Black Hills: A Novel

by Dan Simmons

  There are hundreds of memories and powerful images that flowed into Paha Sapa that black day deep down in shaft nine of the Homestake Mine, before Borglum sensed some deeper connection in the handshake and abruptly pulled away (but did not rescind his job offer, whatever his temporary uneasiness), some of the memories, of course, explicitly sexual, some felonious, but Paha Sapa tries to avoid these, just as he long ago would have shut his ears to the lusty ramblings of the Custer ghost, if he’d been able to. Despite Paha Sapa’s sacred gift of these visions, he hates intruding on other human beings’ privacy.

  Borglum is sixty-nine years old this August day as he rides to the summit of the mountain with the powderman he thinks of as Billy Slovak, just two years younger than Paha Sapa, and thus far three of the four great Heads have emerged from the stone, and these only partially. The sculptor plans to reveal much of their upper bodies and some arms and hands. And Borglum has more ambitious plans for the mountain—the Entablature, the Hall of Records. Gigantic projects in and of themselves. But Paha Sapa knows that Borglum has no worries about his age or health or about time itself; Borglum, he knows, plans to live forever.

  THEY REACH THE TOP and step out of the cage and Borglum strides to where some of the boys have spent the day preparing the framework and armature of the crane that will drape the huge American flag over Jefferson and then lift and swing the flag back to reveal the head. The sculptor is talking, but Paha Sapa keeps walking along the ridgeline, past the crane and Jefferson.

  From up here, one can see—feel—how very narrow the ridge of rock is between the blasted-in trough in which three of the four heads are emerging and the unseen wall of the canyon behind this ridge. When—if—the Teddy Roosevelt head is finished, the ledge between the carved face on one side and the vertical drop to the canyon on the other side will be narrow enough that it might make people nervous to stand on it.

  Paha Sapa sees the crevice in the rock and the patch of soil where he dug his Vision Pit sixty years minus two days earlier. He continues along the ridge to the northwest.

  Atop the heavily faulted knobs along the ridge above where the four heads are emerging, there’s a small village of structures—wooden cranes, winches, winch houses, stairways spidering up and down the rocky knobs, wooden platforms, A-frame supports for the tramway and other devices, the vertical mast and the horizontal boom of the pointing machine that translates the scale models in Borglum’s studio below into the carving on the actual mountain. There is also one shack big enough for some of the men to crowd into during lightning storms or hail, outhouses, and various storehouses, including one set apart just for dynamite storage. (Paha Sapa has considered storing his extra twenty crates of dynamite there, of course, but the chances of it being discovered, even in just the one day he needs before deploying the charges, are simply too great. Alfred Berg, “Spot” Denton, and the other powdermen are in and out of there all the time.)

  Far along the ridge, all by itself, is one small exposed post and steel winch platform. It’s smaller than all the ones clustered above the heads and it’s on the wrong side of the ridge, overhanging the vertical drop into the narrow dead-end canyon that lies behind the visible face of what the wasichu insist on calling Mount Rushmore.

  Paha Sapa steps out onto the platform. The two-hundred-foot drop is precipitous and somehow seems worse than the exposure on the south face where the heads are emerging. The canyon below is narrow, claustrophobic even to look down into, and littered with massive tumbled boulders. The evening shadows have filled almost all of the narrow defile now, but Paha Sapa can still make out what he’s come to see: on the opposite wall of the granite cliff, far below, there is a single square—no, a rectangle—of black, five feet tall by six feet wide, almost lost to the shadows.

  Paha Sapa knows what it is because he helped blast it out the previous autumn: a twenty-foot test shaft for Borglum’s future Hall of Records.

  He suddenly feels the sculptor standing close behind him.

  —Damn it, Billy. What are you doing farting around over here?

  —Just thinking about the Hall of Records, Boss.

  —Why? We won’t get to it until next year. Maybe the year after that.

  —Yes, but I’m trying to remember all the things you said about it, Mr. Borglum. How deep it’ll go. What’ll be in it.

  Borglum squints at him. The sculptor is looking directly into the setting sun, but much of the squint is suspicion.

