Late that afternoon, Lieutenant Davis called Auguste from his cell and took him down to the courtroom.
"Judge said send for you. I think maybe the jury's reached a verdict."
Entering through the rear door of the courtroom, Auguste met Raoul's eyes and his longing for vengeance made his blood feel like molten metal in his veins.
The jurymen came in through a side door. Robert McAllister, foreman of the jury, glanced at Auguste, then handed David Cooper a folded piece of paper.
"He looked at you," Ford whispered. "It's an old tale among lawyers that if members of the jury have found the defendant guilty, they don't look at him."
Cooper read the note and sighed loudly, as if he found the message burdensome. Then he took goose quill and ink and wrote a note of his own. McAllister watched him write, looking over his shoulder, sighed as heavily as Cooper had, looked at Auguste again. After a moment he nodded and took the judge's note back upstairs.
"Well," said Judge Cooper to the courtroom at large, "it seems the jury's a pretty fair distance from a verdict. They can't agree on a lot of things. So, I've given orders that they stay upstairs and keep at it. It looks like we won't have a guilty or not guilty until tomorrow. The prisoner will go back upstairs to his cell. Court will open at nine o'clock in the morning."
Auguste heard the rear door of the courtroom slam and knew without looking around that Raoul had left.[442]
That night Auguste lay on his corn-husk mattress wondering whether he should try to run away when they took him out. To be shot while trying to escape might be more honorable than hanging. He wished he could see Redbird and Eagle Feather one last time. He wished Nancy would come to visit him. Or at least Nicole, Grandpapa or Frank. But Lieutenant Davis said that for the prisoner's safety no one would be allowed into the village hall tonight.
He heard a key turning in his door lock. He climbed to his feet.
"Come on," said Davis quickly. "We're taking you out of here."
They've come to kill me, Auguste thought. It would not be the first time an inconvenient Indian was "shot while trying to escape." But his shaman's insight told him Davis was as trustworthy as any Sauk.
"Why? Before the verdict?"
"They did reach a verdict today. You are found not guilty."
Not guilty! Joy flooded through him as he stood, so amazed that he could not move, staring at the open cell door.
When he had recovered enough to move, Auguste followed Davis out of the village hall, to where the two corporals waited with horses in the silent street. The river rippled black and silver in the light of a three-quarter moon. The Ioway bluffs opposite were black bison shapes under a sky spangled with stars.
The moonlight helped Auguste guide his horse up the steep road out of the village. Davis led, followed by Auguste, the two corporals bringing up the rear. After weeks of imprisonment, Auguste reveled in the cool night air blowing in his face.
They passed the trading post. The road was wider here, and the three soldiers bunched around him. Raoul was surely in there getting drunk, laughing as he looked forward to seeing Auguste swinging at a rope's end.
They trotted along the ridge leading to Victoire. Auguste's heart started to beat harder as he approached the place that had been his home.
The remains of the mansion sprawled on its hilltop like the skeleton of some huge animal, blackened timbers rearing up in the moonlight. People had died bloody, horrible deaths there. Was the place haunted now? Accursed?
A longing came over him to climb that hill again, to sweep away that ruin and rebuild. Put up a fine new house like the ones he'd seen in the East.[443]
I could do so much with this land, but I'm running away from it again. Leaving it to Raoul again.
Then they were past Victoire, but the yearning for it clung to him like a lover's scent.
"By morning you'll be far out of your uncle's reach," said Davis, riding beside him.
Auguste's heart swelled in his chest with the thought that he was more nearly a free man than he had been in weeks.
"If I'm not guilty, why must I run away?"
"Surely you realize that your uncle and his cronies were planning to take you straight from the courtroom to the nearest tall tree if the court didn't sentence you to death. The foreman brought Judge Cooper a note stating their verdict. The judge wrote back, telling them he would say they hadn't reached a verdict, and he wanted them to remain in seclusion overnight while we spirited you out of town. They were willing to put up with the inconvenience. After all, who'd want to find a man not guilty and then see him taken out and hanged?"
Auguste's heart felt like a cup that was overflowing. The jury had understood him; they had believed him.
"I never even got a chance to thank Mr. Ford."
