Talking Leaves

by Joseph Bruchac

  Agili is smiling by the time my father finishes reading. “This is all true,” he says. “I am sure you are bringing me a message from my cousin.”

  He pauses then and the smile vanishes from his face the way the sun disappears when a cloud crosses in front of it.

  “But it may be,” Agili says, a suspicious tone entering his voice, “that you are not reading as do the Ani-yonega. It may be that you just are not forgetful. It may be that those marks on the paper just help you remember things the way the patterns on a wampum belt help us to remember things.”

  I bite my lip. So many thoughts are going through my mind now. What if, no matter what my father says or does, he is not able to convince Agili? Agili may be my father’s cousin, but he is still the village chief. I do not think that Agili believes my father’s work is black magic. At least I hope that is so. But what if Agili decides that my father’s work is false and foolish, or that my father really is crazy or, worse, that Sequoyah is just trying to deceive him? What if he decides to banish my father from our village and sends him back to Arkansas? What will I do then?

  But my father does not look worried at all. He had not expected to win a victory that easily.

  “No,” my father says, “I do not remember what I have written. And these marks stand for the sounds of our talking. Those marks make different words depending on where I place them.”

  Agili looks confused.

  My father sees that confusion, but it still does not trouble him. “I have a better way to show you how this works.” He looks back at us. “Ahyokah,” he says.

  My little sister shoots up from her seat on the other side of our table like a partridge bursting out of a tree when someone gets too close. She skips to my father’s side, her eyes shining with excitement. She knows what she is about to be asked to do.

  My father picks up the page on which the eighty-six marks of the syllabary are written. “Read this for your uncle,” he says.

  Ahyokah takes the page firmly in both of her small hands, straightens her back, takes a deep breath, and begins to read.

  “A, Ga, Ka, Ha . . .”

  She reads them rapidly, but speaks each sound clearly and well. When she reaches the end, my father pats her on the shoulder.

  “Now read it one more time. But start at the bottom. Then your uncle may hear that it is just the same.”

  Ahyokah presses her lips together, nods, and recites the list of syllables yet again, starting at the end of the list.

  “Yv, wv, tsv, tlv . . .”

  Again, she speaks every one of the eighty-six marks without a mistake.

  “Yah!” Agili says when she is done. There is surprise in his voice. “That is interesting, indeed. But what was she saying? I could not understand. Was it another language? That sounded like Muskogee.”

  Sequoyah shakes his head. “No, my cousin. It is our language. But it is not our words. It is our sounds. You just need to put them together. Now look.”

  My father writes out three of those signs on a blank page, carefully pointing to each one with the stem of his long pipe before he writes it.

  “Read this,” he says to Ahyokah.

  “,” she says without a moment’s pause. Tsalagi.

  “Ah,” Agili says, nodding, “perhaps I see.”

  “Now,” my father says, “I can take the last of those syllables”—he writes it on the paper—“and place this other one in front of it, then this one behind it.”

  “,” my little sister reads, smiling up at our village chief and grasping him by his hand. Agili.

  The sunshine of a true smile, as bright as the dawning of a new day, has come now to Agili’s face.

  CHAPTER 23

  Good or Bad

  Although most of our people have been quick to adopt the useful things brought to us by the Aniyonega, there have always been those who worry that new things may prove to be harmful. Something that seems to be good may turn out in the end to be bad.

  Some of our oldest stories warn about such things. One such tale is the one about the two boys and the Ukten.

  Long ago, it is said, two boys were out hunting in a valley when they found a little snake. Its pale, shiny skin was beautiful, but it was thin and weak. That snake spoke to them.

  “Help me or I will die,” it said. “Feed me.”

  It was so beautiful and so helpless that the boys took pity on it. They brought it birds and mice. The snake ate those birds and mice.

  “Thank you,” it hissed. “I will always be your friend. Now go get me more food.”

  Those boys did as the snake said. Every day they returned to the valley and brought it more and more food. That snake got larger and larger. The mice and little birds were no longer enough. Now they brought it squirrels and rabbits. Soon that big snake began to grow horns on its head. It was turning into an Ukten. But the boys did not notice the hungry way the snake looked at them.

  “I am your friend,” it would hiss to them each day. “Now go get me more food.”

  Those boys did not know the huge snake that was now an Ukten was planning to eat them and all the people of their village when it had grown large enough. They kept feeding it. Now they were bringing it deer. They were spending all their time hunting just to feed it.

  One day, though, they heard a strange rumbling sound coming from the valley where the great snake lived. When they got to that valley they saw that great snake was engaged in a fight. It was fighting with Thunder, that strong old man who lives in the sky and hurls down arrows of lightning.

  The Ukten was coiled all around Thunder, but Thunder had grasped its head and so it could not defeat him.

  “Help me,” the Ukten hissed to the boys. “Shoot him or he will hurl down his arrows and kill you and all your people.”

