Despite the initial tensions of their relationship, Sitting Bull and Buffalo Bill Cody eventually became closely allied to each other. As the wild west show toured across America, centring on the country’s most important and industrialised cities – New York, Boston, Chicago – they both made their respective fortunes. My great-grandfather was not a thrifty man, however, and although he always managed to keep one step ahead of debt, he spent his income foolishly and quickly on unwise investments. His early career with both the Golden Rule Hotel and the town of Rome had proved how fickle he could be with his ideas and how easily his wealth could slip through his fingers. Even when he died in 1917, he had let several fortunes slip away and was far from a rich man. Sitting Bull, on the other hand, had a very different attitude to money. Although he had no personal interest or need for the stuff, he enjoyed earning it and as they toured the country would often undertake speaking engagements or personal appearances with various groups. The money he earned from this, combined with his income from the shows themselves, he distributed among the poor of the cities he visited. Whenever he saw begging children along the streets – children who generally stared at him with a mixture of terror and admiration – he would stop and pass out to them whatever dollars happened to be in his pocket. The leading lights behind the wild west shows were not the most financially gifted men of all time.
In 1885, a problem emerged when Gary ‘Granite’ Grayson, perhaps the most famous marksman at the time, and a member of Buffalo Bill’s travelling troupe of performers, was himself the victim of a shooting. It was common knowledge that Grayson was conducting an affair with Paints Faces, one of the Indian women who performed in the show, but he was also considered a lech by most of the other women, many of whom had already spurned his advances. Paints Faces, however, had fallen in love with Grayson, whose reputation earned him third billing on the show cards after my great-grandfather and Sitting Bull, and when she became pregnant she hoped that he would marry her. He refused, however, and was challenged by Walks Across Streams, an ageing Indian who acted in the role of protector towards the girl. Despite Grayson’s skill, he was not a brave man and while he excelled at shooting targets which could not shoot back, he had never been involved in a shoot-out with another man. Walks Across Streams recognised the younger man’s insecurities and played on them, staring him out before the contest in order to achieve a psychological advantage and indeed, when the call came to shoot, Grayson’s finger had barely pressed on his trigger before he fell to the ground dead.
Bill and Sitting Bull covered up the affair, for if it had become public knowledge that an Indian set free from a reservation in order to entertain the public had killed a white man, the repercussions for all could have been severe. Grayson’s fame, however, made the story into quite a scandal which lent extra publicity to the show while leaving them one marksman short of a shooting gallery. My great-grandfather auditioned various people for the role but none were quite good enough; they each had a certain level of skill and proficiency which exceeded that of the average man, but that was not enough. The person to play the role had to be able to perform tricks and stunts and win the audience over on to his side.
In the end it was Sitting Bull who located a replacement. Early the previous year, while travelling through Minnesota with the show, the Sioux chief had watched a display of marksmanship given by a married couple, whose skills were quite exceptional. The husband in the team was a man named Frank Butler and he also acted as manager for their act, which had become quite popular across the state. Afterwards, they had been anxious to meet the famous Indian chief and the three had dined together privately, where Sitting Bull had complimented them on their skills.
‘I’m just an amateur compared to her,’ said Frank Butler, cocking his head in the direction of his wife, who laughed and blushed as her husband reached across to take her hand for a moment. ‘Thought I was the best man in the county at shooting till I met her.’
‘That’s not true, Chief Sitting Bull,’ replied Mrs Butler. ‘Frank’s taught me a lot since we’ve met. I was green before that.’ She was a petite young woman of twenty-two, only five feet tall in height, with long, curly dark hair and a porcelain complexion. Her conversation was sparkling and witty and she was obviously devoted to her husband, qualities that Sitting Bull found intoxicating. He had lost a daughter himself only a year before and, while his grief and mourning had been private, it had caused him a great deal of pain. Although he had only just met Mrs Butler, he found himself attracted to her in a paternal way.
‘If that is so, he taught you well,’ replied the chief. ‘Although you have a natural talent. I can see that in the way you shoot.’
