Well It's The Fourth of July

Over Heart Mountain the sky spits and sputters in historic revelry that makes the heart of man and woman want to sky walk with equal freedom through Yellowstone, past the mountains that remember earth wild, across rivers of elk with thick velvet antlers two seasons from the shed, pass the borders that some agent of state has painted on a map in Washington, to an America that is still wiggling hard toward freedom that's really free. Firetrucks sing down in the valley in route to water some dry sage turning yellow red before the sky is another bouquet of weeping willow fire and then a report. Red, white and blue in flame. The Cody parades are over with a thousand thousand pictures flashed and micro chipped. The crowds have cheered and applauded until all of the participant's are full and thirsty for something cold to drink and looking forward to head tipsy conversation with new acquaintances.

Through morning hours we all brought our tack and floats past Buffalo Bill Heritage Center, back where the churches spill out into lines of tar on back roads with pretty shuttered houses winking from behind landscaping spoils we'd all love to call home except the sky hungry. "Too many trees," Paul smiles at me. You couldn't even see the stars if you lived here. We talk about New England and the oceans of green up in the northeast. Paul would drown there. I am beginning to understand the lust for the open land. My goldfish never grew until I gave them a pond in the back yard waist deep. Only then were they fish two feet long that ate frogs in one gulp that happened past. The right to bear arms is alive in Wyoming and nobody is mugged out here.
The ribboned pony carts braid through the crowd as we look for our numbers painted on the rim of the sidewalk that line us for the parade. I pass a rolling statue of John Wayne and smile though his hand is on the butt of his pistol. The Duke is the man of honor, and would be 100 years old this year. I walk past a flag for the 82ND and wonder if I should still drop and give one for the airborne. Crow Dog my pack prevents me. A man sees my old rank on my pack. "Morning Sergeant," he smiles. After a sea of horses fit with brown leather I am a backpack and cart standing by #91 waiting for permission to walk behind the Pizza Hut truck and commence waving to the gathered crowd like a drunk sailor leaving port. A nice lady steps down from the Pizza Hut truck and the piece f pizza that will be waving to the croud, handing me a coupon for free lunch somewhere on my travels. Smiling, I tell her I did think it was cruel to have me follow a float for pizza without the carrot on the stick giving up something. She laughs. I smile as I am putting the coupon carefully in my wallet and already smelling melted cheese and garlic mushroom sauce that's just aching to burn my tongue. Pizza Hut, 24 years in Cody. Strangers shake my hand from their mounts as well used horses fail to shy away in a thunderbolt like the cart horses in the Amish land of PA. often did. Some disbelieve I have walked America for two years and poke at me until I don't bite. Some believe and hope I believe them when they tell me that they wish they could join my leaving when the time comes but... Watching their eyes I know they speak the truth without unblinking. We all have different walks. I respect that. This is Cody. Tourists move in and out spawning through Cody, Yellowstone, and across America in climate controlled pods with flip down flat screens playing the Walton's television series, and Little House. Those that remain in their chairs and saddles through heat and the frigid winter winds are just leaning back in their chairs just like their teachers told them not to; hoping to fall...back to a simpler time, back to earth pelted under the sound of hooves running over open land where a broken watch is just as good at keeping country time as a top of the line 18k Rolex. My second watch died in the Rocky Mountains last winter and has gone unreplaced. In Cody just looking at my naked wrist and guessing is usually good enough. See you in the morning, before lunch.