The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby

by H L Grandin

  In defense of his land, people, and way of life, Openchanecanough carried out a well-orchestrated attack on all English settlements. In a highly coordinated series of attacks, the Indians killed 347 settlers, one fourth of all of the English colonists in the New World.

  Wolstenholmes Towne was one of the hardest hit settlements. The attackers killed men, women, children, and livestock. They destroyed crops and burned every home, except one. The Weathersby’s log and earthen cabin nestled in the shallow glade along the fresh water run on the banks of the James River was left untouched.

  When Openchanecanough realized that his plan to wipe out all of the settlers in his tribal lands had failed, he knew that the price to be paid at the hands of the white eyes would be devastatingly cruel. They would not fight alone. Their bitter enemies in the Sioux nation would be paid to fight with the English to punish the Powhatans, and the English would have no control over the renegade Sioux after the battles began.

  The Weathersby family, who had nursed him back to health, had no chance of being spared an agonizing death at the hands of bloodthirsty Sioux warriors. He made hasty arrangements to save their lives.

  The Ani-Unwiya had not participated in the Powhatan raids on the settlers, so their villages would be spared in the brutal battles of retribution that were but weeks away. In the dark of night, a party of Powhatans moved Joshia and Rebecca Weathersby and their children three days to the west to the Amansoquath village where they would be safe from the genocidal attacks that were sure to come.

  Openchanecanough would never see the Weathersbys again. A hard man who ruled with an iron fist and meted out justice with merciless cruelty had repaid the debt he owed to Joshia and Rebecca Weathersby. He had no way of knowing that their bloodline would one day live among his decendents and save their lands from the grasp of a king.

  Part Two

  1696

  The Power and The Promise

  Chapter 12

  Mount Rag

  Two years after the battle on the escarpment, Tes Qua’s leg had healed well enough for him to walk again, and he was able to travel a mile or two without difficulty. But he was still many months away from being able to accompany Tyoga on his overnight trips into the backwoods, or his week-long forays to distant mountaintops and hidden valleys deep within the Shenandoah. In his place, Sunlei became Tyoga’s constant companion.

  It was a glorious fall day.

  With a fractious shag of glorious yellow-gold, the sugar maples blanketed the gentle slopes of the foothills leading to the rocky summit of Old Mount Rag. Sugar maple gold yielded to matted amber hues at the intersection of foothill and mountain. The edges of the lower elevations burned with a brilliant coyfish orange before soaring to the heights where the foliage surrendered to a Georgia clay red.

  Tyoga and Sunlie were on their second day of a three-day journey to visit with Sunlei’s mother’s sister, Sky Dove, who lived with the Mountain Creek Clan of Ani-Unwiya Cherokee. Sky Dove had been given to the son of the chief of the Mountain Creek Clan after the confederation council of 1666. Their union was a marriage of political convenience that united the clan in a familial bond to guarantee cooperation in times of peace, trade in times of need, and unquestioned loyalty in times of war. The practice was an age-old custom that reconciled the heartache of loveless unions by the stability and peace that served the greater good.

  Sunlei and Tyoga were both anxious to get to the Mountain Creek village. Her cousins, Walks Alone and Night Sky, were favorite childhood friends; and had grown very close with Sunlei, Tes Qua, and Tyoga over the years. Oftentimes, after arriving at Mountain Creek; Tyoga, Tes Qua, and Walks Alone would spend the entire week in the freedom of the mountains, while Sunlei visited with Sky Dove and Night Sky in the comfort of their lodge. The boys had many wonderful memories of camping, fishing, and hunting together. They would miss not having Tes Qua there with them to enjoy this visit.

  Tyoga and Sunlie paused at one of the many falls cascading from the higher elevations. As the water flowed over the polished surface of an enormous slab of granite, it was fractioned into a lacey curtain by interrupting lichens, moss, and glassy-edged quartz.

  Sunlei knelt at Tyoga’s feet and cupped her hand to bring the cool mountain water to her lips. Her eyes darted from side to side to check the underbrush on the rise to the East as she drank from her hands.