She acknowledged the compliment with a graceful nod of the head. ‘It’s kind of you to say,’ she said quietly. The conversation continued throughout the night and, while comparing tour dates afterwards, they realised they would often be not far from each other over the following couple of months and agreed to meet again. In the meantime, Sitting Bull and Mrs Butler began a friendly correspondence which continued whenever they were apart.
‘What about the husband?’ asked my great-grandfather when Sitting Bull proposed replacing ‘Granite’ Grayson with Mrs Butler. ‘It’s a crazy thing to have a woman marksman. She can’t be anywhere near as talented as some of the men.’
‘She could out-shoot you,’ replied Sitting Bull in a calm voice. Bill had suggested that he himself take over from Grayson as he believed that no one was a match for him when it came to shooting and, although he was indeed a fine shot, the chief was only too well aware that pride was playing a part in that decision.
‘Outshoot me?’ he laughed derisively. ‘I think not, my friend.’
‘Invite her here then. Let her shoot with you. If you win, you win. If you lose, she gets the job. The husband is her business manager. He knows he’s not as good as her. He’d be happy to see her in the limelight. They seem very well suited to each other.’
Bill shrugged and gave in. ‘All right then, chief,’ he said, laughing. ‘If that’s what you want, I guess you don’t ask that much of me. You tell this Mrs Butler gal to get over here and we’ll try her out, see what stuff she’s made of. What’s her first name anyway?’
‘Annie,’ replied Sitting Bull. ‘In private she’s known as Annie Butler, but her stage name is Oakley. That’s what she shoots under.’
‘Annie Oakley,’ said Bill, nodding as he made a mental note of her name. ‘Well get her over here and we’ll see what she’s made of.’
Annie Oakley – or Little Miss Sure Shot, as Sitting Bull had affectionately christened her – arrived the following lunchtime and most of the performers of the wild west show came out to see the shoot-out between their employer and this tiny woman who had arrived with a rifle under whose weight she looked like she might collapse at any time. No one gave her much chance of victory and treated the contest like an entertaining way to pass an hour, but the contestants took it seriously and paid little attention to their spectators as they fought, respectively, for their pride and employment.
Various targets were used, from stationary marksmen’s targets to birds in the sky, and just over an hour after they had begun, a winner was declared. Of the twenty-five targets which they had aimed at, Bill had scored twenty-two, an exceptional score in anyone’s book. Annie Oakley, however, had not missed a single one. Her perfect twenty-five had produced solid applause and respect in the audience and Bill, knowing he had but one chance to save his dignity, joined in that applause and congratulated her for all to hear.
‘That’s the finest display of marksmanship I’ve ever seen,’ he told her. ‘Where did you learn to shoot like that anyway?’
Annie blushed and was stuck for an answer; she found Bill’s reputation and fame slightly overwhelming and was embarrassed for having beaten him.
‘Natural talent, Mr Cody, natural talent,’ said Frank Butler, shaking his hand and hugging his wife. ‘So what do you say? You want us to come work for you.’
‘I think I’d be a fool to say no,’ conceded Bill, realising that advertising an expert marksman was one thing but it was an even better publicity tool when that marksman happened to be a beautiful young woman. ‘Can you start right away?’
‘Absolutely.’
And so the deal was struck. Before much time had passed, Annie Oakley became probably the best-known marksman in America and joined Bill and Sitting Bull at the top of the billing. The relationship between the three was generally good, although my great-grandfather did find himself a little jealous sometimes at the skill of the younger woman which was, as her husband had suggested, a natural talent and something with which he himself could barely compete. He was also attracted to her which caused some tension for them, as Annie and Frank were a happy and solid couple. Louisa had long since left Bill and settled in Missouri; although they remained legally married, they almost never saw each other now and she devoted herself to bringing up their children who knew little of their father except what they saw in the newspapers or read about in the novels. Companionship was not difficult for Bill to find and he made himself free and easy with the women of the towns and cities that the wild west show visited; his celebrity always assured him the nightly affections of the local girls. Annie was different though, a beautiful young woman who he could not have. He never made any advances towards her either, recognising that he would be rebuffed, and although she was aware of his feelings, she never spoke of them with him. The shows and the touring continued; but now there was always a slight tension in the air which had not existed in the past.