"Main thanks he'd want is knowing that you got away safely."
As they rode on, Auguste's happiness faded. The town that had been his home for six years had exonerated him. But he still had to run away from it at night, for the second time in his life. He hated to do this.
This was something else Raoul had taken from him—his moment of vindication.
Pain throbbed in Auguste's chest with the jouncing of the horse under him. He remembered his mother's body, like a castaway doll, her eyes pathetically wide, the gash in her throat, the splash of blood on her doeskin dress. She must be avenged. How could he let the man who murdered her walk free? Silently he called on the Bear spirit to avenge Sun Woman.
Again he remembered it was wrong to ask a spirit to harm any person. Even so, if he could not hurt Raoul himself, he wanted him hurt, whatever price he himself might pay.
And once again he was fleeing from people he loved. Elysée. Nicole and Frank.
Nancy.[444]
"Soon I must go back," he said.
Davis turned his head to stare at him. "Go back? In the name of the great Jehovah, what for?"
It was Auguste's turn to be surprised. It seemed so obvious that he had to return to Victor and face Raoul.
"I belong in Victor as much as I belong with the Sauk."
He could not, he decided, turn his back on Victor a second time.
"Why are we going east?" he asked.
"You've have been found not guilty in Victor, but you're still a prisoner of war, Auguste. Your future is in the hands of the President of the United States."
Auguste remembered now. General Winfield Scott at the hearing at Fort Crawford had said, If the people of Smith County don't hang you, I think President Jackson would find a meeting with you most interesting.
A chill spread across his back at the thought of meeting Andrew Jackson himself. What would he and Sharp Knife have to say to each other?
Auguste leaned into a small window cut in the thick stone wall of Fort Monroe. He stared through iron grillwork at a blue-gray expanse of rippling water. Eastward on the horizon lay low land, the other side of Chesapeake Bay. Pressing his forehead against the bars he could see the bay opening to the south into that vast open ocean the pale eyes had crossed in their relentless search for new land.
A faint breeze cooled Auguste's sweat-beaded brow. This was the Moon of Falling Leaves, but it was still hot as summer.
Black Hawk had said little since their arrival. No doubt, Auguste thought, the old war leader was comparing this huge stone fortress with the log forts of the long knives he had besieged in his own country. He must be absorbing the lesson it taught of the true magnitude of the long knives' power. But when he did speak he sounded as defiant as ever.
"Why must I wear the clothing of my enemies?" Black Hawk stood in his loincloth staring at the uniform that a soldier had laid out on his bed. Auguste admired Black Hawk's lean, muscular body. It was hard to believe that he had seen sixty-seven summers and winters. His wide mouth was drawn down with distaste as he eyed[445] the tall, red-plumed shako, the dark blue jacket with its gold-trimmed collar, gold lace chevrons on the upper arms and brass buttons, the lighter blue trousers, the white leather belt.
"Sharp Knife wishes to show his respect for you by giving you the dress of one of his war chiefs," said Auguste.
It is also his way of reminding you that you are subject to him.
Owl Carver said, "It is a mark of hospitality. Just as Chief Falcon gave us new doeskin garments when we surrendered to the Winnebago."
Auguste felt a thrill of pride as he recalled the amazing tale Owl Carver had told him about Eagle Feather's part in that surrender. A boy not yet seven summers old whose vision moved him and showed him how to bring a war to an end was surely destined for great things.
Owl Carver looked strange, with his long white hair and megis-shell necklace, in a peacock-blue cutaway coat and tight gray trousers. Auguste was also wearing a pale eyes' suit with a dark brown jacket. The Winnebago Prophet was dressed similarly in shades of green and gray. Auguste had shown Owl Carver and Flying Cloud how to don the pale eyes' clothing, and now they stood stiff and uncomfortable in the room they shared, waiting for Black Hawk to put on his military garb.
Owl Carver said, "And the American pale eyes are not your enemies any more. You have made your mark on the treaty paper."
"This time for all time," said Auguste, putting his heart into his voice, remembering that Black Hawk had signed and broken treaties before.
Black Hawk sighed. "The spirits of hundreds dead at the Bad Axe cry out to me that the Americans are still our enemies."
