Shaman Part 94

"Gets d.a.m.ned sticky on the river in August."

Raoul offered his jug. "Help you forget the heat."

Kingsbury grinned, thanked Raoul and took a big drink. His cheeks reddened, and he dabbed at his thick brown mustache with his fingertips.

"I don't hear much shooting on sh.o.r.e," he said, handing the jug back to Raoul, who took a swallow before setting it down.

"Just what I was thinking," said Raoul. "Where the h.e.l.l are all the redskins? I figure there's about a thousand left. They can't all have crossed the Mississippi before we got here unless they had a whole fleet of canoes."

The _Victory_ had caught one canoe in midstream when she arrived on the scene. Raoul's militia sharpshooters had blanketed it with rifle fire, killing all six Indians aboard, and the overturned canoe had drifted downstream, out of sight.

Raoul picked up a bra.s.s telescope from the chart table and studied the riverbank, moving the circular field from point to point. He saw plenty of militiamen, but no sign of Indians.

"Look," said Kingsbury. "Militiamen coming back out of the woods."

Raoul swept his telescope back over the riverbank. Men in buckskins were dragging their rifle b.u.t.ts along the ground, sitting down on the river's edge and splas.h.i.+ng water on their faces, shaking their heads angrily, racc.o.o.n tails on their caps wagging.

One man did emerge from the trees with a big grin, holding high three b.l.o.o.d.y scalps dangling from hanks of black hair. Another man led two Indian ponies. So, the Sauk still had a few horses with them.

Kingsbury said, "Looks like they only met a handful."

Raoul drummed his fingers on the polished oak sill. "A rear guard. The rest could have headed north. But I don't think they did. They were aiming to cross the Mississippi."

His telescope brought closer an island north of the Bad Axe mouth, about fifty yards out from the Mississippi's east bank, thickly covered with spruce and hemlock. He saw two bark canoes with stove-in bottoms beached at the island's southern tip. Between the island and the riverbank the water had a pale green look that said it was shallow.

"I've got a feeling most of the Indians are hiding out on that island."

His pulse quickened and his breath came fast.

His first thought was to land on the island with his men and flush the Indians out. But there could still be a couple of hundred warriors left to the band. No, they'd have to use the six-pounder first.

"Captain Bill, sail along the west side of that island. I want to get a closer look at it."

The spokes flew under Helmer's hands, and the _Victory_'s side paddles churned up the water.

Raoul, followed by Kingsbury, hurried down the stairs to the foredeck, where his own dozen militiamen, all Smith County boys who had reenlisted, watched him stride the planks to stand beside the six-pounder. It had saved the townspeople at Victor; now, mounted on the _Victory_'s foredeck, it would finish the Sauk.

The late morning sun beat without mercy on the open deck, and sweat trickled down from Raoul's armpits. He wanted to throw his jacket off and wear just a s.h.i.+rt, but the military blue, the gold braid and the bra.s.s b.u.t.tons gave him authority that he'd found he needed, not so much in dealing with his own men as with other officers.

Hodge Hode said, "We got 'em treed now, Colonel."

"But stay under cover," said Raoul. "These racc.o.o.ns will be shooting back." His eyes tried to tear holes in the thick greenery on the island.

The Smith County boys crouched down behind the bales of hay lined along the railings and c.o.c.ked their flintlocks.

Raoul patted the gun's black muzzle affectionately, and the three artillerists in blue jackets grinned and nodded at him. They had put their shakoes aside and wrapped rags around their heads to keep the sweat out of their eyes. Beside the cannon were stacked canisters of grapeshot and flannel bags of powder. In a few minutes, Raoul thought with pleasure, that grape would be sending a heap of red devils to h.e.l.l.

As the _Victory_ steamed around the tip of the island, Raoul searched the forest with his telescope. He guessed the island to be a quarter of a mile long. It was deeply forested enough to conceal hundreds of Indians.

Midway along, he saw a gleam of sun on brown skin in the shrubbery near the river's edge. He swung the telescope back to the spot. Nothing now.

