A whir and clang brought him back to his senses, a steady cadence close to his head.

“You had a fall, sir. Are you sure you’re all right?” Zitkala-Sa’s face looked down at him from the ceiling. Or rather, he realized, he was lying on his back, and she was looking down at him. He looked over to discover that the source of the whir and clang was an old western-style pony ride shifting back and forth on its gears. A child's ride. It was brown and black with chipped hooves and re-painted spots on its ears.

“That ride isn’t really for adults,” she said with an amused frown.

“Sorry, Zitkala-Sa, I’m just… what happened?” he asked.

“My name is Beth, sir, and if you’re okay, I’ll have to ask you to get up. You’ll need to purchase something or move on, please,” the girl said. Jeremy realized how young this woman was, and her hair was shorter, not the long black hair of Zitkala-Sa. And where Zitkala-Sa’s voice had been a musical symphony of confident sadness, this girl’s was a tornado siren waiting to be refined.

“Sorry, I thought you were someone else,” he said, crawling to his feet. He placed his index finger to the side of his head, pressing slightly to see if the pain was gone. It was, but when he swallowed, the back of his throat felt like sandpaper. The dark-haired girl walked back to the counter but continued to watch him suspiciously.

The shop looked the same, still filled with 1950s merchandise, but there were other people now, and the light was bright and somehow more cheerful. The pony ride settled with a final whir and came to a stop. Had he really been riding a child’s mechanical horse? He picked up his pack and threw it over his shoulder. Peering out the large windows, he saw the gate leading into the Badlands. It was in one piece now. Antique cars lined the road, waiting to enter. Was this another dream? Had Zitkala-Sa been real? At least he remembered everything this time, hopefully. He knew he was on a mission to find Frank’s name. He walked through the store, looking for water or any other type of drink. Usually, he would never touch soda or anything else infused with whatever companies injected in such drinks, but his thirst felt like a fire spreading up the back of his throat.

Stepping around a shelf, he nearly bumped into a young boy in a park ranger uniform. The boy held out a national park guidebook, gesturing for him to take it. He couldn’t be more than eight or nine years old. His shirt was gray with bright patches on the sleeves, and his shorts were brown with neat creases down the front. He wore knee-high socks. Maybe it was a boy scout uniform; Jeremy couldn’t tell by the patches. “Here, take this,” the boy said. It was the same guide Zitkala-Sa had been reading. “And this.” He placed a plastic tomahawk on top of the book in Jeremy’s hand. “She wanted you to have it.”

Jeremy stared at the boy. “Who wanted me to have it?” His voice sounded like rocks in a tumbler.

“There’s a water cart just outside, sir.” The boy turned and walked through the store, his shaggy brown hair swaying with each stride.

“Wait!” Jeremy took a step, but the fire in his throat sent him into a fit of coughing. “Who, Zitkala-Sa?” The words were a cracked whisper, and the boy was nowhere to be seen now. Jeremy tried to swallow as he shoved the guide and toy tomahawk into his bag. He wasn’t exactly sure what a water cart was, but he had to find it. He rushed to the glass doors and shouldered his way through them. But instead of warm badlands air, a brisk breeze took his breath away.

“Hold it! You’ll bring the whole damn mountain down!” a voice echoed around him. He flinched, staring in awe. The worn black-top parking lot was gone, replaced by pea-sized gravel under his boots. Fighting off a sense of vertigo, he spun to find that he was standing on a tree-lined path. The gift shop was gone. Crisp air filled his lungs. Up the trail, he could see a mountain rising into the cloudy sky; half a dozen men dangled over the side. They wore harnesses attached to long ropes. Other men walked along platforms suspended by elaborate pulley systems. Cranes, carts, and crates were everywhere. The thick pine trees around him bent in a sudden gust of wind, and he could smell the hint of rain. A storm was coming.

“Go in two!” Another echoed voice roared from somewhere up ahead. Jeremy took a few steps up the trail toward the commotion. No matter where he was, he had to find water. As the thought passed through his mind, an explosion shook the ground beneath his feet. He stumbled and scrambled to the side of the trail before sitting in the gravel, leaning against his pack. Was that some kind of horrible accident? He didn’t want to look up at the mountain again. What if mutilated bodies covered the rocks and trail? Instead, he looked up into the sky. It was definitely going to rain.

“They race the weather,” a man said, sitting on a tree stump beside him.

“What?” Jeremy asked, trying to swallow down the pain in his throat. Looking over at the man, he wondered how long he’d been sitting there. Had he seen his panicked scramble?

“Stupid white man. Act like the mountain won’t be here after the storm,” the man said as if talking to himself. He had long gray hair and brown wrinkled skin. As he spoke, he kept his eyes on the mountain, and Jeremy wondered if he knew he was there. “Mountain has been here since time before man. Not going anywhere.” He shook his head and glared toward the workers darting about through rising dust. It floated through the air like a thick layer of fog.

“Where are we?” Jeremy asked in a whisper.

The man tilted his head toward him, finally acknowledging that he was there.

“Paha Sapa,” he said, peering at Jeremy from the corner of his eye. Jeremy looked at him blankly. “You’re in the Black Hills.”

“Oh,” Jeremy said. It felt real, but it had to be a dream or some kind of hallucination. He pulled cool air into his lungs, smelling pine trees and rain. But his imagination wasn’t this good, he thought, so it must be something else. Some kind of incantation, maybe. Looking up the path to the mountain, he realized he could make out a rough-hewn face taking shape in the stone. It was giant. It looked like there had been another face next to it at one time, or maybe it was being carved simultaneously.

