by Bill Albert
He stopped and took a long pull at his drink.
“George Armstrong Custer. Fine man. Darn bad luck. Well, it was right after that when I was with the Fifth under Wesley Merritt and we were chasing after a big group of Cheyenne who were trying to leave the Red Cloud Agency and join up with the other hostiles that had done for Custer. If they had joined up, then we would really have had some bad trouble, so we pushed on hard to cut them off. I was up front riding point with a couple of scouts and some troopers from Company K when we come over this rise and runs smack into a whole bunch of Cheyenne war paint led by the most savage, toughest, bloodthirstiest chief of them all, Yellow Hand. Don’t know which of us was more surprised. Well, they drew up a couple of hundred yards away, a lot more of them than us, and their chief he comes out and starts to taunt us. Says how we was all squaws and was too frightened to fight them like men. He calls me out. ‘Pahaska,’ he shouts, ‘come and fight me.’ Some of the boys tell me not to, but I rides out to meet him anyways. As soon as I gets close enough I let fly with my Winchester and his horse goes down. He fires and misses, but my horse gets his front foot stuck in a prairie dog hole and over she goes. So there we are, the two of us on foot facing each other. I had lost my rifle and my Colt when I fell. Nothing left but my skinning knife. I just about pulls it loose when he comes rushing at me like a raging bull with his tomahawk raised up figuring to brain me, but I sidesteps just like that and he goes right on past. Not far he doesn’t though and quick as light he’s on his way back. I wait this time until he’s just about on me, and I drop my shoulder and let him have it with the Bowie knife right through the heart. Stone dead before he hit the ground he was. I looked up and see all those Indians madder than hornets, but I know what I’ve got to do, so I leans over him, cuts his scalp off with one swipe and holds it up so they can all see it. And then I yells that this is the first scalp for Custer, which it was. That spooks ‘em something fierce and they stops right in their tracks and just then the other troops catch up with us and the Cheyenne see them coming and they turns and runs for all their worth. And that’s the God’s honest truth, Carl. Just like it happened.”
A few days later I heard him tell the same story to a gang of kids that came around to his tent after the show. Only this time he shot Yellow Hand with a Colt .45.
“Right straight through the heart,” he said patting his chest. “The bullet dropped him in his tracks. Stone dead before he hit the ground. You don’t want to believe all that foolishness you read. I’m telling you just like it happened.”
“Not called Yellow Hand,” said Charlie Pinto Face. “Yellow Hair he was called because of a white woman he had killed and scalped. A woman killer.” He spat on the ground. “A worm, not a warrior chief. I have heard it said that there were many bullets on that day between the Long Knifes and the Cheyenne. Maybe it was Pahaska who killed him, maybe not. But he counted coup and that is what is important.”
“Sure he did,” insisted Benny. “Sold that scalp to some storekeeper to put in his winda along with the feathered headdress and other stuff he took offa him. Got twenty dollars for it! Nothin growin on ol’ Buffalo Bill!”
“Wore his old Mexican rig to that battle with Yellow Hand,” Arizona John told me. “Must have looked like a thousand dollars in it too! Black velvet from neck to toe with a scarlet sash, silver buttons and lace. Yes sir, a thousand dollars! Don’t know what the damn Indians made of it, but that suit and that story sure pulled them into the theater when the Colonel went back on the stage. Almost like he knew it would.”
I had pictured Buffalo Bill in buckskin like in the paintings, not black velvet and lace and not sitting sunk down in a purple velvet railway carriage.
“It is the story that matters, Meyer,” my mother had said, “not the details.”
It might have been like that for my story, after all I’m not somebody people talk about, write about, look up to or any of that stuff. Buffalo Bill is just that somebody. Like Arizona John was always saying, Buffalo Bill is America, something important. That made his stories important too, details and all.
19
“Man makes clothes, Meyer, but just as important, clothes makes the man. Don’t you forget that.” It was one of my father’s favorite sayings, and why not? He was in the clothes business.
