Nicole screamed, "No! No, Auguste!"
Pierre rolled his aching head to one side to see Auguste standing over him, his hand on the deerhorn hilt of the knife that hung at his belt, the knife Pierre had left for him when he was a baby. Nicole held his arm with both hands.
"Want to fight with knives?" Raoul said. He slid his own huge hunting knife out and held it upright, the point glittering in the candlelight.
"Come on, redskin!" Raoul shouted, but even as he spoke he charged at Auguste, as Auguste struggled to break free from Nicole. Raoul's knife flashed and Pierre heard a cry of pain, and Nicole was between Auguste and Raoul, and Auguste had his hand to his face and blood was running through his fingers.
Raoul stepped away from Auguste and wiped his knife on a white tablecloth.
"What have you done?" Pierre shouted.
"I was kind," Raoul said with a white-toothed grin.
Pierre rushed to Auguste. Blood flowed from a long cut that ran straight down Auguste's cheek from just below his eye to the corner of his mouth. The front of Auguste's tan buckskin shirt was stained red.
"If he'd pulled that knife, I would have taken his eye," Raoul said softly. "I just left a mark on him. So he won't forget me."
"Let go of me, Father," Auguste said in Sauk, in a level, terrible voice. "I have to kill him."