The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby (26 page)

Since announcing his impending departure at the meeting in the council lodge, Tyoga had made himself scarce. His rebuke at not being encouraged to stay among the People after Sunlei’s departure was a painful reminder that he was indeed a brother to the Ani-Unwiya, but not a son. Although he had lived among the People all of his life and was accepted as a member of the tribe, no Cherokee blood ran through his veins. His color, build, and cultural heritage were barriers too conspicuous to be erased by ceremony or time. He had made camp on an overlook from which he could see Sunlei’s lodge. The People could see his campfire burning brightly in the night sky.

Alone in the wilderness, with Wahaya by his side, he thought of the journey that had brought him to this place and time.

He recalled that day with his papa so long ago when he stood on Carter’s Rock on a chilly summer morn and he saw the beams of sunlight that exploded from the peaks to the east to fuse with his soul and lift him from the confines of time and place.

The wonder of suddenly knowing.

That precious moment released him from the burden of questioning why and filled him with the intuitive truth that the answer made no difference at all. The knowing freed him from the imprisonment of doubt, uncertainty, and fear. The liberating wisdom permitted unfettered action and uncompromised certainty.

Why have I been chosen to receive the promise?

Events in his life had unfolded so that the distinction between gift and curse had been more than marginally blurred.

What sense does it make for my journey to unfold so that the woman I love should be taken away from me by an adversary whose life has inexplicably intersected with mine in such devastating ways?

His faint smile revealed the awareness that he had caught himself asking “why?” He chuckled and whispered out loud, “The answer makes no difference at all.”

He remembered the horrific night on the escarpment when he very nearly died saving the life of his brother Tes Qua Ta Wa. He shivered when he looked upon the mighty beast lying so docilely at his side and recalled the moment that the gift was given to him on that fateful night. He understood that he had been chosen to receive the power from Wahaya-Wacon, but he struggled still to understand the hand that had guided the melding of their souls. He reached out and gently touched the wolf’s left shoulder.

The wolf picked his majestic head up off of his enormous forepaws and turned to reassuringly gaze into Tyoga.

Tyoga remembered growing up wild and free with the Ani-Unwiya and running naked through the woods with Sunlei and Tes Qua, White Wolf, and Four Bears. They had all grown into young adults. The joys and dreams of childhood had been sobered with age and tempered by experience.

The loss of loved ones. Hearts broken as puppy love crushes yield to the caprice of emotions as unpredictable as the flight of a feather in the wind.

That moment when Sunlei floated so lightly in his arms in the swimming hole was the first time that he noticed that she was leaving behind those things of childhood and accepting nature’s call to focus on those inescapable demands that herald the advent of womanhood. The eyes reflecting his own were that of a woman. He recalled the loss of his tomboy friend. That brief exchange of a knowing glance changed their relationship forever.

He thought about Prairie Day. Her eyes reflected a part of him that he did not see in Sunlei’s eyes. She radiated an unyielding confidence in the rightness of his words and deeds; like an adoring mother reassuring a reticent child, her gaze unerringly filled him with the confidence he needed to succeed, conquer, and command. She was a remarkably strong woman whose maturity anchored him in ways that Sunlei could not. That she loved him was beyond question.

His fists clenched and his jaw tightened with the realization that circumstances had conspired to spiral his life out of control and strip away from him the independence and self-reliance that had defined him as a man. Like a flock of doves whose course is determined by the prevailing winds, his destiny was being determined by the unpredictable villainy of a single man determined to do him harm.

How is it that everything that has come to pass has been so closely linked to Seven Arrows? Why were his brothers among the warriors chasing me and Sunlei on Old Mount Rag? Why was it my camp that Seven Arrows stumbled upon on that gray cold morning along the Rapidan? Why is it me, so in tune with the ways of the natural world, being inexorably guided down this destructive path that will only end in heartache, loneliness, and despair?

He stood, raised his arms to the heavens, and released an anguished cry that filled the mountain tops, echoed off of the canyon walls, and descended into the village as a melancholy pall foreshadowing the events to come.

