Talking Leaves

by Joseph Bruchac

  And that is true. Though my father has not yet explained it completely to me, I believe I understand what can be done with these symbols that represent all the sounds of Tsalagi. If you put them together in the right order you can do more than say anything.

  You can also write anything.

  It is like magic. But it is not really magic of any kind, neither black nor white. It is no more magic than the writing of the Aniyonega. But it is powerful. It is power.

  I look over at my father for permission to take that paper from Ahyokah’s hands. He nods at me. I hold my hand out toward my little sister.

  “Here, brother,” she says, handing me the sheet without any hesitation. My hand is trembling as I reach out. Ahyokah’s eyes meet mine as I grasp that sheet of paper. I read the question in her expression.

  Are we in this together now?

  I bite my lip and nod back at her.

  I feel as if everything, everything in my life is going to be different from this moment on.

  I study the sheet of paper and its powerful markings carefully. Each symbol is clearly different from every other one. They look as if they would be easy to draw, as well, even by someone not as great an artist as Sequoyah.

  “Has my sister learned how to use these?” I ask.

  My father nods. “It took her some time, but she is perfect at them now. She can both write and read them. Watch.”

  He turns to my little sister. “Are you ready?”

  Ahyokah nods, the smile on her face even bigger than before.

  “Then go outside and wait for me to call you.”

  She walks out the door and sits down on the top step, her back still visible but out of earshot.

  “Now,” my father says, “whisper something slowly to me.”

  I lean close. “My name is Uwohali. I am the son of Sequoyah. I am sorry I thought my father was crazy. My little sister knows more than I do.”

  “Good,” my father says, the pen in his hands moving as smoothly across the paper as a fish swimming through clear water, pausing only when he dips the goose quill into the ink. I am not whispering all that slowly, but the symbols easily keep up with my words.

  “Is that all?” my father asks.

  “Yes, no, wait. Write this on the other side.” I whisper another few words that bring a smile to Sequoyah’s face and a chuckle from Sally Guess, who has now come to stand behind his shoulder. He turns the paper over to the other side, adds more symbols there, and then puts down the pen.

  “Come back in,” my father calls.

  Ahyokah darts in, as quickly as Wesa catching sight of a mouse. She takes the paper from my father’s hand and reads it aloud, saying exactly what was written on the front of the page.

  “‘My little sister knows more than I do,’” she reads. Ahyokah looks up at me, a smug smile on her face. “Yes, I certainly do,” she says.

  “There is more,” I say. “Look at the back.”

  Ahyokah turns the sheet over. The self-satisfied look on her face turns into a gasp as she drops the paper to swat at her right shoulder.

  “Oh!” she says. “Oh! Uwohali, you are a bad big brother. There is NOT a big black spider on my right shoulder!”

  She pokes me in the stomach with her hard little fist. I hug her as we both dissolve into laughter, joined by my father and Sally Guess.

  Within this family I cannot think of a time when I have felt happier. But I know there is one thing that will make me happier still. When we have all stopped laughing, I pick up the first sheet of paper, the one paper marked with those eighty-six perfectly drawn symbols that stand for the sounds in our beautiful language.

  “Will you teach me?” I ask my father.

  “I’ve already begun,” he replies.

  CHAPTER 18

  Yugi’s Warning

  I am floating down the river. The current is moving swiftly, carrying me along toward the rapids, but I am not worried. It is not just because I am a good swimmer. It is because I am with my father.

  He nods at me and I nod back at him.

  The two of us are going west in this boat, leaving behind the homeland of our people, heading for a new place to live. I am sad to leave behind our old lands, but I am also hopeful. We may be safe there. Perhaps we will be so far away from the white men that they will not follow us and try to drive us from our new land.

  I also am not worried because my father and I have faith in this strong boat that is carrying us along. It is like no boat I have ever seen before, but I know why it is so strong. It is not made of wood, but Tsalagi words. All of those words have been written in those symbols that my father has been teaching me to write. Those syllables are braided together like ropes, wrapped tightly into strong bundles. And those syllables are much more than drawn shapes. They are voices, breathless voices whispering encouragement to us.

  We will remain together, they whisper.

  We will be strong.

  We will be Tsalagi

  We will never forget who we are.

  Then something hits the side of the boat. It’s a stone. Someone is throwing stones at our boat. I can’t see who it is, but I can hear those stones striking.

  Tink! Tink!

  I have to see who it is. I turn my head and . . .

  I find myself sitting up in my bed, rubbing my eyes. The river and the boat made of words are both gone. The only sign of those symbols I have been practicing writing is the piece of paper I left on the windowsill and the bit of charcoal I’ve been writing them with. I had meant to hide them away so that my mother would not see them, but I was so tired last night that I forgot.

  I swing my feet onto the floor.

  Tink!

  Tink!

  Small stones are not hitting the side of that boat in my dream, but the wall of my mother’s cabin beside my window. I get up and look out.

