Mountain Windsong: A Novel of the Trail of Tears

by Robert J. Conley

Overview

Set against the tragic events of the Cherokees' removal from their traditional lands in North Carolina to Indian Territory between 1835-1838, Mountain Windsong is a love story that brings to life the suffering and endurance of the Cherokee people. It is the moving tale of Waguli (Whippoorwill") and Oconeechee, a young Cherokee man and woman separated by the Trail of Tears. Just as they are about to be married, Waguli is captured be federal soldiers and, along with thousands of other Cherokees, taken west, on foot and then by steamboat, to what is now eastern Oklahoma. Though many die along the way, Waguli survives, drowning his shame and sorrow in alcohol. Oconeechee, among the few Cherokees who remain behind, hidden in the mountains, embarks on a courageous search for Waguli.

Robert J. Conley makes use of song, legend, and historical documents to weave the rich texture of the story, which is told through several, sometimes contradictory, voices. The traditional narrative of the Trail of Tears is told to a young contemporary Cherokee boy by his grandfather, presented in bits and pieces as they go about their everyday chores in rural North Carolina. The telling is neiter bitter nor hostile; it is sympathetic by unsentimental. An ironic third point of view, detached and often adversarial, is provided by the historical documents interspersed through the novel, from the text of the removal treaty to Ralph Waldo Emerson's letter to the president of the United States in protest of the removal. In this layering of contradictory elements, Conley implies questions about the relationships between history and legend, storytelling and myth-making.

Inspired by the lyrics of Don Grooms's song "Whippoorwill," which open many chapters in the text, Conley has written a novel both meticulously accurate and deeply moving.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780806127460
Publisher:	University of Oklahoma Press
Publication date:	03/01/1995
Pages:	218
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.51(d)

About the Author

Robert J. Conley (1940–2014) was the author of the Real People series, The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories, Mountain Windsong, and Wil Usdi. Conley was a three-time winner of the Spur Award and was named Oklahoma Writer of the Year in 1999. He was inducted into the Oklahoma Professional Writers Hall of Fame in 1996.

Read an Excerpt

Mountain Windsong

A Novel of the Trail of Tears

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By Robert J. Conley

UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS

Copyright © 1992 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University
All rights reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-8061-8692-4

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CHAPTER 1

I remember the first time ever I heard the windsong in those misty hills above Big Cove. The dogwood was in bloom. My belly was full of hickory-nut soup and chestnut bread thatelisi, my grandmother, had made. After we had eaten our fill, Grandpa had led me up the footpath behind the house that took us onto the top of the hill. There was no reason—no practical reason, I mean. We weren't gathering grapes or berries or wild onions. We weren't going hunting. We just climbed the path to the top of the hill and sat down in the sweetgrass among the passion flowers and thistles beneath the dogwood and sourwood trees. Grandpa took his corncob pipe and tobacco pouch out of a pocket of his baggy khaki trousers. He slowly filled the pipe bowl, folded up the pouch and stuffed it back into his pocket, and poked the pipestem in between his tight old-man lips. He reached into the breast pocket of his khaki shirt for a wooden kitchen match which he struck on the sole of his shoe. He held the flaming match cupped in his hands against the gentle breeze which was stirring the air around us. Then he puffed at his pipe, sucking the flame from the match down into the bowl until he had the tobacco lit. He broke the matchstick and shoved the pieces down into the earth, then he leaned back against the trunk of a big white oak andpuffed contentedly, sending clouds of white, lovely looking smoke spiraling their way up into the heavens.

I stretched out on my back in the weeds and folded my hands behind my head. I was looking straight up into the sky, and I tried to imagine what it was like on the other side. Grandpa had told me that it was a gigantic vault over the earth—kind of like a cereal bowl turned upside-down over a saucer—and we were walking around on the saucer under the bowl. I couldn't see Grandpa, looking almost straight up the way I was, but his smoke kept drifting across my field of vision.

The smell of Grandpa's burning tobacco mingled with the fresh smells of the hills: the dogwood blossoms, the sweetgrass, the multitude of other aromas of the North Carolina Smoky Mountains, and I loved it. It was just about perfect—being up there on the hill, my favorite spot, with Grandpa, my favorite person in the whole world. So I was just laying there like that and enjoying the company of Grandpa and the smells and the sights and the sounds of the birds and the chattering squirrels, and it was just then that I heard the windsong. And it really was a song—or it was just like a song. I pushed myself up on my elbows and looked around. I guess I almost expected to see someone—whoever it was making the music, I guess. And then I looked at Grandpa, but he was just sitting there quietly smoking his pipe.

"Grandpa," I said.

He just kept puffing.

"What was that?"

"What, chooj?" he said.

He often called me boy like that rather than call me by my right name, which is LeRoy, and sometimes he called me Sonny. Sonny is what Daddy usually called me, and Mom called me either Sonny or LeRoy, but most of the time Grandpa called me chooj, boy.

"That sound, Grandpa," I said. "It sounds like—like a song."

"Oh," he said, and a smile formed on his wrinkled old brown face, "it is a song. It's a love song."

