I.
The boots; well, it was just because they were comfortable. Tony Lama makes a good walkin' boot, and once upon a time, back when they could still get GOOD leathers and didn't just have to stick to cow-hide, he'd bought a pair of alligator boots. That was around 1990, and he was still wearing them. He'd had the things re-soled five times and counting. They probably wouldn't be due again before the winter was out, but they were starting to get there.
The hat was a different story, or rather, had a story all by itself. The first time he'd seen the Stetson it had been jammed on the head of a nine year old girl in the middle of an exploding black and white pony. He was in Texas at a barbecue the chief deputy was throwing, and it was around eight in the evening. Summer time, and Millie, the little girl, had gotten bored with the adults and headed to the barn. Raylan was setting with her father at the top of the hill, and they watched her progress down through the overgrowth. The chief chuckled. "All you can see of her's that damn hat."
"S'a little big for her, innit?"
"Yeah. It's mine."
"Well how…."
The chief laughed. "She stuffed the hatband with paper towels. But hey. She earned it."
"Whatcha mean?" Raylan was getting around to being drunk, and his sentences, he knew, were not complex.
"Well….I told her she could have a hat when she did something to earn it. And that little heathen saved a hundred dollars or so, came home with a pony, and took a paper route to pay for feed. I chip in on shoein' and such, but she takes care of most of The Rocket's bills all by her lonesome. I figured that's earned her a hat."
"The Rocket, huh?"
"Yup."
"That doesn't sound like a pony name."
"You'll see here in a….well, take a look."
There was an open bottom out back of the barn that you could see clearly from the barbecue pit. Millie and the hat were sailing across it, buck by jump, as The Rocket hurtled skyward. The little black pinto was putting effort into it, twisting hard, landing funny, his head tucked tight between his knees, and Millie hung still as a stone on his back. She was sucked down in the saddle, straight legged, arms braced and keeping the reins tight on the pony's mouth.
The chief looked over at Raylan and chuckled. "Her mama hates me."
Raylan nodded. The chief was a divorcee. He got Millie every other week, and the Rocket was enough to keep the kid wanting to come back even when she was with her mama. The chief recounted broken bones, barrel races won, and how his little girl had took it upon herself to swim that pony across the Pecos and back.
They had almost drowned, the two of them. But they'd made the swim, and he pretty well figured the girl and the pony could do just about anything they needed to. Millie Claire was not bad to the bone, but she had all the makings.
The hat was huge.
Roughly fifteen minutes later The Rocket and Millie came to the house looking for watermelon, and the chief cut both pony and child a slice. Rocket slurped his piece down and chewed through the rind. Raylan made a comment about the hat.
"It's my daddy's hat." Millie said it with pride, stretching in the stirrups of her saddle.
"Think it'll fit me?"
"Nope. I'm not taking the paper towels out of the hat band. You can earn your own."
"Mills…." The chief raised a brow at her.
She whipped it off and handed it to Raylan with no further ado. "It won't fit. Promise."
It didn't.
II.
The next time he saw that hat was at Millie Claire's funeral. There had been a car wreck. Slick roads. The child and her mother had passed and the chief….well…..Raylan didn't know what to say. He watched, before they closed the casket, as the chief reached in and took the hat out of his little girl's hand and tucked it, very carefully, under his arm. Raylan wasn't in a position to be in the inner circle like the older Marshals, but Lord he wished there was something he could do.
A year passed and the man still wasn't the same. He hadn't sold The Rocket; the pony was in the pasture by himself, getting fat and becoming very lonely. Millie's hat was with her saddle on a rack in her old bedroom, kept like a museum, and he tried (the chief did) not to fall apart every time they saw a kid girl on a horse or a car wreck or a woman with long dark hair.
Raylan knew all of this, but there still wasn't a whole lot he could do for the man. He'd been moved up to prison transport that year, and that was interesting. Had a man take a driver hostage and Raylan did as he did. That was a rough night. People got shot. People got hurt. Nobody died, which was the important thing, but it was…..it was his first encounter with the AUSA, for one thing, and it was the first time he'd ever pointed a gun at a breathing man with intent to stop him in his tracks. Diff'ernt.
The chief had begun wearing Millie's hat again. The first time Raylan saw it on the man's head, he wondered. The next time he saw it, the comments got passed around the bullpen. The third time was a little easier to bear, and it looked more like it belonged to him again. A good memorial.
A couple days after his hostage situation, Raylan walked in and the hat was upside down on his desk. The chief was in Raylan's chair, waiting.
The Kentucky boy stopped, eyes wide, unsure.
"Take the hat, Raylan."
"…..I can't….."
The chief's eyes were dark and clear with the memory. He nodded toward it. "Try it on, Givens."
Raylan made a helpless gesture. "It don't fit."
"Bet it does now."
Raylan looked down at the caramel felt, the now-empty band inside the crown, looked up at his chief. He slipped his hand under the brim and picked it up, reverent. Turned the hat in his hands, settled it on his brow. The chief set back and studied him. The thing fit like it had been there for years.
III.
You don't go around telling people the hat on your head used to belong to a nine year old girl. You do remember, though, what she said the few times you spoke to her. You do remember what her father taught you.
You make a life of your own. You do your best with what you've got, and if, between the boots and the hat that has become your own, you get the rep as a cowboy, then that's what it is. It doesn't hurt you in any way, shape or form. Makes things easier in some ways.
And you don't tell the story upon the asking. You make them earn it. As yet, nobody has. The retirees in the Dallas office know. But they're the only ones.