Wild Ecstasy (2 page)

Gray Elk gazed up at Echohawk, the slowly rising moon casting enough light on his son to enable him to see him and his handsomeness, and be assured that here was a man who would not go wifeless for long. How could any woman resist such a tall and vigorous, good-looking man with sparkling dark eyes? How could any woman not notice Echohawk's hair that was as thick and long, and as black as the raven's wing, and his hard and proud mouth? And how could any woman not want to bear Echohawk a son, knowing that his offspring would have the same muscular strength, the same easy grace, and the same power of endurance as his father?

Echohawk arched an eyebrow when he saw a strange sort of peace pass over his father's face as he closed his eyes, his features smoothing out as if he had just entered into a pleasant fantasy. As troubled as Echohawk was, he wished that he could join his father in the same sort of magical place, where all sadnesses are left behind.

But he realized all too well that many responsibilities awaited him.

Rising to his full height, he did not turn to look at his people. He quickly mounted his horse and began riding away in a slow canter, his father's travois dragging behind him, knowing that soon everyone would follow.

Ay-uh
, so much depended on him.

His people's very existence.

Chapter 2

—Stevenson

 

 

 

 

The bedroom was flooded with sunlight, revealing a room of inexpensive tastes, and a father and daughter in conflict. Mariah Temple stood defiantly before her father, her jaw tight with anger. She clenched and unclenched her hands at her sides, finding it hard to continue obeying a father who, since Mariah's mother's death twelve long years ago, had become unreasonable in his demands.

“Papa, you can't force me to cut my hair,” Mariah said, her voice flat with determination. “You can't expect me to go that far to please you.” She glanced down at the way she was dressed and shuddered, then gazed angrily up at her father again. “I've worn these damnable shapeless breeches and scratchy shirts because I had no choice after you burned all of my dresses. You even burned Mother's so I couldn't sneak into one of them.” Her lips curved into a sullen pout. “Papa, I can hardly even recall how it felt to
wear
a dress.”

Her fingers went protectively to her hair. She drew its long red tresses back from her shoulders and cupped as much of it as possible within her hands. “I shan't
ever
forget how it feels to have long hair, because I won't ever agree to cutting it,” she snapped, taking a step back from her father as he moved toward her, dragging his lame leg behind him.

“Are you finished?” Victor Temple said in an impatient growl. “My, but you do go on sometimes, just like your mother used to. Not only do you have her looks, but also her temperament.”

His gaze swept over Mariah. Each time, it was a new shock to him to see a daughter so startlingly pretty, with eyes so dark and velvet brown on a flawless face, and abundant hair that gleamed and rippled with such life it seemed more vivid than the brightest red. Her short straight nose was that of an appealing and mischievous young woman. Her lips were rosy and soft, and there was nothing weak about her pretty chin.

She is so small and vulnerable, Victor thought to himself with a quick rush of tenderness. And so proud and bullheadedly stubborn!

“If I am like my mother, so be it,” Mariah said, lifting her chin proudly. She had been six when her mother had died, the mystery of it always troubling her. Her father had not let Mariah see her mother on her deathbed, nor had he explained how or why her mother had died at such a young age.

But it was the remembrances of her mother the six years that she had shared with her that still filled Mariah's heart with such love whenever she let herself get caught up in missing her. No mother could have been as sweet—as understanding.

She peered intensely up at her father, recalling how he had been before his wife's death. In appearance he had changed, now weathered with age at fifty-five. He was a round-shouldered man with a leathery face and brush of chin whiskers, and with a lame leg that made his movements jerky and sometimes uncontrolled.

Those many years ago, before his leg affliction, he had been handsomely neat, always clean-shaven, and had always stood proudly tall and square-shouldered. Although Mariah had thought him to be a decent sort of man at that time, it was the years since that had colored her image of him.

And it had not only been the death of his wife that seemed to have changed him, she mulled to herself. The change had happened shortly after the burial, when he had left to have council with some of the Indian chiefs in the area, having brought his wife and daughter to the Minnesota wilderness to establish a trading post long before Fort Snelling had been a part of the setting.

At that time, as now, it was not unusual for her short-tempered father to get into conflicts with the neighboring Indians to establish his territorial rights if they would not meet with him and speak peacefully of sharing the abundance of wildlife in the area.

This one time in particular, when her father had been gone for several days, he had returned from a skirmish with some Indians, wounded. He had almost lost his leg as a result of that battle, hardening his heart into someone Mariah did not even enjoy calling “father.” He had become a bitter, unpleasant man, one whom most called sinister. Mariah herself was very aware of the crooked dealings and raids that her father participated in with the devious, evil Tanner McCloud.

