Written by Craig Dominey and Lanny Gilbert

Bill Morgan and Tom Edwards sat nursing their umpteenth beers in Fat Daddy’s Saloon, a loud, smoke-filled, neon-lit honky tonk in the foothills of the North Georgia mountains. Fat Daddy’s had always been their bar of choice on the weekends, but ever since Bill and Tom lost their jobs at the bottling plant, they were there almost every night, drinking away the last dollars they had.

If you hung out in Fat Daddy’s long enough, the same things would happen every night like clockwork. The phone behind the bar would ring precisely at seven, as Mrs. Floyd would call making sure her husband hadn’t snuck over there after work. At eight-thirty, Little Jake would lose yet another pool game to Mike “The Mouth” Kilbey, and he’d hear about it the rest of the night. At nine-thirty, someone would play “Whisky River” on the beat-up old jukebox. And at ten o’clock, sitting alone at the end of the bar, Chief “B.S.” would tell his tired old tale of the gold in Sawnee Mountain to anyone who would listen.

Now, some of you young folks may not know what “B.S.” stands for, but you older folks surely do. Bill gave the Chief that name because he got tired of hearing the same old stories coming out of his mouth. The Chief was an old Cherokee with long grey hair, wrinkled, leathery skin, piercing eyes, and a beaten up hat with some sort of turkey feather sticking out of the brim. His ancestors had lived and hunted in the North Georgia mountains long before the white man arrived. And he knew those mountains so well that he could hike through them blindfolded if he had to.

That didn’t matter much to the good ol’ boys at Fat Daddy’s, who considered the Chief a weird outsider. But maybe it was their dire employment situation that led Bill and Tom to suddenly pay attention to the Chief as he told his story to another unsuspecting drunk. He always started his tale by talking about the Trail of Tears, and how Chief Sawnee, one of the most respected Cherokee leaders in Georgia, refused to go. Instead, Chief Sawnee hid in the North Georgia mountains with his loyal braves, and when he died he was buried in the mountain which now bears his name. According to the story, he was also buried with a large stash of gold coins, which his remaining braves buried with him.

This was the part of the story where everyone in the bar would laugh at the old man and tell him he was nuts. “It’s true,” the Chief insisted, “The gold is buried with Chief Sawneee deep in Sawnee Mountain. But it’s protected by his spirit. I can tell you how to get there, but I’d never go in myself. I don’t need gold bad enough to have a ghost hounding me for the rest of my life.”

Well, maybe the Chief didn’t want the gold that badly, but Bill Morgan certainly did. He moved two barstools down toward the old man and said, “Tell you what, Chief. You draw me a map, and I’ll go up and get that gold. I’ll even give you a cut of it.”

Tom looked at his friend in disbelief. “I ain’t goin’ bushwackin’ up there on some wild goose chase!” he said.

Bill put his arm mockingly around the Chief and grinned a phony grin. “It ain’t no wild goose chase, is it, Chief? That gold’s up there, and we’re gonna get it!”

The Chief took a long, contemplative swig of beer, then stared at Bill with his black, piercing eyes. “You two church going men?” he asked.

“What difference does that make?” asked Bill with a chuckle.

“Like I said, the gold is protected by Chief Sawnee’s spirit,” the old Cherokee answered. “If you go in there, you gotta go in with a pure heart. So a church going man will stand a better chance with the spirit than a sinful one.”

Bill rolled his eyes, grabbed one of the bar napkins and said, “Yeah, whatever. Draw us a map on this napkin and we’ll go see if your story’s true or not.” Then winking at his friend Tom he whispered, “If Chief B.S. is right, we’re gonna be rich this time tomorrow. Besides, what do we got to lose?”

After the Chief had drawn the map, Tom followed Bill as he staggered out of the bar. Bill tossed his keys to Tom and said, “You drive. I’ll show you where to go.”

“You can’t be serious,” answered Tom. “C’mon, you’re drunk. There ain’t no gold up there. Besides, it’s dark out.”

But Bill wouldn’t be swayed. “C’mon, I need your help. We’ll just take a quick look, I promise.”