  “Boys,” Thunder said in his deep, rumbling voice, “Do not listen to him. He has been tricking you. He is evil and plans to devour you and all your people.”

  “No,” the Ukten hissed. “I am your friend. He is the one who is evil. He will kill you.”

  “My grandsons,” Thunder rumbled, “hear me. I am the one who is truly your friend. Now shoot him in the seventh spot on his body.”

  Those boys knew that Thunder’s words were true. They saw that the Ukten had been using its magic to deceive them. They fired their arrows at the seventh spot on the Ukten’s body and it fell away.

  So it is that ever since then our Tsalagi people have been the friends of Thunder.

  My father only wants to bring something good to our people. His words and his actions have always been kind and friendly. Still, those doubters think that his pleasant manner is just a disguise. It hides something dark and dangerous. Witchcraft!

  That is why this test has been set up by our village chief. Agili now believes in my father’s work. But Agili is wise enough to know that it will take something dramatic to change the minds of those who are so afraid of this new thing my father has made that they think is evil. So afraid that they have now begun to talk openly about killing Sequoyah and his family—just as those boys killed the Ukten long ago.

  I look around the Council House. It seems as if everyone in Willstown is here. All of my former friends and their families are among them. I try to make eye contact with some of them. But they turn their faces away or look down as soon as I look their way. I bite my lip, wondering once again if this is the right thing for us to do now. So much is at stake today!

  The Council House is so full that there is no room for everyone. There are as many outside as there are within its walls. And everyone’s mood is one of expectation. The sound of people talking in hushed voices as they wait for the test that has been set for today is like the sound of a strong wind through a grove of pines. The feeling in the air is like that before a storm.

  Agili has called this meeting today. Because he is not just the chief of our
town, but a very respected elder, people answered his call. But not all came because of their respect for our village chief. Some have flocked here today for another darker, bloodier reason . . . like ravens to a kill. They are the ones who have muttered the most about my father’s talking leaves being evil magic. They are here in the expectation that his evil may be exposed. Their hope is that he will either be exiled forever or sentenced to death. I have heard that some of them have sworn that if the council does not sentence him to die, then they will take care of that themselves. It has been whispered that, no matter what is shown or decided today, Sequoyah and his family will not live to see another sunrise.

  I wish I could be more helpful. I have been studying hard for more than two weeks now. But I have not yet learned my father’s way of writing our language well enough. It should not take that much longer for me to be able to write it and read it as well as he does. All it requires is for me to memorize, recognize, and be able to draw those eighty-six shapes. My friend Yugi has also made good progress, even though he has not learned as much as I now know. I now can read and write more than half of the syllables.

  But half is not enough. To be able to write anything said in Tsalagi or to read anything written in the syllabary one must know it all. And I do not.

  Aside from Sequoyah, there is only one person who perfectly knows all of our syllabary. That one is my little sister, Ahyokah.

  I look over at her and she smiles at me. She is not nervous at all. She and my father are both sitting there, their faces as calm as the surface of a pond on a sunny, windless day.

  But I am not calm. I am so nervous that I feel sick to my stomach. Of course, that may just be because I am so hungry right now. When I got up this morning I forgot to eat anything before coming here to the Council House. I cannot think of another time in my life when I have been so worried about anything that I have forgotten to eat. My stomach rumbles as I think of that. It rumbles so loud that, if there were not so many people talking, it would have been heard by everyone around me.

  Someone nudges my side. I turn. It’s Yugi.

  To my surprise, he does not look worried at all. In fact, he looks quite confident. He trusts me more than I trust myself. I just hope I have not led him onto a path that will lead us over a cliff!

  “Uwohali,” he whispers, leaning close to my ear, “that sound of thunder scared me! I thought I was about to see lightning shooting out of your belly button!”

  He chuckles at his own joke. Then he hands me something wrapped in a cloth. “Your mother told me to give this to you before you starve to death.”

  I unfold the cloth and find four biscuits, still warm. I lean forward in my seat and see my mother sitting not far from us next to Yugi’s mother. I had not noticed her till now. My mother motions toward her mouth.

  Eat.

  I eat those warm biscuits. As I do so, some of the anxiety I was feeling leaves me. But not all of it. I still do not know for sure how things will end this day. Will it be good or will it be bad? Will people truly listen and understand? What my father has made is such a powerful tool. It can bring our nation together as nothing else has ever done before. For all of our sakes—not just my family and my trusting friend Yugi, but all of our Tsalagi people—I hope that it will.

  CHAPTER 24

  The Test

  Agili stands in front of the crowd, holding up his hands for silence.

  I hold my breath. Will they pay attention to him? Some of the feelings against my father are so strong. But then one face turns to him and another and another. Gradually the low talking subsides. Soon it is as quiet as a forest grove after the wind stops whispering through the leaves.

