the Winnebago Prophet with angry words, but

he felt light-headed and nauseated. He decided to wait and see what the

others would say.

"The Prophet of the Winnebago speaks well," said Wolf Paw. "My blade is

hungry for more long knives' scalps."

_Of course_, thought White Bear.

Owl Carver said drily, "We routed some drunk pale eyes who hardly

deserve to be called long knives. Let us not waste any more of our young

men's lives. Let us follow the northward curve of the Rock River to its

very headwaters, far beyond any pale eyes' settlements, then travel

westward toward the Great River. If we can cross the Great River safely,

I do not think the long knives will chase us farther."

The five men sat in silence. A sudden thought struck White Bear. _This_

was why Earthmaker had ordained that he be educated among the pale

eyes--so that he could help his band understand how pale eyes thought.

If they kept going north along the Rock River they would soon cross the

northern border of the state of Illinois. That might seem to them to

mean very little, but it could mean much to their pursuers. The country

where they were headed did not belong to any state; it was part of a

large land of many waters that was called the Michigan Territory.

Eagerly he said, "We may be able to escape the long knives by going

north. Most of the long knives who are pursuing us were called out by

the Great Father of the Illinois country. Once we are out of Illinois,

maybe they will not follow."

Wolf Paw grunted, clearly insulted at the thought of their not being

pursued.

The Prophet bestirred himself. "Many of my Winnebago brothers dwell in

that country to the north. They will join us in fighting the long

knives."

_Like your people from Prophet's Town, who've been deserting us?_ White

Bear thought.

A warrior set a long knives' saddlebag before Black Hawk, who opened it.

The war chief pulled out an expensive-looking black wool suit and some

white silk shirts with ruffles. Finally he took out two books bound in

red and white leather. White Bear leaned over for a closer look.

"Bundles of the pale eyes' talking paper," said Black Hawk.

Wolf Paw said, "They are worthless, Father. Keep the clothing and put

the talking paper on the fire."

But Black Hawk handed one of the books to White Bear. "What do the

talking papers say to you, White Bear?"

White Bear picked up a book and read on the spine, _Chitty's Pleadings,

Vol. I_. He opened and saw close-packed type, his eyes skimming over

many legal terms in Latin. White Bear wondered whether the lawyer who

owned these books was still alive. At the sight of books his heart gave

an unexpected lurch. He felt a longing to be not in a plundered enemy

camp on the prairie, but in a library, with books, pen and paper. The

feeling took him by surprise. It had been many months since he had

missed the pale eyes' world. A few pages of _Paradise Lost_ now and then

had satisfied any hankering for what they called "civilization."

"These papers tell about the pale eyes' laws," he said. "It is sometimes

said that they have no magic. But there is powerful magic in their books

and in their laws. It is the magic that binds them together."

The Prophet said, "The pale eyes' paper is bad medicine."

Black Hawk held out his hand, and White Bear gave him the book. It

pained White Bear to think Black Hawk might throw it into the fire.

White Bear had seen many white leaders--mayors, congressmen, military

officers, once even Sharp Knife himself, Andrew Jackson, the President

of the United States. He had learned about them in school and read about

them in newspapers. He felt Black Hawk was a match for any of them. More

than a match in some ways; he was stronger and healthier than any white

man his age that White Bear had known. What pale eyes of nearly seventy

years could personally lead a cavalry charge against an enemy

outnumbering him by ten to one and rout them? Black Hawk's great

weakness was one that he shared with most people, whatever their race or

their position in life: if he wanted a thing to be true, he believed it.

That was why last winter he had listened to the Winnebago Prophet and

not to White Bear.

Now White Bear hoped Black Hawk would show his intelligence by

respecting the value of the book. Black Hawk frowned at the

leather-bound volume, weighing it in his hand. He picked the other book

up with his other hand.

"They are heavy. But since there is magic in them, I will keep these

talking-paper bundles by me. And I will bring them with me when I speak

in council."

White Bear breathed a small sigh of satisfaction.

Black Hawk laid the books down, one on each side of him, and put one

hand on each book. He sat like that for a time, staring into the fire.

"I have done with trying to surrender to the long knives," he said, and

it seemed to White Bear that his face became a fearsome mask in the

firelight. "They have left me no choice. Yes, we will retreat from them.

