s true home. He
would end the sorrow of being cut off from his people.

This was the sixth spring since Pierre de Marion had come and taken him
to Victoire, and, as with every spring before it, he missed Saukenuk
terribly. He longed for his mother, for the teachings of Owl Carver, for
the arms of Redbird, whom he had lost almost as soon as he made her his.

For six years--he had learned to count years as white people did--he had
obeyed his father and the promise made with the calumet and had not
tried even to send a message to the British Band. He even felt it was a
wise rule. To communicate with his loved ones would have torn him in
two. But more than a month ago in New York City, strolling in the warm
evening air on the busy cobblestone streets, past dooryards where lilacs
were blooming, he made up his mind that when he returned to Illinois he
would visit Victoire only briefly and then would go back to Saukenuk. He
was twenty-one years old now, and among white people that meant he was
master of his own life.

He gazed up at the bluff. There were more houses up there than when he
had last come out here, two years ago. Some were built on the bottomland
itself, in spite of the danger of flooding.

He saw the palisade and flags and towers of Raoul de Marion's trading
post at the top of the bluff, and felt his joy fading. He would have to
face Raoul's insults and threats, as he had every other time he came
back to Victor. His belly tightened as he remembered, as if it had just
happened, that first encounter six years ago, the burning-ice feel of
the knifepoint slicing into his cheek, his hand gripping his own knife,
Aunt Nicole and Father holding him back.

Seemingly with a will of its own his hand went to the scar and his
finger traced the ridge that ran from eye to mouth.

He brought his gaze down from the top of the bluff and saw a more
welcome sight--Grandpapa, Aunt Nicole and Guichard in a black open
carriage from the estate, waiting to take him up to Victoire. He ran
down the gangplank and strode over to them.

"Auguste! My God, you're beautiful!" Aunt Nicole exclaimed, and then her
face reddened and she looked downward.

He felt that he looked good, though "beautiful," as he understood
English, was not the right word for a woman to use about a man. But he
supposed she admired his new clothes, the fawn-colored cutaway coat and
vest, the ruffled silk shirt, the tight, bottle-green trousers. He
wished he were