Copper fence (brownish horizontal line in middle of picture) is a wall between California and Mexico. The top half of the picture's Mexico, bottom half, California.

Margaret Black Bear and I were strangers when I stepped out of my car, moated by a ditch in the dirt road arcing up to her house.

Dozens of rugged acres rise and fall in sun and shade between the roofs of neighbors in this high desert town.

The place is Jacumba, nearer to Mexico than to my house, which I’d left late afternoon, about an hour before . . . 8 days ago.

Circled the massive boulder, climbed the thirsty scrub-lined path to the ridgetop. Margaret called out to meet her on the side of the house.

Click here to see the view from the patio.

Face to face, she avoids eye contact.

Margaret is an artist. Sought her out after eyeing her work in Descanso Mercantile, a shop near home. Left my number with the proprietor, Michelle, and waited for Margaret to call. Weeks passed . . .

The house was constructed downhill. Once it was hoisted to the hilltop, its occupants could look out the living room window to a foreign country, where a different language is spoken. Scraggly tips of these barren tree branches can be seen at right in the "fence" photo, above.

Crescendo of barks from inside. The package deal is Margaret and her pups. She seems relieved when I beg to meet them, as they grow anxious when she’s out of sight. From tiny to honkin’, all are affectionate except the shrimp, Mah Hatone (“Arrow Man”), a white Chihuahua who yaps at my outstretched palm.

“Iyotake!” (sit down!) she gently commands Sunkj Manito Tanka, the big, coal-black bushy guy, who levitates the plastic patio table every time he glides underneath, sending our ice waters flying. “Stop carrying the table!” Gentle giant, love at first sight. I quickly learn to grab the glass whenever he nears.

If I spoke Lakota (a dialect of the Sioux language) and Cheyenne (from the Algonquian), we’d converse in the same tongues. These are Margaret Black Bear’s tribes, indigenous people of the Great Plains (North and South Dakota, Oklahoma.)

A big chunk of culture rests in language and the unique mental shorthand that goes with it. Margaret taped signs (Sesame Street-style) throughout the house with common words in these dialects as her kids were growing up, but they resisted learning—”We’ll never need it!” they chimed in. Her grandkids enjoy learning both.

Bespoke mascot, Weeping Buffalo Native Arts storefront

Margaret, who warms up quickly as we find common ground (dogs, kids, artwork lost in fire, Grateful Dead story swaps) says Native American art sold briskly in the 80s, 90s (it was a fad as I recall, like hair metal bands and the Macarena), so much so that she’d pile her five kids in the trailer and hit the lucrative circuit of art shows and fairs. The public’s love affair has since matured. Collectors and museums seek her out, but fickle purchases have slowed. Technology is her ally, with a solid Web site. All of the artwork pictured in these slide shows was made by Margaret.

She makes replica pieces for museums to replace original artifacts that have deteriorated from exposure to light. Bead colors are limited to those available in the 1800s and materials are sourced to match those in use when the original piece was made.

The dogs settle in at our feet. Cicalla (“Little” in Lakota), the white puppy’s mom—no doubt named before a hefty appetite supersized her frame—pants hard in the summer heat that has not let up late-day. A coyote faintly wails in the gully below. The dogs dash in a pack to the spot. I rise to watch, but it’s gone. They return, but repeat this ritual several times . . . outrun by coyote, squirrel, rabbit (?).

Circa 1920, the house now wears a turquoise coat, “a protective color,” Margaret says. The ranch spans 90 acres. She’s self-reliant, content to live simply; no electricity, running water. “It’s like living in the 1800s,” chuckles the woman who also serves as Webmistress of her company’s site. She revs the generator to light the studio and Weeping Buffalo Native Arts’ onsite store, to juice the TV, computer. Kerosene lamps light the night, propane fuels the stove, water comes from a tank for running water (she pumps to fill it, an upgrade from hauling bucketfuls indoors). Her solar system’s on the fritz.

Love the elements of this outdoor sofa (back shown) on the patio, draped with a hide. It's a pooch hangout/ coyote lookout tower.

The garden plan accommodates wild moochers. She’s planted zucchini, corn, radishes, green beans, and peppers in profusion. “One bush for me, they get the rest,” Margaret says. “The moles didn’t like the jalapenos, but they ate the roots!” She uses medicinal plants growing wild on the property for herself and the dogs.

Margaret’s alternate summertime cooktop. An oil drum envelops the coals.

Margaret, 61, a lean, striking woman who looks much younger, rocks the sass vibe. Her near waist-length, dark brown hair falls in a loose braid to the side. She wears an azure blue and white ankle-length dress with rippling water design, shortie denim jacket, sterling bracelets, azure dangles, and crescent-shaped arcs of jewel-tone studs. Her deep blue eyes spark like sun on the waves when she talks. We’ve agreed no photos of herself or the dogs, in accord with her beliefs.

Downhill, the dinner bell rings.

A tuft of her shorn Merino sheeps' fleece. "They're naked now," Margaret says. She must protect the sheep from getting sunburned.

Dusk is on hold. I join as Margaret pads down the path toward the pens. She slices two fat, scruffy slabs of green hay with a long kitchen knife from stacked bales in the well-worn white horse trailer and tosses one in the sheep’s pen, the other for the horse. (Crunching replaces bah-ah-ah-ahing; the chowtime “alarm.”) “Someone once said they look like buffalo,” Margaret says of her three Merino sheep, whose brown-black-gray fleece has recently been shorn. “They’re naked now.” She’ll spin the wool, knitting and crocheting it into hats and the like for sale in her shop.

Sunset in the rearview as I backed up the car.

The mountain pass rose to near 4,200 feet on the drive out, where boxcar-size boulders edged the cliff, and emerald green trees tickled parched scrub.

Now, sapa (black).

—August 17, 2012

[Post script: Margaret opens the doors of  the studio/store on the premises as her schedule permits, for people coming from far away. Always call first.]