Eating Crow 6

                  ‘Always take a good look at what you’re about to eat. It’s not so
                   important to know what it is, but it’s critical to know what it was.’


“Y’all like Indian tacos?” She asked. Her T-shirt was topical. I'm so cute I must be Crow. I asked her what Indian tacos were.
“There kinda like Mexican tacos but we make them with fried bread.” She was cute. We had the tacos.
The Trading Post at the bottom of the hill from where Custer last stood, had been an old log cabin military barracks, with metal bars and red, white and blue stars and bars banners on the dormer windows, a cow skull and big wooden stars high on the facade, and a Buffalo steaks and burgers cutout buffalo hanging under the porch roof. An elevated log guard tower stood at the end of a row of tipis with long wooden poles, protruding into the sky like abandoned aerials, in supplication to the signal of a lost generation of spirits, missing on the open plains. We approached under a lone cottonwood, past a group of wooden wagons, so faded and dilapidated, I figured they must have been from the battle. An American flag flew over our entrance.
The place was packed for lunch. It was bustling. The Crow had done well, or at least the owner, who rolled through the crowded tables in his ponytail and cowboy hat, and a large flyswatter in the back pocket of his jeans. The cash register played pinball, beside the rack of Doritos and Chitos and Frito-lay snacks and the heat lamp and coffee maker, just inside the café. The Indian farmer with the Mexican straw Stetson and the large Pepsi said grace at the next table, beside the fat white Southerner with a long beard and Alamo baseball cap, and pants with both a belt and suspenders.  You can’t trust a man that can’t trust his pants. The rest of the Indians at the table were holding out their cell phones, double checking the courage that was fear saying its prayers. A morbidly obese native policeman in a blue uniform, big gun and walkie-talkie on his big belt, bought two feather-shaped lollipops, out of the bonbon bonnet of the plaster Indian chief.
“We haven’t seen this many Indians in one place before.” Said Robyn.
“Custer’s words.” I said. The ipod over the cash register played honkeytonk. Well I ain’t never been the Barbie Doll type, I can't swig that sweet champagne…
“How did you like your tacos?” She asked. We nodded. They had been like beignets, with lettuce and tomatoes and shredded cheddar and olives and sour cream and salsa. "Is there anything else we can help you with today?” I had a mental image of Curley, Custer's Crow scout.
“No, thanks.” I said. “I reckon we should be gettin’ up over the hill there.” A Michigan yell and a Hokey Hey. I went to the Bacheé men’s room, and bought a cowboy hat in the Indian shop. Buffalo heads and cow skulls and empty papooses looked down on my purchase.
Robyn and I headed south, through the yellow that is Montana, to the yellow across the state line. Welcome to Wyoming… Bridges may be icy… No jake brake.
If lunch had been Indian and buffalo, Sheridan was all cowboy and cattle. The wide main street was empty, like a ghost town. But beyond the bad mural of Buffalo Bill and the brilliant bronze statue of a moustached cowpuncher with his rifle slung over his shoulder (and his exaggerated heavy metal jock strap), was the green and red bucking bronco lassoing cowboy and the green neon cattle brands on the marquis of the Mint Bar. A giant pink neon horseshoe hung on below. Inside, under the embossed tin roof and wagon wheel chandeliers, were three walls of horns and heads, and period photos. A big Jack Daniels in yellow neon illuminated a length of stools, firewater full of mid-afternoon patrons, happy as ticks on a fat dog. But we hadn't stopped in Sheridan for the liquor. We had stopped for the leather.
Queen Elizabeth had visited King’s Saddlery. At first, we had no idea why.
“Its in the back.” She said. “You have to cross the alley.” We opened the most unremarkable door, and entered the most marvellous museum mausoleum. Room after room of equestrian equipage and ropes and relics of the Old West were crammed together under dim fluorescent light. Every animal that had every lived had left its head and horns on the brick walls- elk and moose and deer and bighorn sheep and mountain goats, and gazelles and kudus and ibex and wildebeest and water buffalo, some walls looking in one direction, others in another. A stuffed giraffe looked over at us from a far corner. Regimented rows of saddles from all over the world ran along wall-mounted displays; a sea of skilled awl-worked calfskin and sinew filled in the spaces. And then it just started in my head. Movin', movin', movin', Though they're disapprovin', Keep them dogies movin’… Don't try to understand 'em, Just rope an' throw an' brand 'em. Head 'em up, move 'em on. Move 'em out, head 'em up…Ride 'em in, cut 'em out, Cut 'em out, ride 'em in… Rawhide. Indian art and artifacts hung on and off the walls. The message in the last room was subtle. Hippies use back door.
Back on Main Street, the poster on the Boot Barn window, down from the Hair We Are styling salon, advertised a Stinky Boot trade-in event… with a skunk climbing out of a cowboy boot. We drove to the city park to look for the elk and buffalo, but they may have been aware of the fate of their relatives on the walls of King’s Saddlery, and didn’t come out of their enclosures.
Robyn and I continued south towards Buffalo, and got lost, detouring through the native agency, swirling like water around a stone. We ended up in some ‘drug free’ school zone, where a recent migrant from California told us we had to go back to Sheridan, and take the highway.