  Someone is standing out there, a stone’s throw away. He is half concealed in the bushes on the other side of our garden. He is waving his arm at me now that he has gotten my attention. He leans to the side and his face is visible. I recognize him.

  It’s my best friend—or at least the one who used to be my best friend. Yugi.

  I motion for him to come to me. He shakes his head and then points with his chin toward the woods. There’s a place there where the two of us used to play together.

  Come, he motions to me and then drops back down out of sight to crawl away.

  I think I understand why Yugi is behaving this way. Over the last several days I have been spending more and more time with my father. And I have heard people talking. The things they said about my father are now being said about me as well. People are suspicious, even angry. All of my friends have been staying away from me. No one likes to be talked about behind their back, even when that talk is about harmless things. But when the talk is about bad medicine, about witchcraft—ah, ah! That is terrible.

  Now, even to be seen speaking with me in a friendly way might start others talking about him that same way.

  Where Yugi hid in those bushes, he could not be seen by anyone who might be walking or riding along the road in front of my mother’s house. It was still a risky thing for him to do, to wake me this early to call me out to meet with him. It may mean that, despite it all, he is still my friend.

  I dress quickly.

  My mother is already up.

  “Where are you going?” she asks.

  “Yugi,” I say. “I am going to meet him at the Four Bears.”

  “Are you sure?” she says. She, too, has been hearing what people are saying and it has worried her. She has not told me to avoid my father. But she has been urging me to be careful.

  “I trust Yugi,” I say. “He would never do anything to bring harm to me.”

  My words are more certain than my thoughts, but they mollify my mother.r />
  “Go then,” she says. “But eat something first.”

  I take the bowl with several corn pones in it and the cup of buttermilk she hands me. I also take a piece of charcoal from the fireplace and put it into my pocket.

  As I follow the path that leads to the Four Bears, I think about how often in the past my friend Yugi and I have met there. None of our other friends know about the spot. Yugi and I found it together three years ago. It was such a special place that we decided to keep it our secret. As far as I know, my mother is the only other person who knows where it is. She is the one who told me about its location because it was her special place when she was a little girl.

  I turn at the head of a steep ravine where a stream has cut down through the hills. It’s not an easy trail to follow. Instead, I duck my head under a tangle of blackberry canes and enter a hidden gap between the stones of the hill. A few blackberry leaves have fallen on the ground of our secret path. Still green, just broken from the canes, they are a sign that someone has already pushed through ahead of me.

  The passageway formed by the gap between the stones and earth of the hill is almost like a tunnel or the entrance of a cave, though there is a narrow strip of light overhead. Another turn and the passageway opens out into a space the size of a small room. Half of the space is taken up by the four big red stones that look a little bit like four-legged figures. The Four Bears is what we decided to call them. Yugi is sitting where he always sits, leaning back against the first of those stones.

  He usually teases me about how long it takes me to catch up with him. He jokes that my nickname should be Turtle rather than Eagle because I am so slow. But not today. His face is too serious for any teasing.

  “Siyo, Yugi,” I say. Hello.

  “Siyo,” he answers. Then he looks down at his long, slender hands. He’s rubbing them together as he always does when he is nervous.

  I sit down next to him.

  “It is good to see you, my friend,” I say.

  Yugi does not answer. He just keeps rubbing his hands together.

  Silence can be companionable. But not this sort of silence. It makes me want to shout at him. Shout what? I don’t know. I bite my lip.

  “The things,” Yugi says, his voice very soft, “the things they are saying. Those things are not good.”

  “What things? Who?”

  More rubbing of his hands. I want to grab them and make him stop that. But instead I fold my hands together and wait.

  “It is Gayusoli,” Yugi finally says. “He says that you have become as bad as your father. He says that it was you who caused Udagehi to have his accident. His father says that Sequoyah and anyone helping him should be driven away. Anyone helping him—that is you.”

  I swallow hard. It is difficult to hear that one of my best friends is now so fearful of me. I wonder how all this could happen so quickly? But even as I wonder that I know the answer. Our Tsalagi people have always been worried about witchcraft, fearful that it might be used to injure them or their families. Such fears have grown worse in recent years, perhaps because of all the pressure that the Aniyonega are putting on us. When they do not understand something, far too many of our people now are quick to believe the worst.

  I open my mouth to say something, but Yugi stops me by raising his hand.

  “Wait,” he says. “There is more I must tell you. What Gayusoli’s father says is not as bad as what others are talking about. Listen. This is what I heard myself just yesterday at the trading post. There was a group of men in the corner with their heads together. One of them was Sharp Teeth, the father of Udagehi. They looked so serious that I decided to try to listen in to what they said. I did as I have seen you do, Uwohali. I pretended not to listen while I was listening.

  “‘It has gone too far,’ Sharp Teeth said.

  “‘You are right,’ another man agreed. ‘First your son is hurt. Then my cow stops giving milk. It is witchery for sure. It is Sequoyah’s doing.’

  “‘What shall we do?’ a third man asked.