Now Tom knew he had done plenty of stupid things himself after one too many beers. And his friend Bill had always been there to bail him out off trouble. So with a heavy sigh, Tom grabbed a couple of flashlights from the back of his truck and said, “Alright, which way do we go?”

For hours it seemed, Tom drove Bill’s truck up the curvy, two-lane road that led up into the highest elevations in North Georgia. The lights from town disappeared, and soon they were enveloped in darkness, alone on the road, with only the intensely bright stars above keeping them company. In fact, Tom had never seen stars so beautiful and bright. Or perhaps he was always too busy to notice them. Maybe those Cherokees back then didn’t have it so bad after all, he thought to himself.

“There it is!” Bill suddenly screamed.

Tom slammed on the brakes and looked where Bill was pointing. On the side of the road stood a wooden, unoccupied lean-to with a big black pot inside. A crudely painted sign nailed to a tree above it read BOILED P-NUTS $1.00. Tom rolled his eyes – these tourist traps were a dime a dozen up in the hills, especially in the fall when the leaf watchers drove up in their shiny SUVs from Atlanta. Tom looked at the map scrawled on Bill’s napkin. Indeed, the Chief had drawn the peanut stand with a long dotted line behind it, indicating a dirt road. Tom turned onto the dirt road behind the peanut stand and plunged deep into the dark forest.

For several miles, the dirt road was in surprisingly good shape. But then it suddenly worsened, with Tom’s truck rocking violently in the deep ruts. Thick clouds of dust blanketed Toms’ headlights, obscuring what little of the road he could see. It was obvious that no one had been down this old hunting road in years. Tom was just about to turn around when the road suddenly dead-ended into a thick, impenetrable wall of old-growth trees.

Bill looked at the map clutched in his sweaty hands, grinned and said, “We’re here!”

Where’s “here,” Tom thought to himself as they exited the truck. The woods surrounding them were pitch black and silent, save the loud crickets that seemed to be everywhere. Tom followed Bill as he plunged into the old growth forest, the trees wider and taller than anything he had seen before. The ground rose up steeply before them, and all the beer Tom had consumed that night quickly perspired from his body. He was now totally sober, wondering what in the world they were doing out there.

Panting and exhausted, Tom rested against a tree. After a few minutes passed, he noticed that Bill’s flashlight beam had disappeared. He called out Bill’s name, but only the crickets answered him. “Bill?” he called out again, but there was still no answer. Now worried, Tom cried out as loud as he could, “Bill!!” Bill’s faint voice drifted back from somewhere in the darkness. “Hey, man! I’m over here! Look over…” “YAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!! ”

Tom ran frantically in the direction of Bill’s screams, his flashlight beam bouncing off the ominous trees. He screamed his friend’s name over and over, but only the mocking crickets called back. Then his flashlight beam cut across a small cloud of dust floating in the distance. He ran in that direction, only to suddenly freeze in his tracks, his eyes widening. A few inches from his feet was a yawning black hole, leading straight down into black, uncharted darkness.

“Tom, you up there?” screamed Bill hoarsely from somewhere in the dark depths.

Tom pointed his flashlight into the hole, revealing a rocky pit nearly fifty feet deep. Bill looked up at him from the bottom, a bleeding gash on his face, but he was standing. He then gave Tom and boyish grin and said, “Look here what I found.”

Bill turned on his light, and Tom could see that he was standing in some sort of cavern entrance, with numerous holes in the walls leading God-knows-where. In the dancing beam, he could also see eerie paintings on the walls – pictures of the universe, of animals, of warrior figures and strange tribal masks. On the ground beside Bill’s feet, Tom swore he saw a human skull buried below the nose in red clay.

But it was what he saw next that made his jaw drop. Sparkling in Bill’s flashlight beam was a dirty burlap sac, filled with gold coins! Bill looked up at Tom and grinned. “What do ya’ know,” he said, “the Injun was right!”

