Good Vibrations (19 page)

As soon as we re-entered the reservation on the secondary route leading to Wounded Knee, the pot-holes became so deep and erratic that some stretches of road represented a major undertaking. Set back from the track, shabby trailers and basic houses were surrounded by wrecked automobiles, rusty cookers and other debris, an untidy contrast to the neat homes of white farmers a mere 30 miles away. ‘Low morale', would be a simplistic deduction, yet when we stopped by the roadside to take in the scene of poor soil, buttes and shallow canyons, two beaten-up local cars had swung by within five minutes to check brightly whether we needed help. Both drivers were Sioux, the second a woman.

‘We're fine, thank you,' Roz reassured her. ‘We just stopped to admire your beautiful country.'

And it was true. The deeply scoured valleys and gulches might have been unproductive, but they were lovely in the cool morning.

‘Beautiful country, yes,' responded the woman, arms wide, ‘this is sacred ground. The Black Hills and all this land are the burial place of our ancestors. It was given to us and will always be holy.'

‘What I don't understand,' Roz remarked after she had driven away, ‘is that if the place is so sacred, why dump rubbish everywhere like modern-day gypsies? Why is there no respect for the environment?'

I could only suggest that perhaps nomadic Indians, and gypsies too, had always left their refuse behind, but that in pre-industrial times, everything must perforce have been biodegradable. Perhaps when they came back to a summer camp after a six-month absence, their leavings had more or less returned to the earth. Living free with the land and its creatures as a part of the whole order, rather than being forced to subsist on its surface as consumers, must have cast a very different perspective on such questions. A hundred years is a short time to change a path of thinking that was part of this nation's genetic framework long before the army ground it into irrelevance at gunpoint with government approval.

Perhaps the last word on the Indian philosophy of land ownership should go to Crazy Horse. ‘One does not sell the earth on which the people walk.' 

At Wounded Knee, we stood alone at what must be one of the most dignified monuments in the United States, a Stone Age people's equivalent of the wall memorial in Washington to the dead of Vietnam. A small enclosure has been cordoned-off above the shallow valley where, a day or two before Christmas 1890, the army opened fire with field guns on a final group of free Indians under Black Foot, who were actually in the process of handing in their arms and coming on to the Pine Ridge Reservation. One of the few survivors was Black Elk:

I did not know then how much was ended. When I look back now from this high hill of my old age, I can see the butchered women and children lying heaped and scattered all along the crooked gulch as plain as when I saw them with my eyes still young. And I can see that something else died there in the bloody mud, and was buried in the blizzard. A people's dream died there. It was a beautiful dream… the nation's hoop is broken and scattered. There is no centre any longer, and the sacred tree is dead.

From 4-foot withies driven into the hard earth, a few scraps of coloured cloth floated on the summer breeze. One or two simple statements were carved on low stone tablets and a plain stone monolith marked the centre, but the essential message is in the fragments of material caught in the endless wind. What the fluttering fronds mean to the people who maintain them I do not know, but for me, they mark a position fixed in time; the watershed between a philosophy that accepted the land as it was and the new one of recasting it to accommodate man's special needs.

Our next stop was to be Whiteclay to replenish our booze. Alcohol sales are forbidden on the reservation and this settlement immediately off Indian Territory was said to fill the gap in the market. Riding the bumpy road to the drink store, I deliberated the impressions of the Sioux. My thoughts centred on the confusion of identity that seemed to beset the most famous Indian nation of them all. The stark perfection of the Wounded Knee memorial failed utterly to gel with the drunks at the pow-wow, and it was clearly true that for many Native Americans, in this area at least, liquor provided an important life support system. In the absence of sales points on the reservation, the hamlet of Whiteclay has given itself over to servicing this requirement. It consists of little more than a sun-beaten open space with the right stuff on sale. As we trundled to a halt, the place smelt as though something had died around the corner and been left there for vultures who had not fancied it. No habitation, no church, no doctor's surgery and no school disturbed the seedy dispensing of booze.