  “My friends and my neighbors,” Agili says, “it is good that you are here. I have called you to gather so that you all may see this with your own eyes and hear it with your own ears. That way the word of what happened here will not reach you as gossip. You will be able to judge for yourself the worth of what my cousin will show you.”

  “Witchcraft,” says a cold voice from somewhere in the crowd. “I already know what that is!”

  A chill goes down my back at those words. The low murmur of agreement that goes through part of the crowd makes me even more worried. But that murmur dies down as Agili raises both hands higher.

  “My friends,” he says, his voice louder and firmer than before, “you know it is not the way of our people to judge something until we know what we are judging. So let us wait. Let us watch and listen.”

  He looks around the crowd. No one else speaks.

  “Good,” he says. Then he turns toward my father and motions with his chin for him to move forward.

  My father does so, with Ahyokah by his side.

  “My friends,” Sequoyah says, “you may believe that talking leaves belong only to the white people. That is no longer so. I have found a way so that we may record anything in our language using these marks.”

  He holds up a large piece of paper with the eighty-six signs of the syllabary drawn upon it.

  “Bird footprints?” someone near the front says. I cannot see him, but I recognize the owl-like voice as that of Equgugu’s father.

  His words are answered by a little ripple of laughter from the people nearest him. But it is nervous laughter. Though everyone has agreed to gather here, they are uncertain about what they are going to see. And I am uncertain about how they are going to respond.

  My father remains calm, that small understanding smile on his face is not mocking or defensive.

  “Yes,” he says, “these do look a little like bird footprints. Your eyes are good, my friend. And we all know what bird footprints mean. They tell us where a bird has been, whether it was large or small, which way it walked before it flew on. But these marks mean much more than that.”

  He put his hand on Ahyokah’s shoulder. “My daughter,” he says, “she will help me show you what these marks mean.” He points with his lips toward one of the trees on the far edge of the field next to the Council House. “Go.”

  Ahyokah runs past the front of the crowd, not stopping until she reaches that faraway tree.

  “Now,” my father says, “can my daughter hear what I am saying?”

  “No.” Several voices in the crowd answer as one.

  “Good. Now,” my father looks out at the crowd, “will someone speak a message to me?”

  Big Rattling Gourd steps forward. I am relieved that he does so. He has long been a friend of my father’s but has avoided seeing him since his return from Arkansas because of all the bad things being said. But after Agili’s visit with my father, our town chief spoke to him. So two days ago, at Agili’s suggesion, he came to my stepmother’s cabin. Sequoyah showed him how he was able to make the leaves talk. It excited Big Rattling Gourd so much that he left saying that he would not be able to sleep that night.

  “I will speak,” Big Rattling Gourd says. “Record these words: Big Rattling Gourd just spoke. He asked if the talking leaves can really speak Tsalagi.”

  Sequoyah quickly writes the syllables. Then he hands the paper to Big Rattling Gourd, takes off his neckerchief, raises it high in the air, and waves it so that my sister can see his signal. As she begins to make her way back, my father speaks to the crowd.

  “Now I will go over there.”

  By the time Ahyokah reaches us, my father is far away on the other side of the field. She holds out her hand and Big Rattling Gourd gives her the paper with the message on it. She climbs up onto a box that has been placed so that everyone in the crowd can hear her.

  “THIS IS WHAT MY FATHER WROTE,” Ahyokah shouts in a high clear voice, “‘BIG RATTLING GOURD JUST SPOKE. HE ASKED IF THE TALKING LEAVES CAN REALLY SPEAK TSALAGI.’”

  A few people are turning and looking at one another in amazement. But everyone is not yet convinced. In fact, I see that some people are still muttering. My keen hearing is goo
d enough to pick up what they are saying.

  “That was easy,” someone sneers. “Tla! It proves nothing.”

  “Just trickery,” the woman next to him agrees.

  “I still think it is witchcraft!” another person says.

  My father is still far away on the other side of the ball field. My little sister is standing up there all by herself. Someone has to do something!

  The next thing I know I have stood up and my legs are carrying me forward in front of the crowd. I stop when I am next to Ahyokah who looks up at me with trusting eyes and then reaches out to take my hand. Everyone is looking at us. But what should I do now? What can I say? Why did I put myself in front of the crowd like this?

  I feel a hand on my shoulder. Someone else has joined us. It is my true friend Yugi.

  “Go ahead,” he says to me in a low voice. “You will know what to say.”

  I take one deep breath and then another. Then I speak in a voice so loud that it surprises even me.

  “SPEAK ANY MESSAGE TO MY SISTER,” I shout to the crowd. “SHE WILL WRITE IT AND MY FATHER WILL READ IT.”

  I hand my sister a piece of paper and the pen.

  For a moment the crowd is silent. Then the person who just said that nothing had been proven stands up. I recognize him now as Black Fox, the father of my former friend Ugama. Ugama has remained sitting in the crowd and the look on his face is not unfriendly. In fact, he looks sad.