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Chapter 1
The day is done, and the darkness
Falls froht,
As a feather is wafted doard
Froht
—Longfellow
The Minnesota Wilderness August 1824
The evening shadoere long The sky ith a cri of turtle doves breaking the cool, deep silence
Riding in a canter ahead of a slow procession of s, Echoha a frightened buck on the run, the white rosette of its ru for the smallest fraction of time at the top of each frantic bound, like a succession of sunbursts against the darkening forest
Then Echohawk gazed down at the river at his one side, ade of the maple, birch, and aspen trees that lined the riverbank, disturbed only by silver-scaled fish that now and then came to the surface with a sudden flip that started circles of ripples
A deep, throaty cough, one that was filled with pain, drew Echohawk froe filled his dark, fathoazed down at his father, Chief Gray Elk, who lay on a travois behind Blaze, Echohawk’s prized rust-colored stallion Echohawk’s father’s pride had been stripped from him, as well as his health, by a vile white man the whites of whose eyes were o-zah-wah, yellow, the color of a coward’s
Echohawk’s gaze moved beyond his father to the many other travois Some transported bundles of blankets, parfleches of dried meat, and those ere too elderly to ride or walk
Others carried the wounded froe they had chosen to leave behind—a place of sadness and many deaths
Even to let himself conjure up memories of the hout Echohawk Because of hiade White Wolf, many proud Chippewa had died, Echohaife and unborn child a the wounded Because of Yellow Eyes and White Wolf, the Chippewa had been uprooted and a new place of peace and prosperity was now being sought
Echohawk’s eyes narrohen he recalled another raid on his father’s people twelve winters ago, when Echohawk had been a young brave of eighteen winters His people had suffered many losses at the hand of those vile white men that day And then, as now, the conflict had caused his band of people toto stay where there had been so many deathsso much blood spilled