  —Damn it, Old Man. Are you getting senile on me already?

  Paha Sapa shrugs. His gaze goes back to the tiny black rectangle more than two hundred feet below.

  But Borglum cannot resist giving a speech.

  —Next to the carvings themselves, Billy, the Hall of Records will be the greatest thing in America. There’s going to be a grand stairway—broad, majestic, carved out of white granite—coming all the way up from the valley and into and up the canyon itself, with level areas with benches so that people can rest along the way and observe various statues and historical markers. We’re going to have busts of famous Americans—some of you Indians included, Sitting Bull, Red Cloud, whatshername, the girl that went with Lewis and Clark—lining the grand stairway all the way up and into the canyon. It’ll be lighted at night… glorious! Then, just when the people think it can’t get any more glorious, they’ll come to the Hall of Records itself… there, right down there where I had you and Merle and the others open that test shaft. The hall’s entrance will be a single polished-stone panel forty feet high. It’ll have inlaid mosaics made from gold and the world’s best lapus lazuli, and the mosaics surmounted by a symbol of the United States of America… maybe it’s a symbol of your people as well… a single bas-relief American eagle with a wingspread of thirty-nine feet. Then the door itself, the entrance… it’ll be some twenty feet high by fourteen feet wide… they’ll be cast-glass doors, Billy, transparent but as permanent as the mountain. Those doors’ll open into the high chamber, which will be eighty feet wide and a hundred feet long. There’ll be three hundred and sixty feet of wall space in that high chamber and all of it beautifully paneled and recessed to a depth of thirty inches. There’ll be permanent indirect lighting there. It’ll be beautiful day or night. Into those recesses will be built illuminated bronze-and-glass cabinets in which we’ll place all the records of the United States… hell, of the Western World, of civilization itself… the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution of the United States, Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address… all of it… and not just political stuff, Billy, but all the documents that show the glory of our civilization, show it to people and people’s descendants a thousand and ten thousand and a hundred thousand and five hundred thousand years from now: documents of science and art and literature and invention and medicine. I know what you’re thinking—that paper documents like that don’t last thousands of years, much less hundreds of thousands. That’s why all these documents, the Declaration, the Constitution, all of them, are going to be typed up onto and into sheets of aluminum and then rolled and protected in tubes of alloyed steel that’ll last damn near forever. We’ll seal those cabinets… hell, I don’t know when, nineteen forty-eight maybe, or fifty-eight, or sixty-five, I don’t care… but I plan to be here, trust me on that… and once sealed, those cabinets will be opened only by an act of Congress… if Congress lasts that long, which I heartily doubt. And on the wall above those cabinets, Billy, extending around the entire long hall, there’s going to be a bas-relief, carved into bronze and plated with gold, that will show the whole adventure of humanity discovering and occupying and building up and perfecting the western world… us, our United States of America. And beyond that first main hallway there are going to be wide, brightly lighted tunnels going to more rooms and repositories, each one illustrated with its own murals, each one dedicated to a specific aspect of our time and glory… maybe even a room for statues of women who’ve made something of themselves, even just pests, like that Susan B. Anthony that those damned fe
minists keep demanding I carve there next to Washington, Jefferson, Teddy Roosevelt, and Abraham Lincoln…. I tell them the truth, that we’re out of good carving rock there forever, Billy, but down here in the Hall of Records, for generations, for centuries…

  Borglum pauses, and Paha Sapa does not know if he’s become self-conscious about the length of his speech or has simply run out of breath. He suspects the latter. But he doesn’t really care. He just wanted the sculptor to go on babbling for a few minutes so that he could keep looking down into the now shadow-filled canyon and see the solution to his problem.

