The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby (8 page)

He looked at his friend and quietly spoke his name,. “Tes ‘a? Tes ‘a? Esginehvis?”
(Are you thirsty?)

Tes Qua did not answer, and Tyoga did not persist. He needed rest now more than water. Unconscious was the best place for him to be.

He rose from his knees, picked up the travois, and put his back to the task. As he pulled his friend through the night, the rhythmic cadence of his footsteps melded with the sounds of the forest and the ether of the night. Moving beyond fatigue he walked through the darkness. Unwilling to yield to exhaustion’s call, he staggered forward.

Forging ahead, he stepped back in time and he thought of her.

He could not recall his life without her.

Sunlei Awi (Morning Deer) was Tes Qua Ta Wa’s baby sister, and the daughter of Nine Moons and True Moon. Tyoga and Tes Qua were born in 1682, and Sunlei came along about a year and a half later. The three were often entrusted to the care of one of their mothers. Tyoga’s mother, Emma, would leave him in the care of True Moon in the Ani-Unwiya village during planting or harvest time; and Tes Qua and Sunlei would stay with the Weathersbys during hunting season.
Oftentimes, when True Moon was engaged in a task, the three were left in the care of Tes Qua’s aunt, Awigadoga (Standing Deer). In the Native American tradition, the three children gained sustenance often from the same breast.

It was their time together in the Amansoquath village of Tuckareegee that the three grew to cherish the most. In the joy of their nakedness, they ran through the village unfettered by the constraints of the more puritanical mores of the Scotch-Irish traditions practiced by the Weathersby household. They learned about the ways of the forest, and the honored traditions of the Native Americans around their campfires. Romping through the glades and hollows of Appalachia, they were free.

Tyoga remembered that special day at So-hi pool when his relationship with Sunlei was changed forever. He could hear her voice and smell her skin as he trudged on through the blackness of the night.

So-hi (Hickory Nut) was an ancient goblet shaped sinkhole that was filled with mineral rich spring water. The crystal clear aquamarine swimming hole was one of the trio’s favorite spots. Although it was visited by many of their friends, its hidden access and the rigors of entry imbued So-hi pool with an air of mystery and pleasure that somehow seemed unique. They never spoke of the pool in the company of others as if the words would betray an unspoken pact. So-hi belonged to them and no one else.

Four Months Earlier

“Come on in, Sunlei,” Tyoga and Tes Qua urged a reticent ten-year-old Sunlei from the boulders surrounding the pool. “Tlano Ty—the water’s too cold,” she responded to their taunts.

“Oh come on. Don’t be afraid. It feels good,” Tyoga persisted.

“Jump in, Ulv
(sister)
,” Tes QuaQua chimed in.

Bending at the waist to put his back into pulling the right stay of the litter over the roots of a giant hickory tree, he saw her beautiful face as it appeared on that day looking down at him from the banks of the pool.

Even at ten years old, the beauty into which Sunlei would blossom was readily apparent.

Her ebony eyes were pools of inky blackness reflecting the world not as it is, but reconfigured by an internal filter with a timbral quality unique in its perspective and joy. The world was reborn as an intuitive truth when strained through that filter. Sunlei would not be persuaded to abandon her reality. With a singular voice, the world mirrored in her eyes accepted the rightness of natural course. It stubbornly—even fiercely—rejected contrivance and scheme. As blackness protectively secrets hidden truths; so too, Sunlei’s onyx orbs gave no hint of the private world within. The blackness was lifted only for those she welcomed to join her inside.

The gentle arch of brow that ringed her raven eyes was supported by a prominence of cheek that proudly proclaimed her regal Native American heritage. The chestnut skin of her forehead was covered with the fringed bangs common to young girls of the Amansoquath tribe. The remainder of her thick black hair was worn in braids that reached the small of her back.

The rest of Sunlie’s facial features departed from those of her sisters and cousins. Her nose lacked the broad bridge common to her tribe, and was button-like, just slightly turned-up at the end. Her jaw line closely reflected the more slender facial structure of the white man, and her lips lacked some of the broad fullness of others in her tribe.

