AllFreeNovel
Share Us
stepped close to the small stove, trembling.
“We are near to Fort Snelling,” Echohawk said, placing a blanket around Mariah’s shoulders. “Soon we will be with our people again.”
“We are lucky to be anywhere,” Mariah said, sighing deeply. “This journey was fraught with danger and disappointment.”
“But we survived it all, didn’t we?” Echohawk said, smiling down at her, his finger at her chin, tipping her face up to his. “My woman, my No-din, you worry too much.”
Echohawk was worrying, wondering if the riverboat could get to shore during the ravaging storm that was upon them. “I will be back soon,” he reassured Mariah, slipping into his coat. “I wish to see if it is too hazardous to take the white man’s large canoe to shore.”
Mariah smiled weakly at him, and after he left, turned her eyes back to the window, seeing the ever-swirling snow floating past. She was not fearing the landing of the riverboat as much as the journey back to Echohawk’s village. This weather was not favorable to traveling on horseback!
Echohawk hurried across the top deck to the rail, and held on as the boat slowly pushed its way up into the willows skirting the bank close to Fort Snelling, the gangplank succeeding in reaching out to the shore.
His gaze went further, into the far stretches of the forest. He knew the dangers of traveling during such a storm, but he had had enough of the white man’s world! Nothing would delay his travels back to his people! Nothing!
* * *
Eight moons heavy with child, Nee-kah panted hard as she trudged through the snow from the river, carrying a jug of water. Chief Silver Wing had warned her against not only traipsing out alone in the dangerous weather but also carrying their water. He had told her to assign another, younger woman to do the chores.
And she had, for a while, but boredom had set in.
And she had felt useless watching someone else do what she had always been able to do for herself and her husband.
A thick hooded fur cloak secured around her shoulders, Nee-kah blinked snow from her heavy lashes as it began to fall more furiously from the sky. Her snowshoes were awkward as the snow deepened, and a quick panic rose inside her when she could no longer see the village through the raging snowstorm.
But she kept trudging onward, holding faithfully to the jug of water, stopping in shock only when someone stepped out of the snowy shadows directly in her path.
Nee-kah stifled a scream behind her mittened hand, knowing that the Indian standing threateningly before her, his knife drawn from his sheath, was not a Chippewa. All Chippewa were friends! Not snakes who threatened helpless pregnant women! It could only be a Sioux!
She dropped the jug of water and felt her knees weaken when several other Indians, attired in thick fur coats, stepped into view, their dark eyes narrowing as they gazed down at her.
“Nee-kah?” White Wolf said in very simple Chippewa language. “Wife of Chief Silver Wing? And friend of Echohawk and his white woman who is called No-din?”
“I could lie and say that I am someone else,” Nee-kah said, stubbornly lifting her chin. “But I am too proud to behave in such a weak, cowardly manner. I declare to you that, ay-uh, I am Nee-kah. And now that you know, what are your plans for me?”
She was grabbed suddenly from behind and half-dragged to a waiting horse. She did not fight back as she was placed into the saddle, for she feared for her child more than for herself. Finally her husband had found a wife to bear him children . . . and now this wife was being stolen from him—perhaps never to be seen again!
She still held her head high, but could not stop the flow of tears that sprang from her eyes. She had let her husband down by disobeying him.
Now he might lose not only his wife but also his unborn child!
She looked to the heavens and prayed to the Great Spirit not to let this happen, and promised never to be so bullheadedly, stubbornly willful again.
Then her gaze was drawn to her abductors and her eyes narrowed when she heard the lead Indian being addressed by a name. White Wolf. It was the renegade Sioux who was guilty of this cowardly act today!
It would be with much rage and hate that Chief Silver Wing would avenge what White Wolf did today!
* * *
The council meeting over, Chief Silver Wing leaned into the wind and blowing snow and hurried to his wigwam. Once inside, and after shedding his fur wrap, he looked around the room for Nee-kah, a sudden foreboding lurking at the pit of his stomach.
She was not there.
And the weather was too bitter for her to have gone out into it.
His gaze went to the water jugs that sat at the side of the wigwam, and mentally he counted them. One was missing.
“She has gone to the river!” he said, his teeth clenched. “She still persists in believing she is capable of fending for herself, even . . . even in this blizzard!”
