Big Yellow Taxi

Just listen for barking

The birds that had not yet flown further south for the winter were chirping outside.  Daniel knew from the sounds of them that it was only about mid morning.  The night before was a blur and he woke feeling surprised that he didn't feel worse.  He was thirsty and his mouth felt dry but other than that he was much less hungover than he normally was when he woke up after a night of heavy drinking.  

The pillow under his head was soft and fresh smelling.  When Daniel lifted the blankets he had been covered in, the smell of rosemary wafted out.  After some slight investigation he found that the stick that was poking his lower back was the woody sprig of the plant that Rowan had slipped into his back pocket the night before.  Most of the tiny blue flowers had been crushed and broken from the stem.  The one that remained fluttered down onto his chest as Daniel lifted the herb to his face to smell it.  He plucked it from the folds of the blanket and rubbed it between his fingers to release the tiny bit of fragrance that still lingered in the fragile petals.  

A low moan and a slight shift of the bed jolted Daniel the rest of the way into consciousness.  He used his hands to push himself into a sitting position.  Enough light was filtering in through the closed curtains for Daniel to see that the other side of the bed was occupied.  He pulled the top of the blankets down hopefully despite the fact that the person under the blankets was far too large to be the woman Daniel was hoping to find hidden there.  

Daniel's disappointment in waking up next to his brother instead of Rowan was tempered by the knowledge that at least Marv had somehow managed to find his way to the room they had been given to sleep in.  And if Marv had been sleeping in bed with Daniel all night that meant there was less of a chance that he had been out getting himself into trouble.  A rough snorting snore from the man was enough to get Daniel moving.  It was always hard to predict Marv's moods.  But Daniel knew there was a strong chance Marv would want to leave as soon as he woke up.  And Daniel wasn't anywhere close to ready to go.  He quickly decided that avoiding his brother would be far easier than having a confrontation with the man.  Marv couldn't insist that Daniel leave and come home with him if he couldn't find him.  

Shifting his body slowly and silently, Daniel rose from the bed.  Grabbing his shoes in his hands he crept from the room and eased the door shut behind him.  On the outside of the door hung a small chalkboard with a small piece of white chalk dangling from it on a string.  There was a note written on the board in flowing even script.  The words didn't address him by name.  But from the content Daniel knew the note was for him. 

You looked peaceful.

Come find me when you wake up.

-Rowan-

A deep burgundy sunflower was pinned behind the board, stuck between it and the wooden door.  And the 'o' in Rowan's name had been drawn to look like a little flower as well.  The note made Daniel smile despite himself.  While he wasn't sure if it technically qualified as a love note it was still the first note from a girl he had ever received.  He would have liked to leave the note there to look at later.  But the idea of Marv finding it had Daniel lifting his hand to smear the words before he could think twice about it.  He rubbed his chalky hand off on his jeans before reaching up to grab the flower that Rowan had left for him.  He had never gotten a flower from a girl either and was left wondering if being happy about it made him somehow less of a man.  

Daniel shrugged and headed down the hall towards the sound of voices.  He hoped to find Rowan in the common room of the guest house but the room was full of strangers aside from one man.  

"Good morning," Jeff called over, giving Daniel a smile.  The slender man gestured to the flower in Daniel's hand, asking in a teasing tone if it was for him.  When Daniel didn't laugh at his joke Jeff pointed towards a vase of the flowers and explained that he and Rowan had picked them together that morning.  That earned him a small half smile from the man.  

"You know where she's at?," Daniel asked.  He moved across the room and placed his flower in the vase with the rest.  This left both his hands free to fill a plate and mug with the food and drink that was set out on a folding table.  Jeff shook his head.  Rowan had helped him get breakfast ready for the people staying in the guest house.  But then she had scampered off to do whatever Rowan business she had planned for the day.  Rowan could usually be found near or in the enclosure where she kept her dogs or working in one of the large vegetable gardens.  But since her father was visiting it was possible she had gone somewhere with him.  And it was festival week.  Which meant most people were thrown off from their normal day to day activities.  

"I would check at the woman's small living house first," Jeff suggested, "her mom might know where she is."  Daniel mumbled his thanks through an impossibly large mouthful of bread and raspberry jam, little crumbs flying out from between his lips and sprinkling down the front of his black shirt.  Jeff scratched at the ginger colored stubble on his face as he tried to hide a smile.  Rowan had some of the worst table manners out of anyone he knew.  She believed that eating in a way that most people considered proper took all the joy out the act itself.  Jeff wasn't about to air his opinion on the matter to Daniel, but he found it more than just a little adorable that Rowan had managed to find what must be the one man on earth that had worse manners than her.  

