But around me I saw only the sorrow scratching the heart, and no one laughed any more and we were always hungry because the wasichu agents didn’t feed us meat, but only gave us that white powder called flour that no one liked and we often threw away. And so I grew into manhood wondering where my vision had come from, for the hoop was broken and we all walked the black road. I began to see visions, foretelling of things to come, and these I gave to the people, and soon I could heal them too, and this I did gladly, for the gifts I received I gladly gave away again.
Then one day, in my twenty-third year, I learned an amazing thing. Pahaska, long-hair, the one called Buffalo Bill, was seeking Sioux people for his show. He was going to take my Lakota across the Big Waters to Grandmother’s land, the very same grandmother who had sheltered Sitting Bull and Gall when they had fled the bluecoats, and where as a boy I too had found shelter from the Americans after the death of Crazy Horse. So I thought I might like the grandmother across the seas whose name was Victoria. But the reason I joined was to learn things. I thought that if I watched and learned I would find things to give to my people, and the hoop of my nation would be made whole again. It was not adventure that drew me, but the vision I had been given at a young age, a vision that required me to do what I could as a healer of the Lakota.
Now Pahaska is dead. I learned of it at the agency. It is a good thing to think upon this great man and cherish the memories that come to mind, like gentle visions lifting out of the past. I grieve, but also I honor the man called Buffalo Bill, for he did much for my people and did it with kindness and grace little known among the wasichu. Because of Pahaska, my life was changed forever, and for the good, and now my mind flies back, cherishing everything that rises to my attention.
We joined Pahaska’s show and soon we were sitting in a carriage that roared along the iron rails, and came to a big city with houses crowded together and many wasichu walking about, another, and another, until we came to a place called New York, where Pahaska’s show was playing in a place called Madison Square Garden. There we met some Pawnees, who counted coup on us and laughed and we laughed too. That was how I first met Pahaska, who was a kind and upright man with a good eye, and I was satisfied. We walked through the big city, this time in the suit of clothes of the white men, but with our hair long. Once again I found myself saddened by the riches and the poverty one saw at every hand and I could not fathom how a people with such amazing powers over the elements could not care for one another.
But when we saw the fireboat my heart was faint, for it was bigger than anything that could possibly be fashioned by mortals, and made much smoke. Pahaska’s many men put the buffalo and horses and cattle down below, and then we were put on the deck above that. There were hammocks for us, but in those days we didn’t know what they were or how to string them up, so we slept on them on the metal floor.
The weather was bad, and great storms blew up, and the waves were taller than the fireboat. We knew we had violated the ancient wisdom that the Lakota must not travel over the Big Water, so I did what I had to do. I dressed in my funeral clothing and sang my death song. Soon the others did too. We sang and waited to die bravely while the fireboat rolled and lurched. None of us could hold the food we took into us and this only made matters worse.
But we did not die. Pahaska had powers over even the great waters, and the seas calmed and I thought maybe I would live to see Grandmother’s land. One day we steamed upriver to a great city I was told was London, and for a long time we could not get off the fireboat. But finally we were taken in a cart on rails to a place called Earl’s Court and began practicing the great show, in the midst of much rain.
I could not speak the tongue of these people but among us were a few English-speakers who could make known to us who these people were and what they thought. I liked that place better than the big village on my side of the waters. I had seen very little of Pahaska, but he was getting his show together and we had a very good time touring London and drawing stares from people who had never seen the likes of us before.
Then one day before the show started the Grandmother England came to visit us in a shining coach surrounded by soldiers, with her family of princes and princesses, and we put on a special performance for her. We danced, as we always did for Pahaska, but we did not do the scenes where we got into a big fight with homesteaders and cowboys for fear it would alarm her too much.
We met the grandmother afterward, one by one, and shook her hand. She told us many things that made us happy: she said we were the best-looking people of all those she had ever met, and if we had belonged to her, she would not let them take us around to show us off, the way Pahaska did. I thought that was good. The little fat lady was good. She was soft and pale and roly-poly, and had a great dignity about her, and I thought Grandmother England was better than Grandfather United States, who would not see us. I saw Pahaska standing to one side, in his white buckskins and great gray hat, smiling at us, and I smiled at him. I wished I could talk with him but I knew only a few of his words and he knew none of mine.
