The Congress of Rough Riders

by John Boyne

  Joseph Craven sat in his dressing room, rubbing liniment on his hands as he always did before a show and looked at his face in the mirror. He was growing older. His skin had grown a little sallow and his eyes appeared to be sunken into the back of his head, although that might have been partly due to the harshness of the Broadway-style arc of golden bulbs which surrounded his dressing-table mirror. He scraped his dark hair back from his forehead with a little oil but tonight he could see the scalp beneath it for it was thinning rapidly. He cursed and looked away, not wanting to see his reflection any more. As he did so, he caught sight of a couple of the young men who worked in the circus sitting outside on the grass in the sunshine, smoking cigarettes. He recognised one of them as David Bay, the teenage son of the chief lion tamer, who helped assemble and disassemble the circus as it moved from town to town. With him was another one of the construction lads, whose name he couldn’t recall, but Craven watched them enviously as they lay back, chatting casually. David took his shirt off in the sunshine and stretched back with his palms flat on the grass, his eyes closing as he faced up to the sun, and Craven could see the muscular definition of his physique, strong from a combination of hard work and youth. The other boy made some comment and David sat up straight, collapsing in easy laughter, reaching out to grab the ankle of a passing girl who kicked back at him playfully. He squinted at her, his golden curls catching the light and he merely shrugged and laughed, as if it was all such an easy game. Craven shook his head and looked back in the mirror without meaning to and caught sight of the thin, ageing man in a leotard and white make-up who stared back at him and barely recognised himself. His heart sank and he sighed heavily, switching out the lights and nodding slowly as he determined on his plans for the night.

  The audience was noisy as the trapeze group entered the Big Top; they had already been entertained by the lions, the clowns, a troupe of fire-eaters, and a man who threw knives at his wife for a living while she spun around in circles on a board to which she was attached. Danger had been in the air all night but no trouble had resulted. The audience wanted more of the same and the trapeze artists were there to give it to them.

  ‘As you can see, ladies and gentlemen,’ announced the ringmaster as the troupe ascended the ladders to their positions at the top of the tent. ‘The Regis-Roc trapeze artists use no net during their performances. Theirs is an act of the purest bravery and danger! For this reason we must ask you to remain perfectly silent during their routine as even the slightest noise can disturb the concentration leading to calamity … and certain death!’ he roared with increasing volume and melodrama. Some of the children in the audience snickered but in general the noise began to subside as the troupe began their act, although they could rarely hear anything from below, so intent were they on remaining focused on what they were doing.

  Joseph Craven watched the beautiful Ellen Rose as she danced across the tightrope from one side of the Big Top to the other, receiving hearty applause from the audience which she acknowledged with a regal wave of her hand. Craven could feel his lips begin to go dry as he wondered whether he dared continue with his plans, and how much trouble he would find himself in because of them. He put those thoughts out of his mind for a few moments as he jumped aboard the trapeze and performed some manoeuvres with other members of the troupe but eventually the grand finale arrived. The initial theatrics began and he waited, poised on a small step, holding on to the trapeze with one hand as he gripped a pole with the other, waiting for the moment when he knew he should sail forth to catch Ellen Rose, the girl who had been teasing him for months, the girl who had rejected his advances, preferring to mingle with the young men of the circus rather than with him. He felt his bile rise inside his chest and watched as she slipped forward to begin her final movement and then as she soared across before letting go in order to perform the double somersault, he began the countdown in his head. From the moment she left her platform he was to count ‘one … two … three’ and then jump forward. He watched, waiting for the cue.

  ‘One …’ he thought in his head instinctively. ‘Two … three …’ And at that moment, when he should have released himself from the platform and sailed forward to scoop her out of mid-air and allow them both to swing upside down over the heads of the gasping audience below he did the unthinkable. He counted to four.

  When, a second too late, his hands reached out to grasp the familiar ankles of Ellen Rose, they were gone and he found himself clutching at air instead. The crowd screamed as Ellen fell.

