Okay, so you’re a Native American kid sitting in the gymnasium in Poplar, Montana, on the Fort Peck Indian Reservation wondering who’s mad about what now, because there’s no assembly geek doing a set-up on the floor and that’s the only other explanation. You’re happy to be out of class where you never get what’s going on anyway. The new principal takes the...

When I first came to Montana, aged 21, all frisky and up for anything, there were pads of counter checks at all the stores — you wrote in the name of the bank and kept your balance register in your head. Your change came in silver dollars so your pockets were always a little baggy and clinked. If you had an overdraft, the bank called you up, you jumped in the pickup...