"Surely you know, Reverend, that Indians are good at getting about unnoticed."
He felt his fear turning to a rising excitement as he recalled the lessons of stealth and cunning he'd learned as a child of the Sauk.
"But what will you do then?" Nancy asked. "How will you get back here?"
Auguste hesitated. Remembering that he was a Sauk had moved his thoughts in a new direction.
I have been dispossessed. Just as my people have been dispossessed.
Nancy was waiting for him to speak.
"Raoul told me to go back to the woods with the other Indians. Even though the advice came from him, I think that is just what I should do."
Nancy gasped as if he had struck her. There was silence in the cottage for a moment.
"How will you get back to your people?" she said. "How will you find them?"
He smiled, trying to get her to smile back at him. "I know exactly where they are. They've crossed the Mississippi to their hunting grounds in the Ioway Territory. I spent the first fifteen winters of my life there with the British Band."