"A love song?" I said.

"It's the love song of Oconeechee and Whippoorwill."

I don't think I said anything then, but I sat right up and stared at him. He had that smile on his face and the twinkle in his eyes that I knew so well, and I could see that he had a story to tell me. He always looked like that when he had a story to tell. He puffed his pipe, and the smoke rose up high before it dissipated and vanished on its way up to God's house on the other side of the Sky Vault.

"Have you heard about that story?" he said.

"No."

"Well, it was a long time ago," he said. "Back then the Cherokees had all this land. Not just our little reservation here that we have now. We had lots of land—in North Carolina, in Georgia, in Alabama, in Tennessee. The Cherokee Nation was real big back in those days."

He paused to puff on his pipe, and he pointed off to the north where the mountains got higher.

"There was a town off over there called Soco Gap," he said, "and there was a man who lived there. He was a chief. His name was Tsunu lahun ski. White men can't say that. They called him Junaluska. That wasn't his original name. He changed it to that, and I'll tell you why he changed it. His original name was Gul kala ski. That means something that's leaning over and it keeps falling. That was his first name. But here's why he changed it.

"When the United States Army went to war against the Creek Indians away back in eighteen-hundred-and-thirteen, and Andrew Jackson was the general, some of the Cherokees joined the U.S. Army. Sam Houston, he'd been living with a Cherokee family, and he joined up. So did this man I'm telling you about—this Gul kala ski. He joined the army. Well, there was a big fight at a place called Horseshoe Bend, down in the Creek country, down in Alabama."

Grandpa pointed south when he said that. Whenever he was telling a story, he always pointed off in the direction of any place he mentioned, like it was just down the road there and you could get up and go over and look at it if you took a mind to. He paused to take a few deep sucks on his pipe.

"There at Horseshoe Bend," he said finally, "this Cherokee man, He Keeps Falling Over, stepped in between General Jackson and a Creek who was just about to kill the general, and Falling Over All the Time saved Jackson's life. He killed that other Indian.

"Then the Creeks were hunkered down real good behind a strong wall of logs across the river from where Jackson's men were at, and Jackson couldn't get at them. This Cherokee man I'm talking about, he led some other Cherokees down into the river, and they swam across and sneaked up behind the Creeks and surprised them. Then Sam Houston was able to lead an attack from the front, from across the river, and they whipped the Creeks. So this Cherokee man, he not only saved the general's life that day, he also pretty much won the fight for him.

"'Course Old Hickory, that's what they called Jackson, he got all the credit. Probably that's what got him elected president later on. And he knew who did it for him. He knew what happened out there. After the fight was over, he went to this man, this Falling Over man, and he said, 'As long as the sun shines and the grass grows,' he said, 'you and me are going to be friends, and the feet of the Cherokees will be pointed East.' That's what he said.

"Well, later on, when Jackson was president, that's when they were trying to make all the Cherokees get out of here, move out west so the white people could have all our land, this man said he would go talk to Jackson. He said that Jackson was his friend and would help. He remembered what Jackson had said to him after the big fight at Horseshoe Bend, and he figured that the president would remember the man who had saved his life and helped to make him a big hero by winning the fight that day. He said the president would remember his promise and would help the Cherokees out. But Jackson wouldn't even let him come in. So that man told his friends, 'detsinu lahungu, I tried and I failed.' And that was how he got his new name, Tsunu lahun ski, He Tried but Failed. Junaluska."

The sound of the windsong grew louder just then, and it was beautiful, but it was also just a little bit eerie, and it made me shiver. Grandpa puffed at his pipe, but it had gone out. He took it out of his mouth and tapped it against his shoe.

"But this story's not about him—not about Junaluska," he said. "It's about that love song in the wind. It's about Junaluska's daughter. Her name was Oconeechee."

Grandpa stopped and took the time to refill his pipe and light it again, and I was so anxious to hear the story that I thought it was taking him an extra long time to attend to that ritual. I even suspected that he was purposefully dragging it out just to make me wait, to build up suspense, I guess, or to test my patience. Off in the distance the rapid pounding of a woodpecker suddenly disturbed the silence, and an urge to get up and search for it intruded into my anxiety over the unfinished tale. My indecision was resolved for me, however, when Grandpa resumed his story.

"Well," he said, "like I told you, that Junaluska, he lived over there at Soco Gap. He was a chief—a town chief—a town war chief. You see, back in those days, we didn't have one big chief like now. Each town had its own government, and they had two chiefs—a war chief and a peace chief. The peace chief, he was the guy in charge of things at home when there wasn't any fighting going on. The war chief's job was to deal with outsiders and to take over any time there was a war. It was the white man that caused us to get one big chief over all the Cherokees, and because each town already had two chiefs, when we did get that big chief, we called him the principal chief you know, like the main chief over all the other chiefs.

