In response to a request made by an American Lieutenant who assisted in the Removal of the Cherokee Indians to the West in 1838, I have written a love song to the dead. My story is a family saga that commemorates the endurance of a Cherokee woman, otherwise broken by tragedy, and adds to the ranks of America's heroes another name. I thank my mother Minnette Tittle Deloach, who did not live to see the publication of this story, but who has shone like a knowing star on my efforts to make good on a pamphlet about the Trail of Tears that we picked up at an East Texas flea market and purchased for a nickel. She gave me her dreams and her stories about my great-grandmother. She lit the memory fire.