We had plenty to eat and went to bed with full bellies, and that was good. It took many cows to feed the show its beef each day, and Pahaska had found them for us. The show was good. I did not mind losing the battle with each performance and lie dead on the grass after the cowboys and scouts and homesteaders drove us off with much shooting. It was good to scare the wits out of all those pale people in the grandstands. Just scaring them like that was reward enough for any Lakota. Sometimes a woman fainted, and we were doubly rewarded.
We and the Pawnees would count coup on each other and laugh, and the next moment we would be howling down upon the wagon train, shooting and screeching and having a fine time, and for a few heady moments it was like the times before the hoop was broken, and we were a terror to all the tribes of the Plains. Likewise, we were at it again in our assault on the Deadwood Stage and on a homesteader’s cabin. It didn’t matter that we lost all these struggles, lost to cowboys, lost to army scouts, lost to whatever wasichus the show wanted to win. We laughed, and it was good to laugh, and we made belly laughs a part of the show each day. And Pahaska, Buffalo Bill, he had a good eye and saw us laughing and scaring pale people witless and he laughed too, and sometimes when I peered into those bright blue eyes of his, we both laughed and it was good. He knew that the People like a joke, and when we laugh the world is good.
We played there at Earl’s Court several moons and all of London came to see us, and Pahaska made a lot of money and kept us fat. Then we boarded the carts that run on iron rails for a place called Manchester, and we played there late in the year, scaring new audiences with our howls and shrieks as we attacked the wagon train and the Deadwood stage. But the weather was changing and it rained more, and the audiences thinned and those who came to see the Wild West wore heavy coats of wool.
Pahaska announced that it was time to pack up and go across the Big Water, so we prepared, the dread in us again of traveling across the water where no land was in sight, only the gray seas churned up by winter storms. It was a fearsome thing for any Lakota, but we were all determined to die bravely and not show our fear, so we prepared.
But then a strange thing happened. Three other Lakota and I got lost in Manchester the very day the fireboat was to sail. We could not speak the tongue of these people and could not make our way to the place where the fireboat rested beside a pier, and the fireboat sailed to the land of my home without us. We were very sad for maybe now we would never see the land of our people again, never see our parents and brothers and sisters again. We were truly in a strange place, all alone, unable to make ourselves understood because there were no English-speakers among us. I prepared in my heart to die, far from my ancestors, and so did the rest of us.
I didn’t blame Pahaska. It was just something that happened. But my life surely was over and I hoped I might receive a vision telling me what to do, where to go, whom I might talk to.
Now Pahaska, Buffalo Bill, lie
s in his grave and the thought of him fills my heart and I count myself lucky to have known him. The image of him stays in mind. I think of him smiling. I pray that his spirit will not wander but make the spirit-journey along the sacred road in peace.
(From the memoir of Col. William F. Cody)
Europeans saw our American Indians in a different light entirely. Over there, they were the noble savage, to be painted and photographed and admired. That was fine; most of the English hadn’t seen a red Indian before, nor had the French, and the result was that our cast was feted and dined and celebrated wherever we went.
But it had been an awful start. The Sioux thought they would perish for it was part of their beliefs that anyone who ventured out upon the great waters would die. Our crossing on the State of Nebraska was storm-tossed, and soon it was reported to me that the Sioux were singing their death songs.
But there were among them some few more familiar with the ways of the white man, and these gave heart to the others and none of our charges died of fear as I imagined they could, knowing the hold of belief on the Indian mind.
