“First, Mariah, there’s that damnable Tanner McCloud. I’ve got to put his ideas of wantin’ you from his mind once and for all. I’ve got to make you as unpleasant to look at as possible. Cuttin’ your hair seems to be the only way. That damn Tanner. He’s been askin’ me every day for permission to marry you. Now he won’t bother me with such nonsense.”
“You don’t have to cut off my hair because of him,” Mariah wailed, feeling ill at her stomach when she saw her first lock of hair fall at her feet. “You know that I’d never let that man get near me. Papa, I have a mind and will of my own. And I can shoot a firearm same as you. You taught me well enough. If that man came near me, I’d not hesitate shooting him.”
“It’s not only him,” Victor said, continuing to snip away at her hair. “Your mother’s prettiness got her in trouble with men more than once. I’m here to make sure that don’t happen to you.”
A sob lodged in Mariah’s throat when another thick hunk of hair fell at her feet. She closed her eyes, knowing that she would end up being the ugliest woman in the world!
“What do you mean by that?” she finally said, slowly opening her eyes again, forcing them away from the hair piling up on the floor. “What sort of trouble did my mother get into with men?”
Victor momentarily drew his scissors away from Mariah’s hair. He stepped around in front of her. He looked down at her with narrowing gray eyes. “You forget I ever said that,” he flatly ordered. “That was a slip of the tongue. Just remember that when you’re as pretty as a picture, men are drawn to you like bees to honey.” He stepped behind her again and resumed his cutting. “That’s what I meant about your mother. She had men fallin’ at her heels from all walks of life. It’d be the same with you, if I’d allow it. But I ain’t. So don’t give me no more mouth about it.”
Mariah stood numbly quiet until her father was finished with the dreaded chore. When she heard him place the scissors on her nightstand beside her bed, she stared blankly down at the hair on the floor, and became choked up all over again with the need to cry.
But there were no more tears. What seemed to have taken their place was a building resentment toward her father, which she feared was nearing hate.
Kneeling, she began to scoop up her precious strands of hair, its softness like the down of bird feathers against the flesh of her hands. She stiffened inside when her father’s shadow fell over her.
“There is something else I have to say to you,” Victor said, drawing Mariah’s eyes quickly up. He placed a hand at her elbow and helped her up to stand before him.
“Oh, no, Papa,” she cried. “Whatever more could you want with me? Haven’t you already done enough?”
“What I have done, for the most part in your behalf, is to guarantee your survival here in the Minnesota wilderness in case something happens to me,” Victor said, gripping Mariah’s shoulders with his hands. “I have taught you enough of the Sioux and Chippewa tongues for common purposes, and taught you the trick of the Indian trade to perfection. I have taught you how to shoot all firearms, and how to ride a horse better than most men. Today . . . today . . .”
Clutching her loose strands of hair to her bosom, Mariah looked fearlessly up at her father, yet wary of what else he had planned for her. Even he seemed hesitant to tell her.
“Today? What about today?” she asked, almost afraid to hear the answer.
“I plan to teach you further ways of survival,” Victor said, dropping his hands away from her. He went to the window and stared into the shadowy depths of the forest that stretched out far beyond the land that had been cleared for his trading post.
An instant dread grabbed Mariah at the pit of her stomach. “What do you mean?” she said in a low gasp.
Victor turned on a heel and stared at her. He reached a hand to his pants leg and ran his fingers over his leg, feeling nothing, only numbness. “An Injun took too many important things from my life. Because of him, I am half-crippled and . . .”
He stopped in mid-sentence, then went and stood over Mariah. “A year ago, Chief Gray Elk settled within only a half-day’s ride from Fort Snelling. His village is only an hour’s ride from our trading post. And by damn, that’s way too close for my liking.”
He paused, then added, “You’ve questioned me many times this past year about why I’ve not gone to Fort Snelling as often for supplies, and why I’ve forbidden you to go at all. I’ve avoided your questions before, because I had not yet decided what to do about Gray Elk. But now that I’ve made my plans, there’s no reason not to tell you. It’s because Echohawk, Gray Elk’s son, is at Fort Snelling so often. Even though the Injuns do most of their trading at the riverbank, instead of inside the walls of the fort, which, for the most part, is reserved only for civilized people. I did not want to chance coming face-to-face with Echohawk. I thought he just might recognize me. He saw everything the day I was wounded. I’m sure he hates me no less now.” He paused and an evil glint rose in his gray eyes. “It seems that Echohawk is in my way now as much as his chieftain father ever was. He’s got to die also,
Mariah. And anyone else at the village who gets in the way of the gunfire!”
He cupped her chin in his hand. “And you’re going to ride with me,” he said flatly. “If nothing else, that’ll make a man outta you.”
Mariah was rendered almost speechless by what her father was saying. And that he had chosen to make her a part of such a vicious plan made her heart grow cold. “You can’t be serious,” she finally said, inching away from him. “Papa, what you are planning to do is wrong. It’s out-and-out murder. And never would I be a part of such an act. I hold no grudges against the Indians. In fact, I admire them. They are an innocent, proud people. How can you want to just go and kill them? Nothing any one Indian has done to you can warrant you going and slaughtering a whole village of Indians.”
She slipped the hair from her arms, onto her bed, then placed her hands on her hips in defiance. “And were the truth known, I imagine you were the one who shot off that first gunfire against Gray Elk and his people all those years ago. You deserved what you got. It could have been worse, you know. Your scalp could be hanging in Chief Gray Elk’s wigwam even now.”
Victor took a quick, clumsy step forward, his face red with rage. He raised his hand and brought its backside against Mariah’s face, causing her head to go sideways in a jerk. “I will have no more of your insolence,” he shouted. “You are going with me. That’s final.”
Her cheek stinging from the blow, her eyes filled with tears of anger, Mariah placed the coolness of her palm against her face. “Never,” she hissed.
“Then I will have no choice but to lock you in the storm cellar for several days for punishment,” Victor said, bending to speak into her face.
Paling, Mariah wavered. “You wouldn’t do that to me,” she gasped. “You . . . just . . . wouldn’t.”
“I have no choice,” Victor said, picking up his cane from Mariah’s bed. He leaned his weight against it as he walked toward the door. “Come on, now. We may as well get the punishment on its way.”
Mariah stood her ground. “No,” she murmured, fearing the rats that frequented the cellar, which were sometimes as big as cats. “That won’t be necessary. I’ll do as you say.”
But she vowed to herself that this was the last time he would force anything on her. At her first opportunity she was going to escape his wrath. Tonight, after they returned from the venture she dreaded with all of her heart and soul, she would flee from her father’s trading post and go to the protective custody of Colonel Snelling at the fort. From there she would chart her future.