Leppard, Lois Gladys - [Mandie 02] (7 page)

“Right. I’d forgotten in all the excitement,” he replied, grinning as he put one of his arms around Elizabeth and tried to include Mandie.

The girl laughed. “I don’t think your arms are long enough to hug three of us at one time.”

“Eat. Food ready,” Saphronia told them, leading them to the table.

As they sat at the long table Mandie turned to her Uncle Wirt. “Tell me about my grandmother, Uncle Wirt, when she was a young girl. What did she look like?”

Uncle Wirt cleared his throat as he strove for the right words. “Talitha beautiful—more than others. She sing, she dance, she smile. Braves follow her. She like everyone. Everyone love her. She born here.”

“She was born here?” Mandie was surprised. She had never thought about that. “Before our people were
made to move out and give up their land?”

“Yes. She oldest papoose. Me youngest. All gone to happy hunting ground, but me,” he said sadly.

“I love you, Uncle Wirt. I thank God that I am able to come to see my Cherokee kinpeople. He has been good to me,” she said.

The old man’s face brightened. He smiled. “Love, Papoose. Jim Shaw’s papoose.”

The others had been listening and now Uncle John spoke up.

“Talitha was my mother, you know, Mandie. But I didn’t know her well because I had to go away to school as a small boy, and she was very ill. It was a long time before I had a chance to come back, but I have been back many times since then. Your father also came to visit, at least once a year, but he never knew our mother. She died not long after he was born.”

“When she died our father lost all interest in life. He just pined away. He died when your father was only five years old,” he said.

“Five years old,” Mandie said thoughtfully. “Then you took care of my father while he was growing up.”

“Yes, Jim and I lived in the house in Franklin until he got married,” Uncle John said. “Uncle Ned and Morning Star lived with us for several years. He taught us both how to fish, swim, and how to use a bow and arrow.”

“They lived with you and my father?” Mandie was surprised. She turned to the old Indian. “Uncle Ned, you never told me that.”

Uncle Ned smiled. “Take many moons tell Papoose many things.”

Dimar Walkingstick came in through the doorway and went straight to Mandie. Everyone was surprised to
see him because they had left him at home with his mother when they came to Bird-town.

He held something out to Mandie. “Here. I think this is yours. It was on the floor where your dress was hung to dry.”

Mandie took the gold nugget and gasped, “Oh, Dimar, thank you! I had forgotten about it entirely.”

“Sit. Eat,” Uncle Wirt told the boy, sliding closer to Uncle Ned to make room for him. Dimar squeezed into a place between the two old Indian men, directly facing Mandie. His eyes fastened on her and remained fixed as she showed the others what he had brought.

“You
did
take a nugget with you!” Sallie exclaimed.

“Holding out on us, huh?” Joe teased.

“You see, Uncle John,” she said, handing him the nugget. “There
is
gold in the cave. It
is
gold, isn’t it?”

“It certainly is,” Uncle John said, passing the nugget on to the two Indian men. “Look at that!”

Uncle Ned grunted. “Cherokee not know gold in cave.”

Uncle Wirt agreed. “No, Cherokee not know.”

The two old men looked at each other and seemed to be concerned.

“How much do you think was there?” Uncle John asked.

“Probably a bushel basket full, wouldn’t you say, Joe, Sallie?” Mandie answered.

Sallie nodded. Joe said, “Oh, probably more than that. I’d say several tote sacks full.”

“Let’s see, you said you found it under some rocks when you were digging a hole to get out of the cave?” Uncle John questioned.

“Yes, sir,” Mandie said. “We found this pile of rocks
and could see the daylight through a tiny hole in the middle of them so we started digging to see if there was an opening. There was only a small layer of rocks over the pile of gold.”

“Between the three of you, could you find the pile again?” Uncle John wanted to know.

“I don’t know. You see, as soon as we got through the hole all the rocks came tumbling down from above and covered up the opening we’d dug,” Mandie said.

“Unless the rockslide changed things drastically inside the cave, I think I would recognize the place,” Joe added.

Uncle John turned to Sallie. “What about you, Sallie? Would you remember where it was?”

“Gold has always been back luck for the Cherokees. I would rather not look for it,” the Indian girl replied.

Everyone turned to look at Sallie.

“I know what you are referring to—the removal of Indians because of the discovery of gold in Georgia. But it wouldn’t be like that now,” John reminded her.

