Wild Rapture

Victor turned his head away from her, not knowing how to tell her the truths that would hurt her. He would talk of something else. He licked his parched lips, and felt the warmth of tears flooding from his eyes and across his cheeks. “Damn that Tanner,” he said, only barely audible. “He abducted me. He hated me. But with reason. I . . . I . . . I’ve cheated Tanner on a regular basis, and because I refused him your hand in marriage, he did this to me, Mariah.”

Wonderfully happy to know that Echohawk had just had his name totally cleared of any crime, Mariah flashed him a warm smile. Her father continued to ramble on, as though seeking a way to repent for all the wrongs done to her. She listened attentively, growing more numb by the minute.

“Before I die I’ve many things I’ve got to tell you. And now,” Victor said, looking pleadingly up at her. “I’ve protected you from so many things in your lifetime—among them the truth that could have hurt and confused you as a child. But it is only fair to you that you know everything. You are now an adult and can stand up against such knowledge better than you could have as a child.”

He paused and coughed, blood spewing from between his lips.

Mariah winced and bit her lower lip, still caring too much for her father not to feel remorse for him as he lay dying before her eyes.

“Long ago, Mariah,” Victor continued, knowing that he could not delay telling her any longer. “When me and Colonel Snelling were stationed with General Hull’s army in Detroit, your mother had an affair with Colonel Snelling. Mariah, you are the offspring of that affair, but even I didn’t know of this deception until your mother confessed the truth on her deathbed.”

He coughed again and stopped to take a long shaky breath, then continued, oblivious of Mariah’s bloodless complexion and wide eyes, her hands at her cheeks, stunned speechless by this revelation.

“Mariah,” Victor said, lifting a bony hand to her cheek, patting it, “I knew of your mother’s affair with Josiah Snelling, but I had not been aware that you were his. She was very clever in her deceptions! She had more than one affair while married to me. She had an affair with Chief Gray Elk. She killed herself over that Indian who put his people’s welfare before hers, a white woman.”

Echohawk grew stiff and his jaw went slack, to hear such a thing about his beloved father. Even while a dutiful father to Echohawk, Gray Elk had been in love with a white woman!

He turned his eyes away, ashamed, yet now understanding why Mariah’s father had hated Chief Gray Elk with such a vengeance—and why he had long ago come to the village of Chippewa and killed and maimed so many.

He looked down at the dying white man, knowing that if it had been he whose wife had wronged him with another man, he would have hated as much. He would have become as hard-hearted.

Ay-uh, it was easy now to see the reasoning behind this man who had pretended to be Mariah’s father for her sake.

In truth, he was a man of good heart!

Mariah was finding it hard to comprehend what was being said to her, yet knew that it must be the truth. It would make no sense at all for her father to lie to her now.

Yes, she concluded sadly, it was all true. Her dear sweet mother had been guilty of many infidelities. It was hard to accept—harder still to know that this was not her true father who lay at her feet dying.

But she did understand so much now—why Victor Temple had grown to hate all women and why he had forced Mariah to dress and behave like a man. She understood why he had become a cold and embittered man.

And the fact that he was not her true father? How could he have loved her at all, except that he had already raised her as his for six full years before knowing the truth. By then, in his heart, she was his daughter.

Mariah now saw many more pieces fall into place. Her father’s coolness toward Colonel and Mrs. Snelling. And the way he tried to keep her from becoming their friend, when she accompanied her father to the fort for supplies. And the true reason for Victor Temple attacking Chief Gray Elk again after all those years. It was not so much for his lame leg as because of a grudge that he had carried with him over a woman!

Mariah stared down at the man she had always called Papa and watched him reach out to her, pleas for forgiveness on his parched lips. Knowing what he had been forced to endure because of his faithless wife, and now understanding this man whose heart had turned bitter, yet still had done his best to raise a child that w

as not his, Mariah leaned over and hugged him, her tears wetting his clammy cheeks.

“Papa,” she sobbed. “I’m so sorry about everything. If I had only known. I would have made life much simpler for you. I . . . I would have been nothing but good to you.”

“Mariah,” he whispered harshly, coughing. “My dear sweet Mariah!”

She winced when his body tightened, then went limp, and his breathing ceased.

“No,” she whispered, still clinging. “Please, Papa, let me make it all up to you!”

“Mariah, he is gone,” Echohawk said gently, placing a hand on her arm, drawing her reluctantly to her feet. He drew her into his embrace. “We were both wrong about him. Deep within his heart, there was much good.”

“I know,” Mariah murmured. Yet as much as she pitied Victor, she could not help but be relieved to know who her true father was.

Colonel Snelling was a man of honor.

Colonel Snelling was a man of morals.

He was a father who could be revered, trusted, and relied upon.

This man at Mariah’s feet had long ago lost all of those virtues.