Talking Leaves

by Joseph Bruchac

  What happened next was not better. It took him farther from us.

  What next happened was the war.

  I look over at my peaceful father, smiling as he looks up so intently at the clouds moving east over our heads that it seems as if he is trying to find some message in them. It is so hard for me to imagine him as a warrior, as someone fighting and killing other people. And not just any people—other Indians.

  Killing Indians was what that war was about.

  I’m not sure that any of our Tsalagi people expected back then that they would ever go to war again. We had made solemn promises to the Americans that we would never fight the white men again. But then a call was sent out by Gunundalegi, the One Who Follows the Ridge, one of our major leaders.

  “Fighting men are needed,” the Ridge said. “The Red Stick Creeks to the south of us are fighting the Americans. The great white general of the Americans, Sharp Knife Jackson, has asked for our help. All able-bodied Tsalagi men should volunteer. If we help the Americans win this war, then they are not likely to take any more of our land.”

  The Ridge’s words made sense. If our people were useful allies, perhaps we would be left alone by the white men. They would see us as civilized people and not savages.

  So it was that many able-bodied men did join up.

  I think no one would have blamed Sequoyah if he had stayed home. He was far from able-bodied. That one leg of his was so lame that he could not walk far without pain. But my father was one of the first to volunteer. Despite that leg, he could ride a horse as well as any man. He became a private in the Mounted and Foot Cherokees, a regiment of five hundred men.

  My father never spoke to me about his experiences in that brief, bloody war. I wish that he would talk to me about it. I’d especially like to know about the great battle at Horseshoe Bend that ended the Red Stick War. Both of my uncles were there, too. But neither of them ever talked at length about it either.

  “The sun shone that day,” is the most my uncle Red Bird would ever say whenever I asked him.

  And my uncle Big Hawk just says, “It was a hard fight.”

  If my father did talk about it, I know he would say more than that. And he would say it well. Everyone knows how good a speaker he is. Whatever he says, he says it clearly and well. Until people became suspicious about his obsession with those strange markings, he was often asked to be an emissary and represent our people.

  I look over at my father. His eyes are closed now. What is he thinking about? Is he asleep? How can he be so restful, so peaceful, when we are threatened every day by the white men who want what is left of our land.

  He must know that even better than I do. After all, he was one of those chosen by our chiefs to speak for us in 1816 at the Chickasaw Council House Meeting. There our people met with the same powerful white man, Sharp Knife Jackson, who asked for our help and then said he would be our friend forever. But it seems that “forever” to General Andrew Jackson was not even three years. Despite everything my father said, despite the protests of all our Tsalagi delegates, Jackson was as hard as stone. The proposal that my father and the others were given to take back to our National Council was not in our favor. It demanded that we give up more land in Alabama.

  I shake my head at the thought of General Jackson. Our people saved his life in that war against the Red Stick Creeks. But now that he is a leader of the Ani-yonega, all he wants to do is remove every Indian from the South.

  Maybe it is true what some of our Tsalagi elders now say. Maybe Sharp Knife Jackson really is the Devil, that same evil deceiver the missionaries talk about.

  I am sitting forward now with my head in my hands and my eyes closed. No, no! I do not want to think of General Jackson. It is just making me sad. I don’t want to think about our being driven from our homeland. I want to learn something useful from my father. Perhaps he’ll show me more about carving. Perhaps . . .

  “ Tsula,” my father says. “Fox.”

  I turn to look at him. He is no longer resting back against the stream bank with his eyes closed. He has sat up and picked up a stick. He is making marks with it in the clay of the riverbank.

  “,” he says slowly as he draws a straight line down and then curves it up like a hook. “Tsu.”

  More of those strange markings? I do not need to hear more about them now. Anything but that.

  “Edoda?” I say in a soft voice. “Father?”

  There’s no response. He just marks another shape. It is one I have seen before. The one that looks like a big English W. “,” he says. “La.”

  “?” I repeat

  My father grins. “Yes. Now look at this.”

  He makes another mark in the clay. Now there are three shapes. And to my surprise, they look familiar to me.

  “,” he says, pointing with his stick to the first one, the one that resembles a big G. “Tsa.”

  “.” The W shape again. “La.”

  “.” A mark like an English Y. “Gi.”

  “ Tsalagi?” It’s the name of our people. “,” I repeat. I can actually see and hear a pattern. And for the first time I find myself getting excited about it.

  “Wait,” I say, putting my finger on the shape that resembles a G. “Isn’t this one the sign, for another sound? For “Lo?”

  My father chuckles. “Your memory is good, but your eyes are fooling you. Look.”

  Then he draws the two signs next to each other and I can see that they are alike but different.

  I’ve picked up another stick. “,” I say, drawing that Y shape. “Gi.”

  My father draws a sign like an upside down J next to it. “,” he says. “Li.”

  “-? !” It’s our word for dog. I now see it in my mind as clearly as if it was an actual picture of a dog.

