"I don't think anyone can help me, son," Pierre said. "It's all right. Just having you here makes me feel better."
Auguste had learned enough about cancer to be sure that Pierre's condition was hopeless. Dr. Bernard—any of the other white physicians at New York Hospital—would say that nothing more could be done except to make the patient comfortable, give him laudanum perhaps, and wait for the end.
But that was merely what white medicine had taught Auguste. White doctors had sharp lancets to draw blood, scalpels to cut into sick people's bodies, saws to cut off infected limbs. They had huge thick books listing hundreds of diseases and prescribing treatments for them. But after spending many hours treating the sick in New York, Auguste had seen that there were many things the white physicians did not know how to do, had never even thought of doing. Perhaps greater hope for Pierre lay in the way of the shaman.
At the very least, Auguste, as White Bear, could speak to Pierre's soul, could summon the aid of the spirits, especially his own spirit helper and that of the sick man, to cure him if possible; if not, then to ease his suffering, help him to accept what was to happen to him and prepare him to walk in the other world.
With a jolt, the thought hit him anew: If I stay here with Father, what of Saukenuk?
Pierre said, "God has kept me alive because I must talk to you about our land, Auguste."
Auguste did not like the sound of that. The thousands of acres the de Marions owned had nothing to do with him, and he wanted to keep it that way.
Marchette stood up, pushing her chair back. "Perhaps the rest of us should leave you and Monsieur Auguste alone."
Auguste saw in her face the anguish of a woman who was losing a man she loved. Auguste had long suspected, seeing the looks that passed between Pierre and Marchette, and the way her husband, the brown-bearded Armand, glared at both of them, that there was—or at least had once been—something between the master of Victoire and the cook.
Pierre raised a tremulous hand. "Au contraire. I want the three of you—Papa, Nicole, Marchette—to hear what I say. Besides, you are the three I trust most. I want you to know my wishes, my true wishes, because after I am gone there are those who will lie about me."