The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby
The Legend
of
Tyoga Weathersby
By
H.L. Grandin
The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby
All Rights Reserved © 2012 by H.L.Grandin
Published by Acorn Book Services for E-Publication
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Dedicated To:
My precious wife, Mary Ann, who provided endless encouragement and unwavering support. Without her belief in me, Tyoga Weathersby would never have come to life. She gave me the gift of many quiet hours, and endured the aloneness without complaint. She fills my heart with The Promise every single day.
With Special Thanks To:
My cousin Paul who has filled my life with adventure
and daring-do — even when there was none to be had.
Without his companionship, this book would never have been written.
My dear friends, Maria and Bob, whose encouragement
and confidence gave me the heart to continue even when I was certain
that I had nothing more to give.
My editor, and friend, Lauren, who gave me the courage to leave paragraphs behind, guided me through the arduous editorial process and is responsible for bringing
The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby
to you—the reader.
The one released.
Table of Contents
Prologue:
“The Awakening - 1688”
Part I:
“The Legend is Born”
Chapter 1:
“Trapped”
Chapter 2:
“The Raven Will Settle You”
Chapter 3:
“The Primal Decree”
Chapter 4:
“The Siege”
Chapter 5:
“The Battle Begins”
Chapter 6:
“The Exchange”
Chapter 7:
“The Journey Home”
Chapter 8:
“Rescued”
Chapter 9:
“Recovery”
Chapter 10:
“South Henge”
Chapter 11:
“Of Fearless Stock”
Part II:
“The Power and The Promise”
Chapter 12:
“Mount Rag”
Chapter 13:
“The Spirit Dog”
Chapter 14:
“Frontier Intrigue”
Chapter 15:
“Camp at the Confluence”
Chapter 16:
“Thoughts that Young Men Share”
Chapter 17:
“Seven Arrows”
Chapter 18:
“Green Rock Cove”
Chapter 19:
“The Summons to South Fork”
Chapter 20:
“The Hidden Gifts of the Promise”
Chapter 21:
“A Sigh in the Brush”
Chapter 22:
“South Fork”
Chapter 23:
“Colliding Truth”
Chapter 24:
“The Call to Council”
Chapter 25:
“The Price”
Part III:
“Abandoned Hope”
Chapter 26:
“Surrender”
Chapter 27:
“A Reckoning”
Chapter 28:
“Farewell, My Love”
Chapter 29:
“The Rebuke”
Chapter 30:
“The Parting”
Chapter 31:
“Coarsened Cowardice”
Chapter 32:
“No Way Out”
Chapter 33:
“You Are Never Alone”
Chapter 34:
“Beaten to the Punch”
Chapter 35:
“Half a Man”
Chapter 36:
“Run!”
Chapter 37:
“Destiny Designed”
Chapter 38:
“Savage Retribution”
Chapter 39:
“Chickamaugua”
Chapter 40:
“Confession”
Part IV:
“Prosperity and Emptiness”
Chapter 41:
“The Trek to Mattaponi”
Chapter 42:
“The Tidewater”
Chapter 43:
“Salvation”
Chapter 44:
“Trinity Jane”
Chapter 45
“The Mattaponi”
Chapter 46:
“Passaunkack”
Chapter 47:
“Speak for the People”
Chapter 48:
“Turnabout”
Chapter 49:
“Twin Oaks”
Chapter 50:
“The Trip to Middle Plantation”
Chapter 51:
“The Parlez at Middle Planatation”
Chapter 52:
“The Pow-Wow at Middle Plantation”
Chapter 53:
“Consequences of the Accord”
Chapter 54:
“A Very Wealthy Man”
Chapter 55:
“Return of Wahaya”
Chapter 56:
“She’s Alive”
Chapter 57:
“Wild Restlessness”
Chapter 58:
“Dreams of a Different Life”
Chapter 59:
“Reunion”
Chapter 60:
“The Hot Embers Land”
Chapter 61:
“To Fill An Empty Heart”
Epilogue:
“The Search Begins”
Cast of Characters
The Weathersby Family
Tyoga Weathersby—The Legend
Joshia and Rebecca Weathersby—Tyoga’s Grandparents
Thomas and Emma Weathersby—Tyoga’s parents
The Ani-Unwiya Cherokee
The Wolf Clan of Tuckareegee
Tes Qua Ta Wa—Tyoga’s Lifelong Friend and Companion
Sunlei Awi—Tyoga’s Love and Tes Qua’s Sister
Prairie Day—Chief Silver Cloud’s Daughter
Nine Moons & True Moon—Sunlei Awi & Tes Qua’s parents
Chief Silver Cloud & Wind Song—Prairie Day’s Parents
White Feather—True Moon’s Brother
Standing Deer & Sky Dove—True Moon’s Sisters
Lone Dove, Morning Sky, Walking Bird—Friends
Walking Bird—Becomes Tes Qua’s Wife
Night Bear, Not Afraid of Knowing—Tribal Elders
Mountain Creek Clan
Walks Alone & Night Sky— Lone Dove’s son and daughter by her marriage into Mountain Creek Clan. Sunlei and Tes Qua’s cousins.