But we will not run like hunted deer. We will send out war parties, big

and small, in every direction. We will lie in ambush on every trail. We

will fall upon every settlement. We will attack every traveling party of

long knives. No pale eyes north of the Rock River will be safe from us.

Until we have crossed the Great River, we will give the pale eyes no

peace."

At Black Hawk's words White Bear felt that an ice-cold hand had laid

itself flat on his back, between his shoulder blades. With those words

Black Hawk was condemning to cruel death hundreds of people--pale eyes

and his own.

And one of the largest settlements north of the Rock River was Victor.

"What is the use of more killing?" he said. "It will only madden the

long knives. They will come after us till they have destroyed us."

"I have decided," Black Hawk said. "We must fight back. We must be

avenged. They stole our land. They burned Saukenuk. They burned

Prophet's Town. We asked them for peace, and they killed us. Black Hawk

will show them that they cannot do this and go unpunished."

"So it shall be!" the Winnebago Prophet growled.

_And after that the long knives in their turn will have to be avenged._

Hopelessness lay like a heavy sodden blanket on White Bear. He saw the

old warrior's determination, and said no more.

He could only pray that Earthmaker spare those he loved. On both sides.

Black Hawk stood up. "Let us go back to our camp."

Wolf Paw said, "Father, I want to stay here till tomorrow with a party

of warriors. There are dead long knives scattered all over the prairie,

but we cannot find them in the dark. In the morning we can take their

scalps and their weapons."

His words stopped White Bear as he was about to turn away from the fire.

Otto Wegner might still be hiding in that hollow tree, waiting for dawn.

Hurriedly, White Bear said, "I, too, will stay. I will help Wolf Paw

search for the dead."

What could he do if Wolf Paw and his men captured Wegner? Perhaps not

save the Prussian's life, but at least persuade the warriors to kill him

cleanly and not torture him.

_Haven't I done enough for Wegner? I want to go back to Redbird._

But his impulses were a shaman's impulses, and the harder to explain

they were, the more he trusted them. It was important, for some reason,

that he stay at Old Man's Creek a while longer.

Owl Carver looked surprised. "After all you have suffered, do you not

want to return to your family?"

White Bear thought quickly. "There is a chance that murdering uncle of

mine is one of those lying on the ground somewhere around here. It would

be good to see him dead."

Owl Carver grunted. "I will tell Redbird that you are safe."

Fear and exertion had exhausted White Bear beyond ordinary fatigue, and

he had barely enough energy now to roll himself in a blanket by the

small fire. Unconsciousness hit him instantly.

In the morning he watched, sickened, as Wolf Paw not only scalped a long

knife who lay dead in the tall grass, but slashed open the man's woollen

trousers and sliced off his manly parts. Blood spattered over innocent

prairie flowers of violet and yellow, and a swarm of flies buzzed around

Wolf Paw, waiting to settle on the dead man when he moved away.

"Why do you do that?" White Bear demanded. "The Sauk have never done

such things to a dead enemy before."

"The Winnebago Prophet says that the long knives are planning to kill

all Sauk men, and then bring up black men from the country to the south

to mate with our women. That way they hope to breed a race of slaves.

This is our answer to that."

The story sounded absurd to White Bear. The pale eyes in Illinois didn't

even keep black slaves. Just more of the Winnebago Prophet's babblings.

But Wolf Paw firmly believed it.

At a sudden drumming of hooves, Wolf Paw and White Bear both looked

south at Old Man's Creek. A Sauk warrior splashed through, waving his

arm.

"Long knives coming!" he shouted.

Wolf Paw picked up two rifles, his own and the dead man's. They had

found eleven bodies scattered along the edge of the Rock River, none of

them Raoul's.

White Bear was disappointed, but not surprised, that Raoul had managed

to escape. Surely he deserved killing more than any of his followers who

did die. But White Bear had not stayed behind just to see Raoul dead.

In fact, it was a relief that the spirits had not answered White Bear's

forbidden prayer.

He kept looking for movement out of the corner of his eye, trying to see

whether Otto Wegner was anywhere about. But he saw no sign of him.

"How many long knives?" Wolf Paw said to the scout as he rode up. "Can

we fight them?"

The scout's hand slashed a no. "Too many. Fifty at least. All on

horseback. And they have a wagon with them."