That was ever Black Hawk's way, Auguste thought, brooding on old wrongs, regretting agreements made with the pale eyes. Irreconcilable.
He will never change. But we must change.
One hope had preoccupied Auguste throughout the month-long journey east, by steamboat to Cincinnati, where he caught up with Black Hawk's party, by horse-drawn coach and finally by that astonishing new pale eyes' invention, the railroad. Auguste must find a way for the Sauk to live in a world where the pale eyes ruled[446] absolutely. He was the only one who understood both Sauk and pale eyes. It was up to him.
"Do you want to say again the words you will speak to Sharp Knife?" Auguste asked.
"Yes," said Black Hawk. "Will he be surprised to hear me speak to him in his own language?"
"Very surprised. He will know you are a very smart man."
Haltingly Black Hawk repeated his speech in English, which Auguste had, at the chief's request, been teaching him. Black Hawk had told Auguste what he wanted to say. Auguste had translated it, and the old leader had learned it word by word.
Smiling, Owl Carver said, "This is just what your vision foretold, White Bear, that Black Hawk would speak to Sharp Knife in Sharp Knife's own lodge."
Yes, and I told you then that it did not mean Black Hawk would conquer Sharp Knife.
But Auguste did not have the heart to remind Owl Carver of the unhappy reality. Silently he helped the reluctant Black Hawk dress.
He wished now that he might have another vision of the future beyond this moment.
It took Black Hawk and his companions two days to travel by steamboat from Fort Monroe to Washington City. As the meeting with Sharp Knife drew closer, Auguste grew more and more fearful. If Jackson and Black Hawk quarreled, the President might decide to throw all of them into prison for life. He might even have them quietly killed. He was the most powerful man between the two oceans.
They slept overnight in the ship's cabin. Auguste dreamed that he stood empty-handed and helpless while Raoul came at him with a huge dagger.
The next day, at about nine in the morning, Black Hawk and his three advisors were riding in an open carriage down Pennsylvania Avenue, with columns of long knives four abreast on horseback before and behind. Auguste felt bewildered listening to the rattle of hooves. Only a few moons ago the long knives were hunting Black Hawk and his band. Now they escorted Black Hawk with honor. The change was dizzying.[447]
Auguste looked about him curiously at the capital of the United States. It was a sprawl of large brick and frame houses, and Pennsylvania Avenue was a muddy, deeply rutted thoroughfare as wide as a cornfield. Behind them on its hill was the Capitol Building, an immense square stone structure topped by three low domes. The air was thick and damp and hot, and moisture-laden gray clouds lay overhead. Auguste longed for the drier climate of Illinois.
Pale eyes and many of their black-skinned slaves stood under the poplar trees lining the sides of the avenue. They waved cheerfully to Black Hawk and clapped their hands. From time to time Black Hawk raised a hand in solemn greeting.
Auguste had expected that they would have to endure jeers and cries of hatred when they were paraded through Washington City. But, surprisingly, people were welcoming them as if they were heroes. It gave him a feeling of hope. His people might learn to live with these people.
Auguste was awed by the size of the President's House, three or four times bigger than Victoire. It stood behind an iron fence at the western end of Pennsylvania Avenue. All this for the Great Father, thought Auguste. It seemed all the more impressive because the entire building was painted white.
Among the Sauk, colors always meant something. Auguste asked Jefferson Davis, who had ridden with their mounted escort, what the white of the President's House meant.
Davis smiled wryly. "Why, that's to hide the scorch marks from where the redcoats burned it in 1814."
But how fitting it seemed that the Great Father of the white people should live in a white palace. Auguste felt a tingle of excitement as the blue-coated officers ushered his party up the front steps.
Owl Carver stuck his hand into a pocket of his jacket and pulled out the gold watch that had once been Pierre de Marion's. He smiled, toothless, at Auguste.
"You told me I could use this to tell when the pale eyes will do things. See now. One of the long knife chiefs told me this." He pointed to the face of the watch. "When the long arrow is here and the short arrow is here, we will meet with Sharp Knife." He had pointed to the numerals XII and XI—eleven o'clock in the morning.
