Dan Simmons - Black Hills

The president’s train is supposed to be pulling into Rapid City late this evening of the 29th, but already word is coming up the hill that the president will definitely be arriving here tomorrow, Sunday, later than originally planned; FDR has added a longer-than-originally-scheduled service at the Emmanuel Episcopal Church in Rapid City and a luncheon with local Democratic leaders at the Alex Johnson Hotel (still the only air-conditioned hotel in South Dakota) before coming up to Mount Rushmore in his motorcade.

This has made Borglum apoplectic. He is swearing to his son, Lincoln, to his wife, to June Culp Geitner, to supervisor Julian Spotts, to worried Democratic politicans who make the mistake of taking his phone call, to William Williamson (head of the delegation in charge of greeting the president), and to unsmiling Secret Service liaisons that President Roosevelt will have to change his plans back to arrive earlier, as Borglum had directed and as Roosevelt had originally promised , or the shadows on the faces will be in the wrong position and the unveiling of the Jefferson head will be ruined. The president’s and governor’s people explain to Borglum that the president has expedited his arrival as much as possible and expects to arrive no later than 2:30.

Gutzon Borglum growls at the gathered men.

— That’ll be two and a half hours too damned late. The unveiling of the Jefferson figure and the dedication ceremony are going to happen exactly at noon. Tell that to the president! If he wants to be part of it, he’ll have to get here about fifteen minutes before the unveiling.

Then Borglum walks out of the studio where the group is gathered and takes his tramway up to the tops of the heads.

The few old-timers who’ve been working here since Borglum talked President Calvin Coolidge into taking a horse-drawn wagon (which broke down, forcing the president to make the rest of the trip by horse) up to this isolated spot to “dedicate the site” of the as-yet-totally-untouched Mount Rushmore on August 10, 1927, just shake their heads. They know the Boss will wait for this new president.

Between drillings, chief pointer Jim Larue informs Paha Sapa that Coolidge wore totally dude-ish new cowboy boots, fringed buckskin gloves, and a Stetson big enough to shade half of west South Dakota when he rode up the hill. Earlier in that trip, he had allowed some not-quite-local Sioux Indians to dress him up in a war bonnet that hung to his heels, and they gave Silent Cal the official name “Chief Leading Eagle”— Wanbli Tokaha in Lakota, which most of the white locals decided actually meant “Looks Like a Horse’s Ass.”

Doane Robinson, who was a big part of this wooing of Coolidge, once told Paha Sapa that the most devious thing done by the local whites was to dam up the little stream near where the president was staying at the Game Lodge in the Hills, bring down hundreds of fat, disgustingly liver-fed, stupid breeding trout from the hatchery up in Spearfish, and release these torpid creatures, a clump at a time, into the hundred yards of stream where Coolidge—who had never tried fishing before in his life—was standing uncomfortably, still dressed in suit, vest, tie, stiff collar, and straw boater, awkwardly holding the expensive trout-fishing rod Robinson and the others had given the visiting president as a gift.

Incredibly, Coolidge caught a fish in the first five minutes. (It would have been almost impossible not to, said Doane Robinson. One could have all but walked across the creek on the back of the fish released there without getting one’s shoes wet.) And he kept catching these slow, fat breeding trout, released every hour on the hour from the newly built little dam just upstream. Coolidge was so delighted with his fishing prowess that he not only went fishing for hours each day he was at the Game Lodge, but insisted on serving the dozens upon dozens of trout he caught every breakfast and dinner at the lodge.

The locals, who could taste the rotted liver from the slaughterhouse in Spearfish that these trout had been fed on for years, gamely smiled and tried to swallow as Coolidge beamed at everyone at the table and urged second helpings of his trout.

PAHA SAPA and Palooka have the five blasting holes drilled by ten a.m. and Paha Sapa has run and secured the detonator wires in their protective orange guides across the face of the cliff under the Jefferson head and the white rock now ready for the Teddy Roosevelt fine drilling. For safety’s sake, he will not install the dynamite in the holes until tomorrow morning after everyone else is off the face.

But he has Palooka continue drilling for him well into the blazing noon and tells the driller to join him after the lunch break for more work.

— What’re these slots for, Billy? They’re not even blast holes. They’re more like… well, big slots.

It’s true. Paha Sapa has shown the driller where they’re going to expand niches under rock ledges and cliff lips and in crevices all along the face of the cliff, from Washington’s right shoulder to the farthest west, then east up and around the bend in the swooping saddle between Washington’s lapels and Thomas Jefferson’s right cheek, then down under Jefferson’s chin, then east again to the left of the undifferentiated mass that is Jefferson’s parted hair, beneath and to both sides of the tabula rasa of prepared granite ready for the carving of Teddy Roosevelt, then farther to the right into the shadowed niches between the Roosevelt granite field and the busy working face of Lincoln, then down under Lincoln’s still-emerging chin and beard where scaffolds are clustered, and finally even on the just-blasted cliff face to the southeast of Lincoln’s unseen left ear. With Paha Sapa supervising exact placement of these excavations, he and Palooka will be working all day on these holes.

The slots aren’t blast holes. Palooka guesses that they’re going to be support insets in the stone for still more scaffolds to join those still on the face under Washington (where his cravat and lapels continue to emerge) and under Jefferson (where more work has to be done on the neck), across the exposed granite prepared for TR, and on both sides of and beneath Lincoln’s head. Those portable scaffolds that can be cranked up on pulleys will be removed by tomorrow to clear the way for the crowd’s viewing, but many of the other working walkways and scaffolds rest on sturdy posts with drill holes not unlike these horizontal niches Palooka will be drilling all the rest of this Saturday.

Paha Sapa does not say that these aren’t support holes for future scaffold pilings.

On another scaffold nearby, Howdy Peterson is beginning the honeycombing process on the lower TR carving field. This has been the procedure on the previous three faces—as blasting gets down to the last inches of clean rock before the “skin” of the faces emerges, drillers like Palooka and Howdy lean their weight into the drills (thus the scaffolds rather than bosun’s chairs) to drill hundreds upon hundreds of parallel holes, honeycombing the rock. Then carvers like Red Anderson come in with their large hammers and cold chisels and break away the stone in sheets, exposing the smooth face that will later be buffed and shaped and worked as actual sculptures.

Meanwhile, back down at the hoist house—the closest to the cliff that the tourists can wander—Edwald Hayes and the other hoist operators have an example of the flaked-off “honeycomb” nailed to the wall of the hoist house and acknowledge to the curious visitor that, Yep, we get a few of these real, actual honeycombed mementos of the mountain carving intact. Not many. They’re real rare. That’s why the fellows keep this one here as a sorta souvenir. The tourists invariably ask if Edwald (or the other operators) could see fit to part with that interesting honeycomb. Don’t hardly see how I could, sir (or “lady”). Y’see, it belongs to another guy. He might be real mad if I sold it, since it’s so rare and all…. ’Course, if you really want it, I might see my way clear to sell it to you and just take my chances with the owner.