Uncle Ned spoke up. “Cave dangerous. Cherokee not need gold.”

“But, Uncle Ned, there must be a fortune there,” John said.

“Cave not too dangerous. Tsa’ni go there many times,” Uncle Wirt put in.

“That’s right. Tsa’ni goes there. Has he ever found any gold?” John asked.

“No,” Wirt said. “We go to cave when sun up.”

“Uncle Ned, will you come with us?” John asked.

“Papoose go, Ned go. I promise Jim Shaw.” He nodded his head. “But—gold bad for Cherokee.”

“May I go, too?” Dimar spoke up.

Everyone had forgotten about him.

“Of course, if you want to,” John told him.

Dimar rose. “I must return home now. I will meet you at the cave tomorrow morning.”

So plans were made for another search—this time for a pile of gold. And this time they wouldn’t get lost.

Meanwhile, Tsa’ni had gone straight to the cave from Dimar’s house. He did not bother to go on to Deep Creek and deliver the Shaws’ belongings to Bird-town as his grandfather had asked. He felt sure the others would return to look for the gold and he wanted to beat them to it.

He didn’t have much oil left in his lantern, but he would hurry before the light went out. He knew his way around inside the cave pretty well. He hurried from one room to another, swinging the light close to the wall as he went. According to what he had heard them say, they had found the gold next to a wall.

Once, as he paused to look carefully at a pile of rocks, he thought he heard voices. He stood still and listened but could hear nothing.

“Hmm, probably the echoes of old Tsali!” he said to himself, and went on about his search.

He knew which room the bats lived in so he carefully avoided them. He was certain gold couldn’t be in there anyway. They would never have stayed long enough to dig out a hole in the wall with the bats flying about their heads.

As he carefully searched tunnel after tunnel, the light in the lantern began to grow dim as the oil was being used up. He shook it and gave a sigh. He would have to leave, go home and refill the lantern before he could continue his search.

As he wound his way back toward the entrance, the
light finally sputtered and died, leaving him in total darkness. He felt his way forward slowly. As he crossed the cavern with the huge hole in the middle of the floor, he stumbled on a broken rock. Losing his balance, he grabbed desperately for the rocks, but slid back and fell directly into the pit. Just as he thought he’d never hit bottom, he landed with a splash, his head cracked against a stone, and he knew no more.

Chapter 7 - The Pit

“Are y’all ready to go prospectin?” Joe called through the wall in the upstairs room the next morning as the rooster crowed in Uncle Wirt’s yard below.

“Yep!” Mandie yelled back as she jumped out of bed and stretched. Snowball followed her.

“I will go with you,” Sallie said as she rose to reach for her dress hanging on a nail.

“Beat you downstairs!” Joe called, and the girls could hear him scrambling down the ladder.

The adults were already sitting around the table. It seemed no matter how early the young ones got up, the older ones were always there first.

“I was just going to wake you,” her mother said. “On this trip to the cave we are going prepared. You must eat a good breakfast, and we will carry more food. I understand we have an uphill climb on a footpath after we leave the wagon on the road, so we can’t carry anything heavy.”

“Besides, we have to carry lots of lanterns,” Mandie told her. “It’s awfully dark in that cave.”

“Yes, and I have lots of rope handy, too,” Uncle John added.

“Shouldn’t we take something to bring the gold back in?” asked Joe as he sat down to eat beside the girls.

“Oh, yes, the men will take something to put it in—if we find it,” John smiled.

“Gold—bad luck,” Uncle Ned mumbled as he rose from the table.

“Hurry. We go soon,” Uncle Wirt told the young people as he also stood up. “Eat.”

Mandie laughed. “That’s one English word my Cherokee kinpeople all know—eat.” She dug into her bowl of cornmeal mush.

“Eat—that’s a good word to know,” Joe said.

“Do you like what our people eat? Do you eat the same thing when you are at home?” Sallie asked the two as she began eating her mush.

Mandie and Joe looked at each other.

“Well, yes, almost the same thing.” Mandie paused. “Everything I have eaten since I came to Cherokee country has been delicious.”

“At home we have fatback and red-eye gravy sometimes, and grits,” Joe added.