They wasted no time hauling the bag of gold out of the pit and running back through the woods. Bill had sprained his ankle slightly in the fall, but that didn’t stop him from making a beeline toward the truck. And as they roared back to town, they whooped and hollered out the open windows, listing all the things that gold was going to buy them – sports cars, motorcycles, beach houses, beautiful ladies. But they agreed that the first thing they would do is march right back to that bottling plant and tell their old boss to…well, you can imagine the rest.

Several days passed after their discovery, and Tom became concerned that he hadn’t heard anything from Bill since then. Tom’s phone calls to Bill’s home went unanswered, and nobody at Fat Daddy’s had seen him, which was very unusual. Had Bill left town with his share of the gold?

So one day, Tom drove over to Bill’s place to check up on him. Bill lived in an old trailer home on some barren and overgrown family farmland several miles out of town. He saw Bill’s truck in the driveway, went up to the door and knocked, but there was no answer. He then tried the doorknob, and was surprised when the door suddenly creaked open. Tom’s stomach turned as he was greeted by an awful smell, worse than any barn or latrine he’d ever run across. Covering his nose and mouth, he walked cautiously into the trailer. He noticed a light burning in Bill’s bedroom. He walked over to the door and peaked inside.

What he saw next froze his blood. There was Bill lying on his soiled bed, horrifyingly thin, his eyes bulging out of his pale, skeletal face. Tom could see Bill’s exposed rib cage underneath his filthy shirt, heaving up and down with each pained breath.

“What happened to you?” Tom blurted out. But Bill didn’t answer. “Can you hear me?” Tom asked. Again, Bill didn’t answer, but instead rolled his eyes, as if directing Tom toward his bedside. Tom moved toward him and leaned close to Bill’s face. And in a painful, hoarse whisper that took every ounce of his strength, Bill said:

“He…won’t…let…me…get…up.”

Tom grabbed Bill’s arm, but it wouldn’t move, as if it were super-glued to the bed. He tried his other arm and his legs, but still he wouldn’t budge. Tom knew that Bill was too frail to resist him. Something else was holding Bill on the bed – something powerful and invisible.

Tom lunged for the phone to call for help, but it was dead. Frantic, he ran into the kitchen, heated up a bowl of canned soup, then brought it to Bill’s bedside with a glass of water. But Bill spit up everything Tom tried to put in his mouth, his eyes deliriously rolling back in his head. As Tom watched his friend suffer, his mind suddenly crossed that line between the real and the surreal. That moment when you finally realize you don’t really know everything about how this world operates, and anything is possible. So without thinking, Tom grabbed Bill’s share of Chief Sawnee’s gold, still sitting in the burlap sack in the closet. He then rushed home, grabbed his share, and sped back up into the hills. Past the “Boiled P-Nut” stand, down the old hunting road, through the creepy, old growth forest, and up to the edge of the deep pit. And with tears in his eyes, he called out to the skeletal remains below: “I’m givin’ you your gold back, Chief Sawnee! I don’t need it, and I’m sorry I took it! I’ll never bother you again. Just please let my friend go – please! He’s my only friend in the world! And that’s the only thing that matters to me! I swear!”

And with those words, he tossed the bags of gold coins back into the pit. Then using his bare hands, he shoveled dirt, rocks, branches, anything he could find over the hole, so no one else would ever find it. He then bolted back to his truck and sped back towards town.

Tom knew he had to find a phone fast, and the closest one was at Fat Daddy’s a few miles away. The sun was quickly setting over the hills, and he knew that Bill didn’t have much more time. Tom knew he’d get strange looks wandering into the bar with his filthy clothes and cut, bleeding hands, but he would find a way to explain it later.

When Tom finally roared into the Fat Daddy’s parking lot around ten o’ clock, he was surprised to find it empty. The lot was usually full on a Saturday night – maybe they closed early, Tom thought fearfully. Tom was relieved to find the door unlocked. He ran inside and found it dark and empty. He ran behind the bar, grabbed the phone, and dialed Bill’s sister in a neighboring town. She picked up her cell phone after one ring. “Bill’s been rushed to the hospital,” she said in a panicked voice. “He called me a few hours ago and said he couldn’t get out of bed. The doctor says he’s lucky to be alive. Now I’m trying to get Mom on the phone. He looked awful, Tom. What happened to him? Do you know?”

