Adahy

The transport van lurched over a washed out road into the rez. I slammed against the steel wall as radios burst into static. Someone cursed in a voice trying to sound official. Tires bit gravel. A pickup blocked the track with its lights still on. Men in camouflage stepped out. Not police. Private security with clipboards & rifles slung like routine. By the time it stopped, I sat in the band office under buzzing fluorescent light, split lip, borrowed hoodie. A kettle hissed too long on a hot plate. The door opened. A broad shouldered man entered without hurry. His braid was tied low, damp at the ends. Behind him came Niska, placing two cups of tea that were too hot to touch. "He says you can leave," she said. "If the road opens." "When?" She looked at the floor. "Nobody knows." The man spoke without looking at you. "You filmed the survey stakes." "I filmed machines on our land." "They call it interference." Outside, orange flags marked the riverbank like warnings nobody agreed to explain. A generator rattled nonstop.  I stayed because the gate never stayed open long enough to become an exit. Notices were taped to doors in layers, each one claiming the last one had already closed the matter. He left before sunrise. Mud dried on his boots in thick rings. He returned with the truck bed half full of fence posts one day & sacks of groceries the next. He never said which work paid for what. On the 4th night he dragged a wooden chair closer to the stove angled slightly toward me. "Sit." I did. His hands stayed on his knees. Mine stayed folded too tight. By morning, federal vehicles lined the far road. Reporters stood behind temporary fencing, lenses pointed at the wrong edge of the story.  He stood in the ditch, boots sinking into mud.  "They will ask who began it," I said. "They always do," he replied. A fence post lay across the road like punctuation nobody agreed to read. The convoy rolled through anyway.