Walker, Texas Ranger: Letting Go: Part 3

Four days later, while Trivette sat in a sweat lodge, struggling not to run out screaming from the heat and the smoke, CD pulled into the reservation with a ྭtrailer full of horses right behind him. Another truck and trailer followed him. Four horses were unloaded from CD's trailer and one, Amigo, from the other. When Trivette finally left the sweat lodge an hour later, sweating and coughing, CD had already left, and the horses had already been let lose on the reservation. Leaning over, his hands resting on his knees as he coughed up his lungs, he suddenly felt a cold wet something-or-other on his bare shoulder. He whipped around in surprise, only to see Amigo quickly backing away from him.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Hmmm, something else you will have to learn," White Eagle said from the side.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do you mean?" Trivette asked, standing there, staring at Amigo.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "When something comes up behind you like that, no matter who or what it is, you shouldn't whip around fast like that. You must weigh up the situation first. Don't worry, you'll learn. It's not that hard."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Slowly, Amigo walked back to Trivette and nudged him in the shoulder again before lowering his head. The Texas Ranger slowly reached up and scratched him behind the ears and patted his neck. He sighed a big sigh along with the horse.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "He knows what happened. He senses your loss."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Trivette turned from the horse to face White Eagle. "What am I learning next?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Weapons. Bow and arrows, knives….."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As they walked away, the horse began to follow them.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What?" Trivette asked out loud, sounding a little bit annoyed.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I think he's just looking for a little bonding. And you're the one he picked, because he knows you share the same loss that he does. You are going to need a horse of your own while you're here. I think the horse just picked you. Are you OK with this? Because both parties have to be OK with it."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Trivette watched Amigo for a few minutes before he nodded slowly. "Yeah, I'm OK with it."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Amigo seemed to nod his head too.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Good. I think we'll wait awhile longer before we get to weapons. You've got a lot of other things that must be learned first."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Like what?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Bonding with Amigo."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Huh?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You are going to do everything with this horse. Eat, sleep, work. This way, you will understand your horse, and you will have better communication with him. This is your horse, no other. You want to know each other inside and out so that you can accomplish anything without fail." ྭྭྭ

Trivette could only nod in answer as they walked further away from everyone else. White Eagle gave a low, quiet whistle, and within seconds a brown horse came trotting up to him. He patted the horse on the neck.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "See, eventually, you'll be able to do that. And he'll know your whistle from anyone else's."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Where are we going?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "To the bend in the river. Don't worry it's not that far."

✢

"Wait, stop here," the Indian ordered when they reached a small hut. "I'll be right back." He came out a minute later with a fishing pole and they continued on.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "A fishing pole?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Yes. You are going to go fishing with your horse."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "I am? But what about you?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "This is a time for you two to be together. No one else must be there. Ah, here we are."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ They came upon the river bank and stopped. White Eagle handed him the fishing pole.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "What do I use for bait?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "You're going to have to dig for worms."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ A look of disgust nearly covered Trivette's face before he quickly changed it to one of surprise instead.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Don't look surprised Trivette. How else do you think we caught fish before man-made bait was created?"

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Um…yeah….good point."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Alright. Stay out here as long as you feel is necessary and when you're ready come back to the main reservation. You'll find me somewhere."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ "Um…OK."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ As soon as White Eagle had left Trivette sat down with a sigh on a rock. Amigo nuzzled his shoulder. After a few minutes he got up and began to dig for worms. He'd forgotten to ask what to dig with, so he used a nearby stick and his hands. He dug and he dug, and he found no worms. Looking up into the bright afternoon sun, he realized that this was the first time he'd been able to be alone since he'd arrived at the reservation a few days ago. And suddenly, without warning, a picture flashed through his mind. A memory. Only several days old, but with such deep emotions and pain as he had never known before.

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Walker and Alex lying in a pool of Alex's blood on the floor, holding each other in a tight embrace. He saw the ring on Alex's finger. Both had their eyes closed. He could only stand aside and watch as paramedics attempted several times to revive both of them. Faintly in the background of his heavy breathing he could hear their "one, two, three… push…one, two, three…" But it was of no use. They were both gone. He knew it. Nothing would ever be the same again.

While he sat in the dirt by the river, Trivette could feel his heart breaking in half, right down the center as tears welled up in his eyes and fell down his face. This wasn't supposed to happen. Neither of them were supposed to die. Walker was one of the best Texas Rangers that had ever lived and Alex was one of the best District Attorneys. His best friends. How could this have happened? He felt his body begin to shake and he couldn't stop it. He had no control over his body. Amigo lay down behind Trivette, giving him a body to lean against, and reached his head around to rest it on the Ranger's shoulder. Together, they stayed there for nearly an hour, before Trivette had calmed down.

