“A great victory,” my father says. “A great victory. Those were the words of Sharp Knife Jackson. But it was not that. It was a slaughter there in that bend in the river. I had escaped without being struck by any musket ball or arrow shot by an enemy’s hand. I was unwounded in my body. But not in my spirit.”

My father reaches his hand up to wipe his eyes. Then he leans down, using his hands to support himself as he goes to his knees. Then, with his left hand, he begins to carefully wipe away all trace of the map he had drawn. It takes him some time before the earth is smooth and clean again. But even though the shapes of that terrible battle have been removed from the soil, I know they will always remain in his memory. Just as they will now surely remain in mine. Never again will I be able to think of war without remembering his story or the horrors he saw at the Horseshoe.

He dusts the earth from his hands and shakes his head. Then he holds out his right hand to me and I help him rise to his feet. The two of us sit back down again on the stumps. We stay there in silence for a long time. Somewhere off in the trees I can hear the drumming of a pileated woodpecker as it hammers its beak against a tree. The warm wind, coming as soft as a mother’s hand to caress our faces, begins to dry the tears on my father’s cheeks . . . and on my own.

“When I came home,” my father finally says, “something had changed in me. I had made the mistake of thinking I could be a warrior. But that was not who I was or ever again should be. I would never again go to war—not for the Aniyonega or for my own nation. I would never kill another human being or take part in the killing. But more than that had changed in my mind and in my heart. Although those false prophets and the Red Sticks who followed them were wrong in most things, I now knew how right they were in wanting to stay true to who they were, in wanting to stay Indian.

“After that experience of war, I knew what I had to do. Before, I had been obsessed with the idea of finding ways to make symbols I could use in my store. Now it was much more. It was not just for myself, but for all our Tsalagi people. It was as if a fire was burning in my heart. Learning how to write our language was the way I could help our people. It could help us be stronger, help us remain Tsalagi. It could help bring us together, help us find peace.”