Blinding flash, deafening blast, stinking smoke.
And the bear kept coming.
It was so close, the lead b.a.l.l.s _must_ have gone into it. It must be just so d.a.m.ned big it would take more than two shots to kill it.
But there was no time to reload. The bear towered over him, white body filling the whole world, eyes, claws, teeth, all shining in the glow of that pitiful little candle that somehow had stayed lit.
He screamed and sobbed like a little boy in his terror, but he managed to get his Bowie knife out. He"d killed a big Indian with this knife.
A paw the size of his head knocked the knife from his hand.
"Oh, please don"t kill me!" he wept. "For the love of Jesus!"
The other paw hit his chest like a sledgehammer. He felt his ribs cave in. He felt the claws stab into his lungs.
His breath flew from his body. His strength drained away. He couldn"t scream anymore. He couldn"t beg for his life. His voice was gone. Only blood came out of his throat. The last thing he saw was an enormous mouth gaping, full of yellow-white pointed teeth coming at him. He felt claws rip again through his chest and belly and knew that he was going.
The pale eyes" smoke boat was a frightening thing, shooting black clouds and sparks from two black-painted iron tubes that rose up from a big lodge in its middle. On each side of the boat was a wheel with wooden boards attached, and the wheels and boards pushed the boat through the water. Standing on the floor of wood planks at the front end of the boat, Redbird tried to understand how fire in the boat"s belly could make wheels turn. She felt the monstrous thing tremble under her as it swam across the river.
About a hundred women and children with a few men were crowded at the front of the boat, watching the Ioway sh.o.r.e of the Great River come closer. By unspoken agreement they kept their backs turned to the land that had once been so good to them, the land they had forever lost.
_The happy land that was lost_, Redbird thought.
At the memory of White Bear, grief stabbed her, and she had to rest against the railing of the boat. She felt an aching hollow as if she had been gutted like a butchered deer.
In their midst rose a little mountain of boxes, barrels, sacks and bales, the supplies they had bought with White Bear"s grandfather"s gold. But they had no horses, and when they got to the Ioway sh.o.r.e they would have to carry these goods on their backs, a journey of probably four days across the strip of land by the river that He Who Moves Alertly had surrendered to the long knives. Somewhere beyond that land they would find the Sauk and Fox who had been wise enough not to follow Black Hawk. She hoped it would not start to snow before they reached the camps of their people.
Wolf Paw said, "I have heard that this is the very boat that killed so many of our people at the Bad Axe."
This boat had killed his wives and his children, then, thought Redbird.
She rested her hand on his arm.
"See there," he said, pointing to holes and black marks on the wood at the very front end. "A thunder gun was set there. It fired at our people and tore them to pieces. Like the one that killed so many of our warriors at the pale eyes town." Through his worn buckskin shirt he touched the silver coin that still hung around his neck on a leather thong. Redbird remembered the day White Bear had dug the coin out of Wolf Paw"s body, claiming he had changed a lead ball into a coin.
She put her hand on her aching heart. Would things ever stop reminding her of White Bear?
She stared down at the gray-green water rushing by the side of the boat, and it made her dizzy. A canoe could never travel this fast, even a big one paddled by many men. And a canoe could never go straight across the river, without being pushed downstream by the current, as this smoke-belching boat was doing.
Had she been wrong not to stay with White Bear, as he had begged her to?
She missed him so much. Tears came to her eyes. She hoped Wolf Paw and Eagle Feather would not see her crying, and she wiped her eyes quickly.
She felt like jumping from this boat and swimming back to sh.o.r.e. If she drowned in the Great River, even that would be better than being carried away from White Bear.
She told herself she had made up her mind. She was determined to be a Sauk for the rest of her days. And Eagle Feather would be a Sauk.
_White Bear is wrong to stay behind, even for all that land._
Eagle Feather gripped her arm. "Do not be afraid, Mother. The pale eyes will not hurt us today." His blue eyes were sad. He must have noticed her misery.
Wolf Paw smiled faintly. "No, today they only want to be rid of us."
Eagle Feather said, "One day Earthmaker will give us a medicine so strong that the long knives" guns will not hurt us."
Redbird smiled at her son. "May it be you who finds that medicine."
_We can hope for that. Now that we have lost so much, the spirits might grant us new powers that will help us to resist the pale eyes._
Of one thing she was sure, White Bear"s way was not a trail that the people should travel. For a Sauk to become a pale eyes was a kind of death.
_We are Sauk, or we are nothing. White Bear is no longer a Sauk. My husband is dead._
She turned back to Wolf Paw and Eagle Feather. She did not like to see Wolf Paw"s hair hanging loose around his head, his slumped shoulders. He had always stood so straight. Before the people at Victor killed Floating Lily.
She put her hand on his back and stroked it with a circular motion, and he straightened his shoulders. As he looked at her a light dawned in his eyes.
She must get him to shave his head again, to put the red crest back in place. The people needed a new leader, a true leader. Black Hawk had been wrong too many times, and He Who Moves Alertly would do whatever the pale eyes told him to do. Wolf Paw would help her heal the people.
_How I hated him the night he mocked White Bear, putting a woman"s dress on him. But he has suffered much since then, and he is a wiser man now._
Eagle Feather was standing at the rail looking across the purple river at the winter-gray hills on the Ioway sh.o.r.e. Redbird moved to stand behind him and put her hands on his small, square shoulders. He held himself very straight.
Eagle Feather said suddenly, "I wish I could have seen my father one last time." She could barely hear him above the noise of the smoke boat and the rushing water.
She closed her eyes against the pain of that and bit her lower lip to keep it from trembling.
When she was able to speak she said, "I think that one day you will see him again."
But for now Eagle Feather and White Bear must be parted. Because Eagle Feather must grow up as a Sauk. The people would need him, too, in summers and winters to come.
But until Eagle Feather was grown, the people would turn to her. The men, like Wolf Paw, had lost heart. She would give them heart again.
In spite of the pale eyes, the Sauk would find a good trail.
The walk from Grandpapa"s house to the ruins of Victoire seemed to Auguste to take all morning. By the time he stood facing the blackened chimney that towered over him like some ancient idol, his legs hurt. He was panting, but the crisp winter air infused vigor into his nostrils and lungs. He sat down to rest on a broken beam that had once held up the ceiling of the great hall.
He was still weak from having been so badly wounded and from lying in bed recovering. And even now his left lung was still not able to fill itself full with air, and probably never would be.
This was the farthest he had ever walked. Too far, really. But the bright December day invited him out of doors, and he wanted to see his land.
_My land._
It was his now, without question. Now that Raoul"s body had been found.
He was glad there had been no marks on the body. Glad that the Fleming children, who had found it day before yesterday while playing down in the gorge, hadn"t had to see a human body torn to pieces, as he feared Raoul might be found.