The Honorable Cody Read online

  But somehow it was Cody himself who enchanted me. He rode into that arena as if he too were a monarch and from that moment he owned the place and we all were his subjects. He certainly came well recommended. A significant part of the United States Army high command had warmly endorsed him, and I had read these tributes with astonishment. That he had been an authentic scout on the frontier and had bravely assisted his army in countless and dangerous ways, was unquestioned. And there he was, sometimes announcing on foot, sometimes on his white horse, sometimes doing his own trick shooting, and always hosting. A more impressive commoner I have never met.

  Afterward, there was one strange and touching moment when several of the cast were introduced to us at the royal box. There, Miss Oakley ignored the proffered hand of my father and instead clasped the hand of my mother, Alexandra, and shook it heartily rather than kissing it. My mother was touched, even enchanted, and whether or not my father appreciated this Yank way of greeting royalty, he kept his peace.

  “What a wonderful little girl,” she said.

  Afterward, my father tramped through the whole backlot, utterly absorbed in Yank horsemanship, tenting, and especially the fearsome red Indians, half naked, their bodies garishly painted. Only a few years earlier some of them had engaged in deadly combat with American troops.

  Of course we soon spread word of these extraordinary sights from one end of Buckingham to the other, and nothing would do but for the Queen to see the show herself. So she did what she had done ever since the death of Prince Albert and requested a private showing on the palace ground. That was how so many theater companies had performed for the Queen for a quarter of a century and the only way my grandmother would have it.

  It was swiftly explained to her that such a thing was not possible and the only way she could see any significant portion of the Wild West was to travel to Earl’s Court. That news set in motion things that delighted the kingdom on the eve of the Queen’s golden jubilee, which she would celebrate just a few weeks later.

  No one quite grasped it at first, but that was an historic moment. If the Wild West could not come to the Queen, the Queen would go to the Wild West. Of course she would be fatigued and therefore she required that the show be limited to one hour only. It still was to be a private performance but Cody was glad to do it as another dress rehearsal for the great opening. On May 11, the Queen and her entourage rode to Earl’s Court, sat enchanted through the hour, and then asked for the rest of the show. Afterward, Cody and his cast were presented to her and at that time she met the Sioux Red Shirt, a handsome and terrifying man, who fascinated her.

  I have seen my grandmother’s diary in which she described the event. No sooner did she return to Windsor Castle than she penned this:

  ...to Earl’s court, where we saw a very extraordinary & interesting sight, a performance of “Buffalo Bill’s Wild West.”... All the different people, wild, painted Red Indians from America, on their wild bare backed horses of different tribes– cow boys, Mexicans, &c, all came tearing around at full speed, shrieking & screaming, which had the weirdest effect. An attack on a coach & a ranch, with immense deal of firing, was most exciting, so was the buffalo hunt & the bucking ponies, that were almost impossible to sit.

  I liked especially her observations about Cody:

  Col. Cody “Buffalo Bill” as he is called, from having killed 3000 buffaloes, with his own hand, is a splendid man, handsome and gentlemanlike in manner. He had had many encounters & hand to hand fights with the Red Indians.

  And so Colonel Cody enchanted the Queen just as he enchanted some young grandsons of hers, one of whom mulls the life of that splendid man this sad hour.

  But there was more. As her jubilee guests gathered, including the crowned heads of much of Europe, my grandmother treated them all to a performance of the Wild West. In that splendidly draped royal box, that twentieth day of June, were the Kings of Denmark, Greece, the Belgians, and of Saxony, as well as a whole raft of crown princes, almost beyond counting. And there she made history.

  During the opening parade, Cody’s Cowboy Band, all done up in strange floppy hats, played the anthems, including the Star-Spangled Banner, while before the royal entourage the whole company paraded, and at the breast of that assemblage was the United States Flag, an emblem never before acknowledged or honored in the United Kingdom.

