He closed my window, activated the window lock.
He said he left a note for my mother. That we’d be back soon enough. Not to fret.
To pick a campsite, he turned sharply off the highway, zoomed through rows of thin tall trees, crashed through brambles and shrubs. He suddenly stopped and said one should always take the untrodden path, that we had supplies to last at least a week, that we were AWOL—off the rez, but not forever. We dug the fire pit, pitched a tent. He killed the headlights.
But don’t you ever say that, he said. You can’t use that word.
We hadn’t said anything to one another for some half an eternity.
What word? I said.
He liked to answer my questions even when he didn’t know the answers.
Rez, he said. I know your mother says you’re part Native, she’s lying.
After we got the dogs over the flames, his big glassy eyes remained trained on the sky.
Wherever you go, whatever you do, he said, they’ll see you. He looked at me dead-seriously; I didn’t recognize him then. So be good.
We were out there for what could’ve been a month.
When I got home my mother gave me a long bubble bath.
She, too, said the same: You don’t need the courts. You need me.
About that trip, I struggle to remember much else.