The roof of Nebraska

Agate Fossil Bed fossils and twin buttes 

Buttes west of Fort Robinson

South of Hot Springs, S.D.

Near the Nebraska border

In the west, the road less traveled might come loaded with construction zones. Mine certainly did. If a pilot car is required, expect a 30-minute delay. It’s a good rule of thumb. Don’t expect sympathy from the locals. 

Two trucks with horse trailers passed me while I waited on a red light at a one-lane bridge. Why be a bad driver in an unfamiliar country? I saw no reason. 

Yet I passed them right back – and legally - when I caught up three miles later. When I turned west at Crawford, Nebraska, they went elsewhere. 

The whole reason for the shortcut was a straighter route to a few stops along the way home. After Scottsbluff, I could only count on long stretches of emptiness. A few turns would change that in the upper reaches of Nebraska’s Pine Ridge. So let us never speak of the shortcut again. 

But let us talk a lot about Fort Robinson State Park, which protects a significant site in northwest Nebraska. It is most infamous as the place where Crazy Horse was betrayed and killed. The structures and parade grounds instantly transport visitors to another time. 

A series of rimrocks looms over Fort Robinson to the east. The buildings are neat and in good condition. The fort was active from the 1870s through the 1940s, and eventually the U.S. Defense Department transferred control to the state of Nebraska, and the 20,000-acre site became its largest state park. 

 Instead of the park grounds, I went for the Fort Robinson Museum to get better perspective on what occurred here (beyond killing one of the best known Lakota warriors). The history started at the Indian Wars but extended all the way to World War II. 

The fort had its share of unique traits, including bands of Indians who wintered close to Fort Robinson, and the nearby Red Cloud Agency. Between the world wars, Fort Robinson became the nation’s largest site for U.S Army Remount Services, training for horses, mules, and dogs for the military until the post closed in 1947. 

I couldn’t bring myself to visit the marker where Crazy Horse received his fatal bayonet wound. The whole affair was too sad and emblematic of treatment toward Native people in this country. The Lakota warrior arrived with nearly 1,000 followers under a flag of truce. But the Army intended to take Crazy Horse into custody. When he resisted, he was murdered, bleeding out from a bayonet wound. 

Thinking about Crazy Horse, I found it better to look at the combination of plains and craggy buttes that framed the fort than the historic buildings. The landscape was utterly unique, a different blend of exposed rock than anywhere else on the plains. 

This far northwest in Nebraska, only Harrison remains. After a few short blocks, there are just ranches down to Mitchell, which lies just outside Scottsbluff. Shortly I came upon the lone green thatch in this country, a few small stands of trees in the riparian zone of the Niobrara River. There lies the turn east to Agate Fossil Beds National Monument. 

This time the monument had some summer traffic, albeit much less than the Black Hills bucket-list sites. I saw several families mounting up for the hike to the twin mesas where the fossil beds were excavated. Very few trees lie on the 2-mile loop and having done it in September had no desire to try again in July. 

The Niobrara is more of a wide creek at this point in its journey to meet the Missouri. In many places, the foliage on its banks covers most of the river. 

 I spent more time in the visitor center’s Indian artifact exhibit. James A. Cook not only discovered the fossil beds, but he had some relationships with the local Native tribes. 

 A darkened gallery housed numerous garments, a decorative saddle, weapons, and other items that the tribes gifted to Cook over the years. One of the last photos of Red Cloud taken in his life is also on the wall. Reading about the friendship between James A. Cook and the Indians gave me a spark of hope. 

Here in a land taken by force, friendships could form, healing could occur. Wounds might remain further north, where the Black Hills will remain contentious as long as the Lakota lack a stake. But seeing people for the people they are and culture they represent could help us reach common ground.