Russell Rose knew that he was getting old. It was only a matter of time before he would have to retire from the trapeze-artist troupe which bore his name. Already, Bessie, his wife, was dropping hints that he should leave the tightrope-walking to younger men and simply manage and train the artists from now on. He was just putting off the inevitable, she told him. It was time to admit that the days of his being a showman and an entertainer were at an end.
‘We don’t have too many savings though,’ he pointed out to Bessie over dinner one evening in their wagon. ‘What will we live on?’
‘You can still earn, Russell,’ she said. ‘You can still work, just like I do. Just not up high, that’s all. Believe me, if you fall and kill yourself you’ll be earning even less.’ She bit her lip quickly, wishing she could take back the words; she couldn’t believe she had said them but they were out before she realised what she was saying. ‘You know what I mean,’ she added quietly.
‘There’s no guarantee we’ll be kept on though,’ said Russell. ‘We could be fired the minute I come down from the tightropes. Then what would we do? We have a lot of life left in us yet. We need to be able to survive. And then there’s Ellen to think of.’
Bessie nodded and pressed a finger to his lips to silence him just as their daughter entered the room. She had discarded her crutches recently but still walked with a pronounced limp and was prone to bending forward slightly as she walked, something which her doctor advised against as it only made her back problems worse.
‘But it makes it feel better when I lean forward,’ she pointed out irritably.
‘For now it does,’ he said. ‘But those pains will pass if you reaccustom yourself to standing up straight. Otherwise there will be more pain like that further down the line.’
Ever since the accident, the Rose family had been struggling with tension. When Ellen had fallen from the trapeze to the ground below, there seemed little chance that she could possibly be alive. Russell had descended the ladder by shinning down the side of it, convinced that his daughter, his only child, was dead, terrified as he made his way to her side. He could barely hear the screams of the crowd or the people inexplicably charging from their seats and making for the exits, as if Ellen’s fall would be followed by the Big Top tumbling about their ears. She lay quite calmly on the dusty ground, her body slightly contorted, her eyes and lips closed. Russell’s first thought as he saw her there was that she was dead, but that she appeared to be simply sleeping. In fact, that was closer to the truth than he could have possibly imagined. Incredibly, her fall had not killed her, had not even paralysed her. She had damaged her spine of course and it was that injury which still caused her great pain. And she had broken both her legs, but the breaks had been clean and when she was treated and they were placed in plaster for a couple of months, the doctors announced that she would indeed be able to walk again, albeit without as much comfort or flexibility as she was used to. Of course she would never perform in the Big Top again; the fall had destroyed the one career she had ever dreamed of.
At first, Joseph Craven was blamed for mistiming the leap from the platform which led to his failure to catch Ellen, but when it became clear that her injuries, while serious, were not life threatening, many people began to apologise to him for making him a scapegoat. However, some months later, while making unwanted advances at the youngest daughter of the bearded lady, he had threatened to hurt her if she did not give in. Just look what happened to Ellen Rose, he hissed at her as he gripped her wrists and forced her lips to his. Do you want something like that to happen to you? The girl, who was unafraid of Craven, reported what he had said and the police were called in. Eventually he broke down and admitted what he had done and was arrested and jailed for attempted murder. His conviction, however, was of little comfort to Ellen Rose.
‘I’m going for a walk,’ she muttered as she walked past her parents that evening, aware of how they often stopped speaking when she appeared. ‘I need my exercise.’
‘Don’t go far, dear,’ said Bessie in a cheerful voice. ‘You need your rest, remember. Early start tomorrow.’
