"Which he did," Edison said. "After watching the way you were working with him and seeing how quickly he responded to you, I can't help thinking that you're keeping your hair long for reasons other than vanity."
Tyler eyed the man with curiosity. It was an odd statement, but a perceptive one. "Maybe," he replied. "What reasons are you thinking?"
"Communicating," Edison said, "Do you know anything about the Indian scouts during the war in Vietnam?"
"No," Tyler replied. "What about them?"
"Special Forces in the war department sent agents to comb Indian Reservations to find outstanding scouts, men who'd been extensively documented as experts in tracking and survival, but once enlisted, whatever skills they had on the reservation seemed to mysteriously disappear. When questioned, the recruits claimed that after getting their military haircuts they could no longer access a sixth sense, their intuition was unreliable, and they couldn't read subtle signs like before. More Indian trackers were recruited, but that time the military sent the men out in pairs, one with long hair, the other with a military cut. Time after time the men with long hair retained their sixth sense and tracking skills, while those with short hair failed, so after that, Indian trackers were not only exempt from haircuts, they were required to keep their long hair."
"I never heard about that," Tyler said, "but from my experience, the longer I grew my hair, the more aware I became of what my horses were struggling with, and the more responsive they were to what I was trying to tell them, so I suppose it's logical that it would work for scouts too."
"It's interesting to hear you reaffirm it because until now I wasn't sure I believed it," Edison replied. "There's some talk that the story was fabricated."
"My father would be the first to think that way," Tyler said. "He probably still believes I'm claiming it helps me connect with my horses as an excuse to look like a rock star. His rule when we were growing up was no hair below the collar, but when my brother, Marc, returned after being gone for four years, after a falling-out with my parents, he'd grown his hair out and my father said nothing. That was around the time I read about hair being an extension of the nervous system, so I decided to give it a try, but I never thought it would help in handling my horses."
"Or maybe you're more Indian than you think," Edison replied.
"I'm no more Indian than my brothers, who don't look Indian at all," Tyler said.
"Then I guess you just got lucky," Edison replied, and offered a broad smile.
Tyler liked the smile. In fact, he liked the man. "Maybe," he said, but he'd never considered himself lucky to look different from his brothers. At school the kids teased him when his features started changing, calling him a shapeshifter, and not in a friendly way.
"Rose mentioned that you don't know anything about your native background," Edison said.
"I don't," Tyler admitted. "I've only recently become interested."
"Then since you're a horseman, you might start with your own roots. The Nez Perce were one of the first tribes to breed horses selectively and they developed the appaloosa into a horse capable of catching a running herd of buffalo and putting its rider in place for the kill, and when the horse heard the twang of the arrow leaving the bow it would cut the wounded animal from the herd. It was only due to the appaloosa's speed, agility, strength, and intelligence, which was bred into them, that the horse kept himself and his rider alive during this maneuver."
Tyler listened with interest. "I use Lusitanos for their strength, agility and intelligence," he said, "but the pair I'm looking to buy right now is priced out of my range, so I might consider buying a pair of appaloosa instead."
"If you do, you might also consider changing your act from a Roman soldier to a Nez Perce," Edison said. "It would be equally as impressive and would definitely connect with the rodeo crowd."
Tyler eyed the man in curiosity. "Are you by any chance on the rodeo committee?" he asked.
"No, but my brother is," Edison replied. "Rose said you were here about getting a contract with the rodeo for your Roman riding act, so I figured you were the guy in the video I viewed with the committee, but none of us knew you were Indian."
Tyler gave a little ironic snort. "Me, included," he said, "but it seems I don't have much choice. Everything keeps shoving me down a path to my ancestry. It's a little eerie."
"Well, if you decide to take that path you might want to read about the last Nez Perce chief," Edison said. "There's a lot to learn about the man and his horse, Ebenezer. The horse was so famous, newspapers always referred to him by name when Chief Joseph rode into town, but when Chief Joseph finally surrendered, he rode a black horse instead. But before he surrendered, he proved to be one of the finest chiefs of any tribe. You might want to find out why."
Tyler let out a soft laugh. "Okay, you've got my curiosity. I guess I'm destined to learn about my Indian forebears whether I want to or not. Things keep sending me in that direction."
"Things like my daughter?" Edison asked.
"I won't deny she's a big part of it," Tyler replied, "but there are other things too. People keep suggesting I do things I wasn't planning on doing."
"Like transforming your act from Roman to Indian," Edison said. "The thing is, the Nez Perce were superior horsemen and you do naturally what it's taken the American cowboy three centuries to begin to figure out, my son included, since the Kalapuya never had horses and Preston learned what he knows from cowboys." He smiled again, and Tyler got the impression that the man might tolerate a long-haired, Indian look-alike in Rose's life. But for Rose's mother and brother, he'd be facing an uphill battle, and he hadn't yet met the matriarch of the family. But that would happen when he walked through the door, because he saw an old woman watching from the window, and she didn't look friendly.
