Shaman Part 78

"Because I have these things I can help you," he said gently. "But I want so much to know what happened at Victor. Can you bear to tell me?"

She took his arm again. "I'd just gotten dressed to go out and feed the animals--when I saw the Indians riding toward our house. So many of them! I knew right away. I ran into the house and woke Father. By the time they got to the house he was standing in the doorway. He never even got his rifle loaded, Auguste. Before he could move there was an arrow in his chest."

White Bear knew that Reverend Hale had never liked him; but he was Nancy's father, and to see her father killed--how that must hurt her!

"He was a good man," he said. "He never did harm to our people. It is wrong that he died."

Nancy went on, sobbing softly. "I must have fainted. I remember a ride, I was thrown over the back of a horse, then we were at Victoire.

Auguste, they--they just overran Victoire."

"Did anyone get away?"

"I think the people at Victoire must have seen our church and the farms burning, so they had some warning. I couldn't see much. I was left tied on the horse while they attacked. I did see them chase one woman and run a spear through her. It was over very quickly. They set fire to Victoire."

White Bear swallowed hard.

He saw the chateau with its magnificent hall and its great sweeping roof. There he had lived and learned so much from Grandpapa and Father.

Their hopes, their lives, had gone into that great house. And the men and women of Victoire, kindly, cheerful hard-working people--Marchette Perrault, Registre and Bernadette Bosquet. They may not have tried to stop Raoul from seizing the estate, but they had, most of them, loved Elysee and Pierre and Auguste de Marion.

The pain in his chest spread till it seemed to fill his whole world, hammering at him inside and out.

Nancy said, "Then they rode on to Victor, taking me with them."

He choked as he asked, "Did they burn Victor down too?"

"Yes, as they left."

A voice seemed to echo inside him like a scream in a huge, empty hall.

_Nicole! Frank! Grandpapa!_

"Can you tell me--my family--were any of them hurt?"

Nancy said, "I think the people at Victor got into the trading post before the Indians got there. There were men on the palisade shooting at the Indians. The leader, the one with the red crest on his head, tied me to a tree. I had to watch it all."

"He is called Wolf Paw. He is Black Hawk's son."

"I hope the Army gets him and hangs him from the highest gallows in Illinois. He left me tied to that tree all day while they tried to take the trading post."

The words tumbled out faster and faster. When she had first regained consciousness she could hardly speak at all. Now her eyes glittered and she moved her hands violently. Hysteria had broken through her former numbness.

"I could see them using ropes to climb the palisade and charging in through the front gate. Every so often they would pull out some dead or wounded. Just before sunset the one you call Wolf Paw made a speech to them. Then they set fire to arrows and shot them at the blockhouse, and they all rushed in through the front gate. I thought that would be the end, but then I heard a tremendous explosion. I thought maybe somebody blew up the blockhouse. A big puff of smoke rose up over the palisade.

Wolf Paw came out wounded. That very big man helped him put me on his horse and tie me there. And then we rode for four days till we got here."

Auguste began to breathe easier. He felt some relief, some hope, despite his pain for the loss of Victoire and for the people who had died there.

It sounded as if many of the people of Victor, perhaps Nicole and her family, perhaps Grandpapa, might have come through unharmed.

But another fear took a grip on him. "On the way here, did Wolf Paw ...

hurt you, Nancy?"

"No. I think he was too tired and too badly hurt to want to do anything like that. We rode hard, and he kept me tied on his horse all the time.

We stopped to sleep long after dark and started riding again before sunup. There was always at least one man awake to guard me."

All the while she had been talking, Nancy had kept a tight grasp on his arm. Now he gently pulled away from her and stood up.

"Nancy, I must leave you for a while."

"No!" Her voice was shrill with fear.

"I must. There are many wounded who need me."

Fearful of how she would react to what he was going to say next, he hesitated. Then he spoke quickly to get it over with, as he did when he had to hurt a patient. "This is my wife, Redbird. She will care for you."

"Your wife?" Even in the semidarkness of the wickiup White Bear could see pain in her eyes.

"Yes." He had no time now to ease her suffering on that score.

He turned to Redbird and said in Sauk, "Do what you can for her. She saw her father and many others of her people killed."

"I must know who she is," said Redbird, fixing him with her slanting eyes.

He laid a rea.s.suring hand on her shoulder. "Have no fear. I will tell you everything, tonight. See that she eats. Give her maple sugar. Help her to rest."

White Bear spent the rest of the day moving through the wickiups under the trees with his Sauk medicine bag and his bag of pale eyes surgical instruments. Wolf Paw had brought back many wounded braves. Together with Sun Woman and Owl Carver, White Bear treated those he could and made the dying more comfortable. He went to the families of the braves and warriors who had been killed and tried to comfort them, performing rituals that helped them let their loved ones go, to walk west on the Trail of Souls.

By late afternoon White Bear was sick with disgust at the suffering and death this war had brought, and wanted nothing more than to go off by himself and weep for his people. Wolf Paw's raid had brought back cattle and horses, but nearly two dozen men had died and an equal number were badly hurt.

_And all for what? To make the long knives hate us more._

At sunset another war party thundered in, this one led by Black Hawk himself, with the Winnebago Prophet riding beside him. And more wounded men to treat.

In the cool of the evening a delicious scent crept into White Bear's nostrils, one that neither he nor any of the British Band had smelled for far too long--roasting beef. Now that it was dark and smoke from fires could no longer be seen, people were roasting the cattle Wolf Paw had brought from Victoire. There were so many empty bellies to feed, they had probably butchered all the steers.

_By rights those are my steers_, White Bear thought wryly. _Raoul stole them from me, and Wolf Paw stole them from Raoul._

White Bear saw many small fires throughout the camp. In time of peace a feast like this would call for one big fire, but that would send up a glow that could be seen from a distance.

He felt a surge of resentment when he saw how calm and contented Black Hawk looked, sitting at a fire before his wickiup, chewing on strips of beef his wife had laid before him on a mat.

Until today the people had been on the verge of starvation. And scouts had reported that an army of over two thousand long knives was working its way up the Rock River toward them. How could Black Hawk bear the responsibility for bringing so much anguish down on his people?

To White Bear's disappointment, the Winnebago Prophet sat next to Black Hawk. At the sight of Flying Cloud, with his long, greasy hair and the mustache that looked something like Raoul's, White Bear's shoulders slumped. He felt an impulse to turn away, and seek Black Hawk out another time.

The Prophet's Winnebago followers were long since gone, but the Prophet himself was still predicting mighty victories over the long knives.

White Bear remembered a scripture reading he'd heard at St. George's, that false prophets would arise at the end of the world. This might well be the end of the world for the Sauk; they certainly had their false prophet.

But a talk with Black Hawk about Nancy was too important to put off.

White Bear sat down, silently facing Black Hawk. He waited for the war leader to speak to him.