The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby (11 page)

Obviously pleased at his son’s request to hear the story again, his father stood up, walked over to the fireplace mantle, and picked up his long-stemmed clay pipe. He sat down on the stone hearth and began.

“Your grandpa Joshia settled along the banks of the James River in Virginia, on a plot of land that was just across a narrow channel from a place called Hog Island. Hog Island was a tiny spit of land in the middle of the river where the settlers allowed their hogs to graze and fatten up, ya see. Anyway, the homestead was about seven or eight miles from the Jamestown settlement, just to the southeast of a land grant called Martin’s Hundred.

“Grandpa Jo built a log and earthen cabin in a shallow glade along a fresh water run south of a settlement called Wolstenholme Towne. The site was protected from the wind that constantly blows off of the James by a gentle rise before the shoreline. The north and east were protected by a stand of pine, birch and ashe.”

Thomas looked off into the distance as if he were gazing upon the tiny cabin. “Papa was sure proud of that place. I don’t recollect it, but when I was a youngun, he and Mama often spoke about how pretty it was.” He shook his head as if to free the vision from his sight, and reached for a fiery brand to light his pipe. Several long drags on the stem of his pipe filled the room with the familiar scent of tobacco that made Tyoga feel safe and warm—and innocent once again.

“It started to snow on January 2, 1622,” his father continued. “The blizzard raged for ten straight days. When the storm finally passed, an eight-foot snow drift sealed the door to the cabin. It took your grandpa a full day to dig a tunnel through the drift to get to the little feeder stream for water. Another three days passed before he took that very flintlock hangin’ over yonder off the wall,” he said while pointing to rifle mounted over the fireplace, “kissed your grandma, Rebecca, goodbye and headed out into the freezing winter wilderness in search of game. Two days into his hunt, Grandpa crested a rise and made camp at the base of a giant walnut tree. This was a site that he had used often when searching for game. Ringed by a dense hedgerow of wild rose bushes, it was a perfect site for hunting deer. The shrubs formed a natural windbreak, and, as the sun set, the camp was smothered in the darkness of growing evening shadows. But what your grandpa liked best about the campsite was that not ten yards away was a deer path, just as pretty as you please, meandering down the slope to the east. Downing a ten-point buck took no more effort than kneeling on your bedroll and pullin’ the trigger. Yes sir. It was the perfect huntin’ camp.

“Well, Grandpa found the ring of stones he had left in place from his fall hunt and he soon had a blazing fire to keep him warm. He wrapped himself in his buffalo robe, removed his elk hide boots, and placed them near to the fire to warm and dry.”

His father stopped and chuckled. “All he had to eat was a tough plank of salted sturgeon. I remember him tellin’ Mama that it tasted so awful that it puckered his tongue like a chunk of lye soap.” He shook his head with a smile on his face. “It was all he had to eat so he made do with what he had, but he never let Mama forget.” He laughed out loud and stared into the quiet of the cabin.

His papa’s eyes darted around the room as if to see whether anyone else was around. He slid along the hearth to get closer to Tyoga, who was sitting in the rocker. With a suggestion of trepidation in his voice, he continued the story. “Before there was even a sound, your grandpa knew. Alone in the woods at twilight sounds become something more than noise. The darkness provides cover and concealment. The big predators—bear, wolves, mountain lions—have the clear advantage as the time between discovering you’re being hunted and an opportunity for you to escape becomes little more than nothin’ at all. Your grandpa Joshia had been awakened to the promise as a young boy of only five years old. He understood the silent cues and he knew of nature’s ways. That night, sitting alone in the cold, dark woods, he knew. What it was, he couldn’t say. But he knew.”

Thomas peered into his son’s eyes, which had grown wide with wonder. He lowered his voice to continue with the story. “He cocked his head to listen more intently to the voices of the night. I remember him tellin’ me that he said out loud, even though there was nothin’ there ‘cept the trees to hear the words, he said, ‘This ain’t right. Somethin’ ain’t right.”

His papa said, “Ya know, son, snow cover magnifies sounds in the woods. And sounds channeled through frigid air reveal their intent to those who know how to listen.” He stopped for a moment to look at his son to make sure that he understood these words.