Shifting his gaze back to Edison, he said, "I suppose I'll be doing some reading."
Edison laughed and gave Tyler a light rap on the shoulder. "With a little research, you might find that you're not as far from your roots as you think. Meanwhile, I'll turn out the mustang and see what's got Preston so hot under the collar."
The men turned away from each other and headed in opposite directions, and as Tyler walked toward the house, he couldn't help thinking that, even though Edison Starbright was giving him the benefit of the doubt, once he learned from Preston that the guy with the sixth sense about horses was also the guy who was drilling into their sacred mountain, he'd change his tune. He could end the whole controversy by abandoning the project and selling the drill to prove to Rose and everyone else that he was through, but he was too close to quit now. A couple more hours and he might find his answer…
That thought was interrupted by the shrill, piercing sound of a hawk high above along with a shadow crossing on the ground in front of him. He looked up to see a red-tailed hawk making a wide circle. Cupping his hand over his eyes to block the sun, he watched as the hawk completed the circle and landed on a fence post at the far side of the pasture. It would be ludicrous to think it was the same hawk as the one at his place because red-tails were common in the area. Still, it seemed oddly coincidental, because the hawk was also a young female.
When he looked toward the house again, Rose was standing just outside the kitchen door, looking at the hawk. As he approached, Rose said to him, "That looks like Diana. It's big like a female, and it's sitting on a fence post, watching you."
"The sun's at her back so she's facing this direction, not because she's watching me," Tyler said, "and fence posts are natural perches where hawks can watch for mice and voles. That hawk's also got a red tail and they don't get red tails until they're two." He said that to throw Rose off track so she wouldn't jump to erroneous conclusions.
Rose looked at the hawk again, and seeming satisfied with his explanation, said to him, "How did it go with Preston?"
Tyler glanced toward the corral, where Rose's father was opening the gate to the pasture to let the mustang out, then he looked at Preston who was standing
in the doorway, glaring at him. "I take it you weren't watching," he said, while continuing to hold Preston's gaze. It was a momentary male power struggle, which was broken when Rose's father walked up to Preston.
"No," Rose said, glancing toward the men. "Why? What happened?"
Tyler let out a short, sardonic laugh. "You were right. I'm a squaw man."
"Preston actually called you that?" Rose said, clearly surprised.
"Not without encouragement," Tyler admitted. "I'm thinking it's about time to go."
"Preston's five years older than me, which he thinks gives him a right to chase off any prospective boyfriends, so don't take to heart anything he says. Besides, he says things he later retracts when he's had time to think things through."
Tyler could argue that Preston had thought things through, and it was because he held the same view as Rose about the spring that he called him a squaw man, which also implied that the man chasing after Rose didn't know squat about native beliefs, though he was slowing learning. He was actually curious about the Nez Perce, especially about the way they handled horses. Maybe he was a genetic throwback. It was plausible.
He looked toward the barn again. "If nothing else, maybe your brother will handle the mustang more gently. He watched how I worked with him and what I said and did, and I know he understood."
"I'm betting he will handle him differently," Rose said. "Preston's that way, though he won't work with the mustang again until after we've gone."
"Fine then, let's go," Tyler replied. "I think I've about worn out my welcome here."
Rose put her hand up to Tyler's chest to keep him from walking around her and heading for his truck, and said, "No one here is against you. We're against what you're doing at the spring, and for reasons that are not clear to you, you'll continue doing it, but I'm hoping that somewhere along the way you'll open your heart, and your mind, to the idea that there could be something happening in the mountain that defies scientific explanation."
Tyler looked into a pair of eyes that held such promise, if he'd just give up his quest, that he found himself saying, "Okay, give me a couple more hours to finish opening the fissure I'm working on now and I'll quit."
"Even if the sounds in the mountain change?" Rose asked.
Tyler had to think about that. He was tempted to lie, if only to watch Rose's eyes brighten and see her smile, but the reality was, if the sounds in the mountain changed, he'd want to explore further. "I don't think the sounds are going to change," he said.
"Which is an evasive answer," Rose pointed out. She waited, and when he offered nothing more, she sighed heavily, and said, "Meanwhile, before we go I'd like you to meet my grandmother."
"What's the point?" Tyler asked. "I'm sure she's already formed an opinion of me that's not likely to change by meeting me."
"My grandmother doesn't judge people," Rose replied. "She reads them and offers her opinion about what she reads. You can do with it what you want."
"I saw her watching through the window," Tyler said. "She didn't look friendly."
"That's just her look," Rose replied. "She has sharp eyes that sees things others miss, subtle things that have meaning to her because of the way she interprets them."
Tyler had no idea what Rose was talking about, but he was beginning to have some curiosity about her grandmother, and maybe he'd learn something from the woman that would help him understand Rose's world, because right now, he wasn't connecting with any of them. Giving a sigh of resolve, he said, "Okay then, let's get it over with."
"Maybe you could change your attitude a little and be more open minded," Rose said. "My grandmother is very well respected in the community for her wisdom. You might even like her." She turned and went into the house, and Tyler followed.
