Promise Canyon (Virgin River #13)(65)

"Tell me something from your childhood on the reservation. Something I couldn't guess--like the happiest day of your life."

"I could say it was the day I had Gabe, but the truth is I didn't know that was a happy day until he was a little older and I could get some sleep. It was probably the day my father told me the new stud colt was mine to break, to raise and ride. He's still on the Tahoma ranch, almost to the end of his breeding days, but not quite. A handsome blue roan. He taught me everything I know about a stallion's temperament and drive. There were lots of horses on the ranch, but he was mine."

"Are a lot of your happiest days from your life back on the family ranch?"

"Mmm-hmm," he hummed, nodding. "We worked hard, played hard."

"Tell me the most terrified you've ever been in your life," she said.

He thought for a moment. "When I was real little, about ten, I went into a pasture I'd been told to stay out of. I was with a couple of my cousins, but they were older, faster. We were supposed to stay away from this old bull, but we figured he was too old to give us much game. Turned out he was pretty fast. One second he was lying there, looking like he was asleep, and the next second he was charging me."

"What about your cousins?" she asked.

"You know that old joke about the two campers who come upon a bear--I don't have to outrun the bear, I just have to outrun you? They took off, left me for the bull. I scrambled up a tree. He butted the trunk a few times and almost shook me out, but he got bored and went back to lie down. I sat up in that tree for hours. It was almost dark when my dad came for me. He walked into that pasture like he had all day. He was carrying a pitchfork, but he didn't seem worried about anything. He looked up into the tree and said, 'Get down here.' I tried to warn him about the bull, but he insisted. Well, I was coming down, very slowly and carefully, and right then the old bull got up and kind of wandered over toward us. When he was standing about six feet away, my dad turned toward him, made eye contact with him and just stared him down, and the damn bull lay down. And my dad took me by the hand and walked me out of the pasture."

"Just like that?" Lilly asked.

He nodded. "He said, 'Weren't you told to stay out of that pasture?' and I asked, 'What did you do?' He just looked straight ahead and said, 'That's an old bull. Mean, but old. He wouldn't have known what to do with you if he caught you. I just wanted to make sure. We sort of came to an agreement--when he didn't charge me, we made our peace.' And so I asked him why he brought the pitchfork and he said, 'Just in case he didn't listen to reason.'" And then Clay laughed.

Lilly didn't laugh. "Did your father talk to animals, too? Did you get it from him?"

"I don't know what I have, Lilly, or where I got it. I get feelings from animals, like if they're in pain or afraid. All I got from that bull was that he was mad. Territorial and pissed off. But the things my dad seemed to always have were confidence and understanding. I don't think I've ever had his kind of confidence. He took a pitchfork into that field--my hundred-and-eighty-pound father--and he faced off with a twenty-five-hundred-pound bull. He walked slow and easy, kept himself between me and the bull, and somehow with just his self-possession he let the bull think he could kill him with the pitchfork if they didn't come to terms." He shook his head in wonder.

"What?"

"When we got home, all he said was, "Next time you can stay in the tree until you're old and gray."

"No punishment?"

"There was rarely a real punishment at our house. Disappointment was punishment enough. Discontinued praise was punishment. I lived to please my parents. And sometimes I resented that and rebelled, but not for long. The Tahomas are strong and very proud. They're influential. If I rebelled I got over it fast. They were always there for me."

"When were they there for you?"

"Well, you know all about Gabe's sudden appearance. They rallied for that boy, for me. My father gathered his brothers and his lawyer and they went to town to meet the maternal grandparents of my unborn child. He didn't carry a pitchfork, he carried a leather binder containing a photocopy of some adoption law the lawyer had given him. The whole ordeal didn't take long, but once I had Gabe home there was a definite chill in the air around me and a distinct reluctance to help me with my son--I had to take my medicine. I think Gabe was six months old before my parents finally lightened up. I knew they were disappointed in me, but at the same time they didn't want Gabe to suffer any lack of affection because of me, so we had to make peace. Then there was..."

His voice fell off and she jiggled him.

"What? Then there was what?"

He took a deep breath. "There was a time when I was following rodeos as a farrier. I was about twenty-three, on a job in Houston, and I got jumped by a bunch of cowboys. I don't know who they were--I don't think they were competing. They were drunk and mean and looking for trouble--they sneaked up on me, cut off my braid. They had a good advantage and I fought back, but I didn't do much damage. I was pretty whipped by the time someone broke it up. They said I was a crazy, drunk Indian who attacked them and the police threw me in jail. I gave my father's number just before I passed out cold in a jail cell." He shook his head. "As far as I know, the police never even detained the cowboys."