"Rose Starbright," the woman replied. "Does Marc know what you're about to do?"
Tyler had hoped to direct the conversation away from his objective because Marc and Kit, and everyone else, would be against it, even though he had no intention of tampering with anything inside the cavern where the images were, only the rock floor in an area that extended back into the mountain, the section where he was fairly certain the sounds emerged. "Marc doesn't want anyone damaging or altering the petroglyphs and I'll respect that," he said.
"Which means he doesn't know what you're about to do," Rose reaffirmed.
Tyler sucked in a long breath to stem his annoyance with this glitch in his plan. "Look, this place belongs to my family so this is between them and me."
Rose eyed him with a direct gaze that let him know she wasn't backing down, and said, "Actually, I'm involved with a group that's in the process of identifying and preserving sacred places, and Whispering Springs is on our list. If it's established that it is a sacred site you could be prevented from entering it at all, even if it is on your family's property."
Tyler stared at the woman. Dawn had broken and the surroundings had taken on the colors of daylight and it bothered him that he was attracted to Rose Starbright, her big brown eyes and fine-bone features framed by dark cascading hair having the effect of revving his heart up some and making him want to reach for her, a reaction he hadn't expected and didn't want.
She was also making a hollow threat because Marc had designated Whispering Springs a gathering place, not a sacred one, which made it exempt from regulation. But the woman had a very determined look on her face, like a site exempt from regulation was only a temporary condition that could be changed. It didn't matter though. He'd be finished testing his theory long before she could begin a crusade to declare the place sacred, so her threat was irrelevant.
"I tell you what," he said. "I'll tinker around inside the cave and you can get on with your job at the living museum and we'll both be gainfully occupied for the day."
Saying nothing, but shooting him a look that pretty much said it all, the woman made her way around him and started down the trail. But partway down, she stopped and turned. She held a puzzled expression on her face, and her lips were parted as if prepared to speak, stirring his curiosity as to what she was about to say.
***
Rose hadn't planned to stop and look back but couldn't help it. She'd gone to the spring specifically to try and get some answers as to why the dream at the beach had come to her when it had. She'd even brought along a pot of cedar bark to burn. The day before, she'd asked her grandmother about incenses to use when meditating, and her grandmother gave her a little packet of cedar, claiming that the smoke from cedar, when burned as part of a ritual, carried prayers to the Great Spirit. But her grandmother also warned that cedar was associated with sexuality and love and to guard against impure thoughts that could become associated with the wrong man.
And then she walked out of the cavern to find a long-haired man, like the one in her dream, standing just down the trail, looking at her as if he'd been expecting her. Even now, the way he was standing with a breeze blowing his hair brought back the image of the man on the white horses, just as the incense had done not more than twenty minutes before, when the dream in its clarity replayed in her mind.
She was familiar with lucid dreaming because her grandmother had practiced it all her life and relied on it for her vision quests, considering such dreams to be the foundation of all spiritual matters. But the morning on the beach was the first time Rose had experienced one herself, though afterward she decided it had been a hallucination brought on by a combination of coming out of a deep sleep and the hypnotic effect of the ocean below the rise where she'd slept out that particular night.
And yet, here stood a long-haired man about the same proportions as the one in her dream, and he arrived at the spring shortly after she'd heard the voices in the mountain and quieted her mind for answers, and she couldn't help but puzzle at the coincidence. But she did know, without question, that Tyler Hansen was not her one true love, nor was he aligned with Marc when it came to the living museum and appreciating the ways of different ethnicities. Marc was dedicated to preserving cultures and passing on the information, but with Tyler, she sensed that he possessed a spiritual void, which both baffled and disturbed her.
How could he not feel something deeply spiritual when sitting in the pool? She felt such strong vibes with something beyond her grasp that she didn't question a higher power with which she connected and communicated, whether a person chose to call it God or the Great Spirit...
"You stopped for a reason?" Tyler asked.
Her mind still focused on the magic of the spring, Rose replied, somewhat distractedly, "Do you ever sit in the pool?"
He looked at her curiously, like her question caught him off guard, then he shrugged and replied, "Sure. It's a great place to be alone and connect with your subconscious and unclutter your mind."
"It's the voices," Rose said. "Without them you'd feel no connection. It would be like taking a bath, nothing more, but when the voices come, things happen."
Tyler laughed in a way that irritated Rose because it was the laugh of a skeptic. "Being immersed in warn water while surrounded by semi darkness gives your mind a chance to focus on issues that matter to you," he said, "and what comes to you comes through the working of your logical mind, not from some fantasy beings inside the mountain."
"Then you don't believe in any kind of spirits, or angels, or even a higher being who directs the things we earthlings do?" Rose asked.
"I believe in facts when they're presented in a logical, reasonable way," Tyler replied.
"And you think you have the answer to the voices in the mountain," Rose said.
Tyler shrugged. "I have several theories, none of which include spirits or angels."
Rose folded her arms. "Go ahead then. I'm curious as to what your theories are."