  The test bore shaft for the Hall of Records. Only five feet high by six feet wide and twenty feet deep, but plenty of room in which to store his twenty crates of unstable dynamite tonight. And then, on Saturday night and into the wee hours of Sunday morning—with the help of just one winch operator, the dim-witted ex–Rushmore worker named Mune Mercer, already warned to be ready for some “special night work Mr. Borglum wants”—Paha Sapa will winch those twenty crates up here to the ridgetop, right here almost within touching distance of his Vision Pit, and then Mune will handle the winches on this side as Paha Sapa drops down on his cable, dancing in that unearthly gravity he’s grown to dream about, the toes of his boots touching the faces only every twenty feet or so, as he places the twenty crates of dynamite in his pre-prepared spots and rigs the detonation wires that will blow the three existing Heads and the rock for the fourth waiting Head right off the side of this mountain forever. As Mr. Borglum has just said—there’s no more good rock here to carve from, forevermore.

  He turns and looks at the fiercely squinting sculptor.

  —It’s an incredible and wonderful vision, Mr. Borglum. A truly wonderful vision.

  17

  Jackson Park, Illinois

  July 1893

  PAHA SAPA RISES HIGH INTO THE AIR.

  This does not alarm him. He’s flown before. And this time he is being borne aloft in a device made up of more than 100,000 precisely machined parts, mostly of steel, including the largest axle in the world, which weighs—according to the Fair brochures—142,031 pounds. Paha Sapa believed it when he read that no single man-made item of that weight had ever been lifted before. And certainly not to its middle-of-the-wheel height of 148 feet.

  The price of a ticket for a ride on Mr. Ferris’s Wheel was the same as the price for entry to the Fair—fifty cents. But this time, forewarned, Paha Sapa had his dollar out and ready to pay for his and Miss de Plachette’s tickets.

  The Wheel, which opened for business fifty-one days later than promised just two weeks ago on June 21, is by far the most popular attraction at the Fair, but by some stroke of clever timing or pure luck, there are only five other people—an older couple who look like grandparents to the three nicely dressed children—in this car that can hold sixty people and which has swiveling seats for thirty-eight. And there is also one mustached, gaudily uniformed guard, sometimes called a conductor, who stands at either the south or north bolted door, both locks and guard there presumably to prevent suicide attempts, but who’s also there to soothe those who discover their fear of heights during the ride.

  Paha Sapa has heard through some of the Wild West Show’s cowboys that these conductor-guards, each in his absurd uniform that looks to be part lion tamer’s and part orchestra conductor’s, have had to take instruction in boxing and wrestling and each also carries a three-pound bag of shot—a sap—in his pocket under that heavy tunic. Just in case fear drives a passenger insane.

  Miss de Plachette—Rain—obviously has no such fear. Rather than sit on one of the thirty-eight round, tufted velvet chairs, the lady rushes to the almost floor-to-ceiling windows (each with its own wire mesh, also to prevent suicides, Paha Sapa assumes) and exclaims as the car begins to move slowly. Paha Sapa thinks he has seen the huge Wheel revolving in both directions, and today it is revolving east to west over the top. They are facing east as the car rises—the loading platforms are so cleverly arranged below that six cars can be emptied and loaded at the same time—and as they rise, Miss de Plachette watches the Midway Plaisance recede in size and the view of the White City beyond appear.

  Her voice is sincerely and joyously breathless.

  —Incredible!

  Thinking—This from the lady who has been up in the far taller Eiffel Tower—Paha Sapa joins her at the window wall. He holds on to the gleaming brass railing, even though there is very little swaying. As if by instinct, the two of them have moved to the farthest corner on the eastern side of the mostly empty car, away from the quiet family and the conductor. The car, with its opposing north and south doors, each locked (the guard-conductor carries the key in his pocket), seems quite homey. There is a floral-pattern carpet and, in a corner, a huge brass cuspidor that is emptied regularly. The wire mesh in the large windows and door glass is so fine that it does not obstruct the view. Paha Sapa glances up and sees the glass-shaded rows of electric lights running around the perimeter of the ceiling and over both doors. He realizes that the lights are probably very dim so that they do not ruin the view at night and thinks that the view of the White City at night—with all of its searchlights and spotlights and thousands of electric bulbs illuminating the larger buildings and domes—must be as spectacular as Miss de Plachette had described. The lighted Ferris Wheel cars must also be a sight at night, seen from the Midway, with the bright carbide lights illuminating them from below and each carriage lighted from within by its own internal electric lights.

