“Must not be eatin much out here,” the hitchhiker muses to himself as he eyes the strange man up and down. The Indian approaches, smiling back, but in an eerie way that seems to go straight through the hitchhiker.

“How ya doin’?” The hitchhiker is openly cautious. He can’t recount every tale he heard growing up, like so many other young white boys, about Indians luring white men into traps at the side of the road, with a broken down car or an innocent-looking roadside stand, like this one.

“Fine.” The Indian says it in a studied way, as if he is delivering a true assessment. “You caught us just as we were opening up shop. Perhaps you’d like to take a look?” He motions towards the flimsy crates. A few dark-skinned, Asian-looking children, between the ages of a few months and eight years old, sit solemnly, staring towards the ground but really at nothing. Somewhere in the back, their mother fusses with a fire.

“Nah we’re just stoppin’ furra…” he looks at the driver, farther off from the road than true privacy would require, “..ta stretch a-legs,” the hitchhiker wisely continues.

“Have you ever tried strepatche?” It comes out “strip-hot-shee”, in three quickly spat words.
“Strip who?” The hitchhiker doesn’t really care to carry the conversation any further, but the driver still hasn’t returned. “What in the hell did-ee have ta piss so far away for?” The hitchhiker turns that even shade of annoyed, a hair past confused and just on the cusp of breaking into outright agitated. Its color is the orangey side of rust.

“Stip, hot, shee” the Indian gently explains, like a caring teacher. “Dried buffalo rump!” He says it in such an obvious way, the hitchhiker is almost tempted to go along and respond, “Oh! Strip, hot, shee! V’course!”; but he doesn’t. He settles on a noncommittal “hrmmm.”

The Indian becomes inspired. “Hold on! I’ll get you some.”

The hitchhiker studies hard at the ground between him and where the Indian has just run off to fetch some of the dried meat. His face may indicate the calm appraisal of a gourmet on the verge of a great discovery, but he is really wondering why the driver is taking so long in getting back, and why he, the rough-and-tumble, take-no-shit hitchhiker, is standing on the side of the road, making small talk with some “danged scalper.” He decides the situation is thoroughly ridiculous; and turns to spy the driver making the long trip back, slowly. He’s carrying something. The hitchhiker reminds himself of his gun, tucked into the sack lying on the passenger side of the pickup.