Black Hills (65 page)

Then Mune cranks Paha Sapa up, they move to the next winch shack farther east along the cliff’s edge, and Paha Sapa drops over on his bosun’s chair with his rope in his hand and the easy dream of weightlessness begins again. Improbably, miraculously, there are no hitches, either in the cable or the plot.

Palooka has drilled the holes perfectly. The dynamite crates slip in easily and are concealed by the gray tarps. It is the placement of detonators (since the whole crate of dynamite has to go off at once, rather than single sticks or fragments of a stick) and then the placement and concealment of the long gray wires that take most of the night.

But by 4:43 a.m. they are finished. Even the second detonator box is in place and concealed—the first having already been placed there publicly by Paha Sapa in preparation for the day’s demo blast—along the rim of rock running flat to the east of Lincoln’s cheek.

Paha Sapa drives Mune home, pays him his forty-five dollars, and doesn’t look back as he coasts the ’cycle down the long winding hill to Keystone and home as the sun is rising. For a while he worried that Mune might come to the site and talk to Borglum about the mysterious work in the middle of the night and about dynamite crates labeled fireworks, but now Paha Sapa knows beyond all doubt that Mune Mercer is too stupid and too selfish to notice, care about, or talk about such things. Mune, he knows, will sleep for a few hours and then hitchhike to a speakeasy in Deadwood that’s open on Sundays and then get forty-five dollars’ worth of drunk.

It’s another hot, sunny, windless August day.

Paha Sapa considers sleeping for an hour—except while in a hot bath, he trusts his lifelong ability to wake when he wills himself to—but
decides not to risk it. After changing his shirt and splashing cold water on his face, he makes some coffee and sits for a while at his kitchen table, thinking of absolutely nothing, and then, when cars belonging to other Mount Rushmore workers in Keystone begin starting up, he washes the mug and sets it in its place in the tidy cupboard, cleans and sets away the coffee pot, looks around his home a final time—he’s already burned the note he left on the mantel two nights ago regarding taking care of the donkeys if something happened to him—goes outside, kicks his son’s motorcycle into life, and joins the smaller-than-usual procession of workingmen in their battered old vehicles all heading up to Mount Rushmore.

The crowds, he knows, will come later.

P
RESIDENT
R
OOSEVELT DOES NOT ARRIVE BY NOON, BUT
G
UTZON
Borglum does not start the ceremony without him.

Paha Sapa is the only man on the face of the cliff, perched near Lincoln’s cheek—the carving has not yet exposed the head’s bearded chin—far to the right but still able to see George Washington, the flag-covered Jefferson, and the white granite slope from whence the Teddy Roosevelt head will begin to emerge. The only other men on the mountain this day are the eight workers peering over the top of the Jefferson head where the winch, boom, pulleys, and rope stays attached to scaffolds are holding the giant flag in place until it is time to swing it away and then pull it up out of sight.

The plan is for the five-charge demonstration blast to be detonated first, then an orchestra will play, and only then will the flag be removed from Jefferson’s face. After that, Borglum and a few others will speak to the crowd and radio audience as the head is officially dedicated. There are no plans for President Roosevelt to speak. Just as in the original plans for the dedication of the cemetery at Gettysburg more than three score and ten years earlier, the presence of the president of the United States is mostly a technicality; others are scheduled to do the speech making.

Borglum has loaned Paha Sapa his second-best pair of Zeiss binoculars so that there will be no question that his powderman will be
able to see the Boss raise and then lower the red flag as the signal to detonate the five charges, and the heavy optics bring individual faces into clear focus.

By eleven a.m., townspeople and the curious from all over western South Dakota are arriving and beginning to fill up the bleachers above and to either side of the main VIP viewing area on Doane Mountain, right where, if Borglum gets his way (and when hasn’t he? thinks Paha Sapa) there will be a huge Visitors Center and fancy View Terrace and probably a gigantic amphitheater with seating for thousands, just for patriotic presentations—including, Paha Sapa is certain, elaborate programs literally singing the praises of a certain sculptor named Gutzon Borglum.

For right now, though, Borglum has had his son, Lincoln, take the bulldozer and improve the ruts leading to the center of that viewing area, below and in front of the V shape of the VIP stands and general bleachers. President Roosevelt, Paha Sapa learned just that morning, will not be getting out of his open touring car during the dedication ceremony. Even without his binoculars, Paha Sapa can see the spot where the president’s car will stop, already ringed as it is by bulky microphones on stands, black cables, newsreel cameras, and areas taped off under the ponderosa pines to corral the press photographers. All the other VIPs will be
behind
FDR as he and Borglum look at Mount Rushmore during the ceremony.

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.

T
HE 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?