s sitting in the witness chair, answering
Ford's questions in a soft, melodious voice.

Ford asked, "Do you agree, Mrs. Hopkins, with your brother's charge that
Auguste is a renegade and murderer?"

Nicole's full face reddened with anger. "My God, no! Auguste never
turned against us. He left Smith County because Raoul would have had him
murdered if he'd stayed. Auguste has never harmed anyone."

Ford's next witness was Mrs. Pamela Russell. Hearing the spectators
murmuring questions to one another after Ford called her name, Auguste
wondered anxiously what a woman whose husband had been killed by Wolf
Paw's raid on Victor could possibly say that would help him. Her black
dress and bonnet made her face look even paler. She clutched a black
leather bag in her lap.

Ford said, "Mrs. Russell, did your late husband entrust any papers to
you concerning Auguste de Marion?"

"Not exactly, but he kept such papers in our house and told me about
them. I kept them safe after he died."

"What were they?"

"A certificate of adoption and a will."

"Why did he keep them in your home instead of in the village hall?"

Pamela Russell's dark eyes flashed as she searched the courtroom,
looking, Auguste suspected, for Raoul.

"Raoul de Marion, who never let my husband forget that he owed his job
to him, ordered Burke to destroy both papers."

"That's a lie!" came Raoul's shout from the back of the hall.

Justus Bennett looked toward Raoul and said, "Colonel de Marion, please.
What this woman is saying might even help our case."

"All right," Raoul called. "But you watch what you're doing."

"Now, Mrs. Russell--" Ford began again.

"Burke knew that what he told him to do was wrong. So, instead of
destroying the adoption certificate and the will, he brought them home
and kept them in his strongbox in our cellar. When the Indians burned
our house, the papers survived." She paused, gazing over Ford's head.
"The papers survived."

"Do you have them now, Mrs. Russell?"

She unbuckled the strap that closed the leather bag in her lap and drew
out two folded pieces of paper. She handed them to Ford, who unfolded
them with a flourish and turned to the judge.

Ford asked, "Your Honor, may I read these documents to the court?"

"Go right ahead," said Judge Cooper.

"First, the certificate of adoption," said Ford.

Auguste felt a hard lump rise to block his throat as Ford read the
statement that Pierre de Marion, on the sixteenth