e and swung; it chunked into the Indian's arm like a
meat cleaver. He heard the tomahawk clang on the rock floor.

Raoul threw himself on the Indian, stabbing, stabbing. His enemy's body,
smaller and lighter than his, crumpled under his weight. The fingers of
his left hand dug into smooth skin and hard muscle. He felt hands
pushing against him, but their efforts were weak, the struggles of a
dying creature. The cries and groans of pain made him eager to hurt the
Indian more. It was too dark to see where his knife was going in, but he
brought it down again and again. His hands felt wet. Some of his thrusts
sank deep, others were stopped by bone.

A pulse pounded in his brain. It did not matter that he was fighting in
the dark; fury blinded him anyway. He forgot everything but the knife in
his hand and the soft, bloody body under him. He screamed with rage and
triumph, drowning out the agonized shrieks of his enemy.

After a while, no more cries. The body under him did not move. Raoul lay
on top of the Indian, panting.

He began to think again. Carefully he slid his hand over the Indian's
chest, the buckskin shirt slippery with warm blood. No heartbeat, no
lifting of lungs.

_By God, I did it, I killed him!_ He felt as if rockets were going off
in his head, and he laughed aloud. He'd fought for his mine and spilled
his enemy's blood to make it his own.

_No goddamned Indian is ever going to steal what belongs to me._

He climbed to his feet. His knees were shaking violently under him.

His head ached so badly he felt as if his eyes were being pushed out of
his skull. He realized that in the fight he'd completely lost control of
himself. He'd become a wild thing, a creature without a mind. It had
happened to him several times before, in fights that had ended with his
killing a man.

Thoughts of triumph that he had killed his enemy, of terror at the
realization that this fight could have gone the other way, chased each
other around in his brain, but he felt even more alive and happier than
he had last night with Clarissa.

Sudden light dazzled him. An arrow of fear shot through him. More
Indians?

"Raoul!" It was Eli Greenglove's voice.

His eyes adjusted, and he could see Eli, Hodge Hode and Levi Pope
standing at the entrance to the side tunnel. They looked at the body at
his feet and the bloody knife in his hand, and then up at him and their
eyes were wide and their lips parted.

_Those looks are worth as