Ellen grunted a response but disappeared into the night. The cold wind whipped into her eyes and she blamed it for the tears that sprung up there. Walking slowly along the road, wrapping her cardigan around her body as she felt her legs’ pain begin to ease with the exercise, she wondered for the hundredth time why she had been the victim of such a crime. She hated seeing the circus performers now, for they reminded her of what she could never do again. The sound of the applause which rang through from the Big Top to the kitchen area where she worked with her mother made her skin crawl. She wanted her position back. Although she remained a beautiful young girl, she believed that her disability would mean that no man would fall in love with her. She would spend all her time in the circus now, peeling potatoes, boiling carrots, roasting beef. Before long she believed she would smell of animal fat and her skin and hair would be constantly greasy.
It was late now and her heart sank at the thought of the following day. The circus was moving to London for a very special performance and everyone was excited about it for it would be the most important and prestigious show of their lives. She dreaded it and wished it was over. Indeed, at times like this she wished her legs were strong enough that she could climb the ladder one last time to the top of the Big Top, so that she could grab the trapeze bar tightly with her hands and leap from her platform across the arena, letting go as she swung. It had been a miracle that the fall hadn’t killed her. She wanted nothing more than for fate to have one more shot at her.
Although we never returned to Lookout Mountain together, Hitomi and I continued to live in Denver. This was a decision we had arrived at carefully for of the three most important places in our lives together – Kyoto, London and Paris – we never really felt at home in Colorado or developed a life there. Japan and London had been separate homes for both of us, where we felt comfortable and at ease with each other; and even though I had in theory been a visitor to Kyoto, it had become a second home for me and I always loved living there. And Paris was our home together. It was where we were married and were happy. The friends we made as a couple were there. However, in the end it was once again work commitments which kept us in Denver. The university offered Hitomi another year’s teaching and increased her salary; although she had every intention of returning to Europe eventually, she decided that another full year of associate professorship would be a wise entry on her curriculum vitae.
For my part, I had reached another milestone in my life. Three weeks short of my twenty-ninth birthday, my writing career turned in an unexpected direction. To date I had published two books – my travel series and my Parisian interviews – and the latter had also been published by an American publishing house with medium success. What small amount of publicity I garnered, combined with my continuing work on The Denver Examiner brought me to the attention of a glossy New York magazine, the commissioning editor of which invited me to write a piece on Bill Clinton’s growing troubles throughout the summer of 1998. The piece I wrote was a serious deconstruction of the media’s continuing fascination with the president’s sex life, the character they created for him through their writing, and to that end had a title which I had not intended to be merely humorous. However, on publication I saw that the editor had changed my title – Let Sleeping Dogs Lie – to the rather more puerile The Oral Office. Furious, I phoned the editor and argued with him for lowering the tone of the piece.
‘Look, Bill,’ he said and I could hear him chomping on his cigar on the other end of the line. ‘The thing is—’
‘First off, it’s William,’ I interrupted. ‘Not Bill – William.’
‘William then. Your piece was great. Honest it was. But it just needed a little more … I don’t know … p’zazz.’
‘P’zazz?’
‘You got it.’
‘Don’t you think The Oral Office is just a cheap gag? Doesn’t it undermine what the article is about?’
‘I’ll tell you what the article is about, William,’ he said, stressing the name now. ‘It’s about you having a dig at every crackpot reporter out there who’s getting off on the idea that they might have a little Monica of their own somewhere ready to go down on them too. Let me tell you, your piece is a lot more objective and pro-Clinton than I personally would have liked. But we’re getting very good reaction from the White House.’
I allowed myself a small glimmer of ego and satisfaction at that. I liked the fact that – pro or con – the White House suddenly had a position on me. Nevertheless, I felt it important that I should stick to my guns. ‘I just think you should have told me before you changed the title,’ I said, determined not to lose track of this point. ‘It is fairly pro-Clinton but at least the title balances that somewhat.’
‘It does, does it?’ asked the editor. ‘Explain that to me. It’s a no-meaning title.’
I sighed. ‘Let Sleeping Dogs Lie,’ I said. ‘First off, Clinton was sleeping with her, right?’
