Shaman Part 34

Raoul did not think he could put up with much more of this funeral. He had to wait till it was all over before he could make himself master of Victoire, and he wanted desperately to act now. He tried to calm himself by remembering the Indians he'd stalked and killed at Saukenuk last May and June.

Raoul and the fifty men he'd recruited to represent Smith County in the state militia had arrived at the Rock River in style, carried up the Mississippi from Victor to Fort Armstrong, at the mouth of the Rock River, on Raoul's new steamer _Victory_. Paid for with the profits of the lead mine, the _Victory_ was propelled by two side paddle wheels, and it could make the St. Louis-Galena round trip in exactly a week.

They'd come to hunt Indians and Raoul had made sure they did, camping in the woods on the south side of the Rock River opposite the Indian village and shooting at redskins whenever they had a chance. It pleased Raoul to think they'd gotten half a dozen, maybe more.

Finally fed up with talking, General Gaines had ordered a general a.s.sault on Black Hawk's town at the end of June. The militia were eager to slaughter every Indian in Saukenuk, and they'd swept in.

And the d.a.m.ned, sneaking redskins were gone. Seeing themselves outnumbered, they'd slipped out of the village, down the Rock River and across the Mississippi the night before. The Smith County boys, along with the other militiamen, were in a fury of frustration. They had to be content with the poor-second satisfaction of burning the Indian town to the ground.

To Raoul's great annoyance, instead of pursuing Black Hawk, Gaines sent a message to the chief asking for yet another parley. Black Hawk and some of his braves came back across the river to talk peace. Just like he hadn't shown the whole world what a coward he really was, the stubborn old Indian had marched up to Gaines's tent walking like a peac.o.c.k, with feathers in his hair.

_Hang the redskinned son of a b.i.t.c.h_, was what Raoul thought. Instead, Gaines just made him sign another fool treaty--as if the Indians ever honored any treaties--and even promised to send them corn because they hadn't had time to plant any.

The disgusted militiamen called it the Corn Treaty. Old Gaines must be almost as big a coward as Black Hawk.

Raoul and the Smith County boys hung around the Rock River, sniping at Indians in canoes till their provisions ran out; they flagged the _Victory_ down on her next northbound trip and rode her home.

Home, where what was going on made Raoul madder than ever. Pierre was dying and the mongrel--from the same tribe Raoul had been fighting down on the Rock River--was strutting around as if he already owned Victoire.

That would end today. If Raoul could pull it off.

Raoul eyed Nancy Hale, standing only a few feet from him among the two hundred or so mourners in the great hall of Victoire. What would she think, Raoul wondered, when he played his hand today? He pictured what the tall blond woman would look like naked under him in bed.

Oh, he'd make her sweat and moan and thank him for it.

But first, of course, he had to succeed today. He had to drive the mongrel away before he could court Nancy. Whether her preacher father approved of him or not, he couldn't turn away one of the biggest landowners in Illinois.

And that's what he'd be, after today.

He didn't see how he could fail. Surely the servants and the townspeople wouldn't take the mongrel's part.

Still warming himself by staring at Nancy Hale's straight back, Raoul thanked G.o.d he'd never been quite able to bring himself to marry Clarissa.

He felt a twinge of unease as he recalled that taking up with Nancy would mean kicking Clarissa out of his bed, and _that_ might mean trouble with Eli. To his relief, Eli had accepted Raoul's not marrying Clarissa, even after she bore him two kids. But that was only because Eli figured it would happen eventually, maybe after Raoul got control of the estate.

Well, once he had the estate, he comforted himself, he could see that Clarissa and their two out-of-wedlock boys were well taken care of.

It galled Raoul to be so dependent on a man like Eli, to be--he hated to admit it to himself--afraid of him. A heap depended on Eli's playing his part today in helping him get control of the estate. Today, Eli would be leading the Smith County boys, ones who'd been at the Rock River last June. Having been offered a good day's pay, they would do a little more Indian fighting.

Raoul felt as if he were going to burst. He couldn't stand this waiting, while the priest droned on in singsong Latin at the linen-covered table that had been set up as an altar before the fireplace. Let the fight begin, for G.o.d's sake.

_Indians are all cowards at heart. When I take over here, Pierre's precious little red b.a.s.t.a.r.d will slink away, like Black Hawk did last summer._

A chill spread across Raoul's back as he asked himself: What if Auguste doesn't slink away? He might try to rally the servants and some of the townspeople to fight for him.

They wouldn't fight for a mongrel b.a.s.t.a.r.d. People hated Indians. Look how many men rushed down to the Rock River to fight Black Hawk.

But many people had loved Pierre. This hall was filled, and there were more people outside who couldn't get in because there wasn't room. All of them paying their last respects to Pierre. And they knew that Pierre wanted Auguste to take his place. Would any of them fight to see that Pierre's will was done?

He felt colder still as he considered the odds. Just about every man in Smith County had his own rifle or pistol. And Raoul and the men he'd recruited for today were far outnumbered. He wished he had hired more men. But too many and the secret would be out, and then Auguste would be ready for him.

Raoul tried to calm himself. Everyone in Smith County might be armed, he reasoned, but not everyone wanted to use their weapons. A lot of men wouldn't fight unless their backs were to the wall. It was the ones who were willing to fight who got to give orders to the rest. The men Raoul had picked, Eli and Hodge and the rest of them, were born fighters.