  Her Majesty the Queen rose and gracefully bowed her head in acknowledgment of the United States colors, the first monarch to do so. The throng was stunned and so were the Yanks. And yet it was time, and the Queen had gracefully chosen that moment to alter the course of history. There was a great huzzah from the Americans. It was an act of such grace that even now I look back upon it as one of those blessed things only a monarch can do for her people, for those of other lands and for the sake of amity.

  But there was more that memorable day. In the middle of the show, Colonel Cody rode up to the royal entourage and doffed his enormous hat.

  “Would your majesties like to ride the Deadwood Stage?” he asked.

  Indeed they would. The Kings of Denmark, Greece, Belgium and Saxony clambered in along with my father, the Prince of Wales, while that vast crowd studied us all. And then Colonel Cody himself climbed to the driver’s seat and took the lines. Never had the Deadwood stagecoach held passengers like this! Easily, the colonel drove his six-mule team around to the far end of the arena, where the Red Indians lurked behind a painted canvas backdrop representing the Western plains and hills, and then it all broke loose. He howled the team into action, applying the whip liberally, and the coach lurched forward only to be assailed by scores of wild Indians, howling and beating their ponies, their coppery bodies adorned with paint, their bloodthirsty cries shattering the peace.

  Twenty thousand spectators rose, as one, as the colonel drove that careening coach around the oval, and again, while all those Sioux chased it, uttering terrible screeching oaths and firing imaginary arrows into it.

  I were alarmed for my father but when at last the Colonel drew up before the royal box, four laughing Kings and a laughing Crown Prince emerged from it safe and sound. My father always said it was one of the great moments of his life. Every soul in that arena clapped and cheered. Something had happened there that cannot be expressed in words.

  “Well, Colonel,” he said to the American, “you’ve never held four kings like these before.”

  “I’ve held four kings,” the Colonel replied, “but four Kings and the Prince of Wales makes a royal flush, such as no man ever held before.”

  My father laughed. The remark puzzled people in England because poker was new to them, but in time it became the most celebrated of Buffalo Bill’s many witticisms. When he himself told the story later on, he referred to “four kings and the royal joker” which tickled my father, who had become His Majesty Edward VII.

  Now we are at war against Germany, and these musings upon Buffalo Bill and his magnificent show which came to England and found a home here again and again until early in this century, reminds me that we and our hardy cousins across the sea are bound by tongue and common law and tradition and form a natural alliance. Our allies now are those manly Americans across the sea, men like Buffalo Bill and all the strong, robust people in his Wild West.

  Even now, the cream of our manhood is being slaughtered in the trenches of France and the Low Countries and I fear if the war does not turn soon, or if America does not enter, we will lose a whole generation of Englishmen. I am resolved to take an important step as soon as the right moment presents itself, a time when I can lift morale. I have been contemplating a major initiative for some while, ever since this dreadful war against the Kaiser and his warlords began, but now the time approaches when I will act.

  The Crown of England will, before this blood-soaked year is over, renounce its German titles that have been a part of our royal inheritance, and when I do that my family will take a new name, the House of Windsor.

  And now I will grieve for that marvelous American, Co
lonel Cody, and honor his memory.

  (From the memoir of Colonel William F. Cody)

  People keep asking me, was it planned? And I always tell them, no, it just came to me. There’s so much bowing and curtseying in England I thought that those royal fellows didn’t have a chance to have much fun, so when the Deadwood Stage scene came up I rode over there and offered them a little ride.

  There were a passel of royals there, in town for Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, and it didn’t take long to collect eight or nine hundred pounds of kings and shepherd them over to the coach across the arena. And I added a crown prince just for ballast.

  The other thing people ask was whether I was worried about a wreck. If that coach overturned and spilled kings all over the arena, the Wild West would have ceased to exist. But that had been a rainy time, one of the rainiest springs in England, they told me, and the ground was soft. I had some well-broke mules, too, not known for speed or fractious behavior.