  And so, lost and feeling alone in New York, I cheated on Hitomi for the only time during our marriage. Leaving the hotel later that afternoon, the scent of a virtual stranger still lingering around my body, her taste in my mouth, the memory of her fingers still pressing against my skin, I tried to feel guilty and yet somehow I failed. There had been no emotion there, no love, just fucking, that was all, and although it was wrong, I could not muster the guilt. I went straight home, however, and took a long, hot shower, washing her touch and feel away from my skin, sure that Hitomi would recognise another woman on me the moment she laid eyes on me, but she did not and I never confessed my sin. Somehow, not confessing it feels worse to me now than having done it in the first place.

  I was not sorry to leave New York, therefore, and determined that our longer stay in Colorado would be a better one. Hitomi did not like the university there as much as she had the one in the Big Apple, but I found the state to be strangely liberating. Despite the sprawl of the urban centres, there were places in Colorado which were peaceful and filled with nature, and we took walks there on weekends, holding hands as we scaled mountains together or cycled across prairie ranges. The distance which had come between us in New York did not exist there and we grew close again without having to state that in words.

  We lived in a university apartment in Denver and I was lucky to get a job quickly on The Denver Examiner, writing editorial columns on international affairs. I began to collect and edit my interviews and profiles over the years and planned on presenting them to a French publisher (where they had originally been published and where I had gained some degree of celebrity) for a possible collection. We were tied to the state from January to August but soon agreed that we would stay for at least a year and decide then where we should go next.

  A couple of weeks after arriving there, I was lounging around our living room on a Sunday morning, reading the newspaper, when Hitomi suggested a drive. ‘Where to?’ I asked, glancing outside at the weather. It was a warm, heavy day and I did not much care for the idea of travelling too far.

  ‘It’s a surprise,’ she said, winking flirtatiously at me as she settled a Denver Broncos baseball cap on her head. ‘Trust me.’

  I agreed to do so and shortly afterwards we were driving out of Denver and towards the town of Golden, where I had not been before. I leaned one arm out the window of the passenger seat as Hitomi drove and drank from a bottle of water. I could feel the sun burning on to my neck and turned my collar up to protect it.

  We reached Lookout Mountain about an hour later and as we drove towards it, I realised where Hitomi was taking me and felt a sharp stab of pain in my chest. Of course I had known how close we were to it and naturally I had planned on visiting at some point, but either the opportunity had not yet presented itself or I was simply afraid to go there, I’m not sure which. Either way, Hitomi had taken the matter into her own hands and we said very little as we parked the car on the road at the bottom of the mountain and slowly started to climb.

  My great-grandfather is buried near the top of Lookout Mountain in a tomb which was blasted from the rocks. Approaching it, I felt an extraordinary sense of tension, combined with a desire to see Isaac, and when we finally reached it and I looked down at the letters and dates carved ornately into the stone, it seemed as if my entire life had been leading towards this mountain.

  ‘You don’t mind?’ asked Hitomi, releasing my hand now in order to wrap an arm around my waist, linking us togeth
er. ‘I would have said earlier where we were going but—’

  ‘I don’t mind,’ I reassured her, interrupting quickly. ‘I had to come here at some point.’ I nodded and wanted to say more but felt myself getting lost in my thoughts, memories of childhood events and Isaac’s stories returning to haunt me.

  ‘How does it feel?’ she asked finally, looking around at the incredible scenery surrounding us, to which I was quite immune.

  ‘It feels like I should have brought Isaac here,’ I said. ‘He’ll never make it, you know. He’s too old now. Strange, though, to base your life around your relationship to someone and never come to visit them, if that’s what this is.’ I knelt down and placed my hand on the dusty earth and a chill ran through me. ‘I know every event of this man’s life,’ I said, looking up at my wife. ‘Or think I do anyway. I know what Isaac told me. Who knows how much of it is true and how much of it is false?’

  ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Probably not,’ I said. ‘But it still feels odd to see your own name on a tombstone. It’s like something out of A Christmas Carol.’

  ‘It’s not your name,’ she said quickly, for Hitomi no longer liked to speak of the possibility of our deaths. ‘It’s his.’

  ‘We share it,’ I muttered.

  ‘It’s his,’ she insisted. There was a long silence between us which was only broken when she suggested taking a photograph of me here, that we might send it to my father as a souvenir.

  ‘I don’t think so,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘That doesn’t seem right somehow.’

  ‘But he’ll want to know,’ she said, surprised by my reluctance.

  ‘Well I’ll write to him. Or phone him. I’ll let him know we were here. But I don’t want any photographs. We don’t need that. Lookout Mountain,’ I said, shaking my head as I turned around to look at the canyons below. ‘Do you think it’s fate that’s brought us here?’

  ‘No, I think it was my job,’ she said in a matter-of-fact tone and I couldn’t help but give a quick laugh.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said. ‘It just seems that being here was meant to be. That I should always have come here at some point. Try to bury my obsessions along with Isaac’s. Does that make sense?’ I asked, not waiting for an answer before adding, ‘Something’s going to happen here, I think. I can feel it’

  ‘You’re just feeling strange being up here at last,’ she replied, taking me by the arm and leading me back down the mountain. ‘Being so close to him. It’s an odd moment. There’s no fate bringing us here.’

  At the time I nodded in agreement for Hitomi, having managed to arrive in and depart from England without dying, had now become a big believer that we made our own fates and destinies, but inside I wasn’t so sure. I liked Colorado – not nearly as much as I liked Japan or Paris – but I liked it nonetheless. And yet despite that, I couldn’t wipe away my nagging fear of the place. Somehow I felt that I, William Cody, should be living as far away from Lookout Mountain as possible.

  Tatanka Iyotake, the Sioux leader better known as Sitting Bull, waited patiently in his tent for Buffalo Bill to appear. He was dressed in ornate Indian costuming, the type of lavish outfit which he had only worn once or twice in his life so far. His face had been decorated by a professional make-up artist. A sparkling clean white head-dress sat atop his dark hair, stretching to the ground behind him; he wore a series of necklaces and a brightly coloured sash. Attached to his side was a tomahawk with a blunt blade. Staring at himself in the mirror, he barely recognised the warrior of old; all he could see now was a clown.

  Sitting Bull had spent a couple of years in a federal jail in Dakota but upon his release in 1883 was approached by Buffalo Bill to join his new wild west show. The Hunkpapa leader had been initially sceptical of the offer, despite the financial rewards it would give him – not to mention the freedom of movement such a position could offer him and his people, who otherwise would be forced to stay within their reservations – but had agreed to meet with his old enemy to discuss the plan.

  ‘You surprise me, asking for my help,’ he said as the two men sat alone in Sitting Bull’s reservation, having agreed to keep this meeting between themselves. ‘It was not so long ago that you would have killed me if you could.’

  ‘That was during the war,’ said my great-grandfather nonchalantly. ‘Times are different now.’

  ‘Certainly they are,’ replied Sitting Bull. ‘You can travel where you want. We are kept within this reservation after having spent centuries roaming where we wished.’ Bill shrugged and looked away. He had determined on his way to the meeting that he would not become involved in a political discussion. They had both fought for their beliefs during the plains wars and had both lost people they had loved. There seemed little point in raking over old ground. ‘Your General Custer,’ continued the Sioux leader after a suitable pause. ‘You blamed me for his death, am I right?’

  ‘You killed him,’ acknowledged Bill. ‘Or your people did anyway. At Little Big Horn.’

  ‘He was trying to kill us. He was the worst killer I ever knew.’

