Chương 94: Feathers of Fate
Yiska was pleased. His guess that a vision quest would help Harry settle his magic, had worked out the way he expected. The boy had a powerful totem. That wolves had put in an appearance in an area where there hadn't been wolves for twenty years reaffirmed his instincts that Harry and his magic would wield great influence some day. Yiska and Harry were almost to the Park entrance when Yiska looked over as Harry was digging in his pack. He braked sharply. "Where did you get those feathers?"
"From the eagle."
"What eagle?"
"Well further up the cliff from the ledge where you left me there was an eagle's nest, yesterday I felt drawn up to it. There were actually four eagles there two babies, the mum and dad. The dad, males are smaller than females in raptors I remember reading that somewhere, he was molting but he walked right up to me and bumped my hand so I'd stroke him. Some of the feathers were loose and came out when I touched him, but I didn't pull any out honest. Anyway I collected the ones that came out and the others on the ledge. Is there a problem?"
"Harry in this country it is illegal for anyone of non Native American descent to have eagle feathers and even Native Americans must have permits to have them."
"Are you allowed to have them?"
"Yes as a Navajo shaman I have the required permit."
"Should I just give them to you?"
"Let's go see my nephew." Yiska wasn't sure of the procedure for found feathers but Harry's attitude spoke of a simple mistake and he hoped to shelter Harry from the arrest and fines that would normally happen to someone who wasn't authorized for possession of eagle feathers. He stopped at the ranger's office and asked where Jim Shivers was. Shortly afterward he and Harry drove to the trail that his nephew was doing maintenance at.
"Uncle, didn't expect to see you. How did the quest go?"
"The quest was successful but we ran into a snag." He motioned for Harry to get out of the truck. "This is Harry."
Jim looked at the boy in front of him. "Aren't you a little young for a vision quest?"
Harry flushed but the flush colored not only his lightly tanned skin but continued all the way to the tips of his hair that were just visible beyond his baseball cap. "Merde." He swore he felt his magic flaring and started a breathing exercise to try and calm his magic. It worked. A few minutes later his hair had changed to a less noticeable color.
Jim having felt the flare of magic suddenly understood. "I see," he looked at his grand uncle, "so why hunt me down?"
"Harry has not one but two totemic animals. The wolves we've heard howling the last two nights and an eagle."
Jim's eyebrows climbed into his hair in surprise. Seldom were eagles a totemic animal.
"Anyway the eagle gifted Harry with some feathers."
Jim suddenly understood the problem. He knew technically he was supposed to arrest Harry but his uncle came to him hoping to spare Harry the problem. "How about, Harry, you tell me about where and how you got the feathers Harry and you turn all of them over. I'll check the nest site and say I found the feathers and you don't get in trouble."
"Fine. My vision quest took me up Spider Rocks, I was up two to three hundred feet up on a ledge on the southeast face of the northern most rock. The second morning I was up there I felt drawn to climb higher I climbed probably another hundred feet. There's a ledge with a nest the nest has two babies and the dad was there. He was molting.
He approached me actually bumped my hand to make me pet him. He shed about seven feathers I took the seven feathers he shed and the six others that were on the ledge. His mate showed up with food. I climbed back down to the ledge I was on. I'm really sorry I broke a law, I didn't know. It just felt like I was doing what I was supposed to."
Jim looked at the feathers all of them showed signs of wear that would indicate being molted rather than plucked. "Okay, did you notice if either of the adults was banded?"
"I think the mum was."
"You said two chicks, did they look healthy?"
"Yeah they were getting their feathers."
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