Shaman Part 82

Not much chance there'd be a letter for Eli in the sack of two-week-old mail that had just caught up with Raoul's battalion. No one in Victor likely to write to Eli. Not now.

Eli's mouth was drawn hard. It was a hot night, and he wore no jacket, only a plain brown calico work s.h.i.+rt, with a pistol and a knife at his wide brown belt.

"Levi Pope got a letter from his missuz. There was an Injun raid on Victor. You hear anything?" Eli's voice was as flat as the prairie. He sat on Raoul's camp trunk.

"Yes," Raoul said, choking on the single word. "A war party attacked Victoire."

He took a swallow from the jug. A cold, aching s.p.a.ce was growing in the pit of his stomach. The whiskey settled in the middle of the ache like a tiny campfire in the middle of a blizzard.

He handed the jug to Eli, and Eli sipped and put the jug back on the table.

"G.o.ddammit, don't just sit there staring at me." Eli displayed his ruined teeth as his lip curled back in a snarl. "_What 'n h.e.l.l happened?_"

Raoul picked up the letter in a shaking hand and read aloud--horrible words, written in a flowing black script.

"'It is my sad duty as your sister to send you the news that Clarissa Greenglove and your two sons have perished at the hands of Indians.'"

"Oh, Lord G.o.d an' Savior," Eli groaned. His head fell back on his neck, his mouth open. His Adam's apple stuck out.

"'Also that our beloved Victoire has burned to the ground.'"

Raoul went on:

"Clarissa and Andrew and Philip, along with other people who lived at Victoire and in Victor, were murdered on the morning of June seventeenth.

"In your sorrow, may it comfort you to know that your fortified trading post, where we took shelter and defended ourselves, saved the lives of most of us. The cannon that you set in the blockhouse was employed to good effect, even though we hesitated at first to use it, since no one here knew how to fire such a weapon.

Nevertheless, fire it we did, and broke the Indians' last charge and drove them off.

"Mr. Burke Russell, whom you placed in charge of the trading post, was killed whilst fighting on the parapet. Mr. David Cooper, whom you also appointed as caretaker, gave us the leaders.h.i.+p and strength we badly needed to see us through. He was the only experienced fighting man among us.

"I cannot bear to write more. The sights we saw when we came out of the blockhouse will haunt my dreams forever.

"Though the Indians could not lay hands on our bodies, they destroyed our property. Our house was burned down and our printing press and woodworking machines ruined.

"When it was all over, Frank rode to Galena, though I begged him not to, for fear there were Indians yet lurking about. But he must needs publish his paper. He arranged to have an edition of the _Visitor_ printed on the press of the Galena _Miners Gazette_, and brought the copies back here on a wagon. I am sending you a copy of the paper under this cover. Frank's account will tell you everything there is to know about the raid, and more perhaps than you would wish to know.

"Our father is well. He and Guichard fought bravely in our defense.

"I do not reproach you. My heart goes out to you, Brother, for I know you must be suffering. Remember that all happens as G.o.d ordains. May He grant you peace."

_What the h.e.l.l does she mean, "All happens as G.o.d ordains?" G.o.d wanted my woman and my kids murdered by Indians?_

"Oh, Christ Jesus," Eli said. He shook his head, then resting his elbows on his knees, pressed his hands to the top of his head.

_Even Papa had to fight._

Raoul's heart felt bruised, as if beaten with a hammer.

_I do not reproach you._ That was reproach enough. He had taken every man who would sign up for the militia. He had promised them their wives and children would be safe. He'd led them away in pursuit of Black Hawk, vengeance and glory.

Eli looked up. "What does it say in the newspaper?"

Raoul started to hand it to him.

"You read it to me."

Raoul had forgotten that Eli couldn't read. Clarissa couldn't either.

Now she'd never learn. Nor would the boys.

He shook his head and brushed his hand across his forehead. "I _can't_ read this out loud."

Greenglove's eyes were hard as bullets. "You wipe your d.a.m.ned eyes and read that d.a.m.ned newspaper."

Raoul rubbed his eyes and took another pull from the jug. Greenglove held out his hand and Raoul pa.s.sed him the jug.

Raoul picked up the newspaper, hating the sight of it, and began to read the column headed with the single word, Ma.s.sACRE!

Frank's story told how the people in the trading post held the Indians off all day and finally drove them away by firing the cannon. Then came the grievous task of finding and burying those who had not had time to reach safety.

Then, for Raoul, the most dreadful lines of all:

In the ashes of Victoire, it appeared from examination of the charred remains that the skulls of the men and women had been cloven by tomahawk blows. Parts of the children's bodies were scattered about the ruins, as if they had been chopped to bits before the Indians set fire to the great house.

Why hadn't Clarissa gotten away? She'd taken to drinking heavily in the last year, so much so that he'd had to hit her more than once for letting the boys run loose without keeping an eye on them. She had probably been lying abed in a drunken stupor while everyone was fleeing the chateau, the boys sleeping in the room with her. Hadn't anyone tried to wake them?

Those faithful French servants who loved Elysee and Pierre so much, they didn't give a d.a.m.n about Raoul's wh.o.r.e and his b.a.s.t.a.r.d sons. After all, he had thwarted Pierre's dying wishes. And he had struck his aged father with his fist in front of all those Victoire people.

Still, they'd have been human enough to try to do _something_. If they'd had time. They'd holler and bang on the door. Try to wake them up. But there wouldn't have been time. A hundred or more Indians galloping down on the chateau. The servants who saw them coming would barely have time to get away. Some of them hadn't made it. Some of them had died with Clarissa and the boys; maybe the ones who'd stayed behind to try to warn them.

That was how it must have been.

Frank's article in the _Visitor_ said that some of the people in the distant farms had saved themselves by hiding in root cellars or in nearby woods. The Indians were in too much of a hurry to get to Victor to bother searching carefully. One family, the Flemings, had ridden to the shut-down lead mine. Some Indians pursued them to the mine but didn't follow them in. The Flemings hid so deep in the mine they had trouble finding their way out again, but they did survive.

But one person had neither hidden nor been killed:

While the body of the Reverend Philip Hale, D.D., was found in the burnt wreckage of his house, his daughter, Miss Nancy Hale, has not been found. It is feared Miss Hale may have been kidnapped by the Indians. Both the church and the house Reverend Hale built on the prairie were burned down.

As Raoul read aloud the list of the dead, he thought of Nancy and then of his sister Helene. Did they do _that_ to Nancy? The red devils!

Probably did. Horrible!

He saw the naked, slashed, violated body lying on the prairie. Nancy Hale's body. Just like Helene's.

But it could be, too, she was alive. And if he kept after Black Hawk, he might be the one to rescue her. There was comfort in that.

A little comfort.

And then a black bile of hatred for himself trickled up into his throat.