Grey Owl—Mountain Creek Clan brave
Walks Alone marries Morning Sky
Grey Owl marries Winged Woman— They live with the Mountain Creek Cherokee. Their children are Yellow Robe’s grandchildren
The Chickamaugua Cherokee
Lone Bear & Blossoms in Spring— Care for Sunlei when she is sent away to hide
Standing Bird, Stands with Rock, Runs Long—Their children
The Shawnee
The South Fork Clan
Chief Yellow Robe—Chief of the South Fork Shawnee
Seven Arrows—Chief Yellow Robe’s son
Spotted Calf—Chief Yellow Robe’s son , killed on Mt. Rag
Running Elk—Chief Yellow Robe’s son , killed on Mt. Rag
Winged Woman—Chief Yellow Robe’s daughter
The Mattaponi
Chief Blue Coat—Chief of the Mattaponi in New Kent
Shield Maker & Thunder Bow—The Chief’s sons
Gray Sky & Swift Wind—Mattaponi braves
Twin Oaks
Trinity Jane O’Doule— A white woman raised by the Powhatan. She saves Tyoga and they start a family and they develop Twin Oaks.
Three-Toe Brister— Tyoga’s Right Hand Man and Twin Oaks overseer
The British
Governor Edward Nott—Governor of Virginia Colonies
Henry Carry—The Governor’s Aide de Camp
Preface
I
t is hard to believe that
The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby
has taken an entire lifetime to write—but it’s true. Well, not an entire lifetime, but I have spent a good portion of my nearly sixty years on earth as an observer, a quiet listener, a voracious learner, a student of early American history and a lover of the miracles of the natural world—those spectacularly displayed for all to observe and admire, and those as ethereal as the ‘feel’ of the deep woods at sunset.
My cousin, Paul, and I grew up hiking the Appalachian Trail. Many of the scenes described in the book are places I have been, traveled through, and experienced first hand. We spent many nights camping under the stars, and several unforgettable evenings on the top of Old Mount Rag. The trail to the summit, and even the configuration of the rocks at the peak, described in the book are depicted exactly as they appear to this day.
The top of Old Mount Rag is unchanged from how it would have appeared to Tyoga in the 1700s. He would have undoubtedly taken a seat on the “top-rock” and gazed off into the horizon just as I have done. I am certain that his heart would have soared at the majesty of the Appalachian Mountains, and that he would have wondered about the world beyond—just as I have done.
Paul and I even had to abandon a summit campsite and run blindly off of the mountain top in a hurricane-force storm, just as Tyoga and Sunlei are forced to do. We also endured a rainy night at the confluence of the Rapidan and Rappahanock Rivers. Thankfully, we fared better than Tyoga and Tes Qua.
My wife, Mary Ann, and I have spent many hours walking the cobblestone streets of Williamsburg, the dusty trails to the tri-corner fort at Jamestown, and the haunting overgrown fields surrounding Wolstenholmes Towne in my native Virginia.
I remember standing speechless at the hastily dug graves of the victims of the massacre of 1622. Vividly, the scene came alive in my mind. I could hear the war cries of the Powhatans as they attacked the unsuspecting colonists. The visceral terror of the stunned settlers when their trusted Native American brothers rose up and slaughtered them with their own farm tools came alive in my heart. Hundreds of men, women, and children were killed on that day. Standing next to the shallow graves on the very ground that soaked up the teardrops of those left behind is an experience that I will never forget.
But this story is more than a recounting of the adventures of Tyoga Weathersby as his life is forever transformed by the deep spiritual connection forged between himself and the magnificent leader of the Runion wolf pack. It is a story of young lovers who connect on the rarified plane reserved for those who have been blessed with the discovery of the “other.” The solitary soul that completes us in ways that allow us to fulfill our promise and be all that we can be. The love of a lifetime, that never repeats.