Rose's grandmother was standing at the window, looking in the direction of the hawk, and when Rose and Tyler entered the house, she turned to acknowledge them. After Rose made introductions, she said to Tyler, "Tell my grandmother about Diana."
Tyler didn't want to get into a discussion about animal guides and speculation as to whether Diana was the hawk on the fence post outside, so he shrugged off Rose's request by saying to her grandmother, who Rose introduced as Mary Weaver, "The hawk at my place is a passage hawk. Her parents have been nesting in the area where I live for years and she's between leaving the nest and finding a mate."
"If she were looking for a mate," Rose argued, "she wouldn't spend her time sitting on a fence post watching you, she'd be out flying around."
Tyler looked askance at Rose, and replied, "But I'm the one throwing meat scraps to her when her parents refuse to feed her, so she's hanging around my place instead. It's basic bird behavior when a fledgling leaves the nest."
Tyler found his eyes drawn to Rose's grandmother, who looked steadily at him, and said, "How long has Hawk been with you?"
Tyler had no intention of announcing that the hawk arrived the day he started chiseling into the mountain, which would give Rose more fodder to toss at him, so he said instead, "I don't remember exactly… two, maybe three weeks."
"Hawk soars through the air looking down and sees details in the big picture," Mary said. "If she soars into your life, she's bringing her medicine to you."
Tyler looked at Rose, and from the expression on her face, he could almost hear her spiel about animal messenger guides...
…her message can be a warning, or spiritual in nature…
"She's not the first hawk that's been around my place," Tyler explained. "I live near a stand of Douglas fir so there are several red-tails in the area." He knew he didn't sound sincere because he wasn't. Until the day he started drilling, he'd never had a hawk take up residency on a fence post at his place and stare at him the way the hawk did.
Mary looked at him steadily, and said, "When Hawk shows up in your life, be sensitive to the messages it may carry and be receptive to your own intuition. Hawk has a distinct cry and when you hear it, pay close attention to the thought you were just having, because in that thought is Hawk's message. Hawk's message is for you only, but because it's connected to your thoughts, only you can know what the message is."
Tyler couldn't connect any particular thoughts with the hawk back at his place, but he remembered the images going through his head when he heard the rasp of the hawk outside on the fence post and saw the shadow pass in front of him, because the hawk's cry reminded him of the sound of his drill, and the shriek came while he was deliberating whether to give it all up, or continue drilling for a couple more hours, which, if he were to go along with the idea of animal messengers, could just as easily mean to stop, as it did to keep drilling and learn the source of the sounds, because his thoughts had been divided.
As he contemplated that, Tyler's focus sharpened and he found himself trapped in the older woman's gaze. If eyes truly were the windows of the soul, this woman was looking into his. It wasn't a threatening look, just a steady one. He also sensed that she was troubled by what she saw, maybe because he was exactly what Helen Starbright feared—someone in danger of breaking Rose's cultural ties so traditions would no longer matter. But if what they had led to marriage, they'd find a happy medium. He might not take to heart Rose's beliefs, but he'd never deny her the right to believe them.
"How will I know if I get the right message?" Tyler asked. Although he'd asked the question out of courtesy, he found himself open to a logical explanation. It wasn't so farfetched, thinking in terms of animals connecting with humans. His mares sent him messages daily, the kind that told him to do something differently and approach it with patience because the images in their heads were streaming by too quickly for them to understand what he was trying to tell them.
"You will know," Mary said, and offered nothing more.
"Thank you for the information," Tyler said. He hoped he sounded sincere, but from the look on the woman's face he knew he hadn't fooled her. But he wasn't ready to ascribe spiritual powers to animals, though from his interactions with his mares he under
stood the communication that could exist between humans and animals when they worked together as equals.
"Listen and learn Hawk's message," Mary said. "Hawk will stay with you until you do."
Although he didn't buy into any of this, Tyler would stop throwing meat scraps to the hawk so she'd leave and start searching for her mate and at least disprove the idea that she had a message for him and would be there until he got it.
They said their goodbyes, and once in his truck and heading down the driveway, Rose looked out of her side window, and said, "The hawk just flew off and she's heading in the direction of the ranch. And just for the record, her tail was not red."
"There are a lot of hawks leaving the nest this time of the year," Tyler said. "That hawk was no doubt one of them."
Rose looked askance at him, and replied, "I can see that you'll never understand because you don't want to, so we'll drop the subject of animal guides. It's pointless with you."
Tyler said nothing, but he did make the decision to read up on animal guides. It would be a struggle trying to siphon through all the information while trying to absorb it, but it was a small price to pay for the love of a woman who was becoming increasingly more important to him as the days passed. But along with learning what he could, he wanted Rose to spend an evening on his turf so they could connect the way they had before when she was there.
Looking askance at her, he said, "Will you come to my place after the museum shuts down tomorrow? I'll fix dinner."
"You only have one chair," Rose pointed out.
"I have a barbecue grill and a picnic table," Tyler replied.
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