They awaited Sharp Knife in the East Room of the President's House. An officer told the four Sauk to stand abreast, with Black[448] Hawk at the right end of their line and Auguste on the left. The arrangement told Auguste that the long knives considered him the least important member of the Sauk delegation, an estimate with which he agreed. A dozen long knife colonels, majors, captains, lieutenants, all in blue jackets and gold braid, stood in two groups flanking the Sauk.
Even though he had never had any reason to doubt his shaman's vision, Auguste was surprised at how exactly he had seen the room they were standing in—its rows of windows with blue and yellow drapes, its three glittering chandeliers and the four huge mirrors in gilded frames facing each other across an immense blue and yellow carpet with a red border. Under each mirror was a fireplace. Four fireplaces, to keep one room warm in winter.
The long arrow on Owl Carver's watch had moved from XII to VI, and the old man was uttering doubts of its power to tell him anything when a black servant opened a door at the far end of the room and all the long knives in the room drew themselves up stiffly, clicking their heels together. Sharp Knife came slowly into the room.
Andrew Jackson in person looked just as he had in Auguste's vision, only more terrifying. Whatever unknown red man had first called him Sharp Knife had chosen aptly. With his long, narrow face and his extraordinarily tall, thin body, he looked like a blade come to life. A shock of white hair stood up as stiff as Wolf Paw's crest on top of his head, and thick white eyebrows shadowed eyes as bright as splinters of steel.
Raoul's words of over a year ago came back to Auguste: I'd like to see what an old Indian killer like Andy Jackson would say to you.
Auguste felt he was face to face with the power that had destroyed the Sauk. This man, with his own hand, had slain Indians by the hundreds, had uprooted whole nations and driven them westward. This was the leader of those endless swarms of murderous, grasping pale eyes who, territory by territory, were driving the red people from their homes. This was the man who willed that white people should fill all the land from ocean to ocean.
But Sharp Knife was also frail as an icicle. He moved one step at a time, as if in great pain, and Auguste sensed that he was afflicted with many ailments and troubled by many old wounds. Auguste saw in him an immeasurably powerful spirit that kept him going in spite of so much sickness and pain.[449]
"Which of you is the one that can speak English?" Jackson asked. Auguste had expected his voice to be like thunder, but it shrilled like a knife on a grindstone.
Feeling a painful hollow in his belly Auguste said, "I am, Mr. President." Only this morning Davis had told him that was the way Jackson was to be addressed. "I am White Bear, also called Auguste de Marion."
When Jackson turned his gaze on him, Auguste felt it with the force of an icy gale.
"Colonel Taylor wrote me a long letter about you. I want to have a talk with you later. Now, tell the chief I am happy to greet him as a friend. Tell him there will be peace between me and my red children as long as the grass shall grow and the rivers shall run."
A talk later? What did Jackson have in mind for him? Auguste wondered as he translated for Black Hawk.
"Now shall I speak to him in his tongue?" Black Hawk asked.
"This would be a good time," said Auguste.
Black Hawk took a step forward, leaving Owl Carver, Flying Cloud and Auguste standing behind him. Auguste saw that Black Hawk was shorter than Jackson, but broader in chest and shoulders. And, Auguste believed, stronger and healthier though they were about the same age.
Black Hawk raised his right hand in greeting and said in English, "I am a man. And you are a man like me."
Jackson looked startled, then stood very straight and stared intently at Black Hawk's bronze face as the war leader spoke the memorized words slowly, one at a time.
"We did not expect to conquer your people. I took up the tomahawk to avenge great wrongs that we could no longer bear. If I had not been willing to fight, the young men would have said Black Hawk is too old to be chief. They would have said Black Hawk is a woman. They would have said he is no Sauk. So I raised the war whoop. You are a war leader, and you understand me. I need say no more. I ask you to give me your hand in friendship and to let us return to our people."
"A very fine speech," said Jackson. "I was not told that you spoke English, Chief."
Auguste repeated the President's comment in Sauk.
Black Hawk said, "Tell him that you taught me how to say what I wanted to say in the pale eyes' tongue."[450]
Jackson grunted. "I see. Yes, White Bear, you and I will have to talk. Well, tell him that we will send him back to his people when we are certain we'll have no more trouble from them."