When we shut off our engines, a small gathering of sullen men rose to their feet from benches outside the stores and came lurching over towards us, weaving from drink but distinctly menacing. Roz glanced at me for confirmation, then she thumbed her starter button and we turned tail. Facing up to strangers in circumstances that imply a potential threat always takes moral fibre, and I for one had run out of the commodity for the time being. It was a sad end to a remarkable two days, but rather than face a meaningless conversation or something worse with these ruined men, we sped towards the wilderness of the Badlands into which Crazy Horse's parents had carried their son's body. His grave was never revealed.

15
STYLE OR
SUBSTANCE?

We chose the least-used route through the thousand-odd square miles of the Dakota Badlands. In the hot afternoon, it took no imagination to work out that before the trail was driven through and the odd motor vehicle passed by, dying of thirst or exposure in the wildly decayed wilderness of cream-coloured clay would have been simple. The division between the marginally cultivable Indian reservation and the totally unworkable Badlands was dramatic. The grass petered out while the terrain took on fantastic shapes as though painted by Salvador Dali. Wide, flat-floored valleys and narrower canyons carved out by the weather spanned the miles between almost vertical, stratified cliffs rising to the surface of the plain above. The low-lying areas were littered with crazy towers of clay and flat-topped ‘mini-mesas' a hundred or more feet high that cried out to be explored.

Immediately inside the southern boundary, a dust track wandered off across an area of sparse, coarse vegetation to a tiny wooden church. Roz rode on along the partially metalled road as I, always a pushover for a chapel or a bar, pulled over to investigate. Seemingly irrelevantly placed miles from any habitation, I doubted whether even the coyotes came to church here. As I parked Black Madonna, I took off my shades to get the full effect of the still-high sun, but the light shining back from the pale-coloured cliffs and the peeling white clapboard of the walls was so strong it hurt my eyes. I slammed them back on again and forswore reality.

The chapel bore the same signs of semi-regular use one notes on the churches of country parishes in England, where ecclesiastical cutbacks require vicars to service three or four congregations. Notices announcing ‘Holy Communion, third Sunday in the month,' and ‘Flowers next week, Mrs Tidy,' were absent, but the timber steps were in good repair. The heavy door was unfortunately locked, but the board announced to any who should pass by that this was the church of ‘Our Lady of the Sioux'. It was my last fleeting connection with the modern-day survivors of the tribes of the northern plains, but no priest appeared to explain why the building existed in so obscure a location, or who were the worshippers who made the stupefying journey to mass.

Back on the road, the tarmac was shimmering in the midday heat. I strapped my leathers across the back of the bike and gave Madonna the gun to catch up with Roz, only to succumb to another dirt track 10 miles later weaving away into a narrow canyon. The dust had been pounded hard and flat by storms, so riding wasn't too difficult, although over-confidence would soon have had me off because the stark light was not picking up any holes and corrugations clearly enough for me to anticipate at over 15 mph. I stopped my engine in a side gulch, and stood for a few minutes experiencing the totally lifeless nature of the place. Nothing whatever moved and the only sound was the bike cooling off a fraction from running temperature to the blood-boiling ambient heat of the surrounding air. My black, studded machine was in perfect harmony with this outrageously American scene, and I reflected that if you threw in a friendly rattlesnake the picture would make the cover of a Harley-Davidson brochure.

I could have sat on my haunches all afternoon watching the shadows grow, but Roz was running further away each minute and as usual, we'd no contingency meeting plan other than that we'd be in Sturgis that night. This typically loose arrangement, however, was going to be even less use than usual. We hadn't seen a bike apart from Sid Half-Head's since we'd entered the reservation, but there had to be thousands of them 50 miles north of us. Unless Roz stopped to wait for me, which there was no guarantee of her doing, finding her in town was going to be like looking for a small bolt in a well-stocked workshop ‘bits box'. Reluctantly, I fired up and gave the engine all the gas it could guzzle.

I was soon seeing double from the high-speed throbbing of the engine, but even so there was no glimpse of the black and yellow flash far ahead until our obscure track ran into the main drag at the imaginatively named junction of ‘Scenic'. As we merged with the highway that led through Rapid City to bikers' Mecca, we at last filtered into a river of spotless motorcycles which grew ever denser as it flowed westwards.

