Rushmore

Easter Sunday. Apart from Christmas, this is the big one for the Catholic Church. There is a non-denominational event at Mount Rushmore at 7 so we head off at 4.30am to catch the sunrise.

The monument looks impressive in the early morning mist.

The service opens with sixty kids drumming on stage. It’s hands in the air. Their leader is a very enthusiastic and slightly camp middle-aged man who leads with gusto. He's holding a green mic. 

Richard is wearing about 10 layers of clothing. He’s in irreverent mood and cracks open a club soda during the sermon. He makes a beeline for the only black family in the congregation and tells them how proud he is to be an American now that Obama is in the White House. It’s all going well until he asks the father how it feels to be the token black man in the audience.

He insists on Josh filming him at Crazy Horse nearby, telling the camera how connected he is with the Native Americans.

To Rapid City and the Cathedral. It’s a full house. The procession of people coming up to receive communion lasts for three hymns. They keep coming. Afterwards the priest spends a long time reading the location release but Richard is on fire and soon he’s charmed.

We share an Easter lunch with Richard at the Bay Leaf. He has a habit of getting up mid-mouthful, walking to another table, and starting a conversation. Soon he knows everyone in the place, including a musician who’s friends with Kristofferson and agrees to put us in touch. Result.

Following the tracks

We’re trying to pick up the traces of someone who lived in this town over 20 years ago and in many cases the trail has run cold - people have died, others have moved away, some simply want to forget.

Josh speaks to Coyote, another original member of the Robin Hood hunting guide service that Richard ran with Mike back in the day. Coyote is in hospital so we arrange to film next time we pass through. He's a pilot and a craftsman and a hustler and a hunter. He's another fragment of the story we're beginning to piece together.

We have breakfast in somewhere purporting to be “The Greatest Coffee Shop in the World” which turns out to be anything but.

Sadly we don’t have time to check in with the extraordinarily named Bonnie Bollock

After shooting some GVs around town we stop off in Cabela’s - an ‘outdoor supplies’ store on the outskirts of town which is a cathedral to hunting and killing stuff. They have an amazing display of stuffed animals which takes up the whole of the back wall.

It also affords us the first sighting of beaver on the trip.

We jump back in the car and make the 5 hour drive back from Mitchell - the snow has begun to melt and the countryside is brown and dry beneath the white.

It’s Good Friday and we’ve arranged to film in the Catholic Church in Deadwood. Deadwood turns out to be a tourist trap - grannies feeding the slots and chowing down at the buffets.

The service begins with the priest lying prostate in front of the altar and there’s a procession of people who come to the front to kiss the cross. Good hymns this time. We're becoming Catholics by proxy. 

The Mitchell Brother

We’ve arranged to meet Richard’s brother Mike in Mitchell. His participation in the film is crucial, but he’s understandably cautious. They travelled the world together as young men, but by all accounts things got pretty fraught over the years and Mike has been keeping his distance.

We meet in a coffee shop near his office. His wife joins us and we talk about hunting, training dogs, shooting in England. 

Mike has given Richard plenty of chances over the years. He’s lived through the good times, and the bad, and suffered the consequences of Richard’s behaviour. We leave with the door open, but no guarantees.

In the afternoon we meet with Lenny, another old friend of Richard’s, who lives right out in the middle of nowhere. He’s still a bit high from a session with the dentist and then he takes a hit of some particularly strong weed before the interview, so it takes a while to slip in to gear. When he hits the marks there’s some great stuff in there, and his voice is resonant and full of history - he tells us “I’ve been knocked down and run over so many times I can tell the make of tyre that’s coming”.

Josh asks him to write some songs for the film.

Celebrities

We come across Kate Bush’s place while out filming GVs.

She’s not the only celeb in town. Looks like Justin passed through, although I can’t help thinking a little less time dancing in the playground and a bit more time in handwriting class might have really set him up for life in the big time. I'm glad he like the food at Frenchie's.

Offski

Sunday morning and Loren from next door hasn’t been to bed yet. I managed to escape at closing time. He bangs on the door at 11 and demands to be taken to the slopes. We’ve got a day off so we drive him and his buddy Jeff up there. When we’ve finished skiing/boarding we bring back two very different people. They sleep most of the way home.

Terry Peak is amazing. Josh flies down with the greatest of ease but this is only my fourth time. By the end he has switched to a board and i’m making the turns. It’s a fun day. There are loads of young parents on the slopes encouraging their progeny: “Good Job! Awesome Britney/Billy-Bob/Shayna, you can do it!”. With that amount of positivity pumped in to them from an early age its no wonder there’s so little cynicism in these hills. It’s nice to watch.

Swimmingly

Up early for a swim, we check out The Black Hills State pool. Nearby is an indoor running track and a procession of unenthusiastic early risers are ‘speed walking’ slowly round it.

The snow is coming in again. It starts just as we pick up another car (shout out to Kai from Enterprise in Spearfish for the SUV upgrade) and it’s falling pretty thick as we drive in to Rapid. A small situation has been brewing there since we dropped the last car off - there were some scratches in the paintwork from a cardboard box Richard put on the roof and trunk. Dennis, the owner of Casey’s, has been in the game long enough to know all the angles, so in spite of a good half hour of buffing with ‘product’ there’s no way those scratches are going to disappear. After much negotiation we leave a hundred dollars lighter and chalk it up to experience.

In Wal-Mart I spot at least three people (including the Greeter) with breathing tubes coming out of their noses.

On the way to Loretta’s we manage our first non-chain food experience at the Olde Worlde Cafe and Bookery in Sturgis (home of the world famous motorbike rally). The food is remarkably good for a place which calls itself a Bookery. Josh adds a pin to London on the world map at the owner’s insistence.

Loretta was Richard’s partner for 13 years, and knows him better than most. She’s very open and Josh shoots a great interview with her.

She says the snow hasn’t been like this since she was a kid.

A life in images

In the afternoon we head over to the Portable Ranch House and spend several hours looking though Richard's amazing collection of personal photos. There’s a whole life in these ring binders - family gatherings, camping trips, hunting trips, weddings, bbqs, business trips - even some naked-in-the-mountains shots. Most of the pictures involve a dead animal, or a part of a dead animal. Even as someone who doesn’t eat a lot of meat, you’ve got to respect a man who hunts, kills, skins and cooks his own food. But boy has he killed some.

The saturated colours in the photos are amazing - they’re real 70s and 80s America. We film a selection, and Richard looking through them. Each one tells a story.

Josh suggested to Richard a few days ago that he records his thoughts on a dictaphone so he’s bought a cassette recorder. He uses his time on the mic to let off a little steam about us, which puts us in the picture when we listen back to it later.

Back at our motel the welder from Texas in the next door room has left us a message on the door. We’re in 111 - how are we going to get out of this one?

Beer: Moose Drool again. Loren the welder was drinking JD this morning, but he’s working nights.