Horseshoe Bend

My father levers himself up from his chair. He shakes his lame leg and stomps it twice on the floor before putting his weight onto it. Then he walks toward the steps.

“Come,” he says, his hand brushing my knee.

And though Wesa protests as I gently push him out of my lap, I stand up, too. I follow my father as he makes his way down the steps, walks around the front of the cabin, and starts across the backyard.

He does not go far. A stone’s throw from the cabin are two stumps next to each other. In front of those stumps is a patch of clear ground where the loose, sandy soil is as smooth and unmarked as a baby’s face. And next to each stump is a small, thin pole with the bark peeled from it. I am not sure what those poles are for. But they look as well used as ball sticks or farm tools.

My father limps over to sit on one of those stumps. He pats the one next to it and I take a seat there. He carefully picks up the smooth stick closest to him and holds it between his thumb and his first two fingers the way I have seen the missionary hold a pen.

“Here,” he says. He begins to scratch shapes in the smooth soil with the tip of the stick.

For a moment I think he is making more of those symbols that stand for sounds. But then I realize that what he is drawing is something other than that. It is a map.

“North,” my father says, tapping the top of his drawing. “South,” placing his stick down near the bottom. “The Tallapoosa River,” he continues, following a line he’s made that comes curving down from the northeast, then takes a sharp bend up, down, and around. Its shape is that of a horseshoe.

He leans back, takes a breath. Then he leans forward again and holds his drawing stick above that peninsula of land formed by the river. “This is where the Red Sticks made their final stand,” he says. “They had a thousand warriors there at Tohopeka within a hundred acres of land.”

With the point of the stick he draws lines across the neck of the peninsula.

“They built walls of logs across the entrance. They were taller than a man, and so thick that even cannon fire could not break them down. They slanted in so that anyone coming close could be shot at from two sides. The Red Sticks behind that wall all had muskets and plenty of powder and balls, as well as bows and quivers full of arrows.”

He taps his stick behind the wall. “Their houses were back here. Their women and children were there. Three hundred of them. So, of course, their men fought harder to protect them.”