A Coyote Hat for the Mountain Man from Cabela's.

At the family-run grocery store in the nearby mountain village, I’m checking the contents of my shopping basket against my mental grocery list. I suppose I have a thing against paper. My very organized husband would second that.

I look up to say hello to the checker, the elderly woman who nearly always asks me for ID if I’m buying beer or wine. I started this tradition a while ago by asking her pointedly if she didn’t want to see my ID regarding the bottle of merlot I handed her after she’d just carded some pimply faced teenage boys who were trying to get away with something. Now she’s got me. I’m a victim of my own smart aleckiness. I’m ready for her, though, with NM driver’s license in hand--demonstrating what we both know as sure as we’re standing here, that I’m well beyond the legal age.

Instead of my friend’s twinkling blue eyes deep set in sun baked wrinkles, I find myself staring into two hard, black beads, the shining eyes of a varmint.

A creature from another time and place.

I nearly drop the can of Bush’s Baked Beans, and then I realize it’s not a varmint, but a hat. A hat made out of a beaver or something closely akin to the buck toothed creature . A wolverine? A marmot? A hedgehog? Whatever it is, the critter is dead as a doornail. Grotesquely resplendent with overstuffed, slightly unnatural head, limp legs, paws with tiny claws all intact, and a bushy tail hanging down the back of the wearer, almost to his waist.

I hand over all of my groceries and watch in fascination as the wooly man scans the bar codes. His mustache and beard and eyes are as inky black as the fur of the dead animal that comprises the decorative thing he’s wearing on his head. I fight the compulsion to say something like, “Nice hat,” because I nearly always feel compelled to comment on surprising things, even if it’s not wholly honest, you know in the spirit of self-preservation and social niceties. Probably because there’s a slew of other things I’d rather say, or ask, but can’t.

But the thought that there might be an iron hammer behind the counter, maybe a lightning bolt, something that would be wielded by a Big Bad Beaver God (or maybe a mountain man whose spent too much time alone in the wilderness), keeps my mouth shut.

The Big Bad Beaver God is careful not to squish the cellophane wrapped loaf of bread as he places it with big square hands on top of my other groceries in the paper bag. He looks like he might have ridden in with Odin and his crew as he swipes my credit card, but that gets pretty much spoiled by the beer belly bulging out of his flannel shirt over the top of his Wranglers.

Well, that and the Harley-Davidson leather vest.

I am proud of myself for not asking him sweetly and with the utmost seriousness and respect just where he got that fabulous hat. I try not to stare, but gosh darn it if I can’t take my eyes off the thing. I want to hold it in my hands. See how it’s made. Heck, try it on and look in the mirror. Talk to the guy about why he wears such a thing. In the grocery store. I mean, what’s up with that?

Do Big Bad Beaver Gods wear get ups like this so mortals like myself will stare, slack jawed? Do they want to be worshiped with attention? Or would they really just prefer to be left alone, treading the earth, but not quite touching the ground?

I manage to just say Thank You and Have a Nice Day. Nothing more. Nothing less.

On the way home, I drive my SUV across the bridge over the creek with the beaver dam that’s been there for years. The one I nearly stop on each and every time if there’s no one behind me on the rural road. Just to try and catch a glimpse of the builder through the windows.