"Even with the white man pushing for it, it took a long time for the Cherokees to agree to have one big chief and one government for all the Cherokees. The reason for that is that a long time ago we had that. Or something like that. We had priests who had all the power. They made the people build mounds and temples, and they got carried around wherever they went. They could do just about anything to anybody. Then one time a man had been out hunting, and when he came home, he couldn't find his wife. He went around to his neighbors, and for awhile nobody would tell him anything. Finally one of his neighbors said that while he was gone, the priests came and took his wife away. So the man got some of his friends and neighbors together, and he said to them, 'We've taken just about enough from these priests,' and they all agreed with him. So they killed all the priests. They had themselves a revolution right then. That all probably happened not too long before the first English colony was set up in these parts. Anyhow, the Cherokees wouldn't allow a strong, central government to develop after that. They let each town have its own government with two chiefs and a council and advisors. They had democracy. And that's the kind of town government that this guy Junaluska was a war chief in."

Just about there, Grandpa took a breather to puff on his pipe and to watch the smoke rise, and the way he was watching it, he made it look so interesting that I just sat back and watched it too. Then pretty soon he started talking again.

"This Junaluska had a wife. Her name was Qualla, same as the name they call our reservation here sometimes. And they were very much in love with each other, Junaluska and Qualla. They were happy there in Soco Gap. They were real happy together. You know, chooj, sometimes it seems like a man and a woman are just meant for each other. They belong together. It's like God made them for each other, and He kind of pushed them together. I don't know if it's like that for everyone. If it is, then I guess some folks never find out who it is they're supposed to be with. Maybe that's why the world is so crazy these days. Maybe most people are just running around crazy looking for the one they belong with, and they don't even know they're looking or what it is that's wrong with them. The ones who do find each other, they're the lucky ones. They're the ones who know what life's all about. I feel that way about me and your grandma. And that's how it was with Junaluska and Qualla. They were just the right people for each other.

"Well, they had a little baby, a girl, and her name was Oconeechee. I don't know what that word means, because it's not a Cherokee word, but there used to be a small Indian tribe in these parts with a name that sounded like that same word. I think maybe Qualla came from that tribe, and so when they had their usdi, their little one, they gave her that name—the name of her momma's people. But that's just my guess. Anyhow, she was a pretty little baby, and Junaluska and Qualla were just about as happy as they could be. But it didn't last long. Qualla took sick, and she died while Oconeechee was still just a baby. Junaluska, he was so lost and lonely without his Qualla that he wanted to die and go with her. He wanted to find her there on the other side of the big Sky Vault. He knew that she was up there somewhere just waiting for him to come along. He cried and he called out toward the Sky Vault that he wanted to go. He didn't want to stay on this world any longer —not alone, not without Qualla. But one night when he was sleeping, he had a dream. Or maybe it wasn't a dream. Maybe it was real. Qualla came down and talked to him. 'You can't come with me,' she said. 'Not yet. Our baby has lost her mother. You have to stay for her sake. When she's grown and has found her own man to look after her, then you can come to me. I'll be waiting for you.'

"So Junaluska stayed on this world to raise his little girl, and even though he missed Qualla so bad that it hurt him, and he never stopped thinking about her, not for a minute, he loved little Oconeechee very much. And she was a lot like her mother. She was the only thing old Junaluska was living for. And it was hard times when he had to raise this little girl. The state governments all around us and the U.S. government were all ganged up on the Cherokees and the other Indians. They wanted all Indians to get out west—to move west of the big river—the Mississippi River."

"Why did they want that, Grandpa?" I said.

"Well, it's kind of hard to say. They thought that a white man was better than an Indian. They thought we were savages. I'm not too sure what that word means, that savage, but I guess it just means that we didn't live the same way they did. They said savages steal and kill people. But they stole from us and they killed our people. So I don't really know what they meant by that. But they said that Indians were savage, and they didn't want savage neighhors. But mostly, I think, they just wanted all our land. I think that's why they wanted to kick us out.

"But that's what was going on. Junaluska knew that it was hard times, and he knew that his little girl would need him, so he stayed here. And now that's the place where the story really starts —the story about the windsong."

CHAPTER 2

Chief Junaluska's daughter
Beautiful Oconeechee
Was bathing in a mountain stream
Where a warrior chanced to be.
She stepped out of the water,
And it made his heart stand still.
There had never been such beauty
In the life of Whippoorwill.

Oconeechee wore a cotton skirt and blouse her father had purchased for her at Wil Usdi's store. It was lighter weight and not as hot and uncomfortable in the sultry summer as her buckskins were, but even so the cotton material was sticking to her back and legs. Her long black hair clung to the sweat on her neck. Gnats were particularly bothersome. She had finished her noon meal of corn soup and venison and bean bread, all washed down with good, strong coffee, and she was bored. At sixteen, she was full of energy and youthful exuberance, but the chores of the house not only failed to interest her, they couldn't keep her occupied. She finished the tasks assigned her as the woman of the house, and still had hours in her day to fill with some kind of activity. She spent much of that leisure time alone in the woods which surrounded Soco Gap. One reason she kept to herself was that the single young men of Soco Gap were constantly pursuing her, and there was not one among them who could excite her interest.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from Mountain Windsong by Robert J. Conley. Copyright © 1992 University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Publishing Division of the University. Excerpted by permission of UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA PRESS.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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