If my father did talk about it, I know he would say more than that. And he would say it well. Everyone knows how good a speaker he is. Whatever he says, he says it clearly and well. Until people became suspicious about his obsession with those strange markings, he was often asked to be an emissary and represent our people.

I look over at my father. His eyes are closed now. What is he thinking about? Is he asleep? How can he be so restful, so peaceful, when we are threatened every day by the white men who want what is left of our land.

He must know that even better than I do. After all, he was one of those chosen by our chiefs to speak for us in 1816 at the Chickasaw Council House Meeting. There our people met with the same powerful white man, Sharp Knife Jackson, who asked for our help and then said he would be our friend forever. But it seems that “forever” to General Andrew Jackson was not even three years. Despite everything my father said, despite the protests of all our Tsalagi delegates, Jackson was as hard as stone. The proposal that my father and the others were given to take back to our National Council was not in our favor. It demanded that we give up more land in Alabama.

I shake my head at the thought of General Jackson. Our people saved his life in that war against the Red Stick Creeks. But now that he is a leader of the Ani-yonega, all he wants to do is remove every Indian from the South.

Maybe it is true what some of our Tsalagi elders now say. Maybe Sharp Knife Jackson really is the Devil, that same evil deceiver the missionaries talk about.

I am sitting forward now with my head in my hands and my eyes closed. No, no! I do not want to think of General Jackson. It is just making me sad. I don’t want to think about our being driven from our homeland. I want to learn something useful from my father. Perhaps he’ll show me more about carving. Perhaps . . .

“ Tsula,” my father says. “Fox.”

I turn to look at him. He is no longer resting back against the stream bank with his eyes closed. He has sat up and picked up a stick. He is making marks with it in the clay of the riverbank.

“,” he says slowly as he draws a straight line down and then curves it up like a hook. “Tsu.”

More of those strange markings? I do not need to hear more about them now. Anything but that.

“Edoda?” I say in a soft voice. “Father?”

There’s no response. He just marks another shape. It is one I have seen before. The one that looks like a big English W. “,” he says. “La.”

“?” I repeat

My father grins. “Yes. Now look at this.”