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Tanner looked from Mariah to Echohawk. “You are with the Chippewa, dressed in Chippewa garb,” he said, blood now curling from his nose. “And you now have a Chippewa name?” He grabbed at his chest and groaned, yet his eyes were still locked with Mariah’s. “You choose a savage over me?”
“You are the savage,” Mariah said flatly. “And you have always turned my stomach, Tanner. As for Echohawk, I adore him. I proudly warm his bed at night!”
Panic seized Mariah when she saw the wildness in Tanner’s eyes and heard the shortness of his breath. She realized now how foolish it had been to speak of anything to him but her father. She still did not know where he was, and she was absolutely positive that Tanner did.
She leaned closer to his ear when his eyes closed. “Please,” she begged, “tell me where I can find my father. Before you die, Tanner, please do one decent thing. For me, Tanner? Please?”
When Tanner’s eyes opened and looked up at her, a strange sort of peacefulness in their depths, she felt hope rise within her, thinking that somehow she had reached a corner of his heart that hadn’t hardened.
But with a shock she discovered that she was wrong. The reason for the restfulness in his eyes was that he was dead!
“No!” she screamed. She grabbed his shoulders and began shaking him. “You can’t die! Not before you tell me where my father is!”
A gentle hand on her shoulder drew Mariah’s head around. Through her tears she saw Echohawk. “He’s dead,” she cried. “And he didn’t tell me where Father is! Echohawk, now what will I do? I shall never be at peace until I know of his welfare!”
“Perhaps it is best,” Echohawk said quietly. “Yellow Eyes had no compassion. How your father died may not be a pleasant thing to know.”
Mariah rose slowly to her feet, wiping tears from her face with the back of a
hand. “Echohawk, it is the same for the white people as it is the red man when a beloved person has died,” she said, choking back a sob. “The loved one is given a proper burial.” She lowered her eyes. “Although I did not approve of my father’s ways, it is only appropriate that I, his only child, see him laid to rest.”
She gazed quickly up at Echohawk again. “He would want to be buried beside my mother,” she murmured. “So that they can rest in peace together.”
“We shall try to find him,” Echohawk reassured, drawing her against him, giving her a warm hug. He looked around him at his braves, who were awaiting his orders. “Search the cabins, remove what is valuable, then burn them.”
Mariah eased from Echohawk’s arms and watched guardedly as the braves went from cabin to cabin. When one came out of Tanner’s cabin carrying five raven-black scalps, war whoops filled the air as they went and stood beside Tanner’s body, waving the scalps over him.
“Those are scalps of my people,” Echohawk said angrily. “I know this to be true, for Yellow Eyes would not take from his friends, the Sioux.”
Some cabins were already burning, with one left to enter. The door was bolt-locked and had to be forced open by several braves crashing their shoulders against it. A ray of hope sparked inside Mariah’s heart when she heard the braves shouting that they had found another white man.
“Could it be . . . ?” Mariah said, looking questioningly up at Echohawk.
“We shall see,” he answered, taking her by the elbow, walking her to the cabin.
Mariah approached to step inside, but jumped with a start when a rat scampered past her, desperate to get outside.
Collecting herself, Mariah went into the cabin, and grew instantly numb when through the dim light of the room she viewed her father shackled to the wall, nude and emaciated, his eye sockets like two holes in his face, one foot partially gnawed away.
“Papa!” she gasped, fighting back a strong urge to faint.
“Release him!” Echohawk ordered his braves. “Take him outside!”
Her knees trembling and weak, Mariah could not help but cover her nose with a hand to ward off the stench as her father was carried past her.
Pale and nauseated, Mariah ran after him and knelt beside him as he was placed on the ground.
Echohawk came quickly to Mariah’s side and placed a blanket over her father’s body, up to his chin.
“Papa,” Mariah cried, reaching out to touch him, but drawing her hand back as though she had been shot when he began wheezing and trembling violently with a chill.
“Mariah? How can it be? How . . . can . . . you be . . . here?” Victor Temple said, turning his weakened bloodshot eyes up to her, making out only a hazy shadow. “Thank God. You . . . are . . . all right. God, Mariah, I looked high and low for you. Where have you been? I . . . I thought you were dead.”
“I was with Echohawk and his people for a while, and then I went and stayed with Colonel and Mrs. Snelling,” she said, trying to keep her composure even as she saw that her father was near death. She could tell by the rattles in his chest. And she could tell by looking that he had not eaten for days. “I am here now because Echohawk brought me. Papa, I—”
“Echohawk?” Victor said, interrupting Mariah. He squinted as he tried to make out Echohawk beside Mariah. He slowly rolled his head back and forth. “No, Mariah. Not Echohawk. You can’t be consorting with Indians. And especially not Echohawk. His father . . . he and your mother . . .”
“His father and my mother . . . ?” Mariah said, leaning closer to his face. “What about them, Papa?”
