trail+of+tears+storyksr

As the days pass, more and more of our people are herded into the stockade. I often sit and watch the others around me. I observe the guards. I try not to think about my hunger**.** Several months have passed and still we are in the stockades. **My father looks tired**. **What will happen to us?** We are to march west to join the Western Cherokees. **I don't want to leave these mountains**. My mother, my aunts and uncles take me aside one day. **"Your father died last night,"** they tell me. My mother and my father's clan members are crying, but I do not understand what this means. **I saw him yesterday**. He was sick, **but still alive**. It doesn't seem real. **Nothing seems real**. It seems like yesterday, **I was playing with my friends.** It is now Fall. **It seems like forever since I was clean**. The stockade is nothing but mud. In the morning it is stiff with frost. By mid-afternoon, it is soft and we are all covered in it. The soldiers suddenly tell us we are to follow them. The guards all have guns and are watching us closely. **We wal**k. My mother keeps me close to her. We walked for many days. I don't know how long it has been since we left but the mountains are behind us. As we walk past white towns, the whites come out to watch us pass. **No words are spoken to them.** No words are said to us. **Still, I wish they would stop staring.** I wish it were them walking in this misery and **I were watching them.** It is because of them that we are walking. I don't understand why, **but I know that much**. They made us leave our homes. They made us walk to this new place we are heading in the middle of winter. **I do not like these people.** Still, **they stare at me as I walk past**. We come to a big river, **bigger than I have ever seen before**. It is flowing with ice. The soldiers **are not happy**. We set up camp and wait. **We are all cold** and the snow and ice seem to hound us, **claiming our people one by one**. North is the color of blue, defeat and trouble. From there a chill wind blows for us as we wait by a frozen river. **We wait to die.** My mother is coughing now. **She looks worn**. Her hands and face **are burning hot**. My aunts and uncles try to take care of me, so she can get better. **I don't want to leave her alone**. I just want to sit with her. I want her to stroke my hair, **like she used to do**. My aunts try to get me to sleep by them, but at night, I creep to her side. She coughs and it wracks her whole body. When she feels me by her side, she opens her blanket **and lets me in.** I can make it another day, I know**, because she is here.** When I went to sleep last night, my mother was hot and coughing worse than usual. When I woke up**, she was cold**. I tried to wake her up, **but she lay there.** The soft warmth she once was, **she is no more**. I kept touching her, **as hot tears stream down my face.** She couldn't leave me. **She wouldn't leave me.** I hear myself call her name**, softly**, then louder. **She does not answer.** My aunt and uncle come over to me to see what is wrong. My aunt looks at my mother. My uncle pulls me from her. My aunt begins to wail. **I will never forget that wail**. My mother's death I do not understand, **but I suddenly know that I am alone**. I am alone. **I want to cry**. I want to scream in rage. **I can do nothing**. We bury her in a shallow grave **by the road**. I will never forget that lonesome hill of stone that is her final bed, as it fades from my sight. I tread softly by my uncle, **my hand in his**. I walk with my head turned, watching that small hill as it fades from my sight. The soldiers make us continue walking. My uncle talks to me, trying to comfort me. **I walk in loneliness**. I know what it is **to hate**. I hate those white soldiers **who took us from our home.** I hate the soldiers **who make us keep walking through the snow and ice** toward this new home that none of us ever wanted. I hate the people **who killed my father and mother.** I hate the **white people** who lined the roads in their woolen clothes that kept them **warm,** watching us pass. None of those white people are here to say **they are sorry** that I am alone. None of them care **about me or my people**. All they ever saw **was the color of our skin**. All I see is the color of theirs **and I hate them.**
 * It is Spring.** **My mother calls me.** I can tell by her voice that something is wrong. My mother tells me to gather my things, but the men don't allow us time to get anything. My mother and I are taken by several men to where their horses are **and are held there at gun point**. The men who rode off return with my father, Elijah. They have taken his rifle and **he is walking toward us.**
 * I can feel his anger and frustration. ** There is nothing he can do. From my mother I feel fear. **I am filled with fear, too**. What is going on? **I was just playing**, but now my family and my friends' families are gathered together and told to walk at the point of a bayonet.
 * We walk a long ways. ** They lead us to a stockade. They herd us into this pen **like we are cattle.** The nights are still cold in the mountains and we do not have enough blankets to go around. **My mother holds me at night** to keep me warm. That is the only time **I feel safe**.
 * We walk across the frozen earth. ** Nothing seems right anymore. **The cold seeps through my clothes.** I remember last winter I had a blanket, **when I was warm.** I don't feel like I'll ever be warm again. I remember my father's smile. **It seems like so long ago**.