Waking up early, Christy Fleming puts on her running shoes and heads out for her daily exercise. She starts by passing Custer National Cemetery with its more than 5,000 modest white markers and heads down the empty black-top road wending its way through wind-swept hills containing hundreds more headstones; memorials at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

At sunrise the warm, golden light catches the high points of the rolling hills, blown smooth by millennia of near constant Montana gales. It’s a view very few ever see, highlighted by deer foraging in the tall “greasy” grass and sharp-tailed grouse socializing near Lt. Col. George Armstrong Custer’s last stand. 

At least temporarily, Fleming gets to soak in the beauty of this landscape and reflect about the battle that raged here on that hot day — one of the most recognizable battles in U.S. history. The Powell resident, known for her many years as a National Park Service ranger at Bighorn Canyon National Recreation Area, has a new temporary assignment as Acting Superintendent at Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument.

Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument doesn’t open until 8 a.m. and closes at 6 p.m., giving Fleming daily solace and a view few see in the golden light of sunrise and sunset. The way the morning light illuminates the headstones is revealing, Fleming said. 

“When you’re out there alone in the morning, the light catches on the memorials and you can really feel how the battle unfolded because the soldiers were buried where they fell,” she said, adding “Being by myself gives me time to reflect.” 

While putting in the miles, she often thinks of her eighth grade year at Powell Middle School. One of the programs — a point of pride at the school — is their emphasis on important American history. Currently students learn about the battle at Gettysburg and engage in a reenactment open to the community. But when Fleming was 13, they studied the battle in the Little Bighorn River valley. 

She remembers reading “Black Elk Speaks” in Ms. Kearn’s social studies class in 1989. The teacher made the room into a tepee with colorful streamers and the children sat on the floor in a circle for the class. 

Principal Kyle Rohrer said these type of extensive studies, including the reenactments, help prepare students for high school and is part of their effort to include the community and make learning fun.

“People don’t always remember what you taught them, but they’ll remember how you made them feel,” Rohrer said, paraphrasing a quote by American poet Maya Angelou.

Fleming didn’t have a big part in the end-of-semester reenactment, but the lessons stuck.

“I think I was just one of the soldiers,” she said from her “fancy” new office in the property’s administrative compound. 

The class took a field trip to the monument at the end of Fleming’s final semester in junior high. The lessons she learned in school are more poignant now as she leads the efforts of the National Park property. 

“Once I arrived here, those lessons began to mean a whole lot more.”

While there are parallels to her 23-year career at Bighorn Canyon, the two properties have many differences. The obvious difference; Bighorn Canyon is a recreational park, encouraging fun in the sun, and Little Bighorn is a monument educating visitors and encouraging reverence as they walk crushed-limestone pathways between grave markers in the wide swath of ground soaked in the blood of those who fought here.

A large memorial stands at the top of the hill. Some don’t realize that the monument marks a mass grave of about 220 soldiers, scouts and civilians. Rangers have a hard time keeping first-time visitors off the mass grave and on the cut paths leading through the battlefield. The monument itself had to be repaired some years ago after many visitors chipped off chunks of the monument for souvenirs.

The entire property memorializes the U.S. Army’s 7th Cavalry and the Lakota and Cheyenne men, women and children who engaged in one of the American Indians’ last armed efforts to preserve their way of life. On that hot day in June of 1876, 263 soldiers, including Custer and attached personnel, died fighting several thousand Lakota and Cheyenne warriors.  

Reciting the battle for visitors several times a day in presentations can take a toll on those tasked with the job. Some often find it difficult to see folks gloss over the sadness and losses on both sides of the war. Tanya Gardner was overcome with emotion while discussing the implications to her people, the Apsaalooke Tribe, and the Lakotas and Cheyenne who fled to her ancestral home with the cavalry in pursuit.

For many, especially among American Indians, emotions are still exposed and raw.

“Sometimes when I do my battle talk, it happens,” she said while wiping away a flood of tears.

She said while the presentations are important, visitors rarely become vested in her community surrounding the battlefield, which is largely plagued by poverty. On this particular weekend, Crow Fair drew in many more visitors to the monument eager to experience one of the most authentic celebrations in the region.

“It was humbling to look and see the vantage points from both sides,” said Kate Mauer, who visited the monument with her husband Augie and daughter Michaelyn. 

Both Augie and Kate served in the Army and were crossing the West on a vacation from their home in Shelbyville, Indiana. They walked the trails and listened to interpretive recordings at points of interest. 

“Just wow,” Augie said.

Gardner is a member of the Crow Nation, born in Lodgepole on the Crow Indian Reservation. It was established in 1868, and is located in parts of Big Horn, Yellowstone, and Treasure counties in the southern part of the state. The Crow Tribe has an enrolled membership of approximately 11,000, of whom 7,900 reside on the reservation.

Over time, interpretation of the battle and the participants on both sides spurred the designation of a national monument in the 1940s. It wasn’t until the 1990s that the memorial commemorating lost American Indian lives was proposed. 

In 1991 the name of the property was changed from Custer Battlefield to Little Bighorn Battlefield to recognize indigenous perspectives and those who fought at the site. The grand opening ceremonies were held on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, 1999, and the memorial is adjacent to Custer’s headstone and the military monument.

“Indian families had to wait years to tell their story,” Gardner said.

The National Cemetery

Somewhat confusing is the Custer National Cemetery. Only a handful of those who fought at the battle are buried in plots. Graves of known and unknown veterans of our nation’s wars, including women and children from isolated frontier posts, Indian scouts, and Medal of Honor recipients are interred at the site.

Today the National Park Service manages the site to protect its cultural and historic resources for future generations. There are many scholars who have debated how the battle unfolded and the effects of the government forcing the original residents here onto reservations. A visit to the park and some choice reading material can answer many questions, but interpreting the battle and the conquest of the West is left to those who seek the truth within the nation’s history, Fleming said.

Within those historical studies is the battle at Little Bighorn. She now understands how the events of June 25, 1876 could happen as they did, given her intimate relationship with the landscape.

“Until you see a deer run across the road in front of you, then disappear in the ravine and come out far away and appear much smaller, you don’t realize how deceiving the landscape is, and how it played a huge role in the outcome of the battle.”

Fleming will return to her position at Bighorn Canyon shortly before the holiday season to rejoin her immediate family, including husband Jason and dog Penny. Dogs aren’t allowed at the monument. She tries to make the drive back to Powell as often as possible to ease the pain of long distance relationships.

Yet she has already found new members to her National Park Service family at both parks, she said. One thing the two properties have in common is the employees. Several have been employed at both properties and remain tight through their experiences together.

“It’s like a big, happy family,” Fleming said.