  Even so, a good Concord coach loaded with Kings and a prince might require a firm and careful hand, so I dismounted, took a long sharp look at the leathers and lines and harness, turned my steed over to a groom, pulled on my gauntlets, clambered up the drivers bench and took the lines in hand. The old Deadwood Stage behaved itself.

  The Sioux and Pawnees were ready; they knew exactly what to do. We had a load of Big Chiefs this time, and that meant they’d be extra bloodthirsty and howl like demons and whoop their way around the arena. I confess I was a little tense because every person in the stands had stood up for this spectacle and an odd silence pervaded the arena. They were all waiting for disaster.

  Well, I cracked the whip, and those six mules dug into their collars and the old Deadwood Stage leaped forward, rocking along, and then the wild Indians cut loose like banshees, whooping their way behind us, drawing their bows to fire imaginary arrows, and pretty soon my mules settled into an easy canter; they were used to all this and a few hundred pounds of royalty made no difference to them. Round we went. We passed the royal box and I saw white faces and consternation there as we sailed by, so I nodded and let loose with the whip, and we bolted forward, while the Sioux and Pawnees raced like fiends alongside us.

  At last, after another go around, the Sioux and Pawnees slipped away and vanished behind the canvas and I tugged the lines and brought those steaming mules to a halt before the box. Now you’d expect some cheering, but not yet. Not until that bunch of kings stepped down, laughing, shaking hands with this old Bill, did it start. The applause rolled like a tidal wave over us, along with cheers and whistles, all very unlike the British, as the royals found their way into the box and were abuzz with conversation with wives and children. All this continued while I climbed up and drove the old coach away. England had never seen anything like it.

  That trip to England was worth it. Nate Salsbury had pushed it but I was skeptical and couldn’t see much good in it. Burke and Salsbury worked for most of a year getting set up. The logistics were formidable. We had to move the whole show over there, find an appropriate area to stage the show, somewhere close to the railroads that webbed London.

  We had to buy fodder for horses and mules and buffalo, and pass through the strict animal quarantine over there. We needed to feed a cast and crew of several hundred. Not easy, especially because our people expected beef, and beef wasn’t a large part of the English diet. Just finding slaughter beef over there was a daunting task.

  We needed to employ an army of English artisans to erect the stands and backlot and stables. These fellows did things their own way and we had to learn fast how to employ them. But there’s no one like Nate Salsbury to get things done and I credit him and Major Burke with the success. Even so, with all that rain, it was touch and go, and I thought for a while the Wild West would sink into mud and vanish. But when hordes of Londoners stepped off the trains and walked over to our ticket windows, I knew it was grand, and that Salsbury’s vision was true. He, not I, saw what might be, and made it happen.

  I tried to bring Louisa and the children along but she wouldn’t budge from North Platte and I think she was terrified of the ocean or the social circumstances of meeting the English. Whatever the case, she stayed back and we sailed across the Atlantic without her. In an odd way that may have helped the show. I was freed to accept the invitations that arrived by the score to parties, receptions, dinners, teas, balls, and lectures, and I accepted so many of these that I hardly had a moment to put the show together. But I was sorry she wasn’t on hand to see one of the greatest moments of my life, when Queen Victoria bowed her head as the Stars and Stripes sailed by. I don’t suppose I’ll ever know a moment like that again.

  We had come, actually, in conjunction with an American trade exhibition, and there were plenty of Yanks around, few of whom thought much of the Wild West–-until we drew all the crowds and publicity, and their exhibits of American arts and mechanics went without patronage or a good press. There wasn’t much manufactured in the United States that interested the British but the Wild West did. I think there were a few American manufacturers around London who wished they had manufactured the Wild West instead of treadle sewing machines.

  I liked London and found myself blotting up the ways of these delightful people. I returned to America with a Seville Row wardrobe, a host of new friends among British theater people, and plans to host hunts in Wyoming for a few dozen British sportsmen. But what helped most of all was a new reputation. Ever after, in Burke’s words, I was an internationally acclaimed showman, the star of two continents. That helped at the ticket window and I didn’t mind it a bit.

