Chapter 31
Our lives would grow together
In sad or singing weather . . .
If love were what the rose is,
And I were like the leaf. . . .
—Swinburne
Two Years Later, Early Winter of 1828
Outside, the wind whistled around the wigwam, the first snowfall of winter upon the Chippewa village, the creeks choked with ice. Mariah settled herself down next to Nee-kah beside the warm and inviting cook fire in Mariah’s wigwam.
“Are they not the most handsome and healthy sons?” Mariah commented, turning her eyes to Night Hawk, hers and Echohawk’s one-year-old son, and Nee-kah’s son, Strong Branch, as they played with their miniature bows and arrows close beside them.
Mariah had watched Echohawk make their son’s bow and arrows with their flint heads, wood shafts, and hawk feathers at the tails. He had used deer sinew to string the bow, but had explained that the skin from a snapping turtle’s neck was the best bowstring because it wouldn’t stretch or shrink, no matter the weather.
“Silver Wing would have been proud of his son,” Nee-kah said, busying her fingers making herself a new pair of moccasins with her prized metal sewing needle, the special gift that Mariah had brought to her from Saint Louis. “Strong Branch already walks with the stance of a chief, so tall and erect. He will one day make his people proud. He will lead them as nobly as his chieftain father.”
Her flaming red hair lustrously long again, hanging loosely across her shoulders instead of in two braids, as Nee-kah wore her raven-black hair, Mariah resumed her task of painting a new cradleboard for her second child, which was due in five months. “Strong Branch will be assuming the duties of chief before you know it,” Maria
h said softly. “The years pass quickly.”
Nee-kah nodded and rested her needle and buckskin on her lap as she silently admired the colorful rainbow that Mariah was painting above where her child’s head would rest on the cottonwood cradleboard.
“You paint well the ‘arch above the earth,’” Nee-kah then said. “You’ve learned well the beliefs of our people.”
Mariah smiled at Nee-kah. “Echohawk taught me the meaning of this design,” she said. “He explained to me that the Chippewa believe that if mothers decorate the cradleboards in this manner, their papooses will be watched over by the ‘Powers of the West.’ I think that is such a lovely thought.”
A young maiden came into the wigwam, clutching a buckskin robe around her shoulders, the cheeks of her round face rosy from the bitter cold temperatures of the early afternoon. “A lone rider was seen on the horizon,” she said in warning. “He is a white pony soldier. Several braves rode out to meet him, to see what his mission is here at our village.”
Mariah’s eyes widened as she laid her paintbrush aside. “He is white?” she said, rising to her feet, unsure how to feel about this bit of news. Since Colonel Snelling had left and a new commadant been assigned at Fort Snelling, communications between the soldiers and the Chippewa were rare.
Yet she could not help but feel anxious at the prospect of perhaps William Joseph or Colonel Snelling returning to the Minnesota wilderness to see her and Echohawk again.
They had been fast friends.
She regretted that she had given up her quest to see her true father, at least once before one of them died. Even if he was a cheat and a liar, she had decided long ago that she above all wanted to see him.
Mariah turned anxious eyes to Nee-kah, whose fear was evident in the way she sat so tense, looking guardedly back at Mariah. Mariah understood why. Not only did Nee-kah have the Sioux to blame for her losses, but also white men!
“In my husband’s absence, while he has gone to check the traps in the forest, I shall go and see what business the soldier has at our village,” Mariah said, grabbing up a buffalo robe and swinging it around her shoulders. She went to Night Hawk and kissed his soft copper cheek, then left the wigwam with the young maiden who had brought her the news.
Just as she stepped outside, the soldier, dressed in full uniform, rode into the village, flanked on each side by braves armed with rifles. Mariah met their approach, walking toward them, her chin held proudly high. When the horses came to a stop and the soldier dismounted, the two braves quickly at his side, he smiled with recognition at Mariah.
“Mariah, it’s good to see you again,” the young lieutenant said, snatching his hat from his head. “I hope you have been well?”
“I do not know your name,” Mariah said, offering a hand of friendship.
“Osborne. Lieutenant Dan Osborne. I served under Colonel Snelling,” Lieutenant Osborne said, shaking her hand eagerly. “I was in line to dance with you at the ball.” He laughed heartily, casting his eyes bashfully down to his boots. “But it seems you disappeared before I had a chance to ask for that dance.”
“Why are you here?” Mariah said, remembering the ball, her face coloring with a blush when recalling how clumsy she had been that night, trying to learn to dance.
Lieutenant Osborne clasped his hat behind him, his smile fading as he brought his eyes back up, meeting Mariah’s. “Ma’am, we at Fort Snelling have received word that Colonel Snelling has passed away,” he said gently. “Colonel Snelling died in Washington on August 20.”
The news came as such a shock to Mariah, it was as though someone had thrown ice water on her face. She paled and her hand flew to her throat, stunned to the core by the news. “Colonel Snelling is dead?” she gasped. “How can that be? He was not an old man. And the last time I saw him, he . . . he was healthy.”