Auguste wanted to say, Almost all the people who caused you trouble are dead. But he merely translated Jackson's words for Black Hawk.
Why does Jackson want to talk to me? Auguste did not like the sound of it. Did Sharp Knife have in mind some treachery against Black Hawk?
Black Hawk said, "Tell the Great Father that the Sauk will be quiet as long as the pale eyes do no more harm to them." Auguste had a sinking feeling, as he translated this, that he might well be reopening hostilities right here in the President's House.
Jackson answered, "We never have done any wrong to your tribe. When we buy land from people we expect them to honor their agreements."
Two stubborn men, thought Auguste. Black Hawk was right in saying that they were alike.
When he told Black Hawk what Jackson had said, the chief answered, "Say to him that I have thought much about this. I do not think land can be bought and sold. Earthmaker put it there for our use. If people leave their land, then someone else can take it and use it. But it is not something like a blanket or a pot, that can be carried away by its owner. It belongs to all Earthmaker's children."
Black Hawk's words worried Auguste, giving him the feeling that a storm was about to break. Jackson, he knew, was a hot-tempered man, a man who had killed others in duels. Black Hawk might be bringing further trouble on himself, on all of them, by speaking so candidly to Sharp Knife.
He considered changing Black Hawk's words to a speech more agreeable-sounding. But that would be a kind of treachery, he decided. Out of loyalty to Black Hawk, he must convey his meaning exactly to Sharp Knife. So, watching with inner trembling as Jackson frowned and shook his head, he faithfully translated.
Jackson looked directly at Auguste, not at Black Hawk, as he answered.
"You Indians just do not understand that land is the source of all the goods of civilization. That's why the white man is so much richer and more powerful than the red man. Among us, every piece[451] of land is owned by a particular man, and that man makes good use of his land to produce wealth. Never mind, don't translate that," he ordered. "It's just as well the chief and I have no more words on this point right now."
Auguste felt deep relief that Black Hawk's words had not angered Jackson. Unsmiling, the President took a stiff step toward Black Hawk and thrust out his hand. Black Hawk reached out to him, and they clasped hands solemnly, staring into each other's eyes. Auguste felt a shiver run through him at the sight of that handclasp. Now Black Hawk's war with the pale eyes was truly at an end.
The white officers standing on either side of Jackson and Black Hawk clapped their hands, and after a moment of hesitation Auguste, Owl Carver and the Winnebago Prophet applauded too.
Jackson said, "Lieutenant Davis, take the chief and these two older medicine men on a tour of the President's House and the gardens." He turned his blue eyes on Auguste. "White Bear—Mr. de Marion—I'd like you to accompany me to my office for a private word."
Now Auguste's heart pounded as he followed Jackson, accompanied by two soldiers, up a flight of stairs. He sensed that Jackson must have demands in mind, and knew that because of what he had been—old Indian killer—the Sauk would not be helped by his yielding to those demands. But what might refusal mean? Imprisonment? Death?
Jackson's office was a large room, well lit by big glass windows, where the President's polished oak desk was piled high with papers. The two soldiers stationed themselves on either side of the door, and as Auguste entered behind Jackson he saw a guard with a bayonet-mounted rifle standing like a wooden statue in one corner of the room. Auguste wondered whether there was always a guard there, or only when Jackson had an Indian visitor. Jackson folded his tall body inch by painful inch into a large mahogany chair. With a gesture he invited Auguste to sit opposite him in a comfortable chair with curving wooden arms and legs.
"I want you to consider staying here in Washington City, Mr. de Marion," Jackson said abruptly. "I think you can be of great service to your Indian people and to the United States. I'm impressed by the way you prepared that speech for Black Hawk. Zack Taylor[452] has written me that you're a remarkably learned fellow. There are plenty of men and women who straddle the border between the white and the red races, but most of them are trash—illiterates and drunks who hang around Army posts. You seem to be an important man both in the white world and among your fellow tribesmen."
Auguste's body went cold. Jackson did want him to work for him. He found himself resenting the President's apparent expectation that he could easily be won over. But he was afraid that if he refused outright Jackson might take it out on the Sauk.
