Spirit Horses

by Alan S Evans

  The ridge she and her grandfather brought him to see would be inspiring any time of day. But sitting here watching the sun set gave Shane an almost spiritual feeling. The two sat quietly mesmerized, watching the bright orange sky in the west as the day faded away into dusk.

  After the sun finally disappeared behind the mountains, Shane interrupted the silence again by asking Tara a question that had been on his mind since the first day he met Tigee. “Why does your grandfather call me, Tahotay? He has called me this several times, and I can’t help but wonder what it means.”

  Tara took a deep breath and looked down for a moment. Then she gave him a quick glance and again shifted her eyes away. Shane patiently waited for her to reply. Tara inhaled one more hesitant breath before answering, “Tahotay is a mythical creature that according to our legend has appeared at different points in our tribe’s history to help our people during times of crisis. The older generation describes this creature as part human and part horse. Since the early 1700s, our tribe has been considered a horse culture. It has always been believed that horses were sent here to help us survive, and it is our responsibility to care for these animals. Knowing this, you can understand why such a creature appears in the old stories.”

  “Why does your grandfather call me this thing? He called me this the first time he saw me, before he even knew I was good with horses.”

  Again, Tara shifted her eyes away, and hesitated before looking at him, “This is where it may get a little weird to you. For a few years now, my grandfather has had a recurring dream. He calls it a vision. In his vision, a Tahotay, in human form, comes to save our wild herd of horses, and in the process also helps our people find a better life.

  “I know this all sounds pretty far-fetched to you, but my grandfather is worried about both the future of our people and the survival of our horses. He believes, as I do, that these horses are a strong link to our past, and he passionately feels that if we lose our past we lose who we are as a people. In essence, we lose our very soul as a tribe. If our past is lost to us, then so is the bond that holds us together. My grandfather is an old man, and his whole life has been dedicated to preserving these things. Our herd is a big part of all this. He wants nothing more than to know they are safe before he dies. For generations, my family has been responsible for the herd, and now the horses’ future is in question.”

  Shane asked, again, “So what does this Tohotay have to do with me?”

  Tara looked into Shane’s eyes, “He sees you as the Tahotay in his dreams and believes the mustang mare from our herd has brought you here to fulfill his vision.”

  Shane shook his head. “Tara . . . I can’t even help myself right now . . . so if the future of your tribe or your horses depends on me, you’re in big trouble.”

  She gave him an understanding look before continuing, “Sometimes I can see the sorrow in your eyes, and I can tell you are trying to deal with your own demons. I believe we all have a destiny to

  fulfill. I have no way of knowing what yours is, but there must be a reason for you being here now. There have been times when I have doubted my grandfather and his old native beliefs, but I have learned from experience that he is usually right.”

  “Well, ma’am, once I set that mare free, I plan on going home to Tennessee, so, if I were you, I wouldn’t count on me for any more than that.”

  Tara smiled, “I knew telling you about his dreams would make you feel uncomfortable, that’s why I kept it from you. He’s just an old Indian with old Indian beliefs. Once you go home, he will realize he was wrong about you.”

  Shane looked at her with his eyes wide open and nodded his head in agreement. Then, in an attempt to get off the subject, he turned to gaze at the sensational view.

  It was a clear evening and a full moon was slowly beginning to rise from behind the mountains on the horizon. Its yellow glow was already shining bright enough to cast hazy shadows from the tall trees that were all around. “Grandfather should be back soon,” Tara said.

  Shane seemed to be deep in thought when he asked, “As an educated, modern woman, do you hold any stock in your grandfather’s tribal beliefs?”

  “Some I do. It seems the older I get, the less I doubt him. I think the more you get to know him, the more you will see that he is a very wise and sensible man. I don’t expect you to accept his ancient beliefs, but I can tell you, if you keep your mind open to him, you could learn a lot.”

  “When I first met your grandfather, you told me he believed that when one of your tribe dies, the wild horses will carry their spirits on to the next life. Do you believe this?”

  Tara smiled. “This traditional ideology suggests that our mustangs are able to carry our souls to the threshold, where the ones who have gone on before will be waiting to greet us. Whenever I consider this, it always gives me peace of mind. This makes me want to think it is true. So, I guess, in a way, I do believe.”

  Shane nodded. “Well, it sure is a nice idea anyway.”

  Just then, Tigee walked up through the moonlit shadows. Shane didn’t hear or see the old man until he was standing by his side.

  Tigee grinned at the startled look on Shane’s face. “I’m ready to go now.”

  When they arrived at Fort Washakie, the party was well under way. It was centered in a large courtyard in front of the cultural center and museum. There were at least a thousand people meandering around and a live band played loudly in the middle of the festivities. Several cooks were working over large spits cooking beef, venison, and chicken along with a variety of side dishes. Tara said, “These are the same facilities we use to put on powwows and gatherings for the tourists, but tonight it will just be the locals.

  Shane made his way up to one of the several kegs of beer and drew himself a cold brew, then sat at a table, alone.

