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Salers and a soft cha forearms He wore moccasins on his feet, and his short black hair was brushed back from his s and an even bigger wooden pail He stopped in front of me, and his eyes swept over my bare toes and upswept hair appreciatively

"We need music," He said quietly I could tell by the speculation in his eyes that he wasn’t certain hoould respond to his request

"Alright," I replied evenly

"Debussy"

"Debussy it is"

"I’ll be out back" He turned and walked around the house, not waiting to see if I would do as he said Saed in lad I walked in the house to find Debussy

He was sitting in the back yard on the long bench just beneath the kitchen hen I opened the screen and set the CD player up on the ledge above hiht fro and onto his broad shoulders and bowed head He was cutting into so the outer bark-like shell away, exposing a white fibrous root that looked slick and soapy Leaning forward, he pulled a big silver bowl fro He put the white root into the bowl, picked up the enor, and poured steamy water over the root Samuel rubbed the root as if it was a bar of soap, and little bubbles began to for until the silver boas full of thick white lather Setting the bon, he pulled a hand towel and a fat white bath towel out of the wooden pail He stood from the bench, put the hand towel over his shoulder and laid the bath towel over the bench Then he turned tohihtbowl of soapy stuff I was curious, but I didn’t question hied my skirt and laid back on the bench He reached up then and pushed play on the h the tracks until he found what he was looking for He turned the wooden pail over, placed it nearon the towel underneath e of the bench and settled in his lap One by one he pulled the pins out ofthem over his hands I belatedly realized that thewas Debussy’s ‘Girl with the Flaxen Hair’

"How very appropriate," I said softly, the smile apparent in my voice

"I like it," he answered easily "I can’t listen to it without thinking of you"

"Do you listen to it often?" I asked a little breathlessly

"Almost every day for ten years," he replied evenly

My heart stuttered and stopped, my breath shallow

He continued quietly as if he hadn’t just confessed so to wash yours My Navajo grandht me how to do this She makes soap fro yucca makes the best soap, but the yucca in o by enous to this area, but when he returned ho so up a piece of the root You have to peel off the outer shell Then you kind of grind up the white part inside - that is the soap I wasn’t sure it would lather up, but it did"

Gently holding my head in the pal it in his lap that was now covered with the hand towel He loweredit all the while His other hand s intoers deep down to the base of ain My eyes drifted closed, andthe soles of h wooden bench, ony of his hands in my hair

Sa as the ater "My grandmother uses the yucca soap to wash the sheep’s wool after she shears it every spring She says it works better than anything else Your hair won’t smell like lavender or roses when I’ive you new energy, too"

"Your wise grandmother…I think about her every time I feed my chickens"

"Why?" There was a smile in his voice

"Well, you told me once how she had names for all her sheep, and she had so irl, after my mother died Somehow it ave them names like Peter, Lucy, Edmund, and Susan after the characters in the Chronicles of Narnia But your grandmother named her sheep names like ‘Bushy Ruh when I thought about it"

"Hmm The names do sound a littlesoftly "Sadly, I think ‘Bushy Rump’ and ‘Face like a Fish’ have died, but she has a new one na peel of laughter, and Sahtened in my hair