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Got a new hat a few months back for the tour of The Dark Horse, and those of you in the West know just how traumatic that can be. It's kind of like, and I'm guessing here, when a woman gets a new hairstyle. You know the old saying, ‘Never approach a bull from the front, a mule from the back, or a woman with a new hairstyle from any direction'.

 I tried the darn thing on about twelve times before buying it and then shipped it off to my hat guru, Mike Thomas, at H-Bar Hats in Billings for a little tweaking. As usual, it was back within the week--transformed into a wonderful facsimile of the one Jimmy Stewart wore in all those Anthony Mann westerns such as The Naked Spur, The Man From Laramie, and Winchester ‘73. He did a fantastic job, but when I pulled said hat from the box, something else came out with it-another hat.

It was a silver-belly, conservative, cattleman's crown with a moderate brim; handsome, but not mine. I figured Mike must've accidentally stuffed somebody else's hat in on top of mine and then shipped it off. No big deal, I'd just put it back in the box and return it to him. Then I got to thinking--Mike is a gracious soul and given to giving gifts, so I tried it on.

It dropped down over my ears in a more than comical fashion.

Definitely not mine.

I pulled it off and looked at it again, thinking for sure there must've been a mistake, but my answer was there in the liner. You see, in The Dark Horse, a young woman picks up the undercover sheriff's hat to move it and reads the inside of the 7 ¾". She surmises that since Walt's hat is local, he must be, too.

I've hung the hat above my writing desk at about six-foot-five, where I could keep an eye on my fictitious sheriff-or is he? I get letters addressed to him, even love notes passed at events for me to forward his way. At book stores and libraries people ask me questions about him, and some have even asked for his phone number. I'm not making fun, after all I walk around talking to him and the other characters all the time and they talk back, hence the books.

Otherwise, they would've locked me up a long time ago.

When I'm writing, I peek up under that gift hat and read, This Hat Custom Made for Sheriff Walt Longmire, Compliments of the People of Absaroka County.

I always smile when I read that, and the sheriff does too.

I'm on tour, so check the ‘Tour of Duty' portion of my website at www.craigallenjohnson.com to see where and when in Houston, Austin, New Orleans, Minneapolis, Chicago, Madison, Pittsburgh, NYC, Scottsdale, LA and Denver to start and then the Greater Northwest with Oklahoma City (The Spur Award) thrown in.

Craig Johnson, The Dark Horse, Walt Longmire, Penguin Books