"Why should you be treated any better than any other American citizen?" demanded a fifty-ish man in the crowd. The Sioux said quietly, "We have treaties with the U.S. government that guarantee us these lands in perpetuity. The treaty of 1868, forbidding settlers in the Black Hills was broken almost before the ink was dry.

"Indians weren't even recognized as U.S. citizens until 1954. My grandfather used to joke that he was a mercenary for the United States in Korea."

The fifty-ish man asked, "Well, how can you prove that you're pure Indian?"

"My birth is registered with the Bureau of Indian Affairs. So are the births of my father and mother, my grandparents, and their parents. In fact, the BIA has records on my family going back well over a hundred years."

An elderly woman remarked that the land was important to both whites and reds, but each group seemed to have different reasons for this. The young man agreed, saying, "The earth - the land - is sacred to us." He spread his arm out towards the hill where so many Indians had swarmed so long ago, and said, "You would say, 'What a nice spot for a mall!' and we would ask, 'Why? It's fine just the way it is.'"

*****

There is a paved walkway from the visitors' center up the mass grave where Custer's troops are buried. What are allegedly Custer's bones rests in West Point, and the Indians took their dead with them. Along the walk are signs stuck in the grass: "DANGER: RATTLESNAKES. PLEASE STAY ON PATH." It's the only time I've ever seen such a warning in any state or national park I've been in. Not even in Will Rogers State Park in Oklahoma, where you can see and hear very large snakes slither away from you as you walk past tall grass. It is against the law to take away any artifacts you might find, and there are signs forbidding the use of metal detectors.

At the crest of the hill is a marble monument, with the names of the dead listed on all four sides. Signs in front of it read, "Mass Grave. Please Keep Off." Spilled down the breast of the hill is a patch of markers. Each one lists a white soldier's name and announces that he "fell here". In the midst of these, slightly larger, is dark marker with white letters that announces, "G.A. CUSTER, BVT. MAJ. GEN., LT. COL., 7th U.S. CAV., FELL HERE, JUNE 25, 1876".

Five miles to the east is the hill where Captain Reno and his troops were pinned down, while Custer and his men were being wiped out. Along the drive from the mass grave to Reno's Hill, more markers are scattered, some in groups, some solo. Some read, "An Indian Warrior Fell Here." Looking down from Reno's Hill toward the peaceful grove of trees where the Indians had their camp along the Little Bighorn River, an air of unreality seems to settle on the landscape. Was there really such a bloody battle in such a beautiful place? Could Custer really have ridden up to the top of a hill on a quiet sunny day such as this and decided to slaughter the group of Indian women and children he saw heading away from him? I had not felt such an eerie stillness since I had visited Gettysburg.

We stayed about two hours, listening to the park rangers tell the story of the battle and walking through the museum. Then, we were back on Interstate 90 again, heading south and crossing back into Wyoming. Another hour, and we passed through Buffalo, where we had left Interstate 25 four nights before for our trip across the Bighorn Mountains. At Buffalo, Route 90 looped east, towards South Dakota.

As we rolled along 90 a few hours later, shortly after the sun had set, my wife turned to me and asked, "Are we near the Devil's Tower?"

"We'd have to exit at Gillette, and drive about thirty miles north to see it," I answered, "But it's dark out, and -"

"Maybe it's lit up, like in Close Encounters," she interrupted.

"I don't think so," I said. After driving across Missouri looking for a motel room, and driving across the Bighorn Mountains looking for Cody Wyoming, I was in no mood for another all-night adventure. I had developed a new and healthy respect for the West.

But my wife would have none of it. I exited at Gillette, and we drove north, the only light coming from my headlights and the stars; and the only thing visible was the road ahead. We could have been driving through a tunnel or a ribbon suspended in outer space. The old feelings of loneliness and isolation overtook me again.

When we drove into Devil's Tower National Monument, it was ten o'clock, and the Tower was nowhere to be seen. There was a fork in the road with a sign that told us that to our left was a campground and to our right was a mile-long road to the tower. We took the road to the right and arrived at a parking area. No sign of the Devil's Tower. It was so dark that only the painted lines of the empty parking spaces were visible. I drove around the lot for a few minutes until I found the road we had come in on, and we drove back down to the camping area.

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