Saturday, July 9, was so hot. The generator quit that morning, and the chassis air doesn't go far. But somehow if you're moving, 90 plus degrees doesn't feel as hot. Plus there was a roof over our heads.

We were driving from Wyoming into Montana. We hadn't gone to Mt. Rushmore. We saw the profile of Crazy Horse emerging from the mountain—at a distance. We drove through Deadwood, a big small town—late of HBO fame—full of tourists. Always we saw signs for museums too late. Bypassed Fort Phil Kearney. I didn't really care about missing any of it. Except for Wounded Knee. I would have wished to pay my respects there, but it was too far away. And if we had gone there, would I have felt like an intruder?

The map listed battle sites all along our route as we drove into the golden Montana prairie. We agreed to go where Custer had his Last Stand, now The Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

We got off the highway for the Custer Battlefield Museum at Garryowen, where the battle began at Sitting Bull's camp. It looked like a tourist trap souvenir shop—so we found a way to turn around, and got back on the highway. I still regret that; turns out it was full of riches.

We dutifully got off the highway again a few miles down the road, followed signs to the monument itself, and found ourselves on a narrow road going uphill. Near the top we stopped to pay $10, saw a cluster of vehicles and buildings to our right. Beyond them hundreds of small white headstones glowed from a green lawn. To our left along the side of the road, motorhomes with cars were parked. No room anywhere for us to park.

So we began the driving tour of the battlefield—up and down hilly curving roads, here and there a drop off—five miles out and five miles back. There were 18 sites, each with an information marker, but because of the narrow roads and limited parking, we could only get out of the vehicle once, and could drive through only a few of the turnouts to read signs.

It became obvious that we were just looking, denied by circumstance the information that has accrued through testimony, time and scholarly research. And if I read from the brochure as the traffic forced us to keep moving, I would miss the landscape entirely. Beyond the anxiety about the narrow road and missing so much of what was offered, was the land itself. Peak, coulee, field, rolling, fissured, folding away from us on both sides. Pale gold grasses marked with green, and—very occasionally—stands of small trees or bushes.

We drove from "the last stand" first—with its monument to the Indians and another to Custer and his men—and ended at the hilltop overlooking Sitting Bull's camp, and the beginnings of the battle. In the distance were the highest hills where Custer first sighted the Indian camp. Off the main road were a few dirt roads, marked private land. No trespassing. In intervals across five miles of battlefield, markers were scattered haphazardly by the whirlwind of two cultures colliding under the sun so long ago. Small arched white gravestones—in large groups, in pairs. Alone. These facts: American casualties were buried in a mass grave, and the markers where each had fallen were added by the army in 1890. The fallen were identified only as U.S. soldier. Later, the individuals were buried row by row in the neat graves we saw earlier. Custer of course was taken back to be buried at West Point. His brother was also buried elsewhere. The Indians removed their dead after the fight. Near the end of the 20th century, the park service began placing markers where some of the Indian heroes died fighting.

Where the road turned back, we were able to park and get out. The sky was blue with white clouds, the sun and heat oppressive. The battle began June 25, 1876. On this day in July, it was hard to imagine any exertion, hard just to walk down the diverging pathways on that hilltop to see the markers. There, rushed by the traffic and slowed by the sun, exposed to the still-fierce wild landscape, I was left with only what my eyes could see, the sun burning my head, the wind on my skin. And my feelings.

That private land surrounding the monument—it's Crow land.

You're history longer than you're fact, says Grove, a character in Clyde Edgerton's In Memory of Junior.