‘Wrong. He never had sex with that woman … Miss Lewinsky. Not ever,’ he cackled, his voice growing a little more hoarse as he perfected the Arkansan lilt which combined sanctimonious outrage at being accused of dishonesty with the obvious schoolboy pleasure of getting laid. ‘And he never asked anyone to lie for him. In fact, what he’s got to do right now is go back to working for the—’
‘Yes, very good,’ I said, amused despite myself at the accuracy of the impersonation. ‘Okay, maybe he didn’t sleep with her as such but you get the idea. Dogs. Well she’s no oil painting, is she?’
‘Jesus, William, have you seen the picture we ran of you beside the story? You’re no Tom Cruise yourself, buddy.’
‘And finally,’ I said in a firm voice, ignoring the dig. ‘All he’s done since this all started is lie about it. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie. Now which part of that didn’t you get? The Oral Office!’ I added, disgusted. ‘Jesus.’
There was a silence for a moment as the penny – the cent – finally dropped and he exhaled with a sigh. ‘Oh now I get it,’ he said. ‘Let Sleeping … I get it now. You’re right. It is better.’
‘Thank you,’ I replied, feeling exonerated.
‘Yeah, but the fact is it didn’t work until you explained it to me. You know how many people read this magazine every month? That’s a hell of a lot of phone calls for you to make. First lesson in this business, my friend. Keep it simple. Don’t try to be so fucking smart all the time and maybe you’ll get wherever it is you want to go, you know what I mean?’
Unfortunately, I had no answer to that. I did know what he meant. However, the result of their title change was – as he had suggested – that I was seen as a friendly journalist during a difficult time and, quite out of the blue, I was invited by the White House press office to interview the president.
‘You’re kidding,’ said Hitomi as I told her over dinner about the conversation I had had that afternoon with a Washington official. ‘The president of the United States wants you to interview him?’
‘I know,’ I said, laughing at the absurdity of it. ‘That’s what I said too. But the fact is they think I can do a nice piece on the guy. Explain his side of the story. They said he’s a human being too and no one in the press is willing to take that on board. Everyone just wants to demonise him. Turn him into some sex-mad humping adolescent.’
‘They’re using you,’ she said, twirling some pasta around her fork. ‘They want you to do a PR piece for them. That’s what it is.’
‘I told them that’s not how it would be,’ I said, eager for her blessing as I knew I wanted to do it. ‘They asked would I send them the questions in advance and I said not a chance and the woman just laughed and said Off the record – you’d be a fucking moron if you did. Grill him all you want. He’ll love it. He’s a match for anyone.’
‘She said that?’ Hitomi was staring at me, amazed, and I nodded. ‘So what did you say back?’
‘What could I say? I’ve been handed an opportunity to interview the president of the United States. Of course I said yes. You know my great-grandfather met a couple of presidents in his time. Andrew Johnson. Ulysses S. Grant. I think he met Grover Cleveland too, but that was during those four years between presidencies.’
‘You’re not Buffalo Bill, William,’ replied Hitomi haughtily and I stared at her, suddenly irritated by her lack of enthusiasm for what was a once-in-a-lifetime chance.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I said. ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It doesn’t mean anything. You’re the one who mentioned your great-grandfather. I thought we were talking about you and Bill Clinton.’
‘We are,’ I said. ‘I was only saying, that’s all. Come on, Hitomi. We get a couple of days in Washington. See the sights. The Lincoln Memorial. The Smithsonian. And I get to sit down and have a chin-wag with Bill Cody in the Oral Office.’ She put down her fork with a bang on the table and stared at me in frustration. ‘I’m kidding,’ I said, biting my lip to stop myself from laughing. ‘The Oval Office.’
‘You didn’t even hear what you said, did you?’ she asked and I shrugged as if to say huh? ‘Bill Clinton,’ she shouted. ‘The president’s name is Bill Clinton, not Bill Cody. You said Bill Cody.’
‘Oh for God’s sake,’ I said, frustrated with myself for my error. ‘If I did, that’s only because we were just talking about him. It was a slip of the tongue, that’s all. I know the president’s name is Cody. Clinton!’ I roared, caught out again. ‘Clinton, Clinton, Clinton!’
