g this savage
here to cheat me?"

Nicole took Auguste from Pierre's arms. She pressed a white napkin to
his bleeding face and took him to a chair to sit down. As he sat,
Auguste turned to shoot Raoul a look of pure hate.

"Cheat you? What are you talking about?"

"Just remember, when you die--and I hope God makes it soon--I _will_
have this estate."

Pierre felt Raoul's words as if that blade had plunged into his heart.
That his own brother should wish him dead ...

Pierre went to stand by Auguste, seated in a chair with Nicole wiping
his slashed face.

Pierre said, "In the will I wrote years ago I named you as my heir. I
never thought to change that will. Until today."

Raoul, still wiping his knife, snorted. "No court in Illinois would let
a man disinherit a legitimate white brother in favor of a half-Indian
bastard."

Pierre let his hand rest on Auguste's shoulder. The boy's eyes burned up
at him. Pierre looked down at the blood-soaked napkin that Nicole
pressed to Auguste's cheek.

Auguste, speaking in the Sauk tongue, broke the silence that had
followed Raoul's words. "Even if he is your brother and my uncle, this
man is our enemy, Father. I will stand side by side with you against
him." Auguste put his hand over the hand that lay on his shoulder.

Raoul slammed his knife into its sheath. "You've driven me out of my
home, Pierre. I'm not living under the same roof with an Indian. I won't
be back till I can come back as master of this house."

He strode to the door and turned again. "And then I'll bring my own
family with me."

"What do you mean--your own family?" Elysee called across the long hall.

"I'm marrying Eli Greenglove's daughter," Raoul said with a grin. "And
that mongrel had better not try to touch my children's birth-right."

He was gone, leaving the door hanging open behind him, sunlight pouring
in.

Pierre looked miserably down at Auguste and thought, _I hope your
shaman's skills make you better at predicting the future than I have
been, my son_.

BOOK 2

1831

Moon of Ripe Cherries

_July_

8

Homecoming

Rejoicing at the sight of Victor, Auguste stepped up to the gangplank of
the paddle wheeler _Virginia_ and paused there a moment to look around.
He couldn't help himself: he smiled broadly. The settlement hugging the
bluff was not home, but it was closer to home than he had been in a long
time.

And this summer, he had decided, he would go back to hi