{"id":12509,"date":"2021-10-20T08:39:23","date_gmt":"2021-10-20T14:39:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12509"},"modified":"2025-08-02T18:37:56","modified_gmt":"2025-08-03T00:37:56","slug":"the-hitchhiker","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12509","title":{"rendered":"The Hitchhiker"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\n<\/dt><\/dl><\/div>\n\n\n
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\"The
The heart of western South Dakota: US Highway 212 near the town of Faith.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Leaving Spearfish, South Dakota, on October 17th<\/strong> en route to <\/span>eastern North Dakota, <\/span> I decided to skip the Green Bean coffeehouse,<\/a> as much as I like it, and fueled up on motel-room coffee and a leftover partial burrito. I was on the road shortly after eight, up to Belle Fourche<\/a> and then east on US 212.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

US 50 across Nevada is often publicized as \u201cthe loneliest road in America,\u201d but US 212 between Belle Fourche and the Missouri crossing at Charger\u2019s Camp<\/a> also qualifies. You come to a town of what looks like thirty people and then it\u2019s forty miles to the next place. Tan rolling hills with <\/span>the occasional butte\u2014Bear Butte, Mud Butte, and the rest\u2014to serve as landmarks. <\/span>So it goes for<\/span> more than two hundred miles.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Between Faith<\/a> and Dupree<\/a>, having crossed into the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation<\/a>, I saw a figure walking east beside the road. I thought he was a (probably) Lakota teenager with an instrument case (trumpet?) slung on his back. I blew past him at 75 mph and then re-considered. There was almost no traffic. There never is. He was miles from anywhere. Well, who will pick him up if I don\u2019t? I turned the Jeep around. (It\u2019s so hard to break that driving rhythm when you have 450 miles to go.) <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As I drove back west, I scanned the two vehicles that I met, a pickup truck and a sedan full of people. I did not spot him. But suppose he was lying down in the bed of the truck? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI\u2019ll drive to the top of the next rise and have a look,\u201d I thought.<\/strong> Sure enough, a dot in the distance, there he was. I tossed some stuff from the passenger seat into the back.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Travis (we exchanged first names) was grateful. He was no teenager, but rather 33 years old\u2014I got his birthdate and much of his life story. Father an Anglo biker, a regular at <\/span>the <\/span>Sturgis <\/span><\/a>motorcycle rally every <\/span>summer (they had lived in <\/span>nearby <\/span>Rapid City), Vietnam vet, died of prostate cancer in 2016. Mother Lakota. For some trivial reason, he had missed visiting his dad at the VA hospital in Sioux Falls, and shortly afterwards, his dad was gone, and he was still angry with himself. He told me where his mom was from\u2014I recognized the name, a little town off the rez, that\u2019s about all.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grey <\/span>thing <\/span>on his back was a duffle bag with everything he owned in it.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He had been visiting a man whom he called his \u201cfather figure\u201d (a maternal uncle?) in Iron Lightning<\/strong>, a place I know only from seeing the sign when I go by the turnoff. Let\u2019s just say that there is no Wikipedia entry for Iron Lighting.<\/span>1<\/a><\/sup> He said that the evening before, he and the other man had walked along the meandering little Moreau River to a butte where eagles nest. They had prayed there. <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Then they went to the man\u2019s house and started drinking\u2014sweet wine, by the smell of his sweat. The \u201cfather figure\u201d passed out, but Travis<\/span> had started walking south toward the highway some time around 2 a.m. It is about ten miles out to the highway. He had stopped for a sleep, he said, and was walking again when I saw him about <\/span>10:00 a.m.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Food and water? No<\/span>ne<\/span>. I gave him cold coffee and apples from <\/span>a neighbor\u2019s<\/span> tree. He said that he had done this kind of reservation hitchhiking before, with an emphasis on \u201chiking.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I got his story:<\/strong> the jobs he took off the rez (there is nothing on the rez except tribal government work, basically). The broken marriage to a Lakota woman, who was currently in Eagle Butte<\/a>, the reservation\u2019s administrative center. The 11-year-old daughter he has not seen for several years. The recent time spent at some rehab center in Wyoming for his alcoholism, which was a good experience, he said, but of course after a couple months, back in his old situations, he fell off the wagon. He had worked construction recently in Rapid City, but oddly did not know where Canyon Lake School<\/a> <\/span>2<\/a><\/sup> was, so he must have had a circumscribed view of that town. Or maybe he just paid no attention to elementary schools.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

