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“William Joseph!” Mariah said, rushing down the steps, grabbing one of his gloved hands. “Your parents. Where are they?” She gave the servant a quick glance over her shoulder, then turned questioning eyes back to William Joseph. “Tell me that he is wrong. They aren’t gone, are they?” Her gaze lowered, and she swallowed hard, then looked up at William Joseph again, panic rising within her. “They have to be here. Tell me they are!”
Echohawk came to Mariah’s side. He swept an arm around her waist and drew her next to him. “We have come to have council with your father,” he said. “If he is no longer living in this house, take us to his new residence. We have traveled a long way, through much cold weather, to speak peace with your father. We wish to do it now, William Joseph.”
“My father has been transferred to Jefferson Barracks in Saint Louis,” William Joseph said, looking apologetically from Mariah to Echohawk. “I’ve neglected getting a message to you. I now see that I should have, but the weather has been bad. I was waiting for it to break, and this happened so suddenly.”
Mariah paled. “Your father has been transferred?” she gasped, her hopes of ever being able to reveal her special secret to her true father waning. “Why? When?”
“He received his orders from Washington only last week,” William Joseph said solemnly. “My parents departed for Saint Louis on a riverboat as quickly as they could get things settled here.”
“But what about Echohawk?” Mariah blurted, for the moment forgetting her own reasons for having come to Fort Snelling. “Your father was to assure him that his name has been cleared. Now what is Echohawk to expect? Will the white community still condemn him? Will he never be able to ride free of worry, in danger of someone ready to shoot him in the back for . . . for crimes he didn’t commit?”
“I assure you both that Echohawk’s name has been cleared,” William Joseph said, placing a hand of friendship on Echohawk’s shoulder. “Before my father left, he sent out a decree wide and far, stating your innocence. You have nothing to fear, Echohawk. Nothing.”
Echohawk smiled warmly at William Joseph. “That is good,” he said. “When you see your father again, thank him for me.”
“I will not be seeing him soon,” William Joseph said, his eyes wavering as he glanced down at Mariah. “I’m returning to Boston. I am through with my adventuresome days of being an interpreter. I am going to pursue a career in politics in Boston.”
Mariah’s heart skipped a beat with this news, now realizing that she was going to lose William Joseph from her life almost as quickly as she had discovered that he was her brother.
It wasn’t fair.
None of it!
A part of her wanted to cry out to William Joseph that she was his sister, yet another part warned her that this was not the best thing to do, since she might never be able to tell her father the truth.
This saddened her—this silence that she felt compelled to maintain.
“No-din, we must return to the village,” Echohawk said, turning to her. “The weather. It could worsen. It is best that I get you home, warm between blankets beside our fire.”
William Joseph gave Echohawk and Mariah an anxious look, then said, “You are surely tired from your travels. Why not stay the night in my cabin, then leave tomorrow? You will travel much more safely if you are rested.”
Mariah was bone weary, and her disappointment seemed to have worsened her fatigue. And she felt strangely empty, having so looked forward to seeing her true father, and now he was gone.
Echohawk considered William Joseph’s offer for a moment. He looked at Mariah, knowing of her disappointment and sadness, and feeling that was enough to cope with tonight without forcing her to ride the entire night in the freezing cold.
He turned grateful eyes to William Joseph. “Mee-gway-chee-wahn-dum, thank you. Your offer is accepted,” he said. “Your warm fire will be welcomed tonight.”
“You can leave your horses here,” William Joseph said, stepping between Echohawk and Mariah. “I’ll send my groom to take good care of them.” He placed an arm around each of their waists and led them on across the snow-covered courtyard. “And you can have my cabin all to yourselves. This is my last night at Fort Snelling. I’ve a few things to settle with some of the men.” He chuckled when he saw Mariah’s anxious look, knowing she’d misinterpreted what he had said. “A poker game, Mariah. I plan to get into a hot game of poker tonight.”
Mariah laughed loosely, sighing with relief. She gladly walked with Echohawk and her brother to William Joseph’s cabin. Once inside, she went to the fireplace and let the warmth soak into her flesh, then removed her coat and gloves. Echohawk followed her lead, removing his.
“You two make yourselves at home,” William Joseph said, his gaze sweeping around the sparsely furnished room, where he had stayed only since his parents’ departure for Saint Louis. “It’s not much, but there is plenty of food. Eat what you like. I’ll see you two in the morning.”
William Joseph turned to leave, but stopped, having just remembered something. He went to a cabinet and opened a drawer, taking a small buckskin pouch from inside it. He took it to Mariah and placed it in her hand.
“My father left this with me to give to you when I next saw you,” he murmured, closing her fingers around the pouch. “He said that he’d owed your father a debt for some time—something about gambling while they were stationed with General Hull’s army in Detroit a long time ago. Somehow they both forgot about the debt. Father just happened to remember it the other day. He said that since your father is no longer alive to collect on it, then it should be yours.”
Mariah’s lips parted in a surprising gasp. From the heaviness of the pouch, she knew there must be considerable money there. “Why, I don’t know what to say,” she said, her face coloring with an excited blush. She had never had anything she could call her own. The money she had spent at Fort Snelling had always been her father’s, used only for supplies.
Oh, how often she had eyed the lacy bonnets in the mercantile!
And the sat
in ribbons!
Now she could buy what she chose, yet it felt strange to be taking money that was not really hers.
“Thank you, but I can’t accept this,” she murmured. “Please, William Joseph, take it back. It was my father’s. Not mine.”
