Kinch Riley and Hickok and Cody

by Matt Braun

  Taken unawares, the greasepaint Indians hopped and screeched, frantically gyrating around the stage. Hickok kept them dancing, firing with a devilish grin, until his pistol ran dry. Then, singed and furious, but actors to a man, the bewigged warriors toppled helter-skelter in feigned death. The audience broke out in hilarious applause and Hickok took a bow.

  Act Three played out with a final, tumultuous battle scene. The warriors were massacred en masse, and Dove Eye, the delectable Indian maiden, was reunited with that stalwart of the plains, Buffalo Bill. The cast took five curtain calls, and Cody and Hickok were called back for a standing ovation from the crowd. Buntline was waiting in the wings when they came offstage, surrounded by the powder-burned actors. He looked like he could chew nails.

  “Are you mad?” he ranted at Hickok. “How dare you fire at these men!”

  “What’re you yellin’ about?” Hickok said with a crooked grin. “That crowd ate it up.”

  “Wild Bill’s right,” Cody interceded. “Why not add it to the show, Ned?”

  “Now you’ve gone mad!”

  “Hear me out. Wild Bill could fire at the floor instead of their legs. The boys could do all that hoppin’ and wailin’, and the audience wouldn’t know the difference. We’d still get the laughs.”

  “Well—”

  “You know it’d work.”

  “Perhaps.”

  “Think of all them laughs … and the publicity.”

  Buntline put it in the show.

  * * *

  James Gordon Bennett, publisher of the New York Herald, hosted an opening-night party. The affair was held at Delmonico’s, the preeminent dining establishment in the city. The guest list included the luminaries of the New York aristocracy.

  Among those in attendance were Commodore Cornelius Vanderbilt, William Waldorf Astor, and Jay Gould. They were the robber barons of the day, shrewd financiers who had plundered railroads, the stock exchange, and assorted industries with piratical zeal. Their combined wealth was second only to the United States Treasury.

  Their excesses gave rise to what was commonly known as the Gilded Age. The era was marked by galvanized capitalism, industrial expansion, and ostentatious displays of wealth. The leisure hours of the social set were consumed by the opera, the theater, and lavish parties unrivaled by European nobility. One financier threw a party to honor his cocker spaniel, who arrived sporting a collar studded with diamonds.

  The party tonight was to honor Cody and Hickok. Yet the titans of industry, no less than the masses, were captivated by plainsmen who had braved a wilderness as exotic as darkest Africa and fought the savage tribes to the death. Hickok, even more than Cody, was phantasmal, a sorcerer of armed conflict. He was death astride a pale horse, the Prince of Pistoleers.

  Cornelius Vanderbilt, a heavyset man with mutton-chop whiskers, cornered him while drinks were being served. “I say, Mr. Hickok,” he inquired with wily curiosity. “Are these reports in the press to be taken literally?”

  “Depends,” Hickok said, sipping the finest whiskey he’d ever tasted. “Which reports was that?”

  “Why, the allusion to you having killed a hundred men in the war. I ask you, sir, a hundred?”

  James Gordon Bennett and William Waldorf Astor were drawn closer by the question. Hickok quaffed his whiskey, letting them hang on his reply. “Well, don’t you see,” he said with a straight face, “some men, God rest their souls, was born to be killed. Just happened I was their grim reaper.”

  “Grim reaper, indeed!” Vanderbilt’s wattled features creased with a jolly smile. “You have a droll sense of mortality, Mr. Hickok.”

  “What’s life without a few laughs?”

  Hickok was amused by the conversation. He thought the mythical stature accorded to Cody and himself was a gem of a joke. These men, citified Easterners, were never able to separate the truth from what they read in the papers or saw on the stage. So in the end, the joke was on them.

  Dinner was an elaborate affair. The meal began with imported salmon, a confection of sweetbreads and pâté de foie gras, followed by a rich terrapin soup. The main course was canvasback duck, accompanied by asparagus, savory mushrooms, and artichokes. A different wine was served with every course.

  Mrs. Jay Gould was seated beside Cody. Her gown was Parisian, with a breast-heaver that swelled her bosoms, and she wore a diamond necklace with an emerald pendant the size of a peahen’s egg. She smiled at him over a bite of duck.

