Pierre closed his eyes wearily, his fingertips still resting on the calumet that lay across his chest. Auguste grieved. The father who had left him when he was a little boy and then come back for him was leaving him again, slipping away. Marchette wiped Pierre's face with a damp cloth.
Nicole's lower lip trembled as she said, "My big brother. You've always been here for me."
Elysée's face was crumpled by an unbearable sadness. He wishes, Auguste thought, that it was him lying there dying, instead of his son.
Pierre opened his eyes and lifted his head to look at Auguste. Auguste gently pressed his hand against his father's balding brow.
"Rest, Father, rest."
"Not till we are done. You know that your grandfather turned the estate over to me when I was forty years of age. Now I must pass it on. Until recent years I had thought that the land would go to Raoul when I died.
"But the enmity between me and Raoul has grown deeper and deeper. A few times he and I and Papa have met together, trying to come to terms. Each time, the words that passed between us were more cruel. Then, a year ago, he even boasted to me that he killed three Sauk Indians who were taking lead from that mine he has been working, which they believe to be theirs."
Auguste gasped.
Sun Fish and the others! That must have been what happened to them.
Pierre said, "What is it?"