When Pierre had drunk most of the tea, White Bear put down the cup. He gathered up his sacred stones and put them back in his medicine bag.
Pierre said, "You did a Sauk ritual for me just now, did you not?"
"Yes," said White Bear. "It was meant to heal you. Or, if not, to give you strength to bear the pain."
"I do feel better today," Pierre said. "But I must also have a certain rite of the Church if I am to pass over into God's love. I sent a week ago to Kaskaskia for your old teacher, Père Isaac. He should be here any day. I have been a great sinner, White Bear."
It gladdened White Bear's heart that his father called him by his Sauk name.
"You are a good man, my father," he said in the Sauk tongue.
Pierre raised his head, and White Bear saw that the effort pained him. The burning, sunken eyes turned on White Bear.
"Son, I must have my answer now. Earthmaker let me live all summer, that you might have time to decide. Now you must tell me."
"Can you not let me go back to my people, Father? Why do you ask me to stay here and fight for something I do not want?"
"I see what Raoul has become, and I do not want him to be the master here. I am proud of you and ashamed of him. I want you to be the future of the de Marions, not him. And what of this land that we have loved together, the land that Sun Woman's people have cherished for generations? Shall it fall to Raoul?"