Whiskey is a powerful thing. It is a spirit as strong as any of the monsters in our stories. I still am amazed that my father was able to finally escape it. Perhaps it troubled him when he saw the awful things others did when in the grip of the whiskey spirit. They would use all their money to buy whiskey. They would fight with their families and their best friends. Sometimes they would stab or shoot each other.

So, one day, he stopped drinking.

“I will never drink again,” he vowed to my mother.

At first she did not believe him, but he kept his word.

From then on, Sequoyah never again drank. That was true even when he went off to war with the Cherokee Regiment. There was strong drink everywhere in the camp of Sharp Knife, as we Cherokees called General Andrew Jackson. Many Cherokee men who were part of that brief and bloody war drank to forget what they saw. But even then my father never touched whiskey.

At first my mother was happy because the drinking had stopped. But her happiness did not last long. Because after my father, Sequoyah, stopped drinking he moved on to something else. It was something that consumed him even more than whiskey did. It was his new passion for making strange markings. It stopped him from working silver or iron or doing anything useful for anyone. That, and not drinking, was why my mother ended their marriage.

The sun has moved herself another hand’s width across the sky. And I have done nothing other than remember old stories and think about things that trouble me.

No one has visited the store. Is it because they know my father is here and they are afraid of the bad medicine he may be working with his markings? No one has come out of the cabin. The blacksmith shop has remained deserted.

Perhaps no one is home, even though smoke is still rising from the chimney, and I am just wasting my time.

I am not accomplishing anything by sitting. I need to do something.

I stand up, dust myself off, and walk across the road. My whole body is tense. My mouth is dry and my heart is pounding. But I can’t stop now. I force my feet to move until I am at the base of the wooden steps.

I lean my chunkey stick against the porch. Then I climb the steps, lift my hand, and place it on the door.

“Osiyo?” I call inside. “Hello? Is anyone home?”

CHAPTER 4

I Greet You, Young Man

“I am coming,” says a voice in Tsalagi.

The words are spoken so well, in a voice so gentle and friendly, that they almost sound like the start of a song.