Wild Ecstasy by Cassie Edwards

day for you, Echohawk. You will see that I am right.”
    After Chief Silver Wing left the wigwam, Echohawk laid the pipe and tobacco pouch aside and eased back down onto the thick layer of pelts. His thoughts were becoming fuzzy. His scalp seemed on fire.
    â€œ Gee-bah-bah , Father,” he whispered, reaching a hand out toward the fire, thinking that he saw his father’s image in the dancing flames. “Father, do you hear me? Do you see me? Your nin-gwis , son, oh, how he misses you!”
    He moved to his side and closed his eyes, his body racked with hard chills as his temperature began to rise.
    He found himself drifting somewhere between midnight thoughts and the flaming glory of a Chippewa sunrise....
    * * *
    Fully clothed, reeking of dried perspiration and alcohol, Victor Temple tossed fitfully in his bed, his drunken slumber broken by dreams of horror. In the nightmare, he and Mariah were nude and chained together, forced to stand upon a scaffold, while Indians looked at them with hate in their eyes, ready to shoot arrows into their flesh.
    Victor awakened with a start, a cold, clammy sweat on his brow, his hands drenched with perspiration, and his eyes fixed.
    Shaking himself out of the dream, he jumped from the bed and poured himself a glass of whiskey, drinking it in fast gulps.
    Then, recalling Mariah’s part in the dream and in the Indian massacre that he had commanded, he rushed to her room to see if she was all right. When he discovered that she was not there, alarm filled him.
    â€œShe’s been abducted!” he cried aloud. “While I slept, my daughter was abducted!”
    His thoughts became scrambled as he wondered who could have done it. “Tanner?” he whispered, then shook his head, thinking that Tanner wouldn’t be that foolish.
    â€œInjuns?” he said, panic rising inside him.
    He ran down the steps to the lower floor, then from the house, frantically waving his hands. “My daughter’s gone!” he shouted, drawing men from their bunks. “Saddle up! We’ve got to find her!”

Chapter 5
    More firm and sure the hand of courage strikes,
When it obeys the watchful eye of caution.
    â€”Thomson
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    Autumn’s warming rays filtering down through the stands of hemlock and spruce were welcome as Mariah awakened from a night of bone-chilling temperatures. She wiped her eyes with the back of her hand as she slowly rose to a sitting position beside the creek, trying to organize, think logically, slowly recalling what had happened. She had braved the raging waters of the swollen creek, but had lost the battle, it seemed. She had been thrown from her horse, her beloved mustang having then been carried away in the current. She had been momentarily stunned, and then had discovered that she had been too tired to travel onward by foot. She had not meant to, but she had slept all night!
    Her parched lips drew her eyes to the creek, its waters having receded. Crawling to the embankment, she cupped her hands and lowered them into the water for a drink, then winced when she caught her reflection in the shine of the water. She hardly recognized herself! Her face was covered with mud, also her hair was tangled with its muck and mire.
    She glanced down at her clothes, seeing that they were no better off. They were stiff with dried mud.
    The crunching of leaves behind Mariah made her turn her head in a jerk to see what had made the sound, again feeling her helplessness since she had no rifle for protection.
    But she was soon relieved and rose slowly to her feet when she found only an Indian maiden standing there gazing down at her, instead of a fierce brave. And wasn’t the Indian maiden lovely with her eyes of a deep, deep brown, her braided waist-length hair even darker than her eyes?
    Mariah’s gaze traveled over the maiden, seeing that she was attired in a long-sleeved buckskin dress, tightly drawn over her stomach, revealing that