Who? The anisgaya (ah NEES gah yah) -- the men, the soldiers! Two years ago President Jackson had told us, and all the other Cherokees, that we had two years to move because the whites wanted our land. He said that if we didn't leave on our own, he would send the anisgaya to make us go and since we hadn't left, he had sent them!
Then I saw them. They were only little brown specks down the road, but they were coming!
We had little time to pack; all we had in our wagon by the time they got to the door were some potatoes, tuya (too-YAH, beans), apples, an extra pair of dilasolo (DIH-lah-su-lo, moccasins) yellow selu (shay-LOO, corn), salted ahwi (ah-WIH, deer), orange squash, clean ama (ah-MAH, water) and some nuts in a red striped basket that I had made out of oak splits and honeysuckle vines. I couldn't bear to part with the pretty basket. It was the first one I had ever made.
It seemed suddenly, that the sun had now gone behind the clouds and everything had turned dark. At that same moment one of the anisgaya burst through the door. He had a smirk on his face that made me so mad I could have thrown the basket of nuts I was holding, right in his face, yet at the same time I wished I could jump into my mother's arms.
As we rolled along in the back of the wagon towards what the anisgaya called a stockade, Sutega huddled more close to me and whispered, "Where are we going, Skye?"
"To the stockades," I answered.
"What are the stockades?"
"I don't know."
"Skye, I'm scared."
"It's all right, Skye. Here, let me teach you how to make a medicine belt . . ."
The stockades stank! They had bars for windows and anisgaya in uniforms standing all around. And the food was worse than Mother's beets and radish dish. "Utsi, why can't we eat the food that we brought from home?" I asked Mother using her Cherokee name.
"We need to save it for the road ahead of us. But here, you can share this with Sutega," Mother said reaching into the wagon, and taking out an apple.
"Hey, you ate my piece, give me yours!" Sutega shouted.
I stood up and started ranting at her. "I didn't take it!" I snapped back. "You're always accusing me of taking something I didn't!"
One of the goats had stolen a piece of Sutega's share of the apple. When Utsi came to see what all the yelling was about that's when I told her that it was the goat's fault.
"Well she didn't have to yell at me like that," whined Sutega
"I think you both need to apologize," Utsi replied.
"Skye I'm sorr--"
"NO!" I shouted. "I'm not going to say sorry and I'm definitely not going to forgive you!" I said and I stomped off. I never forgive, I thought.
I looked in between one of the bars and saw a speck coming up the road. At first I thought it was more anisgaya, then as it got closer I realized that it wasn't, but . . .
"John Ross! John Ross is here!" I called. John Ross, our Chief, had finally come to take the last group. John Ross had asked if he could round up the groups, after he learned how badly we were being treated. Children were being torn away from their parents. Crying babies, grandparents and sick adults were being crowded onto river boats that were about to leave the dock.
"Skye! Skye, come on we're leaving!" my father called.
I watched as the stockades slowly faded away, and with it, our home, Georgia. We were on a boat on our way to Indian teritorry, and soon we would be walking. Then we'd cross the Mississippi River. This was going to be a long and cold journey. Sadly, we didn't bring any blankets!
Talk about cold -- it was freezing! I was glad I wasn't skinny like Sutega, who was riding in the back of the wagon with a cold and no blankets. Well, actually I wasn't too glad, because I was walking then, which made Sutega lucky because walking was tiresome, plus she got a lot of all the good food because she was sick. But there had been a space between us ever since another fight we had had a couple of days ago about the time I got spanked with the paddle by the teacher in the school house because I said that I thought the Anglican belief was stupid. (I didn't believe anything about God.) I still hadn't forgiven her for laughing at me, and I didn't think I ever would. My parents kept talking to me about God and that he loves me and wants me to forgive (they were Christians), and I kept telling them I thought it was silly.
Sutega was very sick. A Cherokee doctor who happened to be in our group said she would probably die so we had a prayer meeting with the doctor and a few other Cherokees (not that I really wanted to).
After the prayer meeting we went to check on Sutega and found her huddled under a blanket.
"Where did you get that blanket?" Utsi asked.
"Quatie gave it to me," Sutega answered. Quatie was John Ross's wife.
"She did?"
"Yes, she came up to me a little while ago and gave it to me."
I looked over at Quatie's wagon, and saw her huddling next to her husband trying to keep warm. I ran outside. Would everything turn out all right?
Only a week after that I woke up and began to hunt through the b ack of the wagon for somthing to eat. Let me see, selu, tuya, ahwi --
"Skye, come here," Utsi said.
"What?"
"Skye, the doctor just told me that -- Quatie's dead. She gave away the only blanket she had. She froze to death."
I looked up and saw Sutega playing outside with some other children -- she was better.
Suddenly I felt like I was going to cry. I ran to a different corner of the wagon. There was somthing Quatie had, and Utsi too, a sort of happiness. Suddenly I knew what it was.
" Utsi!" I called. "Will you come and -- and help me to know Jesus?"
I felt so different! Jesus Christ was the best person I'd ever met! But I had a lot of things to do. Now that we were in Indian territory, I had to help build our new house, I had a lot of people to forgive, a lot of people to thank, but most importantly, I had to thank God!