Forbidden Spirits

by Patricia Watters

  "Is there a special reason you want me there?" Rose asked.

  "Yes," Tyler replied. "We have some things to talk about and it works better for me when I'm at my place with my mares."

  "You're a very strange man," Rose said. "I don't understand you."

  Tyler expected her to eventually come to that conclusion, and he had no argument because he didn't understand himself. When he was growing up his mother kept telling him he had too much potential to give up, but even though he'd graduated from high school, he was still a functional illiterate who got around his learning problem by improvising. Yet, he loved learning and wanted to learn, but he'd failed in the system. The problem he was having now was that he didn't want to fail Rose, but the feeling of ineptitude by having a brain wired differently was like an insidious worm eating away at his self-image.

  Reaching over, he covered Rose's hand with his, and said, "Then I'll try to explain myself to you tomorrow at my place. Maybe it will make more sense to both of us it I do."

  Rose eyed him with uncertainty, but said nothing.

  CHAPTER 11

  Late the following afternoon, about the time the living museum would be closing, Tyler had steaks ready for the barbecue, several ears of corn stripped of their husks and ready for steaming, and a couple of potatoes wrapped in foil and baking in the hot coals of the grill. He'd even set out a bottle of wine his brothers got him for his twenty-first birthday, and which had been gathering dust for almost two years. He didn't have any wine goblets, but he had a pair of mismatched mugs to accompany a pair of mismatched dinner plates, which he set on the picnic table on a couple of terrycloth hand-towels serving as placemats.

  Family members stopped by frequently, but never at mealtimes, so inviting someone for dinner was a new experience. He'd told Rose to bring Tundra too, and she'd be walking him there so he could get some exercise, but Tyler would be driving Rose back later because it would be dark by then. They had things to sort out, but he didn't intend to spend the whole evening doing that, and what he planned afterward he hoped would keep Rose there well into the night.

  In addition to getting dinner ready, he'd spent the last couple of hours on the internet, learning what he could about spirits and animal guides, and printing out a few pages. It would take time to read and absorb all the information, so he concentrated on memorizing enough to convince Rose that he was serious about making their relationship work.

  He was in the process of scrolling though information about the Nez Perce Indians and Chief Joseph when Adam appeared in the doorway. He hadn't heard Adam ride up on his horse and was surprised, and annoyed, with his arrival, which was around the time he expected Rose. He didn't want Adam to know Rose was coming for dinner because Adam would pick up where Josh and Jeremy left off, which would be to tease him about interacting with human females instead of mares. But before he could shut down his laptop, Adam walked over and saw a photo of Chief Joseph on the screen, and said, "Who's that?"

  "No one special," Tyler replied, and shut off the laptop. When he stood, Adam looked at his shirt and smiled, which aggravated the hell out of him. Eyeing Adam in annoyance, he said, "You dropped in for a reason?"

  "Yeah," Adam replied. "Jesse wants to earn money for a rifle and you mentioned you could use some help mucking out stalls, so he's up for hire. He's a good worker."

  "Good, send him up a couple of days a week and I'll keep him busy." Tyler turned and left his quarters and headed down the passageway so Adam would follow and leave.

  Adam trailed along with him, but when they stepped outside, instead of getting on his horse and returning to the ranch, Adam scanned Tyler's shirt again, smiled in amusement, and said, "So you finally decided to wear the shirt Grandma gave you two Christmases ago. I get the picture."

  "No, actually you don't," Tyler said. "I'm trying it on to see if it would work for a show."

  Adam glanced at the table setting, lifted the bottle of wine, and looking at the Whispering Springs label, said, "You're serving wine when you hate the stuff, you have a table set for two, and I arrive to find a photo of an Indian on the screen of your laptop."

  Tyler braced his hands on his hips, glared at Adam, and said, "Okay, so say what you want and leave."

  "Don't get so touchy," Adam replied. "We were all beginning to worry about you. I'm just glad to know you're human. Maddy keeps insisting you're a centaur. Incidentally, Mom and Dad and the rest of us like her."