Tom couldn’t answer, but the news of Bill’s condition sent waves of relief through him. He assured her that he would head straight to the hospital, then hung up the phone.

“You’ve been up to Chief Sawnee’s cave, haven’t you?” said a sudden voice from the darkness.

Tom nearly leapt out of his skin. Sitting at the bar was old “Chief B.S.,” nursing a beer.

“What do you know about it?” was all Tom could say.

The Chief took a long, contemplative swig of beer, stared at Tom with his piercing eyes, then said in a voice that seemed deeper and older than the one Tom had heard so often: “That gold isn’t going to do me no good. You’re welcome to it. But I told you to accept it with a good heart. That’s all I ask. Now use it that way. Or I’ll come back to see you again.”

With that, the Chief polished off his beer and strolled leisurely out the door. Tom looked at the Chief’s bar stool. Sitting there was the dirty burlap sack of gold coins that Tom had thrown into the pit hours earlier. Tom could hardly believe his eyes. He then charged out the door to find the Chief. But only the stiff evening breeze rolling off the North Georgia mountains greeted him. The Chief had vanished into the night.

And in the years that followed, as Tom and Bill both married and finally settled down, Chief B.S. – or Chief Sawnee, as they called him to anyone who would listen to their crazy stories – was never seen in those parts again.

- THE END -

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Written by Craig Dominey

 The year was 1838. As the first rays of early morning light crept through the dark and misty mountain valley, Tsali gazed out of his tiny cave with a heavy heart. As a young boy, he spent days running though the thick woods and scampering up the steep, rocky hillsides that surrounded his Cherokee village in western North Carolina. The mountains were his place of escape — a place where he could dream, and be alone with his thoughts.

But now, as an ailing, 60-year-old man, Tsali was hiding in these hills for a very different reason. The white man had taken away the land that his ancestors had lived on for centuries. And they would not stop until even these majestic, sacred hills were theirs.

Tsali looked out and saw his fellow villagers, who were also hiding in the tiny crevices that dotted the wooded hillside. Many were shivering in the early morning chill. In their haste to leave, they had had no time to pack their belongings. Some managed to smile back at Tsali, their teeth chattering in the bone-chilling wind. Tsali was one of the elders of the village, and was highly respected amongst his people.

Tsali managed to smile back, but in his heart he knew that, as long as he stayed here, he was a danger to all of them. For of all the fugitive Cherokees, he was the most wanted by the white man.

Now, as the bright morning light slowly burned through the bluish mist, Tsali knew he was about to make the most important decision of his life.

Only two weeks ago, Tsali had stubbornly woken up at dawn and joined his two strong sons for their normal round of farm chores. Tsali and his family lived in a modest log cabin on their own farmstead, raising corn and other vegetables. Although Tsali could feel his old age creeping through his brittle bones, he stubbornly refused to rest — for to him, hard work was what made the man.

The Cherokees who lived in these North Carolina mountains in the 1800s did not wear headdresses or live in teepees. They dressed like the white man and lived in small villages, complete with stores, churches and schools. They had their own alphabet, and even published their own newspaper. Even though the white settlers had taken over most of their land through the years, the Cherokees wanted nothing more than to be accepted by the white man and to live in peace.

But to many white people, no matter what advances the Cherokees made, they would always be an inferior race of “savages.” Gold was discovered down in Georgia, bringing a flood of white prospectors into the area. They harassed the Cherokees, looted their homes and stole their livestock. Meanwhile, other white settlers stood by like vultures, waiting to pounce on the Cherokee land if they fled. Certainly, the Cherokees thought, the U.S. government will send troops to help us, for we have been promised that we can stay on this land.

But no help ever arrived.

