iving with the British Band; here
in Victor it was not right.

"I knew you would come back," Nancy said, sensing his desire but not his
hesitancy, bringing her lips so close to his he could almost taste them.

He inched away from her, so as not to be utterly overcome by her
nearness.

He decided to talk of other things. He told her of the plan he had come
here with, to challenge Raoul. He told her how Frank had persuaded him
to try to retake Victoire with the law's help.

"The Turtle has said that I must be guardian of the land and see to it
that no pale eyes prospers by stealing from the Sauk," he said. "If I
can take Victoire back from Raoul, my people will have a place to come
to in the land that was once theirs."

"You mean for the tribe to come back and live on the estate?"

"No, they could never come back to Illinois as a tribe. But families
could come and live here for a while--they could send their children
here--they could learn our ways. And the wealth of the estate could help
them, wherever they might be."

"Will you bring Redbird and Eagle Feather here?" she asked, squeezing
his hand.

_Does she want me to say I won't? No, she cares for them too. We were a
family._

He said, "Yes, if I can get Victoire away from Raoul, I will bring them
here."

He saw her eyes close and knew that he was hurting her, and that
deepened his own pain still more.

She let go his hand and twisted her fingers together in her lap. "Of
course Redbird is first in your heart. But how can she live here with
you? Where her baby was torn out of her arms and killed by a mob of
white people."

"I've asked myself that many times. I will have to hear what Redbird
says."

He remembered what Sun Woman had said when Pierre asked her to come with
him to Victoire. _I could not look into pale eyes faces all day long.
My heart would dry up._ And surely Redbird had more reason to hate the
sight of white faces than Sun Woman had seven years ago.

Could he himself live here? He talked about retaking Victoire, about
living as a white man, but he recalled the heaps of dead he had seen on
that blood-soaked island off the Bad Axe River. Could he live among the
people who had done that?

Nancy said, "Would you still want to live at Victoire if Redbird said
she would not come with you?"

He saw Redbird's small face, her slanting eyes, the fringe of black hair
that fell over her forehead. He felt her slender arms around him as they
had