The comical image that came to mind as Jeff watched Daniel grab another muffin from the table and shove nearly the entire thing into his mouth at once was of him and Rowan raising an entire litter of messy little children that would jump down from the table and wipe their dirty faces off on the curtains like Jeff's little sister used to get in trouble for doing when she was toddler.  Jeff had been wary of Daniel at first.  He hated to admit he had judged someone by their outward appearance alone but the man did look rough and maybe even a little scary.  Rowan was kind and gentle and Jeff had been concerned that she was attracted to someone that looked like he might force himself on her the first chance he got.  But after spending some time with Daniel, Jeff now realized that he had misjudged the man.  Daniel wasn't sexually aggressive.  If anything he seemed almost to be the opposite of that, he was quiet and reserved.  Almost shy.  And his interest in Rowan appeared to be genuine.  

"Go out the front of this building and follow the gravel path down past the barns," Jeff said.  His directions weren't exact but they would lead Daniel back to the festival site.  From there Jeff hoped the man could orient himself and find his way back to Rowan's house.  If not, there would be people at the festival site that could direct him.  

With the gravel crunching under his feet, Daniel brushed the crumbs off the front of his shirt.  He took another long sip of what had to be the best coffee he had drunk in as long as he could remember.  Most of the people that had been gathering the guest house looked like they were drinking hot tea so Daniel had not felt bad at all when he helped himself to an extra large steaming cup of the hot coffee with a few cubes of brown sugar mixed in.  The prospect of finding Rowan's mother and asking the woman where her daughter was had him feeling a little anxious.  He had never really met a girl's parents before and he was worried about what the woman might think of him.  As the house he knew Rowan lived in loomed up in front of him Daniel squared up his shoulders, reminding himself that Rowan had left him a note telling him to come find her.  He was only doing what she had asked.  

Daniel tried the back path into the building first.  But no one was there and he felt uncomfortable just barging into the place.  So he headed around to the front.  At first glance Daniel didn't see anyone there either.  But before he could think up what his next course of action was going to be, a soft feminine giggle drifted up from the other side of the porch railing.  Sitting in the early morning shade that the overhang of the porch roof provided Daniel found the woman he was looking for.  

Rowan's mother was lying back in a wooden lounge chair but she wasn't alone.  She was leaning back against a tall man with long black hair.  They were covered in a indian blanket so Daniel couldn't see much of them.  But it was obvious from what he could see that neither of them was wearing much in the way of clothing under the blanket.  The tops of Rowan's mother's freckled shoulders were bare and she was leaning back against the man's  naked chest.  The man's head was down and he was kissing up her neck, which Daniel guessed was the reason for the giggling he had heard.  Daniel shuffled his feet awkwardly on the rickety porch steps.  When that didn't work he coughed loudly into his hand.  

"Oh!," Rowan's mother exclaimed with another giggle.  She elbowed the man that was pawing her in an effort to get him to straighten up and stop distracting her.  Then she yanked the blanket up to make sure her breasts were all the way covered.  The man slipped an arm under the blankets and around her waist, shifting her so she was sitting up straighter and pulling her closer to him.  Daniel was certain he had not met the man before but there was something familiar about him.  Unlike Rowan, who only had her high cheekbones to imply that she might be of american indian descent, this man was obviously full blooded native american.  He had a full head of thick black hair and a complexion that looked more tan that it probably was up against Rowan's mother's much paler complexion.  

"Háu and good morning," the man said, offering Daniel up a sly looking grin.  His accent sounded just like Rowan's but thicker.  It confirmed what Daniel had already suspected before.  Not only was Daniel going to have to interact with Rowan's mother, he was going to have to meet her father as well.  

As Daniel observed Rowan's father, it became obvious that the man was giving him a very thorough once over in return.  The fact that he wasn't being subtle about it actually made Daniel feel less anxious.  He preferred dealing with people that were honest and direct.  When Daniel stood up straighter under the man's careful observation the man smiled at him.  

"Looking for Hekaza?," the man asked.  Before Daniel could answer Rowan's mother interjected.

"He means Rowan," she explained, "Hekaza is her tribe name."  Throwing a slightly dirty look at the man that was holding her in his arms she added, "No one here calls her that."  Daniel could tell by the tone of the woman's voice that Rowan having a tribe name seemed to be a point of contention between the couple.  But he was still too curious not to ask for more information.

"What does it mean?," he asked, directing his question towards Rowan's father.  The man smiled again, his face softening like he was thinking about a pleasant memory.  

"It means little deer," he said.  Daniel smiled, immediately understanding that Rowan's freckles had been what earned her that particular title.  He hadn't made the comparison in his mind before but her freckles did remind him of the spots that formed on the backs of baby deer before their adult coats came in.  