  "You think you've figured it out, but you haven't," Tyler said, hating that Adam had put him on the defensive, but his big brothers could piss the hell out of him at times, this being one of them. Still, he had no other explanation for photos of Indians on his laptop, a table set for two, a bottle of wine sitting out, two steaks covered in plastic wrap, two foil-wrapped potatoes on the coals, corn ready for steaming and him wearing a brand new shirt he wouldn't have been caught dead in except that he was trying his damndest to impress Rose.

  "It's obvious you're suddenly becoming interested in our Indian roots for a reason," Adam continued. "Marc and the rest of us figured you would, about now."

  "Okay, so Rose is coming for dinner, but it's not what you think," Tyler said. He walked over to Adam's horse, untied the reins, and handed them to Adam.

  Again Adam smiled. "What I think is that your attention is finally becoming divided between horses and a pretty Indian girl, and we're all okay with that." He took the reins from Tyler, launched himself onto his horse and left.

  His hands still braced on his hips, Tyler watched as Adam loped off.

  So, now he was done with teasing from Josh, Jeremy and Adam, which left Marc and Maddy there at the ranch. Ryan would make a comment over the phone and that would be the end of it, Marc and Kit would smile at each other and wink, like he wouldn't notice it, but Maddy would make a meal of it. Although she was three years younger, she tended to go off on tangents, her latest being that, after years of trying to encourage him to find a girlfriend and not automatically assume women would be turned off because of his learning problem, she was using reverse psychology by claiming that if he ever got into a relationship it wouldn't happen until an asteroid was heading for earth and he'd have a bucket list of things to do before the end of the world, and chasing after a girl would be one of them.

  For the moment though, he felt as if an asteroid was heading for him, because he'd told Rose he'd explain himself to her, and now he had no idea how to begin, or if he even wanted to. Once out of high school he never wanted anyone to know about his learning problem. He just wanted to appear normal, and staying out of relationships worked because without the challenge of trying to learn things the way his school mates did, he didn't feel anxious, or frustrated, or dumb because trying to work word math problems and being called on to read out loud weren't a part of his everyday life. But a wife would be a part of his everyday life, and even the most creative improvising wouldn't disguise the fact that he learned things inversely, and tediously.

  After some time, he glanced down the road and wondered why Rose hadn't arrived. It had been at least a half hour since Adam left. But as he waited, his hands got clammy, his heart started beating heavily, and he began to fear the worst.

  If she'd learned about him, and began to sort through things in her mind, how could he give her a coherent account of his problems? He could feel himself getting panicky and see himself making a mess of things. He could imagine stumbling over words, and what she'd hear would be gibberish. As the minutes ticked away he began to have feelings of resentment for the years he'd spent hiding a secret that was a mystery even to him and wondered how much more he could have done in life had he been free of all the confusion and perplexity…

  And then he saw Rose emerge from around the turn in the driveway, and as she continued toward him while looking excited to see him, he found himself grinning in a silly sort of way.

  "Sorry I'm late," she called out in a winded voice. "Some museum visitors were asking questions and I didn't want to shoo them off."
As she walked up to him, with Tundra on a long leash, her face was flushed, her hair was a confusion of dark tangles, and her eyes were bright with enthusiasm, and when she smiled, he thought she was the most beautiful woman he'd ever seen. "Tundra and I jogged all the way here, which is why I'm out of breath."

  Tyler walked up to them, held his hand out for Tundra to sniff, and lick, and said, "Is that the only reason you're out of breath?"

  Rose laughed. "Yes, and if you'll notice, Tundra didn't growl at you this time."

  "That's because you're winded from running, which works the same as taking deep breaths when you want to lower your heart rate and blood pressure because you saw a man you thought was hot." He didn't know where his self-assured words came from, but Rose was smiling even wider, like she was amused.

  Taking Tundra's leash from her, he said, "I'll put him in the corral while you're here, unless you don't think he'll run off if he's loose."

  "Probably the corral would be best," Rose said. "He stays around me, but I'm not convinced he wouldn't run off if he heard coyotes later."