Tyler smiled in what Rose construed as amusement, which had the odd effect of sending a little ripple of awareness through her, awareness that she could be attracted to this man who looked, from her lowered viewpoint, like an Indian from out of a Hollywood movie—tall and muscular and unusually good-looking.
His eyes sharpened, like he'd just picked up on her musings, which bothered her and made her determined to suppress such thoughts. "Well?" she asked. "You claim you have theories so go ahead, convince me."
Tyler set his hammer and chisel on a rock and started toward her, while saying, "First, there's sound amplification. Sound travels well through rock, even from miles away, so sounds from a distance can be perceived as coming from inside the mountain. Caves also act like giant hearing aids. When you're very quiet you begin to hear things you normally wouldn't hear because you are so quiet, and when you can't identify the sounds, you compartmentalize them by labeling them as the voices of spirits or angels or whatever gives you peace of mind. There are also auditory hallucinations, which are part of the sensory deprivation you could experience when sitting motionless in a pool of warm water in the dark. It's not so uncommon."
"That's all well and good," Rose replied, "but none of what you just said explains why the sounds are like human voices, or why they always start out like wailing, as if women were crying, then gradually diminish into sighs. You must have heard them, it's common knowledge around here, and legends about spirits in Whispering Springs go back as far as verbal history. The mountain this ranch backs up to is called Spirit Mountain for a reason."
"The source of the voices is what I intend to identify," Tyler said. "My theory is that the sounds are caused by a geyser with constrictions in its plumbing that prevent the boiling water and steam from circulating freely and moving toward the surface where the heat could escape, so the steam builds pressure and is forced through fissures and cracks, producing the eerie wailing sounds, and then gradually, as the steam is released, the sounds diminish into what people construe as sighs. By t
hen the eruption of the geyser has stopped because the water reservoir is depleted, and the system cools, then gradually the cycle starts again."
Rose stared at Tyler, speechless, because his theory did offer an explanation. Still, she could not discount the concept of spirits because there had been so many documented cases of peoples' problems being resolved simply by sitting in the pool and listening to the voices.
"You're not saying anything," Tyler pointed out.
Rose shrugged. "That's because I believe that if you proceed with what you intend to do you'll create a disservice. Hundreds of people over the years, probably within your lifetime, and thousands over the centuries, have found peace here, and your chipping away at rock could upset the delicate balance of whatever is causing the sounds."
Tyler let out an ironic laugh. "Do you honestly think I could stop what's going on inside the mountain with just a hammer and chisel?" Tyler asked. "All I intend to do is open up some fissures and see if the sounds change. If they do I'll know my theory's correct, and the geothermal energy in this mountain could be harnessed and used to produce electricity to run the ranch."
Rose felt the first tremor of alarm because what Tyler Hansen was proposing would destroy Whispering Springs if the Hansen family decided to act on it, which they had a legal right to do. But she also concluded that Tyler was right about approaching this with a hammer and chisel. It would be farfetched to think he could alter the sounds in the mountain with simple tools.
"You're silent again," Tyler said. "Is this a pattern of yours when faced with scientific reasoning?"
"No, it's more a pattern when faced with someone I perceive to be totally insensitive," Rose said. "Take the issue of your long hair for instance. Did you know that for Indians throughout history, long hair represents the strength of their spirit, that the longer the hair, the stronger the spirit within them. Yet here you are with Indian blood in your veins that you should be proud of, yet you don't seem to have an inkling about spirits or even an interest, and since you place such a high value on scientific reasoning, why the long hair? It seems an unnecessary nuisance, having to wash and maintain all that long flowing mane of yours."
One corner of his mouth tipped up with amusement. "It's simple," he replied, while taking a few steps toward her. "Hair's an extension of the nervous system, like highly evolved antennae. It transmits vast amounts of information to the brain stem, the neocortex, and the limbic system. Not only does it provide an information highway to the brain, but the electromagnetic energy emitted by the brain enters the environment by way of the hair. It's been seen in Kirlian photography. When a person is photographed with long hair and then re-photographed after the hair is cut, receiving and sending transmissions to and from the environment is impeded."
Rose drew in an extended breath to stem her irritation. "So with you everything boils down to science," she clipped. "With that mindset, you must constantly be questioning the scientific reasoning behind having feelings. You appear to be a very insular man."
Tyler moved yet closer, so close Rose felt her breath trapped in her lungs as she wondered what he was about to do, yet she stood transfixed as he raised his hand over her head, and said, "Close your eyes. I want to prove a point."
Almost automatically Rose closed her eyes, and after a few moments, she felt a tingle at the top of her head that seemed to radiate throughout her body. "And your point is?" she asked.
"That I'm touching only the bare tips of not more than four strands of your hair, yet you feel it all the way down to your scalp and into your body, and you're responding to it."
Rose snapped her eyes open and ducked from under Tyler's hand and took a step backwards, alarmed that she had reacted to his touch, imperceptible as it was, and she reacted in a big way—heart hammering, breath coming quickly, a heavy feeling in the area of her solar plexus. "You only proved that scalps are sensitive, whether the hair on them is long or short," she said.