There had been shadowy talk in the village about an ancestor who had been kidnapped by fur trappers while foraging in the woods who was then sold to the Pontiacs in southern Canada. When the woman was finally reunited with her Uni-Unwiya family, her sandy-haired, three-year-old daughter was accepted into the clan as one of their own. Through the generations, a blue-eyed or light haired Amansoquath served as a reminder of their ancestor’s cruel treatment at the hands of the white man. But, in the Indian way, all were accepted as members of the tribe.

In his mind’s eye, Tyoga saw her bend over to pick up one of the baby ducklings she found in a nest several yards away from the bank of the pool.

“Look, Ty. Tes ‘A, look,” she chirped excitedly. “Baby ducks! Come and see!”

“Let ‘em be, Sunlei,” Tes Qua yelled from the far side of the pool.

At the frenzied cackling of the mother hen, Sunlei hurriedly put the duckling back into the nest, took a step down onto the rocky outcropping and dove into the blue-green water of the swimming hole.

“Ty, the water’s freezing.” Sunlei began swimming toward the shore. “I’m getting out!”

“Oh, no, you ain’t,” Tyoga playfully replied.

Tyoga dove down, grabbed her ankle and pulled her down into the crystal clear turquoise water.

Releasing his grip, he let her swim to the surface, all the while holding a protective hand beneath the soles of her scissor-kicking feet. If she ran out of strength before reaching the surface, he was ready with a helping hand. Her legs were muscular and strong. He watched her legs frantically propel her to the surface. Her bronze skin glistened in the clear cool water as the noonday sun ignited her arching back with flashing amber hues. He gave a gentle shove just as her head broke the water’s surface.

He reached out to put his arm around her waist and pull her naked body to his to keep her head above water. Coughing and spitting water at him, her protests about being nearly drowned were met with the laughter borne of a friendship ordained in unquestioned devotion. Tyoga would permit no harm to come to Sunlei as long as he held her in his arms.

More than knowing it, she felt it in his embrace.

Fighting to break from his grasp, Sunlei screamed, “You almost drowned me, Ty!”

“No, Sunlei. To hi ju—you’re fine.”

Tyoga remembered hearing Tes Qua laughing while tossing stones into the water around them from the bank.

“Ha le wi s ta, Tes Qua!”
(Stop it)
Sunlei screamed at her brother.

He recalled how she suddenly stopped struggling to let him hold her afloat.

Quietly, their eyes met. By the time Sunlei finally looked away, their relationship had been forever changed.

Tyoga gripped the handles of the litter with such force that he felt the blisters on his hands burst when he recalled the magic of that special moment being shattered by the splash of a large stone hitting the water menacingly close to their heads.

Glancing up at the rocky rim of the pool, Tyoga saw the outline of their tiny tormentor, Seven Arrows. Two years younger than Tyoga and Tes Qua, the eldest son of Chief Yellow Robe of the South Fork Shawnee reveled in antagonizing his older Cherokee peers with impudence that he was certain protected him from reprisal. Careful to never travel alone, he was surrounded by a cadre of obedient pawns who submitted to his orders without question or hesitation. His derisive laughter descended from the banks of the sunken pool to fill the crater with sarcastic disdain.

Tyoga recalled the feeling in the pit of his stomach as their eyes locked in a seething sizzle. His face contorting into a menacing grimace, Seven Arrows bent over to pick up another large stone. Tyoga felt his eyes well with the anger of the recollection.

“Ne yeah ya at alo, descop-te,”
(Don’t touch that stone)
Tyoga cried out. When he finished the words he looked over to the far side of the pool where Tes Qua had been standing. He was nowhere to be seen.

Ignoring Tyoga’s command, Seven Arrows continued with his taunts.

“Sunlei, why are you in the arms of the smelly white dog? You should be with a strong Shawnee brave.” He smacked his open palm against his naked chest. “Move away from the white dog and let me see if he can catch this little stone.”

At these words Tyoga gently pushed Sunlei toward the shore. At the bank with only two kicks, she lifted herself from the pool.

Tyoga floated on his back and closed his eyes. “Seven Arrows,” he said, “throw the stone. Go ahead and throw the stone at me if you dare.”

At this challenge, Seven Arrows lifted the heavy stone over his head with both hands. Tyoga did not change his posture but continued floating gently on the surface of the pool.

“But you will not throw the stone,” he said. “You will not throw the stone because you are a coward. Look around you, Seven Arrows. You are a coward standing alone.”

