The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby by H L Grandin Page B

know them is to change what was meant to be. Nature is cruel, but not calculating. While we are rarely given second chances, we are constantly given choices. Once the choice is made, there are only two outcomes. We see before us fire and water, the earth that we stand on and the air that we breathe. We place judgements on all of these things, and pretend to understand right from wrong. The reality is that there is nothing in nature that is good nor anything that is evil. It wasn’t the choice to care for the snake that cost Davey his life. It was his notion that he should care for it—and that it was the right thing to do. There was no choice to be made. The snake was meant to die, not our Davey. He should have let it be.”
    Emma took a step toward her son and gently placed her hand upon his shoulder. “Tyoga,” she said barely above a whisper, “how do you know these things to be true?”
    He did not answer.
    “You speak as if there is no right or wrong, and that animals—” She hesitated before continuing her thought. “And even people are meant to live or die. How is it that these are choices? Who would choose to die? Who would choose to take a life?”
    Tyoga sat down on the oak stump.
    She walked around so that she was facing him, knelt down in front of him, and placed her hand on his knee. She saw that her son’s eyes were returning to their hazel swirl. She realized that she had witnessed something that would set Tyoga apart from everyone else. What it meant she could not say.
    After a while, Tyoga looked down into his mother’s loving eyes and said,. “No, Ma, it’s more than that. Sometimes the choice isn’t to live or die. It is to kill or be killed.”

    Together, they watched the shadows grow until darkeness filled the glade, and South Henge was consumed by the blackness of a moonless night.

    Chapter 11
    Of Fearless Stock
    W hen the sun had finally set behind the mountain, Tyoga’s mother patted him on his back and walked slowly back to the cabin.
    She knew that this was Tyoga’s favorite time of the day. The growing shadows draping across the mountains quieted the clamor of the day. A placid calm enveloped the natural world and prepared its creatures ending their day for rest.
    But the growing darkness likewise ignited baser instincts for those that would spend the blackest hours in predation.
    Tyoga felt the lure of both prey and predator.
    It was the hour of the day for reflection.
    If Tyoga was not watching the sunset from the outcropping at Carter’s Rock, he would be perched in the old bentwood rocker his Grandpa Joshia had made for his wife to sit in while she knitted, crocheted, or spun wool into yarn.
    Staring into the flames in the hearth, Tyoga rocked the evening away while lost in his own thoughts. More often than not, he would read by the light of the fire until well after midnight. Including tomes by Shakespeare, Herodatus, Marlowe and Middleton, their home library was substantial by frontier standards. Tyoga had inherited his mother’s love of reading and education. He had never attended a formal school, but his mother served as an excellent teacher.
    Emma was the daughter of Kenneth Longsworth, an educated man with a successful law practice in Albermarle County, Virginia. A bright girl, she began reading at an early age. Noticing his daughter’s acumen with the written word, her father spared no expense on the finest tutors in Virginia and Maryland. Her education became his passion.
    In colonial America, young girls were not afforded the same educational opportunities as boys. After all, young men had to earn a living to support a family. However, Mr. Longsworth was so devoted to advancing his daughter’s education that he was able to persuade Reverend John Todd, Senior, to accept young Emma as his first female student.
    Her command of foreign languages was bettered by no young man in his charge. Her mastery of advanced mathematics was unmatched, and came as a complete surprise