“We’re at Mount Rushmore,” Jeremy rasped. “I read about this at the library.”

“Rushmore,” the man said. Forming the word slowly, deliberately. “That’s what they’re calling it? Rushmore was the lawyer helping white men drive our people out. Laws created by them and administered by them in their own system to decide our fate.” The old Native shook his gray-haired head sadly. “They can’t even make up their mind about how to destroy our sacred place.” He gestured up the hill. “They just blew up that face, been carving it for more than a year. Starting over, to put the face on the other side of the Great Thief. Guess they didn’t like the light.”

“Who is the Great Thief?” Jeremy sat back on his heels, staring up at the mountain.

“Read your book.”

“What book?”

“In your bag. Learn about disease and guns, sure, but also names and language. New names and language conquered this land.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Rushmore was here to check on the white man’s stolen property. Deeds created by your people for our sacred land. He asked the name of the mountain. That mountain didn’t have a name, was here since time began for my people; you would call it a holy land. But Rushmore gave it his name, gave it power for your people. Then put faces of the invaders on it to remind us.”

“I need to find a name for my friend,” Jeremy said, his voice still a cracked whisper. He stood up slowly, scanning the trail. He didn’t see any sign of a water cart.

“Sometimes you find names, sometimes they’re given. Read your book,” the old man said. He stood up, stretched, and walked into the woods. Jeremy watched him go and tried to imagine what it felt like to see your culture being dismantled. As tons of rock was blasted out of the mountain, was it like watching it in real-time? A sledgehammer to the heart.

After a few moments, he walked toward the monument. He saw the destroyed face next to George Washington’s as he approached. The man must have meant Washington when he said, Great Thief. Workers were scurrying about everywhere, pushing carts full of supplies or crawling up the side of the mountain with ropes. The rush to finish before the coming storm seemed to be in full swing. The wind had picked up and blown out the dust from the previous explosion. Should he be looking for shelter?

“I need water,” he said to a passing worker. The man in the antique hard hat pointed to a horse-drawn cart up the trail. Finally, Jeremy sighed and rushed forward. After holding his head under the old spigot and drinking deeply, he leaned his back against one of the wheels and pulled the guidebook out of his bag. Read your book, the old man had said.

“National Parks of the United States” was etched on the cover, along with a hand-drawn landscape of rolling plains with mountains in the background. As he studied the illustration, he realized it showed dead bodies strewn about the grass. He imagined blood and gore in the black and white drawing. He quickly opened the book before his imagination could come up with anything more vivid. He flipped to a random page with an illustration of Mount Rushmore, the Black Hills, and the Badlands.

The Great Thief Washington, who helped accelerate the conquest of the land now known as the United States, and his descendants, are depicted here. After driving the Lakota Sioux out of their sacred ancestral home, the Black Hills, the government of the invaders continued to “civilize” the people. More ancestral land was confiscated, and children were kidnapped and sent to missionary schools to learn Christian values. Traditional music and language were banned. Stripping the sacred earth for resources, gold, and crops was encouraged. As a sign of victory in the sacred Paha Sapa hills, the newly formed government desecrated the landscape by naming a mountain after a lawyer before blasting thousands of tons of rock away to form monumental portraits of the conquerors…

It went on like this on every page. The text pointed out the perceived power of manifest destiny. It highlighted Euro-American names like Rushmore being given to sacred native places, as well as Native names being given for newly formed Euro-American cities. Jeremy eventually looked up to see small eyes staring at him from the trees. There were at least four sets.

“That book is the tribal account of recent history,” a voice said. It wasn’t unkind, but it wasn’t warm either. “One way to see events.”

“I never thought—”

“Many people don’t, but you are a seer, you see through many eyes…if you want.”

“I didn’t want to be a seer. I don’t know what to do.”

“Go home now. The storm is coming.”

“Come out so I can see you,” Jeremy said.

A small blue creature, similar to Pinta, stepped out from behind the trees.

“I see you,” Jeremy said. And he did. This creature was born from sadness and sorrow. He was wild Folk, hundreds of years old, spawned in a nearby dwelling that had long since been reclaimed by the earth.

“I see you,” he said. His blue skin brightened as he spoke. He was clearly not used to talking to anyone outside of his circle. None of the other folk stepped out, content to let their leader talk to the seer.

“We are not long for life, but you are. You must go or stay here forever,” the small creature said.

“We’re in the past,” Jeremy said.

“Relative to where you were a moment ago, perhaps.”

“Are we really here?” The creature stared up at him without answering, and Jeremy didn’t know if he understood the question. He decided to try a different tactic. “What is your name?”

“I have none that you would recognize.”

Jeremy reached out and touched the creature’s face. He didn’t know what possessed him to do it; he just knew it was the right thing to do. “You were born before the people of the west came.”

“Yes, my tribe was killed by a warring tribe long before any of this.” He swept his little arm toward the monument. “Humans will always do what humans do. European, Lakota, Mayan, doesn’t matter. Humans fight, invade, and enslave each other. Technology doesn’t change that.”

“It seems to make it worse,” Jeremy said, thinking of Adelia and WWI. “I’m sorry.”

“You already have the tools to find your friend's name. Now it’s time to go.” The creature backed away, stepping into the shadow of the woods. “Here it comes.”

“What comes?”

There was a tremendous explosion, and the world disappeared, filled with white chalky dust and debris. Jeremy clamped his hands to his ears. The world was unbearable sound and pain. Images of his father’s face, full of fear and anger, swam through his mind, and his mother’s indifferent stare bore into him until he squeezed his eyes shut.