A traffic stop in new mexico

This spring we went to Santa Fe. We were there because we have the privilege and economic resources to go on vacations. We’d never been to New Mexico, and the three of us love the high desert, and flights were very cheap.

It was hot, I don’t mind telling you. Some days were hotter than others. The day that we treated ourselves to an afternoon horse-back ride through Ghost Ranch (where Georgia O’Keeffe used to live and paint), was 100 full degrees.

Now, some of y’all are half-lizard and you love to bask in the hot sun, and may the Great Cosmic Echidna shower her blessings upon you for it, but that is not me. I have a range of comfort that spans five whole degrees: 72-77 F.

Y’all. It was HOT in the desert sun. I was baking in my cowgirl jeans, closed-toe shoes, and bike helmet.

Now I’ve been through the desert on a horse with a name. It would have felt good to be out in some rain.

But it was beautiful, the horseback ride, and may the Great Cosmic Echidna also bless trail horses, who possess saintly patience and forbearance. My horse was “more whoa than go,” as a friend aptly put it, so I got a little extra time looking at Georgia O’Keeffe’s ranch house and the pedernals and hills from the paintings I’ve loved since my seventh-grade art teacher introduced our class to Georgia.

So. I mean. Lifelong dream of going to the Georgia O’Keeffe museum and seeing her ranch, well met.

After the horsey-back ride, sunburnt and dried-sweat-streaked, we went for a swim in a nearby reservoir. It was really nice, and do you know that tired feeling you get from swimming? Maybe it’s just me — but swimming gives me a deep sense of being righteously weary … and hungry … like nothing else does.

I say all this to give you the sense with which we piled back into our rental car for the hour-long drive back to our AirBnB.

Tired, thirsty (we’d long since drank all the water we packed), hungry, sunburned on noses, cheeks, ears, and ankles where our pants rode up and our socks didn’t cover. (These city slickers didn’t have cowboy hats or cowgirl boots. Missed opportunity there.)

I won’t say who was driving, but it was one of the three of us in our family and one of the two of us who are over 25 and therefore can drive a rental car.

The drive home was on the kind of highway that seems like a lonely Interstate through the desert until suddenly you’re on a road through a town with stoplights but it’s the same road. So there are a lot of speed limit changes.

And, as I may have mentioned, we were plum tuckered, as my dad would say.

The day before, we had spotted what had to be the most obvious, least hidden speed trap ever. A cop car right next to the road, just chilling under a big willow tree. Who would NOT see that speed trap and slow down in anticipation?

Tired city slickers. That’s who.

Same speed trap, different day.

“Shit,” said the driver.

“What?” said the passenger.

“Cop,” said the driver.

“Where?” said the person in the back seat.

“Don’t turn around!” said the driver and passenger in unison. Never turn around to look at a cop. Use your mirrors. Be sneaky. We’d been trying to teach this to the person in back seat for several years now.

The cop pulled out behind us and flashed his lights. We did that thing where we hope the cop car is after someone else. Nope. It’s us he was after.

The driver pulled over. We all put our hands where the cop could see them.

The cop ambled up to the driver side window. “How you folks doing today?”

“Okay,” said the driver.

“Know why I pulled you over?”

Why do they always ask that? Are they hoping you’ll cop to something bigger than speeding? “Well, officer I’m hoping you pulled me over because I’m speeding, and not because my trunk is full of primo Bubba Kush and the finest imported cocaine money can buy.”

Cop: I pulled you over because you were speeding.

Driver: I’m sorry, Officer. I didn’t realize I was.

Cop: Speed limit changed a while back. We take our speed limits seriously around here because there are pedestrians and intersections.

As this is happening, the passenger can only see the hands of the cop. The cops’ hands are deep brown and he has a beaded bracelet on his right wrist.

The cop takes the driver’s license and goes back to his car. He takes too long for it to just be a warning.

Getting a speeding ticket sucks.

The cop comes back.

Cop: I’m issuing you a ticket.

Driver: (unhappily) Oh. OK.

Cop: But it’s not that bad. You are on tribal land. That means your ticket does not get reported to your insurance. It all stays within the tribal legal system.

Driver: Oh. Oh! Really? It doesn’t go on my insurance?

Cop: Nope. And what you do now, is you decide whether you want to pay the fine, which is $82, or you can show up to court and see if you can get it dismissed. We have Zoom court, and you’ll go before a tribal judge. But if it’s not dismissed, you’ll end up paying probably $150.

Driver: (intrigued) Huh.

Passenger: If we pay the fine, does the money go straight to the tribe?

Cop: (chuckles mildly) Yes. It does.

Driver and passenger exchange a look.

Driver: We’ll pay the fine. Do we just pay it now?

Cop: No. You aren’t allowed to give me money. You’ll need to pay online or in person. All instructions are on this ticket.

(Cop hands driver a ticket that looks a lot like a receipt from CVS or Costco.)

Driver: Well. OK. I appreciate that it doesn’t go on my insurance. Because this is tribal land.

Cop: Yep. Drive safely now. Enjoy your visit.

We pull back onto the road. We all stay quiet for a long while.

Then, the driver says, “I mean. Isn’t it all, this whole country, tribal land.”

It is. It is all stolen tribal land.

Let’s give it back.

I mean it.

Not just a song lyric but my feeling about it.

Indigenous people were doing pretty great before my colonizing-settler, murderous, lying ancestors got here in 1608.

And I reckon the entire planet would be doing a whole lot better if we had continued to follow indigenous ways and wisdom instead of our diseased settler colonial empires. Not that things were perfect. But they were a lot better than things are under genocidal settler-colonizations.

And I reckon that’s what will eventually happen: one way or another, we will return to indigenous ways. (And all of us are indigenous to somewhere.) Either by choice or because of catastrophe.

There’s an Anishinaabe prophecy to that effect.

And I reckon they’re right.

I hope it’s by choice.

But the way things are going, I reckon it will be by greed-driven catastrophe.

But yeah, yes: this is all tribal land.

XOXO