Shaman Part 124

He stared into the empty doorway. Had he really finished Auguste? He'd better go in there and see. But there were three armed men in there, and if he had killed Auguste, nothing could stop them from trying to kill him.

In fact, it might be a good idea to get away from here. With his family all fired up and the Regulators on the way, a very good idea.

He heard Nancy scream again and again. Nicole suddenly appeared in the doorway.

"You are not my brother anymore, Raoul. I'll bear witness against you and so will Papa and Frank." She broke down and sobbed, then caught herself. "You'll hang for this murder, and then, just like Nancy says, you'll burn in h.e.l.l."

_She says it is murder. Then the mongrel must be dead for certain._

Raoul felt a vast relief. At last he had lifted from his shoulders the burden that had crushed them ever since Pierre brought the savage boy out of the forest.

But the relief lasted only for a moment. The fear came back. His legs were still shaking. He wanted to run for it at once, to get a horse and ride out of Smith County and keep going.

It wasn't just that he had killed a man. This killing was not like other killings. This was not some nameless Indian or some river rat knifed in a taproom brawl. This was his brother's son. The people in this house had loved Auguste.

He remembered, and it was like something breathing cold on his neck, the fear he'd felt looking into Auguste's eyes at Fort Crawford. Medicine man. Was there some way Auguste could hurt him? Could Auguste, even in death, get at him?

Raoul shook himself, shook off the haunting, frightening thoughts like a dog shaking off water.

He had never meant to shoot Auguste in front of witnesses. Now the Regulators were coming and they'd find the body in the house, and him with the smoke practically still twisting up from his pistol barrel. And he wasn't ready to fight them. The trial wouldn't last even as long as Auguste's had.

He had to go to ground somewhere until he could collect more men.

_The lead mine._

Even if they came there looking for him, he knew the mine so much better than anyone in Smith County that they'd never find him. Only two or three men who had worked the mine before the Indian war still lived in Victor, and they would not help the Regulators. In fact, he was sure he was the only one who knew about some parts of the mine.

"Speak to us, mon colonel!" Armand demanded. "Do we fight?"

"No," said Raoul. "They outnumber us."

He pulled Armand to the edge of the clearing around Elysee's little house.

"I'm going to make a run. I can be out of the county by daybreak. I'll come back in a couple of weeks, maybe a month. By that time things will quiet down, and I'll bring with me the men we need to run these Regulators out."

Let them think he was going to ride straight out of the county. Let the Regulators chase him along the Checagou road, and the Galena road and the Fort Armstrong road. Meanwhile, he'd hide out in the mine till they quit looking for him. Then he'd leave the county. But it would be best if no one at all knew exactly what he had planned.

"What will _we_ do, mon colonel?" There was accusation in Armand's eyes.

He probably felt Raoul was deserting them. What the h.e.l.l did Armand expect him to do? He was doing the best he could for them; if he led them into a fight he'd only get them killed.

Like he'd gotten men killed at de Marion's Run and at the Bad Axe.

"For now, scatter. Deny you had any part in this. Wait for me to come back."

"It will not go easy for us, mon colonel," Armand growled.

"I'll be back," Raoul said. "And when I am, it will be just like old times in Victor."

He plunged into the trees behind Elysee's house. While the Regulators charged up the hill, he'd have no trouble finding his way back to the trading post by moonlight.

Alone, moving quickly through woods he'd known since boyhood, he felt suddenly lighthearted. He might be on the run, but he'd done the most important thing. He'd killed Auguste. He had a winter to get through, maybe a hard winter. But by next spring things would be back the way they were in the days when he'd been happiest. Before he'd ever heard that Pierre had a son. When he'd ruled like a king in Smith County.

25

The Other World

To Nancy, young Dr. Surrey looked like a brainless clothier's mannequin in his black frock coat and ruffled white s.h.i.+rt. Though Woodrow had routed him out of bed at nearly three in the morning and he had spent over an hour working on Auguste, he didn't seem tired. If he wasn't tired, what in G.o.d's name had he been doing? Now he was leaving, and Auguste was still unconscious.

A helplessness in Surrey's face, round and blank as an unbaked pie crust, turned Nancy's grief and fear into fury. She wanted to grab his shoulders and shake him until he promised that he could and would save Auguste.

"The bullet pierced his left lung," Surrey said. "But it was a shoot-through, luckily, so I didn't have to dig in there and pull it out. Many a doctor has killed a pistol-shot man that way."

Nancy took a step toward the doctor. He was her only hope, and she would not let him escape.

"Aside from not killing him, Doctor, what have you done for him?"

"I packed the wound with cotton, front and back, to stop the bleeding. I put dressings on. I told Mrs. Hopkins how to change the cotton and dressings. And now he is in the hands of the Almighty."

_Earthmaker, Auguste would say._

"I hope the Almighty guided _your_ hand, Doctor."

"Knowing your father was a man of the Lord, I'm sure your prayers for Auguste will be heard. He's got to stay where he is, in his grandfather's bed, and fight for his life. I expect he'll take a fever, maybe pneumonia. The punctured lung is of no use to him. He'll draw breath with the other one. He'll be delirious, and you've got to get some food into him--soup's the best, because he'll probably be able to swallow that. His body will fight while his mind sleeps. I'll be back to see him every day."

Through tight lips she said, "Tell me the truth, Doctor. Do you think he'll get better?"

"One man in four survives such a wound, Miss Hale."

Nancy's shoulders slumped. This man could do nothing more.

"Good night, then, Dr. Surrey."

Back in the bedroom, Nancy could hear the crackling that was Auguste's breathing, as blood bubbled in his pierced lung. His face beeswax-yellow in the candlelight, he lay under the canopy of Elysee's four-poster, covered to his chest by a quilt. His arms lay stretched out on either side, his fingers slightly curled.

_His breathing is so noisy, at least we'll know when he stops._

Nancy felt as if she herself were being swept away on a black tide of sorrow.

Elysee, sitting by the bed staring into his grandson's face, looked almost as near death as Auguste. Guichard stood behind him, a clawlike hand perched on his master's shoulder.

Nicole, her eyes round and dark with suffering, asked, "What can we do for him?"

Nancy said, "The doctor says it's up to Auguste and G.o.d."