The Healing of
Windwalker
This horse is also part of my story because I owned the Appaloosa stallion, Wahoo's Tail Star. He was well-mannered like the horse in the book but I never showed him. I bought him to use at stud only to find out sometime later that he was sterile. My kids loved him because he could be used for breeding one minute and then saddled up and ridden the next to the mare. He he would behave as if he was a gelding. When the time came that I put Wahoo up for sale, two Indians, Johnnie and Harry, expressed an interest in buying him so I let them take him out after dark for a trail ride. My kids, who were very attached to Wahoo, hid in some sage brush and when Wahoo came by they sicked my dog on on the horse. The horse bucked Johnnie off, and when Harry got on him, he got the dog treatment and was bucked off also. Needless to say, Johnnie and Harry decided they didn't want to buy my horse. I didn't know what happened until years later when my daughter, Shelli, told me what she and her brother had done.
In the book Tadi and Wahoo are killed in a tragic accident. This part of the story came about because of a death claim I had to pay on a hunting accident where the hunter and his horse slid off the trail and rolled down the hill. On the way down one of the hunter's arrows came out of the quiver and cut the artery behind his right leg. When he got back to camp he was still in the saddle but he had bled to death. If I remember correctly, the policy had an accidental death benefit which really helped his family.
Tadi, Nita, and Wahoo's Tail Star
Tadi was Walker's and Robbie's father. He was a ceremonial performer representing the Hopi tribe and would have looked something like the picture to the right above. He was also a great hunting guide.
Miss Northern Navajo Teen Megan Badonie for 2011 -2012 and Court.jpeg
Nita, (Walker's mom), was Navajo and would have looked much like the young woman centered in the picture to the left. Tadi's and Nita's love story was one of the most tragic love stories you will ever come across. Walker and Robbie and the Smiths also became entangled in this tragedy and they couldn't find their way out of it without each person going through a personal hell of their own.
Wahancanka - Healing Song
on Youtube
Gila and Apache
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