  “I’m simply overcome with curiosity, Mr. Cody. Do you enjoy fighting the savages?”

  “No, ma’am,” Cody said without hesitation. “Fact is, I admire the Injuns. They’re good fighters and fine people.”

  She looked confused. “Then why do you fight them?”

  “Why, ma’am, we’re buildin’ ourselves a nation here. Some folks have to move aside so others can move on. The Injuns just got in the way.”

  “You sound as though you sympathize with them, Mr. Cody.”

  “Don’t know about that, ma’am. But I shorely do respect ’em.”

  Cody glanced across the room, his attention drawn to Buntline. The showman was seated beside Alexander Stewart, one of the richest men in New York. Katherine and Augustus, who had been passed off as Phelan’s children, were at a table with the Omohundros and several social lions. He looked back at Mrs. Gould.

  “Talkin’ about Injuns,” he said breezily, “how’d you like the show?”

  She tittered. “May I ask you a question, Mr. Cody?”

  “Shore thing.”

  “Are all Indian maidens as ravishing as Mlle. Morlacchi?”

  “Yes, ma’am, they’re the fairest flowers of the plains.”

  “Oh, my, do tell me more.”

  Cody spun a titillating tale of love in the Wild West.

  CHAPTER 20

  THERE WERE rave reviews in the morning paper. Cody, beside himself with pride, poured over the critics’ words. He read the New York Times aloud to Hickok.

  “The Scouts of the Plains is an extraordinary production with more wild Indians, scalping knives, and gun powder to the square inch than any drama ever before seen on a theater stage. Buffalo Bill Cody and Wild Bill Hickok are the epitome of valiant frontiersmen.”

  “Epitome?” Hickok said. “What the hell’s that mean?”

  “Don’t know,” Cody said absently. “Think it’s a compliment.”

  “They say anything about me shootin’ out the lights?”

  “Yeah, you wowed ’em with that one. Called you the ‘finest pistol marksman extant.’”

  “Extant?”

  “Way it sounds, that means still livin’.”

  “Still livin’, huh?” Hickok knuckled his mustache. “Well, I reckon they got that right.”

  Cody held out a copy of the New York Herald. “Wait’ll you read this. Glory be!”

  The play is beyond all precedent in the annals of stage lore. It has all the thrilling romance, treachery, love, and revenge of the richest dime novels ever written. The subject is so popular with readers of border tales that the temptation to see the real actors cannot be resisted.

  Hickok snorted. “Helluva way to make a livin’. I’d be a red-faced baboon if anybody out West saw me on that stage.”

  “They’d be pea-green with envy,” Cody said. “We’re in high clover and no end in sight. How many of them earns what we do?”

  “That ain’t the point. I’m talkin’ about all the phony claptrap we spout. I feel like an impostor.”

  “Well, that’s the show business. You mix a little fact and a little fancy, and folks are entertained. Where’s the harm in that?”

  “I ain’t no entertainer,” Hickok said dourly. “I’d sooner be an organ grinder with a monkey. Nothin’ phony about that.”

  “Tell you what’s a fact,” Cody confided. “There might come a day when I’d go full-bore into the show business. I have to admit I like the stage.”

  “You sayin’ you’d give up scoutin’?”

 
“I’m sayin’ I like the applause. Don’t matter that it’s play actin’ and mostly nonsense. There’s worse places than standin’ in the limelight.”

  A log crackled in the fireplace. Hickok stared out the sitting room window, as though some profound revelation were to be found in the sunny sky. He finally looked around.

  “I always figured it for a joke. You know, like April Fool’s.”

  “April Fool’s?” Cody said blankly. “What’re you talkin’ about?”

  “All this hurrah they make about you and me. We fed ’em some guff and they printed it up in them dime novels, and folks swallowed it whole. But that don’t make us the Heroes of the Plains.”

  “Who’s the heroes, then?”

  “Hell’s bells, I don’t know,” Hickok barked. “I’m just sayin’ we invented most of what we told ’em. All a load of hogwash.”

  Cody took his fame seriously. “I don’t recollect I ever bent the truth out of shape. Besides, there’s nothing wrong with spinnin’ a tale. Folks want to believe that stuff.”