Seven Arrows’s eyes darted all around the pool and then toward the woods behind him. He did not know that his three companions had scurried away at the not-so-gentle urging of Tes Qua Ta Wa, who now prowled the woods behind him.

“So, little coward, what will it be?” Tyoga teased. “Are you brave enough to throw the stone down on me as I float helplessly in the pool? Or will you drop the stone and run after your brave friends?”

Tyoga remembered the look in Seven Arrows’ eyes when he dropped the stone to his feet.

Bowing his head, Seven Arrows walked slowly toward the dense underbrush before he paused and turned toward the pool. “You will remember this day, Tyoga Weathersby. What you have begun today can only be ended by me. You will never know when or where.”

Tyoga could hear the joyous laughter when Tes Qua and Sunlei jumped in the pool when they thought that Seven Arrows had left them in peace to enjoy the rest of the day. The three frolicked together secure in the special bond of friendship their shared encounter with Seven Arrows served to strengthen.

After a while Tes Qua asked, “Is anyone getting hungry?”

“Yeah. A gi yo si,”
(I could eat.)
Tyoga replied.

“I have some berries in my pouch. Let’s catch some fish and have lunch,” Sunlei said.

“Sure.” Tyoga pushed her toward the shore. “Tes Qua, you start the fire. I’ll get the fish.”

The cool clear water enveloped his body when he propelled himself toward the bottom of the pool where schools of perch darted about like flocks of sparrows. His ears began to ring with the sound of Sunlei’s cries when he recalled breaching the surface with two perch wriggling at the end of his makeshift lance.

After throwing his lance to the shore, he jumped out of the water and ran to where Sunlei was kneeling in her brother’s arms. Tes Qua looked up at Tyoga with sad, confused eyes while he wrapped his other arm around Sunlei.

Under the stone that Seven Arrows had raised above his head to fling down at Tyoga were the crushed remains of the five baby ducks. Resting next to the nest was the mother hen, her decapitated head nowhere to be seen.

His ears burned with the sound of Seven Arrows’s cruel laughter echoing in his head.

The snapping of the cross-stays was violent and sudden. Tyoga planted both heels in the soft earth of the trail, and strained to keep the sled from pitching Tes Qua to the ground. It was the second time that he had fallen to his knees. He steadied himself and slowly lowered the travois to the ground. The sudden jerking awakened Tes Qua.

“E s gi ne hv si.”
(I’m thirsty.)
Tes Qua struggled to get the words out of his parched mouth and cracking lips.

“I’ll get you some water, Tes. Hold on.”

When Tyoga returned from the stream, Tes Qua had passed out again. He lifted his friend’s head and gave him a drink of the cool water. Through eyes dulled by fatigue and pain, Tes Qua looked at Tyoga with a stare that focused far away. All he said was, “Da gi y ‘we ga.”
(I’m tired)
His eyes closed. His body went limp.

Time was growing short.

The repairs to the travois were easy to make, and within minutesTyoga was once again straining to pull his friend to safety.

It was the middle of the night, when the woods grow cold and dark. Successful predators had eaten and gone to sleep. Those that had not were still on the hunt and desperate for food.

The blisters on Tyoga’s hands had burst hours ago, and now they were bleeding. His hands were on fire. His right moccasin was gone. The wound on his thigh had started bleeding again. Somewhere along the trail, the trapper’s knife had fallen out from his belt. He was alone, injured, and defenseless.

Still, he marched on.

He lifted his feet in mechanical repetition without feeling them plant and propel him forward. His mind wandered back to those cool autumn nights when he used to huddle close to the fireplace in his family’s South Henge cabin to listen to the stories his father would tell him and his brother, Davy, about Grandpa Joshia Weathersby.

Filled with the many hardships his grandfather endured bringing his young family across the ocean to settle in an untamed New World, his stories rooted the Weathersbys to the land, and solidified their longstanding relationship with the Ani-Unwiya. They explained the deeper truth that bound the young boys’ lives together. The relationship between their two families had been built upon a foundation rooted in ancestral honor, courage and brotherhood.

Tyoga would honor that tradition—or die trying.

Chapter 8

Rescued

T
yoga awoke to the cackling shrieks of fussy morning crows. Sometime during the night, exhaustion had finally overcome the young man. He didn’t remember stopping. He didn’t remember placing the sled on a bed of moss, nor curling up along side his bloodied friend and passing out.