Tyoga did.

“Well,” his papa continued, “it started as just the faintest echo of crunching branches and leaves and then grew into the unmistakable sounds of a chase. Mocassined feet were pounding through the snow, landing hard on the frozen ground. Many feet. Moving fast. Following the deer path straight toward Grandpa’s campsite.

“Grandpa stood up, threw off his buffalo robe, and began scooping snow onto the fire with both hands. He managed to pile enough snow to stop the rising wisps of smoke that would surely have given him away. He threw the buffalo robe around his shoulder and crouched down behind the hedgerow and waited.”

Thomas stood up, stretched his back, and relit his pipe. This was the place in the story where he always paused.

Tyoga remembered that when he and his brother were very small children, the next part of the story scared them so thoroughly that neither one was able to sleep for the entire night.

His papa sat back down on the hearth and began again in a loud excited voice this time.

“The screams that accompanied the charging hoard sent chills up your grandpa’s spine. Were they war cries? No. These were different. The screams were taunting—almost bemused. The warriors were chasing a kill—but one in which the end would surely be an agonizingly slow, deliberate, and tortured death. Grandpa peeked through the branches of the underbrush and what did he see?” he asked while looking at Tyoga. “He saw an Indian Brave staggering to keep his feet.”

At this, his father stood up and pretended to stagger around Tyoga’s rocker, clutching his side to fit in with the part of the story to come.

“This lone Indian was ahead of the mob, but not by much. They were closing fast. Grandpa Jo could see the Indian’s bloody right hand holding the shaft of the arrow that pierced through his right side. The Indian veered from the deer path and headed directly towards the campsite. He stopped short of stepping through the hedgerow and leaned against the walnut tree. Just at that moment, Grandpa sprung from the underbrush, clutched the Indian around the waist and dragged him into the shadows of his camp. He muffled the Indian’s mouth with one hand and with the other held the brave firmly to the ground. I remember Grandpa telling me that he would never forget the look of panic in the bloody warrior’s eyes. Exhausted by the chase and weak from loss of blood, the brave passed out in Grandpa’s arms. Just then, the war party flew over the crest of the rise about fifty yards to the south. So what did Grandpa do? He grabbed his buffalo robe, covered the Indian with his own body, and threw the robe over the both of them. Only yards away he could feel the bloodthirsty war party streak past his campsite. Thundering feet and wild screams filled the air as the warriors streamed past the two of them. I’ll never forget Grandpa’s description; he said the warriors flowed past them like a ‘torrent of muddy water loosed from the breach of a mighty earthen dam.’”

His papa paused only long enough to appreciate the mental picture his father had painted with words. He smiled ever so slightly before continuing, “The Sioux warriors—they were Sioux, Grandpa said—were so caught up in the hunt that they didn’t even notice that the tracks of the man they were chasing had completely vanished. Once they ran past the chestnut tree, any hope of picking up his tracks was all but lost.

“Now, Grandpa stayed under that buffalo robe with the Indian for a long time. The heat from their bodies kept them pretty warm, so he didn’t get cold even though it had started to snow again.”

Tyoga’s father stopped talking again and fell silent. The story always got to him at this point. The courage of his father risking his own life to protect a stranger was testament to an internal strength of character that few Virginians would have been willing to match. That the man was a Native American from an unknown tribe who, in other circumstances, may have taken his scalp and left him in agony to bleed to death made the gesture all the more magnanimous.

Thomas took a deep breath and started again. “I remember your grandpa telling me in vivid detail his recollections of the time he spent under the buffalo robe with the Indian brave. He was surprised at how the Indian smelled, I recall. Even though he was covered with sweat from the long distance run, Grandpa said he smelled of tobacco, pine, and newly worked leather. His face was painted with red and black patterns and the bridge of his nose sported a long dark streak that expanded over each nostril and stopped at the crease of his cheeks. Crimson red extended from under each eye all the way up to his temples. Grandpa said that he could tell from the scars on his face that this was not the first time this man had been chased, and it certainly wasn’t his first brush with death. This man had fought hard, often, and for most of his life. Each ear had been pierced in several places and was adorned with shells and beads. The right side of his head was cleanshaven. The long hair on the left side of his head was tied in a knot and had feathers and a bird’s foot attached. Grandpa reckoned that the man was older than he, maybe in his mid-forties. He wasn’t sure you understand—so maybe he wasn’t that old. Grandpa said that he remembered that the Indian’s body was hard and muscular. He must have been a powerful man in his younger years. It was a good thing that he was so strong because he was hurt pretty bad. But your grandpa thought that if he could tend to his wounds quickly, he just might make it.