Almost everyone has had to part with someone they have loved. But few have experienced the wretchedness of releasing “the one,” not because it was the easy thing to do, but because it was the right thing to do—for her. There is no greater expression of love than releasing another so that they may, one day, love again. But the indefinable bonds that meld life force and imprison souls are never truly forsaken. They sentence the condemned to live with a heart forever shackled and a destiny unfulfilled. They punish empty moments with the brutal thoughts of what might have been. Tyoga bestows the ultimate gift to the woman he loves—freedom to find another.
The cultural matrix for the story is the Ani-Unwiya. A shadowy reflection of a real tribe of the Cherokee, the Ani-Yunwiya —but a fictional tribe nevertheless—is my homage to a culture with which I have been intrigued since I was a little boy. I remember enjoying a fascination with all things Native American that, at times, verged on an affinity for the culture strong enough to put the re-incarnation debate to rest.
When we played cowboys and Indians, I was always an Indian warrior. While others vied for the title of “The Lone Ranger” I stood off to the side, secure that I would not have any competition for the role of Tonto.
Growing up along the Potomac River, about two-miles south of George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate, provided ample opportunity for me to collect arrow heads, obsidian knife blades, and stone axes from the campsites of Native Americans who lived along the shores of the gently flowing river. I would hold an arrowhead in my hands for hours examining the flake patterns wondering that a hand, just like mine, once held it and examined it in the same way. How long had he worked at fashioning its edges? What did he talk about while he was working? At what did he aim when he let the arrow fly?
I hope that my admiration and respect for the cultures that have called the North American continent ‘home’ for millennia is evidenced, not only in those passages that document the loving bonds between family members and close friends; but also in those passages in which their behavior may be interpreted by today’s standards as inhumanly barbaric.
I caution the reader to judge not too harshly.
The act of ending—or preserving—a life in the context of the Native American cultures, and understanding how their deeply-held beliefs were expressed, even in the manner by which life was ended —or preserved—is today a difficult construct to understand—let alone appreciate. “He died well,” means something completely different to us today. Indeed, the act holds little merit in the context of our current reality. That a people so loving and tender to family and friends was capable of extracting spiritual significance in the ritualistic horrors of savage cruelty flies in the face of our modern notions of humanness and magnanimity. Does our lack of understanding, or our inability to place ourselves in like context, negate the honor in their profoundly held beliefs? Not at all. They have a great deal to teach us yet.
As a young man, and even to this day, my fascination with wolves rivals the esteem with which I hold Native American cultures. I spent many hours alone in my backyard, or in the woods along Bucknell Creek, reading everything I could get my hands on about wolves.
White Fang
was, of course, the piece of literature that got me hooked. Time and study led me to appreciate the magnificent creatures chosen by natural selection to somehow transcend the miracles of adaptation.
The wonder is that the animals’ a posteriori acceptance of situation and circumstance is reconciled without prejudice or the need for contrived retribution. Their eyes reflect a wisdom that is not learned or experiential, but rather found in the silent molecular code responsible for the fundamentals of being like color, height, and demeanor. They know simply because they don’t understand how not to.
To ascribe a “nobleness” to this is a mistake. While their stature and demeanor may reflect those characteristics we most readily associate with nobility, to attribute ‘noble-ness’ to the species is an anthropomorphism that does the contrivance injustice. Wolves are wise simply because it is the stuff of which they are made.
So are we.
We haven’t really lost the ability to “listen,” we have just misplaced the ability to understand what we are hearing. We retain nature’s gift of ‘seeing’ beyond what is visible to the naked eye. Unfortunately, we have forgotten how to decipher the vision.
These gifts Wahaya-Wacon reawakens in young Tyoga Weathersby. He is chosen because of who he is. It is the spark of “aliveness” ignited by the wolf that sets him apart. He belongs—but remains an outsider. He is included—but remains alone. He is a leader—but pushes rather than pulls.
In writing
The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby
, I have tried to give the reader a glimpse into the “bridge” culture that existed in the early 1700s. In the days when the Appalachian Mountains were considered the western frontier, there were those incredibly courageous souls who chose to leave the relative comforts of colonial living to brave the wilds in search of land, wealth, and, above all else, the freedom of self-determination. At first, they were a lawless breed of mountain men who blazed the trails, killed or befriended the Native Americans, and lived by their own wiles and ingenuity. The homesteaders followed with their axes and plows, and carved the earth to suit their needs and, for the most part, befriended the Native Americans in order to ensure their own survival.