  They continue rising.

  One glance back over his shoulder toward the east through the opposite wall of windows makes him blink with vertigo. Looking into the spidery maze of spokes and steel girders at thirty-five other moving cars like their own, at the silhouettes of many hundreds of other people in those thirty-five cars, and at the giant turning axle with the truly gigantic support towers on either side makes Paha Sapa dizzy. The height is somehow magnified by looking through the giant wheel toward the more western exhibits along the Midway Plaisance so far below. And everything is turning, revolving, falling, and spinning at once. It is like being an insect caught inside a huge, revolving bicycle wheel.

  Paha Sapa closes his eyes.

  Miss de Plachette shakes his arm and laughs in delight.

  The first of the two revolutions they are to receive for the price of their tickets is the slower one—their twenty-four-foot-long by thirteen-foot-wide car will stop at six different altitudes and positions on the wheel as more cars are loaded below. Their first loading stop is a quarter of the way up and when the car stops, it rocks ever so slightly back and forth on the horizontal bar that holds it, bearings and brakes below making the softest of sounds. Both Miss de Plachette and the grandmother at the opposite end of the car are also make squeaking noises—the older lady in terror, and Miss de Plachette, he is certain, in pure delight.

  The conductor, who Paha Sapa heard introduce himself to the grandparent couple as being named Kovacs, clears his throat and gives a superior chuckle.

  —Nothin’ to worry about, ladies and gents… and little ones. Nothing at all. These here steel posts we’re hangin’ from—trunnions, they’re called—could hold ten times the weight of this fine car, even if we were fully loaded.

  The seven passengers watch silently as the car begins rising again and the eastern end of the Midway Plaisance and the domes of the White City appear. Beyond the domes, sunlight makes the band of Lake Michigan glow bright and visible above the trees and giant buildings. They see a cluster of ships in the harbor—mere masted points of horizontal blackness from their exhalted position—and a ferry bringing more Fair visitors to the end of the long arrival pier.

  Closer in, the Midway Plaisance stretches east beneath them, filled with happy dark specks. Below and to their left are the red roofs and forested grounds of the German Village. To the right of the Midway rise the domes and minarets and odd spires of the Turkish Village. Beyond the Turkish Village on the right is the large, round, strange struct
ure that holds the simulated Burmese Alps exhibit, and opposite that across the Midway is the Javanese Village known as the Dutch Settlement, across the street from the main Dutch Settlement.

  Beyond these structures are the Irish Village on the left, with its popular Donegan Castle and Blarney Stone; the round amphitheater on the right for the animal show; and—farther down, marking the east end of the Midway—the twin and opposing glasswork buildings, Murano on the right and Libby on the left.

  As he thinks the word Libby, Paha Sapa feels a dull stirring in his skull and wonders if General Custer’s ghost is watching through his, Paha Sapa’s, eyes, listening through his ears. Damn him if he is.

  It is while they are stopped next, waiting for another six cars below them to load quickly, that the little boy, no older than five, breaks away from his grandparents and comes running around the car, waving his arms as if he is flying. The boy’s fingers brush Paha Sapa’s bare wrist above his gloves as the child flaps and flutters by.

  He realizes then what an attuned state of sensitivity he is in, for at once there is an into-the-person vision flash of images and thoughts from the child. Paha Sapa has to clutch the railing at the window and close his eyes as vertigo assails him again.

  The elderly couple at the other end of the car, even now calling the wayward child back to them, are named Doyle and Rheva. They are from Indiana. Paha Sapa noticed that the man has a droopy left eye and a strangely downturned mouth, and now—through the little boy’s unfocused memory—he learns of the stroke the year before that caused it. Doyle has a long, thin nose, and Rheva, a slightly plump former beauty with full, flushed cheeks, kind eyes, and shorter-than-the-fashion wavy silver hair, has always been embarrassed by her behind. Everyone in the family—even the little boy—calls it the “DeHaven Butt.” It is Rheva’s greatest secret, known only by the entire family, that she has never had to purchase or wear a bustle in order to be seen as wearing a bustle. The little boy does not know what a “bustle” is.