He shook his head. "You overestimate me, Mr. President. I have no importance in the white world. I had a place, but it was taken from me. Among the Sauk—yes, I am what you would call a medicine man, but I begged them not to go to war against the whites and they did not listen to me."
Jackson waved that away with a long, bony hand. "I can see that you are capable of accomplishing much. I have a situation for you in my Bureau of Indian Affairs. If you do well in that post you might one day head the bureau as Commissioner, responsible for the welfare of all the Indian tribes under the protection of the United States."
Auguste felt overwhelmed. Jackson's proposal went far beyond anything he had imagined. Was he wrong in thinking that he must refuse?
No, he must reject Jackson's offer. The President meant to use him against his own people.
Auguste looked straight into Jackson's steel-splinter eyes. "You expect more trouble with the Indians, don't you, Mr. President?"
Jackson frowned. "Why do you say that?"
"Up to now you've been assuring the red men that they could live in peace on the west side of the Mississippi. But now you can't promise them that anymore."
"You are a medicine man, de Marion. How have you divined that?"
Auguste felt as if he were walking on bad ice and might at any moment break through and drown. He should not be so bold with this all-powerful man.
"I know that General Scott has signed a treaty with He Who Moves Alertly whereby the Sauk give up a strip of land fifty miles wide running down the west side of the Mississippi."
Jackson clenched his fist until the knuckles showed white. "You[453] were not supposed to learn about that treaty till you returned to Sauk country."
"We traveled over a thousand miles, Mr. President. We talked to many people, and they talked to us."
"And with someone who speaks English as well as you do in the party, you were bound to learn. Does Black Hawk know about this?"
"No, sir."
Jackson's smile was knowing. He thinks I'm willing to betray Black Hawk.
Before Jackson could speak, Auguste said, "He would be angry if he knew. He would protest to you. And it would do no good. It would only mar the meeting between you and him."
Sharp Knife's smile broadened. "Exactly the sort of tactful decision I'd expect of you. Just why I want you to help me."
Auguste was frightened, but felt he must make it clear to Jackson where he stood.
"Mr. President, when you force the red people to give up land west of the Great River, how will they live? Soon there won't be enough land for them to hunt on."
Jackson spread his hands. "If their food supply runs short, our Indian agents can supply them until they find other means of livelihood."
To depend on government agents for the very food they put into their mouths? That would be a kind of prison.
His heart galloping, Auguste decided to speak even more boldly. "You are looking for someone to reconcile the red man to having his land stolen from him, Mr. President."
"Mr. de Marion, the United States is not a thief." A fierce glare lit Jackson's eyes.
I must try to be bold without being rude.
"I meant no insult, Mr. President. The red man thinks his land is being stolen from him."
Jackson frowned at Auguste as if he was not sure whether he was being sarcastic, and, indeed, hearing his own words, Auguste was not quite sure how he meant them.
"Exactly," Jackson said. "The red man doesn't understand what is happening. You can help to see that this must be."
Auguste hesitated. He had not had time to think. He was not ready to decide his whole future and perhaps bargain away the future[454] of his people in a moment. Staying here in Washington City just might be the best thing he could do for the Sauk. Working for and with Jackson, he could protect his people, warn them of danger, avert attacks on them.
But his choosing to refuse Jackson was not the outcome of a momentary impulse. His whole life had taken him to this place on his path. The path might wind; its direction might sometimes be lost in shadows. But it did not lead to Sharp Knife. Jackson was a far better man than Raoul, but they were both on the same side, the side of the dispossessors.
"What the red men don't understand, Mr. President, is how much they are giving up."
"Black Hawk said land can't be bought and sold," Jackson said. "Then it belongs to whoever can make the best use of it."
Each man owning his own land and defending it against all comers, thought Auguste, that was the centerpost of the white way of life.
"I understand that you feel a responsibility to your people, to provide them with land," Auguste said. "But whether it is legal or illegal, just or unjust, I can't help you to move my people or any other red people off the land they are living on."
Jackson's face seemed to sharpen. "You could have done much for Indians by working for me. I'm surprised that a man of your intelligence and education would prefer running around in the woods wearing a loincloth."
Auguste was reminded of Nancy's words, hunting and living in wigwams.
