Issue link: https://bluemagazine.uberflip.com/i/25044
::::::=�" •••• I you see Fred Brings Him Back running hard and determined. the staff and you can hear him say that they are not too far behind. You run hard; your lungs burn, your legs ache. The distance between runners shortens to long uphill sprints. Russell, Fred, David and John take turns jumping out of the truck onto the ; Red Track" turned interstate. As we make our way up a hill into Wyoming, a full of white guys with cocked baseball caps swings by and looks with �lank faces at the Lakota Indians. "I don't hate all white people,'" begins Dave Brings Plenty, Jr, "I mean, re are all kinds of assholes. White, brown, whatever. But th'ere seems to be a ",:ol'Cf�ntriltion of the white variety around here. Four years ago this redneck threw bottle at one of our trucks. The window cracked and he took off. We were close here in Nebrqska and we followed him into this bar 'cause I was 19 and crazy. I him if he did it. He sees all these other Indians around, five or six Sioux and we have 30 others in the parking lot that he doesn't even know about. He didn't say a word and we didn't do a thing. But what was he thinking? We were 'ust running." Dave pauses, then says, "Hecetu yelo," (pronounced he-cha-two- a-low) meaning "that's the way it goes." - - - June 18 - Lusk to Four Corners, Wyoming (109 miles) At 5:30AM your muscles ache but you keep a stoic face as other teams drive by and place their runners alongside the road. As soon as they pass, you wince and attempt to loosen up. The staff comes and you get ready. It's in /\ your hand and you momentarily forget your stiffness as you run as hard as you can. Sack in the truck you gasp for breath and pass the same competi tors who passed you minutes earlier. They look stoi<; and you wonder if they are as sore as you are. The state t.roopers in Wyoming are not sympathetic to this effort and there is a rumor that they will arrest people waiting on the side of the road. Because of this the trucks have to drop off one runner at a time, follow them during their sprint and then replace them with another runner instead of lining the entire team along the highway at once. Thousands of acres of seemingly unused land are fenced in by a few strands of barbed wire along the highway. "Who owns this anyway?" I ask. "Some private ranchers but mostly the government. They're still min ing," Dave Brings Plenty, Sr, responds before adding, "looking for more gold." He slows down the pickup to drop off one runner and pick up anoth er. "This is why we run. We hope that some of the younger ones who have not been off the reservation will be inspired to work for the return of the Black Hills according to the treaties that were signed." The run, he explains, is not to protest what was taken away. Instead, it supports the Fort Laramie Treaty of 1851 that Chief Red Cloud signed granting land to.the Lakota people. By 1889, the Lakota were all but removed from the Black Hills because gold prospecting was in full swing and places like Rapid City were rising. In the back of the truck rages a debate over how rap star Tupac Shakur got kil led and whether the song on the radio is by Bone Thugs-N-Harmony or not. Russell momentarily stops bouncing his head in time with the tune as he looks out over Wyoming.