  “Udagehi’s father began nodding his head. ‘What was done before,’ he said. ‘Remember when the cabin of Sequoyah was burned with all of his witch markings in it.’

  “‘Yes,’ the second man said, ‘but will that be enough?’

  “Sharp Teeth smiled then. It was not a good smile to see. ‘It will be enough,’ he said, ‘if this time Sequoyah—and his son and daughter—are in the cabin when it is burned.’”

  Yugi stops talking. There’s fear in his eyes and I wonder if it is fear about what might happen to me or fear of me. Does he think I am really engaged in black magic? A chill goes down my back. Things are even worse now than I had feared. I’m finding it hard to get my breath. Our own people now wanting to harm us because they are afraid of my father’s writing? How can people be so foolish?

  Yugi wipes his mouth with the back of his right hand. It’s as if he is trying to get rid of the taste of the words he just spoke. And all of a sudden, strange as it is, I find myself feeling more sorry for him than worried about myself.

  Perhaps it is because I can see that he is confused. I am not confused anymore. Nor, I realize, am I frightened.

  “Yugi,” I say, “Wado, my friend. Thank you for warning me.”

  Yugi lifts his head to look at me. I think he is surprised by the calm tone of my voice.

  “Now I want to show you something,” I say.

  CHAPTER 19

  Seeing the Sun Land

  One of our old stories tells about a journey that was made by a group of seven young men.

  This group of young men were friends. They decided to find the place where the Sun rose, and so they journeyed together to the east. They went through strange lands and saw all sorts of people.

  Finally they came to the edge of the world. There they could see that the sky was a great arch of stone. When that stone arch lifted up at dawn, the sun passed through the doorway that was opened. One of those young men tried to pass through that doorway to see the land that Sun came from. But the sky arch came down and crushed him.

  Sadly, his six friends turned around and began the long journey back to their homeland. It took so long that they were all old men when they got there.

  That story is on my mind as I sit with my friend Yugi. Like that young man who lost his life, I have six friends. Or I used to before they became afraid of my father and me. But am I also like that one young man in another way? Am I attempting something as foolish as trying to enter the land of the Sun? I hope not. I do hope that the journey I’ve decided to take will bring a new light to all our people and not end in disaster.

  But I can’t take that journey alone. I need to be able to convince at least one person that what I am doing is not witchcraft. What I am doing is for the good of our people.

  Yugi is waiting to see what I will show him. I can see that he is worried. Part of him is wondering if I will do something bad, if I will try to work bad medicine on him. Yet part of him also sees me as his friend and wants to trust me. His two hands are clenched together. Soon he will start rubbing them in that nervous way of his.

  Of all my friends, Yugi has always been the closest. He is the only one of my friends who’s cared enough about me and had courage enough to seek me out and warn me. He’s always been the best listener of all of us. Still, I can see that he is uncertain. I have to be careful in what I say. But I do have an idea. I take a deep breath.

  “My friend,” I say, “can I ask you a question?”

  Yugi looks confused, but he nods his head.

  “Do we Tsalagi like horses?”

  Yugi can’t help but smile at that question. He loves horses. One of his goals in life is to join our Tsalagi Nation Lighthorse Police.

  “Of course,” he says.

  “Did we always own horses?”

  “No, the white men owned them first.�
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  “That is true. And I have heard it said that when our people saw horses for the first time they ran away from them because those horses frightened them. People thought those horses were dangerous monsters.”

  Yugi nods. “I’ve heard that, too.”

  “Here is another question. Do we Tsalagi like guns?’

  My friend nods again. “Of course we do, we . . .” Yugi pauses and lifts a finger to his mouth. He has always been a quick thinker. “But those guns were also first owned by the white men.”

  “And . . .?” I say.

  “And when we first saw guns and heard them being fired, we thought it was thunder and that those new weapons were magic.”

  “Good,” I say. “Now let me ask you this question. Have we been told that the talking leaves belong only to the white men?”

  Yugi pauses this time before he replies. But in the end he nods his head. “Yes,” he says, more slowly but still in agreement.

  I hold up my fist and then unfold my little finger. “The horse,” I say. I unfold the next finger. “The gun.” I unfold the third finger. “The book.”

  “Ah,” Yugi says. “But we are getting the book now. We are being taught how to read and write English.”

  “Yes,” I agree. “But is that the best way for us to use those talking leaves? My father does not think so. He thinks we should make talking leaves of our own without having to use any English at all.”

  I take out the piece of charcoal I took from our fireplace and put into my pocket. “Look.” With it I begin to draw shapes on top of that flat stone.

  “This,” I say, “is how my father kept track of the things bought from him on credit at his store. Such as wagon wheels and cheeses.” I draw the larger and smaller circles that stand for those things.

  “I can see that,” my friend says.

  “Now here,” I say, “is how he remembered the name of each person.” I try to draw a small picture of two animals. My drawing is not very good, but I hope Yugi can see what I intend.