  “Maybe you was made for the show business. April Fool’s every night of the week.”

  “Well, like I said, there’s worse things than the limelight. The money’s not bad, either.”

  The door burst open. Katherine and Augustus hurried into the suite, followed by Phelan. Their faces were animated and they seemed themselves again. Whatever they were thinking about their parents, they rarely spoke it out loud. Their grief, if not diminished, was somehow suppressed.

  “Have fun?” Cody asked.

  “Oh, yes!” Katherine said gaily. “Giuseppina has such wonderful gowns. And her jewelry…!”

  “A pretty lady needs fancy things. We’ll buy you something nice over at Tiffany’s.”

  “Will you—truly?”

  The children had grown antsy cooped up in the suite. They’d spent the morning visiting Giuseppina and Omohundro, in their room down the hall. Phelan, the youngsters’ constant shadow, had accompanied them.

  “Who cares about Tiffany’s?” Augustus scoffed. “Texas Jack showed me how his gun works. Even let me hold it!”

  Hickok frowned. “Guns ain’t boy’s toys, Gus.”

  “No harm done,” Phelan said. “Jack unloaded it and let me check it. He was careful.”

  “Pow! Pow!” Augustus shouted, his thumb and forefinger cocked like a pistol. “I bet I could shoot the lights out, too, Wild Bill.”

  Hickok exchanged a look with Cody. Then his gaze shifted to Phelan. “Bill and me got an invite to the racing heats this afternoon. You and Jack stick close till we get back. Don’t let Gus and Kate out of here.”

  Phelan nodded. “We’ll be on our toes.”

  “Well, foo!” Katherine pouted. “We have to stay here and be bored silly. It isn’t fair, Wild Bill.”

  “Think so?” Hickok said with a teasing smile. “What if me and Buffalo Bill stop by that store, Tiffany’s? How’s that sound?”

  “Honestly, you promise?”

  “Cross my heart.”

  * * *

  Harlem Lane was north of Central Park. The area was largely countryside, some five miles north of the theater district. The terrain was flat and open, perfect for racing horses. A few farmhouses were scattered along the broad, dirt lane.

  The elite of New York adopted ducal pastimes during the Gilded Age. Every afternoon, when the weather permitted, men of prominence gathered at Harlem Lane for the racing heats. Their presence signified that they could afford to curtail their working day to the mornings. Their rivalry was yet another display of their wealth.

  Dexter, a champion trotter owned by Robert Bonner, was reportedly purchased for thirty-three thousand dollars. Leonard Jerome, another racing enthusiast, quartered his horses in a stable paneled in walnut and floored with wall-to-wall carpet. Gould and Vanderbilt, even the Reverend Henry Ward Beecher, were known for their prize racing stock. Everyone who was anyone in the New York aristocracy came to Harlem Lane on a sunny afternoon.

  Their ladies spent the afternoon at Central Park. No less than the men, the women of high society flaunted their wealth on a carriage promenade. Decked out in sable and gaily feathered hats, they were driven through the park in stately broughams, or an occasional barouche, the carriage favored by European nobility. The coaches were hauled by sleek steeds and piloted by liveried drivers in brass-buttoned uniforms. Pedigree, in New York, was often mirrored by pageantry.

  Cody and Hickok prided themselves on their knowledge of horseflesh. On the Western Plains, where the warlike tribes bred superb mounts, a scout’s horse was often the margin between life and death. Last night, during the party at Delmonico’s, the robber barons had openly bragged on the bloodlines of their racing stock. Jay Gould had extended an invitation to today’s heats, and Cody and Hickok had readily accepted. They were curious to see if New Yorkers knew anything about horses.

  Cody, in particular, considered himself an authority on the subject. His favorite mount, Buckskin Joe, was fleet as the wind, descended from stock brought to the New World by the Conquistadors. He had raced Buckskin Joe against the prize mounts of army officers and Indian chiefs, and he’d never lost. Yet the horses paraded around Harlem Lane today were almost beyond his ken, and certainly beyond his means. He quickly revised his opinion of New Yorkers.