Deciding she'd had enough of this man, who had the ability to set her nerves on edge while making her react in ways she neither wanted, nor understood, she turned and headed down the trail toward the ranch while resisting the almost overwhelming urge to look back, yet in her mind's eye she could still see him standing with his hair blowing about his head, which brought back the dream. But his words about coming to the spring at dawn so he could avoid people, affirmed what Marc told her about his youngest brother—he was a loner who lived off by himself and was contented to remain that way. She now had a fair idea why. To a man with his mindset, the concept of being emotionally attached to someone would seem illogical.
It came to her that he must be a very lonely man, which seemed incongruous, coming from such a large family. He was an enigma, and for some odd reason she found herself wanting to, bit by bit, unravel the solitary man and learn what moved him.
CHAPTER 2
Her wolfdog, Tundra, curled beside her, Rose sat cross-legged on the mat-covered floor of the plankhouse while making a basket in the tradition of the Kalapuya Indians. The long wooden building, which was one of the life-size displays of the living museum on the ranch, was made of hand split red cedar planks, with a roof comprising slabs of bark held in place by long poles. The interior was open and spacious, with several fire pits, one for each family that would have inhabited the building, and running along the inside perimeter were bunk beds. In an actual plankhouse the bunks would have been covered with layers of animal hides, providing bedding and seating for the resident families, but only a couple of bunks were covered with furs. The others were used to hold and display tools, utensils and articles of clothing that Marc and Kit had rounded up, some donated to the museum, others on loan from families.
Typically, a plankhouse would be dark inside, but because it was a display building, double plank doors in a section of wall could be opened to enable visitors to watch the demonstrations presented by volunteer tribal members, such as making tools, sewing moccasins, and weaving baskets. The museum was being on Sundays and Wednesdays, there were no volunteers or visitors at the moment, so Rose would not be interrupted while she worked on her basket. Still, she opened the plank doors to allow light to filter inside.
As she interwove strands of bear grass through spokes made from hazelnut shoots, she could almost hear her grandmother's words. "Weaving baskets brings one back to the center, to the spirit, because when you weave you have to be in a meditative state of mind," Granna said. "It’s yourself going into what you weave. It’s who you are and who you came from."
Maybe it was so because, when she wove, it took her back to a time when she'd be picking crabapples with her grandfather, or gathering medicinal herbs with her grandmother. But this particular basket took her back to Mrs. Nessy, her high school PE coach, who was going through chemotherapy, so instead of her usual baskets woven in muted colors, this basket was a black and red basket, a tightly woven vessel to show the determination of a woman battling an illness. Red flowers, made from soaking weavers—the basket strands she wove between the spokes—were being woven into a black background made by soaking other weavers in charcoal. The red flowers against black represented a woman who stood out because she was admired, and the gold beads Rose would interweave into a row of bear grass would mirror Mrs. Nessy's generosity and heart of gold.
"The strength of women can help bring us through," Granna always said, which was why Rose intended to fill the basket with cards having inspirational notes and prayers from as many of Mrs. Nessy's girls as she could locate.
Rose loved making baskets, which she sold through several Northwest galleries. When asked during an interview what lessons from her tribal heritage influenced her designs, she was quick to reply that not only did basket weaving give her a sense of inner peace because it gave her a way to express her relationship with the natural world in her basket art, but it gave her a sense of pride in her culture and who she was, and she could imbue that spiritual and cultural content into her baskets to pass on to others to enjoy.
Suddenly, Tundra raised his head and pricked his ears forward while looking toward the opening in the sidewall of the plankhouse, then he got up and trotted to the end of his long leash while wagging his tail. Rose turned to find her mother walking toward her.
"Rose, is everything okay?" her mother asked in a worried voice, while stepping between the two plank doors.
"Things are fine," Rose replied. "I just thought since you were going to town today you might stop by since the museum is closed and I won't be interrupted by visitors."
Helen Starbright eyed Rose with a certain amount of skepticism because this wasn't Rose's way, asking her mother to make a sixteen-mile round-trip detour on the way to town from the reservation, just to stop by, so it was clear she knew something was up, which it was, in a sense.
After a stretch of silence, which Rose knew her mother expected her to fill with the real reason she'd asked her to stop by, her mother said, "You sounded troubled on the phone. Is there a problem here?"
Rose drew in a long breath. She was close to her mother and always confided in her when she felt a need, but this was awkward because it had to do with a man she barely knew, but couldn't seem to put out of her mind.
After taking a few moments to frame her words, she said, "Do you remember years ago about the dream Granna said I'd have one day about a man coming to me on white horses?"
"Yes, you were around twelve or thirteen at the time."
Rose nodded. "Well, a couple of weeks ago I had the dream. It was when I was at the coast at Cindra's folk's place. I slept out near the beach that night and that's where it happened. The dream was amazingly real, much more so than an ordinary dream, which is the way Granna described lucid dreams. The man had long hair and was standing on the backs of some white horses… well, actually six horses."
Bucking The Odds (Dancing Moon Ranch Book 9) Page 22