Pierre walked the rainbow path with the long, vigorous stride of a young man. The Bear accompanied him with a rolling gait, looking like the biggest dog that ever lived walking beside a hunter. White Bear smiled to watch them.
They climbed the archway of color that leaped out over the Great River until at last they disappeared in the dazzling disk of the sun.
White Bear's head fell back against the bark of the tree, and he closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, his father was lying beside him, still holding his hand. But Pierre's grip was without strength. He lay with his head sunk in the pillow, his mouth fallen open, the whites of his eyes showing between half-closed lids. He was not breathing.
White Bear's tears came hot. He heard a voice—his own voice—rising in his chest.
"Hu-hu-huuuu ... Whu-whu-whuuuu ..." It was the sound mourners made at Sauk funerals.
He wrapped his arms around his knees and rocked back and forth, sobbing and keening in the way of his people. Soon he would have to get up and go into the château and tell people Pierre de Marion was dead. He must be the first to bring the news to poor Grandpapa. But for a while he would sit alone with his father and wail for him.
Sitting on the ground under the maple tree, he looked down and was not surprised to see marks in the bare, damp earth. The prints of wide pads twice the size of a man's feet. At the end of each print, deep holes left by five claws.
Raoul did not think he could put up with much more of this funeral. He had to wait till it was all over before he could make himself master of Victoire, and he wanted desperately to act now. He tried to calm himself by remembering the Indians he'd stalked and killed at Saukenuk last May and June.