“You came a long way to find something that isn't out here.” She said.
“What’s in Buffalo?” Robyn asked.
“Even less.” She said. But she was wrong.
The Occidental Hotel was in Buffalo. It appeared at the bottom of the hill, all brick and awnings. Buffalo was also in the Occidental Hotel. It was built by Buffalo Bill Cody. Founded 1880. But the town wasn’t named for Buffalo Bill, but for Buffalo, New York. Furthermore, its restaurant was called The Virginian. Fine Western Dining. I wouldn’t find out why until later. Why, oh why, did I ever leave Wyoming? Cause there's a sheriff back there, Lookin' for me high and low…
Robyn and I walked into over a hundred years ago. Between the wooden floors and high embossed tin ceilings was wainscotted lichen wallpaper decorated with Old West paintings, separated by tall draped windows with OH in gothic script in the opaque upper ones over the valences. The lobby was huge and barely filled with settees and cushions, rocking chairs, a clavichord, and books. It was lit by hanging tulip chandeliers, a titanic Tiffany suspended in flame ember and liquid green, electric candles, and several standing opalescent globe table lamps. A fireplace, with a mirror over the mantle ushered us toward the decapitated elk eyes, watching us over the reception desk. The ageless grey-haired owner already knew us.
“Which was the room that Hemingway slept in?” I asked.
“Number four.” She said. “But I’ve upgraded you to the Rose Room.” I wanted to sleep where he had, but Robyn like the sound of roses.
“What was he doing way out here, anyway?” She had asked.
“During the early 1930s Hemingway spent his summers in Wyoming.” I said. “He hunted deer, elk and grizzly bear, and called it 'the most beautiful country he had seen in the American West.' In November of 1930, after he took John Dos Passos to the train station in Billings, he broke his arm in a car accident. The surgeon who treated the compound spiral fracture sutured his writing arm bone back together with kangaroo tendon. It took a painful year to heal, during which his wife Pauline had his third son, and after which she took him and the rest of the children and left for good. Hemingway married Martha Gelhorn in Cheyenne, where she inspired him to begin For Whom the Bell Tolls, his most famous novel, in 1939. It sold half a million copies within months, was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize, and triumphantly re-established Hemingway's literary reputation.” Robyn had tuned out my last words.
“What time would you like to book dinner in The Virginian? Asked the grey-haired proprietress. I told her we hadn’t decided. She told me to let her know when we had.
The stairs creaked, and the floor did the same. We inserted our key into its opening. A painting of a lady from two centuries before, and a hanging opaque glass lamp, looked over the crocheted rose pillows on the four-pointed post bed. Fresh roses sat in a vase on a side table. The floor sloped away to the Old West. I went creaky walkabout, first to the library of the ‘Families of Dinosaurs’ poster above the carnivorous dinosaur skull fossil, and then back down the stairs, to the saloon.
Moose and elk and buffalo and deer heads, and horns and pelts lined the three walls that the stained glass and mirrors didn’t. It was dark and quiet. Old newspaper articles had become wallpaper in the restroom, around a period porcelain sink and oval mirror. No one was eating in The Virginian. I went back upstairs to get Robyn.
“Quieter than a mouse chewing cotton.” I said.
“What about that steakhouse we saw on the other edge of town?” She asked. So we went there. Beyond the wild mustangs and cattle and cowboys on the mural near the bridge. Buffalo, Wyoming… More than a one-horse town 1884… A creek runs through it.
It was called the Winchester, and the parking lot was full. Inside was the kind of noise you only hear in American restaurants, the sound of individualism, digging in like wolves after guts, gorging on a good deal. We had to wait. The fastest way to move cattle is slowly.
“You must be getting hungry.” Said the girl that finally took us to a table.
“My belly button’s rubbed a blister on my backbone.” I said. We ordered ribeyes and mushrooms, with potatoes and an iceberg salad ‘wedge’ with blue cheese dressing, and Moose Drool beer to wash it down.
“How do you like your steak?” She asked.
“Lop off the horns and the tail and put it on the plate.” I said. And we waited with anticipation, to experience what had brought all these other Wyoming gourmets to town.
It didn’t go well. We were two Moose Drools down the road before the food caught up. Everything was as big as the country, but the potatoes tasted of powder and process and packaging; the mushrooms tasted of tin. The blue cheese dressing had drowned the lettuce wedge, but it may have been an act of mercy. I detected a strong door of Bovril. The only thing fresh was the beer glass that Robyn had asked to be replaced, because it was dirty. It came hot, fresh out of the dishwasher. My ribeye tasted like it had been salvaged from one of the taxidermy torsos on the wall of the Occidental saloon. And it came with an unexpected bonus.
“What’s that?” Asked Robyn. I looked down at a filiform foreign body in my meat.
“Dunno.” I said. We called over the waitress.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“Dunno.” She said. She called over the manager. They went away to decide.
“We think it’s a noodle.” She said, on returning.
“You don’t have noodles on your menu.” Robyn said. They offered to bring me another ribeye, but I was full.