_G.o.d d.a.m.n the Sauk! d.a.m.n them! d.a.m.n them!_
Armand, when he learned what happened at Victoire, had not blamed Raoul as Eli had. He"d wept over Marchette--whom he"d beaten almost daily when she was alive--and had sworn vengeance on her murderers, the British Band. And he had sat with Raoul till both of them were drunk enough to sleep.
Raoul"s head and body felt as if they were on fire. His fingers curled, grasping at empty air.
He buckled on his belt with his pistol and his Bowie knife, stumbled out of his tent and stood beside it, p.i.s.sing in the tall gra.s.s.
He was facing the Rock River, less than a quarter-mile wide here, a sheet of sparkling blue water bordered by forest. Lined up along the bank before him were a dozen big box-shaped flatboats. The tents of his own militia battalion and of two others were spread over the gra.s.sland around him.
He suddenly sensed that something was wrong. He hadn"t heard the bugler blow the dozen notes signaling the start of the day. He saw now that the men weren"t a.s.sembled but were wandering aimlessly about the camp.
What the h.e.l.l was it Greenglove had said?
_By tomorrow there won"t be any company._
Down near the flatboats a big crowd was gathered. One man, standing on a barrel, was addressing them. His voice, shrill and insistent, carried to Raoul on the warm June air, but he couldn"t make out what the man was saying.
Raoul didn"t like this. He didn"t like this at all.
He started walking toward the river and found Levi Pope and Hodge Hode squatting in front of a fire, making coffee simply by boiling water with coffee grounds in it.
"Sorry for your loss, Colonel," said Pope.
Hearing Pope speak of what happened at Victoire was like being kicked in a spot that was already bruised. Raoul had to pause a moment before he could speak.
"Thank you. Your family come through all right?" He dreaded what he might hear in answer.
"Your sister wrote a letter for my missuz," Pope said. "They came through tolerably. Thanks to the way you fortified the trading post.
That was mighty foresighted, Colonel."
Raoul"s chest expanded and he felt a little better. This was how he"d hoped the men would react, not blaming him for the tragedy as that b.a.s.t.a.r.d Greenglove had.
"Levi"s letter told as how my boy Josiah made it to the trading post too," Hodge said. "Mr. Cooper even let him do some shootin" at the redskins."
_Mr. Cooper? Since when did David Cooper get to be so high and mighty?_
"I need some of that coffee," Raoul said. Hodge strained the grounds out of the coffee by pouring it through a kerchief into a tin cup and handed the cup to Raoul.
The black liquid scalded Raoul"s lips and tongue, and didn"t treat him any better when it bit into his whiskey-burned stomach.
"Anything to eat?"
With a bitter grunt, Levi Pope took a square biscuit out of a paper wrapper and held it out. "These worm cakes is pretty lively, but dip "em in the coffee a couple of times and you"ll boil the little b.u.g.g.e.rs to death."
Raoul shut his eyes and waved the weevil-riddled hardtack away.
"What the h.e.l.l is that bunch doing down by the river?"
Hodge Hode grinned. "They call it a "pub-lic in-dig-nation" meeting." He drawled out the words, amused. "Say they won"t go across the river into Michigan Territory. Say they want to go home."
"Any of our men talking that way?"
"Oh, a heap of them, Colonel," said Levi.
"I"ll see about that."
"Hodge and me ain"t quittin". We won"t go home till we"ve killed us some Injun trash." Levi lovingly stroked the handles of his six holstered pistols, three on each side of his belt.
But Levi and Hodge made no move to get up and join Raoul. They would go with him across the river, he saw, but they were not about to help him discipline the other men. He thought of ordering them to come with him, but decided not to test their loyalty that far. Eli had walked out on him. He didn"t know who he could trust.
h.e.l.l, he could do it without these two, anyway.
For rea.s.surance Raoul took a grip on the handle of his Bowie knife as he approached the crowd. Could he cow dozens of men if they were determined not to obey him?
_Sure. Might have to carve a few bellies, but the rest will fall into line._
That was how he ran Smith County.
The man standing on the barrel was saying, "You know what the Injuns call that country up there? The Trembling Lands. It"s all swamp, water and quicksand. You take a horse out on what looks like solid ground, before you can blink, he sinks belly deep."
That kind of talk made Raoul want to use his knife. But that would probably only rile these rebellious b.a.s.t.a.r.ds all the more.
_Got to put a stop to this. Line them all up by the boats. Tell the first man to get in. If he won"t, shoot him. Then go on to the next.
That"ll change their minds in a hurry._
He told himself disgustedly to quit dreaming. Not even in Smith County could he get away with shooting white men just because they wouldn"t obey him. Not in broad daylight, anyway.
The man standing on the barrel said, "If Black Hawk has holed up in that country, that means he"s finished. h.e.l.l, his people will starve to death up there. What do we got to follow him for?"
Pushing his way through the crowd, Raoul heard a man near him call out, "Volunteers is what we are. That means we serve at our own pleasure.
Well, I"m not volunteering for any more."
A chorus--"Right!" "Yeah!" "Me neither!" "That"s telling "em!"--rose all around Raoul, maddening him as a swarm of biting flies would madden a horse.
He saw a familiar stoop-shouldered back in the crowd--Justus Bennett.
Ever since Old Man"s Creek, Bennett had been whining about the fine suit of clothes and the two expensive law books he"d lost, demanding that the state of Illinois pay for them. Now he was standing here, encouraging would-be deserters just by listening to them.
Raoul grabbed his shoulder and pulled him around. "You"re a lawyer. You know d.a.m.ned well this meeting is illegal. Get over there with Pope and Hode, or you"re no more a lieutenant in my battalion."
Bennett stared back at him with beady eyes. "That"s immaterial, seeing as we"re all going home."
"No one"s going home," said Raoul, loud enough to make the men around him turn to look. "Get the h.e.l.l back to your outfit."
He gave Bennett a shove. The lawyer glowered at him, but slunk away.
Raoul pushed his way to the front of the crowd. The men fell back, making way for his blue jacket with its officer"s gold stripes. But the sun beat down on his head. He realized that he had forgotten to put on his hat, and he wasn"t shaved and his jacket was unb.u.t.toned.
And, nothing. h.e.l.l, he could handle men. He didn"t have to dress up for that. He drew his knife and faced the man on the barrel.