Free Go Big or Go Home by Will Hobbs

carries on. More than a million people visit every year, and they donate enough money to keep the dream alive.
    When it’s finally done, the statue of the Lakota chief on his warhorse will be way bigger than Rushmore. It’ll be as long as a cruise ship and tall as a sixty-story skyscraper.
    Crazy Horse will be pointing into the distance. The gesture comes from a moment in history. A year after the Battle of the Little Bighorn, Crazy Horse’s band was on the verge of starvation. The last herds of buffalo had been killed so the Indians wouldn’t have anything to eat.Crazy Horse came to a fort to listen to promises about food and blankets. When he did, he was taunted by an Army officer: “So where are your lands now, Crazy Horse?”
    Crazy Horse pointed to the horizon and said, “My lands are where my dead lie buried.”
    As soon as Crazy Horse saw they were going to put him in jail, he resisted. He was held from behind, and they ran him through with a bayonet. Crazy Horse was still young, only a couple of years over thirty.
    Quinn knows all the history. We didn’t talk about it over burgers, about the Carvers either, though we both might have been thinking about them, too. I know I was.
    It was all because of my dad working at Crazy Horse, and me feeling the same way he did, that Max and Buzz had a grudge against me. They’d been carrying it since fourth grade, when we studied the Black Hills in social studies practically all year.
    Along about April, I gave my big report on the history of the Crazy Horse Memorial. I laid it on thick about George Armstrong Custer, how he was no hero like he used to be considered. This wasn’t really news, even in the Black Hills.
    The next kid up was Max Carver. He stood up in front of the class, glared at me, then announced the topic of his report. It was about an ancestor on his mother’s side, a cavalry officer who rode and died with Custer. Uh-oh.
    How was I to know? Every kid in class, even theteacher, turned and looked at me. They knew I was in for it.
    I never got beat up or anything like that. Maybe if I had, it would have been over with. Like Max told me after school, “We’re never going to forget this, Steele.”
    And they never had.

13
Discount Shopping
    W E PULLED INTO C USTER and headed for the Wal-Mart. It didn’t take long to find the little inflatable raft I’d told Quinn about. The Challenger was made in China, ours for only $39.99. Its plastic oars came in two pieces that you screwed together, and they would pack nicely. We began to wonder, though, about our fishing rods back home. They didn’t break down small enough to carry on our bikes.
    A couple of aisles over we found telescoping fishing poles for $19.99, also from China, that came with reel and line. You could carry one in your back pocket. It was the name that closed the deal; it was called the Eliminator. My eighth-grade English teacher would have gotten a kick out if that. He was always preaching against “thesaurus abuse.”
    We threw two Eliminators into the cart and picked out some new lures. Lake trout are known to favor big, shiny spoons. It takes something flashy to lure them out of the depths.
    As we stood at the counter waiting to buy our fishing licenses, we got to figuring how much storage we’d have left after filling one backpack with the raft. Basically, we had the other backpack and our bike panniers, which we always called our saddlebags. “I can tell you right now,” Quinn said, “there’s no way we’re going to have room for your tent.”
    â€œGood point,” I had to admit.
    We found the solution across from where we were standing: an item by the uninspired name of Tube Tent, ours for $3.99. It weighed next to nothing and wouldn’t take up any space.
    Our shopping expedition had been the way we like it—quick. We got on the Mickelson Trail and blasted home to start packing.
    Half a