The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby

by H L Grandin

  Stunning, she took his breath away

  It was no wonder at all that the Chiefs of the tribes from the Great Lakes to Georgia had tried in vain to broker a deal with Nine Moons for his daughter’s hand in marriage to their first born sons. That no union had been forged with one of the propsective suitors was not for lack of trying by Nine Moons. Sunlei was adamant and would not be swayed. She would not be given as chattle to one she did not—and could never—love. Her heart, her future, and that of her children was with Tyoga.

  Tyoga understood that Sunlei was prized by the Indian nations for more than her beauty, and that her continued rejection of powerful suitors may one day set the stage for taking by force that which they could not obtain in trade.

  The temperature dropped rapidly as the sun set, and Tyoga stoked the fire into a roaring blaze. Enjoying the astonishing view of the heavens, they wrapped themselves in a single blanket to share their body heat before the fire.

  There was no moon, and the stars lit up the night sky with a brilliance untarnished by the natural world. They pointed out the constellations—the same stellar patterns described for millenia by the Babylonians, the Aztec, and the Egyptians—and retold the stories they had heard dozens of times while gathered around the fire in the village’s long lodge. They wondered at the clearness of the night when the bowl of the big dipper became filled with so many stars that its outline was lost in the celestial bounty.

  In the hollows below, two owls teased with gentle enticements of the carnal pleasures to be had just a short glide away.

  Sunlei rested her head on Tyoga’s shoulder. She was content—and tired—and at peace.

  Tyoga took her face in his hands and looked deep into her eyes. Before he had a chance to say a word, Sunlei threw her arms around his neck and hungrily drew his lips to her own. They kissed long and hard with an animal passion that had been caged for far too long. Sunlei’s tears of joy salted their kisses with an acrid tinge that electrified their tongues and prepared them in other ways for what was to come.

  They had saved themselves for one another far beyond the cultural norms of the Cherokee way. Many of Sunlei’s friends were spoken for, promised, or married. Any of three understandings was license enough for couples to consumate the arrangements.

  That Tyoga had not been more sexually demanding with Sunlei was a subject discussed around many an Uni-Unwiya lodge fire. But there was an understanding among the Cherokee that their ways were not always shared with the white world; and ever since Tyoga’s battle with the Runion wolves, he was allowed a degree of respect that would not permit ridicule of any kind.

  Sunlei got up, threw one leg over Tyoga’s crossed legs, and straddled him where he sat on the deerskin mat. She kissed his lips, his cheeks, his forehead and his neck, but quickly returned to his mouth where their tongues could explore the mysteries of their desire. Slowly unlacing his deerskin frock, she pulled it over his head, and tossed it to the side. She stood upright and lifted her doeskin tunic to her thighs. Swaying seductively, she reached down and grabbed the hem to pull it over her head, but stopped and let it fall back into place when she heard the rustling in the underbrush.

  Sunlei wasn’t a skittish camper by any means. Used to the sounds of the night, she was as comfortable sleeping in the open air surrounded by the old growth forest as in her father’s lodge. Being a seasoned Appalachian traveler, she too recognized the rhythms of the night. The danger from a step carefully placed to maintain cover concealed a threat more grave than that betrayed by the errant snap of a dried pine branch.

  “Ty,” she said with a whispered urgency.

  “Yeah, I heard it. Seems we ain’t alone up here,” he replied in a conversational tone incongruent with her level of concern.

  She knelt back down next to Tyoga and he drew her near. Pulling a blanket around her shoulders, she nestled herself close to Tyoga’s chest. They listened quietly—not moving—barely breathing. A few yards away, behind a boulder, they heard three steps, lithely placed, seemingly meant to avoid disturbance rather than conceal presence, followed by the clumsy placement of a fourth step that slid into place rather than set.

  Sunlei felt Tyoga’s body relax. She saw the tension in the set of his jaw disappear.

  He had his arm around her and he shook her gently. “Don’t be afraid, Little One. Wahaya is here with us.”

  She looked around hestitantly. “Where is he, Ty? Close?”

  Tyoga flicked his chin in the direction of boulder and said, “He’s over there. Quiet now. He don’t mean no harm.”

