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burned down in 1958. I’m the only one who has lived up here since …” His voice trailed away. “Since the seventies. Nobody ever cut into the woods, just used these close fields for the house. A few acres for fruit trees, a little for keeping horses and chickens and pigs and cows. All the rest is the same.”
    An uncorrupted wood. The thought ran through me like fire in my veins. It was a nature- and history-lover’s dream, to be so close, to have a chance at even a short time of study. My skin tingled in the cool air. I was here, at the threshold of an untouched forest, one that might be made available to study at my leisure by only asking.
    The conversation continued and, though interesting, Cal bordered on incomprehension most of the time. The drink, I imagined. It was actually all quite amusing, though I didn’t laugh, only listened and enjoyed the performance as his words fell and rose and ambled like the slow flow of a creek. He made many references to heaven and angels, to punishment of the wicked, and was particularly fervent in denouncing all traitors and warmongers. He spoke in a voice reminiscent of Native American chiefs concerning the Great Spirit, and even spoke Cherokee at times in his more poetic recitations. When his ramblings took a turn toward the spiritual and supernatural, I didn’t take the opportunity to mention the little girl I’d seen downtown, nor did Cal did say anything about my house and its possible otherworldly occupants. Perhaps I’d feel more comfortable talking about it when I got to know him better. And when he was a little more sober.
    He was attentive when I spoke of my love of wildlife, and how I’d studied every book I could find on the nearby counties. I asked if he had a favorite story something to tell me about the history or people of the area.
    “Let’s see. There’s the one about when the white men first came. The valley here was a hunting ground shared by several tribes. The Chickasaw controlled it through most of that time, but there were Cherokee villages here, too.
    “A Scottish trader named Charlie came through with an expedition. This was in the mid seventeen hundreds. Charlie got here and didn’t want to leave, so he asked the chief of the small Cherokee town nearby if he could live and work with them. The chief agreed since Charlie was a skilled hunter and fisherman, and understood the Indian ways better than the other white men he’d been traveling with. So, Charlie stayed on.
    ‘The chief had one daughter,
Usti Tseni.
Little Wren. She and Charlie fell in love, had children, and were happy together. Then, a few years later, another band of whites came through, only they weren’t respectful of the tribe and had no interest in passing through peacefully.
    “First, they took all the food they could find. They burned the village’s outer wood defense and some of the huts inside. Then they started killing. Charlie and his father-in-law stood together and fought them off. They and the other men of the tribe managed to kill all the attackers, but Charlie was shot in the chest at the end and didn’t survive. The chief found Little Wren at the door of her hut, stabbed to death while trying to defend her children.”
    “How terrible,” I said and shuddered. “That’s not a very happy story for right before bed.”
    “It’s the way it was,” Cal said. “It happened all over, not just here.” We sat a while without speaking before Cal finished the story. “The chief dug their graves himself. He laid his daughter and Charlie in the ground next to each other. In Little Wren’s palm, he placed an acorn and closed her fingers around it. He put a maple seed in Charlie’s hand and did the same. A year later, the chief and what was left of the tribe had a special ceremony of thanks when they saw the shoots of new saplings coming out of the graves. They celebrated because, to them, Charlie and Little Wren and their love for each other were still alive.”
    I