To The Hundredth Meridian: DAY 11 SATURDAY, AUG. 31 WALL SD

We knew that this day would be somewhat sombre, but the start could have completely done us in. We awoke to a flat tire. It was a bad luck/good luck scenario. Bad luck that it happened: good luck that it didn't happen in the murderous heat of the Badlands yesterday or on the lonely roads we took today. I changed the flat for the temporary spare and spent a couple of semi-frantic hours searching for a place that repairs tires. Potential bad luck here: Wall is a small town and it is the Saturday of the long weekend. One tire repair place was closed for the weekend, a second garage was open but didn't repair tires, so the third, the Auto Livery, was my last shot. The service bay was not open, but a really nice kid named Ryan said he'd look at it. We didn't find any puncture, and there was no leak. Ryan filled the tire, put it back on the car and we hoped for the best. Ryan said I didn't owe him anything, but I gave him twenty bucks for his trouble. The tire proved to be fine, just the intense heat causing it to lose pressure.

The search for Wounded Knee turned ou to be harder than we thought. Back through the Badlands we went, not stopping but still marvelling at the other-worldly land. Then, we completely confounded our GPS by going on Lakota land. We drove through desolate rangelands skirting the Nebraska border. So dry, so brown, with a few green valleys surrounding almost-dry muddy streams. The Lakota lands featured a lot of "typical" First Nations scenarios: poor houses or trailers with many cars and trucks, some rusted hulks, and small towns and villages ( Pine Ridge, Batesland, Martin ) that had cafes, gas stations, sweat lodges, youth centres and a couple of jails, but not much seemingly going on. There were some ranches with some cattle, some small Indian corn and lots of grass. Prosperity? No, not here.

We finally arrived at Wounded Knee. We actually almost drove past it. There was a hand-painted metal sign dating from the 1950's to explain the significance of the site. A huge plate with the word "Massacre" was placed over the original word: "Battle". We read the sign and thought that that would be our sum total experience of this place that we had both been so anxious to see. Then, we met a remarkable young woman named Casey Beareagle, who came up to us to say hello. We must admit that we were a little leery at first. Casey was one of a handful of Lakota people who sat at makeshift souvenir stands that sat in almost miserable silence on the site, waiting for the hordes of visitors that hardly ever come. Casey put us at ease very quickly. She spoke quietly but with a great sense of dignity of the events of December 29, 1890. Casey pointed out the site of the encampment to us, and we realized that, to our great astonishment, it was right in front of us, among the souvenir stalls. Then, she pointed out the simple church and gateway to a small cemetery on a hill overlooking the site. The victims of the massacre were buried in a mass grave on the hill, she said, and we should be sure to go up and look.

Casey claimed that several of her ancestors were among the victims. She spoke without any rancour or any sense of anger at what happened in this so-called "last action" of the Sioux wars. She said proudly that she was Lakota, but she also spoke honestly about the situations that the descendents of Crazy Horse and Sitting Bull had to face on the Pine Ridge Indian Reserve today. Casey claimed that there was 85% unemployment here, and that, although some families have made a go of it ranching ( mostly bison ), most people are not ranchers and scratch out meagre livings in the towns and villages of the reserve. Lou asked Casey about the sign, and, indeed it was an old and rusty sign. Casey hoped that, one day, a second sign would tell the story in the Lakota language. We looked over her crafts and bought a lovely dream catcher she had made, with a tipi motif in the centre. Casey explained that she had created it that way because she felt that the strength of the Lakota women needed to be expressed: it was the women who created the camp and made all the arrangements for the domestic survival of the group, while the men hunted and defended the families from attack. We were so impressed with Casey and wished her and her family luck: it looked like luck was in short supply at this place. There is no sign that the federal government would be arriving any time soon with assistance in creating a fitting memorial, or even a National Park for this place. But, then again, the Sioux probably don't really want the federal government coming around. Any time the government arrived here, it was a disaster for the people

But what really came out of Casey's story is that there was no "battle" here at all. The Sioux encampment held the remnants of Chief Bigfoot's band, some 300 or so people, mostly elderly, or women and their children. Some warriors were present, but not many: most had been killed off or arrested. The band was starving in that horribly cold winter, and had crossed the badlands into this valley in a desperate search for food. The cavalry tracked their movements and found them here at Wounded Knee. The cavalry was, interestingly, the 7th Cavalry, with elements of the 9th Cavalry in support: the 9th were immortalized by Bob Marley with the song "Buffalo Soldiers." The cavalry's mission was to disarm the Sioux and force them to return to the reserve. It is unclear what happened, but, during the disarming, a shot was fired. The cavalry came equipped with Hodgkiss guns, forerunners of machine guns, all of which, we learned later, were stationed on the hill where today's cemetery is placed. They opened fire, then pursued the survivors as they tried to flee into a stream bed nearby. All the Sioux were killed, their bodies frozen into grotesque statues of death by the freezing temperatures. "Battle"? Not bloody likely. It was a slaughter, committed by the descendents of Custer's 7th and Bob Marley's Buffalo Soldiers. Payback ? I'll leave that up to you.

At the cemetery, we met two young Lakota men: Daniel Rowlands and his uncle, who only identified himself as "Tatonka" or Buffalo. Tatonka was not very anxious to have a conversation or have his picture taken: Daniel was the more gregarious of the two and made friends with us easily. He pointed out some of the names on the simple grave marker and identified one of the men as the one who fired the initial shot that started the massacre. Daniel said simply that the man was deaf and had no idea what the soldiers were doing. When one of them tried to grab his gun, the deaf man squeezed the trigger, accidentally firing a round into the air, causing all hell to break lose. Daniel also pointed out that several cavalry men were killed or wounded by the inaccurate fire of the Hodgkiss guns. Those men were given medals of honour, while the Sioux were dumped into a hastily dug grave on the hill.

As we listened to Daniel's story, we looked out on the scene before us. Quiet and calm today: only the sound of the wind rustling in the prairie grass, only the loud words of Daniel, a youth of great enthusiasm and questionable sobriety. Tatonka joined us later with a magpie he had caught and Daniel insisted we take his picture with the bird. I hoped that they didn't intend to kill it. The lads asked us if we had any extra water, which, of course, we did and we had no hesitation in giving them a couple of bottles in this heat. Then, Daniel asked us to make a "contribution" to his boxing club. To be fair, his left hand appeared to be broken with the typical "boxer's knuckle" and he looked like he was in good shape. I pictured the two of them a hundred years ago, proud young Lakota, ready to defend their way of life. Now, they wear backwards baseball caps and baggy jeans and have tatoos, and could easily fit in with young men pretty much anywhere. Except they have ancient stories to tell about their ancestors. How many young men with baggy jeans remember their ancestral stories in our world ?

We left the site and drove on in silence. Then, Lou made the best observation: Custer got a monument and a National Park: Chief Bigfoot's people got a couple of young Lakota boys and a wonderful young woman who tell the story learned from their grandparents and who tell it without bitterness, simply, with dignity and quiet honesty. We were moved by all of this.

We turned east, homeward. The rangeland went on forever, seemingly with no care for puny humans or their ways. The land has known stories of life and death longer than we have been here and is unimpressed. We finally arrived at the small town of Chamberlain, South Dakota on the banks of the mighty Missouri River. We have now left the true west and entered the transition into the midwest. There is a real and palpable difference between the two areas. Tomorrow, if the Great Spirit is willing, we will drive further east, into Wisconsin and the Great Lakes watershed we know so well. But we will never forget the great grandsons and granddaughters of those who died so horribly at Wounded Knee.