Sixteen-year-old Daniel Sweetwater sat cross-legged on a grassy knoll and clutched a thick, black Bible. Looking left at last, he saw the two plain gravestones bearing the names of his mother and sister.
His dark eyes moved quickly from one name to the next: Rebecca; Sarah. Pain stabbed at his heart, narrowing his eyes and forcing his gaze away from the two gravestones.
His eyes wandered down over the knoll to the two-room cabin where he lived with his father, Thomas. The cabin suddenly looked small compared to the towering black and gray clouds that moved in above.
Daniel lifted his chin. The air smelled like rain.
Seconds later, a flash of lightning speared the earth beyond the creek and hills bordering their cabin. A deafening crack of thunder followed.
Daniel jerked. The storm was close! The churning mass of clouds dwarfed the tiny town of Ellijay which was only about a half-mile away.
Wind snapped Daniel's charcoal black hair across his somber face. He looked upward, setting his jaw firmly and squinting his eyes. He squeezed the Bible.
Why was God angry? Why was He punishing them?
Drops of rain began pelting the ground. As the cool droplets struck and splattered against his face, Daniel thought of his mother. She had died four years earlier-just following a terrible rainstorm.
Daniel could still picture the moment of her death in his mind. Dark clouds crowded the horizon as he and his father had waited on their front porch. Rainwater had pooled around the edges of the porch.
Mrs. Blackcrow, a Cherokee midwife, had opened the front door, shaking her head. Her disheveled white hair hung down in sweaty strands. Her face was as pale as a white man's.
"Thomas, I am sorry," was all she had said.
Daniel and his father's fears had come upon them: both his mother and a new baby sister had died. A stillbirth, Mrs. Blackcrow had called it.
How could four years ago seem so much like yesterday?
Daniel's face dripped with rain and tears. He missed his mother so much, and now even more with trouble so close at hand. He pictured her warm smile. He could almost feel her gentle touch and hear her soft voice calling his name.
He glanced one last time at his mother's and sister's gravestones. What would happen to the graves after he and his father were gone?
Words burst raggedly from his mouth. "Mother, what would you want us to do?"
If only God would allow her to answer! Just this once!
But heaven remained silent, just as it had every day since her death.
In the months that followed, Daniel and his father had learned how to live together without her. But lately their relationship had been one struggle after another.
A lamp flickered in the cabin window below, shifting Daniel's thoughts to his father.
His father expected too much of him. He had higher standards than the other fathers did. And sometimes he didn't let Daniel go out and play with his friends. There were always too many chores to do around the cabin. This only made Daniel more unhappy.
Things were difficult enough without his father's expectations. Though they lived among the Cherokees, Daniel's family belonged to the Delaware tribe. Thomas often told Daniel stories about his great-grandfather, the Delaware Chief Netawatwees.
In the woods of Ohio country in 1776, Chief Netawatwees had accepted the Christian gospel and had decided to serve the Christian God. He became a pastor and led his tribe into the ways of the Lord. And he took on the Hebrew name Abraham.
Daniel's grandfather, John, had followed in Abraham's footsteps. And now Thomas was the third Delaware in the family line to pastor a Christian flock.
"Son, we are Christians first, then Moravians, then Delaware. The Cherokee people are our mission field. A long time ago, Cherokee tribal leaders came to realize that the white man was not going to stop coming. And so they decided to adopt the white man's ways.
"They wanted to live in peace with the white man. They put down their bows and knives and took up hoes and rakes. They abandoned their stick and mud-daub houses and built homes made of clapboard or brick. They became farmers instead of hunters. Because the Cherokee people wanted to live in peace with the white man, your grandfather left his Ohio homeland to be a part of these people and to bring them the gospel."
Daniel felt that his preacher father sometimes made the townspeople uncomfortable. He had heard the story so many times: the Son of God had come to earth to save mankind; he died on a cross and rose from the dead; he came to give life to all who believe.
Believe? In what?
Wasn't his father's religion really just the religion of the white man? They were men who broke their promises and agreements to satisfy their hunger for lands that were not their own.
Wind gusted across the knoll. Soaked, Daniel glanced up at the swiftly moving clouds bearing down on him. He scowled as a blast of rain slapped his face.
He stood up, with the Bible tucked tightly under his shirt and buckskin jacket. He eyed his cabin and the nearly empty town now covered in the storm's dark shadows.
He dashed down the hill with his questions still unanswered.