Paha Sapa, a Sioux warrior, initial encounters General George Armstrong Custer seeing that Custer lies dying within the battlefield at Little Bighorn. He believes–as do the holy men of his tribe–that the famous general’s ghost inserted him at that moment and will stay with him until Sapa convinces him to leave.

In Dark HILLS, Dan Simmons weaves the tales of Paha Sapa and Custer together seamlessly, depicting a violent and tumultuous amount of time in the annals of Native Us citizens and the United States Army. Haunted from the voice of the general his people called ‘Long Hair,’ Paha Sapa lives a long life, driven by a dramatic vision he experiences in the Dark Hillsides that are his tribe’s homeland. As an explosives employee on the massive Mount Rushmore task, he may finally be gone his ghosts–on the very day FDR involves South Dakota to dedicate the Jefferson encounter.