Shaman Part 55

Nicole recalled the line of men she had seen just now in the trading post courtyard signing up for the Smith County volunteer militia. There must have been over a hundred of them, some wearing c.o.o.nskin caps and fringed buckskins, others with straw hats, calico s.h.i.+rts and tow-linen pantaloons, two dozen or so sporting the head kerchiefs favored by men of French descent. They'd been in high spirits, laughing and talking about bringing back scalps.

Frank said, "Of course you don't _want_ to think there'll be an Indian attack on Victor while you're gone. What you want is to go down to the Rock River country with the militia and win a great victory over the Indians. Or something you can call a great victory."

Raoul held out his hands. "Frank, you printed Reynolds's proclamation in your d.a.m.ned paper."

He pointed over his shoulder, where a copy of the Illinois governor's call to arms, cut from the _Victor Visitor_ for April 17, 1832, was nailed to the wall. Nicole's eyes traveled over the opening lines.

FELLOW CITIZENS

Your country requires your services. The Indians have a.s.sumed a hostile att.i.tude and have invaded the State in violation of the treaty of last summer.

The British Band of Sauks and other hostile Indians, headed by Black Hawk, are in possession of the Rock River country, to the great terror of the frontier inhabitants. I consider the settlers on the frontiers to be in imminent danger ...

Raoul said, "He doesn't say stay home and defend your town. He says rendezvous at Beardstown. That is a lot closer to Black Hawk than it is to Victor."

Frank said, "That proclamation is for towns that are in safe territory.

We're the settlers _on_ the frontier, the ones Reynolds says are in danger. I was talking yesterday to a man from Galena, Raoul. Up there, the volunteers have formed a militia company, but they're going to stay right where they are, in case of Indian attack. We aren't _expected_ to supply troops to chase Black Hawk."

Raoul shook his head. "We've got to hit Black Hawk hard and fast with all the men we can muster. Once we do, there'll be no danger to Victor."

Frank said, "If something like what happened at Fort Dearborn happens here at Victor, innocent people will pay for your decision. You want that on your conscience?"

At the mention of Fort Dearborn, Raoul's face had gone expressionless.

He sat there and stared at Frank for a moment, then stood up abruptly.

"My conscience is clear," he said.

_You have no conscience_, Nicole thought. She stared sadly into the bright blue eyes that looked so blankly at her now, and wondered where her smiling little brother had gone, so many years ago. The smile still came readily to his face; but now it only mocked and taunted. Did those years of captivity with the Indians fully explain Raoul, or was he a throwback to some robber-baron ancestor whose only law was the sword?

"When a man goes off to war, Miss Nancy, it means the world to him to know he has someone to come home to."

Raoul smiled down from his chestnut stallion, Banner, at Nancy Hale in the driver's seat of her black buggy. At nineteen, she was a woman in full bloom. She'd probably have married a long time ago if she'd stayed back East. There were a lot of men out here on the frontier, but few good enough to court a woman like her.

_She'd be a fool not to take my offer seriously. It's the best one she'll ever get._

Nancy looked first at the dusty road over the gra.s.s-covered hills between Victoire and Victor, the morning sun beating down on it, then up at him. The deep blue of her eyes was a marvel.

"You already have someone to come home to, Mr. de Marion. And children."

Children, yes, but the mingling of his de Marion blood with the nondescript Greenglove line could hardly produce the children he wanted.

Nancy, on the other hand, from an old New England family that probably went back to even better English stock, was just the sort of woman he wanted to breed with.

"Clarissa and I have never stood up before a priest or a minister, Miss Hale. I've just been pa.s.sing my time with her until the right lady came along."

Her gaze was cool and level. "As far as I'm concerned you're as good as married, and you have no right to be talking to me this way."

"Necessity makes your bedfellows out here on the frontier."

"Not mine." She shook her head, blond braids swinging. He could picture all that honey-gold hair spread out on a pillow, and he felt a pulse beat in his throat.

Nancy went on, "You must know how wrong it is for you to speak to me this way. Otherwise you wouldn't have ambushed me out here."

"I've waited days for a chance to speak to you in private."

Josiah Hode, Hodge Hode's boy, had ridden fast to the trading post this morning to tell Raoul that Miss Hale was driving her buggy into town and was traveling, for once, without her father. It was the news Raoul had been hoping for ever since the governor's proclamation had arrived in Victor. Knowing Miss Nancy was indignant over his treatment of the mongrel, Raoul had delayed approaching her. Now he could delay no longer.

"I leave with the militia next Monday," he said. "That gives you three days to think it over. I hope to carry your favorable answer with me when I ride off to defend you from the savages."

She smiled, but the smile was without humor or warmth. "Carry this answer with you if you wish: No." She flicked the reins, and her dappled gray horse speeded up to a trot.

Raoul spurred his own horse to keep pace with her. "Take time to consider."

"The answer will always be no."

White-hot anger exploded within him. His fists clenched on Banner's reins.

"You'll end up an old maid schoolmarm!" he shouted. "You'll never know what it is to have a man between your legs."

Her face went white. He had hurt her, and that made him feel better.

He kicked his heels hard into Banner's sides and the stallion uttered an angry whicker and broke into a gallop, leaving Nancy Hale and her buggy enveloped in dust.

He wished the country around here weren't so d.a.m.ned open. If he could have dragged her out of that buggy and into the woods, given her a taste of the real thing, she'd have changed her mind about him.

_Is she still pining for the mongrel?_

Well, he thought, as the gray log walls of the trading post came into sight around a bend in the ridge road, he _would_ carry her answer to the war. And the Indians would suffer the more for it.

Prophet's Town was deserted. Black Hawk and his allies had fled.

Raoul reined up Banner in the very center of the rings of dark, silent Indian houses. Armand Perrault, Levi Pope, Hodge Hode and Otto Wegner stopped beside him. He did not know whether he was relieved or disappointed. His cap-and-ball pistol drawn, the hammer pulled back, he drew angry breaths and glared about him. He felt exposed, realizing that at any time an arrow aimed at his heart could come winging out of one of those long loaf-shaped bark and frame Winnebago lodges.

Because of Raoul's experience in the skirmis.h.i.+ng around Saukenuk last year, General Henry Atkinson had commissioned him a colonel and put him in command of the advance guard, known as the spy battalion. He enjoyed the prestige of leading the spies, but he felt a constant tightness in his belly.

He reached down for the canteen in the Indian blanketwork bag strapped to his saddle, uncorked it and took a quick swallow of Old Kaintuck. It went down hot and spread warmth from his stomach through his whole body.

He cooled his throat with water from a second canteen.

For three weeks now, slowed by heavy spring rains that swelled creeks to nearly impa.s.sable torrents, the militia had followed Black Hawk's trail up the Rock River. To the whites' disappointment, the Indians had bypa.s.sed Saukenuk, doubtless aware that the militia had come out against them. Instead, Black Hawk's band had trekked twenty-five miles upriver, reportedly stopping at Prophet's Town. Now, they were not here either.

Raoul hated the Indian village on sight. Built on land that sloped gently down to the south bank of the Rock River, it surrounded him, threatened him, lay dark, sullen and sinister under a gray sky heavy with rain. It reminded him too vividly of the redskin villages where he'd spent those two worst years of his life.

He saw no cooking fires, no drying meat or stacks of vegetables by the dark doorways, no poles flaunting feathers, ribbons and enemy scalps.

That characteristic odor of Indian towns, a mixture of tobacco smoke and cooking hominy, hung in the air but was very faint. He figured the Indians had left here days ago.