held it out to
Bill Helmer, captain of the steamship _Victory_. A portly man with
muttonchop whiskers, his hands firmly gripping the polished oak steering
wheel, Helmer silently shook his head.

Raoul lifted the jug in a mock toast. "May we have a merry day of Indian
fighting." He took two long swallows, and decided he felt strong and
happy.

Helmer shook his head. "Mr. de Marion, there's nothing merry about
fighting Indians."

"If that's your opinion, Captain, I'll thank you to keep it to
yourself," said Raoul. He wanted a little warmth right now besides what
he was getting from the jug, and he despised this dour man for not
giving it to him.

Helmer shrugged and bent his gaze on the river.

Raoul knotted his fingers behind his back, and found that the effort
relieved the tightness in his belly. He went to stand at the pilot house
window and stared out at the forested bank where the Bad Axe River
emptied into the Mississippi.

Militiamen were wading across the Bad Axe from south to north, holding
their rifles, bayonets fixed, over their heads. The Bad Axe was more a
creek than a river, shallow now in August, winding through a channel
thick with bright green reeds. As the men slogged up the north bank,
they leveled their rifles and plunged into the trees.

A blue haze of powder smoke already drifted amidst the pine and spruce
north of the Bad Axe mouth. The popping of rifles carried to Raoul
across the water over the wheeze and clank of the _Victory_'s steam
engine, fueled with oak and split pine.

Raoul wondered what was happening in those woods. Were the Indians
fighting back, defending their women and children? He hoped the
militiamen would go on killing until they'd exterminated the whole band.
After four months of chasing the Indians across Illinois and the
Michigan Territory, after all the innocents murdered--_Clarissa_,
_Phil_, _Andy_--surely the militiamen would not be soft.

He felt tears starting up, and he quickly took another pull at the jug.
He wished he could be in at the kill instead of out here in the river.

_I want their blood on my own hands._

Lieutenant Kingsbury, in command of the gunnery crew assigned to Raoul
from Fort Crawford, came up the stairs from the foredeck to the
hurricane deck and entered the pilot house. He mopped his brow as he set
his cylindrical shako, sporting its red plume and gold crossed-cannons
artillery badge, on the chart table.

"Gets damned sticky on the ri