He was headed for Mobridge, a larger town about ninety miles away.<\/strong> I turned north at Dupree, having planned to go through the Standing Rock r<\/span>eservation<\/span> and on up to I-94 that way, a new route for me. But I realized that turning east to Mobridge and then continuing north on US 83, one of my usual routes, would be about the same distance, so I gave him the hitchhiker\u2019s dream\u2014a straight-through trip to a friend\u2019s house where he hoped to be able to stay awhile. The friend\u2019s pickup was in the driveway, so Travis hopped out, thanked me, and was gone.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Everyone in the world is damaged<\/strong>, has<\/span> susto<\/span><\/em> or \u201csoul loss,\u201d I often think. <\/span>We medicalize this condition with terms like post-traumatic stress disorder, but I heard one <\/span>curandera<\/span><\/em> say that even your birth can set off <\/span>susto<\/span><\/em>, if it was a difficult birth. <\/span>This <\/span>is all just starker out there on US 212, where the tan prairie rolls away and there are no other human beings for miles.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I gently suggested at one point <\/span>to Travis <\/span>that he go out somewhere and offer up his problem to his ancestors on both sides . . . make a little offering . . . there might be someone who could give him a nudge in the right direction. Maybe. It\u2019s his choice.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n

  1. It’s just ten or twelve houses, I gathered, probably BIA housing.<\/span> \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li>
  2. I attended Canyon Lake School for grades K-4)<\/span>.
    \u21a9\ufe0e<\/a><\/li><\/ol>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Leaving Spearfish, South Dakota, on October 17th en route to eastern North Dakota, I decided to skip the Green Bean coffeehouse, as much as I like it, and fueled up on motel-room coffee and a leftover partial burrito. I was on the road shortly after eight, up to Belle Fourche and then east on US 212. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"[{\"content\":\"It's just ten or twelve houses, I gathered, probably BIA housing.<\/span>\",\"id\":\"b6061fc8-29ee-495e-89a8-5bf3381b2241\"},{\"content\":\"I attended Canyon Lake School for grades K-4)<\/span>.
    \",\"id\":\"5518835a-e5b4-418d-9837-1f4895fbd12b\"}]","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[204,208,406,405,13],"class_list":["post-12509","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ancestors","tag-indian-tribes","tag-soul-loss","tag-south-dakota","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6xQTg-3fL","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":12523,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=12523","url_meta":{"origin":12509,"position":0},"title":"A Libation for the Mother River","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 28, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"I wrote earlier about the hitchhiker whom I called Travis, a post writen on the 19th of October, mostly at the Twenty Below coffeehouse in Fargo, North Dakota, waiting to drive an old friend home to his tiny prairie town after he had been poked and prodded and MRI'd all\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"animism\"","block_context":{"text":"animism","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=animism"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/10\/missouri-at-fort-pierre-300x188.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1062,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=1062","url_meta":{"origin":12509,"position":1},"title":"Prairie Fog","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"September 14, 2008","format":false,"excerpt":"Two days ago: morning fog creeping west from the Missouri River, south of Fort Pierre, South Dakota.","rel":"","context":"In \"travel\"","block_context":{"text":"travel","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=travel"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3285,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=3285","url_meta":{"origin":12509,"position":2},"title":"Back at the PhD (Piled-high Desk)","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"October 11, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"It was good to disappear. I geocached along the Niobrara River, hunted ducks in North Dakota \u2014 where \"to combine\" is the verb of autumn, and you accent the first syllable \u2014 and ended up finally at the Black Hills Powwow in my old hometown of Rapid City. I ate\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"Rose hips and bufflo berries on the North Dakota prairie","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/10\/rosehipsbuffaloberries%E2%80%94sm.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":647,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=647","url_meta":{"origin":12509,"position":3},"title":"Gallimaufry: Tab Clearing","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"April 13, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Having been knocked down by a head cold the past week, I am just cleaning out some old links. \u2022 Should you use digital cameras for ghost-hunting? I notice that a lot of the ghost-hunting articles in Fate magazine count \"orbs\" as evidence of spirits. But are they just artifacts\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"American religion\"","block_context":{"text":"American religion","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=american-religion"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":919,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=919","url_meta":{"origin":12509,"position":4},"title":"And the Corn Palace Too","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"August 3, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Victorian Slind-Flor puts the \"Loaf\" in Lammas, with photos of the Palouse region and, even closer to my heart, the sacred Corn Palace of Mitchell, South Dakota, one of the great Roadside Attractions of the northern Plains.A quick flashback to a 1980s cross-country drive with M.: camping in the Black\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"Lammas\"","block_context":{"text":"Lammas","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=lammas"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11020,"url":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?p=11020","url_meta":{"origin":12509,"position":5},"title":"Playing Heathen Neo-folk on North Dakota Highways","author":"Chas S. Clifton","date":"November 16, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I was on my way to a little town in North Dakota where a friend lives about at the intersection of Norway and Washington streets \u2014 can you get any more perfect than that? And every little town is dominated by a Lutheran steeple. A friend in Poland and I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In \"music\"","block_context":{"text":"music","link":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/?tag=music"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blog.chasclifton.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/finley-lutheran-church.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12509","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=12509"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12509\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14098,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12509\/revisions\/14098"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12509"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12509"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.chasclifton.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12509"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}