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“Rice is an important food of the Chippewa?” Mariah asked as they finally reached the rice, and along with the other canoes, began poling their vessel among the plants.
“Ay-uh, my people would not survive without rice,” Nee-kah said. “We eat it with almost every meal, either in soup or alongside fish or meat. My favorite way to prepare rice is to boil it and then mix it with maple sugar. It is delicious.”
Mariah was amazed at the ingenious way the women harvested the rice. Nee-kah told her that earlier in the fall the women had prepared the rice by tying the stalks together in clumps. Now all they had to do was use their long curved flails to hook the stalks and bend them over the boats. This was the purpose of the birchbark box that was built in the center of each canoe. As the women shook the heavily laden stalks, the wild rice fell right into the box, quickly filling it with their harvest.
Mariah was glad to have something productive to do, which, for the moment, did lighten the burden of her worries about Echohawk. She became absorbed in the process of the harvest, now paddling their heavily laden canoe toward shore.
Once there, the women used wooden buckets to pour the rice into lined trenches. Next, they beat the grain with their flails to loosen it from the husks and then winnowed it in the breeze, using bark trays.
Nee-kah explained that the rice would be left for several days to dry on mats in the sun. During this time, they would all pray for clear weather so the harvest would not be spoiled. Then the women would take turns watching the fire while the rice was parched in big kettles to split open the hard outer hulls.
And again they rowed back to the stalks of rice, and the process was repeated. Even though there was a lot of work involved in collecting and preparing the rice, Mariah was enjoying her day, and for the moment was able to place Echohawk from her mind if not her heart.
* * *
In another part of the forest, Mariah was the center of Echohawk’s thoughts. He had directed Proud Thunder and his other braves to Chief Silver Wing’s village to rejoin their relatives. A blessed thing, Echohawk had thought upon seeing Proud Thunder, that the Great Spirit would send him in his time of meditation.
During his long vigil in the forest the previous night, he had recalled many things, yet resolved nothing within his troubled heart and mind. He was haunted by his father’s words spoken to him over and over again this past year—that it was time for him to take a wife so that a son might be born to him to help ensure the future of his people.
Deep inside himself, where his desires were formed, he knew that he had chosen a woman for a wife—No-din. She was the only woman who stirred his passion since the passing of his lovely wife.
“But why must she be white!” he whispered remorsefully through his clenched teeth, his hands circled into tight fists at his sides.
Then he rose slowly from his prostrate position and took a small buckskin pouch from the waist of his fringed breeches. Again he sprinkled tobacco from it onto a rock, an offering to the Great Spirit. He moved to a kneeling position and raised his eyes to the heavens, his heart pounding. The sighing of pines came to him as the rustle of eagle wings, to help carry his cries to loftier heights. The whispering winds told his tale to the clouds. He then uttered the cry of his soul to the Great Spirit.
“Great Spirit, you who guide my every thought and action, hear my pleas!” he cried. “My heart is heavy! Give me strength and courage to guide my people in this, their time of sorrow. Give me a sign that will free me of my bitterness and allow me to love the white woman without resentment.” He bowed his head humbly. “O Great Spirit, I thank you for sending Proud Thunder and my braves to me, but I have waited all night long for another sign. Is there not to be one? Must I return to my dwelling without your blessing? Do I not deserve such a blessing? Am I wrong to ask for so many things?”
A close-by noise, coming from the direction of the river, drew Echohawk’s head up. His pulse raced and hope rose within him that the Great Spirit had heard, and had finally sent him a vision.
Suddenly, through the haze of his impaired eyesight, he could see movement ahead. Trembling, he was awe-struck by what was now within the sphere of his vision. He watched breathlessly as his eyes suddenly cleared to see a snow-white doe followed by a fawn of the same color.
Surely it was a vision, for he could not believe that this was truly happening. One moment he was alone, and the next moment he was in the presence of a mystical phenomenon. The creatures were there so suddenly, it seemed that they had come o
ut of the water!
Echohawk slowly pushed himself up to a standing position and stood rooted to the ground, never taking his eyes off the beautiful animals. And he, who had never feared the face of man, was trembling like an aspen with terror!
The animals, seemingly unaware of Echohawk’s presence, advanced slowly toward him, and passed so near that he might have touched them with his hand. But transfixed by wonder, he did not attempt it.
Slowly he turned and watched them as they ascended the bank, soon losing sight of them.
When he recovered from the shock, he stretched out his arms after them. “Do not leave me!” he cried. “Come back. Let me see you again!”
Having regained the use of his limbs, he rushed up the bank, but did not see them.
Humbled by the experience, he fell to his knees and smiled as he looked to the heavens. “O Great Spirit, thank you!” he cried, appreciating the meaning of what he had just witnessed. The white doe was No-din and the fawn must represent their future child. He was suddenly feeling great rushes of happiness throughout him. He was free to love—to love No-din!
And freed, also, was he of the other burdens of his heart. He knew now that he had the power—the courage—required of him to guide his people.
And he also knew that in time his eyesight would be restored. Had not the Great Spirit allowed him his eyesight long enough to witness the vision? In due time, when the Great Spirit deemed it necessary, his eyesight would return—to be his forever!
An anxiousness suddenly seized him. “No-din,” he whispered, his heart soaring. “I must go to No-din. There is so much to say to her that I was not free to say before.”
His chin held high, feeling blessed and guided by the Great Spirit’s power, Echohawk began running in the direction of the village. “No-din will be mine!” he shouted, so that everything would share in his happiness.
He shouted to the wind . . .
the sky . . .
