WHITECLAY, Neb. — The beer flows on the doorstep of the nation's second-largest Native American reservation about the same time many Nebraskans pour another cup of coffee.

Three Oglala Lakota men sat on the ground about 9 a.m. last Wednesday, their speech acquiring a slur that had been absent 15 minutes earlier.

They downed beer purchased from one of four liquor stores in Whiteclay, an unincorporated Nebraska village just a short walk from the officially dry Pine Ridge Indian Reservation across the state line in South Dakota.

The men pondered a time in the near future when they may not have to drink in this dusty, litter-strewn outpost.