Tyoga listened to his own voice die away as it was consumed by distance, time, and indifferent dismissal. When there was nothing left but the sound of the whispering wind in the pines, he dropped his arms to his side and bowed his head in dismay. He stood for a long time. When he sat back down, he found that Wahaya was no longer lying down, but was sitting erect and looking up at the moon. Tyoga reached out to reconnect with the primal energy of the wolf.

Sitting side by side, the wolf was a full head taller than Tyoga.

He dropped his hand into his lap, looked up at the wolf, and said, “Wahaya-Wacon. What more do you know? Tell me what to do.”

Wahaya-Wacon stopped gazing up at the moon, and looked down into Tyoga’s eyes. The power of his stare startled Tyoga for a moment, but the calm of the quiet knowing transcended the wolf’s momentary position of dominance and command. His eyes stayed riveted to the wolf’s golden-brown eyes. Falling ever deeper into the abyss, he surrendered to their spell as the warmth of knowing washed his senses free and cleansed the confusion that muddles reason and paralyzes action in the chains of second guesses.

Tyoga closed his eyes and heard a whisper in a voice so tranquil that he knew it wasn’t his own say. “You know what to do. We will not let this stand. Together, we will find a way.”

With his head still cocked toward the heavens, he heard his own voice say out loud, “I know what to do. This time—the ‘why’ matters. This time—the answer makes a difference.”

With his eyes still closed, he reached out to touch Wahaya.

He opened his eyes to see his hand flailing in the blackness of the night.

Wahaya was gone.

Sitting alone on the outcropping, Tyoga shook his head and said, “I know.”

Chapter 28

Farewell, My Love

T
he outcropping upon which Tyoga had made his camp was about a half mile to the southeast—and a quarter mile straight up—from the site Seven Arrows and his band of Shawnee Braves had chosen for their campsite. They had set up camp within earshot of the village because they wanted the People to hear their jubilation at the horror they were to visit upon them in three days time.

When they heard Tyoga’s anguished scream in the night, they looked up toward the outcropping and began to joke with one another saying that the cry was probably Tyoga making love to Sunlei for the last time. That they could make light of such a thing days before they were to take Sunlei away from the only home she had ever known laid bare their cold, callused hearts.

The agonizing thought that she would be separated from her family and friends, perhaps forever, was of no concern to Seven Arrows. What filled his spirit with a soaring joy was the knowledge that she would be torn from the arms of his unconquerable adversary, Tyoga Weathersby. She was the most beautiful woman in all of Appalachia, and she was to spend the rest of her days pleasuring him in ways that only Tyoga had known.

It was a tremendous coup for Seven Arrows and the Shawnee. He was going to relish every moment.

The whiskey Seven Arrows and his party had traded for with some French trappers they met along the way to Tuckareegee was taking its toll on their judgement and behavior. With whiskey-induced bravado, one of the braves screamed into the night, “Sunlei, we have brought many gifts for you.”

As laughter and war cries echoed from their campsite in the valley below the village, Seven Arrow’s voice could be heard above the rest, “Don’t be sad, my Little One, soon you will know the joys of a real man being inside of you. I hope you are saving yourself for me. I do not wish you to be covered with the stench of that dog-man Tyoga Weathersby.”

At this, one of the braves fired a rifle shot into the air and the war cries and screams reached a fever pitch.

“Maybe you do not wish to wait to begin your new life as a Shawnee squaw,” another voice screamed. “Maybe we will come and take you now.” Another rifle shot shattered the night air.

The icy howl of the wolf descended from the mountains and engulfed the partying band of Shawnee braves with a sombering dispatch. The sound was not terrifying in the way that it had paralyzed Seven Arrows at the campsite at the confluence. This call did not penetrate their bodies with a quaking resonance borne of proximity and mass. This call was hauntingly plaintive and eerily prescient.

While the first howl’s echo was dying in the distance, the second crescendoed through the night blanketing the Shawnee’s camp with a decree that ordered quiet and demanded peace. The Shawnee looked up from the valley floor toward the Ani-Unwiya village. Their eyes were drawn farther up the mountainside to the billowing flames from the outcropping where Tyoga had made his camp. Without saying a word, they put down their weapons, corked the whiskey bottle, and gathered quietly around their fire.