Buffalo Bill wasn’t, but he lived by the same rules. One of the first things he did when I became his personal private letter writer was to fit me out with a whole new set of clothes. I had liked my old buckskin shirt and moccasins that the Indians had given me. I figured they were the kind of clothes Buffalo Bill would wear. They were, but only in the arena, not in the real world. Buffalo Bill said that if I was going to work for him I had to look respectable, not like a coffee boy, an Indian, or a street Arab. He sent Alfred Heimer, his German valet, with me into town to set me up with what was needed.
Heimer didn’t like me, which was OK because he didn’t like anybody, except maybe Buffalo Bill. He was a tall bony guy who always looked sour. He never said much, but seemed to know what Buffalo Bill wanted before the old man did. He laid his clothes out in the morning and after the Colonel finally escaped from the business tent and got to his hotel room or to Car Number Fifty, Heimer would have his silk dressing gown and slippers waiting, a cut cigar and a glass of whisky on the side table.
Buffalo Bill with a sissy foreign valet? As I live and breathe that’s the honest truth. By the time I found out I was almost finished with being surprised at things like that. The Old Scout also had his own private cook and took his meals in his own private mess tent, usually with Nate Salsbury, Major Burke, and sometimes Annie Oakley, Frank Butler, or Johnny Baker, maybe a visiting big shot. Often he ate alone with a lady. Then he was careful that no one noticed her come in or leave, although almost everyone did notice. I saw him in the main mess tent but once or twice, and then he only had a cup of coffee and passed the time of day.
“Got to keep up appearances,” he explained. “Let ‘em know I’m here looking out for ‘em.”
I ate out back with the Colonel’s cook, Walter L. Brown. He was an Englishman, a fine cook and fat with the fineness of enjoying what he did. He was friendly enough too, although he could talk you into the ground about the places where he’d cooked, the famous people he cooked for, and the special dishes he had made. That was all right, because as long as I listened he let me eat as much as I wanted.
Heimer on the other hand was as irritable as he looked.
“The Colonel with his money too generous is,” he said disapprovingly, after paying for my clothes. “All the time too many bums up him are touching.”
Heimer might not have had a way with the words, but he had Buffalo Bill pinned right enough. He couldn’t say no to anyone who put the bite on him. He was always handing out quarters and dimes to kids, sending money to old friends from his army days and setting up drinks for the house in every bar he stepped foot in, which with Buffalo Bill was whole streets of bars.
“Ya lookin like a real swell, Mouse. A regular dude. Hardly recognize ya rigged out all fancy like that.”
I recognized me all right and I didn’t like it one damn bit. Knee breeches, long wool socks with garters, shirt buttoned up like to choke me, stiff collar and tie, a wool jacket, and black lace-up shoes.
Every morning Heimer came into the business tent where Buffalo Bill let me sleep and inspected me.
“What fingernails?” he demanded roughly.
I held them up.
“Clean? Yes?”
He walked around pulling at my ears, checking for dirt.
“Comb!”
He pointed at my hair. I combed it. He straightened my tie, more like to throttle me with it.
“Shoes!” he said harshly. “Clean!”
He sent me out back with a tin of Bixby’s Three Bees Blacking and a rag.
“Your face in them I want!”
Of course, I
still saw Mike, Benny, and the other coffee boys, but what with the writing and running errands for Buffalo Bill I didn’t get across to the mess tent too often. Also, decked out in my new clothes and being real close with the Colonel, going to see them was a bit like traveling between Central Park and Henry Street.
Mike was deferential towards me, but greatly honored too. His coffee boy had been chosen to work for Buffalo Bill himself. And he knew why.
“I learned ya everythin I know, child. Everythin. I’m sure you’ll do me right proud up there with Colonel Cody. But I don’t want ya to be thankin me. It’s God’s will, child. Moves in mysterious ways, He does. I just want ya to remember old Mike once in a while when you’re up there. That’s enough reward for me. More than enough, thank you very much.”
All the time he was talking he was slowly backing away towards the mess tent nodding and grinning.
Only Benny and Charlie Pinto Face didn’t treat me any different.
