To The Hundredth Meridian: DAY 8 WEDNESDAY AUG. 28 MILES CITY MT

History is a wonderful teacher, but only if we prove to be good, attentive and dutiful students.

Today we struck out westward from Miles City, then south and east towards the Little Bighorn Battlefield lite. Rangeland continued, but now in higher elevations, drier and hotter. Huge mountains loomed to the south and east and we wondered how Lewis and Clarke must have felt having traversed so much open and endless land only to see what looked like impenetrable barriers to the west. People need boundaries in order to define existence and the mountains can be friendly: but not always so. We later learned that these were the Bighorn Mountains, a short but impressive range just east of the Rockies.

We followed the valley of the Little Bighorn River, green now with irrigated fields of sunflowers and corn. These fields were hemmed in by ridges that loomed menacingly all around us. It was here that Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer and his men of the 7th Cavalry met their destiny. It was here that history coldly and impassively played out its drama.

When we arrived at the battlefield site, my heart beat faster. I had read about and studied the battle and this place since I was very young, my imagination in those days heady with tales of glory and sacrifice. I dreamed about this place and what it must've been like to fight along side Custer and his brave men. Maturity has, of course, replaced those dreams of glory and I was unsure how I would feel as I approached the site, the main part of which is clustered around Last Stand Hill. We drove into the parking lot and I saw the obelisk at the top of the hill and my throat caught and my emotions overflowed. I became profoundly sad, but at what, I did not yet know. I suppose that I felt that I had been here before, although that was preposterous: I had never been to this part of the world until now. But I just stood, silent, for a few seconds and felt strange.

We walked to the visitors' centre and listened to an excellent presentation by a Parks Ranger on the details of the battle. Suffice to say that Custer made several blunders leading up to the fight, but I will not discuss them here. We then walked up the hill, which seemed small when close up. It only took a couple of minutes to make the walk. Nothing can prepare the visitor for the sight of the closely packed white markers that showed where a trooper met his end. The whole Last Stand Hill area is so small, and I couldn't help but feel that Custer's men must have been falling over top of each other and their horses, shot dead by their own masters to provide cover in the firefight. But as you allow your eyes to take in the whole scene, there are white markers spread out over a fairly wide area, leading up to Last Stand Hill, and then, in what must have been the most terrifying aspect of the fight, stretching down the slope towards the river, where the remnants of Custer's men, out of ammunition and without their horses, ran for their lives for the cover of the trees, and where they were run down and killed to the last man. Such a colossal waste of lives, and such quick and gut-wrenching terror. More than 200 men, white and First Nations, were dead.

The strongest impression that the battlefield made on me is how lonely it must have been. The rolling grasslands are pretty much unchanged from the 1870's, and they are stark and unforgiving, like history itself. On that hot and desolate day, men fought for their lives and, though the battle was short ( the Sioux survivors of the battle said later that it took as much time as a hungry man needs to eat a meal ), it must have been completely terrifying for the combatants on both sides.

The remarkable thing about today's experience is that there is a real spirit of reconcilliation alive on a field of conflict. Previously, the battlefield was a monument to Custer and his men's sacrifice to the American ideal of "Manifest Destiny". Now the First Nations observe the site as their own "last stand" and a place of sacred honour. Markers show where First Nations warriors fell, alongside the troopers of the 7th. It is a poignant and moving testament to the fallible nature of humanity and the savage destruction of war. The native markers have the phrase "died defending the Cheyenne ( or Lakota ) way of life." As the Ranger said in her talk, there are no longer any good guys or bad guys ... just the terrible and violent clash of the forces of history.

Nearby is the Reno-Benteen Battlefield sight, a little-known and almost forgotten action that was fought at the same time as Custer's fight. It is only about 5 kms away from Last Stand Hill, but was the site of savage fighting between the First Nations warriors who later swung around to take on Custer, and two elements of the 7th, the first commanded by Major Reno, who almost lost his entire command, and Captain Benteen, who arrived in the nick of time to re-enforce Reno and set up a desperate defence on a bluff overlooking the Little Bighorn River. For two days and nights Reno and Benteen held off First Nations attacks. The warriors eventually left the field when more re-enforcements arrived. It was widely held that these actions were a huge victory for the First Nations, and, at the time, they were. But it also signalled the beginning of the end as more cavalry and settlers came into the area and spilled onto the rangelands and into the nearby sacred Black Hills, which the Lakota claim as theirs to this day.

I shall never forget this place.

We moved south and east, into the arid semi desert of Wyoming, with the colossal Bighorn Mountains as our guides for much of this stretch. Eventually, the towns and ranches disappeared, and the road was the only ribbon of "civilization" for a hundred miles. Our car ran hot, the A/C was shut down and fuel ran short. For the first time, I became genuinely concerned for our well being. I thought the forces of history may have caught up to us, but the benevolent spirits of Sitting Bull, Crazy Horse, Custer, Reno and Benteen undoubtedly decided that our journey would continue in peace and safety. We limped into Gilette with no A/C and on fumes from an almost-empty gas tank. We thank the Great Spirit for our safe arrival here, and I'm eternally grateful that I got to come here and share this experience with Lou.