eful heart rejoiced. When the time came, he'd have
the cannon from the trading post mounted in the bow of the _Victory_.
Then let any damned Indians try to cross the Mississippi. He'd pay them
back for what they did to Victoire.

But he remembered Nicole and Frank coming to him, telling him the
militia was needed to guard Victor. He'd laughed at their fears. If he'd
listened to them, Clarissa and Andy and Phil and those other people
might still be alive. Victoire and Victor would still be standing.
Hadn't he had some hand in bringing death and destruction upon his home?

No, it was all the Indians' doing.

_I'll get you, Black Hawk. If I have to follow you all the way to
Hudson's Bay. There won't be a one of your damned British Band left
alive when I'm done._

He would make them suffer. From this moment on, he had only one thing to
think of and only one thing to do: kill Indians.

BOOK 3

1832

Moon of Strawberries

_June_

18

The Trembling Lands

Redbird thought, _Our land by the Rock River was so good to us, and now
see what we have come to_.

Only starving people tried to make food from cattail seeds and the inner
bark of slippery elm and willow trees.

With a small steel knife Redbird cut cattails, dropping them into a
basket she carried over her arm. It would take thousands of the tiny
seeds, painstakingly picked from the white fuzz and then ground into
meal, to make a little bread that must be shared among five people.

Redbird moved slowly, pushing her swollen belly before her. As much as
her back and her feet hurt, she was determined to spend every day out
foraging until the baby was born. For the baby's sake she had to eat as
much as she could, but she did not want to take that extra portion from
the rest of her family without contributing as much as she could to the
common supply.

She sang as she walked along, asking the Trembling Lands to yield fruits
and berries. She found no fruits or berries, but singing kept her
spirits up, and she thought it helped the others too. Yellow Hair smiled
and nodded to her to show that she liked the song.

Sweat trickled down her back and inside her doeskin dress. Gray clouds
lay heavily over the Trembling Lands, and the air was warm and wet. Even
though the water of the lake was dark and muddy, Redbird was looking
forward to bathing in it.

And she was looking forward to a private talk with Yellow Hair. Yellow
Hair had been with them