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His people.
They needed him!
As hands began clutching at him, and voices reached him with utter despair, begging him to help, Echohawk felt his way through the ravaged village, soon discovering the true depths of the massacre. Everywhere there were bodies to be stepped over and around.
For a moment his brain burned, the world seeming to have been annihilated. So many innocent women, children, and braves were dead and now entering the Land of the Hereafter.
But he was relieved that many of his people’s most valued braves had not been at the village to be slain or maimed. These braves were far away, on a hunting expedition. Upon their return, they would find much sorrow, and then they would aid Echohawk in his thirst for vengeance.
“Father,” he whispered to himself, having not yet found his way to his father’s large dwelling that sat back from the others on a slight rise. He welcomed strong hands on his arms as two braves came and steadied him between them after seeing his legs begin buckling beneath him, his weakness worsening with each step.
The braves identified themselves when they realized that Echohawk could not actually see them.
“It is I, Yellow Wolf,” one of them said. “Of the St. Croix band of Chippewa.”
“And it is I, Helping Bear, also of the St. Croix band,” the other said. “We were passing by in a canoe, on our way to Fort Snelling, when we saw smoke. We followed it to the scene of this massacre. We have come to offer assistance. We will continue on our own journey later.”
“I know you both well. It is good of you to come to my people’s aid,” Echohawk said thickly. “My eyesight. It has been robbed from me.”
“If you wish, we will be your eyes,” Yellow Wolf said solemnly.
“For now, ay-uh, yes,” Echohawk said, nodding. “But only for the moment. It is important that I learn to fend for myself.”
He paused, then said, “Gee-bah-bah. Take me to my father.” His heart was anxious to see his chieftain father, yet wary that he might not have survived the attack. The white man who had led the
attack had seemed determined to wipe out this band of Chippewa, and surely that included their chief.
Helping Bear and Yellow Wolf exchanged troubled glances, then looked solemnly at Echohawk. “Chief Gray Elk . . .” Helping Bear said, his voice drawn. “He is dead, Echohawk.”
Knowing that his worst fear had proved true, a sudden, stabbing despair filled Echohawk. It fully engulfed him when Helping Bear and Yellow Wolf helped him down beside his father and he was able to touch the coldness of his flesh.
Drawing on the restraint that his father had taught him from the moment he could understand right from wrong, Echohawk stilled the cries of remorse that so badly wanted to escape from deep within him.
Kneeling beside his father, he embraced him. Ah, how blessed he had felt when his father’s health had returned after having established their new village along the Rum River, only a half-day’s ride from his father’s longtime friend Silver Wing.
But, Echohawk despaired to himself, he had not been blessed a second time. Gray Elk had not been given another chance.
His palate parched from rage, Echohawk felt as though he was suffocating. In a husky low voice he vowed to his father that he would be the kind of chief Gray Elk would expect him to be. He vowed that he would be a strong and loyal leader of his people.
But to himself, alone, Echohawk was wondering how he could follow the road of peace that his father had always taught him. His blood was boiling with anger and humiliation; he could feel it flowing in his veins like molten lava.
Vengeance!
His heart—his very soul—cried out for vengeance.
Echohawk clung to his father and mourned silently for a moment longer, then found himself surrounded by more survivors of the massacre, who had fled into the darker depths of the forest during the attack.
Yellow Wolf and Helping Bear helped Echohawk to his feet. Although he could not see his people, he turned to them and faced them, to give them the confidence they needed in their new leader. They looked to him now for their future. For leadership. For survival. He was their chief, and he knew that for now he must place them and their welfare even before his desire to have revenge.
Helping Bear leaned closer to Echohawk and whispered, “Echohawk, perhaps it is best that you cannot see. Some who stand before you are wounded. Some are carrying their dead children. It is a sight that is most unbearable.”
Echohawk’s heart ached, and he could not help but feel the helplessness of this situation, especially now that he could not see well enough to be the leader that his people needed at this time. So much depended on him.
“One by one, come to me, my people,” Echohawk said, reaching his hands out toward them. “Let me embrace each of you. Then I shall tell you what we must do to survive.”
Although his knees were growing weaker by the minute, and his head was throbbing incessantly. Echohawk began embracing his people, himself drawing much comfort from them.
When this was done, he stood before them all, tall and unbending like a tree, his eyes unfocused yet bold and fathomless as he spoke to them. “My people, for the moment my eyesight has been weakened by the blow to the head that I received during the white man’s attack,” he said, forcing his voice to sound strong, and most important of all, calm. “But do not fret. We shall endure! We will go to Chief Silver Wing’s village and ask for assistance until the wounds of your hearts and flesh are healed, and until my vision clears, to ensure you a chief that can work at full capacity.”