  I look at my father, that same quiet smile is on his lips that is almost always there. But the light in his eyes seems brighter. He can see how excited I am.

  “Edoda,” I say before I can stop myself, “Father! You’re not crazy!”

  It’s a foolish thing to say, I know. But I mean something more that that. What I mean is that I now understand my father better than I have ever understood him before.

  And he knows what I mean. The small smile on my father’s face becomes a little broader and he nods.

  “Ah,” he says, “I am glad to hear that. I was worried about myself for a while.”

  Then he lets loose a deep belly laugh. And I am laughing with him. I wrap my arms around my father, almost lifting him off the ground. He embraces me and almost falls as he places his weight too much on his weak leg. But I hold on to him, helping him keep his balance as we stumble around together, half dancing, there on the banks of the stream, our feet making their own markings in the red clay.

  We just keep laughing and laughing.

  And if anyone were to see us right now they would know for sure that the both of us certainly are crazy.

  CHAPTER 13

  I Agree

  When we have finally finished laughing, we sit back down together on the bank of the stream. My father and I look at the shapes he drew, symbols that now talk to me as clearly as spoken words. It is hard to find words to express what is now in my heart.

  Sequoyah looks over at me and nods. He knows how I feel. But we both also know what far too many others feel about the work he has been doing.

  He picks up the stick that he drew those symbols with and begins to scratch it across those carefully drawn shapes in the red mud.

  “We shouldn’t leave these where someone may come across them. At best, it might just confuse them. At worst, it might frighten them. It might frighten them so much that they’d do something foolish.”

  I remember how my friends reacted.

  “Hawa!” I say. “You are right.”

  I pick up another stick to help him. Soon every symbo
l has vanished back into the moist earth.

  When we are done, my father smiles that gentle smile of his again at me. But this time, there seems to be something else in his expression. It is sadness.

  “Do you know,” he says in a soft voice, “the story of what happened before I left for Arkansas? The story of what my wife and neighbors did to save me from my. . . craziness?”

  I nod my head. He is speaking of the time I have already mentioned when my stepmother and his neighbors burned his cabin and all of the markings he had made.

  I nod. “Yes, I have heard about that.”

  “Good. Have you heard also about the way I acted that day? How I did not try to save the work I’d done? How I did not cry or moan?”

  I nod my head again.

  My father puts his arm around my shoulders and looks down again at the clean bank of red clay that had once been covered with his markings.

  “It is hard,” he said, “when people do not understand. It broke my heart to know that my own wife and my best friends thought I was crazy and that they had to save me from myself. But what good would it have done for me to weep or complain? Sometimes the face that we show the world must not mirror what we feel inside.”

  My father squeezes my shoulder. “I think you know that, my son. Your face is much like my own.”

  I nod my head a third time, knowing that my face at this moment is far from blank, but mirroring the pride I am feeling. I have never felt closer to my father or prouder about being his son.

  “There was another reason I did not mourn the loss of all that work I’d done,” my father continues. His voice has changed. It’s charged with excitement. “Have you ever followed a new trail and come to a place where you can go no longer? Perhaps to a river too wide to cross, a cliff too steep to climb?”

  “Yes,” I say, even though I am not sure what this has to do with the story.

  Sequoyah slaps his hands together as if wiping dust from them and then holds out both palms. “Uh-huh! That is where I was before my cabin was burned. All the work I had done, trying to make a new shape for every word in our language, had brought me to a place where I could go no further. But when it was all burned, it was as if it showed me a new path, a way that was no longer blocked. It was not all of our words that I had to make symbols for! It was our sounds!”

  Now I am a little lost. And though as my father said, I am good at not showing my emotions, I do not try to hide my confusion from him.

  My father sees that and nods. “I am going too fast now. Forgive me, my son.” He strokes his chin with two fingers. “I need to go back in my story. Then you may understand it better. There is much to tell.”

  A small sound comes from the forest behind us, the snapping of a twig. It might be a deer. Then again, it might not. It might be someone following us and listening, someone looking for proof that my father truly is doing black magic. I am glad we wiped those marks from the clay before we left the river.

  My father looks in the direction of that sound and shakes his head.

  “But I will not tell it here. One never knows when someone may be listening.” He smiles and there is certainly sadness in his smile this time. “Even though everything I have done has been meant to help our people, there are very few here who understand that. They are so lost in their fear of bad medicine and witchcraft, that they think what I am doing has hurt them.”

  He rolls his shoulders as if to loosen them after carrying too heavy a load and then sighs. “So let us walk on, my son, back to my wife’s cabin. Are you hungry?” He pats his stomach. “I know that I am. There was a pot of squirrel stew cooking when I left home and Ahyokah was going out to gather ramps. So a fine meal should be ready by the time we get there. Eat first and then talk. Would you like that?”

  I’ve already tasted Sally Guess’s cooking, which is almost as good as my mother’s. So I have no doubt that the stew will be delicious. And ramps are my favorite spring green.

  I start to say yes, but my stomach growls before I can do so.

