The musician sat alone, on a bale of hay, facing his audience. Most of the folks he had known for decades, most of his life. The younger ones, probably for all of their lives. He wore a dark ball cap, too old and soiled for the logo to be legible, with blue jeans and a dark jacket. His feet, of course, were shod in western boots, his face trimmed with a neat, short beard that had years ago turned grey.

The floor at his feet was dirt, as it was for all of the barn. We in the audience faced him in three straight rows of hay bales that ran from the open door to the chutes and corral to the south, to the door onto the drive on the north. Seating was at a premium.

The hay was all new. Cut, baled and dried within the past two or three weeks, a delightful aroma of native grasses. The male half of the twins, almost 20 months old, took great delight in ripping out handfuls of straw and dipping them in any open container of liquid, like a raccoon.

So you had to watch your drink.

Behind us, in the third row next to the pair of spiffed up single cowboys and the back wall, a black merle border collie dug and tugged at a bale to make a bed. His playmate, the red merle who had teamed up with him to finally nail the rooster that had harassed the two of them all summer but had gotten distracted by all the company, was laying between the wife and I, his head and shoulders in her lap, the front feet hanging limp in deep sleep.

We had worried about these dogs being working, outdoors dogs and, sure enough, sometime during the music the wife flicked a flea off her denim skirt.

Towards me, I noticed.

The barn was ancient, by western standards. Not a planed board in sight, just rounded, worn logs that had been hauled down by hand and horse off the steep mountains above us. Probably at least a century before. The largest trees, not quite a half-meter in diameter, had been used as the support posts down the middle. But trees don't grow too large here, so the ceiling was low. And lit with just four bare bulbs, and strings of white Christmas lights draped along the walls and beams. All of the tack needed to run a western cattle ranch was hung on wooden pegs in the wall on the left, all neatly sorted. The saddles themselves straddled beams around the room. An aluminum boat rested on the rafters above us.

A small, tired boy was asleep in the corn crib in the right corner, right where his mother had laid him.

The musician had not planned on being up front where he was. He had come as a guest of our hosts, just as the rest of us had. Music until that point had been provided by a cd-player hidden in one of the stalls, behind the table where the warming oven had been plugged in for the potluck dinner. But our host and his young wife, whom one of you in Georgia grew up with, had brought out their own guitar.

The musician begged off, pointing out he had not brought a pick.

One of which they promptly handed him.

And so it was settled. The canned music turned off, and his single bale set in the corral, which had been serving as the dance floor. (But, as one woman pointed out, the average age of the dancers was either less than 3 years, or more than 80. Two sisters and their brother's wife had tried one line dance, but most of us were too shy and ignorant to join them.)

I don't remember his first song. Tried to, at least one favorite lyric, but it went away from my brain with his second tune. About a red-haired cowboy who rode into town on a black stallion, leading a bay mare. And the grave he left behind, high on a hill...

All of his songs were country, most of them old. Most totally unknown to me. Some almost unknown to him, as he and the three sisters tried to piece together tunes and lyrics from their childhood. It was incredibly personal, intimate to participate in, like joining another family for their Christmas celebration and traditions.

My friend and host, wearing a cowboy hat and sitting on the other side of his wife from me, put his elbows on his knees and stared at the dirt at his feet when the balladeer sang The Green, Green Grass of Home. His mother's favorite, played at her funeral two years back.

The light through the open doors went from dim to gone as our musician sang, taking requests from the rest of us, testing chords on the guitar before he attempted some. Starting over when a passage was missed, or a lyric failed.

And no one minded at all.

When he started up on the Streets of Laredo, the wife quietly joined in, as did I on the chorus. Thought we were being quiet enough not to be heard, but as I faltered at the end of one verse, the musician up front stopped as well. And publicly blamed it on me, claiming he had been following my lead.

Folks slowly began to filter out, starting with the families with young children. A little after ten-thirty, we made our thanks to our hosts, and headed out ourselves. Directing a warden's wife with their two boys to the correct road, lest she wander miles down the creek through the hayfields.

The road climbs a mile or so up out of the creek bottom, then follows a rocky ridge for several miles to the highway. At the crest of the ridge, halfway to the highway, I had the wife stop to give me a quick pee break. Soon as I finished my business I told her to kill the engine and lights and come outside.

How long's it been since you saw the Milky Way like that?

It was just incredible. Stars everywhere on a dark night, with a thick, creamy band across the sky from the south towards the north, looking like clouds of water rather than astral clouds of stars. Spotted a dim satellite wending its way northeast through the Way, and several jet planes ferrying their cargo or passengers across the country.

Then it was back into the SUV and down the road to the highway. And the hour drive home.