  Many of the people were coming up to Tigee to wish him happy birthday. Tara walked over to a group of four Indian women about her age.

  A girl named Lisa asked, “Who’s the white guy you brought along? Is he with you?”

  “He’s with my grandfather and me.”

  “Oh, so it’s not like you finally got a date or anything,” another girl joked.

  Tara laughed, “No, he’s just a guy who’s staying at the ranch for a while.”

  Lisa boldly pronounced, “Well, then I think I’ll go over and introduce myself.” With that said, she and two of the others walked toward Shane’s table.

  Tara and her other friend rolled their eyes and ambled over to the band.

  The three girls were in their late twenties and were all reasonably attractive. Shane was a little taken back when the women sat next to him. They had all been at the party a while, and after a few beers were in a friendly mood.

  “Hey, mister, we saw you come in with Tara, so we decided to introduce ourselves. I’m Lisa, this is Terri, she’s Faith.”

  “My name is Shane. Nice to meet you ladies.”

  “You don’t mind if we sit, do you?” Lisa asked.

  “No, not at all, make yourselves comfortable.” The girls were all good company, and he enjoyed talking with them. Before he knew it, they were on their third round of beers, and they began telling bad jokes and laughing loudly. Hawk came by to sit for a while but soon moved on.

  It was about eight o’clock when the dinner bell rang, and everyone made their way up to the three chow lines.

  Tara caught up with Shane in line. “My grandfather asked if you would join him to eat.”

  “Sure, I’d like that.”

  Then Tara laughed and said, “That is if you can tear yourself away from that group of women you’re hanging out with. You might want to watch out for Lisa, she can be pretty aggressive if she likes a man.”

  “Oh no, I was just making conversation. I’m not looking for anything beyond that.”

  Tara kidded Shane, “You do like girls, don’t you?”

  “Yeah, it’s just a bad time for me right now.” Tara could tell the conversation was changing from j
oking around by the more serious tone in Shane’s voice, so she left it alone and changed the subject.

  “Are you hungry?” she asked.

  “Yes, I’m starving.” The two loaded their plates, then went over to join Tigee.

  After dinner, Lisa kept coming over and asking Shane to dance. He finally gave in. She was pretty drunk by now and started to hang all over him. As soon as he had the chance, he asked Tara to save him by dancing the next dance with him. Tara laughingly agreed, then endured a sneering look from Lisa.

  The next song the band played just happened to be a slow one, so Shane was glad he had Tara running interference. The dance started off in good humor, but as they moved close enough to feel each other’s heartbeat this all began to change. The subtle attraction they had been experiencing up to now was suddenly becoming stronger and more difficult to ignore. “It’s a nice evening, isn’t it?” Shane said in an attempt to keep things low-key. Both of them felt the building passion, but neither was willing to acknowledge it. Each had his own reasons for this, and they were good ones at that. As the song began to wind down, Shane breathed in the aroma of her perfume one last time, then they slowly separated.

  Still face-to-face, a momentary glance into Tara’s sky blue eyes was unavoidable. This look between them only lasted a second, but it haunted Shane for the rest of the night. He did not ask her to dance again.

  On the ride back to the ranch, everyone was feeling the effects of the alcohol they had consumed and were tired and quiet.

  When they arrived home, Shane thanked them for a nice evening, wished Tigee a happy birthday, and headed to his cabin. He would need to get up early tomorrow to prepare for his trip to check on the herd with Hawk and JB.

  Tara stood just inside her screen door watching him walk home. There’re a hundred reasons why this could never work, she mused. With a sigh, she headed off to bed thinking this man from Tennessee, with all his secrets, would soon be leaving anyway. Then he would be out of her life and her head forever.

  Chapter 14

  Sunday, Tara woke to the sound of a truck and trailer pulling out of the ranch. It was Hawk, JB, and Shane going to the valley. She was fixing breakfast for herself and Tigee when he walked out of his room and set a package on the table.

  “What is this?” she asked in Shoshone as she scraped some eggs out of the frying pan onto their plates.

  “Something for you to read,” he answered.

  Tara sat down and started to eat as she opened the large envelope. Inside were three magazines and two videotapes. The magazines were well-known horse publications. Tigee took a sip of coffee and told her, “Look at the cover of the magazine on top.” Her eyes opened wide in surprise as she saw Shane, sitting on a horse in a round pen while working with another horse in front of a large crowd. The title read “Starting Horses the Modern Way with a True Pioneer, Shane Carson.” She looked at her grandfather, then back at the magazine. Tara ate a forkful of eggs and started reading the article. On the first page of the story, there was another picture of Shane standing with a young horse in the middle of a round pen. He looked a little younger, and he had on a headset and microphone. The crowd sitting in the grandstands was paying close attention to him. The article began with the author, Megan Tillie, telling how she first heard about this popular new clinician.

  I had heard about this man, Shane Carson, from Tennessee, who was doing some incredible work with horses. He was using interesting new techniques he learned from a well-known master trainer from California named Tom Dorrance. Tom had taken on this young man as a student because of his natural talent.

