Stonecrop Magazine

“You’re so lucky that you grew up here.” The fake cowboy says. He’s got large, wide-set eyes, like a cow. From beneath his new hat, I can see his temple where, if he was a cow, the slaughterhouse bolt would slam clean through.

“I’m so jealous!” he says, gesturing around at the hat shop, decorated with horseshoes and tintype pictures of log cabins. He includes me in his appreciation of the space– a real Montanan here to complete the western aesthetic. “You can ski all winter, and go boating all summer! You have it all.”

I smile and nod, “Ya heard of skijoring?”

He shakes his head.

“Horse-drawn ski jumps and obstacle courses.” I say, “You’re looking at the Montana state-champ.”

His eyebrows shoot up, “That’s amazing!”

I’m lying, but there’s no need to tell him that.

He picked a chocolate brown hat, Dakota style, made of velvet-soft beaver felt and accessorized with a venison leather hatband. It’s the hat of a bull rider, but this is no rodeo champion. His nails are soft pink ovals, slightly overgrown. Computer work of some kind, I’d guess. I type his total into the cash register. The zeros on the end of the price stare at me with their hollow, dead eyes.

“You’re just visiting, then?” I ask him to fill the silence.

“Uh-huh.” he nods enthusiastically, “I’m from San Diego, but I always felt a calling toward Montana. I mean– Big Sky Country! Pristine wilderness. Real Indians and everything.”

I smile my smile reserved for men like this– tourists who know, despite all evidence to the contrary, that they are Clint Eastwood.

“I’ll move here someday and get away from all the California bullshit.” he says with a sigh, “I could start up a ranch, get some horses or a few cows.”

I nod. This is the dream that all the fake cowboys have. No matter that their experience with livestock begins and ends with a swayback mare once ridden in two slow circles around a county fair. They want the horses and cows, and expect the angel of John Wayne to fly down on wings made of the American flag to kiss them on the forehead for even having the idea.

“I’ve got a couple horses.” I lie, “Edna and O'Reilly.” The names of two favorite mules my father used to pack. Here in the hat shop, they are upgraded to the realm of the equestrian.

His eyes light up, “D’you really?”

“Uh-huh.” I nod, “Mare and a stallion. Edna is getting up there in years now, but O’Reilly is still real spry.” I haven’t seen the real Edna and O’Reilly since last August, but I’ve mentioned their fictional counterparts plenty.

It feels good to lie to the tourists, especially ones like this, who are so willing to believe. I like the person I am in the lie. Skijoring state champ with two horses, like a comfortable Halloween costume.

“Do you have any pictures?” he asks.

“Sure, one sec.” I say, pulling my phone from my back pocket. My boss wouldn’t like this– he doesn’t want any of his employees to have their phone out on the floor because it’s “not western”. As if we should all send each other wax-stamped letters via Pony Express, or else rely on smoke signals.

The tourist watches me intently. I google “horses”, take a screenshot of the third image, then turn my phone around for him to look.

“Beautiful.” he breathes, “That one’s Edna?”

The image is of a young chestnut stallion, its penis clearly hanging beneath its body.

“Yup, that’s Edna.” I say, nodding, “She’s a beaut!” Better to just agree with him. My lie warps and I fill its empty space like water. A skijoring state champ with a transgender horse named Edna. That’s me.

“Did you grow up riding horses?” he asks.

“Your total is $1,100.00” I say. The hat he’s buying is worth more than I pay for rent in a month at my shithole apartment, another disappointment of reality readily fixed with a quick lie. If the fake cowboy asks, which he won’t, I’m prepared to tell him I live in a converted one-room schoolhouse still heated by its original wood stove. So rugged. So western.

He hands over a weighty black Amex card, the metal kind that assures its holder of the many airline points stored within.

I run the card and then, when it becomes clear he is still waiting for a response, I answer his question “Mostly rode mules growing up.” I say, “Dad’s a packer.” Here is the rare stem of truth in my bouquet of lies.

My father did pack mules for 30 odd years before they found him face down in the dirt last August. Heart attack. Fell right out of his saddle. Couldn’t have an open casket ‘cause his mule spooked and kicked his head in.

Fake cowboy puts his Amex back into a velcro wallet– a real cowboy hat and a child’s wallet– and blinks slowly, “A packer?”

I nod, “Yup.” but my mind is elsewhere, breathing antiseptic hospital air while they tell me there’s nothing they can do. The doctor says he died peacefully before the mule brained him, but that’s a lie. They give me back the Woolrich he was wearing that day, stiff as cardboard with his blood. I know the dead don’t bleed like that.

“What’s a packer?” fake cowboy asks. He’s got long eyelashes for a man. I’m thinking about that Woolrich, wondering if they could have washed Dad’s blood out at the hospital before handing it back. I threw it away in a gas station trash can on the way home because I didn’t want to watch the water go red in the laundromat washing machine.

“A packer.” I say, “He packs mules into the backcountry for a guiding company.”

“Oh! Of course, of course.” Fake cowboy has no idea what I’m talking about.

He slides his velcro wallet into the back pocket of his jeans, ironed and so dark they’re nearly black. The label is designer.

“Does your dad like packing?” the fake cowboy asks.

“Loves it.” I say. I don’t think my dad loved packing. But he was good with stock and didn’t have many other options for work. I’m not sure that he knew how to read very well, not that it matters now. “Anything else planned for the day?”

“I’m going to a dude ranch!” he says, and I can picture him there immediately, wandering around with his new hat, hands on his waist, mouth open to catch flies.

“How fun.” another lie, “Have a good one.”

He tips his new hat, pinky pointed ridiculously into the air, as if his little finger will be attending high tea without the rest of his hand, “Howdy-ho, partner.”

Bye.” I say, and enjoy the moments between when he stops talking to me and when he exits the hat shop. After he leaves, I’ll be an orphaned retail worker. But for now, I am someone else entirely. Champion skijorer. Owner of the first horse with a gender orientation. Lover of dude ranches. Child of a living father.

The fake cowboy leaves, and my better self follows him out.

Harriet Smith was born and raised in Boise, ID and graduated with a bachelor of arts from the University of Montana. Previous work has appeared in The Oval. She currently lives in Eugene, OR.