"There, you goddamned redskin son of a bitch! Thought you could kill me, huh?"
A shrill woman's voice broke in on his triumph.
He turned to see a witchlike woman wrapped in a blanket. Her finger was pointing at him. Her voice went on and on, screeching at him.
She was tall, but starvation had stripped the flesh from her bones. Her sunken eyes seemed to glow in her skull-like face. He felt as if he was facing some horrid spectre.
He threw the warrior's head down. Curse him, would she? He snarled like an angry wolf as he reached for the woman. She didn't even try to get away. He seized the scrawny neck and pulled her to him, bringing the Bowie knife's point up against her throat.
She started singing, a weird, high-pitched caterwauling. He'd heard something like it before. Where?
When he'd been about to shoot Auguste and those two other Indians at Old Man's Creek. They'd sung like that right at the end.
Her dark eyes held him. They were not clouded over with anger or terror, but clear with full understanding that he was going to kill her. She was not afraid. He wished he could frighten her, force her to grovel, but someone might try to stop him from doing it. Her voice went on and on, chanting, up and down.
He'd silence her now. Redskin bitch.
He drove the knife into her throat and jerked it sideways. Her song ended in a sickening rasp.