We said nothing for a few moments and eventually, Hitomi picked up both our empty plates and carried them across to the sink, dropping them in noisily with the cutlery and turning on the tap for a moment for a quick splash of water to rinse away the sauce before it stuck. Turning around then she went directly to the sofa and sat down with her arms wrapped around herself, which surprised me for Hitomi was always meticulous about cleanliness and in all the years we had been together I could not remember an occasion when she had been able to rest before immediately washing the dishes. I said nothing for some time but finally opened a window, for it was warm in our apartment and I thought some fresh air would help alleviate the sudden tension in the room. I went to the fridge and got a can of beer, pouring it into two glasses instinctively, as was our long-held tradition, and handing one to my wife as I sat in the armchair.
‘No thanks,’ she said, shaking her head in the direction of the glass of lager. ‘You have it.’
Her sudden refusal to even drink with me pissed me off and I turned on her. ‘What the hell’s the matter with you tonight?’ I asked her. ‘I come back here with only about the most exciting piece of news I’ve ever given you and you just see all the negative sides to it. Now you won’t even have a drink with me. What have I done?’
‘Nothing,’ she said, burying her face in her hands and I could see by the movement of her shoulders that she was crying. ‘I just want a Coke, that’s all,’ she said between sobs. ‘Can’t I just have a Coke if I want one?’
Surprised and worried, I went over to the sofa and sat beside her, my arm around her shoulder. ‘Hitomi, what’s the matter?’ I asked her, for she was not a woman prone to sudden displays of extreme emotion. ‘Why are you crying?’
She took her head out of her hands and I stared at her, her mouth a little crooked by the sorrowful way she was looking at me. Her tears had made her mascara run and by trying to brush them away she had drawn two thin lines of black across her cheek, like an Indian warrior. I could see tiny puddles of tears waiting to drop from her lower eyelids and her chin wobbled slightly. ‘God, you look bloody awful,’ I said in a cheerful voice and it achieved the proper effect, for she quickly laughed and rubbed the tears away even as they fell.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said. ‘I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Well I do, but—’
‘Then tell me,’ I said, pulling her closer to me. ‘You’ve been uptight for days. Is it work? Is something wrong there? Remember we don’t have to stay anywhere we—’
‘No, it’s not that,’ she said. There was a silence for a moment but I allowed it to continue, knowing her well enough to realise that she would tell me in her own time what was upsetting her. ‘I don’t suppose you’d believe me,’ she suggested, ‘if I said I was worrying that Bill Clinton might turn out to be a bad influence on you?’
Now it was my turn to laugh. ‘Yeah, that’s it,’ I acknowledged. ‘Some guy from south London comes to America and gets shown the fast life by the president of the United States. Me and Bill are going to go off for a wild weekend of hookers and gambling in the Nevada desert. Actually, that sounds quite fun, now that I say it.’
‘Ha,’ she said dryly.
‘The answer to your question is no,’ I said after a moment. ‘I wouldn’t believe it if you said that.’
She shrugged. ‘Would you believe it if I said I’m just prone right now to sudden and inexplicable bursts of temper? That I may turn into Crazyhitomi for the next nine months or so? Or the next seven anyway?’
I laughed and thought about it. It took a moment for her phrase to settle in my mind. In fact, as I recall it now I remember I was about to ask her something about whether she really wanted that Coke or not when I realised what she meant. I took my arm from around her shoulders and placed both hands on her elbows, looking directly into her face even as it seemed to swim around me slightly. I found that I couldn’t actually speak. She smiled and reached across to stroke my cheek. I placed a hand on her stomach as she touched me too and, for me, those few seconds stand as the point in my marriage when the two of us – the three of us – were as connected as we could ever possibly be. We were one unit. We were a family. I can feel her hand there still, ghostly.
The wild west show continued to tour America through the mid- to late-1880s with varying degrees of success. In general, massive profits were made whenever they travelled to the cosmopolitan cities which were furthest away from the experience of the west itself; Detroit, Illinois and Staten Island were among their most successful shows throughout 1885 and 1886, although cities such as New Orleans and Louisiana proved less popular. The climax of the American shows came with a one month sell-out show in Madison Square Gardens, where once again my great-grandfather found himself the toast of the New York set, a role in which he revelled for celebrity suited him.
