Book Excerpt: Cherokee Talisman – David-Michael Harding
Today David-Michael Harding stops by to share an excerpt from his book, Cherokee Talisman.
Excerpt from Cherokee Talisman
Autumn comes late in the Carolinas. Summer willfully drags her feet which pleases some and riles not but a few, including the trees which are anxious to change their hues, rid themselves of summer’s trappings and rest in the coolness of the fall. Flies are permitted by the lingering summer heat to continue harassing the horses and livestock who have waited out the long season in anticipation of the cold that will drive the insects into hiding. The whitetail deer, browsing beneath the impatient trees, are also tormented by the flies and without the long tails of their domesticated neighbors are given to sprints through the thick brush to escape. These rushes and the pestering insects can give way to doom as the deer’s concentration on the flies and escape coax their senses away from high alert. Then a hunter, his body wrapped in the tanned hide of his quarry, slips on silent feet through the disgruntled trees. His black hair hangs loose around his cinnamon brown face shielding it from the flies like a horse’s mane. When the breeze is right, when the distance is right, he sends an arrow carefully honed under his own hand from a bow that was his father’s into the deer’s distracted heart.
The flies that gather gorge themselves on the blood that is pulled by gravity alone down the quiet deer’s side. The heart is still. The hunter comes upon the body and sits several feet away watching for signs of life. When there are none he moves to the deer and rests his bow across the soft brown hair of this animal that has given the hunter’s family continued life. He crouches at the deer’s head and cups his hand under the dead mouth. Water from a leather bag pours into the hunter’s hand and to the deer’s lips.
“Thank you, my friend,” he says tenderly. “This will help you on your journey.” And the flies walk across the hunter’s hands leaving the blood that has collected on their feet.
About Cherokee Talisman (2012)
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They were blood-thirsty savages – superstitious, dirty animals.
They were thieves and killers who burned houses to the ground and kidnapped women and children.
They were protectors of a Nation – guerrilla fighters serving their country.
They were husbands and fathers who built homes in lush valleys for their families.
They were – the same men.
In 1775 perspective came with the color of your skin.
An orphan boy, Totsuhwa, is taken under the wing of legendary Cherokee war chief Tsi’yugunsini, the Dragon. But even under a dragon’s wing isn’t safe when a covetous nation forms around them.
Amid the battles, Totsuhwa fights the reoccurring pain of loss until he meets Galegi, who becomes his wife. Trying to raise their son in a peace the new world won’t allow, they teach him the strictest Cherokee traditions while white assimilation, encroachment, and treachery grows. General Andrew Jackson wages war against tribes across the southeast and the toll is high. With his people gradually losing everything, Totsuhwa must find a way to save his family — and the Cherokee Nation — before all is lost.
Cherokee Talisman recreates the neglected history that existed when one nation was born and another almost died.
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About David-Michael Harding
[image error]David-Michael Harding is a life-long writer whose last novel, How Angels Die, received critical acclaim. A former semi-professional football player, his writing is hard hitting and passionate. He holds a master’s degree in education and is an adjunct professor of writing. His respect and admiration of Native American culture inspired this novel. Most of his days are spent writing from the cockpit of his sailboat, Pegasus, somewhere off the Nature Coast of Florida in the Gulf of Mexico.
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Book Excerpt: Cherokee Talisman – David-Michael Harding | Thank you for reading Tweedle Dee and Tweedle Dave
