The temps climbed, the sun burned through car windows, the air conditioning in my Ford Fiesta made a noble effort to mitigate the early August blaze. We were making our way home from western Colorado, planning one more stop to see my folks in north-central Kansas, thus my choice of a route north of I-70. My wife and kids hated prolonging the return home, but I wanted to see a different road and so followed one of the trails Dad drove years before on treks to and from the Rocky Mountains. Myrna and our two kids wanted no part of the slowdown; they were ready to get back to Missouri and initiate their fall schedules. I was reluctant to return even one hour before it was necessary thinking I should recover from my vacation on work time. As a result, the side trip to Beecher Island amounted to dragging my family off to see an old landmark I’d read about when a teen. I knew its approximate location, so when I spotted the modest sign, I turned north to see what was there.
The gravel road seemed long due to that phenomenon of traveling an unfamiliar road: the way there seems longer than the return since the constant searching for signs slows one’s progress. Sometimes the dust caught up with us, engulfing the car like fog, making my impatient family sure we were wasting time. Finally a sign called for a left turn. We dropped into a shallow valley, and I saw Beecher Island for real, yet a reality that was more than a century from its original state when a troop of US Cavalry ran their horses there hoping to find shelter from bullets of a group of hostile Cheyenne and Arapaho warriors.
Dust and wind had already tired out Myrna, Mike, and Desma; I was thankful that my family humored my odd interest. I wanted to see the stream, the island, the surroundings so I could envision the true state of the story I’d read several times. I’d saved the magazine I’d purchased way back then. I’d read the account in a number of books. I’d already been there many times in my imagination.
Getting out of the car I saw that the island was just a sand bar in a nearly flat landscape. I saw the US military memorial of the historical event: names of soldiers who were killed there listed on a plaque attached to a pile of rocks held together with mortar. Old Glory topped a flagpole waving in the prevailing south-westerly Colorado summer wind. I read the plaque wondering how many other folk had taken the time to visit there that summer. From the looks of the place, I imagined few. I stifled an impulse to knock on the door of the house across the road to find out since I didn’t want to push my luck with my wife and kids.
No ruins remained there for us to see, just an unkempt and weedy park. In my imagination I removed the cluster of trees and restored the buffalo grass. I dug shallow trenches in which the soldiers hid, restored clumps of yucca, soap brush, and sage behind which warriors crouched as they kept the solders pinned. I saw the famous Cheyenne chief Roman Nose with his magical anti-bullet medicine taking the fatal shot like Achilles succumbing to the Trojan missile. I saw a hero die and the end of an era pass.
This Military memorial recalls losses that were part of a larger campaign of US conquest, a grabbing of lands, all seemingly justified even when often in direct conflict with the laws of the land. It’s an ugly story, an old human story. But this memorial is not only a history written by the victors. It’s also a place of grief that represents the traditions, victories, and losses of differing peoples. The winners of the war erected the memorial. The losers were forgotten as if winners didn’t require losers, as if the resolution of that war didn’t need to recognize the people pushed away into permanent poverty and a continuing threat of annihilation. In the skirmish at Beecher Island the Cavalry unit was besieged, eventually the Cheyenne and Arapahoe warriors scattered, repelled by the superior fire power of the newly-issued Spencer repeating rifles of the troops. One account claimed the remains of the chief were found laid out in a deserted tepee several miles from the island. I looked around for such a place even though I knew it would not have been in sight of the island.
Customs differ. I thought about the presence of the White interpretation and was not surprised by the absence of a list of native warriors who died in that conflict. The park had been built but not maintained with much care. Still the bronze plaque held witness to US Cavalry deaths. A few bushes grew near the memorial apparently planted to decorate the place. Beyond the island, on the far sides of the stream grew native cottonwoods and willows that clustered around the water. They seemed to me native mourners of the American Indians who died there, a reminder to the tourist that stories about victories and losses were kept alive in accounts still told in tribal gatherings.
Then I departed in my old car with my now eager-to-get-out-of-there wife and children who patiently had indulged my need. The trip was hardly more than an assertion of a car owner, a traveler, a reader, an Indian enthusiast, a tourist! No one else was really there. Already the trip seemed a lost dream. I realized the trips I’d taken there by reading were actually more satisfying to me, but my run in with the reality of the place served to correct my imagination. Now here I am writing about an emotional moment of my young adult life. Daily now I’m pushed back into literary travel due to my decision no longer to own a car. At least, I travel less by auto and more by imagination these days, and I’m pretty sure memory with imagination offers more. It’s become my favorite mode of transportation.
Denver, 2011
About the Author
Phillip Hoyle lives in Denver and spends his time writing, painting, and socializing. In general he keeps busy with groups of writers and artists. Following thirty-two years in church work and fifteen in a therapeutic massage practice, he now focuses on creating beauty. He volunteers at The Center leading the SAGE program “Telling Your Story.”
He also blogs at artandmorebyphilhoyle.blogspot
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