"Coming to collect their dead," said Wolf Paw. "They will not like what

they find." He grinned down at the corpse he had just carved.

"Better mount up and ride away from here," said the scout. "If they see

us, they will chase us."

"They will not chase us," said Wolf Paw. "They will be afraid of an

ambush." His smile broadened. "Maybe we will give them one."

At Wolf Paw's shouted command the six warriors who had remained with him

moved into the trees north of Old Man's Creek, the same trees where

White Bear had taken refuge last night. White Bear tried to see the

tree where he had hidden Wegner, but the woods looked different in

daylight.

Wolf Paw ordered his party to mount their horses, tied up amidst the

trees, and ride north to Black Hawk's camp. But though he swung into the

saddle, he did not ride off with them. He sat on his white-spotted gray

pony facing the direction the long knives would be coming from. A screen

of low-hanging maple branches and wild grape vines concealed him. White

Bear, on a brown mare captured in Raoul's camp last night, drew up

beside him.

"Why are you staying?" White Bear asked.

"I counted only eleven dead long knives," said Wolf Paw. "I want to make

it twelve." He put the hammer of his flintlock on half-cock, poured

fine-grained priming powder on the pan from a small flask, and closed

the fizzen over it.

White Bear sensed that something very important was about to happen and

that he must wait with Wolf Paw.

"Why do _you_ wait?" Wolf Paw demanded. "You have never killed anyone."

"Here they come," said White Bear, choosing not to answer him.

The two horses pulling the wagon, a flatbed with railed sides, halted at

the creek. Most of the long knives dismounted and began to search

through the remains of Raoul's camp. A few others rode across the creek.

Wolf Paw raised his rifle.

The long knives cried out to one another and cursed as they found the

mutilated bodies of their comrades.

_Now they hate us more._

The long knives had rolled-up blankets tied across their horses' backs.

They opened the blankets and used them to pick up the dead. One pair of

men on foot was already carrying a blanket-wrapped body across the creek

to the wagon.

One long knife rode slowly toward them. He was so tall that his legs

dangled down from his horse almost to the ground. He came to the body

Wolf Paw had just been stripping, and climbed down. He took off his

broad-brimmed gray hat and stood holding it in both hands as he looked

down at the body.

White Bear heard the click of a flintlock hammer being drawn back to

full-cock. Wolf Paw sighted along the barrel.

The militiaman raised his head, and White Bear saw tears glistening in

the morning sun as they ran down his cheeks.

White Bear knew this man.

A gaunt brown face with strong bones, deep-set gray eyes, a young face

aged by grief. In White Bear's vision of last winter this man had a

black beard; now he was clean-shaven. But this was the man the Turtle

had shown him.

A sudden shout from the woods made both White Bear and Wolf Paw jump

with surprise.

"Help! Help me, please!"

White Bear saw Otto Wegner stagger from the trees about a hundred feet

to his right. He was trying to run toward the tall man.

He limped badly and let out an "Oh!" of pain with every step.

The tall man set his hat back on his head and ran toward the Prussian,

who fell forward on his face in the grass a short distance from the edge

of the woods.

Wolf Paw swung the rifle toward Otto, but before he could fire, Otto

fell and was almost obscured by the tall grass. The blue-black rifle

barrel lifted toward the man going to his aid. White Bear heard Wolf Paw

draw a deep breath through his nostrils and saw his finger tighten on

the trigger.

Even as the hammer fell and the spark set the powder sizzling in the

pan, White Bear thrust his hand out. In the instant between the pulling

of the trigger and the firing of the rifle White Bear pushed the barrel

off target.

The rifle went off with a boom and a flash and a puff of blue smoke.

The lanky man jerked his head around and stared into the trees where

Wolf Paw and White Bear sat hidden on their horses. He shouted and

pointed. The long knives spread out between the creek and the woods

brought their rifles to their shoulders. Some of them jumped on their

horses.

"_Why did you do that?_" Wolf Paw shouted. It no longer mattered that

the long knives could hear him.

He raised his rifle as if to hit White Bear with the butt end, as Eli

Greenglove had done many moons ago.

"Come on," said White Bear, ignoring the threat and kicking his horse's

sides to start him galloping through the woods. Wolf Paw, who had no

time to reload, thundered behind him, uttering shouts of inarticulate

rage.