  "Then you must be planning on staying a while," Tyler said. "Coyotes don't come out until after dark."

  Rose looked embarrassed, as she replied, "I didn't know exactly what you had in mind when you invited me here."

  "Yes you did." Tyler kissed her lightly on the lips. "Come on, boy," he said to Tundra, who walked along with him toward the corral.

  After releasing the leash and closing the gate to the corral, Tundra immediately started scouting out his surroundings. The slatted boards enclosing the corral were close enough together that he couldn't slip between them, but if he had a mind to go over the top, he could scale the boards and be free. For the moment though, he was occupied checking the place out.

  "I've got something inside for him," Tyler said. He went into the stable and got one of two giant rawhide dog bones he'd picked up in town earlier, and after handing it to Tundra through the slats, he turned toward Rose, who was standing and looking at his garden.

  When he walked up to stand beside her, she said, "What happened to those end rows of beans? Did the deer get in?"

  "They did after a tree fell and wiped out the corner of the fence," Tyler replied.

  "Do trees just fall like that?" Rose asked. "We haven't had any wind or rain."

  "We can talk about trees and gardens later." Tyler pulled her into his arms and kissed her soundly, and when the kiss ended, he said, "I've been waiting since yesterday to do that."

  "I wasn't planning on kissing you at all this evening because we need to do some serious talking," Rose replied. "Before things go any further, we have some issues to address like—"

  "I know, our cultural divide," Tyler said, while keeping his hands locked together behind Rose's waist. He studied her face, which was not the face of a women wanting to turn him away, but the face of a women who was troubled because she didn't want to turn him away, and he wondered again if her apprehension was because she'd learned he was different, and she was using the cultural divide issue as an excuse not to get close.

  "This isn't a small thing," Rose said. "My family has deep spiritual beliefs that have been part of our culture from the beginning of time, one of them being a belief that there are spirits in everything around us, including rocks and trees and animals, and that by communicating with them we can have a better understanding of ourselves, and when an animal comes to us…"

  "She left," Tyler cut in before Rose could go off on another tangent about animal spirit guides. "I stopped putting out meat scraps and Diana left."

  "She'll be back," Rose said. "It has nothing to do with your feeding her. There are enough field mice and meadow voles around to keep her well-fed, but she won't leave until you get her message and you haven't gotten it yet."

  "You can't know that," Tyler said. "According to your grandmother, I'm the only one who'd know what the message is, and since Diana left, I figure her message was to tell me that a beautiful Indian girl was coming into my life and to make room for her, so I am."

  "You do realize what you just said, don't you?" Rose asked.

  "Yeah, I said I'm making room for you in my life."

  "No, you just admitted you believe in animal spirit guides."

  "I was just using that as an example," Tyler said. He started to argue his point that the hawk left because he'd stopped tossing meat scraps to her then reminded himself that his goal wasn't to disprove Rose's beliefs, but to try to embrace them, even if he could never do it wholeheartedly.

  After giving her another light kiss on the lips, he said, "Okay then, if Diana returns I'll know it isn't for meat scraps and I'll try to figure out what she's trying to tell me."

  Rose looked at him, skeptically, like she wasn't buying it, then gave a little shrug, and said, "Meanwhile, I'd better wash my hands before dinner."

  "Help yourself to the bath, and while you do that, I'll get things started out here," Tyler said.

  While he turned the potatoes in their foil blankets, and set a pot of water on the grill to boil for steaming the corn, he began mulling over the best way to approach Rose with the subject of him. Just thinking about how to begin was as perplexing as trying to read in school because there was no way to describe what went on in his head, when it changed from moment to moment.

  He was still deliberating over how to approach the issue when Rose returned from washing her hands while holding a framed photo that he kept on a table beside his bed. Looking at him with curiosity, she said, "Why do you have a photo of a horse's eye?"

  "That's Caesar," Tyler replied, while placing one of the steaks on the grill.

  "But it's only his eye," Rose said. "Why?"

