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The Final Guard
The bearded guard greets the narrator and his mother at the U.S. border after Cecil goes into the border office to get him. He asks the narrator’s mother to tell him whether they are from the “American side” or the “Canadian side” of the Blackfoot Confederacy, sidestepping the word “citizenship,” but the narrator’s mother answers, “Blackfoot side.” The narrator, watching from the backseat, compares the bearded guard to a cowboy for his confident stance and holstered gun.
The Bearded Guard Quotes in Borders
The Borders quotes below are all either spoken by The Bearded Guard or refer to The Bearded Guard. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
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Borders Quotes
In about five minutes, another guard came out with the first man. They were talking as they came, both men swaying back and forth like two cowboys headed for a bar or a gun fight.
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We sat on a wood bench for about an hour before anyone came over to talk to us. This time it was a woman. She had a gun, too.
“Hi. I’m Inspector Pratt. I understand there is a little misunderstanding.”
“I’m going to visit my daughter in Salt Lake City. We don’t have any guns or beer.”
“It’s a legal technicality, that’s all.”
“My daughter’s Blackfoot, too.”
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The Bearded Guard Character Timeline in Borders
The timeline below shows where the character The Bearded Guard appears in Borders. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Borders
...against the window and looks outside. A few minutes later, Cecil reemerges with a younger, bearded guard . The narrator compares them to cowboys walking toward a gun fight, taking note of...
(full context)
Sharing a look with Cecil, the bearded guard rephrases Cecil’s question to the narrator’s mother. This time, the guard asks whether they come...
(full context)
...car windows, the narrator sees the guards’ crossed arms as they confer. Cecil and the bearded guard tell the narrator and his mother to park next to the building and come inside....
(full context)
