Leppard, Lois Gladys - [Mandie 02] (12 page)

“We’ll see you in a few days then,” John waved as he left by the back door and joined the others in the wagon.

“Glad job done,” Uncle Ned said, with a sigh of relief, as he picked up the reins and they moved through the alley and into the main street.

“Well, it’s up to you and Uncle Wirt now to get the word out,” John reminded them. “But don’t tell anyone where it’s being kept.”

The two Indians left John and the boys back at Uncle
Ned’s cabin and went directly on their mission to tell the Cherokees about the gold.

“Shucks, we didn’t even get to use the rifle,” Joe complained as he handed the gun back to John inside the cabin.

John hesitated and then said, “Go ahead and try it out. You and Dimar can go back into the woods. You’ll find more ammunition in the box over there. Just be careful.”

The boys were overjoyed. “Thank you, Uncle John,” Joe beamed, taking the rifle back.

“Thank you,” Dimar added as the two headed for the door.

Mandie called after them. “You be careful, Joe Woodard, and don’t go shooting somebody, you hear?” Joe stopped and turned, laughing at her outburst. “Mandie, you know I have my own rifle at home. This won’t be the first time I’ve used one.”

“Yes, but this is a strange place and that’s Uncle John’s rifle—I know you have never used that one before,” the girl answered seriously.

Joe’s face turned red as everyone smiled.

“If I didn’t like you so much, Amanda Shaw, I’d say something mean!” With that he and Dimar hurried out the door.

Little did Mandie know how close the two boys would come to shooting someone. They walked on through the woods for a while, looking for an appropriate place for target practice. The trees were dense and it was hard to see very far ahead. Then they came to a small clearing.

“How about here?” asked Joe.

“Good,” the Indian boy agreed.

Joe shot at a broken limb, and suddenly there was a
loud clanging noise. The boys froze in silence, listening. Then it came again.

“What’s
that
?” Joe whispered.

“Sounds like an animal caught in a trap.” Dimar returned the whisper. “Careful, it could be dangerous.” He slowly crept forward, Joe following. The clanging sound became louder, as if to beckon them on. “I think it’s behind that bush over there,” Dimar said softly, pointing ahead.

They cautiously moved toward the bush. Then suddenly they caught a glimpse through the leaves of what lay on the other side of the bush and they stopped in shock. There, completely helpless in an abandoned trap, was Tsa’ni, his foot tightly secured by the metal spring. He looked at them with a guilty stare as they came into view. The clanging had stopped.

“Not
you
again!” Joe slapped his hand to his forehead in exasperation.

“It seems all we do is get this boy out of trouble!” Dimar remarked.

“Would you please get this thing off my foot?” Tsa’ni sounded demanding. “That’s all I want you to do.”

The boys looked at each other and then at Tsa’ni’s foot. It had been bleeding and was very swollen. Evidently the boy was in a lot of pain.

Joe stepped aside with Dimar so they could talk.

“I don’t see how we can get that thing off his foot,” Joe whispered. “We don’t have tools, and besides, his foot is all swollen. Let’s go for help. He’ll think we are just leaving him alone.”

Dimar nodded.

They walked back to Tsa’ni and shook their heads.

“I don’t think we can help you. If we turn you loose,
you’ll just get into more trouble,” Joe said to him. “This way we know where you are.”

“You do not deserve any help,” Dimar added.

Tsa’ni looked at them in shock. “Please! Just release my foot. I’ll get home somehow by myself.”

“No, we cannot help you, Tsa’ni,” Joe insisted. “We don’t have any tools to release that spring.”

Joe and Dimar turned and walked away. When Tsa’ni realized they were not going to help him, he called and called after them, “Please! Please!”

Once out of sight, Joe and Dimar started running toward Uncle Ned’s cabin. They were almost breathless when they finally got there. Uncle John was chopping wood by the barn and saw the boys coming. He dropped the axe and hurried to meet them.

“Uncle John, we’ve found Tsa’ni,” Joe told him, handing him the rifle. “He’s caught in a trap in the woods.”

“We told him we would not help him,” Dimar said.

“We didn’t want him to know we had gone for help. Let him worry a little after all his meanness,” Joe added.

“Let me get some tools and we’ll go see what we can do,” Uncle John said, shaking his head. “He certainly gets into more trouble than anyone I’ve ever known.”

“We’ll need a blanket or something to carry him back. His foot is in pretty bad shape, and I don’t think he can walk this time,” Joe told him, as John went toward the barn for tools.