  "It's a reminder to be my best even when Caesar's not watching," Tyler replied, while placing the other steak on the grill.

  Rose looked at him in puzzlement. "Why Caesar and not your mares?"

  "Because Caesar saw me do something I shouldn't have done," Tyler said.

  "Is it something you don't want to talk about?" Rose asked.

  "I doesn't matter," Tyler replied. "It happened when I was ten."

  "It must matter, because you have this picture in a frame as a reminder," Rose said. "What did Caesar see?"

  "Me slap my little sister," Tyler replied, while placing the ears of corn into the steamer.

  "Kids do things like that all the time," Rose said. "It's called sibling rivalry."

  "This was different," Tyler replied. "I was with Caesar while trying to figure out how to tie a knot, and Maddy didn't understand why I couldn't, and when she said that any stupid idiot could tie knots, I slapped her, and when I did, Caesar flinched with his whole body. I felt bad, not only for slapping my little sister, but because Caesar saw me do it, and because he flinched, I knew it was a reminder to him of a time when someone hit him. He was my best friend and I didn't want him to think I might hit him too if I got mad, especially since he was finally happy, so I decided then that I needed to be the best person I could be in order to deserve him."

  "What do you mean when you say, he was finally happy?" Rose asked.

  "He wasn't when my dad got him," Tyler said. "The man my dad bought him from mistreated him, which was the reason he was so docile. I knew the first time I looked at him that his spirit was broken. I could see it in his sad dead eyes. So I started talking to him and when he listened to me I could feel what was in his heart. So I guess we helped each other because his eyes started to brighten, and he'd tease me in a way that I knew he wouldn't have done before, like nipping at my collar, or butting his head against my back when I was walking in front of him, like he wanted to play, which we would, so I guess Caesar taught me to play and have fun. And when I was with him I never had to read out loud, or try to tell time, or know my right hand from my left. I could just be who I was." He realized, with a start, that he'd inadvertently told Rose about his problem. He'd been deliberating all day how to approach it, and now it was done.

  "Your grandmother mentioned
you'd been dyslexic," Rose commented.

  Tyler looked at Rose, surprised that she knew, yet she hadn't said anything. She was also there with him for the evening, and she'd kissed him in a way that told him she cared, even knowing his brain was wired all wrong. "I still am dyslectic, but I deal with it."

  "Yes, you do, very well," Rose said. "I never would have known if your grandmother hadn't mentioned it, but how was it different when you were a kid?"

  "It was a nightmare," Tyler replied. "As a bottom-of-the-class learner I was told on a daily basis that I was stupid because I couldn't do what kids all around me could do. The problem was, while the teacher was talking, hundreds of pictures were racing through my head, so I figured if I could relax my brain maybe I could understand the string of words, but I never figured out how to relax my brain, and trying to follow instructions was a dead end. But I didn't need to do any of that when I was with Caesar because he understood me perfectly, and I understood him. I had no problem communicating with him."

  "Have you ever analyzed why you can communicate with animals?" Rose asked.

  "I've done some reading to try to figure me out," Tyler replied. "Some of it made sense, but most of it didn't because the researchers couldn't get into my head."

  "What part made sense?" Rose asked.

  "The part about someone like me seeing over thirty pictures in my head a second instead of four like normal people do, so when I talk, my words don't keep up with the pictures in my head because the pictures come too fast to communicate, then while I'm listening to someone and trying to focus on what they're saying my brain's seeing thirty or more pictures a second, so it's like the person's talking in slow motion while my brain is flying along."

  "But you're carrying on a normal conversation with me right now so you've obviously come up with a way to get around it," Rose said.

  "Yeah, with a lot of hard work from my mom," Tyler replied. "She ran every kind of learning aid available past me. But with my horses, there's no verbal communication, only body language and the sound of my voice, so my horses know what I'm asking of them because of the way I ask it and the body language I use to get my point across. They understand direction when I point with my whip. They don't have to know left or right because I show them. And their faces are very expressive. There's more communication in a single look from an animal than a hundred words from a human."