  Carried upon the gentle updrafts from the south, the call of a lone wolf, filled their campsite with its doleful petition. It was a long, mournful call. Pleading. Passive. Comforting in its solitude. A second wolf answered from the northwest. The cry was the same tone, pitch, and duration. It was somehow a reassuring sound—not unlike the midnight watchman’s cry of “All’s well.”

  As the cries collided and echoed off of the granite parapets and along the valley streams below, Tyoga felt Sunlei relax in his arms. She understood.

  “Ty, what do you think he wants? What is he going to do?”

  “I don’t know what he wants,” he replied. “But he won’t hurt us. I know he won’t hurt us.”

  Sitting on the deerhide with her legs crossed, Sunlei thought about his assessment of the wolf’s presence. After several minutes she said with some measure of authority, “Ty, chase him away. I want you to chase him away from here. I don’t want him here with us tonight.”

  Reaching across her, Tyoga pulled a strip of deer jerky from their knapsack. “No, Sunlei. I won’t chase my brother away. He will keep his distance and guard us while we sleep. Funny though—” Knowing that her natural curiosity wouldn’t allow her not to challenge the open ended pause, he stopped.

  “Funny? What’s funny?”

  “He doesn’t get this close when I have someone with me. He usually stays far enough away to keep out of sight.”

  Sunlei said, “Well if he is going to stay, you make him stay behind that rock.” She noticed the little smile begin to brighten up his eyes in that mischievous way that she found so endearing. She asked more than demanded this time, “Will he stay behind the rock?”

  “It’s not up to me, Sunlei,” Tyoga said. “He goes his own way. He’s never shown himself to anyone but me. Are you afraid?”

  “No. I was, but I don’t think that I am now. I feel … safe.”

  “Shhh. Look.”

  From out of the blackness, the wolf’s head and front legs rounded the boulder. He stepped into the light of the fire. The silver hairs that punctuated his thick winter fur reflected the firelight, and created an effervescent radiance that gave his body an other-worldly glow. He held his head high and erect. His stance was commanding; like an emperor dethroned, he would give no orders. His eyes were brilliantly alive, but deferential. They flashed with a reserved confidence in an as of yet untested ally. He sniffed the air and looked to the north.

  He fixed his eyes on Sunlei.

  His stare was so intense and purposeful that she gasped.

  Tyoga’s armed tightened around her shoulders. “It’s okay.”

  The wolf focused his stare from Sunlei to Tyoga.

  “O-si-yo, Wahaya.” (Hello, wolf) “O-sti-nu-ga-wi. As-shi-no.” (You can stay. Sit down.)

  The wolf cocked his head, and looked back towards Sunlei. He took two careful steps towards them, and his whole body emerged from behind the rock. Though battered and slightly lame, he was still a magnificent creature.

  Sunlei stared in disbelief at his majesty. “Ty,” she said with a tone of awe in her voice. “I had no idea. How did you …”

  “Shhh. Let him be. Let’s let him be. He’s never shown himself to anyone but me before. He’s got somethin’ in mind. Let’s just let him be a minute.”

  The night was completely still. The night birds stayed their nervous chatter. The crickets quelled their incessant buzz. The fire stopped spitting ash. Nothi
ng moved.

  Tyoga’s eyes lit with the spark of an idea. “Sunlei, I’m gonna take the blanket off of us. Don’t move. Just sit still. Let’s let him get a good look at us.”

  “Ha-wa,” she replied.

  The wolf tensed and stepped back when Tyoga slowly removed the blanket from around them. “It’s okay, Ditlihi. It’s only us.”

  Emboldened by the wolf holding his ground, Sunlei sat up on her knees and leaned towards the tentative animal. Reversing his slow retreat, he stepped closer to the fire. He sniffed the air again, and sat down two steps away from them.

  Tyoga wrapped the blanket around the two of them. “He’s okay, Little One.” He picked up a stick and stirred the fire into a gentle, hot burn.