Jackson reached into an inner pocket of his black jacket and took out a pair of spectacles. To Auguste they looked somewhat like Pierre's. Auguste thought with sorrow of Sun Woman and wondered what had happened to the spectacles he had given her. Jackson bent forward and picked up a sheet of paper from one of the piles on his desk.
"Ask one of the soldiers in the next room to help you find the rest of your party."
A few days later Jefferson Davis came to see Auguste in his new room, a small wedge-shaped chamber in one of the towers of Fort Monroe.[455]
"I see they've moved you," said Davis with a smile.
Auguste nodded. "I believe President Jackson prefers that I no longer associate with Black Hawk and his party."
"Seems so," Davis said. "President Jackson plans to send Chief Black Hawk and Owl Carver and the Prophet on a tour of our big cities. Jackson's up for reelection next month. And, of course, he wants Black Hawk to see at first hand what he's up against. The President has made it clear that you are not to go along."
Auguste shrugged. "He offered me a position. I refused."
A smile warmed Davis's pale, gaunt face. "People don't ordinarily say no to the President of the United States. Well, you'll go home all the sooner. Black Hawk and the others won't get back to the Sauk reservation in Ioway till sometime next year. But I'm leaving tomorrow to rejoin Zachary Taylor's command at Fort Crawford, and I'm to take you with me, to return you to your people."
Auguste did not answer. He sat down heavily on his bed, which he had pulled next to the one small window in his room, overlooking the strait called Hampton Roads.
Did he want to go back to his people? He remembered a thought that had come to him while talking with Andrew Jackson. Each man owning his own land. That was the key to the white way of life.
But he longed to see Redbird and Eagle Feather again. Were they well or sick? He wanted to hold Redbird in his arms, mourn Floating Lily with her. That wonderful story he had heard from Owl Carver about Eagle Feather and the calumet—he wanted to tell Eagle Feather he had done well.
But, go back to the Sauk? He knew now, especially after talking to Jackson, what the future of the Sauk would be. Never to see the Great River again. To lose their land bit by bit. To be confined to a tract of land in Ioway far smaller than the territory they'd formerly ranged over. Not permitted to hunt where they wished. Might have to beg food from an Indian agent, as Jackson had said. They would not choose their own chiefs as they always had, but would have chiefs picked for them by the whites, men like He Who Moves Alertly, who knew how to use both the pale eyes and their own people to advance themselves. A miserable life, a prison life, a slave's life.
Memories crowded his mind. The words of the Turtle: You will[456] be guardian of that land that has been placed in your keeping. Sun Woman's lifeless brown eyes staring up at him at the Bad Axe. The charred ribs of Victoire under a three-quarter moon.
He thought of the endless acres of farm and grazing land stretching around Victoire. He remembered the verdict Not Guilty. The eyes of David Cooper, hard but honest.
If he could take Victoire away from Raoul ...
Then he would have something to offer Redbird and Eagle Feather. If he won his rightful place in the world the whites were building, he could bring his wife and son to share it with him.
"What's the matter?" said Davis, breaking in on his thoughts. "Doesn't the idea of going back to your people make you happy?"
Auguste shook his head. "No."
"What other choice do you have?"
"I could do more for my people by staying in the white world. Not as Jackson's Judas goat, but as master of Victoire."
Davis took a step backward, astonished. "Master of Victoire! Have you lost your senses, man? We barely got you out of Smith County alive."
"Will you take me back there instead of to the Sauk in Ioway?"
Davis shook his head. "I'm not authorized to do that."
"Am I still a prisoner?"
"You're a guest of Uncle Sam. But that doesn't mean I can spend Uncle Sam's money taking you anywhere you want to go." Davis frowned in thought. "But I could turn you loose in Galena instead of taking you all the way over to Ioway. That wouldn't make any difference, monetarily. Not that I'm ready to go along with this, but could you manage to make it to Victor from there?"
"I'll write to my grandfather and ask him to send a horse to Galena for me."
"If your grandfather has any sense he'll tell you to get the hell across the Mississippi to the Sauk reservation."
"My grandfather has a power of sense. But he also loves me and will want to see me again."
"If you show your face in Victor you'll be swinging from a tree limb before the sun sets."
