Shaman Part 120

"Why don't you get rid of those d.a.m.ned spectacles?" Armand said as he refilled his gla.s.s from Raoul's jug.

When Armand picked up his gla.s.s it left a wet ring that would stain the polished maple surface. There were already many rings on the desk, even though it had been s.h.i.+pped out from Philadelphia only two months ago.

They looked like owl's eyes, staring as the spectacles stared.

But Raoul couldn't bring himself to care about how his desk looked, just as he couldn't care enough to get started on rebuilding Victoire.

He preferred to live at the trading post. He hadn't felt like doing anything, ever since Auguste's second escape from Victor. Next spring, he told himself, he'd get the work going.

And so he sat up late every night in his counting room with Armand and they drank and told each other the same stories about the war with Black Hawk's band. There were men to drink with in the trading post taproom, but he didn't care for most of them. Armand had been with him longer than anybody. Raoul might not like him much, but he was used to him.

Armand had grudgingly accepted Raoul's explanation that he hadn't read his copy of the will carefully before sticking it in the fire. He thanked Raoul for the belated two hundred dollars and dismissed Pierre's generosity as an attempted bribe from beyond the grave.

Raoul stared at his stained desk. The drawer was still open, the silver case still visible. "They were my brother's spectacles."

"I know that. Why do you keep them? You hated your brother."

Raoul brought the flat of his hand heavily down on the desk. "Shut up!

You know nothing about it."

_How do I feel about Pierre? Do I still love him in a way? Is that why I keep his spectacles?_

Unwilling suddenly to consign the silver case to his desk, he dropped it into his jacket pocket. Armand probably wanted him to throw it away so he could retrieve the case and sell it for the silver.

Armand said, "Your brother put the horns on me. And his Injun friends killed my wife. Mon Dieu, how I wanted to see that b.a.s.t.a.r.d son of his hang for that!"

Raoul was tired of hearing Armand go on about dead Marchette, to whom he'd given nothing but blows and contempt when she was alive. Going to bed with Pierre was the only good thing that ever happened to that poor woman. But he said nothing; after all, he himself had cared little enough for Clarissa when she was alive.

"You'll get a chance to kill him yet," said Raoul. "He'll be back this way."

It was now nearly a week since the sergeant at Fort Crawford in Raoul's pay pa.s.sed the word that Andrew Jackson had sent the mongrel back West.

To think, that vermin meeting the President!

If Auguste traveled as fast as the news, he must be nearly here. Raoul's informant said that Auguste was supposed to be sent with a military escort to the new Sauk reservation in Ioway. Raoul was sure Auguste would come to Victor instead.

When Auguste came back to Victor, he would go at once to Nancy Hale's cabin, or send for her. Surely she had lied in court about what she and Auguste were to each other. The boys Raoul had sent to watch her cabin would let him know of Auguste's arrival.

Armand nodded vigorously. "May le Bon Dieu grant me the chance to kill him. But what makes you so sure he will come here?"

"Because he knows that he can prove Pierre left Victoire to him. Cooper has those papers, and Cooper helped him escape, so he has Cooper on his side."

Armand said, "Two pieces of paper. Easy enough to make them disappear."

"How in h.e.l.l am I going to get them away from Cooper? Him and his Regulators."

Glowering at Raoul, Armand leaned back in his chair, making it creak. He folded his hands across the big belly that stretched his homespun s.h.i.+rt.

"Kill Cooper and there will be no more Regulators."

_How I wish I could._

Pouring himself another drink, Raoul said, "Armand, you're d.a.m.n near as stupid as an Indian."

Armand's eyes narrowed and for a moment Raoul saw a flash of hatred that reminded him of the way the overseer used to look at Pierre.

"Have a care how you talk to me, mon colonel," Armand said in a voice that sounded like millstones grinding together, "I am your one friend.

Otto Wegner and Eli Greenglove turned on you, Hodge Hode is dead, Levi Pope has joined the Regulators."

_It's true. I have no other friends but Armand. I have no family. What's happened to me?_

"d.a.m.n it, it _is_ plain stupid to talk about fighting the Regulators, Armand. Kill Cooper and we'd have a countywide war on our hands."

"I believe we could frighten the Regulators into backing down, mon colonel--if _we_ showed some courage."

_That's a jab at me._

Whiskey and anger almost made Raoul lash out again at Armand, but he felt a sudden fear that Armand would turn on him and he would be all alone.

Raoul brooded for a time, then finally spoke.

"Wait till I get the lead mine opened up next spring. We'll go up to Galena, you and I, and we'll recruit the roughest, meanest miners we can find. And we'll make it plain to them that they'll have two jobs--to dig for lead and to fight Regulators. When we've got enough of them down here, we'll take on Cooper and his crowd in the next election. I'll spread whiskey and money around and our boys will beat up anybody who says he won't vote our way. Smith County will belong to us again, Armand."

He heard hurried footsteps echoing on the split-log floor of the fort's main room. Someone rapped on his office door. Like a swimmer coming up from the bottom of a lake after a dive, Raoul rose up out of his comfortable whiskey haze.

"Who's there?" he growled.

Josiah Hode, a skinny, red-haired youth in dark calico s.h.i.+rt and workman's trousers, a big hunting knife at his waist, pushed the door open. Hodge's orphaned son.

_This is what my Andy and Phil would have grown to look like._ The thought hurt Raoul because Andy and Phil were dead and because he had never really loved them.

"What is it, Josiah?"

"Someone rode up to Miz Hale's door and banged on it. I snuck right up to the fence. When they came out I saw it was that Woodrow kid that lives with her. And she got out her own horse and rode toward town with him."

"Did you follow them?"

"Long enough to see that they went up to old Mr. de Marion's place."

"_He's_ there!" Raoul said. He felt as if he were out hunting on a frosty morning and had just sighted a buck with spreading antlers. He clenched his fist and brought it down on his desk, hard. He opened the drawer again, took out a small bag of coins and slammed the drawer shut.

He counted out nine Spanish dollars. "Josiah, you divide these between the three of you for keeping good watch." He dropped a tenth piece of eight into the boy's cupped hands. "That's for you, for bringing me the good news."

Josiah grinned, all teeth. "Thanks a heap, Mr. de Marion."

"Armand, I want about twenty men. Go round them up. Have them meet me at the trading post gate."

"Tres bon, mon colonel."

Raoul thought a moment. He had planned to hang Auguste, but they couldn't leave a body around for the Regulators to find.