“Well, about another hour passed before he felt fairly certain that the war party wouldn’t double back in search of the Indian. Grandpa peaked out from under the robe and saw that the sun was about to set. He knew that meant the temperature would be falling and fast. He threw the buffalo robe off and stood with the bloody warrior lying unconcious at his feet.

“In the pitch blackness of the freezing night, there was no choice but for Grandpa to re-start the fire. He knew that it was risky but both he and the wounded brave needed the fire for warmth and light and to clean the warriors’s wounds.

“Papa knelt down next to the brave and saw that the arrow had entered from the back and exited about eight inches to the right, just above his belly button. Even though the wound had bled alot, it appeared that the arrow had passed only through flesh. Grandpa reckoned that out because he could see the shaft of the arrow running along just under the skin. The feathered end of the arrow had been broken off. Grandpa figured that the Indian did it himself as he ran to escape the war party of Sioux. But he could see that the arrowhead and about 4 inches of the shaft were sticking out from the brave’s belly. It would be easy for him to remove the arrow by giving it a good tug—an’ better to do it while the Indian was still unconscious.”

At this Tyoga’s father got up again from his seat on the hearth and knelt down on the hardwood floor. Tyoga smiled because he remembered that even as a little boy, he would do exactly the same thing every time he told the story. He acted out the next scene in every detail.

“Grandpa grabbed the shaft of the arrow with this right hand—ya see?” He looked up to make sure that Tyoga was watching. Playing along, Tyoga stopped rocking and was sitting on the front edge of the rocker’s seat. “To give himself some leverage and to steady the Indian’s body against the force of the pull, Grandpa placed his left palm over the exit wound so that the shaft of the arrow protruded between his middle fingers.” He slid his right index finger between the middle and ring finger of his left hand.

He looked up at Tyoga and continued, “He pulled fast, firm and with all his might. With a horrific scream that shattered the night, that Indian sat straight up just as the arrow shaft was freed. He reached out and grabbed Grandpa Jo around the neck with both hands and threw him to the ground. Granpa could see right off that the Indian was frightened, confused, and in terrible pain. He didn’t know where he was, how he had gotten there or why this white man was kneeling over him holding a bloody arrow. But there was something more. And this was something that Grandpa Jo remembered to his dying day. Besides the fear and pain—he told me that the Indian’s eyes seethed with a hatred that needed no words. He had a white man by the throat, and his instinct was to kill. Like an animal cornered in his own den, the Indian’s reaction was to fight to the death to keep himself alive. Grandpa Jo had to act fast.”

At this, Tyoga’s father got up off of the floor and sat back down on the hearth. He grabbed the bandana that was in his right front pocket and mopped his brow. He was sweating as if he had lived the experience himself.

Tyoga sat back in the chair and began to rock slowly.

His father began again, “O-gi-na-ni-li.”
(Friend)
“‘O-gi-na-ni-li,’ your grandpa said while poking his chest so hard with his finger that it made a thumping sound. He felt the Indian relax the choke hold he had on his neck just a bit. Now, Grandpa Jo didn’t know a great deal of Tsalagi like you and me. But he did know a few commands, so he said to the Indian sittin’ on top of him, ‘Ha-le-wi-sta.
(Stop)
E-lo-wi-hi.
(Be still)
E-lo-wa-hi.’
(Be quiet)

“Well, at hearing his own language, the Indian looked around and Grandpa Jo said that the adled look began to leave his eyes. He looked down at Grandpa’s face and slowly released one hand from around his neck. The Indian didn’t get up off of him, but sat back on his haunches—keeping Grandpa’s body firmly pinned to the ground between his legs. He was bleeding badly again and when the pain got to be too much, he clutched his side and rolled off of Grandpa.