as a warrior's body came
crashing down. The air was full of blinding, bitter smoke.

Then silence. Motionless Indians lay on the forest floor.

But so did two more of Raoul's own men. One lay face down, perfectly
still. The other was on his back, head propped against a tree trunk. An
arrow, feathers black and white, stuck out of his chest. His eyes were
open but saw nothing. His arms and empty hands jerked, the movements
less like a human being's than like a dying insect's. Raoul felt bile
rising in his throat and bit his lips hard to stop himself from puking.

_That could just as easily have been me._

Another man had an arrow in his arm. Armand pulled it out of him with a
mighty jerk. The man screamed, and Armand clapped a big hand over his
mouth.

Raoul's nine remaining men looked from the two dead men--the second
man's arms had stopped jerking--to Raoul. Were they just waiting for
orders, or were they accusing him?

"Injuns're gettin' ready for another charge," Levi Pope said. "I can see
them skulkin' out there."

"Pull back!" Raoul ordered. "Pick up those dead men's rifles." His voice
rang out strangely in the still forest.

Reloading and walking backward, rifles pointed up, Raoul and his men
retreated to the tip of the island. Armand carried the extra rifles.
They piled up fallen trees to make a hasty barricade.

Raoul lay behind tree trunks long enough for the sweat to cool on his
body. Mosquitoes and little black flies stung him incessantly. He
wondered if the Indians would ever attack. He'd gotten himself into a
very bad spot.

Rifles went off, and bullets plunked into the tree barricade. Brown
bodies came leaping out of the forest. Raoul suddenly remembered how the
Indians had rushed out from behind the Lake Michigan dunes twenty years
ago, and for a moment he was a terrified little boy. His hands shook so
violently he almost dropped his rifle.

With shrill yips and yells Indians came at them. Arrows and bullets
whizzed over the heads of Raoul's men as they ducked down behind their
shelter. Raoul forced himself to concentrate on shooting. He poked his
rifle through an opening between broken tree limbs, aimed at a running
Indian and fired.

His two remaining close companions in this war, Levi and Armand, lay
shooting on either side of him. Hodge was dead, his body sprawled a few
feet behind them, and that by itself brought Raoul close to panic. He
had always felt the big redheaded backwoodsman co