Between 1821 and 1880, the Santa Fe Trail connected Missouri with New Mexico, carrying covered wagons, stagecoaches, gold seekers, trappers and emigrants across the heart of the Old West. It was put out of business with the coming of the railroad to Santa Fe in 1880. Yet thousands still trace the trail as a historical experience, and this is what they pass as they enter the last few hundred yards of its route as it winds its way into the heart of Santa Fe: art galleries selling romanticized sculptures of Native Americans. I made this image in the early morning, using this sculpture as my foreground subject layer. But the reason I made this picture was the middleground context layer – the seven diagonal shadows cast by the protruding roof beams of a gallery building. They rhythmically carry the eye across the frame to the sculpture, and I use them as metaphorical drumbeats that accompany the buffalo skull hunting ritual being performed by this figure. A third layer comprises the background, a tree incongruously rising between two stucco walls. It is a symbol of the natural world, a refreshing counterpoint to the man made forms that otherwise fill this image.