So it was no surprise to Tsali when word came into his village one day that U.S. President Andrew Jackson had made a stunning announcement. He ordered the Cherokees to move from their North Carolina homeland to strange lands way out West. This was a ridiculous order to Tsali — they were farmers, not hunters. How could they uproot everything and move? Their ancestors had lived on this land for centuries, and as long as their spirits remained there, Tsali’s people could never leave. So Tsali and his people refused the order, choosing instead to fight back the white man’s way — through the courts.

Two years had passed since the order, and as Tsali worked on his farm that morning, he had almost forgotten that he and his people were living in contempt of the U.S. government. He limped down to the barn to milk the cows, the crisp morning air throbbing in his aching knees.

Just as he reached the door, an ear-splitting scream filled the air, followed by a loud crash. Tsali dropped his bucket and ran to the side of the barn. As he looked down on the village, he could see a small army of white soldiers, armed with bayonets, kicking down the doors of the houses. Men, women and children were yanked screaming out of their homes and taken away, not even given time to look back. As they left, white looters ransacked their homes, snatching everything of value they could find.

Tsali’s sons ran up behind him. “What’s going on?” said the eldest son, his eyes filling with horror. “What are they doing?”

Tsali pushed them back toward the house. “Go get your mother,” he yelled. “We’ve got to get out of here!”

Tsali’s wife had come down with a bad fever that spring, and could barely muster up the strength to get of bed. Tsali’s sons grabbed her and, with Tsali leading the way, ran away from their home forever, taking nothing with them.

As they ran, they could hear the soldiers yelling for them to stop. “Don’t look back,” yelled Tsali to his family. “Keep moving!”

As they reached the outskirts of the village, a cavalry of soldiers suddenly encircled them on horseback. Tsali’s eldest son tried to escape, but a soldier clubbed him in the head with the butt of his bayonet. Tsali frantically looked around him, his pale wife gasping for breath on his arm — they were helplessly surrounded.

Tsali’s family was marched away from the village at gun point, along with other villagers who had tried to escape. One thing the Cherokees had not given up was their native tongue, and whenever the white soldiers weren’t looking, Tsali whispered to his fellow villagers along the trail. He learned that many Cherokees had managed to escape into the hills. He also learned that the white soldiers had stockades set up to imprison the Cherokees before they were forced out West.

Tsali looked over at his poor, feverish wife, barely able to stand. She won’t be able to live in such a place, he thought. His blood boiled inside him — for the first time in his life, he was helpless, his manhood taken away by these white soldiers. He could do nothing to help his family.

In the distance, they could see the stockade — a makeshift wooden fort bellowing smoke and misery from its depths. At the sight of it, Tsali’s wife suddenly froze, her eyes filled with fear. “Keep moving!” snarled the soldier behind her. In her sickness, she paid no attention to him. Impatient, the soldier jabbed her in the back with his bayonet. She tumbled to the ground.

Without thinking, Tsali leapt at the solider. They struggled for the gun, Tsali’s rage filling him with youthful strength. The gun suddenly exploded, and the soldier fell limp, a bloody hole shot through his chest.

The second soldier was in a state of shock, unsure what to do. In the distance, Tsali could see the other soldiers looking back at them, screaming for reinforcements. Tsali snatched the rifle from the soldier and shot him from his horse.

Now scores of soldiers were running toward them, guns drawn. Tsali frantically looked around him, unsure where to go. Then he looked up into the dark hills — the same hills he had lost himself in as a boy. He knew every inch of those hills, and if his family was going to be captured, they weren’t going to surrender without a fight.

Tsali lifted his wife onto his shoulder and turned toward the hills. “Run!” he screamed to his family.

Through the deep woods they ran — up and over the rocky hillsides, through treacherous mountain rivers, finally stopping in a remote valley farther away than any white soldier had ever traveled. A number of caves riddled the valley, and as Tsali expected, other fugitive Cherokees had also come here to hide. Tsali warmly greeted his friends and neighbors before finding his own crevice, hiding his family inside, and pondering what to do next.

For days they waited, but no white solider appeared. But Tsali figured it was only a matter of time. For he had just killed two white soldiers, and there was no way they were going to let him get away with it.