“Ask Morning Star for one while I get the tools,” John replied.

Morning Star got a blanket, some bottles and a cloth from the shelf, and rolled it all up together inside the blanket.

“I go too,” she declared. “Special medicine.”

Elizabeth understood. “She wants to go with you to doctor him with her medicine. That’s what’s in the bottles.”

Mandie was thinking aloud. “You see, you should never tell a lie. He said he couldn’t walk before and it was a lie. Now he really can’t walk. I think it happened to him because he lied.”

“Yes, he is a bad Cherokee,” Sallie agreed.

“You should see his foot. I know he can’t walk this time. He must have been caught in the trap ever since we chased him night before last. We lost him in that direction,” Joe told them.

“Go.” Morning Star went outside to join John as he came from the barn. The boys followed.

It was quite a job prying the trap from Tsa’ni’s foot because it was so tightly secured in the swollen flesh. The foot was extremely painful to the touch, but John tried to be careful as he gently but steadily freed the flesh from the prongs of the spring. When the foot was finally free, Morning Star washed it with liquid from one of the bottles. Tsa’ni winced and bit his lip in pain. Then Morning Star gently wrapped it in a clean piece of cloth and stood up.

“Take him,” she said, pointing to the boy.

John and the two boys laid Tsa’ni on the blanket and, rolling the edges of it, made a swing to carry him. Since Uncle Ned’s house was much closer than Tsa’ni’s, they carried him there and laid him on a bed downstairs. Morning Star administered more of her medicine.

“You boys go tell his mother he is here, and when Uncle Ned and Uncle Wirt come back with the wagon, we’ll take him home,” Uncle John told them. “I’ll be outside.”

He went out the door, and Joe and Dimar left on their errand.

The two girls had been watching the whole thing from a distance. Tsa’ni had ignored everyone until now and had not spoken a word.

Mandie came over to his bed now. “I’m sorry you are injured, Tsa’ni, but the Bible says you reap what you sow and you sure have sowed some wild lies. I think you had better pray about it. We’ll all pray for you.”

Tsa’ni looked at her sullenly. “What I do is my business, not yours!”

“You have been messing in our business, Tsa’ni; that’s how you got hurt!” she reminded him, standing up and straightening her skirt. “Now that you are really hurt maybe you won’t be able to mess in our business anymore.”

Elizabeth stepped in. “Amanda, why don’t you and Sallie go outside? Let Tsa’ni rest until his grandfather gets back.”

“Yes, Mother,” Mandie answered as she scooped up Snowball and turned to Sallie. “Come on. We’ll see what Uncle John is doing.”

Elizabeth did not uphold the things Tsa’ni had done, but she could see how weak he was and she didn’t think it was the right time for him to be reprimanded.

Morning Star brought him a bowl of soup, and cradling the boy’s head in her lap, she fed him with a spoon. He didn’t say a word but greedily swallowed the broth.

Joe and Dimar came back, bringing Tsa’ni’s mother with them. She ran to her son, fell to his side and started weeping. Joe and Dimar looked at each other and went back outside.

When Uncle Ned and Uncle Wirt finally came home
with the wagon, John stopped them.

“No use to unhitch the wagon, Uncle Ned,” John told them. “We’ll be needing it. Uncle Wirt, the boys found Tsa’ni in the woods. He’s inside. He has really been hurt this time, I’m afraid.”

The two Indians went inside and came back out shortly, carrying Tsa’ni in the blanket. They put him into the wagon, and helped his mother climb in beside him.

“Please hurry back,” John said as they pulled away in the wagon. “I want to hear what you’ve accomplished today concerning the gold.”

“Soon,” Uncle Ned called back.

As they all sat around Uncle Ned’s table later that night, the old man told his news.

“Pow-wow tomorrow, council house,” he said. “Told Cherokee Papoose found gold. Cherokee no want gold.”

“But you did get all the chiefs to agree to let the Cherokee people vote on what to do with the gold, didn’t you, Uncle Ned?” John asked.

“Cherokee vote pow-wow tomorrow, council house,” the old man answered.

“You mean you can get all the people together to vote on something that fast?” John asked in amazement.

Uncle Wirt spoke up, “Tell one Cherokee. Cherokee tell another Cherokee. News travel fast.”

Mandie smiled at the way he put it. “You mean when you tell one Cherokee something, he will tell another and so on, until they all know?”

