Tazewell's heritage of mystery

Any fortune teller reading the tea leaves in the bottom of Ken Henderson’s cup are sure to see the shape of a mountain. That would be Paintlick Mountain, part of the Clinch Mountain range that runs through Tazewell County. The mountain is the central image in Henderson’s novel “Painted Mountain.” It‘s also the central image in the man’s life.

He first saw the pictographs on the mountain’s limestone cliffs when he was a boy. The ancient drawings of birds, circles, turtles, and humans presented a mystery. Who created them? When? Why? It wouldn’t be until later in his life that he unraveled this mystery that evaded others. In the meantime, he went on to have a successful career in art and publishing, experiences that prepared him for what he would do next. That was to move back to the valley below Paintlick where he could solve mysteries, write novels, and publish other authors’ books.

“I can look out my window and see the mountain,” he said. It’s where he wrote his account of how the pictographs came to be. During the three years that he researched in preparation for writing, he looked for the meaning of the symbols. The trail led him to Cherokee, N.C., where he discovered that most of the images represent different Cherokee clans. In his story they are an integral part of a sacred ritual performed yearly on the mountain top by Cherokee who come to this boundary between their lands and those of the Shawnee.

In telling the story, he unveils early American history, a history that has its roots in Tazewell County. That’s because the story begins with English settler Josh Mosby, who brings his wife, a few belongings, and livestock to the remote valley terraced with hills that run up to encircling mountains. It’s in this place where Cherokee befriend his family and the Shawnee destroy them.

Henderson tells the adventure-filled story in the style of Homer’s “The Odyssey”; however, instead of one picaresque hero, he has three: Mosby; Tobahana, the Seneca warrior Mosby bonds with in a Shawnee prison camp; and Miskka, a Cherokee kidnapped by the Shawnee from Painted Mountain forty years before.

“Old Miskka is the only one that’s not based on a real person,” Henderson said. “He came about to solve a technical problem.” Henderson had gotten Mosby and Tobahana to Montreal in their quest to find the Seneca’s kidnapped siblings. There they were captured and imprisoned on a ship. Of this Henderson said, “It was easy to get them in trouble on the ship, but there was only one way in and one way out, so it wasn’t easy to get them off. That’s where Miskka came in.” The old man not only faked his death to help them escape, but also he was a link with Tazewell County and Painted Mountain. To get him safely home was the motivation for the trio’s dangerous journey through enemy territory between Montreal and Tazewell’s Painted (Paintlick) Mountain and the valley where Mosby was living when the Shawnee attacked.

It was also Henderson’s way of staging the last great battle between the Cherokee and the Shawnee. That battle, won by the English-friendly Cherokee, was for the sacred mountain that was important to both. Since the Shawnee was the three companions’ enemy, warning the Cherokee of their plan for a surprise attack and to instruct them in battle tactics was the men’s vindication for their suffering and a way to tell an historical tale.

It was also a way for Henderson to solve a second mystery. Most people say that the battle took place on the mountain above the valley where Crab Orchard Museum stands now. “It’s called Battle Knob,” Henderson said, “because of an earth formation that looks like a trench. But it’s really a fault line. Indians do not fight that way -- with trenches. Also, no one has found a tomahawk or an arrowhead up there.”

But down the mountain, in the area around the museum, thousands upon thousands of flint axes and arrowheads have been found. In the nearby field, many Native American graves were uncovered years ago. Some of the dead had been buried with their faces pointing toward the north. “That was a Shawnee custom,” Henderson said, “to bury their dead facing their home. All the others were pointed toward the rising sun.” Logic and research into Native American culture tells him that this is where the last battle between two ancient peoples took place.

Henderson wants to preserve the Native American paintings. His recent treks up the mountain that is now privately owned show that the paintings are fading. In a few years they will be gone.

He could have written an essay, gone on local talk shows, or gathered up a committee to help save the mountain’s heritage. Instead, he wrote a story about it, a story that might become a film some day -- talks are ongoing. The more people who hear of the ancient paintings on the mountain cliffs, the more likely they will be saved.

“Three weeks after my book came out, the Smithsonian called,” Henderson said. “They sent a group of Native American representatives. We went up on the mountain; they were awestruck. That was two years ago. The study has been turned over to museum directors, who plan to reproduce the images and make them a part of the new Native American museum in Washington, D.C.”

This week he’s going to get his message out to another influential group: Virginia’s governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, and members of the General Assembly. Jim Spencer, Tazewell County Manager, will be a part of a regional delegation that will visit the leaders in Richmond on Thursday. Their mission: “We’re going to take Tazewell County to them,” Spencer said. They will showcase the county’s economic development potential and its tourism efforts through presentations and presents. “We are taking personal gifts that show the talent in our county. One of those gifts is a personally signed copy of ‘Painted Mountain.’ We are giving out 150 of them,” Spencer said. “Also we want to tell the leaders about the Appalachian Author’s Guild that Henderson and others have initiated.”

That guild is much on Henderson’s mind these days. It came about because of the mountain, too. While Henderson and local writer Jim Campbell were on the road promoting and selling their books, they “talked about needing an outlet for authors to sell and distribute their books without taking all of their money.” That discussion came about because the two met many writers, all struggling to learn how to get their books printed, published, or distributed. “We decided to come up with a tool to help them,” Henderson said.

Last November the AAG came into existence. “We have 100 authors signed already and will have 3,000 by the end of the year,” Henderson said. The AAG will promote the writers through a Web site, which will be running full force the first of March with the Grand Opening on April 8 at Southwest Virginia Community College.

For a small yearly fee, authors who live within the Appalachian region can use the site to promote their works. As members they keep 75 percent of their profits, instead of the 5 percent that most now realize.

Henderson is writing another book to promote online. He plans to finish it in time for the AAG’s Grand Opening. “It’s a sequel to ‘Painted Mountain’” he said, “called ‘Brothers of the Forest.’ Josh Mosby is back as is Tobahana and old Miskka. They go into Kentucky to rescue Daniel Boone.”

Using the mold of “Painted Mountain,” he’s casting the new story in the shadow of the mountain that’s inspired most of his life.