"Fire your rifles!" David Cooper yelled. "Shoot, shoot, shoot! Keep them on the run. And shut that damned door."
"Let me at the port, Maw," Tom demanded.
The rifles banged away, sounding puny in Nicole's ears after the roar of the cannon. Finally Cooper ordered an end to the shooting.
"If we let 'em drag their dead out of here, they may be in a mood to leave."
Nicole waited in dread, wondering whether the Indians would come again. The sunset rays pouring through the ports on the west side of the blockhouse slowly faded, leaving the main room dark. People lit more candles. David Cooper directed the reloading of the cannon.
The group in Raoul's office were singing hymns again, and many people sitting around the hall joined them. Nicole sat beside Pamela Russell on a bench and took her hand, and soon Pamela began to talk quietly. She told Nicole things about Burke, the books he enjoyed reading, his favorite dishes, jokes he used to tell her.
"I always envied you, Nicole, with so many children. We wanted children so much, and we never got any. And now we'll never—"
Nicole tried to think of something to say, but everything that came to her sounded foolish to her mind's ear. Looking at Frank standing by a port, she thought, I have been blessed, and Pamela hasn't been. But why? That had to mean something. She couldn't think what.
"It helps me, when life is hard, to believe that God has a plan," she said, patting Pamela's hand. "His plan is like a painting that's so big we can only see dark spots or bright spots without knowing what it all means. But I think one day he'll take us up with him, where we can see the whole picture and understand it."
"Nicole," Frank called. She gave Pamela's hand a squeeze and went to see what Frank was looking at through the rifle port.