The old man's chair propped easily against the clapboard wall.
Dark eyes alertly watched the stranger coming up the road.
The stranger spoke: "I'm new here. (As if he didn't know).
I was told you best could share some Indian lore."
The chair anchored slowly on all four legs.
That chiseled face looked up in contact eye to eye
And scanned the clothes and soft-skinned cowboy boots.
" You bringum wampum or fire-water for the Chief? "
Those words were B grade western script with deeper meaning.
The stranger sought an answer to this strange request.
"I'll gladly pay you for your time. I do have money for an hour."
"Never mind", the Chief replied." Its just an inside joke."
His face turned hard and sad.
"Look to the north! Those purple hills once stirred
With pulsing life; the deer and bear and bird.
My tribal roots are buried in this sand
Where maize grew from this once productive land.
My people fished that now dead stream a thousand years! "
The old man's eyes were glistening with tears.
" I watched it die as roads chopped through it's bed.
There, long ago, the brook and browns were bred.
You want to hear of greater days long past?
I cannot now recall. Time moves it's way too fast.
Speak not to me to find who we once were.
Gaze on this dying land and talk to her."
His chair leaned back to balance on two legs.
The stranger said a soft, "Goodbye" and walked away.
A car sped by; then a truck of waving logs.
Sun and dust turned the purple hills to brown.