The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby (46 page)

Tyoga’s first impulse was to run toward his old friend and greet him like he would a lost pet. Instead he held himself in check. This was the apex predator, Wahaya-Wacon.

It was the right thing to do.

Wahaya did not approach like a pet reunited with his owner. With hesitance, he stepped into the glow of the firelight and sat.

Tyoga knelt down onto one knee so that Wahaya’s head was just slightly above his own.

At first, he appeared unchanged. A little thinner than Tyoga remembered, but still a magnificent animal. When he stood to once again shake the water from his coat, Tyoga noticed a linear patch of missing fur that ran nearly the length of his left haunch. His right shoulder bore the scar of a large puncture wound. Wahaya had fought hard – and often. It was clear to Tyoga that these were wounds inflicted by hatchet, spear and arrow. Still proud, strong, and resolute in his knowing, Wahaya reflected the acceptance of the battle scars without judgement or animosity. The affirmation had sustained his kind for time immemorial.

His eyes gave no hint about why he had returned. He broke the lock of their stare and flicked his eyes toward Trinity standing in the cabin door. He licked his lips and Tyoga could tell that he was hungry.

“Jayo si has, Wahaya?” Tyoga asked.

Standing up slowly, he walked casually, but confidently, over to the smokehouse and returned with the haunch of a recently butchered deer. With equal confidence, he came toward the wolf to lay it at his feet. At Tyoga’s approach, the wolf stood up and cautiously backed away.

“Okay. Okay.” Tyoga set the haunch down and stepped back toward the fire. When he had created enough space between himself and the meat, the wolf came forward, picked it up in his jaws and trotted off into the darkness.

“Well, what do you think of that, Trinity Jane?” Tyoga asked while watching the wolf disappear into the night. “Wahaya has returned.”

He turned toward the door of the cabin with a big contented smile beaming from his face.

The doorway was empty.

Chapter 56

She’s Alive

T
he next morning Tyoga was up before sunrise. He and Trinity Jane had been living as wealthy white colonists ever since Twin Oaks took its place on the frontier as a successful business concern.

As such, they had dressed the part every morning. Trinity’s dresses had gone from linen to taffeta, while Tyoga’s waistcoats were tailor-made of satin and lace.

Today, Tyoga opened his dresser drawer and pulled out his doeskin britches and fringed buckskin tunic. After pulling on his elk moccasins, he grabbed his long rifle and powder horn, and headed for the door. He was reaching for the latch, when he heard Trinity’s voice call from their bedroom.

Putting on her silken robe, she rushed down the hall. “Tyoga, wait! Where are you going so early in the morning?”

He turned around to face her. “Trinity, Wahaya is back. You saw him last night.”

“I did.”

“Don’t you want to know why he has returned? Aren’t you curious about what this means?

“I am only curious about what you think it means, Tyoga?”

When he did not answer, she said, “The reason that the wolf has returned to you means nothing to me. Nor should it matter to you. How many times have you told me that the “why” of things makes no difference at all? How many times have you told me that events unfold exactly as they should and to think that we are capable of changing outcomes is like thinking that throwing a pebble in the Mattaponi is going to change its course? Sunlei is dead, or she is alive. She is happy in her life, or she is sad. She has forgotten you, or she has not. None of these things can you change.”

“No, Trinity!” Tyoga said more passionately than he meant to. “I’m sorry,” he apologized right away when he saw the startled expression on her face. “I didn’t mean to shout, but this is important, Trinity. This matters. Wahaya has returned for a reason. There is sense to be made of this in the ways of the promise. The return is more than the wolf coming back. It means something that I don’t yet understand. All I know is that I have to try to figure it out.”

He turned and walked toward the door, just as he heard the pitter patter of little feet and a tiny voice ask, “Why is Papa shouting, Mama? What’s the matter?”

Trinity stooped down to pick up Joshia. She clutched him to her bosom while he threw his legs around her waist and locked his ankles in the small of her back. “That’s what your papa is trying to figure out, kanunu
(little frog)
.” She peered over the top of his head.

Tyoga opened the front door. He hesitated for just a moment before closing it softly behind him. He jogged down the stone steps two at a time.