  Tyoga knew that she was uneasy. He understood why.

  “Ty,” she said in a hesitant whisper.

  He did not answer.

  “I feel … something. I don’t know …” She tried to give voice to her trepidation.

  Tyoga looked around and smiled when he knelt down in the stream next to her. He reached his cupped hand into the coursing water to get a drink and noticed the water skimmers skating across the surface.

  The odd little bugs darted about in a random—yet determined—display of senseless frenzy while relying with absolute certitude upon forces about which they had no knowledge to keep them afloat—and alive. Chaotically scurrying about on spindly oar-legs, some of the water-walkers desperately struggled against the current to gain access to the serenity of a calm, quiet eddy where they could skate and float and rest. Some had won their hard fought goal. They took no notice of their brothers’ plight.

  Tyoga wondered if the entrance to the tranquil haven was purely serendipitous or by design.

  Is man’s journey so much like that of the no-count water bugs. Does anyone else see?

  “Ty, did you hear me?” Sunlei repeated with a hint of the ‘you never listen to me’ tone purchased in the currency of a secure and devoted relationship.

  “I heard you, Sunlie,” he replied. “It’s okay. We’re safe.”

  “Then you feel it, too? But what is it? What is here with us?” She continued to look around.

  He splashed his face with water, stood up, and peered up over at the ridge. Glancing down at his moccasins, he rolled some stones with his toe. “I see him all the time. He’s never far. At first, I’d catch a glimpse of a gray and white shadow passing real fast through the brush. When I didn’t see the shadows I’d hear him walking off the trail along side of me. It scared me the first time I saw him since that night. Wasn’t sure what to make of it. I didn’t know what he wanted.” He wiped the water from his face with his shirt.

  Sunlei moved closer and put her arm around his waist. Cocking her head, she looked up at him. Noticing the jagged scar on his left bicep from the battle with the wolves, she caught herself and quickly looked away. It wasn’t the Indian way for a woman to dwell upon a brave’s wounds. While Indian Braves could—and would—touch and examine with great interest, and near jealousy, the battle scars warn as badges of courage by their owner, a woman looking at a war wound with pity or concern was a sign of deep disrespect.

  In the quiet of the moment, Sunlei took stock of the young warrior standing by her side. He was a remarkable young man, and she was proud to be with him—in him. She understood his silence, and revered his need for contemplation. It was in the quiet that the spirits spoke to him. It was only in solitude that his great medicine was revealed.

  The People spoke of him as if he had changed after that night on the escarpment. She didn’t think so. Sometimes, there were sides to him that he saved for himself—and for her.

  They were quiet things. Little things. Things upon which others placed no value at all. Perhaps there was none to be found except in the eyes of Tyoga Weathersby. The reticence of water. The sigh of the clouds . The canvas that is the sky. The impossible colors of sunset. The uselessness of envy. The waste of worry. The gift of courage and fear. The scourge of cowardice. The shame of want. These things did not matter to others. That they existed was enough for most. But to Tyoga, their worth was in the pondering. Their value was in their truth.

  Her eyes welled with tears when she thought of the great joy these gifts brought to her life. As is the want of all humankind, the glow of the glorious connection, was suddenly shattered by the
demonic thoughts that linger beneath the protective veneer waiting for the slightest breech to impose their irrational sabotage.

  The ‘what if’s’ that so rarely come to pass shattered her delight.

  Closing her eyes, she allowed the gut-wrenching horrors constructed on the fragile nothingness of scenarios imagined to hijack the moment’s true joy.

  What if he should fall out of love with me and just leave me one day?

  A wave of nausea built in her belly. She swallowed hard.

  What would happen to me if circumstance or situation prevented us from being together? Her hands grew cold and numb. She shook them slightly to reverse the unpleasant sensation.

  A tear streamed down her cheek. She wiped it away before it reached her lips. She was certain that she loved him beyond the power of words to express.

