speaks both Sauk and English could be of use to us, alive. I see you
have a full head of hair and you wear no feathers, White Bear. That mean
you haven't killed anybody? Or just that you don't want the fact known?"

"I haven't killed anybody." White Bear thought of adding that he had
saved more than one white life. But he couldn't expect them to believe
that. He would not expose himself to their scorn.

He said, "I am a medicine man, a shaman."

Taylor looked at him gravely. "Educated as a white man and educated in
the way of the spirits, too, eh? And with all that learning you couldn't
warn Black Hawk away from this disaster?"

White Bear shook his head. "He listened to other voices."

Taylor's eyes narrowed. "Well, whatever advice you gave him, it's all
over for your chief now. God pity your people."

White Bear said, "All they want now is to go back across the Mississippi
and live in peace. Those who are left."

Taylor fixed him with an angry stare. "It's too late for that. Things
have gone too far. You people are going to have to suffer for what
you've done."

White Bear felt his limbs go cold as he heard the steel in Taylor's
voice. This was not a bad man, White Bear sensed, not a man like Raoul.
But whatever mercy was in him had no doubt long since been washed away
by the blood shed by Black Hawk's war parties.

_No doubt while he talks about making my people suffer he thinks of
himself as quite a civilized man._

"Revenge, Colonel?" White Bear said. "I thought you were professional
soldiers."

The sergeant balled his fists. "Please, sir, let me teach him some
respect."

Taylor cocked his head, listening to a distant sound, then turned to
look downriver.

"He's got a much more bitter lesson to learn, Sergeant. As do all his
people."

White Bear heard it too. A chugging sound. It had been a while since he
had heard a noise like that. He followed Taylor's gaze down the river.
All he could see was a column of gray smoke in the sky to the south. But
he knew what it was.

A steamship.

Because he could not ride to warn his people, he wanted to cry out in
agony. He saw what would happen--those few frail canoes, the steamship
bearing down on them, two long knife armies marching inexorably toward
the mouth of the Bad Axe.

_The many who follow Black Hawk across the Great River will be few when
they cross back._

20

River of Blood

Raoul uncorked the jug standing on the chart table and