  I was looking for some good material for an article and had been struggling with writer’s block for some time. It took almost a week to talk my editor into letting me make the trip to Stevenville, Texas, where Mr. Carson was putting on a clinic.

  I had taken a similar trip six months earlier to see another clinician, who was also popular on the circuit tour. This man had been a disappointment, and my article was never published. So, my editor and I were very skeptical about this trip.

  The National Horseman’s magazine is one of the largest and most respected in the industry. Because of this, we are only interested in writing about the best of the best, and I really wasn’t sure if this man would fit into that category. So I went incognito.

  The clinic was held at the Stevenville county fair. It was obvious that Shane Carson was a big draw. This was the largest crowd I’d ever seen at any horsemanship clinic.

  I sat in the grandstands and watched him at work with a very difficult young stallion that had never been saddled or ridden. His ability to read the young horse gave him a tremendous advantage in dealing with its problems. The timing and skills he used while applying his techniques were simply amazing. This young man was, by far, the most effective and talented clinician I had ever seen.

  Mr. Carson had brought his own horse that he used to demonstrate many things to us. He also used his horse to pony the younger ones at the clinic. This gelding was trained to the hilt and was nothing less than an extension of Mr. Carson’s own legs. Although he did not have the most entertaining of personalities, his occasional wit, along with his incredible horsemanship, was more than enough to put on a terrific show.

  The article went on to tell about how well his style of horsemanship seemed to work with every horse he dealt with. The author then posted his upcoming clinic dates and locations.

  The second article, written by a different author, had been published six months later, and was just as complimentary. The third magazine, with more facts about Shane, was another story by Megan Tillie written eight years later. It was about the longest lasting clinician still on the road at that time—an in-depth story of Shane’s life and career.

  Tara was fascinated as she read on. She was finding out some very interesting things about this man who would not talk about his past. She soon began to feel a little nosy reading all this behind Shane’s back. The third article continued on about how the author had become good friends with Shane Carson over the years and how he had trained horses for her personally. The next part of the story told about the mixed feelings she had after finding out that Shane would soon be giving up the “on the road clinics” to start a full-time training business in Tennessee. She stated she would miss seeing and writing about this man and his clinics, which were now the most popular of their kind in the United States. On the other hand, she was thrilled to know he was now engaged to Jennifer Barlow, a girl she had introduced Shane to. Megan finished by allowing Shane to express his appreciation to all the people who had come to his clinics. He wanted them to know that he would be available at his new facility in Tennessee by the end of the year.

  From the dates on the magazines and the information in the articles, Tara gathered Shane had spent at least a decade on the road doing these clinics. From the date of the last article till now, it had been another dozen years, although Shane didn’t look much older than he did in the magazine’s pictures.

  Tara wondered if he had married Jennifer and if she was part of the reason he came out to Wyoming. Perhaps she left him and broke his heart. Maybe setting the mare free was some kind of closure for him. This could explain why he didn’t talk about his past and why he seemed to be emotionally shutdown at times. Tara still had a lot of questions about Shane. What she did know, was that she was spending a lot of time thinking about him lately.

  She finished reading the articles and took another sip of her now cold coffee. Then she glanced down on the table where she had laid the two commercially produced instructional videos on training horses. The boxes for these tapes had pictures of Shane on the covers.

  “Where did you get all this?” she asked her grandfather.

  “That Mrs. Jensen brought them out and loaned them to me. I’ve seen the way you look at him when you think no one is watching. I also know that he does not talk about his past. Because of this, I assume you must have a lot of questions about him. So I thought you mi
ght be interested in seeing all of this.”

  Tara took a deep breath, then looked into her grandfather’s eyes. “I don’t know what to think about him. I feel he is a good man, but I wonder what he’s hiding. I remember he talked to you alone the day you met. Did he tell you anything I should know?”

  “He confided in me, in hopes that I would change my mind and allow him to return his mare to our herd. I promised him I wouldn’t betray his confidence—I am bound to honor that. I can tell you, he is a good man, but I don’t know if he could ever give his heart completely to anyone again. I think that one day he may tell you his story. Only then will you really get to know him.”

  When Tara finished watching the videos, she put the tapes and magazines back into the envelope and out of sight.

  The drive out to the Wind River Valley was a slow and bumpy one. Traveling down the many miles of old dirt roads that led to the south pass was always a treacherous trip. At the last minute, Tara’s two brothers decided to come along. They both shook Shane’s hand and said there were no hard feelings from their meeting at the Jensen’s farm. “When we saw the brand on the mare, we figured you had taken her from our herd.” They apologized for having jumped to the wrong conclusion. Their names were Ivan and Willie Two Feathers. Many of the Indians had Anglo first names and Indian last names.

  The information Shane received from Mr. Jensen had been valuable in surmising a theory about the escalating attempts on the mustangs. But it was only a theory, with no evidence. Recognizing tensions were already close to a boiling point, he felt for now it was important just to keep his mouth shut. All he could do at this point was hope Mr. Jensen was wrong about the oil, and that the men from town had decided to leave the herd alone. The truth was he had