Walking simile
Maritole’s difficulty in walking is compared to her late grandmother’s lack of strength. Maritole writes, "I tried to follow Knobowtee, but the road kept going sideways. I walked like I was my grandmother before she died when her knees wouldn't hold. I heard the soldiers laugh.”
Deer
The narrator recounted the horrifying ordeal when she ran away from the soldiers who wanted to take her captive. She wishes she were an animal to hibernate and lose the soldiers' tracks following her. The narrator writes, "If I were an animal, the soldiers could not find me. If I hold still, I can become a deer. I lean over the creek and lap with my tongue. I feel under my skirt for the hooves. The soft deer tail.”
Fatigue
The victims' fatigue is compared to the ground during the invasion. The author writes, "Their hair was dull and mattered as the ground where they slept. Their clothes were torn. They were dirty. Their hands were infected with splinters, scratches, and wounds of every kind. Their skin was chapped and raw, their faces hollow, their limbs weak. Their eyes stared to the ground. They were a string of bones, some more animal-like than human."