But the quarry was there, all right. His lips drew back from his teeth.

"Captain Bill," he called to the pilot house. "Turn our bow toward the island. Kingsbury, get ready to fire."

Kingsbury saluted and called orders to the gun crew. A gunner slid a bag of powder into the six-pounder's muzzle and rammed it home. Another pushed a canister of grapeshot in after it. The third held the burning linstock ready.

Raoul called to the bridge. "Captain, hold her position." The captain waved acknowledgment from behind the gla.s.s, and Raoul heard him ring a bell relaying his orders belowdecks. A moment later levers clanked and Raoul felt the deck tremble as the paddle wheels on the sides of the s.h.i.+p reversed themselves.

"Shoot when you're ready, Lieutenant," Raoul said.

_G.o.d, how I love this!_

Kingsbury shouted, "Fire!"

The gun thundered, deafening him, and leaped back in its cradle of tackle. Raoul watched the woods eagerly as a white smoke cloud spread over the water. On the island, branches flew in all directions. A big tree fell. He heard a scream followed by a series of wailing cries. He almost cried aloud with pleasure.

An Indian staggered out from behind the trunk of a tall pine. He dragged one leg, a useless ma.s.s of b.l.o.o.d.y meat, and fell heavily to the ground. He held a rifle. He shook his fist at the _Victory_, then aimed the rifle from his p.r.o.ne position.

In sudden fear, Raoul was about to duck behind a hay bale when a dozen shots cracked out from the railings beside him. Bleeding from his chest and his head, the Indian collapsed and rolled into the Mississippi.

Nodding happily, Raoul watched the current catch his body. It drifted slowly downstream, trailing blood.

"Keep firing!" Raoul roared. A cannoneer swabbed inside the gun barrel to cool it down for more powder. In a moment the gun boomed out again.

More trees splintered, but no more Indians were flushed out.

"Raise elevation ten degrees," Kingsbury called to the gunners. "They're probably lurking farther back in the woods."

Raoul heard the clicks as the gunners used hand spikes to raise the cannon in its carriage.

After the cannon went off, dirt and broken tree limbs sprayed out of the forest, and Raoul heard shrieking sounds that he hoped were the screams of Indians.

The cannon boomed again and again. With hand signals to Captain Bill in the pilot house, Raoul had the _Victory_'s bow swung to starboard and then to port, so that the grapeshot struck the island in a wide arc.

Trees slowly toppled over, and shrieks of pain and shouts of rage and defiance pierced the silence between the roars of the cannon.

He pictured the lead b.a.l.l.s tearing into howling Indians, ripping their flesh apart. He remembered Helene's body in Lake Michigan. He remembered Black Salmon's lash on his back. He saw--as he had seen them two weeks ago--the heap of blackened, split logs that had been Victoire, his home, the place where Clarissa, Phil and Andy died. He saw the mound of earth in the family cemetery where they lay together. What little had been left of them.

The cannon's heat was his rage. The cannon's boom was his roar. The grapeshot was his vengeance. He hurled his hatred over the water and into the trees, blowing Indian bodies to shreds.

He heard something hum past his head and plunk into the pilot house behind him. He saw smoke puff from the shadowy base of a clump of spruces. Another puff, and another. The reports of rifles carried across the water.

"Sir!" Kingsbury's hand gripped his shoulder, the fingers digging in.

Raoul realized he had been momentarily out of his mind with fury.

Breathing heavily, he got his eyes focused on the brown-mustached lieutenant.

"Get down, sir, before you get hit."

Reluctantly, because he wanted to see where the grapeshot was. .h.i.tting, Raoul crouched down behind a hay bale. When he'd first come out on deck he'd been afraid of being shot at. Now he felt sure they couldn't hit him.

The six-pounder repeatedly tore into the area on sh.o.r.e where powder smoke had appeared. Raoul saw no sign of Indian bodies, but the firing from the trees stopped.