Chainsaw Beagles

"Hisi'sk" is the word that means to be uneasy (as in sleep) in the Nez Perce language of north America.

I guess that means the sort of sleep where you have very strange dreams.

Out of 300 original Native languages here Nez Perce is one of only 175 still spoken and only by a handful. But people of this trible - famous for breeding the Appaloosa horse - are working hard to resurrect the language.

In Tahiti I was told that if you dream you are going to die, it actually means something postive and good is going to happen to you.

So when I had trouble sleeping after visiting a B and B in the shape of a giant beagle, I reassured myself that all would be well.

This accommodation and store is the work of a very happy couple who found each other in Idaho. They built it because "it's our land and we can do whatever we like on it".

They make small wooden beagles and other dogs and sell them through the internet. They love the openness of the prairies and pine tree wilderness in their beautiful county that has more black bears than people.

Earlier that day we'd ridden up a small mountain through some of that wilderness.

Then saddle sore we rode into another small, silent Idaho town, feeling like a posse in search of outlaws who'd robbed the railroad.

On our Appaloosas we passed a lone gardener.

"Your garden's looking might purdy," our host and lead rider said as he clipped clopped past.

"Yup," the grey pony-tailed gardener answered, not looking up as he weilded clippers the size of nail scissors on his immaculate lawn.

At the only saloon open in town we met a horsetrainer in a black leather waistcoat and a huge white moustache, who told me the secret to riding horses is you "just urge them on".

As food was done for the day, the barmaid suggested a diner a bit further up the highway for the best burgers around.

"It was just taken over by the tribe," she said, referring to the Nez Perce.

"New Zealanders?" the young man in the diner asked us, after he took our burger orders.

"No, Australians... I hear the tribe has just bought this place?"

"Oh that was a few years ago," he answered.

Time moves slowly in this part of the wild west, I realised as dreams of beagle chainsaw massacres drifted through my uneasy sleep.