There'd be those who would condemn him, he thought, for seizing the land the very day of his brother's funeral. It was indecent, he admitted to himself. But he had no choice. He couldn't allow Auguste to get his feet planted firmly. He couldn't allow Pierre's will to be read aloud.

He felt even better when he remembered that with Pierre dead the servants would be taking their orders from Armand. He looked around the hall for the overseer. There he was, near the door, most of his face buried by his thick brown beard. Armand's wife, Marchette, was standing next to him. Sporting a black eye, Raoul noticed with amus.e.m.e.nt.

Armand Perrault was one who didn't love Pierre.

That sanctimonious hypocrite Pierre. First the squaw, the mongrel's mother. Then he marries Marie-Blanche, and as soon as she dies, he's putting it to the cook.

Raoul took a deep breath of relief when he saw that Pere Isaac had finally finished with the funeral ma.s.s. The old Jesuit was again sprinkling holy water on the black-painted coffin, heaped with wreaths of roses and chrysanthemums that lay on trestles in the center of the hall. Frank Hopkins, Raoul knew, had built that coffin of oak planks.

Old red-nosed Guichard came up to Raoul. "Your father requests that you be one of those who carries your brother's coffin to the wagon."

Raoul felt a momentary jolt of fear. Help pick up Pierre's coffin and carry it, when he was about to dispossess Pierre's son? If he laid a hand on Pierre's coffin, G.o.d might strike him dead. Or Pierre's ghost would rise up against him.

He shook his head. Fool's thinking.

"I wouldn't have it any other way, Guichard."

He was angered to see Auguste standing opposite him when he went to the head of the coffin. It was infuriating to see Pierre's features in that brown-skinned face. The half-breed was wearing a green clawhammer jacket, with a black silk band around the left arm.

His arms and back strained as they took the weight of his corner of the coffin. A chorus of grunts arose from Raoul, Auguste, Armand, Frank Hopkins, Jacques Manette and Jean-Paul Kobell as they hoisted the coffin to their shoulders. They trudged out the door with it and slid it on the bed of a flower-bedecked farm wagon. Guichard helped Elysee climb up on the wagon. A snap of the old servant's whip started the two horses moving, as black ribbons tied to their harnesses fluttered.

Raoul walked alone, following the cart the half mile south along the bluffs to the burial ground. Some of the hands had cut a track through the shoulder-high prairie gra.s.s for the funeral procession to follow.

The fiddler Registre Bosquet marched right behind the wagon playing hymns, and the servants sang in French.

Raoul cast his eye back over the long line of people following the coffin. His glance slid past Nicole and Frank and their pa.s.sel of kids.

With a feeling of satisfaction he saw two of his key men walking near the end of the procession, Justus Bennett, the county land commissioner, and Burke Russell, the county clerk. One copy of Pierre's will was in Russell's keeping, and Raoul had already told him what to do with that.

Russell's wife, Pamela, was walking beside him, a handsome woman with chestnut hair that she didn't braid as most women did but allowed to fall in soft waves under her broad-brimmed hat. Strongly attracted to her himself, Raoul wondered how a bespectacled weakling like Burke Russell had ever been able to attract such a fine-looking woman. And what she'd do if she had a sporting proposition from an equally fine-looking man.

They were at the cemetery now. Raoul liked this hillside rising out of the bluffs, where Pierre's wife, Marie-Blanche, lay overlooking the bottomland and the river. The graves of about a dozen others who had worked and died at Victoire were surrounded by a low split-rail fence.

Tall cedar trees shadowed the white gravestones. The flat markers with their rounded tops, names, dates and inscriptions were chiseled by Warren Wilgus, the mason who'd recently moved into the area. Auguste had already made arrangements to have Pierre's headstone carved.

The sight of a solid limestone cube in the center of the cemetery gave Raoul a twinge of guilt, as it always did. It was the first stone to have been placed in the cemetery, and was a memorial to his mother, Estelle de Marion, who was buried not here but in Kaskaskia, where she had died in 1802 giving birth to him.

_It wasn't my fault!_

Helene was also remembered, though not buried here. The Indians had thrown her poor, mutilated body into Lake Michigan. Her memorial marker stood next to Maman's stone. A carved angel spread his wings over Helene's name and dates, "HELENE DE MARION VAILLANCOURT, Beloved Daughter and Sister. 1794-1812. She sings before the throne of G.o.d."

Below that were inscribed the name and dates of her husband, Henri Vaillancourt, whose body also had never been found.

Raoul carried inside himself his own inscription for Helene: _Murdered by Indians, August 15, 1812. She will be avenged._

And one act of vengeance would take place today, when the half-Sauk mongrel, whose presence was an affront to Helene, was thrown off this land.

It gave Raoul an uneasy feeling to be working with Auguste, lifting Pierre's coffin off the wagon. It might be bad luck. But the time to strike had not yet come, so he had to walk beside Auguste carrying the coffin to the newly dug grave. There, crouching in unison, the six pallbearers laid the coffin on a cradle of two ropes, each end held by two servants, over the oblong pit. Bending to let his burden down hurt Raoul's back, and he glanced over at Auguste, hoping to see him having trouble. But the mongrel's dark face was impa.s.sive.