Pierre looked miserably down at Auguste and thought, I hope your shaman's skills make you better at predicting the future than I have been, my son.
BOOK 2
1831
Moon of Ripe Cherries
July
8
Homecoming
Rejoicing at the sight of Victor, Auguste stepped up to the gangplank of the paddle wheeler Virginia and paused there a moment to look around. He couldn't help himself: he smiled broadly. The settlement hugging the bluff was not home, but it was closer to home than he had been in a long time.
And this summer, he had decided, he would go back to his true home. He would end the sorrow of being cut off from his people.
This was the sixth spring since Pierre de Marion had come and taken him to Victoire, and, as with every spring before it, he missed Saukenuk terribly. He longed for his mother, for the teachings of Owl Carver, for the arms of Redbird, whom he had lost almost as soon as he made her his.