Just the thought of Tanner McCloud made shivers run up and down Mariah's spine. He was a man of no scruples, who surely did not know the meaning of honesty. And with the whites of his eyes yellowed by some strange, unknown disease, he was also a man who was anything but pleasant to look at. When he gazed at Mariah with those yellow eyes, she always felt as though he was undressing her. For sure, Mariah wearing men's attire had not fooled him. He knew what lay beneath the bulky oversize jackets worn over her cotton shirts, and breeches twice the size of what she should be wearing, held up by a rope tied at her waist—a girl having developed into a woman at her ripe age of eighteen.

“And so you want to be like your mother, eh?” Victor said, brandishing the scissors in the air as he talked, as though they were a weapon. “Do you want to be dead at age twenty-three?” He slipped the scissors into his rear pants pocket and grabbed Mariah by the arm. “Daughter, that ain't going to happen if I have anything to say about it. I've protected you just fine these past years. I don't intend to stop now.”

Mariah paled. “Papa, please don't,” she begged, trying to jerk free of his grasp. “My hair is all that is left that is pretty about me. At least at night, when I remove my dreadful mannish clothes, I can look in the mirror and see that I
am
a woman. Papa, do you want me to forget? Do you? Don't you ever want to see me married to a fine gentleman? Don't you even want grandchildren?”

“And where do you expect to find what you call a ‘fine gentleman' way out here in this wilderness?” he scoffed, grasping her arm more tightly. “Those I have met are anything but what I would want for a son-in-law. Most are filthy, with only one thing on their minds when they see the flash of a woman's skirt. Their one concern is getting that skirt lifted and pokin' her until they get their hunger for sex filled for that moment.”

Mariah gasped and her face became flushed with embarrassment, her father having never before spoken of sex in her presence.

But even this did not stop her argument. “While gathering supplies at Fort Snelling, I saw many men who were surely gentlemen,” she said, daring him with a haughty gaze. “The soldiers are all so very polite. And . . . some are
quite
handsome.”

She cast her eyes downward. “But of course, none have ever approached me,” she murmured. “They think they are walking past a young lad when they pass by me in the courtyard of the fort.”

She looked back up at him with an anxiousness in her eyes. “Papa, I've always fooled them before by wearing my hair coiled beneath my hat,” she said in a rush of words. “Please? Please let me continue hiding my hair instead of cutting it.”

“That only works if the hat stays in place,” Victor said, going to the window, peering down below at the pack mules being unloaded. He could see many prime pelts among those being carried into his trading post, and did not want to take much more time with this chore at hand. He wanted to make sure those who assisted him at his post did not cheat him while his back was turned.

He wheeled around and faced Mariah again. “The day you tripped over a bale of hay at the fort? Your hair came rushing out from beneath your hat like streamers of sunshine. And who had to be there, to be witness to the truth of your identity? That damned Colonel Snelling and his wife, Abigail. Since then they haven't let me alone, chiding me for forcing you to wear breeches and shirts. Why, Abigail even forced one of her dresses on me one day and flat told me to let you wear it. Of course I burned it as soon as I got it home.”

Again he turned and stared out the window, anger filling him at the thought of Josiah Snelling and of their relationship long before they had met again while Fort Snelling was being built. Victor had assumed that Josiah Snelling was in his past when he brought his family to the Minnesota wilderness.

But after all those years they were forced to endure one another's company again, for Victor was not about to move his successful trading post to rid himself of the colonel again. He had even had to place all thoughts of vengeance against Colonel Snelling from his mind, finding the supplies at Fort Snelling too valuable not to go to the fort and buy them when necessary.

Mariah often accompanied him, only because he had seen her worth in assisting him choose the proper kitchen supplies.

Otherwise she would have been kept at the trading post, away from the wondering eyes of Colonel Snelling. Should the colonel have ever looked close enough, he might have seen too much that was familiar about her.

Victor turned abruptly and went back to Mariah. He grabbed her by the wrist and turned her so that her back was to him. He yanked the scissors from his pocket and lifted them to her hair. “Now, let's not hear any more argument about this haircut,” he snarled. “It'll be done in a flash.”

Tears began streaming from Mariah's eyes when she felt the first yank on her head as the scissors began to slice through her thick hair. “Oh, Papa, why? Why?” she demanded, sobbing. “I'll never understand! Never!”

“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.”