be dealt with first, so Auguste would be coming in now.

Raoul watched avidly as Auguste walked in between two privates, his
wrists handcuffed, carrying an iron ball at the end of a chain attached
to his ankles. The sight of the mongrel in chains was more satisfying
than a good swig of Old Kaintuck.

Raoul had not seen Auguste since the day they had faced each other too
briefly on that bloody island off the mouth of the Bad Axe. Again Raoul
saw that Auguste's right ear, partly covered by his long black locks,
was split into upper and lower halves, with a red, partly healed gap
between them.

_Eli's bullet must have gone through his ear instead of his head. And,
knowing Eli, that was no accident. That was why he said I'd find a
surprise up in Michigan Territory._

Raoul's fingers worked in his lap. That gap-toothed old bastard had
deliberately lied to him about killing Auguste. Why? What could he gain
by keeping Auguste alive?

Auguste's dark eyes widened as they met Raoul's, and from across the
room his hatred struck Raoul like a blow. Raoul remembered the woman
whose throat he had cut.

_His mother. But killing her was still not enough to pay me back for
Clarissa and Phil and Andy. For the burning of Victoire._

Auguste turned his back to Raoul and faced the three commanders, who sat
at a long table behind which a big American flag was nailed to the
plaster wall.

In the center was Major General Winfield Scott, finally arrived from the
East to take charge of what was left of the war. Raoul hoped Scott had
come out here with President Jackson's orders to send this pack of
savages to the gallows. The general had listened intently to everything
Raoul had to say against the mongrel. Raoul distrusted Scott's fancy
uniform, his heavy gold-braided epaulets and the white plume on the
cocked hat that lay beside him. But Scott's features were severe, his
brows straight and black, his nose sharp and his mouth tight. Raoul saw
no pity in the look he bent on Auguste.

Flanking Scott were Colonel Zachary Taylor and white-bearded Brigadier
General Henry Atkinson, who had commanded the militia and troops right
up to the battle at the Bad Axe.

Winfield Scott glanced at a paper before him and said, "Auguste de
Marion, by some also called White Bear, you are named in Colonel
Taylor's report as one of the ringleaders of Black Hawk's uprising. We
have heard testimony that you are a renegade and murderer."

Auguste glanced at