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Desperately she looked around for her father, wanting to go to him and beg him to give up this senseless assault.
When she finally caught sight of him on his horse, still wreaking havoc in the village, she grew weak all over, gasping when she saw a brave take aim at her father with his rifle.
“No!” she screamed, knowing that her father was not aware of being targeted. It didn’t take much thought to know what she must do. In an instant she had
her rifle removed from its gun boot at the side of her horse. She aimed, pulled the trigger, and winced when she saw the bullet graze the Indian’s shoulder, causing him to drop his weapon.
Feeling eyes on her as she thrust the rifle back inside its boot, she turned and found the handsome brave staring at her again, apparently having witnessed her action. She knew that he must be regretting having let her pass when he had had the perfect opportunity to kill her.
Her insides grew cold and a scream froze on her lips when her father was suddenly there behind the brave, the butt of his rifle cracking across his skull. She watched, horrified, as the handsome brave stumbled forward, dropped his rifle, fell to his knees, then crumpled to the ground, unconscious. She felt the prick of tears as she gazed at the blood seeping from his head wound, knowing that it could soon snuff the life from him.
Victor eased his horse up next to Mariah’s. “It looks as though Echohawk won’t be causing me any more problems,” he said, staring triumphantly at the fallen brave.
Mariah looked over at her father, then down at the handsome brave, her face ashen. “That’s . . . Echohawk?” she said, her voice quaking. Then her jaw tightened and she glared at her father. “And what of his father? Did you also brutalize him?”
“More than that,” Victor bragged. “He’s now entering what the Injuns call the Land of the Hereafter. And none too soon, I’d say. He lived way longer than what was civil for the likes of him.”
Mariah stared disbelievingly at her father a moment longer, hardly able to bear this cold, heartless side of him that made her not want to admit that he was any kin to her at all, much less her father.
She gazed with contempt around her, seeing the men under her father’s command heavy-laden with plunder. She wheeled her horse around and rode away, wanting to distance herself from it all. As soon as she could, she would slip away from her father and go to Fort Snelling, and not only for her own welfare. She would plead with Colonel Snelling to come to the aid of the Chippewa. If there were survivors when this was over, they were going to need someone with compassion to help them through the winter.
That man with compassion had to be Colonel Snelling! He was there to help everyone, both red- and white-skinned. And no matter what harm befell her father when she revealed his role in the massacre, she knew that she must.
As she saw it, it was time that her father was stopped. His ruthlessness must not be allowed to go on.
For now, she had no choice but to return to her father’s trading post, along with the others. But when night came, she would flee the life that she had grown to abhor.
She flinched when her father rode up beside her, his men following on their sweating steeds. Even though some of them were wounded, and some were tied across their horses, dead, loud laughter and shouts of victory filled the air, the Indian village having been left in a heap of smoking ruins.
She would never forget the sight of the fallen braves being wept over by women and children. And how could she forget that among those fallen Chippewa was the tall and handsome brave with the sparkling dark eyes? In that brief moment of eye contact, there had been something about him that had stirred strange longings within Mariah—longings that she did not even recognize or understand.
Thinking of the valiant brave lying there, even now possibly dying, sent her heart into a tailspin of regret. Should he die, she would never forgive herself for this damnable raid—a raid that she had participated in, for she had shot one of the braves herself. She gave silent thanks to the heavens that she had inflicted only a flesh wound.
Still, guilt soared through her, making the journey back to her father’s trading post even more unbearable. And once there, she was forced to sit with the men, outside by a roaring fire, part of a victory celebration. As she sat stiffly on a blanket, watching the sky darkening overhead, she bided her time while wine and whiskey flowed like fountains on into the night.
When she saw that her father was perhaps too drunk to notice, she slipped away from the celebration and went to the barn, readying her horse for travel. Watching over her shoulder, she led her mouse-gray mustang away from the barn by foot and onto the open prairie.
Feeling safe enough, she quickly mounted her steed and rode away into the shadows of night, in search of the beaten paths that would lead her through the forest to Fort Snelling.
* * *
Echohawk awakened to wails of mourning on all sides of him, the women of the dead braves clawing at their own faces and arms with their fingernails, producing deep, bleeding gashes. Dazed by the blow to his head, he slowly pushed himself up from the ground. When he was standing, he swayed from a light-headedness that nearly felled him again.
But he had to go to the aid of his people, their cries reaching into his heart with a tearing sadness. He staggered ahead, events blurring in his mind.
He blinked, trying to focus on things around him. But no matter how hard he tried to see, all that was there was a strange sort of dark haze.
The throbbing pain of his head led his hand to the lump, and he soon felt the break in the skin and the blood that had caked dry.
“A head injury,” he whispered to himself, fear cutting through his confusion. Now he recalled the very instant that the white man had cracked the butt of his rifle over his head—recalled, even, that had he not been engrossed in looking at the young lad who had wounded one of his braves, the older white man would never have been able to sneak up on him.
Now both the lad and the white man were the target of his hate, as both were responsible for so much.
He blinked and rubbed his eyes again, his heart sinking when realization came that the white man had not succeeded in killing him, but instead had taken his vision from him! All that he could make out was shadow and light!
Knowing what was expected of him at this time of sorrow for his band of Chippewa, no matter his condition, he collected himself.
His father.
