ROAD TRIP (part two)

by Steven Steinbock

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In last week’s column I told you about the first half of my epic cross-country road trip from one end of Interstate 90 to the other. Our trip took us through Massachusetts, upstate New York, along the southern shore of Lake Erie, from Toledo to Chicago, then skimming across the southern edges of Wisconsin and Minnesota and then on into South Dakota.

After visiting the Mitchell Corn Palace and Wall Drug, we found ourselves driving toward a big black funnel cloud. I felt as though we were heading right into Dorothy’s tornado. The storm was to the right as we looked out the front windshield. The sun was shining ahead and to the left. But where we were driving, the rain was coming down hard and heavy. By the time we got to Keystone, the storm was behind us and it was time to call it a day.

The town of Keystone, South Dakota, is just inside the Black Hills National Forest. It’s about fifteen miles south of Rapid City, and two miles down the hill from Mount Rushmore. We were in the heart of the country, so it was a perfect opportunity to take a day-long break from our trek.

Wednesday morning Sandra Brannan and her son, Joey, joined us. Sandra is a mystery novelist whose family goes way back in the region. She gave Nate and me a very special behind-the-scenes look at Mount Rushmore. From Mount Rushmore we drove southwest toward Custer where for a time our route was blocked by a herd of buffalo.

Next Sandra took us to the Crazy Horse Memorial. While still a work in progress, this monument to Indian history and culture stands almost ten times the height of the faces on Rushmore. Talk about a story! Designer and sculptor Korczak Ziolkowski had worked on Mount Rushmore before being asked by the Lakota leader Chief Standing Bear to create a monument to the Sioux people. He proposed a likeness of Chief Crazy Horse with outstretched arm sitting atop his horse. Korczak began carving the mountainside in 1948, and the work is being carried on today by his children.

Sandra is a close friend of the Ziolkowski family. She introduced me to Korczak’s widow, Ruth. When she told Ruth that I wrote for Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine, the woman lit up with a smile. Nate and I, and Sandra and Joey were taken up the side of the mountain and stood atop Crazy Horse’s arm, just below his face, where we saw the engineering work up close. It was stunning and unforgettable.

There must be a story in there somewhere. It is easy to imagine Korczak, a colorful Yankee of Polish descent, having a falling out with Rushmore designer Gutzon Borglum. Korczak was a defiant, Hemingway-esque individualist, while Borglum was pompous, authoritarian, an avowed White Supremacist and active member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Next week I’ll conclude with our stay in Yellowstone, and our final arrival in the Emerald City of Seattle.