"Your trunk, Monsieur Auguste?"
Auguste pointed out the big wooden chest with brass fittings that had been unloaded at the Victor pier along with bales and barrels from the hold of the Virginia.
Guichard approached two buckskin-clad men lounging by a piling. He pointed out the trunk as Auguste had done.
"For him?" said one of the men, glowering at Auguste from under his coonskin cap. "White men don't wait on goddamn Injuns." He spat tobacco juice at Guichard's feet and turned away, as did the other man.
Auguste wanted to throw the man who had spat at Guichard into the river. He had no doubt that he could do it, though like most men who lived in Victor, the man was armed with knife and pistol. Auguste had been taught to fight as a Sauk, and he had been a champion boxer, wrestler and fencer at St. George's School. But he was not going to get into a brawl in his first minutes ashore. Time enough for that if he met Raoul.
"Come on, Guichard. The trunk's light enough. We don't need any help." The old servant taking one end and Auguste the other, they loaded it into the back of the carriage.
"Good to see you again, Grandpapa," Auguste said as he dropped into the seat facing Elysée and Nicole, his back to the driver. "Aunt Nicole, it's you who are beautiful. But where's Father?"
Grandpapa patted him on the knee. "Not feeling well, I'm afraid. He sends his apologies. We will go to him now, at once."
Grandpapa was trying to make his voice sound unconcerned. But Auguste heard an undertone of sorrow, the anguish of a father who had lost one of his children years ago and would soon lose another.
With understanding, grief sank into Auguste's marrow. Father—Star Arrow—had hung on these past six years, growing sicker and sicker, the evil in his belly swelling up like a poisonous toad. Now the end was near.