A slow smile tugged at his lips as he turned to Mariah, having so badly wanted to see the woman of his heart.
But what he discovered made everything within him turn cold. The person he was seeing—the woman he had poured out his feelings to—had a face familiar to him before his eyesight had been impaired.
Then his gaze moved jerkily to her hair, seeing its length.
His gaze went to her dress as he now recalled that on that dreadful day of many deaths she had not been dressed as a woman, but as a lad!
Ay-uh, that had been the difference the day of the attack. She had been disguised as a boy, to fool him and his people. It had been the dark ash spread on her face to strengthen her disguise that day that had kept him from seeing the truth!
Mariah went limp with fear, having seen within his eyes the horror of recognizing who she truly was. She was frozen to the spot, afraid to move, then flinched when he suddenly leaned close to the lodge fire and gathered up a handful of ashes.
A scream froze in her throat when he turned suddenly to her, roughly spreading the ash all over her face. She wanted to die when he let out a ear-splitting wail when he fell back away from her and gazed at her knowingly.
“It was you!” he cried, rising shakily to his feet. “Without the ash on your face, I . . . I . . . was not sure. But now I am! You are not at all who you pretend! You betrayed me! You betrayed all Chippewa! You are an enemy!”
“What is this?” Chief Silver Wing asked, dismayed at Echohawk’s performance. “Why did you color her face with ash? Why do you call her an enemy? She has proved her loyalty to our people! She cannot be an enemy!”
Mariah finally found the courage to scramble to her feet. She reached a hand out to Echohawk, tears streaming from her eyes. “Please listen,” she cried. “Oh, Echohawk, that day . . . it was not of my doing!”
But she could not find it within herself to go further with her confession. She could not openly blame her father. Thus far, Echohawk did not know his identity. She would not be the one to point an accusing finger at him. If she did, she would never be able to live with herself.
So she stopped short of what she knew had to be said to make Echohawk believe her. She could not involve her father, even though he did not warrant such protection from her. But to convince Echohawk that she had been forced to join the raid, a full explanation was needed.
“Echohawk, I love you,” she murmured, still reaching a hand out to him. “I love your people. And Nee-kah! I feel toward her as though she were my sister—a sister that I never had! Please don’t turn me away! Please . . . ?”
Her words did not seem to reach him at all. He stood solemnly still, coldly staring at her, his arms folded across his chest. She took a shaky step away from him; the hatred in his eyes appalled her very soul.
Sobbing, her heart breaking, having lost everything now because of her evil, marauding father, Mariah turned and fled from the lodge.
Blinded with tears, she ignored Nee-kah as she cried out for her to stop. She ignored the Chippewa people as they stopped and stared at her in her frenzied flight toward her horse. She was only vaguely aware of mounting the horse and grabbing the reins, for everything within her seemed dead and empty.
She had lost Echohawk!
Not only that, she had lost her very reason for living.
Wheeling the horse around, Mariah sank her heels into his flanks and sharply snapped the reins. Tears splashed into the wind as she rode through the village, dogs yapping at her heels, children shouting at her in dismay.
She was glad when she reached the outskirts of the village, able then to send her steed into a hard gallop across the flower-dotted meadow. She was no longer numb inside. With the realization of what had truly been lost to her came the hurt. She could hardly bear these feelings ravaging her insides, racking her body with torture. Everything within her now ached, especially her heart.
When she heard a horse fast approaching from behind, she did not take the time to glance over her shoulder to see who it was. She feared many things. Now that her true identity had been revealed, Echohawk could have sent a brave to stop her escape. Soon she could be tied to a stake in the center of the village, a victim of their vengeance—of intense hatred.
But she would not save herself if it meant seeing her father take her place at the stake—or at the end of a hangman’s noose—for his crimes against the Chippewa. He deserved punishment, certainly, but she would not be the one to cause it.
Never!
Terror leapt through her when out of the corner of her eye she discovered the horse pulling alongside of her. Her eyes widened and she screamed when an arm reached out and grabbed her, dragging her onto the other horse. She was held firmly on the lap of her pursuer as he drew his reins tautly, stopping his horse.
Her pulse racing, weak with fear, Mariah turned and gazed frantically up at the man whose muscled arm held her prisoner. Her heart bled when she saw that it was Echohawk, the hate in his eyes no less as he looked down at her through the eyeglasses.
She swallowed hard, then tried to squirm free of her bondage, surprised when he let go of her and she tumbled away from him and the horse to the ground. Dazed, she lay there for a moment; then, when a shadow fell over her, her eyes turned slowly upward, and she
recoiled against the ground when she found Echohawk staring flatly down at her, his arms folded stiffly across his chest.
“Echohawk, I didn’t mean you any harm,” she cried. “I did not purposely betray you. What I did, caring for you and learning your ways, was done from the goodness of my heart. The day of the raid, I—”
Her words were stolen from her when he leaned over and grabbed her by the arms and jerked her to her feet. Echohawk now seemed to be a giant as he towered over her in his anger. When he began shaking her, her senses seemed to scramble, yet she heard what he shouted at her, understanding well the word he spoke in his Chippewa tongue.
“Gay-gay-nah-wi-shkee, liar,” Echohawk gritted out between clenched teeth, his eyes two points of fire as he continued shaking her. “Liar! You . . . are . . . a . . . liar!”