A balcony on a high tower. Rugged little canyons below, half-hidden in sun-glare. Scraps and worms of cloud down in some, along streams. To the west, they merge to a bigger canyon, 3-400 meters deep. Looks like the Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone. Though the waterfall's out of sight around a bend, a cloud rises and I hear a faint roar. Pretty sure.

Inside, through a sliding glass door, are two locals, Native Americans, arguing over tribal policy toward the park. I listen in. They don't seem to mind.

It was stolen from them--of course. But at the time it didn't seem worth a war--high and cold, with sulfur springs, it wasn't prime hunting or ranching land; elders focused on securing the better land downstream. So the tribe grudgingly accepted the idea of a national park, a nature-shrine for the whole world--after all, it was pretty much how they saw Yellowstone themselves.

But now the park administration's turned away from its historic justification for custodianship. Park officials are making deals to build high-rise hotels like this, to make serious money off tourists--a resort, not a shrine.

So the tribe's angry. For them--as for me--these towers are sacrilege. But they lost the war over a century ago. How to get leverage now?

NEXT MORNING

I wake and write the dream. As I eat breakfast, I read High Country News, a magazine about the West. On page 44 is "We Don't Share Land Here", a TV review by Liza Black. She rips into a popular Western series for its sexist, racist, fake history--portraying Native Americans as profiteers and schemers indistinguishable from the whites who stole their land. "Under the skin, we're all crooks" is a slick way to excuse your own crimes!

The show's setting is the same as its name: Yellowstone.

Black's scorching words on the page give me a shiver of déjà vu--for I heard them all last night, in that tower desecrating Yellowstone.

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