Dalhart, TX White Shoes Walking

In 20 degree air and a gentle breeze I set camp in a field before the town line last night. The cold has a tax that the body has to pay. Hard heavy sleep. In less than hour I am sleeping beside 2 and 1/2 gallons of water, pepper spray that would rupture if frozen, and food I can reach for throughout the night. Outside my box-trap (made as a gift by Jim Oblander back in OK) waits for a rabbit to seek comfort from the cold. I don't need the meat yet,but I do need to know the tool before my survival waits on its catch.
My eyes have only taken me to deep REM for maybe an hour when I am thrown awake. On the frozen snow field outside my nylon walls headlights smash into my shelter. The sound of a large truck a foot away makes me scurry for defence, for balance, for clarity. The horn blows twice. The law?
I open the door feeling the blast of winter slap my bare skin. I gasp. My mouth is already spilling dialog it knows by heart in defence of my position, my need, mercy. A man with a warm face is climbing down onto the hard pack with his face letting my words trail off. From inside the cab I hear a woman emburse his gentle spirit as he hands me a large cup of hot coffee and two hamburgers. Many times we shake hands as I pull from sleep to see where I've landed. He has an easy face like my cousin Scott, moving from behind glasses that are just beginning to steam up. I listen to him tell me that they've been following my progess and wished I'd come to their door when I passed their home back north. Only in Texas would somebody take heart to trace my steps into a field at night to bring me coffee, burgers, and a highlighter underlining that what I am fumbling through matters. As my friends that gave their names while I was sleeping drove away I burnt my tongue on the black coffee and still smiled into it as I drank on. I felt the paper bag from Sonic. It felt hot and sank into my cold hands promising good sleep. Pulling out a burger, I close my eyes to take a bite, my ears fill with the sound of paper and tires on hard-pack snow. Walking across America is not about people I meet when I am standing at the post writing cards to people I miss, or making tea by the Deep Creek as a few Mexican smile across the field just like the sun rising. It is not about concerns that leave my feet the only warmth I know moving southernly in frigid air filling my eyes with the feeling of sand. Sometimes The Walk is a cowboy leaning on a fence as I drink his last bottle of water, or warming my hands on a bag of burgers as I listen to geese again land around me while the Union P. train crys on frozen tracks barely a whisper away. Texas is warm hands over snow melting everything frozen.