What I do remember is that his stories stopped at the same time when he decided to become sober. Instead of sitting around and telling stories, he threw himself into his work of silversmithing. I missed the stories, but I did not miss the smell of whiskey on his breath.

What happened next was not better. It took him farther from us.

What next happened was the war.

I look over at my peaceful father, smiling as he looks up so intently at the clouds moving east over our heads that it seems as if he is trying to find some message in them. It is so hard for me to imagine him as a warrior, as someone fighting and killing other people. And not just any people—other Indians.

Killing Indians was what that war was about.

I’m not sure that any of our Tsalagi people expected back then that they would ever go to war again. We had made solemn promises to the Americans that we would never fight the white men again. But then a call was sent out by Gunundalegi, the One Who Follows the Ridge, one of our major leaders.

“Fighting men are needed,” the Ridge said. “The Red Stick Creeks to the south of us are fighting the Americans. The great white general of the Americans, Sharp Knife Jackson, has asked for our help. All able-bodied Tsalagi men should volunteer. If we help the Americans win this war, then they are not likely to take any more of our land.”

The Ridge’s words made sense. If our people were useful allies, perhaps we would be left alone by the white men. They would see us as civilized people and not savages.

So it was that many able-bodied men did join up.

I think no one would have blamed Sequoyah if he had stayed home. He was far from able-bodied. That one leg of his was so lame that he could not walk far without pain. But my father was one of the first to volunteer. Despite that leg, he could ride a horse as well as any man. He became a private in the Mounted and Foot Cherokees, a regiment of five hundred men.

My father never spoke to me about his experiences in that brief, bloody war. I wish that he would talk to me about it. I’d especially like to know about the great battle at Horseshoe Bend that ended the Red Stick War. Both of my uncles were there, too. But neither of them ever talked at length about it either.

“The sun shone that day,” is the most my uncle Red Bird would ever say whenever I asked him.

And my uncle Big Hawk just says, “It was a hard fight.”