uivered as she said, "You'll go to the chateau and
let them shoot you?"

Auguste realized that his hands were cold with fear, and he rubbed them
together to warm them. Hale's house was about ten miles across the
prairie from the Mississippi. Could he cover all that distance without
being seen and shot?

"I'm not going to the chateau. I'll just see that Marchette gets there
safely. Traveling at night, she should have someone go back with her.
Then I'll go on to town. To Nicole and Frank's house. To Grandpapa. I
must see him." He turned toward the cook and felt a stabbing in his gut
at the sight of her bruised face. She'd suffered that out of love for
his father, he thought, and for his sake too.

"If you're seen you'll be shot," said Hale.

_Don't you think I know that?_ he wanted to scream at the minister. What
choice did he have? He was like a rabbit surrounded by wolves. He forced
calm on himself and spoke with sarcasm.

"Surely you know, Reverend, that Indians are good at getting about
unnoticed."

He felt his fear turning to a rising excitement as he recalled the
lessons of stealth and cunning he'd learned as a child of the Sauk.

"But what will you do then?" Nancy asked. "How will you get back here?"

Auguste hesitated. Remembering that he was a Sauk had moved his thoughts
in a new direction.

_I have been dispossessed. Just as my people have been dispossessed._

Nancy was waiting for him to speak.

"Raoul told me to go back to the woods with the other Indians. Even
though the advice came from him, I think that is just what I should do."

Nancy gasped as if he had struck her. There was silence in the cottage
for a moment.

"How will you get back to your people?" she said. "How will you find
them?"

He smiled, trying to get her to smile back at him. "I know exactly where
they are. They've crossed the Mississippi to their hunting grounds in
the Ioway Territory. I spent the first fifteen winters of my life there
with the British Band."

Auguste remembered his dream of becoming a shaman. It had come back to
life a bit with his effort to heal Pierre. Among the pale eyes there was
no room for magic. But now he felt he could go back to his own people
and find magic again.

Hale said, "An unwise decision, it seems to me. You've been educated.
You've had an opportunity to learn about white Christian civilization.
Your uncle can't take that away from you, and you should not throw it
away."

Auguste sai