Wide-eyed with excitement, Brister, Twin Oaks’ foreman and Tyoga’s right hand man, met him at the bottom of the porch steps. “Massa Ty,” he nearly shouted while marching after him with that awkward hitch in his stride. “Massa Ty,” he continued trying to get him to stop to listen.

Tyoga slowed down his pace. “Yes, Brister, what is it?”

“I tink me see a wolf, Massa Ty. Me never seen da wolf—Wahaya-Wacon—but las’ night late, late, me tink I seen him sho’ enough.”

Tyoga stopped and waited for Brister to catch up. He was so anxious that someone share his excitement at the return of his old friend that he placed both hands on his shoulders and said with a big smile on his face, “You did. You did see Wahaya-Wacon last night, Brister. Isn’t it wonderful? He’s returned to me after all of this time.”

“Yes, Massa,” Brister said. “Me tink dis very good ting. But, Massa, what he come back mean, Massa Ty? What tink it mean he come back?”

Tyoga released his grip on Brister’s shoulders and looked off toward the woods to the east. “I don’t know, Brister. I just don’t know,” he said. “But I aim to find out. Come on.”

With that the men hurried along the cobblestone way that had become Cottage Lane, and cut through an alleyway between the Cooper’s workshop and the tannery. The tiny village of Twin Oaks was just waking up and the sounds filling the Lane were those of the tradesmen preparing for the day.

The blacksmith, a huge Nigerian with arms that dwarfed even Tyoga’s, waved a blackened, calloused hand toward the two men as they hurried along their way.

“Monin’ Massa Ty,” he called out with a thin reedy voice that did not match his three-hundred pound frame.

“Good morning, Sabu.” Tyoga waved with a smile.

“Makin’ dos tongs for Ginny today,” he said.

“Good, good, Sabu. We mustn’t vex Ginny.”

“No-sa! No-sa, we keep her ‘appy, long she keep makin’ dat conebread like she do,” Sabu said with a wide toothy grin.

Tyoga stuck his hand high in the air as a gesture of absolute agreement.

Ginny, the four-foot-two ‘matron de cuisine’ who oversaw food preparations at Twin Oaks, made the best cornbread in all of Virginia.

It was about three-hundred yards from Cottage Lane to the edge of the woods. Along the way, they scared up a huge flock of wild turkeys. When about thirty of the beautiful birds took to the air all at once, the sound of their massive wings beating against the heavy morning air created a tumultuous sound as they passed overhead. Turkeys don’t fly far, but they fly really hard. Before they reached the forest, a flock of deer, fifty strong, stood their ground to watch passively as the two walked by.

Just before they entered the underbrush that edged the mighty pines and elm trees, Tyoga stopped suddenly in his tracks.

“Wus da matta, Massa?” Brister asked. “You hear somthin’?”

Holding his hand out in a gesture to quiet Brister, Tyoga closed his eyes and said softly, “No. Not hear, but feel. I feel him. He’s close by. Stay here.”

Without answering, Brister stood stone still. He watched Tyoga disappear into the woods. Uneasy about not being able to watch over him, Brister took ten more steps toward the brush line to stand on tiptoe and peer over the bushes and scrub pines to look for his friend. Unable to see him, he sat on the ground to wait.

After a ten minute hike into the woods, Tyoga stopped at a granite boulder at the base of an ancient pine tree. He climbed to the top of the rock and sat in the silence of the deep primal forest.

Closing his eyes, he emptied his mind and basked in the silence that spoke to him in time and depth and texture. Smiling, he heard the messages carried in the silence. He did not understand how it happened. He only knew that he understood.

When he felt him near, he opened his eyes.

Standing in a clearing twenty feet away was the magnificent Wahaya-Wacon. He was even more startling in the light of day.

Now that he could see him more clearly, Tyoga was astonished that the wolf appeared as if he had not aged a single day since they were last together at the entrance to the cave. The battles he had fought had taken a toll in flesh and hide, but if anything, Wahaya-Wacon looked stronger and more powerful than could possibly be explained by any measure understood in terms of the passage of time.

His fur was thick and lustrous save those spots where it had been lost to wound and scar. The light danced off of his coat’s silver tips like the blinding sparkle from the surface of a mountain lake in the noonday sun. His haunches were more muscular and his chest muscles seemed to have doubled in size. He stood taller, and the girth of his neck left little demarkation between his head and back.

