Timpoochee searched the river for a pool filled with fish.
“Uga would be good,” he thought.
Before he could look very far he found himself standing over an eddy teaming with trout.
Slowly, so not to disturb them, Timpoochee reached for the pouch tied around his waist. He emptied part of the pouch into the pool.
In only a very few moments, the fish came floating to the surface, belly up.
Timpoochee scooped as many as he could carry in his arms and returned to the small clearing where he’d started a fire.
Placing the fish on sticks above the fire, he collected blackberries and strawberries from a nearby thicket and together with the fish had quite a meal.
He wondered as he ate why Rising Fawn brought up the old tales from the town’s elder women. He wondered, too, why it was so important that she and the old women know the truth of his heritage.
“I am Tsalagi,” he said out loud to the woods. “I am fire people.
“I have been raised Tsalagi, taught the ways of Tsalagi. I have fished and hunted in Tsalagi world. My father is leader of our town, respected among all Tsalagi.
“It is of no importance what events preceded my life. What matter is what I do with my life as given to me by the Bearer of Breath. It is what I do for my people and myself which will determine what my life has been; not some old tales.”
Tired of worry over the long night and day and filled with the feast of trout and berries, Timpoochee finally relaxed and fell quickly asleep by the glowing embers of the fire.