In late 1886, Bill and Nate Salsbury were discussing their plans for the following year and found that they had little interest in continually returning to the same cities over and over and agreed that they should spread their wings a little. Having conquered America, it was time to conquer the world.
‘We should begin in England,’ said Nate. ‘It’s the natural starting point. From there, if we prove successful, we can move on to the continent. France, Italy, maybe even Russia.’
‘The English may not wish to be reminded of American victories,’ suggested Bill, wary of any remaining ill-feeling from the colonial wars. ‘They might send the army to drive us out even as we arrive.’
‘Nonsense. That’s all ancient history. And anyway, this isn’t politics we’re bringing them, it’s entertainment. We’re showmen, Bill, you know that. They’ll lap it up.’
Bill wasn’t so sure but after consulting Sitting Bull, Frank Butler, Annie Oakley and other important members of the wild west show, they agreed that they would contact a publicist in London to discover whether there was indeed a market for their particular brand of entertainment. Within weeks, arrangements had been made for a show at Earls Court in London and it was agreed that the entire wild west party would depart for England at the end of March. In the meantime, Bill set about putting together the most elaborate display of western paraphernalia and characters that he could. Although they traditionally used Indians from the Lakota Sioux tribe – those who fell directly under the leadership of Sitting Bull – he wanted to bring members of different tribes to England in order to illustrate the complexity of the Indian culture in America and the various segregations which existed within it.
To this effect, he initially hired Indians from the Kiowa and Ogalallas tribes and was once again given permission by the secretary of the interior to take these men and women from their reservation in order to represent their people around the world. There was great competition among the members of the tribes to select those who would be liberated into Bill’s employment but in general he selected his players on a physical basis, choosing the fiercest-looking men and the most beautiful women. The Kiowa were a southern Plains people who had been incarcerated into reservations after a fierce Texan war in the 1870s, while the Ogalallas were a Lakota people who had been present for General Custer’s last stand at Little Big Horn. To their number, Bill added some of the Cheyenne and the Pawnees, a tribe who had lost much of their land during the Gold Rush. Some of their more illustrious leaders were also signed up for the show’s first foreign tour. In addition to the some two hundred tribal members and cowboys or actors, arrangements were made to transport various animals, including bears, racing horses, bucking broncos and buffaloes, across the ocean, not to mention marksmen, wagons, and even the celebrated Deadwood Stagecoach which played a big role in one of the set pieces of the show. The only disappointment to Bill was the decision by Sitting Bull not to visit England. He was superstitious about the ocean crossing, believing that any Indian who set sail would find their body disintegrating from their bones within three days; this was also a blow to Annie Oakley, Sitting Bull’s greatest friend and adopted daughter. However, he was quickly replaced with Ogilasa, better known as Red Shirt, who was Sitting Bull’s choice as representative Sioux leader in his absence.
Crowds descended on the harbours of New York on the morning they set sail for England and cheered them on as they left America. My great-grandfather stood on a raised platform on the deck, waving his hat in the air majestically as he acknowledged the applause and appreciation of the people. Only when they were out of sight did he step down and turn to face in the opposite direction, out towards the horizon, where England and the unknown lay. To a massed gathering of his friends and employees he declared it to be the most important transatlantic voyage since the Nina, the Pinta and the Santa Maria had set sail from Spain at the end of the fifteenth century to discover the new world in the first place; now he, Buffalo Bill Cody, was returning to their ancestral heritage to show the world what they had achieved in the four centuries since then.
The voyage was a traumatic one for these unseasoned sailors and more than one of them spent a portion of the trip bent over the side of the ship, staring down at the water below as they grew more and more sick. Annie Oakley took to her bed and insisted on writing her last will and testament, convinced that death was only a matter of hours away. The Sioux Indians became nearly hysterical in their belief that Sitting Bull had been correct and they were in fact going to die. Even my great-grandfather, the famous Buffalo Bill, was unable to hold a civil conversation for the first three days, so sick was he and convinced that the decision to leave the solid land of America for the unknown world of England had been the worst of his life.