Uncle Wirt nodded.

“It sure has been a busy day for the Cherokees,” Joe whistled. “Imagine passing the word to over one thousand people in one day!”

“Approximately thirteen hundred to be exact,” John
said. “Of course, the families are large in most cases, and they live in large family groups together.”

“That’s still a lot of people,” Mandie agreed.

“So now all the Cherokee people know about the gold?” John asked again.

“Yes, all know,” Uncle Ned nodded.

“Did you tell them to come to the council house tomorrow and vote on what they thought should be done with the gold?” John continued. He wanted to be sure they understood each other.

“Yes,” Ned said.

Mandie, Sallie and Joe looked at one another.

“Just think, we are the cause of all this,” Joe laughed. “I feel kinda good about it when I think of all the good it will do them.”

“I’m glad to be a part of it,” Sallie said. “I hope the people decide on a good use for the gold.”

“Well, I guess we’ll know tomorrow,” Mandie said, and then turning to Uncle John, she asked, “Can we go over to the council house to watch tomorrow?”

Her uncle hesitated, looking at Ned and Wirt.

“Papoose go. Papoose Cherokee. Papoose vote,” Uncle Ned told her.

“You mean I can vote, too, Uncle Ned?” Mandie was excited.

“Mmm,” the old man nodded.

“Can I go along for the ride even though I am not Cherokee and can’t vote?” Joe asked wistfully.

Uncle Ned and Uncle Wirt both nodded. “Go.”

The four youngsters discussed the matter long into the night after they had gone up to bed.

The next day would hold more excitement for them. It would be a day long to be remembered.

Chapter 12 - The Cherokees’ Decision

Jerusha, Dimar’s mother, came riding up on a pony early the next morning just as Morning Star was putting on the coffee. She walked in through the open doorway, smiling, as she said, “Vote.” She put her arms around Mandie, Sallie and Joe and tried to tell them how happy she was that they had found a fortune for the Cherokees.

“Gold,” she said, hugging the three. “Find gold. Make Cherokee feel good. People need things.”

The three laughed. “Oh, Jerusha, we are so happy for all the Cherokee people. Uncle John says there is enough gold to do a lot of good,” Mandie told her. “Maybe you could build a new church, or a hospital, or even a new school.”

Jerusha nodded her head. “Vote.” Evidently it was a new English word for her and she kept trying it out. She turned to her son and embraced him. “Vote.”

“Yes, I will vote,” Dimar said, embarrassed by his mother’s display of affection.

Morning Star stepped forward. “Sit. Eat.” Jerusha sat down and everyone else joined her.

Elizabeth sat next to Dimar’s mother. “I’m so glad you could come down to vote. This is such an important thing for the Cherokees. I know you will all agree on something you need.”

The woman nodded her head. “We agree what to do with gold.”

At that moment more guests arrived. Everyone turned to stare as Tsa’ni was carried into the house by a huge man, who turned out to be his father. His mother, Meli, came in behind them.

“We vote,” the man said as he put Tsa’ni on a chair and turned to Uncle Ned. “We vote.” Meli took a place at the table.

Uncle John got up from the table and came across the room to shake hands with the man. “Good morning, Jessan. I’m glad to see you.”

Jessan replied, “John, long time since we met.”

“Where have you been, Jessan?” John asked.

“I take corn to Asheville to sell. Come back to vote,” he said.

John turned to Mandie who was listening to their conversation. “This is Jim’s daughter, Amanda. Mandie, we call her. Mandie, this is your cousin, Jessan, Uncle Wirt’s son.”

Mandie got up and smiled at him. “I’m so glad to meet you. I want to get to know all my Cherokee kinpeople.”

Jessan laughed, showing perfect white teeth. “Lots of Cherokee kinpeople.”

“How is Tsa’ni’s foot?” she asked.

“Better,” Jessan replied. “Well soon.”

Mandie liked her cousin, Jessan, immediately. He seemed too nice to have such a miserable son as Tsa’ni.
She was thinking of the many people she would meet when she went with the others to the council house to vote.

Uncle Ned’s cabin was practically running over with people, and they soon began loading up for the journey to the council house. Everyone was in a happy mood except Tsa’ni, who never said a word and tried to ignore what the others were saying.

Mandie was glad she didn’t have to ride in the same wagon with Tsa’ni. There seemed to be an air of contempt and sulkiness wherever he was. Uncle Wirt and Jerusha rode with him and his parents.