White Bear was certain Wolf Paw would strike at him with rifle butt or

tomahawk or knife before they cleared the woods, but Wolf Paw was wholly

bent now on escape.

_Now I understand!_

The realization hit White Bear so suddenly and surprisingly that he sat

up in his saddle. A tree limb flying toward him nearly hit him in the

face. He ducked under it at the last moment.

This was why he had wanted to stay behind with Wolf Paw, even at the

cost of delaying his reunion with Redbird, even at the risk of his life.

It was not just to protect Otto Wegner. The Turtle--or perhaps even

Earthmaker himself--had ordained it. If he had not been there Wolf Paw

would have killed that tall, thin man who came to bury his fallen

comrades.

White Bear remembered the rest of his vision--hundreds of blue-coated

long knives charging and dying. Would this man send those long knives or

their enemy into battle?

It was impossible to puzzle out. He might never know the answer.

They rode over the prairie on the other side of the woods, heading for

Black Hawk's camp. The long knives following them had dropped away,

doubtless afraid, as Wolf Paw had predicted, of an ambush.

Still expecting to feel a tomahawk blade split his spine, White Bear

slowed down.

"So!" Wolf Paw shouted. "You are still a pale eyes!"

"No," White Bear tried to explain. "It was a vision I had. I had to save

that man."

"A vision," Wolf Paw sneered. "I should kill you. If you were not a

shaman-- A warrior needs all his luck. But, since your pale eyes people

are so precious to you, I will kill _them_. You heard what my father

said. I will lead the war party that goes to your pale eyes' home. And

this time you will not be along to save anyone."

They spoke no more. Though the morning sky was bright, a cloud of dread

settled over White Bear. What would become of Nicole, Grandpapa, Frank

and all the people of Victoire and Victor who had been his friends? At

the prompting of some spirit, he had saved the tall, thin man, a

stranger to him. And he had saved Otto Wegner, one of Raoul's hired men.

Was there _nothing_ he could do for his own loved ones?

15

The Blockhouse

The devil's reek of gunpowder seared Nicole's nostrils. Arrows flew over

the trading post palisade to fall in the courtyard, some quivering

upright in the ground. She heard the piercing shrieks of the Indians

above the steady crackling of rifle fire.

She stood in the open doorway of the blockhouse, her body tense with

fear as she watched Frank, up on the catwalk above the main gate. He

crouched behind the pointed logs of the palisade. Frowning with

concentration, he was slowly reloading his rifle.

"Look at Frank up there," Nicole said to Pamela Russell, who stood

beside her. "Oh, God, I hate to see him out in the open. Frank," she

said, though she knew he couldn't hear her, "get into one of the

towers!"

"Burke too," Pamela said. "Why do they do it?" She pointed to the east

side of the palisade where her husband, a stocky man wearing spectacles,

stood on the catwalk. With the Indians attacking the front gate, he was

left alone to guard the east parapet. The rest of the men, ten of them,

were at the front part of the palisades, banging away.

_Twelve men. Twelve men who know how to use rifles. That's all we've

got._

And four were Nicole's husband, two of her sons and her father.

She gasped.

She saw a loop of rope fly through the air above the eastern wall and

catch on one of the sharpened logs. A moment later a dark head crowned

with feathers appeared above the palisade. And Burke Russell was looking

the other way.

"Burke, look out!" Pamela screamed.

Burke heard that. He swung around, raising his rifle to his shoulder.

"Please, God!" Nicole cried.

The Indian leaped over the parapet. He seemed twice as tall as Burke,

with bulging muscles that gleamed with oil. He wore only a loincloth,

and his walnut-brown body was painted with red, yellow and black

stripes. His scalplock flew out behind him as he rushed Burke, swinging

a war club with a glittering metal spike protruding from its thick end.

Burke's rifle went off with an orange flash, a boom, a cloud of smoke.

The Indian wasn't stopped. The war club came down on Burke's head.

Nicole heard the hollow thud and heard herself cry out.

Pamela screamed. "Oh, no, oh God, no! Burke! Burke!"

Burke's glasses flew from his face, hit the catwalk and caromed off to

the ground. With his free hand the Indian giant seized the rifle as

Burke crumpled. He raised both arms over his head, rifle in one hand,

bloodstained club in the other, and shouted his triumph.