  Tyoga said, “Sometimes at night, when I’m alone in the woods, cooking my supper or lying down for the night, I hear him breathing just beyond the light of the fire. I hear him lie down—real close to me. I sometimes think that I can reach out and touch him—he’s so close. The very first time I heard him rustling around my campsite, I stayed awake all night just waitin’ to see what he was going to do. He looked at me for a good long while. After some time he yawned, laid down, closed his eyes and went to sleep.” He chuckled. “I think I bored him to sleep.”

  Tyoga reached around and took hold of the hand that Sunlei had resting on his hip. Still holding her hand, he wrapped his arm around her so that their hands came to rest in the small of her back. He drew her near. “He doesn’t show himself when I’m with Little Bull or Stands With Rock. He never shows himself when others are with me. But when it is just him and me, well, we get along pretty fair together.”

  He gazed down into her beautiful black eyes to see if she understood what he had been saying. Her eyes were calm, and her hand was holding his gently. She understood. “Yeah. I’m not exactly sure what he’s doing hangin’ around, but I know that I don’t have to be afraid when he’s near. Kind of nice knowin’ he’s close. I suspect that he’d let me know if there’s somethin’ ain’t right.”

  After letting go of her hand, he took off his moccasin and shook it to dislodge a pebble.

  “Come on. We better get moving. Gonna git dark soon. If we move fast, we can make camp on the top rock. Beautiful up there. A-he-na.”

  The trip to the summit of old Mount Rag would take them almost three hours.

  Traversing a trail thousands of years in the making, they followed a path that had been defined by the millions of mocassined feet before theirs. The trail followed the natural contours of the land. In places along the route, it would meander around enormous granite monoliths jutting up from the forest floor like sentinels stationed at the palace gates. In other spots, the trail seemed all but lost in a tangle of matted roots. Ancient trees dispatched sinewy tentacles from just below the surface to ensnare rocks in a living prison. Trapped for eternity, the granite prisoners proved worthy adversaries as a millenia of twisted ankles and bloody toes would surely attest.

  The trail periodically surrendered to the urgency of mountain runs that required a barefoot balancing act to gain the other side, or the resignation of making the rest of the trek in the discomfort of soaking leather moccasins. At more forgiving fords, the creeks were willing to yield no more than dry stone tops. They climbed a series of flat boulder stairs that led them through a narrow tunnel lined with slime. Framed by a triangular sculpture of enormous granite stellae, it exited onto a narrow, moss-covered ledge that provided an unparalleled view of the Blue Ridge Mountains to the south.

  They passed under sharp-edged overhangs, curtained with ivy, moss, and ferns where the trail narrowed dangerously close to precipitous edges. In other places where the cost of distance and time trumped ease of travel, the path ascended steep vertical walls.

  Even though Sunlei was a strong, seasoned traveler, the difficult vertical inclines required the pair to stop to rest every ten steps.

  The mountain rewarded those strong enough to make the journey to the top where the trail would break into Greenwald’s Overlook, a plateau of lichen encrusted rock from which the entire Shennandoah Valley could be seen at a glance. From the overlook, it was only another twenty minutes through Hanzel’s Pass to the top of Mount Rag, fresh water, a warm fire, food, and rest.

  The two reached the ragged summit rocks before sunset.

  One of the highest points in the Appalachian Mountains, the top of Mount Rag is a rocky outcropping, crowned with a spherical boulder that the Cherokees and others used for centuries as a prayer rock—or odalvi. The Native Americans revered the heights for their proximity to the gods and for the unfettered view of the land—from horizon to horizon, and thousands of feet below.

  For all of time, Shaman and Medicine Men brought offerings to Summit Rock on behalf of the People. They prayed for the ground to be fruitful, game to be plentiful, and peace to reign over the land. The geography of Summit Rock had a great deal to do with its stature as a blessed place from which the holy men prayed.

