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Of course, she thought, her pulse racing. Why hadn’t she thought of it earlier? Echohawk would bring his ailing people to a neighboring tribe of Chippewa, for assistance.
“This Echohawk you mentioned,” Mariah dared to say, trying to hold on to her shirttail so that Nee-kah couldn’t lift it over her head. “Is he . . . going to die?”
“Echohawk is a courageous fighter,” Nee-kah said, jerking and yanking on Mariah’s shirt, trying to get its tail end away from her. “He will live. But it will take time. His body is racked with fever.” She stopped and sighed heavily as she placed her hands on her hips, staring frustratedly at Mariah. “Will you quit fighting against my undressing you? I have seen boys without clothes before. Seeing you will be no different.”
Mariah laughed softly, seeing a trace of humor in the moment, yet fearing the end result. She panicked again when Nee-kah forgot the struggle with the shirt, yanking Mariah’s breeches down, to rest around her ankles. The only thing left to hide the fact that she wasn’t a boy were her bland cotton undergarments. And Nee-kah had already placed her hands at the waistband, beginning slowly to lower them.
Mariah backed away from Nee-kah. “You don’t want to do that,” she said shrilly.
“I have never before in my life seen such a bashful boy,” Nee-kah fussed, again placing her hands on her hips.
“Then Echohawk is going to be all right?” Mariah said, changing the subject in an effort to postpone her having to undress, besides wanting to know more about Echohawk.
“Not entirely,” Nee-kah said, taking a slow step toward Mariah. “He was partially blinded by a man’s rifle that was used to knock him unconscious. But in time I think Echohawk will be victorious over even that. He will see again. The Great Spirit will make it so.”
Mariah paled, in her mind’s eye recalling Echohawk’s beautiful large eyes. “Blind?” she gasped. She placed a hand to her mouth, stifling a sob behind it. “I’m so sorry. So very sorry.”
“As we all are,” Nee-kah said solemnly.
“But he will see again. I do not doubt that for a moment. He is a fighter. He will win this battle. For his people, he must.”
“Why is he here instead of his own village?” Mariah asked, still inching away from Nee-kah, and knowing too well the answer to her own question. She just needed more time to figure out how she could refuse to undress any further.
“People with skin of your coloring came and ravaged Echohawk’s village,” Nee-kah said, taking a firm grip on Mariah’s shirttail. “He brought his people to my husband’s village. They are all being seen to.”
In a flash Nee-kah had Mariah’s shirt over her head, and what Nee-kah discovered beneath it sent her head reeling with surprise.
“A boy with breasts of a woman?” she gasped, then fled from the wigwam screaming.
Mariah grabbed up her clothes and held them against her to hide behind, knowing that she didn’t have enough time to get back into them.
And she was right.
Too soon Nee-kah had returned, Chief Silver Wing at her side.
Chapter 7
All our actions take their hues
from the complexion of the heart,
As landscapes their variety from light.
—Bacon
Mariah could not help but tremble as Chief Silver Wing stood before her, for a moment a quiet question in his eyes.
Then she paled and her heart lurched when he grabbed her clothes from her arms, his gaze settling on her well-formed breasts.
Finally he spoke. “Nee-kah came to me with a tale that the young lad who is being celebrated a hero in our village has the body of a woman,” he said, his eyes showing the puzzlement he felt as he looked slowly up at Mariah. “What she said is true, yet I, the wise chief that I am, know that cannot be so.”
He stepped closer and ran his fingers through Mariah’s hair. “Yet, still, your hair, the color of the sun’s flames, is short, the same as a boy’s,” he puzzled further. “It is very strange that you, a woman, should choose to dress and behave as a boy. The Chippewa women would be shamed should their hair be clipped, unless, of course, it is done while mourning the loss of a loved one. And they would not wear men’s breeches and shirts to hide the wonders of their bodies. Why would you? Tell me. I am here to listen. Tell me, even if your deceit is for the Chippewa only!”
Feeling cornered, Mariah realized that she had no choice but to answer him.
Yet for now she would tell him only half-truths.
“It is not of my doing that my hair is cut and that I am wearing the clothes of a boy,” she blurted out, her pulse racing. “I am a woman forced by an evil father to dress and behave like a boy! I have fled my father’s wrath. I was on my way to Fort Snelling, to seek help there, and to live my life as a woman.”
