Elysée said, "I told you I had some money salted away, Auguste. Let the boat and the rifle be my gift to you."
Auguste reached out and squeezed his grandfather's bony hand.
Frank said, "I've moved the boat about half a mile below town and hidden it. We should be able to get down there unseen after dark."
Nicole said, "If Auguste is leaving as Raoul wants him to, why wouldn't Raoul just let him go?"
Frank said, "We can't take that chance. I believe Raoul won't be content unless he kills Auguste."
Auguste shuddered inwardly at the thought that there was in the world a man who would not be satisfied until he was dead. He could not live with that kind of fear. He asked the White Bear, his spirit guide, to give him courage.
He tried to push the fear out of his mind. He stood up to go back to the room where he had slept. He would clean and repack the things he was taking, he decided. He would get busy getting ready and not give himself time to think about being afraid.
But nightfall seemed a long way off.
At nine o'clock in the evening by the Seth Thomas clock in Frank's printing shop, which he reset every day at sunset, it was dark enough and the town was quiet enough for Auguste to leave. He held Nicole's ample body tight and kissed her, shook hands with the boys and kissed the girls. His grandfather had drifted off to sleep again, but the old man had kissed him on both cheeks, and they had said their good-byes in the afternoon.
The road down the bluff from the town to the bottomland was empty. Most people in Victor went to bed soon after sunset, and those who didn't would be up in the taproom of the trading post inn.