the knife sank deep between two thick
ribs.

The Indian gave a deep groan and staggered back. He swung his club, but
too late. Raoul felt a numbing blow just where his neck met his
shoulder, and fell to his knees.

He was looking right into the dark brown eyes of the Indian, who had
also fallen. The eyes were unblinking, dead. The massive body collapsed
against him.

Raoul shouted, a wordless cry of rage, and a red curtain swept over his
eyes. He jerked the knife out, releasing a cataract of blood. With an
effort that wrenched his arms he hurled the brown giant away from him.

Taking a scalp wasn't enough, after a fight like that. Raoul got a firm
grip on the thick, stiff-standing hank of black hair in the center of
his enemy's head and brought the knife down on the brown throat.
Chopping and slicing and sawing, as if butchering a steer, Raoul cut
through the thick neck until at last the head came free.

He lofted the head in his left hand, looking up at the still-open dead
eyes.

"There, you goddamned redskin son of a bitch! Thought you could kill me,
huh?"

A shrill woman's voice broke in on his triumph.

He turned to see a witchlike woman wrapped in a blanket. Her finger was
pointing at him. Her voice went on and on, screeching at him.

She was tall, but starvation had stripped the flesh from her bones. Her
sunken eyes seemed to glow in her skull-like face. He felt as if he was
facing some horrid spectre.

He threw the warrior's head down. Curse him, would she? He snarled like
an angry wolf as he reached for the woman. She didn't even try to get
away. He seized the scrawny neck and pulled her to him, bringing the
Bowie knife's point up against her throat.

She started singing, a weird, high-pitched caterwauling. He'd heard
something like it before. Where?

When he'd been about to shoot Auguste and those two other Indians at Old
Man's Creek. They'd sung like that right at the end.

Her dark eyes held him. They were not clouded over with anger or terror,
but clear with full understanding that he was going to kill her. She was
not afraid. He wished he could frighten her, force her to grovel, but
someone might try to stop him from doing it. Her voice went on and on,
chanting, up and down.

He'd silence her now. Redskin bitch.

He drove the knife into her throat and jerked it sideways. Her song
ended in a sickening rasp.

Still the brown eyes were fixed on him. Her blood spurted out of the
gash he ha