Twisted Rope

The first part of my bicycle tour is done for the year. I made the continental divide but the wind and temperatures were too extreme to ride further. So, if I am able to come back next spring to ride some more, I will start at the continental divide and head east on Highway 2. I don't know what to expect as I ride across the “big flat” as I've named the northern Great Plains. But we did take time out to see what we could see of Glacier National Park. In spite of the rain and wind it is a breathtaking landscape.

The east side, the short grass prairie side, the big flat, is mostly the Blackfeet Indian reservation. The Tribe seems to be working to keep the land functioning. There doesn't seem to be evidence of overgrazing, unmitigated development. It would be a stunning place to live even with the wind. All of the trees, aspen, fir, pines close to the toe of the Rockies are stunted and all lean towards the NE pushed into a permanent stoop by the wind. There are streams in the draws, ponds both natural and man-made in low areas, and lots of habitat for the creatures of the Plains. 

“That's a great view,” I said, pointing out of a west window at the peaks of south Glacier National Park. The waning moon hung high above the mountains. The red sunrise reflecting from the rocks of the peaks. The aspen along the creek behind the lodge were being scourged by the wind. Leaves exploded off of the trees every time a wind gust hit them. The man I talked to was washing window sills. He was from the Blackfeet Reservation.

“Yup,”

“I guess you get used to it because you see it everyday,” I said.

“I was born here. Right up the road about 15 miles. Now I live up by St. Mary”

“You work here?” I asked.

“Forty-one years I've been here except for two years I was in jail. Best job on the reservation. Where you from?”

“Salt Lake now but originally from southwest Colorado,” I said.

“Did you ever know Benjamin Yazzie from down that way? He was a Navajo”

“No,” I said.

“He and I were in a boarding school together when the government made us kids leave the reservation for school. It was down in Utah. So he came about halfway up and I went about halfway down. I'd never known a Navajo but he was okay. There were lots of Indians from your country but very few from the north, from up here. At least he wasn't Crow.”

“Brigham City?”

“Yup, that was the place. Lots of Mormons. Are you being a tourist?”

I told him about my bicycle trip; that I didn't really know why I had felt compelled to do it; that I had learned a lot from it about people, other places, other environments, my own contradictions. I told him I had forgotten what Glacier looked like from a previous trip to Kalispell and the Bob Marshall. I told him about seeing a sow grizzly and two cubs up Many Glaciers creek. He told me that I had driven by his place that was almost burned out in the huge fire in 2006. We talked about many things in the brief time we visited.

“Have you found out what it is that you were looking for?”

“Not quite but its like a feeling of deja vu, I feel like I've seen it before and its just at the corner of my minds eye.” I said.

He asked if this was a vision quest. I felt uncomfortable answering because I knew what my friend Clifford from the Ute Tribe thought about those words, how they came about, how the basic idea had been subverted and stolen by whites. The Blackfeet man saw my discomfort and smiled. He said he could tell I knew some real Indians and what they felt about the spiritual inventions forced on Tribes and then hijacked back by white people looking for answers.

“Oh,” I said, the word for a yes in Navajo. It felt right and appropriate to say it.

“You know some Navajo,” he said.

“Some, but I've forgot most of it. I learned it when I was a kid.”

He told me that he had went on a personal journey for much the same reason and at about the same age as I am now. I asked him if he had found what he was looking for.

“Yup, it was right where it had been all the time. I just had to do some stupid shit to get to it like drinking and losing my family, being put in jail for a couple of years.” he said.

“What was it you were looking for? If you don't mind me asking.”

“I'm not sure exactly but what I think I found was me.” he said. We exchanged names. His was Arnold. Then he shook my hand and went on with his morning chores at the hotel. As I left, I passed him and smiled, nodded my head to say goodbye.

“Hey,” he said. “my real name is Twisted Rope.”