A Nez Perce Tale by Paty Jager

The solar eclipse and the lunar eclipse are such wonders of nature, that they dew masses of people to watch. As I watched, I wondered what the first people thought of these occurrences.

Did they think the world was ending? Did they believe their Gods or Creators were punishing them? Or did they take there miracles in stride as a sign that life was going as it should?

I need to do research and see if I can find some writings of what they thought. But for my imaginative writer brain, it conjures up so many 'what ifs'.

Here is a Nez Perce Coyote Story about the sun and the moon.

THE SUN AND THE MOON
The Sun had two wives, Frog and another woman. At that time, the Sun moved across the sky so very hot that the people were nearly killed by the heat. They did not like this state of affairs. For that reason Coyote called a council of all the people; he knew Sun did not love Frog and would not invite her to come, so he begged her to com to the council and obey what Sun told her to do.

So she went and stood at the door, and said, "My husband, where am I to sit?" and he told her, "Here, on my eye." Then she advanced a few steps and jumped up to his eye; and the people tried to pull her off, but could not. And Coyote told the Sun, "You are acting badly for a chief"; and Coyote decided that Sun could become the night sun (Moon), and that the Moon should become the Sun. So the irregular one is now the Moon, and the frog is seen over his eye. 

This is from: Nez Perce Coyote Tales: The Myth Cycle by Deward E. Walker, Jr. in collaboration with Daniel N. Mathews.

I made mention in the latest book I'm writing about a story my Nez Perce character's grandfather told him about the stars and that is why I am reading books like this one. Trying to find a story I can have him retell, but so far I'm striking out. I may have to change it to a story about the moon or the sun, I am finding several about those.

This is one of the fun parts about research, the searching for the item that will enhance the story.

My latest western romance release is a contemporary western titled The Wrong Cowboy to Love. It's book 3 in my Tumbling Creek Ranch series. These books don't have to be read in order, it just shows how couples you might read about in each book came to be together.

The Wrong Cowboy to Love

Book Three in the Tumbling Creek Ranch series

Computer geek Ruby Cutter feels like a fish out of water with a makeover her cousin put her through for the bachelorette party and wedding. The only reason she went along with it…her high school crush will be at the wedding. She’d fantasized for years over him and plans to make him see her.

Dillon Wallis is minding his own business getting ready for a gig at a bar when a tipsy, blonde who is with a bachelorette party and doesn’t realize she’s gorgeous, tumbles into his arms and captures his heart.

The only problem…she’s in love with his cousin.

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Paty Jager is an award-winning author of 37 novels, 6 novellas, and numerous anthologies of murder mystery and western romance. All her work has Western or Native American elements in them along with hints of humor and engaging characters. Paty and her husband raise alfalfa hay in rural eastern Oregon. Riding horses and battling rattlesnakes, she not only writes the western lifestyle, she lives it.

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