  The concept of “oneness” is central to Native American beliefs. They considered themselves to be children of the universe—not separate, but a part of the divinity of being. The universe mirrored the People, and the People filled that universe with the innate and unique gifts of every other person, animal, plant, and thing given to their use by the great spirits. To separate or account for themselves in terms that set them apart from the natural world was a concept foreign to the Ani-Unwiya. They considered themselves a divine creation no less miraculous than the stars in the sky or the gift of the rising sun. To be closer to that divinity on Summit Rock was an occasion that required respect and reverence.

  They were camping at a holy place. Tyoga and Sunlei would treat it with respect.

  From each direction of the compass, except the North, three trails converged at the top of Mount Rag. The summit outcropping emerged abruptly from thick stands of pine, birch, and oak, which provided plenty of firewood. Scruffy blueberry bushes, heavy with the sweet fall fruit, blanketed the ground with a carpet of thorny woody branches. The bushes edged the summit trails with clearly defined borders, their dense growth discouraging veering from the path. The tired travelers kept a close look out for the numerous black bears that liked to gorge themselves on the calorie rich berries to fatten up before the winter snows.

  Tyoga started a fire using pine needles and desiccated cones for kindling, then collected enough firewood to keep them warm and safe through the cold autumn night. Sunlei opened her de-ga-lo-di, which held their provisions, and spread a deer hide on the ground in front of the fire. Deer jerky and a mash of dried beans and corn would serve them well for the evening meal. She set the foodstuffs out on the hide, and then went back down the trail to pick some sweet blueberries.

  The beginnings of a stream percolated up through the rocks and bubbled into a tiny clear pool a little ways down the trail that went to the west. Kneeling down, Tyoga filled their travelling gourd with the mountain water. His eyes wandered to the lip of a pool and he watched the first hesitant drops of water breach the wall to begin the journey to the sea. His focus silenced the forest around him and allowed him to open his mind to watch and listen.

  Once over the lip of the pool the drops of water disappeared into a swampy patch of mud and moss, decaying leaves, and loamy peat. The lost drops emerged out of the ooze by adhering to the edges of a decaying branch. As if joining hands in a more determined march, the drops spilled into a pool of more resolute structure and function. Tiny traces of water of similar birth poured into the same pool from all directions. The trunk of a sapling elm dammed the down-slope edge of the pool. The water bubbled over the lip of the dam in a frothy curtain that spit and spewed in a joyous celebration of birth. The trace would grow into a rivulet. The rivulet would be joined by others downstream, and together they would form the Rapidan and the Rappahanock—and finally the Chesapeake Bay.

  Slowly, Tyoga r
ose to his feet, threw the filled gourd over his shoulder, and headed back up to their mountain top camp. Recognizing the gift that he had been given, he became lost in thought about what the promise had revealed as he made the climb up to the peak.

  A single drop of water—like a man alone—is lost in the swampy mire until hope is found in the company of others of its kind. Working together, combining strengths, resting to regain momentum, and beginning the journey anew was the course set for the water even before it emerged from the spring to begin its journey to the sea.

  What does the message mean for me and my life? What am I to take away from these precious moments at the spring? Why was I permitted to see, but not given the gift of understanding? Why am I, like the drops of water, powerless to change my course?

  He wondered at the aloneness that seemed to define him.

  Cresting the last rise in the trail, their summit rock campsite came into view. His heart skipped a beat at the realization that he wasn’t really alone—ever.

  Sitting on the deer hide, Sunlei was tending the fire and preparing their evening meal. The sun was setting to the West and, like a gossamer orb bowing in approval, the shadow of the summit rock was rapidly enveloping their campsite. In the crisp autumn air, the sun danced off of Sunlei’s raven mane with an almost blinding brilliance. Curled up on the deerskin hide, her bronze legs to one side, she reached around and placed both tiny hands in the small of her back. She arched her back like a stretching kitten, threw her shoulders back and tilted her face to feel the warmth of the setting sun kiss her delicate lips good night. Her shadow poured over the rocks in sensual undulations running from the course of the setting sun.