Patch

I showed Bobby my brand new cowboy hat. It was the end of a long day on the patch. I bought it in Kildeer, up the line from Dickinson near Teddy Roosevelt's old haunts. I wanted to know what style it was, where it hailed from. Bobby was the eldest of a crew of Navajo carpenters from Arizona, a place better known for it's cowboy accouterments than any existence they might eke out there. Age wise, I was an elder, too, which may be why he tolerated my company. Bob sat still and eyed the prize, measuring it's weight and brim before he answered. It definitely had a presence, no doubt.
 

Just what I'd thought. Texas, damn straight, and a 10X besides. That means it's tall and sturdy, and can't be blocked no more. It was straw like a working man would wear with a resin coat to make it stand up and dyed white for the noon day heat. It fit good and snug, so it wouldn't blow away nor fall off in a tumble.

Bob, on the other hand, wore a modest black felt number, made when hats were as common as belts and suspenders. A 4X, which is far more pliable, so to give with the wind yet deflect the hard rain. Its slightly vague shape had been shifted many times.

I pointed to the crow's feather tucked in mine. It molted from one of those city crows that live where I come from, found in the alley next to my door just before I started on this journey. I'd kept it resting on the cowl of my Dodge 360 until that very day. I'd stuck it in the band for a little bit of luck. Cocked a little sideways, it had that hat have an outlaw flair.

That's when I confided to Bob how them city crows would squawk at me in their city dialect. Sometimes I'd talk back, or ask a question directly, I told him, by tone of voice or just the way I'd look. They'd turn their heads to eye me up, make some raspy call to alert their fellows, then resign themselves to clucking sounds as though chiding me. Or, maybe they were just sad. 

  Bob looked at the feather, me waiting, while neither of us spoke. After a time he declared it was medicine - it could even cure cancer!

I figure that's a good thing, 'cause I've been smokin' a lot more lately, you know?


the hawk moth sips
a last bit of nectar -
the Bakken and the shale