Free The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby by H L Grandin Page B

traditions of the Native Americans around their campfires. Romping through the glades and hollows of Appalachia, they were free.
    Tyoga remembered that special day at So-hi pool when his relationship with Sunlei was changed forever. He could hear her voice and smell her skin as he trudged on through the blackness of the night.
    So-hi (Hickory Nut) was an ancient goblet shaped sinkhole that was filled with mineral rich spring water. The crystal clear aquamarine swimming hole was one of the trio’s favorite spots. Although it was visited by many of their friends, its hidden access and the rigors of entry imbued So-hi pool with an air of mystery and pleasure that somehow seemed unique. They never spoke of the pool in the company of others as if the words would betray an unspoken pact. So-hi belonged to them and no one else.
    Four Months Earlier
    “Come on in, Sunlei,” Tyoga and Tes Qua urged a reticent ten-year-old Sunlei from the boulders surrounding the pool. “Tlano Ty—the water’s too cold,” she responded to their taunts.
    “Oh come on. Don’t be afraid. It feels good,” Tyoga persisted.
    “Jump in, Ulv (sister) ,” Tes QuaQua chimed in.
    Bending at the waist to put his back into pulling the right stay of the litter over the roots of a giant hickory tree, he saw her beautiful face as it appeared on that day looking down at him from the banks of the pool.
    Even at ten years old, the beauty into which Sunlei would blossom was readily apparent.
    Her ebony eyes were pools of inky blackness reflecting the world not as it is, but reconfigured by an internal filter with a timbral quality unique in its perspective and joy. The world was reborn as an intuitive truth when strained through that filter. Sunlei would not be persuaded to abandon her reality. With a singular voice, the world mirrored in her eyes accepted the rightness of natural course. It stubbornly—even fiercely—rejected contrivance and scheme. As blackness protectively secrets hidden truths; so too, Sunlei’s onyx orbs gave no hint of the private world within. The blackness was lifted only for those she welcomed to join her inside.
    The gentle arch of brow that ringed her raven eyes was supported by a prominence of cheek that proudly proclaimed her regal Native American heritage. The chestnut skin of her forehead was covered with the fringed bangs common to young girls of the Amansoquath tribe. The remainder of her thick black hair was worn in braids that reached the small of her back.
    The rest of Sunlie’s facial features departed from those of her sisters and cousins. Her nose lacked the broad bridge common to her tribe, and was button-like, just slightly turned-up at the end. Her jaw line closely reflected the more slender facial structure of the white man, and her lips lacked some of the broad fullness of others in her tribe.
    There had been shadowy talk in the village about an ancestor who had been kidnapped by fur trappers while foraging in the woods who was then sold to the Pontiacs in southern Canada. When the woman was finally reunited with her Uni-Unwiya family, her sandy-haired, three-year-old daughter was accepted into the clan as one of their own. Through the generations, a blue-eyed or light haired Amansoquath served as a reminder of their ancestor’s cruel treatment at the hands of the white man. But, in the Indian way, all were accepted as members of the tribe.
    In his mind’s eye, Tyoga saw her bend over to pick up one of the baby ducklings she found in a nest several yards away from the bank of the pool.
    “Look, Ty. Tes ‘A, look,” she chirped excitedly. “Baby ducks! Come and see!”
    “Let ‘em be, Sunlei,” Tes Qua yelled from the far side of the pool.
    At the frenzied cackling of the mother hen, Sunlei hurriedly put the duckling back into the nest, took a step down onto the rocky outcropping and dove into the blue-green water of the swimming hole.
    “Ty, the water’s freezing.” Sunlei began swimming toward the