A cowboy hat fell off a cowboy somewhere in Oklahoma’s panhandle. Atop cracked earth and surrounded by venomous snakes, the cowboy hat still fought to push west. The cowboy hat envisioned itself a stampede of one, a solo herd, a runaway bandit. There were moments when the cowboy hat would lift itself—with the help of the wind—onto its brim and roll like a wheel. Sometimes, too, when a gust was particularly forceful—like last week in Gallup, New Mexico—the cowboy hat would levitate, fill its ten-gallon crown with air, and charge toward the Silver State, pretending to whip and snap the hides of strong horses and call out Yeehaw as it rushed over dry dirt. The cowboy hat once ran across an abandoned map, noting a blue splotch near Nevada’s sharp bend. At this pace, the cowboy hat hoped to find the city of Reno and taste the cool, clean water of Lake Tahoe someday soon.
