Borders

When I was twelve, maybe thirteen, my mother announced that we were going to go to Salt Lake City to visit my sister, who had left the reserve, moved across the line, and found a job.

Just outside of Milk River, Laetitia told us to watch for the water tower. “Over the next rise. It’s the first thing you see.”

“We got a water tower on the reserve. There’s a big one in Lethbridge, too.”

“You’ll be able to see the tops of the flagpoles, too. That’s where the border is.”

“This is real lousy coffee.”

“You’re just angry because I want to see the world.”

“It’s the water. From here on down, they got lousy water.”

“I can catch the bus from Sweetgrass. You don’t have to lift a finger.”

“You’re going to have to buy your water in bottles if you want good coffee.”

I wandered back to the car. The wind had come up, and it blew Laetitia’s hair across her face. Mom reached out and pulled the strands out of Laetitia’s eyes…and Laetitia let her.

[“You can still see the mountain from here.”] *In Blackfoot

“Lots of mountains in Salt Lake.”

The border was actually two towns, though neither one was big enough to amount to anything. Coutts was on the Canadian side and consisted of the convenience store and gas station…the museum that was closed and boarded up…and a motel. Sweetgrass was on the American side, but all you could see was an overpass that arched across the highway and disappeared into the prairies.

Just hearing the names of these towns, you would expect that Sweetgrass, which is a nice name and sounds like it is related to other places such as Medicine Hat and Moose Jaw and Kicking Horse Pass, would be on the Canadian side, and that Coutts, which sounds abrupt and rude, would be on the American side.

But this was not the case.

My mother got a coffee at the convenience store. And we stood around and watched the prairies move in the sunlight. Then we climbed back in the car.

My mother straightened the dress across her thighs, leaned against the wheel, and drove all the way to the border in first gear…slowly, as if she were trying to see through a bad storm or riding high on black ice.

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.”

[Inspector Pratt’s] gun was silver. There were several chips in the wood handle…and the name “Stella” was scratched into the metal butt.

The woman’s name was Carol…and I don’t guess she was any older than Laetitia.

“Wow, you both Canadians?”

“Blackfoot.”

“Really? I have a friend I went to school with who is Blackfoot. Do you know Mike Harley?”

“No.”

“He went to school in Lethbridge, but he’s really from Browning.”

It was a nice conversation and there were no cars behind us, so there was no rush.

“Salt Lake City is the gateway to some of the world’s most magnificent skiing. Salt Lake City is the home of one of the newer professional basketball franchises, the Utah Jazz. The Great Salt Lake is one of the natural wonders of the world.”

It was kind of exciting seeing all those color brochures on the table…and listening to Laetitia read all about how Salt Lake City was one of the best places in the entire world.

“That Salt Lake City place sounds too good to be true. We got everything right here.”

“It’s boring here.”

“People in Salt Lake City are probably sending away for brochures of Calgary and Lethbridge and Pincher Creek right now.”

In the end, my mother would say that maybe Laetitia should go to Salt Lake City, and Laetitia would say that maybe she would.

Mel turned out to be friendly. When he closed up for the night and found us still parked in the lot…he came over and asked us if our car was broken down or something. My mother thanked him for his concern and told him that we were fine…that things would get straightened out in the morning.

“You’re kidding. You’d think they could handle the simple things.”

“We got some apples and a banana, but we’re all out of ham sandwiches.”

“You know, you read about these things, but you just don’t believe it. You just don’t believe it.”

“Hamburgers would be even better because they got more stuff for energy.”

Late that night, I heard my mother open the car door. I found her sitting on her blanket leaning against the bumper of the car.

“You see all those stars. When I was a little girl, my grandmother used to take me and my sisters out on the prairies and tell us stories about all the stars.”

“Do you think Mel is going to bring us any hamburgers?”

“Every one of those stars has a story. You see that bunch of stars over there that look like a fish?”

“He didn’t say no.”

“Coyote went fishing, one day. That’s how it all started.”

We sat out under the stars that night, and my mother told me all sorts of stories, She was serious about it, too. She’d tell them slow, repeating parts as she went, as if she expected me to remember each one.

[The camera crew] mostly talked to my mother. Every so often one of the reporters would come over…and ask me questions about how it felt to be an Indian without a country. I told them we had a nice house on the reserve…and that my cousins had a couple of horses we rode when we went fishing.

It was almost evening when we left Coutts. I watched the border through the rear window until all you could see was the tops of the flagpoles and the blue water tower…and then they rolled over a hill and disappeared.