t the wings off a fly one at a
time at fifty yards and was wanted in Missouri for over a dozen murders.
He might take orders from Raoul, but it would not do for Raoul to offend
such a man. So if Eli persisted, Raoul probably would take Clarissa into
the chateau.

Auguste felt a sinking in his stomach as he touched his fingers lightly
to his throbbing head. He was alive now only because Greenglove had
chosen to hit him instead of shooting him down--or instead of letting
Raoul have that pleasure.

"Will you stay the night, Marchette?" Nancy asked.

"No, I must go back to the chateau before Armand wakes up. Otherwise he
will beat me worse."

"I'm going with you," said Auguste.

"No," said Nancy. "They'll kill you."

Auguste looked across the table at Nancy, staring at him with round blue
eyes full of the yearning, now mixed with fear, that he'd seen in them
earlier. "Pale eyes," the Sauk term for her people, did no justice to
her eyes, the color of the turquoise stone he kept in his medicine bag.
Her blond hair made his blood race. His fingertips tingled with the
desire to touch the white skin of her cheek.

Though Nancy's very differentness made him desire her, he knew that he
and she could never belong to each other as completely as he and Redbird
did. He could have a deep and lasting union with Redbird, a union that
would make him feel whole.

But it had been six years since he had seen Redbird, and no woman of the
Sauk would go without a man for that long.

_My mother did_, he reminded himself.

But Redbird had probably given in to Wolf Paw and married him. After
all, she hadn't had a word from White Bear in all that time.

Marchette's urgent tone refocused his thoughts. "Monsieur Raoul, he
stood up on the table and held up a bag full of Spanish dollars--he
said there were fifty--and said he would give it to the man who shoots
you. And there were many men who cheered at that and boasted they would
be the one to win the silver."

Auguste pictured men scattering out all over Smith County, hunting for
him. He could almost feel the rifle ball shattering his skull.

"I can't hide in your house forever, Nancy. Sooner or later they'll come
looking for me, and I don't want to bring that down on your heads."

Reverend Hale said nothing, but Auguste saw relief in his square
face--and grudging respect. But Hale's respect, he thought, would do him
little good when he lay dead on the prairie.

Nancy's full lips q