The Impact of the Surroundings

This settlement would have been very similar to the farm Archilde and his family lived on. 

The most important scene of the novel comes when Archilde and his mother go to search for their family member Louis, and try to bring him home from the mountains. They arrive to his camp with food and water because the mountains proved to be a tough hunting ground for Louis so he had been dependent on his mother for food. Before this scene begins, Archilde notes that, "it seemed that every time an Indian left the reservation he almost certainly rain in to the Sheriff and had to give an account of himself" (McNickle, 117). And surely enough, Louis, Archilde, and their mother were stalked by Sheriff Quigley throughout their whole time in the mountains. 

The main action in the novel comes from this scene when the Sheriff chooses to violently confront the camping family members. In a rage, Sheriff Quigley fires his gun at Louis and reactively, Archilde's mother shoots the Sheriff in the back of the head using his rifle. This conflict will lead to Archilde becoming permanently surrounded by the reservation and the mountains stood as the symbolic setting for this major action. For the remainder of the novel, Archilde spends his time avoiding interaction with federal agents, but he knows that if it comes down to it, he must take the fall for his aging mother.

The closing quote of the novel returns full circle to fully engage the fated nature of this scene. The federal agent Mr. Parker says, "'How far do they expect to get? It's to damn bad you people never learn that you can't run away. It's pathetic.' Archilde, says nothing, extends his hands to be shackled" (McNickle, 297).