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I volunteered to jack the car back down and went over to talk to the boys. Figuring out how the jack worked wasn't easy. First, I started jacking it up more, which won the approval of the boys. Then, I found the magic switch that made the jack go in reverse, and down went the car. The boys gave me a tour of their garage and then ran outside. The older one unwound a hose on the side of the house and turned it on. He sprayed his brother; they made mud, painted themselves and then sprayed each other clean. They made a puddle and then ran their Tonka trucks through it, a stunt I remember pulling 38 years ago in my own backyard back in New Jersey. There are fewer things more exciting in the world of a seven-year-old boy - unless it's jacking up his father's car. The sun was beginning to set. We said our good-byes and told them we were going to stop at Wounded Knee. "Look for my husband's family's name on the monument," said my wife's old friend. The boys threw out their arms to be hugged. It was a genuine, direct gesture. We gave them all big hugs and we were on our way. On December 29, 1890, about three hundred Hunkpapa Lakota - men, women, and children - were massacred by the United States 7th Cavalry. Four men and forty-seven women and children survived. One, Zuntclala Nuni, was an infant who had been cradled in her dead mother's arms in the snow for four days. We continued east on Route 16 for about eight miles, and then headed north on Route 44. After a few minutes, we made a right and a grass-swept hill appeared to our left, with two black and white pillars atop it. "Here it is," I told my wife. "Are you sure?" she asked. I was. I recognized it from the picture I had seen on the Internet. We drove up a rutted dirt road to the top. There was a couple up there, from the area. The woman had a scrap book, and showed us clippings from, among other things, the uprising in 1972, the commemorative walk from Standing Rock Reservation to Wounded Knee, the internment of the body of Zuntclala Nuni, the Lost Bird. The woman's husband gave me a bullet he had found on the ground. It was caked with dry mud. Beyond the pillars
was a cemetery, the gravestones reflecting the amber sunset. Flowers and
weeds crowded in among the graves, along with prayer bundles. There was
a monument there, naming those who had died in the massacre in 1890. My
wife's friend's family's name was there twice; a young one and an old
one. The western sky had turned rusty pastel, and the hills underneath
it a dark purple. There is a Jewish custom of leaving a rock on the gravestone
you have visited. I don't know what it means; whether to show respect
or to show others that a loved one had been there to visit. But we left
two stones on the monument. We got into our van, drove down the hill and
headed east toward the Badlands. Our trip to the West was over. |