Then, almost a week after the invasion, some Cherokee scouts passed word up the valley that a white man was approaching the caves. The odd thing was, he was walking through the valley alone, with no weapons that they could see. Perhaps he was a white settler lost in the woods, they reasoned. No one made a motion to kill him, for the last thing they needed was more white blood on their hands.

Tsali peered out of his crevice as the white man slowly walked out of the woods. He was dressed like a mountain man in dirty, well-worn clothes. It was then that Tsali recognized him — he was William Thomas, a white trader who had done a lot of business with Tsali’s village. William knew these woods almost as good as Tsali, and must have known exactly where the fugitive Cherokees had gone to hide. Tsali and William weren’t friends, but Tsali respected him enough to know that he was a man of honor, and had come alone.

Tsali crept out of the cave and walked slowly down the hillside toward him. William shook his hand, then explained what business had brought him up there:

“General Scott is furious about what you’ve done, Tsali. He says he’s going to bring his men up here to hunt you down. You may be able to hide up in these hills for awhile, but one of these days, he’s going to find you. You and your people are going to spend the rest of your lives on the run.”

Tsali nodded and stared at the ground, William’s harsh words ringing true.

“But he’s sent me up here with an offer,” William continued. “He says if you’ll give yourself up, he’ll call off his search, and your people can stay in these hills as long as they want. He gave his word.”

Tsali glared at William and said, “His word means nothing to me. I’ve heard these promises from white people before. Why should I believe him?”

“What choice do you have?” asked William. “You stay here, he’ll come after you anyway. And he may be mad enough at that point to kill both you and your people. He doesn’t want to send his soldiers up into this wilderness – not when he’s only after one man. But he will if he has to.”

Tsali looked up into the cloudless sky, pondering the offer. In his heart, he knew that William was right. As long as he stayed in hiding, he was a danger to his family and his community. He sighed a deep sigh, then replied, “whatever decision I make, I must speak with my family first. Come back in one week, and I will give you my answer.”

As the morning sun rose over the valley a week later, Tsali had made his decision. He would give himself up to the white man, and face certain death. Throughout the night, he had consoled his frightened wife and children, trying to make them understand that it was his life for a thousand. To his sons, he asked that they always look after their mother and help the community rebuild itself. To his wife, he promised through his tears that they would be together soon, in spirit.

William returned that morning, and Tsali joined him for the long walk back to the village. Behind him, he could hear the cries of his entire community, filling the dark hills with their sorrow. Tsali could not bear to look back.

Tsali and William walked in silence though the thick forest. Tsali breathed in the cool mountain air for the last time, taking in every smell, sound and sight that he could. He prayed that his spirit would still walk through these hills long after he was gone.

The next day, Tsali arrived back at the village — or what was left of it. All the homes had either been vandalized or burned to the ground. Crops and farmland had been destroyed. Tsali hoped that William was right, and that the rest of his people would be spared further misery.

The soldiers roughly grabbed Tsali and pushed him toward the firing range. As a final affront to the Cherokees, two Cherokee prisoners were ordered to serve as Tsali’s executioners. As they tied Tsali, they begged him to wear a blindfold. But Tsali calmly refused, choosing instead to stare one last time at the sky as the bullets tore through his heart.

Thanks to Tsali’s heroic sacrifice, the white soldiers never marched into the hills after the Cherokee fugitives. They were allowed to stay, and in later years, their descendants became the Eastern Band of Cherokees. To this day, these Cherokees still live in Western North Carolina on land specifically designated for them. You can visit them today in the town of Cherokee, North Carolina.

As more hikers began exploring the area in modern times, reports began coming in of a mysterious, shadowy figure wandering through the dense forests. In the blink of an eye, the shadow would disappear, only to reappear again at night, silhouetted tall in the sky against the bright moon. Local newspapers wrote stories about this mysterious ghost, and curiosity seekers soon filled the area.

But the Eastern Band of Cherokees knew who this mystery figure was. They knew it was Tsali, returning to wander forever through the majestic hills he loved.

- THE END -

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