  “Ah,” my father chuckles, “so there are three of us who agree. You and me and your belly.” He holds up a hand and I grasp his wrist. We stand there for a moment, grasping each other’s wrists. And as we do so it comes to me that my life has changed. I am ready to learn whatever my father wishes to teach me. From this point on, wherever he leads, his path will be mine.

  “Osdadu?” he says.

  “Osdadu,” I agree. It is fine.

  And then, side by side, we walk together.

  CHAPTER 14

  Leaves That Talk

  Just as my father promised, the pot of stew is waiting when we reach the cabin. But not the ramps. Nor are Sally Guess and Ahyokah there. They must still be gathering those spring greens. The only one waiting for us in the cabin is Wesa, Sally’s gray cat. It wraps itself around my legs as if I was its best friend.

  Although I miss having those ramps, I am glad that my stepmother and sister are not here. Whatever my father wants to share with me will be told differently. If I am the only one listening, he’ll be telling it just for me.

  First, though, we eat. Then the two of us, our stomachs full, go out onto the porch and sit side by side. Wesa comes out to leap into my lap, curl up, and purr contentedly. I have always been liked by cats. They are another creature brought by the Aniyonega that we Tsalagi have taken into our lives. And in return those cats keep our houses and barns and granaries free of mice and rats.

  My father takes out his pipe, carefully fills it, lights it, and lets out a long puff of smoke. He watches that smoke drift away on the breeze toward the sunset land, the same direction he traveled when he left us.

  “Edoda,” I say, “what is it like in Arkansas?”

  My father nods. “Ah,” he says. “In some ways, it is very good. The land by the river is good for planting. Hills there are rolling and covered with trees. It was easy to find logs to build a cabin, not like here where the best trees have all been cut. And all the animals have not yet been killed or driven away by the white men. There are big herds of deer, great flocks of geese on the lakes. And there are bears in those rolling hills. And there is plenty of room for everyone.”

  Then he shakes his head. “But that does not mean things are perfect there. There are other Indians who were already there, Osages. They think all of that land is their own and they resent our being there. I am afraid that if many more of our people go west, those Osages may end up fighting us. But we may have no choice. If things go as Jackson and other greedy Ani-yonega want, then we will have to leave our land here whether we wish to or not.”

  My father looks at his empty pipe, then puts it into his pocket. “That is one of the reasons I decided to go to Arkansas. I wanted to see what that land was like. I wanted to help prepare things for the rest of our people to go there if we were finally forced to leave our homeland.”

  I think about my father’s words. I do not want to leave our home. This place is all I’ve ever known and like all of our people, I would choose to stay here. But what if that choice ends up being made for us?

  Sequoyah looks over at me.

  “Tell me,” he says, “what do you want to do with your life?”

  The question surprises me. I don’t answer right away. I stroke my fingers along Wesa’s back, feeling his purring in my hands as much as I hear it.

  “I want to make things,” I say.

  “Ah,” he says. “As do I.”

  I think he is about to start talking about blacksmithing or working silver. Maybe he will take me out to his shop and show me something the way he just showed me how to use that wood-carving knife. But he does not. Instead, he starts a story.

  “Long ago, Edoda, the great Creator, made the first book. That is what some people say. Then he gave that book to us, to the Principal People. It was right that we should have that book, for we were the strongest p
eople back then. Because we were given that book, the gift of reading and writing was ours.

  “But what happened next is that a white man came along. He saw that book and he wanted it, just as the white men today still want everything that we have. That white man was not stronger than us, but he was more clever.

  “‘Why do you need that book?’ the white man said. “‘Can it help you to hunt or defend your families? It is nothing but pieces of paper and black markings that crawl across those pieces of paper like ants. Look at what I have. I have a bow and arrow. You can use it to bring home game. You can defeat your enemies with the bow and arrow. I will trade you this bow and arrow for that useless book.’

  “Our people listened to that white man. They believed his words. They took the bow and arrow and gave him the book. And so it is to this day. To this day, reading and writing belongs to the Aniyonega and not the Aniyunwiya.”

  He pulls out his pipe, refills it with tobacco and lights it. Then he looks over it at me.

  “You have heard that story?” he asks.

  “Yes,” I say. “I have.”

  My father makes a circle in the air with his pipe. “I doubt you have heard that story as many times as I have heard it. At one time or another it seems as if everyone who knows me told me that story. Each of them hoped it would prove to me how foolish I was when I said we should be able to write our own language. They all believed that reading and writing belonged to the Aniyonega, not to us.”

  He shakes his head.

  “I have always listened to stories,” he says. “Most stories have much to teach us. Stories can help us understand much. But some stories are like that one I just told.”

  “How is that, Father?”

  He lifts his hand and waves away the cloud of smoke hovering in front of him. “They are not solid. Like this smoke, there is nothing to them. They were made up to explain something that could not be understood. Yet that story, even if it is one that was just made up, could have great meaning if it was told properly.”