Un été indien page

Un été indien page 49

This quiet page is an example of what Hugo Pratt could do as a storyteller and scriptwriter and what Milo Manara could do as an illustrator and visual storyteller when both of them were on top of their game. We get an insight on why the whole story is called Indian Summer - Un été indien (or the complete title in Italian: Tutto ricomincio con un´ estate indiana).

The atmosphere is a sort of poetic eerie calmness - calm before the storm, with an eerie undertone.
The storyteling is driven by Pratt´ s poetic dialog. The young and somewhat naive indian Tiny asks about the incident which put the whole story in motion - why they raped the girl. Nathan replies that they perhaps did it "because like all young animals at the beginning of Indian Summer, just before the cold nights of winter, they felt the need to play with women". When Tiny says he wants to play too, Nathan replies: "You´ ll play with my sister when we have finished this story about death". Manara conveys the visual part of the atmosphere perfectly, the expressions, the forest and the campfire.
In the last panel the calmness is broken: Jeremiah is panickly runnning to warn New Canaan of the upcoming attack.

And of course this ends very badly.