“Although you are dead to him,” intoned Charlie, “I know that Sunset Buffalo Dreamer is pleased that Pahaska has taken you for his son.”
I signed to him that I wasn’t really his son, that I was just working for him.
“I work for Pahaska, but I am not his son,” Charlie said.
I didn’t know how to answer that in sign or any other way.
“Now Sunset Buffalo Dreamer is not shamed. He can hold his head up.”
Even though I was dead to him and he wouldn’t see me, I was pleased for Sunset Buffalo Dreamer. What the hell, I thought, he was a nice old guy and had saved my life. I signed to Charlie that, yes, he could tell him that Buffalo Bill had taken me for his son.
For Benny, me moving over to work for Buffalo Bill brought us closer, at least it brought Benny closer to me. Every day he would manage to find me at least once to ask if I’d heard or seen anything important and every day I told him no. It didn’t stop him coming.
Finally I did have something important to tell him. Buffalo Bill was going to war with Spain.
“Dearest Julia. Looks like they’ve finally called me to the colors. Letter arrived this morning from General Miles saying as how he wanted me to come down to help clean up the mess in Porto Rico. I been talking to Nate and Bailey about what kind of arrangements we can make. Nate says that now the big show is over in Cuba there ain’t no point in me going out. Better off keeping the flag flying with the Show. But Arizona John and the others have been making such a big noise about me volunteering that I don’t see how I can back out now without being made to look like a darn coward or a slacker which sure as shooting is not my style by any stretch. No ma’am.—Get that down strong as you can, Carl—Of course, it ain’t the fighting that worries me, what with the Spaniard not having the stomach for a real fight, but Nate figures it will cost as much as a hundred thousand dollars to close down the Show. It’ll take years to get that back and your brother ain’t getting any younger. Then there’s all the advance work that will be lost and the people who I support with their working at the Show. What are they going to do if we close down? It’s a tough one to figure and that’s a fact. Finally agreed with Nate to send a letter to Miles explaining to him how much it will cost us and see what he says. Nate reckons that might get us off the hook. If Miles gets through the Spaniard in Porto Rico as fast as Shatter and Roosevelt did in Cuba it will be all over before anyone notices I’m not there. So we’re all hoping for that. Lulu’s been asking for money again. She never writes but to ask for money and then she doesn’t tell me anything. What’s going on there at the Wigwam? Is everything all right with her and Irma? She is a strange woman and each year gets stranger and farther away from the girl I married. Don’t you fret if she gets cranky with you, although I’m sure you’re used to it after all these years. I sometimes feel sorry for her and wished she got on better with you and Helen. I want you to talk to Mr. and Mrs. Arlenberg who live in North Platte. I got me a young boy here, about twelve years old, who’s going to need some looking after this winter and being as they lost their son last year I was thinking that maybe they’d oblige me. He is a fine boy with, as you can see by this writing, a first-rate education. Don’t let Al tire himself out too much. He’s real important to me keeping things going smooth up there at Scout’s Rest. Best regards to Al and love to the children.
“Hope you don’t mind about that, Carl. Got to fix you up. Don’t you worry yourself none though, the Arlenbergs are upstanding, God-fearing folk. He’s our banker back there in North Platte. They’ve got two girls, one must be about your age. What’s that? No, son, you can’t stay with me. Mrs. Cody wouldn’t sit for it. Always going on at me for bringing in strays. Besides, boy like you needs a proper settled home life, not following after an old reprobate like Buffalo Bill. With your education and soft ways, why you ain’t got the grit to fight it out with those others in the streets. Coffee boy ain’t no future at all for someone like you. You could make something of yourself, Carl, something real fine if you got the chance. A doctor, maybe even a lawyer.”
The Arlenbergs? The Liebermanns? I suppose with my new Heimer-chosen, button-up clothes I was already halfway there. Once again it seemed I was to be deposited in a strange nest and become a boy with a promising future.
20
If Buffalo Bill had gone to war with Spain I would have been left to the tender mercies of Nate Salsbury or Henry Barnum. But Buffalo Bill never went to war with Spain. General Miles swept through Porto Rico like a high-wind hurricane and that suited Buffalo Bill right down to his pocketbook. He was off the hook and so was I.