The European climate was not hospitable to those who were used to a dryer and less sea-girt land, and the Indians among us were not as healthy as I had hoped they would be. To make matters worse, snoops and busybodies had persuaded themselves that we were maltreating our charges and this was duly reported to the Indian Bureau which launched investigations of us. Only the interventions of Major Burke, who hurried across the Atlantic to plead our case, spared us trouble with the bureaucracy. Eventually we agreed to have independent inspectors examine the health of our Indians and report to Washington. When they found our red men fat and healthy and happy, and when they discovered that I had offered to send any of the Indians home who didn’t care to stay, matters abated. But no matter what we did we were never far from being in trouble with the Indian Bureau.
The Indians were free to go where they would and soon found Europe much to their liking, at least for a while. But I knew my Sioux, and I knew that if they stayed long in Europe, they would die of the hunger to see their own families and return to their own lodges, and not until that joyous reunion would any of them be at ease again. And my understanding of their nature proved to be right, though it would take more European tours for the Wild West before I could know it for certain.
Chapter 19
Gene Fowler
The word from fat Harry Tammen is to keep the Cody stories coming. He wants to squeeze a few tons of pennies out of Denver’s schoolchildren, with which to build a gaudy tomb. He doesn’t want to fork over any cash from the Post’s strongbox to do it, it being his policy to get rich using other people’s money.
So, here I am, scribbling another Saint Cody the Divine piece every two or three days to pump pennies out of school children. Which I don’t mind doing, even though Tammen reminded me once again not to damage the merchandise. Saints are worth money. It couldn’t be a better assignment from any publisher, and if I bruise the apples a little bit Tammen will pretend not to notice. We all know what sells newspapers: red headlines.
I’ve been looking at Cody’s several autobiographies, none of which matches its predecessors, and also army records and memoirs because I want to know what really did happen on July 17, 1876, less than a month after Custer had met his fate on the Little Big Horn. That was the day, according to all concerned, that Chief Scout William F. Cody battled a Cheyenne subchief called Yellow Hair, Hay-o-wei, though he got mislabeled Yellow Hand in the yellow press, in some sort of private duel or at least personal combat. Everyone’s recollections are a little different and so are the military reports which makes the game all the more fun for a nosey hack like me.
Cody was attached to the Fifth Cavalry and working under its field commander Colonel Wesley Merritt that July. General Sheridan’s orders to the Fifth were to prevent those restless Cheyenne remaining on their Red Cloud Agency reservation from joining the insurgents who had just perforated the Seventh Cavalry and getting in on some more fun. Had they done so, they could have swelled the Sioux and Cheyenne forces by another thousand and made serious trouble for the beleaguered United States frontier army.
Merritt and his cavalry were on their way to Fort Laramie to hook up with General Crook and try to catch the Sioux who had defeated Custer, when word came that the young Cheyenne warriors had indeed bolted and it would be up to the Fifth to thwart the devils.
So Merritt engaged in a series of lightning marches, covering an amazing amount of ground in a few hours. And then, early on July 17, Cody and two other scouts who were sucking the army teat spotted the Cheyenne moving leisurely north a few valleys away. This he reported to Merritt, first by army signal from peak to peak with great bursts of mirrored sunlight and semaphores, and later in person. The Cheyenne were unaware of Merritt but were aware of a wagon train that the Cheyenne warriors were flanking. The train was protected by infantry inside those wagons but the Cheyenne didn’t know it.
So far, so good. Here was bushy Buffalo Bill, a theatrical star, on a sixteen-hand red roan, wearing gaudy red and black theater clothing, acting as the eyes and ears of the cavalry and spotting the hostiles before they spotted the bluecoats. I had to give Cody credit; he knew his enemy and knew the terrain and knew how to deal with both.
Well, at that point, the infantry in the wagon train sent a pair of couriers ahead to find Merritt. The Cheyenne, who had their own scouts spread wide, spotted the two isolated couriers and decided to jump them. All of this, too, was reported to Merritt who dithered a little. It was Cody who saw the chance and suggested to the brevet brigadier that his burly scouts and a few bluebellies jump the cohort of Cheyenne just when they were closing in on the couriers.
