Asila waved her arm around. “My family lived in a log cabin like this one, only much larger. My great-grandfather built it. Your soldiers burned it to the ground, along with the rest of the homes in my village. They took my mother, my aunts and uncles, my sisters and brothers, and all of the children except for Salai.”
“How did your child escape? Was she with you in the woods?”
Asila sighed heavily. “Salai is not my child. She is the daughter of my oldest sister, Noya. Before the soldiers dragged them all away Noya hid Salai, fearing her baby would not survive the brutal conditions on the long march. She knew I would return to the village soon and hoped the Spirits would lead me to the child in time to save her.”
He shook his head. “I cannot believe it. You are not an Indian. What is your real name? Why are you here? Have you come to rob me?”
This time it was Asila who spoke slowly, using simple words.
“My name is Asila,” she repeated. “I am a Medicine Woman in the Fox clan of the Cherokee Nation. My people do not use last names as your people do. The child is called Salai. She and I are the only ones left from our tribe. The others were taken captive and forced to march to a new reservation far from here in the Oklahoma Territory.”
She went on, hoping this time Gabriel would hear truth in what she said. “I was away in the forest when the soldiers came. When I returned, my village had been burned to the ground. Our crops were destroyed, our storehouses looted. I heard a child crying and found Salai hidden in a cave nearby. We stayed there until soldiers headed our way a few days later. I ran, taking Salai, and began making my way to a Cherokee village on the other side of these mountains. I planned to seek refuge with that clan. Somehow, they have been allowed to keep their lands. They have not been dragged away, as my people were.”
He was staring at her as though he’d never seen her before, listening intently.
“Salai became ill and needed my Medicine. I feared someone would see the smoke and discover us if I built a fire in the woods to brew a potion for her. So I looked for a cabin where I could make her a healing drink. I found your home and watched you go away to work in the fields. Then I went inside to use your fire.”
His expression grew dark, and she hurried on. “I apologize for entering your home without permission, but I dared not risk the child’s life by coming forward and trusting in the mercy of a white man. My people have little reason to believe we will be treated with anything but contempt by your kind.”
“I…remember,” he said slowly. “I was working in the field. A rattlesnake bit me. I made it back home and dreamed I saw Abigail kneeling by the hearth. But when she turned to look at me, her face was…different. Wrong.”
He took a step toward her. “It was you,” he declared, his voice cold. “You tried to kill me, poison me with your drink.”
Asila shook her head. “I brewed you a potion my people have used since the earliest times. I lanced the skin around the snakebite to let the venom out then treated your injury with healing herbs. Salai and I stayed so I could nurse you back to health.”
“You treated me for the snakebite? How did you know what to do? Where did you get the medicine?” His voice grew louder, nearly shouting. Salai toddled to the door, whimpering in fear.
Asila shot him a warning look then scooped up the child.
“I told you. I am a Medicine Woman. I learned how to heal from my grandmother, and she learned from her grandmother before her. Our line stretches back to the dawn of time. My people developed remedies for all the illnesses and injuries these mountains hold. As for my Medicine, I harvest wild herbs, flowers, berries, roots, tree bark – even parts of animals and insects. The Great Mother has blessed our land with special plants and animals to keep us well. I know how to use them.”
“I’m well enough to take care of myself now,” he declared. “If all you say is true, why are you still here?”
* * *
Asila did not answer.
Gabriel followed her gaze to the doorway of the cabin. Seeing the meager pile of possessions gathered together on the floor, the stacks of corn cakes and biscuits on the table, he was struck with the truth.
“You were planning to leave. Run away, today. While I was gone.”
“Yes.”
“Then the soldiers came. So you lied to them, led them to believe you were my wife.”
Her eyes flashed, and he caught a glimpse of her defiant spirit once again.
“I never lied. I never said I was your wife. I used the white man’s version of my name, the one I was given at the boarding school. Silla. Since my clan is gone, I did what my people do and took the name of the clan I have been living with – yours. I even told the captain my grandmother was a full-blooded Cherokee. I am not to blame if he did not question me further, if he made false assumptions about me…as you did.”
“You let me believe you were an ignorant savage. All the while you were using me.”
“I did allow you to believe I was dull and uneducated,” she acknowledged. “I did it to protect Salai, since I did not know how you would react or whether you would turn us over to the soldiers. I stayed silent. I listened. I watched. But I did not ‘use’ you. It was a fair exchange. Yes, I lived under your roof, made my Medicine on your fire, and fed the child and myself with some of your food. But I hunted fresh game and shared it with you, cooked and cleaned and cared for you when you were too ill to take care of yourself. As a Medicine Woman, it was my sacred duty to look after you until you were healed.”
Gabriel was speechless. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing. Everything this woman said was so far from what he had been told about the tribes of natives who lived deep in the mountains.
Could it be true? She spoke from her heart – that much was clear from the emotion in her voice and the tears in her eyes. But Indians able to read and write in their own language? The President breaking a treaty upheld by the courts and invading their land, taking their people captive?
Gabriel wanted desperately to blame Asila’s Indian blood for the strange emotions he’d experienced since she arrived – the unaccustomed flashes of anger, the lustful desires she evoked. But, according to Asila, far from being savages, the members of the Cherokee Nation were educated people with their own written laws and a functioning government. To top it all off, he owed his very life to this woman.