  Chapter 9

  William Barclay Masterson

  Well, shoot. This time it’s Cody. I thought he’d live forever, and maybe he will in a way. I discovered the obituary in the Morning Telegraph, which Emma brought to me while I sipped java in the kitchen. There it was, front page, a good likeness notched into the story. Cody, with an eye for publicity, had died at exactly 12:05, in time for the evening papers. But somehow I missed it until this morning.

  The Nineteenth Century is crumbling away like a glacier calving its last floe. I’ve known Cody a hell of a long time and we’ve shared some little escapades, too. I saw him every time he came to New York, mostly to share a laugh or two about times gone by, but mostly just to drink. He was a hell of a good drinker.

  Last I knew, he was looking pretty good. That goatee had grayed along with those long locks. Like me, he’d taken to wearing dark business suits and the pair of us could wander Manhattan without raising a crowd.

  But that was before he entered into slavery. When that bastard Harry Tammen lent him a chunk of money, I knew Bill Cody was a goner. The Denver Post harbors more skunks per acre than any other newspaper in the Republic. Its sports editor, Otto Floto, is a man I would gladly strangle but I would have to wait in line.

  I often wondered why Cody never tried to hire me for one of his shows. Maybe it was the limp I picked up from a bullet long ago. More likely it was because I don’t look like a plainsman, never did. Now Hickok was another matter entirely. He looked like a Mandarin manslayer, all got up in a fancy cutaway, gaudy blouse of tropical hue, fruity boots, and maybe some lilac perfume as a final touch. That was all Cody needed to put the man on stage in Cody’s Combination shows. But not old Bat, who looked more like a Chicago stockyards detective than anyone who’d spent most of his life west of the Mississippi.

  I never minded. After a stint as a badge-wearer, gambler and saloonman, I found my calling in the press. For sixteen or seventeen years, I’ve penned my columns, followed the fights and horse races and placed side bets here and there when I could find suckers to take them. I also have a lucrative cottage industry selling genuine Bat Masterson personal and historical Colt revolvers, which I harvest by the score from Manhattan pawn shops and notch with a jackknife at my desk.

  I’ve watched Cody for a long time. In 1907 I included him in my series on the great gun men of the West. I did that mostly because there are s
coffers out there who think the colonel had invented his past. Maybe his publicists did, but he didn’t. I tell you, Cody was the finest and truest man anywhere, and it was my wish to set down for posterity some of that grandeur.

  Hell, I was even involved in a caper or two with him in the old days. I remember the time, oh, along about 1880, when I was hunting for something to do. I hoped to set up shop in Leadville, but found the rent too high and the climate too cold. All I knew was that old Dodge City was fading and it was time to cash in my chips. It was there in Dodge about then that I ran into my old friend and occasional rat Ben Thompson, the short and deadly Texas dealer and shooter. This time he buttonholed me on Front Street with a sad story.

  His ne’er-do-well brother Billy, who by comparison made Ben seem like the prince of the whole Gambler fraternity, had gotten himself into a jam up in Ogallala, Nebraska, and Ben wanted me to bail the mangy cur out because Ben Thompson was not, shall we say, welcome there. So unwelcome, in fact, that if Ben went after his brother, two nooses instead of one might well have been strung up from the railroad water tank. So there was Ben, asking his pal Bat to bail the punk out.

  Billy, it seems, had been in a little brawl with the owner of the Cowboy’s Rest saloon up there, one Bill Tucker, and had blown off two or three of the man’s digits. And in turn, Billy had taken some buckshot in the ass. The cause of this little altercation was Big Alice, whose easy favors both men sought. Both gents were now licking their wounds. Billy was in the lockup while the sheriff waited to see whether the barkeep would cash in, in which case there would be a speedy murder trial and a public exhibition of the strength of hemp if local lynchers didn’t get to him first. Billy was unable to sit up or walk more than a few feet, and was held in a local hotel, guarded constantly by deputies.