Nicole's stomach heaved.

Pamela fell against her, fainting. She threw an arm around Pamela and

eased her to the ground, and she saw half a dozen more Indians waving

rifles and tomahawks leap over the eastern parapet and land on the

catwalk near Burke Russell's body.

"Frank! Behind you!" she screamed.

Frank turned, took aim and fired at the Indians. He ran for the nearest

corner tower.

Nicole didn't see whether he hit any of the Indians. She dragged Pamela

out of the doorway with the help of Ellen Slattery, the blacksmith's

wife. They got Pamela sitting on a bench by the wall. Her thick chestnut

hair tumbled forward as Nicole pushed her head down to revive her.

_I don't know why I'm doing this. It's a mercy she's unconscious._

_Frank!_

Her heart in her throat, Nicole pushed herself to her feet and ran back

to the door. An arrow whizzed through the open doorway. It clanged off

the iron muzzle of the cannon that stood in the center of the blockhouse

hall.

_I'd make a mighty big target for those Indians_, she thought, the wry

little joke helping to keep her from crying in her terror.

She peered around the edge of the doorway to see a fury of brown bodies

on the southern catwalk where Frank had been standing. In the center of

the catwalk, one brave with a rooster's comb of red-dyed hair shouted

and brandished a steel-headed tomahawk, sending parties to hammer at the

doors of the corner towers with clubs, tomahawks and rifle butts. Black

rings painted around his eyes and yellow slashes on his cheekbones gave

him a terrifying look.

Even in the midst of her fear and hatred she could see that his body was

magnificent. The most beautiful man's body she'd ever seen.

To her relief Nicole saw no dead white men anywhere--except for Burke

Russell, who lay still, his head a bright red mess, one arm hanging down

over the edge of the eastern catwalk. She looked at him quickly and then

looked away, feeling sick again.

What made it even more of a shame that Burke had died on the palisade

was that the men never planned to hold it. They just wanted to delay the

Indians a bit. Here in the blockhouse was where they hoped to be able to

hold out.

With God's help.

"Oh, Burke! Oh, my Burke!" Pamela Russell was awake and screaming. Ellen

Slattery looked helplessly at Nicole.

Nicole felt heartbroken for Pamela, but she had to let her be. There was

too much to do. She ran through the people crowded into the main room on

the ground floor of the blockhouse. There must be four hundred people

here, mostly women and children, she thought.

_And Raoul's got over a hundred men from Victor with him. God knows

where._

Here they had more rifles than men. Two dozen rifles leaned against the

stone wall. Many families owned two or three rifles, and people had

grabbed them as they fled to the trading post.

_Well, a woman can ram a ball down a muzzle and pull a trigger too._

And miss, she thought, her heart a ball of ice. She hadn't seen one

Indian hit yet.

Nicole spoke loudly to the women around her. "The Indians will be

shooting down from the catwalk at our men when they try to get back here

to us." She started to load a rifle. "We've got to shoot at the Indians

and drive them to cover."

She had not held a rifle in her hands since marrying Frank, who would

not have a firearm in the house. But Elysee de Marion had taught his

daughter how to shoot, and she had not forgotten.

Piled by the rifles were flannel bags, powder horns and five small

barrels, all full of gunpowder. In that frantic dawn, after fleeing

here, the men and women had formed a relay line to rush the bags and

barrels of gunpowder from Raoul's stone magazine to the blockhouse.

Feeling a bit more hopeful, Nicole noticed lead ingots lying beside the

ammunition--probably from the lead mine that Raoul had shut down just

before leaving Victor. And she saw scissor-shaped bullet molds. They had

some of the things they needed.

If only they knew how to use these things.

"Who knows how to mold bullets?" she asked the group of women who'd been

standing silently, watching her.

"I know," Elfrida Wegner said. Of course, thought Nicole. Her husband

had been a soldier, over in Europe.

"Take some others and show them how to do it," Nicole said. "We're going

to need all the bullets we can make."

Elfrida and two other women carried the lead bars and the molds to the

huge fireplace at the rear of the hall.

From the hundred and more women crowded into the hall Nicole collected

ten volunteers who knew something about rifles, five to shoot and five

to load.