Merritt agreed at once to this superior nugget of wisdom from the Chief of Scouts, or so the story goes, and Cody and his little mélange of scouts and corporals hustled off to fight a fracas with a small Cheyenne force that was only a little bit ahead of the whole Cheyenne shebang. It happened just about in that fashion, give or take a fat exaggeration or two. As the seven bronze Cheyenne suddenly closed in on the two couriers, Cody’s little bunch howled down on the Cheyenne, who instantly turned to face the new threat rolling down a hillside. Each party had surprised the other.
Cody put rowels to horse and headed straight for a bonneted warrior and he in turn closed on Cody. At fairly close range, Cody shot the warrior, who proved to be Yellow Hair. His bullet smacked Yellow Hair’s leg, passed through it and into the horse, killing it. Yellow Hair’s shot missed. Cody’s horse stumbled at a gopher hole and Cody jumped free, knelt, and deliberately fired his second shot. An instant before, the Cheyenne fired again and missed. Cody’s shot pierced Yellow Hair’s head and killed him. Cody carefully scalped Yellow Hair, whose hair was not yellow, and walked off with his trophy, proclaiming it the first scalp taken for Custer, and now who was the chief rooster?
That’s how it happened according to army witnesses, such as signalman Chris Madsen and a certain Lieutenant King, as well as several others. Ah, indeed, the probability of a grain or two of truth rears up in the records. Several witnesses all agree on the main points. The joy of it! But a few days later, the New York Herald was running its own steamy version, gleaned from assorted witnesses:
“...the Indians, emboldened by the rush of their friends to the rescue, turned savagely on Buffalo Bill and the little party at the outpost. The latter sprang from their horses and met the daring charge with a volley. Yellow Hand, a young Cheyenne brave, came foremost, singling Bill as a foeman worthy of his steel. Cody coolly knelt, and taking deliberate aim, sent the bullet through the chief’s leg and into the horse’s head. Down went the two and before his friends could reach him, a second shot from Bill’s rifle laid the redskin low.”
Ah, I thought, now we’re getting closer to the alleged duel much celebrated in the dime novels and in Cody’s own Wild West extravaganzas. A worthy foeman indeed.
Now to understand what happened next you must understand t
he world of dime novels where story is everything, and if truth gets in the way of a good story, you can say adios to truth. This is what I love about researching Buffalo Bill. I got to compare the true bill to the stuff that was floated out upon the credulous world afterward.
I found a copy of The Crimson Trail; or, Custer’s Last Warpath, A Romance Founded upon the Present Border Warfare, as witnessed by Hon. William F. Cody.
Now the code duello comes into play:
“One of the Indians, who was handsomely decorated with all the ornaments usually worn by a war chief when engaged in a fight, sang out to me in his own tongue: ‘I know you, Pa-he-haska; if you want to fight, come ahead and fight me.’ The chief was riding his horse back and forth in front of his men, as if to banter me, and I concluded to accept the challenge.”
In that version they close at a gallop, then fire at each other. Cody kills the Cheyenne’s horse but is thrown off his own when it stumbles. He shoots again, hits the Indian in the breast, and Cody stabs him in the heart.
“Jerking his war bonnet off, I scientifically scalped him in about five seconds...”
And as the soldiers ride up, he swings the topknot in the air and declares it was the first scalp for Custer.
Ah, a duel! The story is getting classier. I duly took notes.
His sister, Helen Whetmore, improved on the story in 1911.
“The chief drew his men into line and rode back and forth in front, bantering Buffalo Bill with a challenge for a duel.”
Well, I thought that was pretty hot stuff, getting a duel between a pair of knights out of the encounter. What made it especially delightful was that Cody, ever the showman, had gotten himself up in that gaudy red and black vaquero outfit beforehand, so he could rightly claim, on stage later, that he was wearing the very outfit in which he had scouted for the army. You have to admire a chief of scouts with foresight like that, an eye on the ticket window, and I was beginning to agree that there was no one on earth like Buffalo Bill. Put me in those boots and I would have been wearing clothing that made me as invisible as possible.
The Honorable Cody Page 15