  Dexter was a stallion imported from Kentucky. He was a barrel-chested animal, all sinew and muscle, standing sixteen hands high and well over a thousand pounds in weight. A blood bay, with black tail and mane, his hide glistened in the sun like dark blood on a polished redwood. He whinnied a shrill blast and pawed the earth as though he spurned it and longed to fly. His nostrils flared in anticipation of the first race.

  A horse named Copperdust was his opponent. Tall and powerful, the rangy chestnut looked like Dexter cast in a different color. Jay Gould, who owned Copperdust, was confident his fiery-eyed stallion could not be beat. Like all robber barons, he thought of any endeavor in terms of money, including a sporting event. He casually offered Robert Bonner, Dexter’s owner, a gentleman’s wager of ten thousand dollars. Bonner, as though dealing in spare change, accepted the bet with an insouciant nod. The challenge match was on.

  Cody and Hickok were floored. Neither of them had ever seen ten thousand dollars, much less possessed such a princely sum. In a time when the daily wage for the average working man was two dollars or less, ten thousand was a veritable fortune. The nonchalance with which the wager had been made convinced the plainsmen that they were in rarified company, and out of their element. Except for their celebrity, they would have never been invited.

  Cornelius Vanderbilt joined them as the race got under way. He was in his seventies, a mogul among moguls who had recently endowed a university, to be named in his honor. Yet, for all his years, he was still a feisty competitor, all the more so where it involved Jay Gould. Though Gould was in his middle thirties he had wrested control of the Erie Railroad from Vanderbilt in a brutal financial struggle. Vanderbilt blithely wagered Gould another ten thousand on the race.

  The heat was set for a mile along the country lane. The horses were attached to sulkies, light two-wheeled carriages with a flimsy seat for the driver. The drivers were professionals, on salary to the owners and paid handsomely for their services. On signal, the drivers snapped their reins, exhorting the stallions with crisp shouts, and surged across the starting line. Copperdust jumped to an early lead, the wheels of the sulkies leaving a rooster-tail of dust in their wake. Dexter quickly narrowed the lead to a single length.

  A crowd of some two hundred men lined Harlem Lane. The robber barons comprised perhaps a quarter that number, with the rest divided between socially prominent businessmen and hangers-on. The betting was heavy, and their voices were raised in rollicking cries as the stallions pounded along the road. The race was neck and neck most of the way, and the drivers began popping their whips as the sulkies blasted past the three-quarter mark. At the finish line, Dexter put on an explosive burst of speed and took it by a no
se. The crowd shouted themselves hoarse.

  Gould was magnanimous in defeat. He boasted that Copperdust would prevail next time, and amiably congratulated Bonner and Vanderbilt on their victory. Gentlemen never settled wagers with cash, and the winners knew they would receive a check by messenger sometime tomorrow. The hubbub died down as grooms hurried forward to attend the sweat-lathered stallions. Gould walked off to have a word with his driver.

  The crowd retired to their carriages to await the next heat.

  * * *

  Vanderbilt invited Cody and Hickok to join him for refreshments. A manservant rushed to unfold a storage compartment at the rear of the carriage. He set out whiskey and brandy, an assortment of meats and cheese, and a basket of seasonal fruits. Cody thought he’d seen a regiment subsist on less.

  “By Godfrey,” Vanderbilt crowed. “It does my heart good to trim Jay Gould. A little comeuppance will do wonders for his soul.”

  “That was some race,” Hickok said, accepting a whiskey. “You and Mr. Gould longtime rivals, are you?”

  “Yes, it would be fair to say we are rivals, But understand, I have the utmost respect for Jay. He is brilliant in matters of business and finance.”

  Cody tried the brandy. “Never been much of a businessman myself. High finance tends to make me dizzy.”

  “To each his own,” Vanderbilt observed. “You and Mr. Hickok are scouts and Indian fighters without peer. I seriously doubt I could survive as much as a day on the Western Plains.”

  “That’s mighty good brandy,” Cody said, holding his glass to the light. “Got a nice bite to it.”

  “Napoleonic Brandy, imported from France. I’ll have a case sent over to you.”

  “Well now, I’m obliged, Mr. Vanderbilt.”

  “No need to stand on ceremony. All of my friends call me Commodore.”

  “You a navy man?”