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the trees . . .
the forest animals!
* * *
Her arms and back aching from her long day of rice harvesting, Mariah slipped a clean buckskin dress over her head. It fell below her calves, belted at the waist with a beaded thong, a fringe at each end. She pulled on fringed knee-high moccasins resplendent with colorful beads. Her skin smelled clean, like the river, after her bath. Her hair was dripping and fragrant from Nee-kah’s precious soap.
After getting dressed, she began running the comb that Nee-kah had lent her through her hair, wincing when again she was reminded of how short it was.
Laying the comb aside and picking up a mirror, Mariah began practicing with bloodroot juice, dabbing it onto her cheeks to redden them. She needed to do something to keep her worries about Echohawk from worsening. It was now midday, and still he had not returned. She did not want to envision him lying injured or dead in the midst of the forest. She would not allow herself to conjure up any more fears. He was a man of the forest. He was in tune with all nature, and he knew how to survive within it.
A noise at the entrance flap drew Mariah’s eyes away from her reflection in the mirror. An anxious blush, even more red than the juice of the bloodroot that she had dotted onto her cheeks, rose from her neck upward when she found Echohawk standing in the doorway smiling down at her.
“You have returned,” Mariah said, moving shakily to her feet. She so badly wanted to go to him and lunge into his arms. She wanted to cling to him and never let him go again. Never had she been as relieved as now. He was alive! He was well! And he was smiling at her as though all of the burdens that had been troubling him had been lifted!
“Mah-bee-szhon, come,” Echohawk said, going to her to take her hands. “Come with me to my lodge. There I will say many things to you. There you will have decisions to make and answers to give.”
Caught up in an ecstasy that just being with him evoked, and speechless, Mariah nodded and went with him to his wigwam. There she found the air scented sweetly with the perfume of sweet grasses that burned in the embers of his lodge fire. There she found many beautiful pelts strewn around the fire. There she found platters piled high with all sorts of delicacies.
There she found herself being held within Echohawk’s arms as he led her down beside the fire, seeing a blissful peace within his eyes and in the soft smile that he gave her.
“We shall eat, and then, No-din, there is so much I wish to say to you,” Echohawk said, releasing her from his embrace.
They sat down side by side and ate in silence. Mariah’s heart raced excitedly, so happy that Echohawk had reached some sort of peace with his Great Spirit, and within himself. She only wished that she could come to the same sort of peace within her own self!
Her God seemed to be taking longer to answer her prayers than Echohawk’s.
After they had eaten their fill, Echohawk lifted Mariah onto his lap, facing him, his hands holding her there at her waist. “No-din, the Great Spirit gave me a vision while in the forest,” he said eagerly. “This vision gave me hope—and courage. No-din, I have come away from that vision with a happy heart, one that I wish to share with you for a lifetime.”
Mariah’s pulse raced and her head was reeling with the wonder of the moment, anxious to hear what else he had to say, yet also fearing it. Because of who she truly was, she had many things to fear in Echohawk’s presence.
“No-din, woman of the wind, be the ‘flower of my wigwam,’ ” he said softly.
Mariah was taken aback, not having expected this. She was stunned speechless. Marriage? That was what he meant?
She knew that marriage to him was an impossible dream. She had lied to him about her true identity. For so many reasons she could not accept a proposal that her very soul cried out for!
“No-din, I love you,” Echohawk said, easing her down onto the pelts, moving over her. “My heart has been so lonely. No-din, fill it and my life with your sweetness!”
Before she could refuse Echohawk’s proposal, Mariah felt the press of his lips against hers, so warm and soft, yet demanding, for a moment frightening her.
She welcomed the lethargic feeling of floating and swooning, glad to forget everything but Echohawk and the way he made her realize that she was very much a woman.
How fiercely Echohawk wanted Mariah, yet he fought against going too quickly with her. She was inexperienced, hardly more than a girl in her innocence. It was easy to tell that she had not yet been with a man intimately, and he wanted the experience to be something that she looked back on with pleasure. He wanted her to desire such a union as badly as he. Their future would be filled with such moments, for he would not take no for an answer when he again asked her to marry him!
As he continued to kiss her, he slowly snaked his hand up inside her dress and cupped her at the juncture of her thighs, where he could feel the pulsing at the center of her passion. As he began to caress her there, he felt her body tremble, her gasp of alarm against his lips.
But he did not pull his hand away. He continued to gently stroke her, smiling to himself when he felt her relaxing, and now emitting soft sighs against his lips.
Mariah was becoming weak, her senses dazzled by his skills of awakening her to passion. His hand was where no other man’s hands had been before, and his other hand—it was lifting her dress slowly up away from her.
She knew that she should stop this madness that had begun between them.
But she was too full of strange, wondrous desire to turn her back on whatever else lay ahead these next wondrous moments with the man that she loved with all of her heart.
Echohawk leaned slightly away from Mariah in order that he could remove her dress. Then, once it was tossed aside and his hands were smoothing over her body, feeling her slim, graceful loveliness with his fingers, excitement leapt inside him. His hands moved to her breasts and cupped them, his lips lowering to a nipple, nipping it with his teeth.
Mariah’s heart raced, her breathing almost out of control. She was acutely aware of Echohawk’s body