"Not if I can take Raoul by surprise."
Davis shook his head. "This is wrong. I'm letting you go to your death."
Frightened, seeing his plan through Davis's eyes, Auguste was[457] tempted to change his mind. Yes, go back to Ioway, live safely in the warm heart of the tribe. Why face a mob of rifle-toting bullies led by Raoul? It was hopeless. He would surely die.
But he saw again those rolling acres, the great house rebuilt, the wealth and what he could do with it. If he turned his back on that, he would stunt the rest of his life with regret and longing.
He said, "It's not suicide. I'm risking my life, yes. But if I don't try to right the wrong that has been done to me, life will not be worth living."
Davis sighed. "A man has to stand up for what he believes in, even if it looks like a lost cause. I guess that's what you and Black Hawk and all your people have been doing all along."
Now that Auguste was committed, fear came back. He'd have to face Raoul's men, dozens of them, alone. Even the Bear spirit could not give him the strength and skill to do that.
There must be a way to meet Raoul alone. Ambush him? But that way, even if he succeeded in killing Raoul, the town and Raoul's friends would never accept him as master of Victoire.
The man he'd just met, Andrew Jackson, was well known as a duelist. In his years at Victoire Auguste had heard more than once of Raoul meeting men in single combat. Pierre and Elysée had spoken with disgust of Raoul's dozen or more killings.
A duel. That would be the way to do it. If he succeeded in killing Raoul in a duel, no one would try to stop him from retaking Victoire. With Raoul gone, his men would be leaderless.
Of course, Raoul had killed many men and Auguste had killed none. But the Bear spirit would fight on Auguste's side. And if he failed, he would rather die fighting for what was rightfully his than spend his life drinking the bitter water of defeat.
A few days before he left Fort Monroe, Auguste persuaded Davis to let him be allowed to walk on the parade ground at the same time as Owl Carver. A sadness came over him at the sight of the old shaman, a gray army blanket thrown over his shoulders despite the warmth of the day, walking with stiff steps across the grass. The heavy-lidded eyes did not light up with recognition until Auguste came close to him.
Then Owl Carver took both Auguste's hands in his, and Auguste noticed something he had never seen before. The sudden realization awed him.
His eyes look so much like those of the Turtle![458]
Wondering how Owl Carver would think of what he was doing, he told him, "I am going back to the pale eyes' town. Back to Star Arrow's home. I mean to try to take back the land from my uncle."
Owl Carver closed those ancient eyes. He spoke after a moment's hesitation, and when he did his voice frightened Auguste. It was the eerie singsong voice he used when he was prophesying for the tribe.
"When a man or woman suffers an injury too great for them to bear, an evil spirit is born in them, a spirit of hate. The evil spirit ruins whoever harbors it. The evil spirit occupies a man and drives him onward until he does things to others that make them hate in their turn, and thus the spirit continues. I think your uncle has been carrying such an evil spirit."
Auguste broke out in a cold sweat hearing the warning in Owl Carver's words. He remembered the hatred that rose in him whenever he thought of Raoul. Was the spirit of hatred kindled in Raoul at Fort Dearborn now passing to him?
"I pledged to my father, smoking the sacred tobacco, that I would hold the land he gave me," Auguste said, as much to hearten himself as to persuade Owl Carver. "Tobacco bound you and Black Hawk in honor to surrender when Eagle Feather smoked it. I must honor my promise."
But he still felt cold within, as Owl Carver, his eyes now clear-sighted and grave, gripped his wrist tightly. "Do not let your uncle's evil spirit cross over to you. See that it be your promise, and not greed, like the greed of the pale eyes, that takes you back to that land. And, above all, do not use your shaman's power to harm your enemy, or you will suffer for it."
"I will not," said Auguste, but he felt unsure of himself. After all the evil he had endured, how could he know that he would not unleash his greatest powers if that were the only way he could destroy Raoul?
The grip of the bony fingers on his wrist tightened. "Set your heart, White Bear, not upon getting back this land, but just upon walking your path."
The deep lines in Owl Carver's face were drawn downward with pain, and Auguste felt the crushing weight of grief as he realized they were both thinking the same thought—that they would never see each other again.
[459]