  ‘He was a friend of mine,’ said Bill. ‘I only did—’

  ‘What interests me, you see,’ said Sitting Bull quietly, raising a hand to silence the other man, ‘is how passionate you once were about destroying the Sioux and how you now want to involve us in your productions. I have read about the stage shows you have performed. At the climax you end up scalping me, is this true?’

  ‘It’s a play,’ said Bill, unwilling to back down. ‘That’s all it is. It’s entertainment for the masses. It’s not supposed to be a history lesson.’

  ‘Just as well. Still, I find it hard to believe that you can set those differences aside now. I don’t trust you, Mr Cody,’ he added, unwilling to flatter my great-grandfather by addressing him by his nickname.

  ‘Sitting Bull,’ said Bill, leaning forward with a sigh. ‘I’m not trying to pretend that there have not been differences between us in the past. Of course there have. But I’m not an army officer now. Actually, I never really was. I’m an entertainer. I’m a showman. That’s all. There’s an opportunity for everyone to get something from all the trouble of the past. You, me, your people, mine.’

  ‘When you say get something, you mean profit, yes?’

  ‘Yes,’ replied Bill without a trace of apology in his voice. ‘And what’s wrong with making a little profit? My God, it’s the nineteenth century! What would you have us do? Settle down and raise families in the same place forever while you and your people are left to rot here? Or go out and see the world and make our fortunes while we’re at it. Make no mistake, my friend. I’m not just offering you a job and money. I’m offering you your freedom.’

  Sitting Bull sat back and smiled, shaking his head sadly. Eventually he spoke. ‘It’s a strange world,’ he said, ‘when a self-confessed showman has the right to offer freedom to an entire race of people. Is that what your war was fought for?’

  Bill smiled. ‘It’s the American way,’ he said.

  Persuading Sitting Bull had not been too difficult as the Sioux leader was wise enough to recognise a way out of his predicament when he saw it; persuading the government to allow him to join, however, was another matter. The secretary of the interior initially refused to let the Sioux leave their reservation, stating that the Indians had been placed in reservations in order to lead civilised and ordered lives. The concept of a tribe touring the country with actors and army veterans performing theatrics struck him as humiliating and potentially dangerous for the people of those states. It took some time, but through discussions with various generals and commissioners, my great-grandfather finally managed to persuade the government that allowing Sitting Bull and a representative group of his people to tour with him, would ease relations between the two cultures, showing the former enemy as a man now and not a terrifying presence in the newspapers.

  And as he sat there waiting, Sitting Bull found it slightly ironic that his first performance with the wild w
est show should be in Buffalo, New York, the namesake town of the man who had brought him to this point.

  ‘Are you ready, Chief?’ asked Nate Salsbury, poking his head into the tent without announcing his presence first, a sign of disrespect which angered Sitting Bull. He considered remonstrating with his new co-employer but decided against it, standing up with a sigh and leaving the tent in order to mount his horse. Eight members of his family and four other members of the Lakota Sioux were awaiting him and he found himself barely able to look them in the eye as he took the lead in their parade and headed for the vast arena where the show was taking place.

  Already it was two hours into the performance and the crowd were having an ecstatic time. They had started reasonably quietly with a series of horse riders performing stunts as they rode at high speed around the arena. The crowd gasped at their bravery, but this was a mere hors d’oeuvre for what was to come for shortly afterwards those actors playing the roles of Pony Express riders entered the fray – a job which Bill himself had done at a youthful age – and the riders began a sustained attack on what was intended to represent the Deadwood Mail Coach. Using blank bullets and choreographed fighting they managed to replicate the danger of such rides without anyone getting hurt and the increasingly bloodthirsty crowd loved it.

  It was after this that the first Indians had appeared in the arena and Bill had observed from the sidelines how the crowd managed to release some of their tensions by booing and hissing at the two Indians engaged in a race – one on horseback and one on foot. Unknown to them, the Indian on horseback was a young man named Dennis Royce, a white man who had been made up to represent a tribal member, but who still lost the race by a neck to Lightning Speed, the acknowledged fastest Indian in America.