"Ah, merde," muttered Armand, standing with red-dripping bayonet above a
pile of bodies.

Raoul looked around. The order to stop the shooting had come from their
rear, from a short, stout officer who, as Dodge had, was advancing with
drawn saber. Colonel Zachary Taylor.

Taylor looked around the smoking glade at the dead, big bodies and
little ones, brown flesh and tan deerskin splashed with bright red, eyes
staring, limbs helter-skelter.

"Jesus Christ." He turned to Raoul, pain in his bright blue eyes.

Raoul felt his face grow hot. "Colonel," he said, "you understand why we
had to--"

Taylor's expression changed from sadness to weariness. "I've been out on
the frontier for over twenty years. I don't see anything here that I
haven't seen before." He turned away before Raoul could answer and
called, "Lieutenant Davis!"

A tall young officer with a handsome, angular face came up to him and
saluted.

Taylor said, "Jeff, run ahead and make sure any Indians left on this
island get a chance to surrender." He turned to Raoul again, shaking his
head.

"Why let them surrender?" Raoul said.

"There's only a few left alive," said Taylor. "And we're not going to
kill them. And if you need a reason, it's because I wouldn't feel right
about it, and I know a lot of the men wouldn't feel right about it."

Taylor turned to one of his men, a red-faced trooper with a thick blond
mustache. "Sergeant Benson, get me that Sauk man we captured. We'll be
needing to talk to the Indians. We want to find out what's happened to
Black Hawk."

Raoul was painfully aware that Taylor's eyes had shifted to his right
hand, covered with blood. He wanted to hide it behind his back.

He looked Raoul up and down. "Good God, man. Do you know you've got
blood all over you?"

"Enemy blood," said Raoul.

"I see you've got a scalp tied to your belt," Taylor said. "General
Atkinson issued an order against mutilating enemy dead."

Raoul felt himself shaking again, not with fear, but with anger. "I saw
one of my best friends shot dead with an arrow through the throat
today."

"And this?" Taylor asked, pointing to the severed head of the big brave
lying a few feet from Raoul's red-spotted boots. "Was this to avenge
your friend too? You'd better get back to your steamship, Mr. de Marion.
I don't think we have any more need of your services here."

It was not so much Taylor's words, but the mingled contempt and pity in
his voice that enraged