Aching knots spread through all Auguste's muscles. Were he alone with Armand, he would hurl himself at him and try to kill him, barehanded. But in this crowded courtroom he was helpless. His hands tightened on the links of his chain till they hurt.
He felt a firm grip on his forearm; Ford, sitting beside him, letting him know that he sensed his pain.
Led by Bennett's questions, Armand repeated Raoul's claim that the three peace messengers were actually the vanguard of a Sauk attack.
"Why do they keep harping on this?" Auguste asked Ford in a whisper.
"Makes you out a murderer," Ford said out of the side of his mouth, "if you tried to lead the white militiamen into a trap at Old Man's Creek."
When it was Ford's turn to question Armand he said, "You pulled the trigger on one of Black Hawk's peace messengers, didn't you?"
"Yes," said Armand, his teeth gleaming in his brown beard. "And I did not miss."
"And you killed an Indian baby on the road going through town about three weeks ago, didn't you?"
"I don't remember."
Ford raised his hands toward the beamed ceiling. "Come now, Mr. Perrault. A hundred or more people saw you drag that child from its mother's arms."