  The wolf stood up, circled twice, and then stopped to face the trail leading up to summit rock from the south. His ears piqued and he sniffed the air. The scent flared his nostrils, and his eyes burned with the sensation of the night. Nervous, anxious, and filled with life, he circled once more and lay down in the direction of the pungent signals that would not let him rest. He turned his massive head to look at them one more time before placing it on his forepaws. He did not close his eyes.

  Tyoga and Sunlei turned their eyes skyward to gaze up the stars.

  “A-silo, gitsi.” She got up and walked into the woods beyond the fire’s light.

  Tyoga watched her emerge from the woods.

  The moonlight danced off of her naked breasts. Her skin glowed in the light of the fire.

  He had prepared their bed and was lying on his back covered with a soft black bearskin blanket.

  Completely at ease with her nakedness, she knelt beside him and giggled when she lifted the blanket to see that he too was naked, and very much ready to forge the bond of a committed couple.

  It was well after midnight before they fell asleep in each other’s arms.

  The Shawnee warriors camped on the overlook down the south trail were still wide awake.

  Chapter 13

  The Spirit Dog

  Tyoga awakened to the first drops of rain and the steel gray skies of a gloomy Appalachian morning. Nestled in the rocky crags of Summit Rock, they had been protected from the light drizzle that preceded the storm. Without the brilliant sunshine that usually flooded the mountain peaks to wake them at dawn, they had slept later than was their usual custom.

  Sunlei was startled awake by Tyoga’s hand covering her mouth. Bringing a finger to his lips, he indicated for her to be quiet. She heard the voices, too. So muffled at first that they were unable to discern any words. As the voices grew louder, they looked at each other with eyes wide with fright. The voices were speaking an Algonquin dialect that while unfamiliar to them both, conveyed a meaning that they clearly understood. Shawnee. Tyoga did not have to explain what it would mean if they were found alone on the summit of Mount Rag by a Shawnee hunting party.

  It would be horrible. Especially for Sunlie.

  The Shawnee had been driven out of the upper Ohio valley by the Iroquois in the 1660s. The Cherokee allowed one clan of the Shawnee to settle in South Carolina to serve as a buffer between them and the Catawba tribe with whom they had been feuding over a political rebuke. Another Shawnee clan was permitted to locate in Tennessee to serve a similar purpose with the Chickasaw. But the Iroquois were fierce warriors and extremely protective of their lands. The transgression that caused them to chase the Shawnee from neighboring territory had never been forgiven, and the Iroquois pursued the Shawnee deep into Cherokee territory. The raids were brutal and cruel. Crops and lodges were destroyed, men and boys were tortured and killed, and the women and girls were taken by the Iroquois to serve as slaves and concubines.

  Because the raids occurred on Cherokee lands, the Amansoquath were quickly drawn into the skirmishes with the Iroquois. Many Cherokee braves died fighting side by side with the Shawnee against the marauding tribe from the north. The bonds of battle secured the peace and friendship between the Shawnee and the Cherokee nations for years.

  In the late 1680s, there was fierce competition between the French and the English for vast tracts of land in the New World. Bribery and treachery were common tools of diplomacy in the claiming of lands. Neither the French nor the English were above pitting tribe against tribe if the outcome suited their purpose.

  In the early 1690s, the Shawnee aligned themselves with the British, and the treaties struck between them were codified with the exchange of money, whiskey, and guns. When commodities for which the English were willing to trade began to lose their caché, the Shawnee devised a plan to acquire a new line of goods for which they were certain the English would gladly trade, Indian women.

  In 1692, while the men of Tessuntee were away on a winter hunting trip, a rogue party of Shawnee dog soldiers raided the village, killed the male children, and captured the women and girls as slaves to trade with the English. The cowardly raid on the unprotected village destroyed any trust or friendship that existed between the Cherokee and the Shawnee. From that day on, the Shawnee took their place alongside the Iroquois as the sworn enemies of the Cherokee nation.

  When Tyoga was certain that the voices he heard were Shawnee, he was frantic to get off the summit of Mount Rag. He had good reason to flee in haste. The Shawnee were fierce warriors, whose cruelty in battle was legendary. War parties were known to fillet captured warriors alive, beginning with their thighs. Their adversaries would die in agony as they watched their captors cook their flesh and dine on it for their evening meals. Those prisoners who endured the savage torture without screaming were rewarded with a quick death after the meal by having their throats cut. Those who could not contain their suffering were left alive—limbs stripped of meat down to the bone—to suffer for hours on end.