At the sound of the doleful howl, Tes Qua and Sunlei stepped outside of their family’s lodge into the cool night air. They, too, gazed up at the overlook where Tyoga’s fire lit up the night sky. It was a clear night and the heavens were filled with stars and a smiling crescent moon bejeweled the northern sky.

Tes Qua put his arm around his sister and held her close to him.“Wahaya-Wacon is up there with Tyoga, isn’t he, Tes A?”

“They are never far apart, Little One,” he replied. “I suspect that they are together now.”

“Will you take me to him, Tes?” Sunlei peered up into her brother’s tired eyes.

“Are you sure that you want to go, Sunlei?” her brother asked. “Tyoga has separated himself from the village for a reason. Do you think that it is the right thing to do?”

“I know why he has stayed away. I understand.” Sunlei was rolling a small stone on the ground with the toes of her left foot. She threw her gaze toward the fire lighting the tall pines that framed the outcropping. “Tes A, Tyoga told me that he will be leaving before the Shawnee take me away. Maybe he will leave tomorrow morning. This may be the last night that we will ever have the chance to be together. Take me there, my brother. Please.”

It was only about an hour’s climb to Tyoga’s campsite, but the trail was steep and traveling in the dark slowed them down. It took them about two hours to reach the outcropping.

As they approached the camp they could see Tyoga, wrapped in a buffalo robe, seated alone by the fire. When he saw them approach, he sprang to his feet and raced toward Sunlei.

Bounding toward him with unbridled emotion that erupted into squeals of delight, she threw herself into the air to land in the embrace of his loving arms. Burying her face into his chest and neck she cried and laughed uncontrollably while he smothered her head and face with hard kisses of impassioned urgency that knew no bounds. With a yearning more demanding than expressed by a kiss, she wrapped her legs around his waist and painted his neck and chin and cheeks with her mouth and lips as if tasting his manhood would extinguish her need.

Consuming her scent, he inhaled the heady musk from her hair and savored the sweet salty sweat from her brow filling his senses with her carnal bouquet. He held her so tightly that she could barely breathe and still she was not close enough.

Placing her feet on the ground, she gazed deeply into the eyes of the only man she had ever loved. She examined his face the way a mother lovingly searches her child’s countenance for nuanced truth. She smiled at his futile attempt to conceal himself from her, and seared his image into her brain.

She had stopped crying and her eyes reflected the stars and the image of the crescent moon.

Without saying a word, she took Tyoga by the hand and led him toward the shelter. She stopped to allow Tyoga to pull the hide flap aside before she stepped in.

Tyoga turned to Tes Qua, nodded, and followed her inside.

Tes Qua went back to the lodge alone. It was after midnight when Sunlei rolled out of Tyoga’s arms to spoon in his loving embrace. Naked, warm and satisfied, she listened to him breathing for several minutes before giving him the lover’s nudge and asking, “Are you awake?”

Tyoga took a deep breath and responded, “I am now. What is it, Little One.”

“My cousin, Walks Alone, is coming to see me.”

“Walks Alone is coming here?” Tyoga asked propping himself up on his elbow.

“Yes. He wants to see me before …” She did not finish her thought.

“That’s great news,” Tyoga replied.

Sunlei rolled over so that she was facing him. “Great news?”

“We haven’t seen Walks Alone for a long time and it will be good to see him again.”

Sunlei wondered at his enthisiasm for reconnecting with Walks Alone, but other matters were more pressing so she left it alone.

“Sunlei,” Tyoga said, “stay with me until he gets here.”

“I should be with my family, Ty,” Sunlei replied, but quickly added, “but I want to stay here with you. I just can’t stand staying in my father’s lodge listening to those Shawnee dogs camped below.” She paused for a moment, rolled on her back and gazed up at the ceiling of the lean-to. “Yes,” she replied. “Yes, I will stay here with you.”

Tyoga rolled her into his arms and held her close to him for a long time. “We will move my camp today.”

“Why, Tyoga? Why do we need to move.”

“At the council I told the people of Tuchareegee that I would leave the mountains and never return. Now that we can stay together for two more days, I do not wish them to think that I have not kept my word. The People—and Seven Arrows—must think that I have left the mountains. They must not see my fire at night, or any movement during the day. It must be as if I have disappeared.”