Point of View

"Happy Trails" is written from the first person perspective of an unnamed narrator. He describes the experience of having a funeral for his uncle who disappeared forty years ago. The story is written in past tense, alternating between moments from both the deep and recent past. The narrator also describes events for which he was not present, such as Hector's upbringing and his grandmother, Agnes, who was born before the Civil War. In this way, the story is both intensely intimate and personal, following the life of the narrator and his grappling with the loss of a number of family members to disease, poverty, and prison. But it is also a story about history and community, as the narrator thinks through the ways that the events of the past have affected his life (and the lives of other people on the reservation) in the present...