  While Tyoga hurriedly kicked sand and dirt on the dying embers in the fire pit, Sunlei put on her doeskin tunic and boots, and gathered up their blankets and supplies.

  When she was getting to her feet, her hand went to her chest to grasp the sacred amulet she wore around her neck. Her eyes were wide with despair when she looked up at him and whispered, “My amulet. Ty, it’s gone. I took it off last night when we—I can’t leave this place without my amulet.” The totems contained in Sunlei’s amulet pouch were powerful medicine. The objects had been given to her at milestones in her life and they were imbued with the power to protect and guide her through life’s journey. To leave without it was unthinkable.

  Tyoga understood its importance. “Where could it be?”

  On her hands and knees, she searched the ground next to where she had slept. “It has to be right here. Ty, help me look. Quickly!” She felt his hand on her shoulder. She looked up into his eyes and he motioned for her look down at the ground. The prints of the commander were clearly stamped into the wet sand next to where she had been sleeping. “Ty, the wolf?”

  The voices and laughter of the Shawnee braves were getting louder. They were rapidly making their way to Summit Rock. Unaware of the prize that awaited them at the summit, they approached the campsite with casual indifference. They were but moments away.

  Leaving all of their supplies behind, Tyoga snatched Sunlei by the wrist and raced from the summit with reckless abandon. They had not gotten a hundred yards down the mountain when they heard the voices of the Shawnee braves replaced with bloodthirsty war cries.

  Discovered, they ran for their lives.

  The light drizzle to which they had awakened was but the harbinger of a fierce storm moving in from the west. As the shower turned into a steady rain, Tyoga could tell that the storm’s intensity was growing rapidly.

  In the mountains, gullies and hollows serve as conduits to channel the force of colliding air masses into winds of unimaginable power. The currents build from the valleys below to pick up speed as atmospheric pressures crush the massive volume of air against the upward slopes of the mountainside. Like tributaries of a mighty river adding their contents to the downstream flow, each ravine contributes its volume in turn until the ton
s of pressure force the wind up and over the mountain peaks in a thunderous roar.

  From the higher elevations, Tyoga could hear the roar begin miles away and thousands of feet below as a sound akin to that of muffled canon fire. They both felt the need to pop their ears. With the pressures bearing down from miles up in the atmosphere, Mount Rag felt like a mountain thousands of feet taller.

  When he heard the first torrent begin its crescendo from below, Tyoga knew that they were only minutes away from being immersed in a power so violent that it would be impossible for them to continue their frantic charge down the mountain. The deafening roar that would engulf them would be so intense that they wouldn’t be able to hear one another no matter how loudly they screamed.

  The Shawnee would face the same challenges.

  With the storm’s help—Tyoga and Sunlei would have a chance. With the wind whipping the trees in violent convulsions to distort direction and distance, and the deafening roar blocking out the sound that gives away prey, they had the cover necessary to make an escape.

  But Tyoga would have to make a bold and daring move.

  The terrain on either side of the trail was rocky, muddy, and terribly steep. If they stayed on the trail, the Shawnee warriors would be sure to overtake them. They would make him watch while they raped and ravaged Sunlei before they tortured him to death. It was too horrific to even contemplate.

  Leaving the trail to brave the naked raw terrain of the mountainside was a risk that he was willing to take.

  They galloped another two hundred yards down the trail, and with an animal-like bound—pulling Sunlei like a soaking blanket—Tyoga dove into the forest to leave the trail behind them.

  The wind let out a thundering roar as it raced towards them at incredible speed.

  Jumping over a downed giant pine, he tucked Sunlei between the ground and the trunk of the tree just as the first blast of wind hit the summit. Like buffalo stampeding over the western plains, the earth shook when the force of the raging wind crushed the tops of thirty-foot saplings to the ground. The explosive fury of massive century old trees cracking in two added a lightening bolt dimension to the violence of the storm. Dirt and leaves filled the air with a blinding shrapnel that disoriented and confused.