For any lover of traditional American engineering, the sheer mass of steel, chrome and tooled leather pouring westwards was worth a long, hard road to be a part of. Founded in 1903, Harley-Davidson's history is older than many parts of the modern country, and even the spread-eagle logo could serve as a national call to arms. Harleys prevailed here by an overwhelming percentage, with cool dudes lounging back on customised ‘choppers' riding as easy as Captain America himself; grizzled veterans in ancient leathers barrelling along with grey beards flying in the wind; smart city types cruising on ‘store-bought' one-offs, while an occasional ‘rat-bike' wreck surged along in defiance of the laws of mechanical ageing.

‘Highway pegs' in lieu of conventional footrests were standard equipment, allowing the feet to ease out almost to the front wheel. The resulting laid-back mode makes for comfort in a straight line, but can be so unsuited to ambitious bend-swinging that the attitude has given Harley riders in Britain the reputation for posing. Removed from nationalism and prejudice, the unadorned fact is that so long as it isn't taken to the sort of extremes that are normal in Sturgis, the position is safer than it looks assuming you aren't in a hurry. Out West where the roads run straight all day and half the next as well, the tables are squarely turned on the sport-biker. In ‘Marlboro Country', it is the man crouched over a high-speed ‘crotch rocket' that seems vaguely ridiculous, on a mission to prove something.

The one thing that struck us immediately as we joined the stream was how slowly everyone was riding; 50 mph, maybe 60 for a treat, was maximum. To me and to Roz too, now that she was starting to relax, travelling on a powerful motorbike so slowly seemed somehow rude to the machinery, and so we blatted merrily on, overtaking almost everyone in a non-aggressive sort of way.

As we passed each bike, hearing its booming thunder as the sun sparkled on chrome-work and coloured the flying leather tassels, I couldn't help but check out what our brothers and sisters were wearing. In sartorial terms, I felt like a farm boy at a society wedding. Most of that remarkable procession was togged up in fashion gear, and I had to admit it caught the eye of the beholder a whole lot more effectively than our fundamentalist leathers. It also assisted the air-cooling of the suffering body, but the protection factor of a thin sleeveless jerkin, a headscarf and a pair of jeans with rips across the knees approaches absolute zero, even against grasshopper attack. The truth was probably that nobody rode at a sensible speed simply because it hurt too much, even if you stayed on your wheels. Actually sliding in the gravel in such kit would be too damaging to contemplate. Yet for all my long-faced British common sense, the boys and girls rolling down that road were as great a sight as their machinery. The disdain for crash helmets was universal, but stylish hats or caps, flying ponytails, brawny arms showing off acres of tattoo, neck chains and cowboy boots with huge ring buckles were uniform for the younger men. The old-timers were better covered and looked as if they had ridden farther, but it was the women who really seemed to have a death-wish.

Every so often we overtook a lady on her own bike. Some were riding ‘safe', others making a statement for freedom by wearing next to nothing in the golden sunshine. Comparatively secure in her full-face helmet and leathers, I could see Roz peeking in disbelief at the black leather bikinis, minimalist buckskin jackets revealing cleavages with all-over tans and at least one set of the sexy, black, North American chaps with the open behind worn over nothing more than a G-string. One false move among the tight group she was riding with and the lady's manicured bum would look like a field of burnt shell-holes. I could almost feel Roz shuddering. Such valkyries in control of their own destiny were, however, in the minority. Most of the fair sex trundling west were perched uncomfortably high up behind their men, the young ones with their feet so close under their behinds that they hung on only by splaying their bare legs in a manner only the simplest could misconstrue.

Beyond the classic ‘strip' of Rapid City, the smooth surface of Interstate 90 rose steadily for 30 miles to the Sturgis turn-off under a shoulder of the 7,000-foot Black Hills. It had been a long day from the luxury of our overnight refuge, but the last thing we wanted at the ‘Greatest Motorbike Show on Earth' was a wholesome, family camping place. Zealously searching for action despite our fatigue, we scoured the outskirts of town for the forbidden venue.

‘Buffalo Chip?' I asked the leader of a group of half-shaven road-burners drinking beer under a threadbare tree. He looked hard at me for a few seconds, dragged at his roll-up, then spat in the dust.

‘If you gotta ask, mister, you shouldn't be goin' there.'

His cronies made ‘Mr Cool' expressions and flexed their tattoos. I met their stare with a nonchalance I did not feel, nodded and opened my throttle.

‘Give it one more go,' suggested Roz.