"I'm Daniel Mason," Daniel announced, "but my name don't mean shit."  He wasn't sure why he had felt the urge to introduce himself in such a way but his joke went over better than he expected.  Rowan's father exploded with laughter, jostling her mother around and then tickling at the woman to make her laugh along with him.  Once he had his laughter under control Rowan's father introduced himself.  His name was strange and one that Daniel was sure there was no way he would be able to pronounce correctly.  It started with an M and had a weird throaty double g sound in the middle of it.

"You can call me Grey Wolf," the man conceded with another laugh, "that's easier for the wendigo around here to pronounce."  Daniel wasn't totally sure what the unfamiliar word meant.  But the context and Rowan's mother's reaction to it led Daniel to believe that it was likely a derogatory word for white folk like himself.  Before she could voice her objections, Grey Wolf slipped his hands out from under the blanket and held them up in mock defeat.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," he said as he very obviously struggled to keep a straight face, "Calm down Lola it was just a joke."  His hands lowered and he wrapped his long arms around the woman's waist, holding her close in case she was thinking about stomping off into her room and slamming the door in his face.  Seeing that Daniel was sipping his coffee and becoming increasingly uncomfortable with being a witness to their minor domestic squabble Rowan's father lifted one hand and pointed back behind him.

"Roe took her dogs down to the big creek.  Follow the road down past the peach trees."  He smiled and added, "If you get lost just listen for barking."  

Grey Wolf held Lola close to him as he watched Daniel walk off down the path.  He hadn't made up his mind completely about Rowan's newest love interest but he was leaning towards liking the man.  Age was hard to determine but if he had to guess he would say Daniel had at least ten years on his daughter.  This wasn't necessarily a bad thing.  But since Grey Wolf himself had only been just over the age of fifteen when Rowan was born, the thought of her dating a man that was nearly the same age as him felt strange.  He still liked to think of his daughter as a girl and the sad truth was she had been a grown woman for many years now.  But Daniel's overall manliness more than made up for his age.  Unlike the artists and poets Rowan had taken a liking to before, this man appeared as though he might actually work for a living.  It would be nice to have a son in law that didn't refuse to bait his own fishing hook or scream like a girl when he saw a spider in the house.

A man from his reservation would still be what he preferred for his daughter to settle down with.  But Grey Wolf reminded himself that anyone was better than the two gay men that seemed to have their sights set on using his daughter as some sort of a brood mare.  Various forms of polygamy were considered acceptable in this community and Rowan's father had been concerned for some time now that Rowan might never find herself a proper husband.  She had refrained from mentioning it around him since the last time because of his strong objections to the idea, but Grey Wolf knew that the homosexual couple his daughter was close with had all but made a formal offer for her to do what they referred to as sharing their union.  This meant she would live with them and most likely sleep with them and they would raise whatever children she had together.  While Grey Wolf didn't have any particular objections to homosexuality in general, he didn't like the idea of his only daughter playing wife to two gay men no matter how nice they were.

Rowan had assured him that she wasn't ready for babies yet.  But she had also warned him that if she didn't find a man she loved by the time she was ready for babies that she might consider the offer Jeff and Eron had made her.  Grey Wolf had voiced his objections but he knew better than to throw a fit.  Rowan was stubborn as a damn buffalo and had a bad habit of doing things people told her not to just to prove that she could.

"I can't believe you told that man to go down there," Lola said, trying now to suppress her own smile.  She turned in his arms so she could gauge his facial expressions.  "You know Rowan swims naked?"  Grey Wolf shrugged.

"Guess he's in for a show then," he teased.  As far as her father was concerned, if Rowan didn't want people seeing her naked then she ought to start wearing one of the five different bathing suits he had bought her.  And the idea of Daniel happening upon Rowan when she was bathing in the creek brought back fond memories of the time he had seen her mother doing the same thing.  In that moment he had fallen in love with Lola in a way that he had never been able to replicate with any other woman no matter how intelligent or beautiful or talented they might be.  Maybe the same thing would happen for his daughter.  

"You're horrible," Lola teased, tilting her head back to press a kiss to his lips.  The sun had shifted since the couple had picked their spot in the shade and little beams of light were now shining under the roof of the porch, setting her copper hair on fire.  Lifting the crystal that hung from her neck, Grey Wolf rubbed his thumb over the well worn surface of the stone.  

"Tell me my fortune...,"  he whispered, his voice low and serious.  The first time he saw Lola he had asked her if she was a fairy or a witch.  She laughed and told him she was both.  Then he had asked her if she could tell him his fortune.  The question had taken on a meaning of it's own over the years, becoming something more personal and intimate than simply saying I love you.  Lola didn't answer.  Instead she twisted in his arms and kissed him more deeply than she had before.