The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby Read Online Free Page B

offering any mercy, they were free.
    The two boys appeared the picture of carefree indulgence and disinterested serenity as they lay on their backs on the sun-drenched rocks. But years of traveling the backwoods together had taught them to remain alert. Even with eyes closed and hands clasped behind their heads, their ears searched for any sound that was out of place like the misstep of a predator’s paw snapping a dry branch, the covey of quail exploding into sudden flight, or the flock of scolding crows suddenly mute—eerily silent. It was a dangerous time in the mountains.
    Unexpected meetings between predators and prey were frequent—and final. The field mouse in search of pine seeds and oats instead fattening the breast of a fortunate fox. The trout by the thousands fighting the currents in brisk mountain streams seeking a meal of fingerling fry instead becoming fat on the haunch of a three-hundred-pound bear.
    It happened only minutes after the two left the comfort of their mountainside perch and resumed their trek to the trout pond.
    Leading the way, Tyoga high jumped downed chestnut and spruce trees that blocked the path, feeling the route, sensing the path more than watching his footsteps. A few steps behind him, Tes Qua matched Ty’s deer-like leaps with ease and grace. Traveling along at their usual fast-paced trot, they rounded a bend in the trail and slowed where the path led them downhill along terraced escarpments to the banks of the pond’s feeder stream. Where the path reached the water’s edge, Tyoga left the trail to hop-scotch along the knarled roots of an old cedar stump on the left and stair-stepped mossy granite slabs that lay like giant dominoes along the bluff to the right of the trail.
    Tes Qua stuck to the trail that ended at the water’s edge. Planting his left foot, he pivoted along the bank of the stream to follow Ty. He heard the hideous sound seconds before he felt the pain.
    Chapter 2
    The Raven Will Settle You
    T yoga was ahead and below Tes Qua when he heard the numbing screams.
    He couldn’t make sense out of the cries. Tes Qua was stoic in pain, steady in crisis, and uncompromising in courage. But the gutteral animal wail he heard coming from Tes Qua was instinctive and beyond such control.
    Oblivious to the thorny under brush tearing at his buckskins, he cleared the distance between them with dear-like bounds. He was by Tes Qua’s side in an instant. Wrapping his arms around his brother, Tyoga held him tight while his body writhed in pain, his face contorted with confusion and shock.
    Unsure of what had happened, from which direction the assault had been launched and from what, or who, he must brace himself, Tyoga’s eyes focused animal-like on the forest that enveloped them. Framed by the wild and frenzied moments that bridge life and death, when instinct and reflex measure the divide, Tyoga assessed his surroundings with the clarity of eye that discerns even the most obscure and clandestine threats. Prepared to give his life in defense of his friend, the images burned into his mind’s eye with lightening speed and exquisite detail.

    Crouching low he surveyed the underbrush immediately in front of them—nothing—clear.
    Whirling around on his mocassined heal, he checked the outcroppings behind and overhead—clear—nothing.
    Spinning to his left, he scanned the clump of trees on the knoll on the far side of the stream—clear.
    He ducked his head and folded Tes Qua in his arms while focusing his other senses—listening for the “zzsssstt” of arrows slicing the air, or the staccato retort of musket fire and the sulphur stench of acrid smoke. Nothing … nothing.
    When the blood splattered his face in rhythmic course, his attention was once again focused on Tes Qua.
    Looking down at his writhing companion, Tyoga saw what was left of Tes Qua’s lower leg. “To ‘hitsu, Tes Qua? To ‘hitsu?”
    “Tlaosda. Tlaosda.”
    In their frenzied madness to sate Europeans’