Elizabeth was packing meat and bread in several separate packages. “Let’s make haste now,” she called. “We don’t want to be too late coming back.” Turning to John, she asked, “Tsa’ni never came with our things from Uncle Ned’s house, did he?”

“No,” he replied. “We can stop and get them on the way back.”

As they went through the community at Deep Creek, they asked several people, but no one had seen Tsa’ni. They left Morning Star at her cabin and said they would
stop for their things on the way back. Tsa’ni’s mother was not in her cabin as they stopped by.

Uncle Ned mumbled, “Bad Cherokee.”

Uncle Wirt, his grandfather, agreed, “Tsa’ni not good.”

However, there was one Indian boy they could depend upon. Dimar was sitting on a rock near the waterfall waiting for them when they got there. His eyes fastened on Mandie again. He rose and came forward.

“Good morning,” he greeted them.

“Good morning, Dimar,” Uncle John replied. “You haven’t seen Tsa’ni around, have you? He never did come to Bird-town.”

“No, I have not seen him,” the boy said. “I have not seen anyone around here.”

“Tsa’ni—bad Cherokee,” Uncle Ned muttered. “Go.” He motioned for the others to follow him under the waterfall and into the cave.

“Since we aren’t sure what direction to take, we’ll all scatter out in different directions, but you three be sure to stay together,” Uncle John told them. “Now let’s all go looking for a pile of rocks!”

Elizabeth took one look at the cave and shuddered as she turned to the three children. “To think you were lost in here! I would have been frightened to death!”

“It sure wasn’t any fun,” Joe answered, shifting the coil of rope he was carrying over his shoulder.

“No, it wasn’t.” Mandie agreed.

Sallie took a lighted lantern from one of the men. “Come, we will look together.” She motioned for Mandie and Joe to follow her.

“I’m glad you decided to come with us,” Mandie told the Indian girl.

“Since my grandfather was coming, I decided I should try to help, too,” she answered.

“Please be careful,” Elizabeth warned them.

Uncle John called after them. “Yes, you be
very
careful. We don’t want to have to go looking for you again.”

“We will,” Mandie promised as she picked up Snowball. “I think we can find it.”

“Don’t worry, Mrs. Shaw. We can’t get lost with everyone in here,” Joe said.

With Sallie leading the way with the lantern, the three went off down a tunnel. This time they were laughing, feeling very secure with the grown-ups nearby. They stopped to look at every little pile of rocks they could find along the way.

“That can’t be it,” Joe said as Mandie and Sallie walked over to a rock-covered wall. “The place we went through had a smooth wall all around except for the pile of stones covering the gold.”

“No, Joe, it had lots of rocks stacked all along the wall,” Mandie disagreed.

“Now wait a minute, Mandie. It did not!” Joe countered. Turning to the Indian girl, he asked, “Didn’t it, Sallie?”

“I do not know, Joe. Do you not remember the lantern went out and we were digging in the dark?”

Mandie and Joe looked at each other.

“That’s right, Sallie,” he said.

“Yes, you dropped the lantern, Joe! It must be wherever you dropped it,” Mandie reminded him. “We’ll find the broken glass—”

“Aw, now, come on, Mandie. All those rocks fell on top of it. It’s probably well buried by now,” Joe interrupted.

“We have not passed the room with the bats in it
yet,” Sallie said. “The bats flew at us before we found the gold.”

“Oh, goodness, I had forgotten about the bats,” Mandie groaned. “Do you suppose we could pass quietly so they won’t get stirred up again?”

“ ’Course not, Mandie. There’s no way you can sneak up on bats. They are very sensitive,” Joe admonished her. “We’ll just have to watch out and get away fast when they come out.”

They rounded a corner and a whirring, cackling noise greeted them.

“Here they come!” Sallie yelled as they bent low and ran down the passageway.

The terrifying black creatures circled and circled before they finally roosted again in their hiding place.

“Whew, that was close!” Mandie said, breathlessly, pulling Snowball’s claws loose from her shoulder, “Snowball, calm down. Let go!”

“We are getting close to the place,” Sallie said. “Remember, it was not long after we saw the bats that we found the opening.”

“There was a large hole in the floor of that room where the gold was,” Mandie reminded them. “We walked around it before coming to the pile of rocks.”

“Right,” Joe agreed.

Meanwhile, Uncle Ned was leading Elizabeth and John around another way. Uncle Wirt had taken Dimar with him in still another direction.