The night we got the news he and some of his friends visited about every bar in town at least twice. He said it was to celebrate America’s great victory and I’ve never met anyone who knew how to celebrate more wide-out flushed than Buffalo Bill.
I guess the few weeks after that were just about the tops for me, a high point to look back on, just wallowing in the glory of being near to Buffalo Bill. Even Annie Oakley had a kind word for me when she came to dinner. After she heard my story from the Colonel she gave me a warm smile, patted my head and told me what a brave boy I was.
“You know,” she said, “your Sunset Buffalo Dreamer reminds me of my Sitting Bull. He was right worried about all the poor children he saw in the city—ragged, begging, living how they could. Always making a fuss over them and giving them his money. Why, I told him not to and that he should save it for himself and his family back on the reservation. Anyway, giving money only encouraged them. Anybody with a grain of common sense that the good Lord gave could see that. But Sitting Bull wouldn’t listen to a little girl like me. He told me that among his people if a man had food his neighbor never went hungry. ‘The white man knows how to make everything,’ he said, ‘but does not have the wisdom to give it out.’ He had some mighty funny ideas, almost like those Anarchists and Socialists you hear so much about nowadays, although they’re all foreigners and the like so they don’t go to making much difference to things.”
There was one of Buffalo Bill’s friends from the Dimes I wanted to meet more than anyone. Well, there were two really, but Wild Bill Hickock was dead. The other was White Beaver, the famous Surgeon Scout, Major Frank Powell, boon comrade of Buffalo Bill, Wild Bill, and Texas Jack. A man who had few equals in the border craft. A man possessing nerve and ability, a dead shot, a wild rider, and a skilled lasso thrower.
The closest I ever got to Buffalo Bill’s great pard was a letter the Colonel had me write. Danger? Adventures? Wild riding? Dead shooting? Lasso throwing? Not a trace. It was patent medicine and irrigation mostly.
“Dear Frank. Was on my way to Porto Rico but Miles rolled it up so quick I didn’t get my chance to get in a shot at the Spaniard. Darn shame about that. Had everything set, two horses already sent out there, bunch of the cowboys behind me rearing to go. Suppose the important thing though is that we won the war. Darn fine show, although it looks like we’ll have to stay down to help
those Cubans get everything working right. Sure, I’d be glad to put some money into your new White Beaver’s Patent Elixir, but before you go off too quick just remind yourself what happened with the White Beaver’s Cough Cream and Lung Healer and before that with the Yosemite Yarrow Cough Cream and Wonder Worker. We ain’t really had much luck with the patent medicines, have we? Might be if you could get them folks at Sears and Roebuck to sell it in their catalogue we’d have a better chance. Then there was that Panamalt which those cantankerous Mormons wouldn’t drink. I can’t say I blame them, it tasted awful, though I know that wasn’t your fault or your idea, but we had to shut down the factory anyways with all that money gone with it. The problem right now, old friend, is that the irrigation I got going up in North Platte is sucking in more money than Quakers and no certain end to it and since ‘95 the Cody Canal up in the Big Horns has been taking money like water to keep it going, although I’m mighty happy about them laying out the town of Cody and that my nephew Ed’s still there doing the postmastering. Of course, the Show’s doing OK but with all the other irons there in the fire I ain’t got a lot of loose change just at the second. Would five hundred dollars see you right? Looks like being October for some elk at the TE. Most of the boys will be coming up. Hope you can get yourself there.”
Buffalo Bill and Major Frank Powell, snake oil salesmen? Irrigation and farming? That couldn’t be right for the dashing bordermen. Like always, Benny December was there to explain it to me.
“Whadda ya think, Mouse? Jesus, for a smart kid yer pretty damn stupid! Bein a borderman and doin all that there stupid dashin don’t put meat on the table, do it? Shit no! Like I’m always tellin ya, Cody’s watchin for the main chance, always lookin out for Number One.”