"Thanks Amigo. I guess I really am glad you're here with me after all."

ྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭྭ Amigo snorted and stood up. Trivette went back to his digging and was surprised to find many worms in the dirt below him. He shouted with joy and excitement and pulled them out, one by one. Putting a few on the rock he picked one and stuck it to the hook at the end of the fishing pole. Casting it into the river he sat there for awhile waiting for a fish to take the bait. When nothing happened, he recast the line. Several times. All through his struggles, Amigo stood next to him, watching him the whole time. After two hours, Trivette reeled in the line, got up, and moved down the stream a bit to recast again. This time, a fish took the bait! Getting excited again he reeled it in and found a nice big trout at the end of his pole, struggling to get free. He took the fish off the line and placed it in the sun far from the water so that it couldn't escape. Casting again, he caught another fish, and another. Once he had four big fish he set his pole down beside him and lay back to watch the sun set. ྭ

✢

Walking back onto the main reservation beside Amigo, his fishing pole over one shoulder and his catch over the other, Trivette found White Eagle sitting around a small camp fire with several other natives. He stood up when he saw the Ranger and was delighted when he saw the fish.

"Nice Job, Trivette. Nice Job."

White Eagle took him a little ways away from the group he'd been sitting with and showed him how to build a small fire and to cook his fish.

✢

Several days later Trivette was up on Amigo bareback, holding a bow and arrow in his hands, getting ready to fire at a target many yards away. He aimed, and let go of the arrow, watching it slide effortlessly into the center of the target.

"That was a fine shot Jimmy! A mighty fine shot!"

Trivette turned and a smile lit up his face, for the first time in a long time, when he saw Big Dog standing there.

"Yeah! That was awesome!" Trivette exclaimed.

Then his smile turned upside down and he dismounted from Amigo.

"How're you doing Jimmy?" CD asked.

"I'm doing OK."

They stood there, staring at each other, not saying a word. Amigo leaned forward and gave Trivette a nudge on his shoulder to push him forward.

"Hey!" the Ranger exclaimed, turning to see Amigo. His smile returned a little, and he ruffled the horse's main.

"I see things are looking better," CD commented.

"Yeah, slowly."

"Aw, Jimmy. I know things are tough. Hell, they're tough at the bar too. There's nights I don't want to be there. Every night it seems like. Nights I wish all four of us could be there, laughing and having a good time. But we've got to move on. That's all."

"Big Dog. What are you doing here?"

"I came to see you, that's all. I'm gettin' terribly lonely."

"Come on then, let's get you a horse and we'll go fishing."

Oddly enough, White Eagle was right there with a second horse all ready to go with her saddle and bridle already on.

"Thank ya, White Eagle. Thank ya," CD said, as the native gave him a leg up into the saddle.

"When I get out of here," Trivette began, when they were a fair distance from the reservation, "When I'm done here. I don't know yet where I'm going to go."

"Jimmy, you're a Texas Ranger. You've got work to do."

"I know that. But I've got a small apartment that I like in the middle of Dallas. And Walker just gave me his whole Ranch. I can't keep both. And Amigo here has taken a liking to me, it seems. And, not only that, I feel like I really like it out here. It's peaceful. And quiet. You know?"

"So there is some Cherokee in you after all. I knew some of that had to rub off. I just knew it. What with the way you two spent so much time together and everything..."

"CD. Stop. Please."

"Right. Sorry."

The two finally reached the river bend where Trivette had gone fishing once before. Finding a nice log to sit on, they let their horses graze a bit while they cast their lines into the water. Neither said anything for a long time.

Something tugged on Trivette's line and he jumped up from the log in excitement. CD ignored his own line and watched Trivette reel in his fishing line.

"Let's hope it's something good! I'm starving!"

"Big Dog, I've had nothing but fish for the past few days. I'm getting sick of it."

"Sorry, Jimmy. It's been awhile since I've had a good scrod sandwich on toasted bread."

"There is no scrod in this river CD!"

"Oh. So sorry. I guess my mind's playing tricks on me."

"Yeah. I guess so."

"So, what'cha got there Jimmy?"

Trivette reeled in his line faster as CD began getting even more excited. Finally the end of his line popped out of the water and they were able to see what he'd dragged in. It wasn't a fish. It was an old boot with several holes throughout.

"Great. I can see it now. Texas Ranger becomes Shoe Finder."

"That's a boot, Jimmy."

"OK, fine. Boot Finder. Whatever."

Trivette grumbled while he pulled the boot off his line and recast it into the water, intent on ignoring the old footwear.