Shaman Part 27

Auguste held out his right hand to Raoul. "I sorry you angry. Want be friend."

In a moment, Pierre thought, he would have to get between them. But his stomach hurt so badly that he could hardly move.

"If you want to be my friend, you mongrel b.a.s.t.a.r.d, get as far away from this house and from me as you can," Raoul said.

Auguste took another step toward Raoul, still holding out his hand. He'd learned about shaking hands from Frank Hopkins just a little while ago, Pierre remembered.

"Auguste, no!" Pierre cried.

"Don't you try to touch me, redskin."

Raoul thrust out his own hand and struck at Auguste's. He grabbed Auguste's shirt, twisting the buckskin in his big hand.

Raoul had lost all control. The fury was upon him. Pierre forgot about his own pain and tried to throw himself between Raoul and Auguste. His chest hit Raoul's arm, hard as an iron bar.

"Let go of him, Raoul," Pierre said.

"Raoul, stop it!" Elysee shouted.

"All right." Raoul punched his fist into Auguste's chest and released him, sending the boy staggering backward to fall to the floor.

Rage blazed up inside Pierre. The sight of his son knocked to the floor swept away all constraint. To the Devil with trying to reason with Raoul. He rushed at Raoul and swung his arm with all his strength, bringing his palm against Raoul's mouth.

Though open-handed, it was a blow that would have knocked many a man down. Raoul only staggered back half a step.

But a trickle of blood appeared at the corner of his mouth.

"You still fight like a Frenchman, Pierre," said Raoul with a grin, wiping his mouth. "Slapping a man. Think you're still a count or something? Fight like an American."

He lunged at Pierre. Pierre barely saw, out of the corner of his eye, the fist coming at him. A cannon went off at the side of his head.

He was on the floor, flat on his back.

Nicole screamed, "No! No, Auguste!"

Pierre rolled his aching head to one side to see Auguste standing over him, his hand on the deerhorn hilt of the knife that hung at his belt, the knife Pierre had left for him when he was a baby. Nicole held his arm with both hands.

"Want to fight with knives?" Raoul said. He slid his own huge hunting knife out and held it upright, the point glittering in the candlelight.

"Come on, redskin!" Raoul shouted, but even as he spoke he charged at Auguste, as Auguste struggled to break free from Nicole. Raoul's knife flashed and Pierre heard a cry of pain, and Nicole was between Auguste and Raoul, and Auguste had his hand to his face and blood was running through his fingers.

Raoul stepped away from Auguste and wiped his knife on a white tablecloth.

"What have you done?" Pierre shouted.

"I was kind," Raoul said with a white-toothed grin.

Pierre rushed to Auguste. Blood flowed from a long cut that ran straight down Auguste's cheek from just below his eye to the corner of his mouth.

The front of Auguste's tan buckskin shirt was stained red.

"If he'd pulled that knife, I would have taken his eye," Raoul said softly. "I just left a mark on him. So he won't forget me."

"Let go of me, Father," Auguste said in Sauk, in a level, terrible voice. "I have to kill him."

"No!" said Pierre, holding Auguste tighter.

_You're a brave boy, but I'm afraid it's you that would be killed, my son._

Blood pounded in Pierre's head. He wanted to take Auguste's knife--the knife he'd given Auguste long ago--and drive it into Raoul's chest.

_If I were like Raoul, I would do just that. Or try to._

"Raoul, for this I will never forgive you."

"Forgive me?" Raoul shouted. "Can I forgive you for bringing 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 G.o.d 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 b.a.s.t.a.r.d."

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_.