She called two of the bigger boys to carry baskets of shot upstairs. But

carrying powder--that was dangerous. She couldn't make herself ask

anyone else to do that.

She filled a bushel basket with sacks of cartridges, added a powder horn

on top, swung it up to her shoulder and charged up the stairs, terrified

all the way.

"Judas Priest, you're _strong_, Missuz Hopkins," said one of the boys

carrying shot. It gave her a warm feeling to hear that; she figured most

people thought of her as just plain fat.

She still couldn't believe she was going to do this. Going to try to

kill people. She picked out a slot in the log wall and pushed her rifle

barrel through it. She could see a bit of the courtyard below. White men

were falling back from the towers. Indians were coming at them. All of

them were moving slowly. White men backing up a step at a time. Indians

matching them step for step. A dance. The brave with the red crest was

still standing on the catwalk above the front gate, waving his tomahawk

and shouting orders. The caller.

Nicole pulled open the drawstring of a bag of cartridges, bit off the

end of a paper cartridge and poured the black powder down the muzzle of

her rifle. She detached the ramrod from the stock of the rifle and

wrapped a bullet in greased cloth, ramming it into place down the tight,

rifled barrel. She thanked Heaven she hadn't forgotten how to do this.

She dropped the fine grains of priming powder from the horn into the

powder pan, pointed her rifle at the red-crested brave and sighted down

the black barrel at the center of his chest.

Her finger quivered on the trigger. She couldn't kill a man. Her eyes

blurred.

If she didn't kill him, he might kill Frank. Or Tom or Ben. Or Papa. She

remembered Burke Russell's smashed, bloody skull.

She had to do it. Her vision cleared.

She took deep breaths, steadying herself.

She heard the click of the hammer as she pulled back the trigger. The

hammer snapped forward, the flint hit the fizzen, the spark struck the

powder pan. The rifle went off with a thunderclap that made her ears

ring, and her target was obscured by cream-colored smoke in front of the

rifle port.

When the smoke cleared, the brave was still standing on the catwalk.

She clenched her fist and whispered, "Damn!"

The red-crested Indian glanced down to his right, as if he had heard a

bullet strike the palisade wall there, then looked straight at her. She

knew he couldn't really see her. She was hidden behind a log wall, and a

hundred feet or more separated them. Even so, it seemed to her that his

malevolent stare met her eyes.

She handed her rifle back to Bernadette Bosquet, a cook from the

chateau, who gave her a loaded one.

Down in the yard, the Indians were charging the fur shop and the inn.

The white men, retreating, were converging on the front door of the

blockhouse.

She saw Elysee and Guichard emerge from behind the inn. The two old men

moved slowly, Elysee limping heavily, both walking backward. Guichard

fired a shot at the six or more crouching Indians coming at them.

Elysee, his walking stick in his left hand, raised his pistol. Guichard

worked quickly with powder horn and ramrod to load his rifle. Elysee

fired, bringing down one of the Indians. Both men took a few steps

backward as powder smoke enveloped their attackers. The Indians darted

forward, and Guichard raised his rifle. The Indians hesitated. Elysee

stepped behind Guichard and tucked his stick under one arm to reload his

pistol. At a word from Elysee, Guichard fired, and a red man with a

rifle crumpled. Guichard, reaching for his powder horn, stepped backward

behind Elysee, who now kept the Indians covered.

Nicole felt her legs tremble and a lump form in her throat as she

watched the fearless precision with which her father and his lifelong

servant carried out their retreat. Those two old men shouldn't have to

fight at all, but today every man was needed.

She saw Frank and her two oldest sons, Tom and Ben, running across the

yard to the front door. They vanished under the overhang of the

blockhouse's second story, made of logs. Thank God they'd made it to

safety! She felt faint and took a deep breath.

She handed her rifle to Bernadette. "Here, you shoot. I've got to see my

husband and sons."

"Merci, madame. I thought you'd never give me a turn."

By the time Nicole got downstairs, Frank and the other men had crowded

into the hall. The heavy front door of the blockhouse was shut and

barred, throwing the stone-walled lower floor into near-darkness. Two

men were shooting through the rifle ports on either side of the door.

Women were lighting oil lamps and candles and setting them on shelves

around the edges of the room.

Women whose men were here were holding them tight. Nicole threw her arms

around Frank, then opened them wider to take in Tom and Ben as they ran

to join their mother and father.

