Dan Simmons - Black Hills

Paha Sapa finds Gutzon Borglum through the binoculars and feels a sudden shock as he sees that Borglum is using his best pair of Zeiss binoculars to look straight at him.

Normally, Paha Sapa would be atop the ridge to set off a detonation, even one as small as the five-charge demonstration. He suggested this position along Lincoln’s cheek with the argument that with all the crowds and congestion, he might have problems seeing Borglum and his flag from atop the ridge.

Borglum scowled and squinted at that.

— Admit it, Billy. You just want a better view.

Paha Sapa shrugged and shuffled his silent agreement at that. It was true, of course. But it wasn’t the ceremony that he wanted the better view of; it was the twenty-crate explosion all along the cliff face.

He is sitting on the twenty-first crate of dynamite (they are rigged to blow in series so he should see the effects of the other twenty before this one goes) and for a terrible, clammy-sweat second, Paha Sapa is sure that Borglum can see the crate through his long-lens binoculars and now knows exactly what his powderman is up to.

But no… the gray-painted extra detonation wires are also covered with granite dust all along this Lincoln cheek ridge to Paha Sapa’s position. He’s sitting on a dynamite crate, but the crate is under the last of the gray tarps he’s brought up to further conceal all the hidden charges. It’s true that he has one detonator too many—the smaller one for the five-blast demo charge, a larger one for all the other boxes of dynamite—but he’s taken care to hide that second detonator box behind the crate he’s sitting on, out of sight even if Borglum were using an astronomical telescope to look up at him.

Paha Sapa pans across the rest of the arriving crowd, and when he comes back to Borglum, the Boss has turned away, the fresh and ever-present red kerchief around his neck easy enough to see amid the crowd of mostly white shirts and dark jackets. Borglum himself is all in white—or a rich cream-colored long-sleeved shirt and slacks, Paha Sapa sees—except for the large kerchief and black binoculars strung around his neck.

Paha Sapa lowers his own glasses and leans back, his sweat-soaked shirt against the strangely cool curved granite of Lincoln’s emerging cheek. He’s angry that his hand is shaking slightly as he removes his watch from his pocket. Another two hours, at the most, before FDR arrives and the ceremony commences.

THE MORNING AFTER their dance in the aspen grove across the lake from the new hotel, Rain announced that she wanted to climb Harney Peak, which was looming over them to the northeast.

Paha Sapa crossed his arms like one of the cigar store Indians that all Indians hate.

— Absolutely not. There’ll be no discussion of this.

Rain smiled that peculiar smile that Paha Sapa always thought of as her “Ferris Wheel smile.”

— Why on earth not? You yourself said that it was a short walk—two miles or less?—and that there was no climbing involved. A toddler could do it, you said.

— Maybe. But you’re not going to do it. We’re not. You’re… with child.

Rain’s laugh seemed as much in delight at the fact he’d just announced as it was making fun of his concern.

— We’re going to go on lots of walks on this camping trip, my darling. And I’ll be walking a lot at home during the six months left. This is just a little more uphill.

— Rain… it’s a mountain. And the tallest one in the Black Hills.

— Its summit is still only a little more than seven thousand feet, my dear. I’ve summered in Swiss towns that sit at higher altitudes.

In rebuttal, Paha Sapa shook his head.

She moved closer and her hazel eyes looked almost blue that perfect morning. After their dancing in the aspens, they’d returned to their little campsite and Rain had gone to the back of the buckboard and started removing both the mattresses that Paha Sapa had insisted on bringing in case she “needed to lie down.” Seeing her lifting them, Paha Sapa had run to grab the mattresses from her and to carry them back to the big army tent. Why do we need these? he’d asked innocently. At times, he had discovered, his wife could literally purr like one of the cats that stayed around the mission school and church. Because, my dearest love, our army cots, while wonderfully comfortable, are not adequate for long periods of lovemaking.

But still… in the clear May morning light, Paha Sapa was shaking his head, arms still crossed, the frown seemingly etched into his bronzed face.

Rain set her finger to her cheek as if struck by a thought.

— What if I rode Cyrus up?

Paha Sapa blinked and looked at the old mule, who, hearing his name, twitched one notched ear in recognition but did not look up from his grazing.

— Well, maybe, but… No, I don’t think…

Rain laughed again and this time it was totally a laughing at him.

— Paha Sapa, my dearest and honored anungkison and hi and itancan and wicayuhe… I am not going to ride poor Cyrus up that hill… or anyplace else. First of all, he wouldn’t leave Daisy. And second of all, I’d look like the Virgin Mary being led into Bethlehem, minus the big belly. No, I’ll walk, thank you.

— Rain… your condition… I don’t think… If something were to…

She held up her forefinger, silencing him. From less than a quarter of a mile away, just over the low ridge, came laughter and a woman’s shout. Paha Sapa imagined the Sunday-dressed wasichus playing croquet or badminton on the long green lawn that sloped down to the mirror-still lake.

He also understood what his silent wife was saying. They were almost certainly much closer here to medical help should there be a problem with her pregnancy than they would be in all the months to come at Pine Ridge.

Her voice now was low, soft, and serious.

— I want to see the Six Grandfathers mountain you’ve talked about, my darling. There’s no easy way in to it, is there?

— No.

The presence of the hotel and new man-made lake and white gravel path here in the heart of his Black Hills made Paha Sapa dizzy, as if he were living in someone else’s reality or on a new and only vaguely similar planet. The very idea of there someday being roads to the Six Grandfathers made him ill.

— I want to see it, Paha Sapa—it and a view of all the Black Hills. I’m putting the luncheon things in this old army map case you brought. Why don’t you make sure that the tent is secure and that Daisy and Cyrus will be all right for the few hours we’re gone?

The view from the summit of Harney Peak (or Evil Spirit Hill, as Paha Sapa still thought of it) was incredible.

The last half mile or so of the very visible trail was across the top of one rounded granite outcropping after the other. Having no interest in scrambling up the scree- and boulder-tumbled spire to any technical high-point “summit,” the two strolled out onto the north-facing rock terraces of the high shoulder of the mountain.

Yes, the view was incredible in all directions.

Back the way they had come were the Needles formations, forests, and receding grass-and-pine hills all the way to Wind Cave and beyond. To the northwest was the dark-pined and gray-rocked heart of the majority of the Black Hills. Far to the east the Badlands were like a scabbed white scar against the plains; farther north the distant marker of Bear Butte rose against the horizon. Everywhere beyond the Hills stretched the Great Plains which were—for these very few weeks in late May into early June and only then after a rainy spring such as this had been—as green as Rain had once described Ireland.