Wild Rapture

Her father had not considered the danger in which he had placed his daughter, which proved to her that his caring for her came second to his lusty need of vengeance against a Chippewa that had rendered him a half-cripple all of those years ago.

Dizzy from hunger and the trauma of the fall, and fearing the outcome of her appearance in the Chippewa village, Mariah stumbled and fell.

Nee-kah stopped quickly and set her basket on the ground. She knelt down beside Mariah. “Ah-neen-ay-szhee-way-bee-zee-en?” she said, gently touching Mariah’s arm.

Then, assuming that the white person who looked at her with a keen puzzlement in her eyes surely did not understand her Chippewa language all that well, she decided to speak in the English tongue that she had learned quickly enough from her chieftain husband.

“What is wrong with you?” Nee-kah asked. “Are you ill?”

Mariah blinked nervously at Nee-kah and smiled weakly. “I’m fine,” she murmured. “Or I will be, once I get some food in me.”

“You will be given food after you have council with my husband,” Nee-kah said, placing a hand to Mariah’s elbow, helping her up from the ground. She smiled at Mariah. “And do not despair. My husband, Chief Silver Wing, is a fair, kind man. He will not treat you harshly. You are but a mere lad. And you carry no weapon with which to harm my people. Ay-uh, yes, you will be treated kindly by my chieftain husband.”

“You are Chief Silver Wing’s wife?” Mariah said, her eyes widening in surprise. “I know of him. He is much . . .”

“Much older?” Nee-kah said, laughing softly as she gave Mariah another sweet smile. “Ay-uh, yes, my husband is older. I was chosen because of my youth to be his wife so that I might bear him a child.” She placed her hand on her abdomen. “This I do for him gladly. I have not had a blood course for four moons! I am with child.”

Mariah was stunned, even embarrassed by Nee-kah’s innocent openness. She had always imagined the Indian women to be bashful and quiet, living only in the shadow of, and for, their husbands.

But Nee-kah seemed filled with a love of life led by a free spirit. Mariah liked her instantly.

“How nice,” Mariah finally said, yet offered no further conversation. Her attention was drawn to the village that was now within sight through a break in the trees a short distance away. The birchbark wigwams were ranged in a great horseshoe shape in a wide bend of a tree-fringed creek, the dwellings all facing the east, offering the traditional welcome to the spirit of the rising sun. The first thin smoke of the morning cook fires rose in the cool air, drifting to the southeast.

Mariah was now aware that all along, while asleep on the ground beside the creek, she had not been very far from the Indian village. From the very beginning she had taken wrong paths on her journey to Fort Snelling!

But of course she should have expected no more from herself. Always before when she had traveled to Fort Snelling, she had been with her father, and not especially attentive to which particular paths he was taking to get there.

“We are there,” Nee-kah said, her chin held high as she led Mariah into the village. She smiled at the women who were moving to and fro, some carrying firewood, others water. And she understood why they stared questioningly at the stranger at her side. The young lad was in desperate need of a bath. Though he was covered with mud, it was quite clear that the lad with her was white, and at this moment in time any white people were cause for alarm in their village.

Yet surely they saw this young lad as she did—harmless, and as someone who would perhaps be frightened of them.

The smoke from the fires outside the wigwams and the food cooking over them gave a pleasant scent to the morning air, making Mariah’s stomach growl unmercifully from hunger. She gaped openly at the great sheets of buffalo backs roasting over the fires, dripping their fat into the blaze, the dripping, burning grease sputtering.

It had been too long between meals. At the time of her escape from her father, food had been the last thing on her mind. Though a part of survival, food had taken second place to getting away from the evil clutches of her father and seeking help at Fort Snelling.

Mariah walked as close to Nee-kah as possible, aware of the many eyes on her as she was taken through the village of wigwams. She tried not to look at the Chippewa women and children soon clustering around her. She kept her focus straight ahead, on a wigwam that was larger than the others, most surely Chief Silver Wing’s. While shopping at Fort Snelling, she had heard much talk about Chief Silver Wing, and most prominent of this gossip was that he was a kind Chippewa leader. She had even gotten glimpses of him at times throughout the years. He had been a muscled, tall, and noble-visaged man with kind eyes.

But if he was aware of the attack on his Chippewa neighbor, she

wondered warily to herself, what then of his kindness toward people with white skin now, no matter that she was only one person, taken as a defenseless lad, at that?

A scowling brave stepped suddenly in Mariah and Nee-kah’s path, his eyes two points of fire, his arms folded tightly across his bare copper chest.

Fear grabbed Mariah at the pit of her stomach when the brave glared down at her, his jaw tight.

Then she sighed with relief when he gave Nee-kah the same sour look, making Mariah realize that not all of his anger was directed at herself—but instead, obviously, at Nee-kah.

“And so you succeeded at eluding me again, did you, Nee-kah?” Wise Owl said, his voice a low grumble.

“Nee-kah is not a frail thing who cannot fend for herself,” Nee-kah said stubbornly.

“You again defy your husband, your chief, by going into the forest without me, your appointed guard?” Wise Owl said, his eyes shifting to Mariah. “And should this white lad have been an adult, with adult weapons. What then, Nee-kah?”

“Nee-kah knows not to approach large white men who sport weapons,” she snapped. “This boy? I saw that he was no threat. I offered him assistance.” She firmed her chin and looked defiantly up at Wise Owl. “Perhaps I should have killed him, Wise Owl, with my knife? And left him as food for bears?”

“You may wish you had,” Wise Owl said, his eyes roving over Mariah. “This lad has family. His father could be near with firearms. Perhaps you have opened ways for an attack on our people.” He grabbed Mariah by a wrist. “Come. You will tell my chief why you are close to our village.”

Mariah paled as Nee-kah grabbed her wrist away from Wise Owl.