em against the sides of his head.

_Oh, God! A drink! I need a drink!_

He reached for the jug beside the letter. A hand lifted the tent flap
and Eli Greenglove slouched in.

The sight of him frightened Raoul. Did he know yet?

Not much chance there'd be a letter for Eli in the sack of two-week-old
mail that had just caught up with Raoul's battalion. No one in Victor
likely to write to Eli. Not now.

Eli's mouth was drawn hard. It was a hot night, and he wore no jacket,
only a plain brown calico work shirt, with a pistol and a knife at his
wide brown belt.

"Levi Pope got a letter from his missuz. There was an Injun raid on
Victor. You hear anything?" Eli's voice was as flat as the prairie. He
sat on Raoul's camp trunk.

"Yes," Raoul said, choking on the single word. "A war party attacked
Victoire."

He took a swallow from the jug. A cold, aching space was growing in the
pit of his stomach. The whiskey settled in the middle of the ache like a
tiny campfire in the middle of a blizzard.

He handed the jug to Eli, and Eli sipped and put the jug back on the
table.

"Goddammit, don't just sit there staring at me." Eli displayed his
ruined teeth as his lip curled back in a snarl. "_What 'n hell
happened?_"

Raoul picked up the letter in a shaking hand and read aloud--horrible
words, written in a flowing black script.

"'It is my sad duty as your sister to send you the news that Clarissa
Greenglove and your two sons have perished at the hands of Indians.'"

"Oh, Lord God an' Savior," Eli groaned. His head fell back on his neck,
his mouth open. His Adam's apple stuck out.

"'Also that our beloved Victoire has burned to the ground.'"

Raoul went on:

"Clarissa and Andrew and Philip, along with other people who lived
at Victoire and in Victor, were murdered on the morning of June
seventeenth.

"In your sorrow, may it comfort you to know that your fortified
trading post, where we took shelter and defended ourselves, saved
the lives of most of us. The cannon that you set in the blockhouse
was employed to good effect, even though we hesitated at first to
use it, since no one here knew how to fire such a weapon.
Nevertheless, fire it we did, and broke the Indians' last charge and
drove them off.

"Mr. Burke Russell, whom you placed in charge of the trading post,
was killed whilst fighting on the parapet. Mr. David Cooper, whom
you also appointed as caretaker