Faith Spotted Eagle and her young adult grandson joined me for dinner one night at one of the strip clubs that is a favorite of hunters. Faith is an activist from the Dakota Nation working to draw attention to the dangerous repercussions of building a pipeline through the state. We made an unlikely trio, two middle-aged, matronly Native women and a young Native hipster (her Takoja or grandson) wearing a chic pork pie hat. The owner was quick to seat us away from the bar and the stage in an abandoned dining room plastered with old photographs of generations of patrons and their cowboy hats that crowded the walls. The club had a definite “pioneer” atmosphere and I speculated that the cowboy hats hadn’t been dusted since the covered wagons passed through.

We could just barely make out the booming voice of he middle-aged female owner as she talked on the phone, seemingly about arranging bus transportation to the club. She wore bright red lipstick and a snug red and white checkered blouse and jeans, matching the pioneer ambiance. Her voice was sharp as she negotiated the price with the person on the other end of the phone. “We ain’t coming out there for nothing!”

Hunters crowded the bar room next door and music throbbed from the inner recesses of the building. I could see that Faith’s Takoja was uneasy as we waited for our steaks to arrive. He was escorting his grandma to a wake in Rosebud and had been told that they would be joining a friend--me--for dinner. Clearly this was not what he had expected.

A young woman suddenly rounded the corner from the bar, pulling her top down over enormous inflated objects that I realized were her breasts. Takoja was unprepared for this sight. A flurry of emotions flashed across his face as he seemed to struggle to make sense of it all. Far too many unlikely worlds had converged for him as he abruptly snapped his mouth shut and shook his head very, very slowly.