Eli Greenglove, it was said, could shoot the wings off a fly one at a time at fifty yards and was wanted in Missouri for over a dozen murders. He might take orders from Raoul, but it would not do for Raoul to offend such a man. So if Eli persisted, Raoul probably would take Clarissa into the château.
Auguste felt a sinking in his stomach as he touched his fingers lightly to his throbbing head. He was alive now only because Greenglove had chosen to hit him instead of shooting him down—or instead of letting Raoul have that pleasure.
"Will you stay the night, Marchette?" Nancy asked.
"No, I must go back to the château before Armand wakes up. Otherwise he will beat me worse."
"I'm going with you," said Auguste.
"No," said Nancy. "They'll kill you."
Auguste looked across the table at Nancy, staring at him with round blue eyes full of the yearning, now mixed with fear, that he'd seen in them earlier. "Pale eyes," the Sauk term for her people, did no justice to her eyes, the color of the turquoise stone he kept in his medicine bag. Her blond hair made his blood race. His fingertips tingled with the desire to touch the white skin of her cheek.
Though Nancy's very differentness made him desire her, he knew that he and she could never belong to each other as completely as he and Redbird did. He could have a deep and lasting union with Redbird, a union that would make him feel whole.
But it had been six years since he had seen Redbird, and no woman of the Sauk would go without a man for that long.
My mother did, he reminded himself.