The Legend of Tyoga Weathersby Read Online Free PDF Page A

hunger for pelts and furs, white trappers set powerful traps that yawned their promise of a cruel, agonizing death. It was unfair in its dismissal of nature’s sublime balance, untroubled by the savagery of its methodical course, unparalleled in resource, and unchallenged by the wiles of nature’s own. Hidden and chummed, their hypnotic allure beckoned the unwary fox, bear, beaver or wolf. At watering hole and scent rub, the savage death would wait. Silent. Cold. Cocked. Lethal. Meting out its wanton brutality with reckless abandon.
    Once tripped, the mighty jaws sink razor sharp jagged teeth through flesh and bone. Tendons, cartilage, arteries and veins are cleaved as the teeth course along their gruesome path. Tearing muscle and severing joints—the mutilation so lightening quick—so unexpected—that it takes a heart beat or two for the agony to register.
    The fortunate animals mercifully suffer only the misery of swift amputation, sentenced to an abbreviated life minus a limb. The others—after hours of hopeless combat with an unyielding oppressor—recognize the futility of further resistance and accept the inevitability of their final hours.

    When the massive jaws of the bear trap clamped down on Tes Qua’s left ankle, the tearing of flesh and cracking of bone were muted by the primal scream of searing agony.
    Tes Qua was crumpled down in the trail half-squatting in a rapidly growing pool of blood. Sitting on his right foot, his left knee was bent to his chest, his hands groping feebly at the horrible wound as if sending them there would make some sense of the horror and pain.
    Cradling his friend in his arms, Tyoga’s mind was racing wildly out of control. His eyes were wide with alarm while Tes Qua’s blood splattered the trees and the rocks. The trail turned bright red under their feet. His own hands joined Tes Qua’s at the wound in search for an answer as the spurting arteries covered his arms, his chest, and his face with the warm lifegiving liquid. Make it stop! Tyoga’s mind screamed. How do I make it stop?
    When his brave companion’s body grew limp in his arms, he screamed, “Na deya Tes Qua. Don’t die. Na deya. I won’t let you die.” His eyes welled with tears. His own body shook with helplessness and confusion.
    AAWWWWKKKKKKKKKKKK
    The shattering cry reverberated off of the canyon walls and sliced through the hushed forest air with the harsh proclamation of unquestioned authority. The gruff, screaming scold of a raven summoned sharply from high overhead. The dissonant cry bounced off of the peaks and bluffs behind and above the boys, and eerily echoed off of the canyon walls.
    The sound shook Tyoga to his core. As his eyes slowly cleared, he turned to look over his shoulder to the crest of the rise. There, in an ancient chestnut tree, the eyes of a solitary raven were riveted upon him. The bird’s marble black eyes glared from their deep-set sockets straight into the heart of Tyoga’s quaking frame. He did not survey the scene, judge the circumstance, nor take stock of their peril. He did not weigh meaning, offer resolution, nor suggest course. His gaze fixed upon Tyoga like a black robed headmaster, displeased, but not yet ready to pronounce his vedict. Their eyes locked.
    Tyoga remembered the promise. He understood.
    “Yo’si’ gwu, Tes’a. We’re gonna be awrite.”
    The ball of Tes Qua’s left foot was wedged deep and hard against the pan of the massive trap. The ligaments that supported the foot’s natural architecture were sinewy white bands slapping at Tes Qua’s ankle and calf, wildly searching for the purchase of muscle and bone that moments before had anchored them in place. Blood poured from incised vessels through the jagged gash and painted the stone upon which Tes Qua had come to rest a brilliant crimson.
    One jaw of the trap had imbedded its two-inch teeth deep into the marrow of Tes Qua’s ankle bone. The white of the joint capsule shone pearl-like through the