Tempered Magazine December 2013 // January 2014 // Issue 01 | Page 14

Happy Anderson’s popliteal artery

freely somewhere beneath the

had been severed just below the

skin. In its day it had been an

knee by a branch as he broke

adept appendage, one of the few

through the canopy on his way

the nation had to offer that could

down. His heartbeat reverberated

fully capture Roosevelt’s concern

through his forehead like the report

as he pondered the Africans. Ape-

from a Hotchkiss as it pumped

like. Naked savages. Living in the

the blood out to mix with Sitting

woods preying on creatures not

Bull’s and the dirt. Half a century

much wilder than themselves.

back twenty Medals of Honor were
given to soldiers for irrigating Pine
Ridge with what they could get
shooting holes in the Lakota, but
unfortunately Happy Anderson
would receive no awards.

Happy Anderson died broken and
alone on the forest floor. That night,
the stony men on the mountain
watched the lights of the search
party return to Keystone and go
dark, the body not yet recovered.

His right shoulder, already strained

Now more than ever, they needed

from a long day of etching the

comfort, but it would be a lie to tell

furrows into Teddy Roosevelt’s

them that it wasn’t their fault. The

brow, had lost its moorings as

Black Hills needed more blood and

he’d struggled with the tram’s

it was their turn to give it.

emergency brake. It now floated

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