Our next human road sign was leaning on a smart new custom model filling his trendy peanut tank with ‘Premium Unleaded' and taking the sort of care with the hose that would normally be reserved for a nitric acid dispenser. With such a pitiful fuel capacity he'd never have made it across the Badlands, and he had no more clue about the forbidden campground than we did. He even fished a plan out of his pocket that indicated where a homeless biker could unroll his bedding. Still he shook his head.

‘Ain't no Buffalo Chip on this map,' he said, ‘but there's a good place right here behind the pumps. They got showers, dancing, the lot.'

And so, by chance, we pitched our tent beside a Dutch couple on a similar expedition to our own. Marek looked at home on his ‘Springer-nosed' Harley with Death's Head handlebar ornaments, leather vest and riding cap. Marlika rode pillion, but had reached a similar conclusion to Roz about motorcycling long distances in her underwear.

‘I think we should form a chapter of uncool bikers,' she proposed in almost-unaccented English as we glugged a quick bottle of Wild Turkey to get in the mood. At 9.30 we marched across to the dance.

The barn was full of atmosphere and the music vibrant, but nobody stood up from the trestle tables to bop around, no voice was raised either in wrath or delight and the booze was going warm on the shelves. We necked a few beers to be polite, then the band hit us with ‘Mony, Mony' and Roz couldn't take any more idleness. We hopped out on to the floor followed by the Dutch contingent, danced the number through and sat down again. People looked at us as though we hailed from Mars, so we gave that up and struggled to join in the table conversation over the sound of the redundant band. Perhaps not surprisingly, this proved to be 100 per cent Harley-Davidson. Nobody talked about threading the high passes out of Colorado in soft snow as Nell had, and no-one was gossiping about sex, drugs and demolition derbies. There were no 'Nam vets stretching out their pensions on the highway, just part-time bikers discussing ‘Screamin' Eagle' carburettor parts and chrome custom fittings. You expect people to voice their enthusiasms at such gatherings, and Marek and I had some interest in the subject, so we stuck with it for a quarter-hour. Then Marlika leaned across. A lovely girl even though she was covered up.

‘Roz and I are going back to the tents to drink the other bottle of whiskey,' she announced to the assembled teetotallers. ‘I spent all day on the back of the bike and I don't want to pass the night talking about the thing.'

Marek glanced at me.

‘We'll come along too,' I responded quickly, relieved to be out of the tedium.

Back at the Khyber Pass, Marek splashed scotch into his plastic Coke cup. As a transport driver who had fired himself to make the trip to America, he was an expert.

‘They have trains full of motorbikes coming from all over America to nearby towns,' he announced solemnly. ‘And there's trucks galore. There's still a few who really ride out here. You've met some, so have we, but folks like us are a minority. These are mainly middle-class people. Most of them don't have the time to do it right. They have to get back to their jobs. There are a few reformed ravers, but even those guys are middle-aged with kids now. The wild times are done.'

As he spoke, a gust of cold air swept through the tents from the lowering bulk of the Black Hills. Within a minute, a katabatic wind off the mountains had risen to near gale force and tents were blowing away. I ripped open my saddlebag and fished out my sailor's coil of line to fashion a storm guy. Marek was contriving a similar lash-up for his own outfit as a flock of ‘superlite' igloo motorbike tents somersaulted like tumbleweed in the moonlight. Bikers in various stages of undress scattered in disarray across the dusty campground like infantry in rout before an avenging Chief Touch the Clouds. The flimsy shelters wrapped themselves around trees, pick-ups and motorcycles. One shot clear away past the well-lit toilet block and out the gate, pursued by a hobbling shadow in a forage cap, pulling up its pants with one hand. For an hour or more, chaos was king until the storm died as suddenly as it had risen, tattered tents were re-established, and all was peace except for the constant drone of unsilenced V-twins that continued day and night.

‘I think that's the most action we're going to see here,' predicted Marlika, and she was right.

The morning after the tent-storm, we mounted up to hunt for some of the people we'd met along the road. Having failed miserably to locate Buffalo Chip, we fared no better searching for Bear Bluff with Red's campsite under the cliff. Hoping for better luck with Nell, Steve and the rest we filtered into the mob of rumbling, roaring bikes cruising into town.