She eyed the boys. Their faces were rosy and their eyes bright with

excitement. They'd be men in another year or two. And after today, she

thought, Frank would have a hard time keeping them away from rifles.

_If we live through this day._

As she felt Frank strong and alive against her, a sudden intense desire

to make love to him came over her. She was shocked at herself.

But she'd seen one man struck down already and knew that before sundown

she or Frank might be dead. The realization of how precious Frank was to

her had brought her body to passionate life.

She heard the shrieks and yips of the Indians in the yard of the trading

post.

Hard-eyed David Cooper said, "We can't hold 'em off just shooting from

the ground floor. We need shooters at every rifle port upstairs."

He nodded approvingly when he saw Elfrida Wegner and three other women

molding bullets by the fire they had just kindled.

He called, "All right, four men and four of you women take rifle ports

down here. The rest of you come up to the second story."

Gathering up extra rifles, five men and thirty or more women followed

Cooper upstairs, where he organized them to shoot, each shooter to have

someone to reload and carry ammunition.

Nicole might herself have volunteered to shoot through one of the

upstairs rifle ports, but she chose to load for Frank. She felt it might

be important to Frank that he be the one to shoot and she stand by,

helping him. She would rather be at his side, anyway, than across the

room somewhere shooting.

Frank pushed his octagonal rifle barrel out through his port. The port

was only about six inches wide and three inches high, and the log wall

was a foot thick or more, but Nicole still trembled at the thought that

an Indian might manage to hit Frank with an arrow or a bullet. Working

to load his second rifle, she tried not to think about that.

Thank God they had David Cooper here, someone who seemed to know what to

do. She remembered how Cooper had spoken up the day Raoul had forced

Auguste out of the chateau-- _Is this how you do things in Smith

County?_ It was Cooper who had thrown open the trading post to the first

refugees from the Indian raid, people from Victoire, shortly after dawn.

He and Burke Russell. Burke. Her heart sank.

Nicole's fears turned to Victoire and to the outlying farms. The Indians

had attacked so suddenly, whooping on horseback across the prairie, that

there was just time for the people in Victor and some from the chateau

to crowd into the trading post. Many of the children and some of the

women gathered into the main room were still in their nightgowns. But

missing from the crowd downstairs were people Nicole knew. Reverend

Philip Hale and Nancy Hale, Clarissa Greenglove and her two sons by

Raoul, Marchette Perrault, many others. Fear twisted her belly as she

thought of what the Indians might have done to them.

Cooper had assigned himself to a gunport in the east wall of the

blockhouse. Nicole went to him.

"Mr. Cooper, could I have a look out there?"

"Certainly, ma'am." He sighed. "That used to be your home, that mansion

on the hill, didn't it?"

Poor Burke Russell, she saw, was still lying on the eastern catwalk.

Three dead Indians were sprawled there now to keep him company, though.

She was a bit more hardened to such sights than she had been just a

short time ago. But what she saw in the cheerful June sky beyond the

palisade made her body go clammy-cold with horror.

A rope of thick, black smoke coiled upward, twisting this way and that,

spreading till it seemed to stain the entire eastern quarter of the sky.

The palisade was too high for her to see the fire itself, though red

tongues of flame shot up now and again in the midst of the smoke. But

she had no doubt at all about where the fire was.

"They're burning Victoire!" She started to cry.

She felt Frank's hand patting her shoulder, and turned.

"I was hoping the people of Victoire might be able to hold out," she

said.

Frank put his arm around her. "Nicole, I'm sorry, it's pretty likely the

only people left alive from Victoire are already here. Lucky most of

them could outrun the Indians and get here."

"But, Frank, what's happened to the rest of them--Marchette,

Clarissa--are they all dead?"

Frank didn't answer. He just stood there holding her.

Grief weighed on her like a cloak of iron. If she hadn't had Frank to

lean against, she would surely have fallen to the floor. She looked out

again and saw other, more distant columns of smoke. The Indians must

have come from the east and struck every farmhouse they came across.

They had surely destroyed Philip Hale's church. Poor Nancy!

David Cooper said, "Sometimes people manage to hide. The Indians can't

look everywhere."

The weight on her back and shoulders seemed to lighten with that

thought.