His eyes sizzled with an intensity that Tyoga could not decipher.

He dropped his head a bit, which was a sign of welcome and submission; and took four sharp steps toward him. Tyoga jumped down from his perch, but did not venture toward the wolf.

Looking up into Tyoga’s face, Wahaya stepped up to brush his head against his upper thigh in a gesture of affection and trust that he had never allowed before.

Overcome with Wahaya’s show of affection, Tyoga reached down and cradled the wolf’s head in his hands. The wolf pushed against his hands with an equal pressure that conveyed a message that no words could speak. He rubbed the length of his body against Tyoga’s upper leg, which nearly pushed him over with his spirited re-bonding.

It hit Tyoga like a cold winter wind on his bare arms. He furrowed his brow, knelt before the beast, and asked, “Wahaya, what is it? Why have you returned?”

The wolf circled Tyoga twice before sitting down at his feet, facing the northwest. Pivoting on his knee so that he was facing the same direction, Tyoga put his arm around the wolf’s neck and looked through the pines. He looked into Wahaya’s eyes. The wolf licked his lips and sighed a haunting moan.

His eyes gave Tyoga no clue.

“Why did you leave Sunlei, Wahaya? Is she—is she alive?” he asked without looking at the wolf.

The tension in the wolf’s body while he continued to stare intently toward the northwest conveyed the answer that he had hoped for.

She was still alive.

“Okay. Okay, Wahaya.” Tyoga patted the wolf’s back. “I reckon you’ll let me know in your own good time.”

The wolf stood and took several steps toward the edge of the woods.

“Let’s go home,” Tyoga said.

The two walked toward the cabin side-by-side.

Chapter 57

Wild Restlessness

T
he harvest had been the best in years. The corn cribs overflowed with the bounty. Twin Oaks coffers were filled with pounds in payment for the food stuffs and fodder that the estate had supplied to farms, plantations, and towns dotting the tidewater and lining the Atlantic coast. From the Carolinas to New York, flour from Twin Oaks’ grist mill, hay and straw for livestock, and produce for winter larder traveled by pack mule, wagons, and barges to Chatham Hill, Pointer’s Landing, Canterbury and Whitehall. Game was so plentiful that an addition had to be built onto the smokehouse to cure all of the meat the families living on Twin Oaks gave to Tyoga and Trinity Jane. Knowing that they could come and get whatever meat they needed to feed their families throughout the winter, the Indians hunting parties dropped game off at the smokehouse.

A generous man, Tyoga helped those in need no matter their race, color, creed, or tribe. He denied no man food and shelter, and was willing to pay an honest wage for an honest day’s work. He was held in high regard, lavished with gifts of tribute and thanks, and protected by an unspoken allegiance with the Native Americans that shielded his estate from speculators, squatters, and raids from distant tribes. His kindness had been repaid many times.

Forever wild, Wahaya remained on the outskirts of the Twin Oaks compound and spent most of his time on the eastern slopes of the mountain on the far side of the Mattaponi. He was covetous of the time he and Tyoga spent together, and reluctantly tolerated intrusions by others. He had grown to know the children and recognized them as members of his human pack. Joshia was five years old and their daughter, Rebecca Jane, was two. Sometimes, he would hide in the tall grasses on the banks of the Mattaponi to keep a protective eye upon them when they were in the yard.

He had come to tolerate Brister, but shunned the company of others almost completely.

When Tyoga traveled through the backwoods with others at his side, the wolf followed behind at a great distance. Tyoga’s traveling companions knew that he was always lurking in the shadows, but they made no effort to catch a glimpse him. When Tyoga visited villages and towns to conduct business, Wahaya would hide in the omnipresent divide that separates the tame from the wild in the underbrush.

On a cool, late autumn evening in November, Tyoga and Brister were sitting in an ornate gazebo along the banks of the Mattaponi. One of his favorite spots, Tyoga would sit for hours staring into the distant mountains, and feeling the promise song fill his heart.

The plaintive wail of the wolf descending to the water’s edge, spurred Brister to ask, “Massa-Ty, you notice sumpin different ‘bout da wuf?” His English had improved over the years, but he still had a strong accent and difficulty with tense and gender.

“I have, Brister,” Tyoga replied. “Yes, I have.”