However, eventually they became used to the unsteady nature of the sea and were able to return to their previous good health and even clean themselves up, ready for their next adventure as the coastline of England came into view through the clouds on a bright April morning.
My great-grandfather enjoyed the attention which he received in London. Every day the newspapers carried news of where he was visiting and who he had met, while the wild west show prepared for its opening performance at Earls Court. He travelled through the city by hansom cab and pedestrians would often notice him and cheer as he was driven past, when he would take off his hat and wave it affectionately at the public, acknowledging his applause. He stayed at the Metropole Hotel and became known as a substantial tipper, resulting in the best service from the bellboys and waiters who worked there. The rest of the wild west show stayed in far less extravagant surroundings but as Nate Salsbury was mostly responsible for putting the show together, Bill saw little of his colleagues during his first two weeks in the capital.
Three days before the opening of the show, Bill was invited by Adrian Parker, who was organising much of the publicity for their own show, to an open-air production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The performance they attended was a special one for it was advertised in the newspaper in advance that Buffalo Bill Cody, along with the Prince and Princess of Wales, would be the guests of honour on the evening. Bill dressed in his finest western uniform for the event – again, a uniform designed by himself and not standard issue of any American army – and was brought to his seat in the royal box a few minutes before the play began. There were about twenty people already seated in the box, mostly guests of the royal party and a few retainers, and Bill was immediately introduced to Prince Edward and Princess Alexandra, who greeted him warmly and invited him to sit in the reserved seat to the prince’s left to watch the show.
‘This is an unexpected honour for me,’ Bill remarked in order to ingratiate himself with the stern-looking couple whose conversational skills at first proved to be somewhat lacking. ‘Where I grew up in Iowa, I little expected to find myself seated in such a place one day. A log cabin is a humble enough place for one’s beginnings.’
‘We hear great things of the show you have brought to London,’ remarked the prince, showing little interest in information about his companion’s upbringing and appearing to barely understand what a log cabin even was. ‘We will be attending, of course, on the opening evening.’ Bill inclined his head to acknowledge the compliment. ‘We trust there will not be a great deal of anti-Empire flag waving, however,’ he added, a trace of a smile flickering around his lips as he enunciated each word carefully. ‘Calls for the colonials to invade the mother country, for example?’
‘I assure you that our aim is simply to provide an entertaining evening of performances, demonstrating the different cultures and activities of the west. We’ve proved very popular in America.’
‘So we have heard,’ said the prince, turning back towards the stage where the curtain was beginning to rise for the play. Bill sat back in his seat, unsure whether the offhand manner which was being displayed towards him was typical of royalty’s response to lay people, or whether his nationality was what was giving offence.
‘Oh I wouldn’t worry about him,’ remarked a rather corpulent man during the interval, who had been seated to Bill’s left in the royal box throughout the first half of the play. They had agreed to go to the bar together and my great-grandfather had mentioned that the Prince of Wales had seemed less than friendly. ‘The fact that he invited you to sit with him at all means that he’s interested in you. You’re supposed to take that as a given. Don’t expect politeness into the bargain. That’s not at all part of his make-up.’
Bill nodded. ‘I don’t much care, to be honest with you,’ he said. ‘I’ve met greater men than him in my time. I just don’t want to say anything myself which might be construed as rudeness or ingratitude. I like to think I’m a man of some manners, particularly in another’s country.’
The larger man finished his drink quickly and ordered another, ‘You’ll join me?’ he asked, ordering two more without waiting for an answer, more of a demand than a question.
‘So what’s your position, then?’ asked Bill, unsure who his drinking companion was anyway. ‘Are you part of the prince’s retinue? Is every word I say being taken down to be used in evidence against me?’
‘Not at all,’ said the man. ‘You think I’d be one of his flunkies? Not likely, my friend. But he likes to have me along every so often for a little colour, I think. The princess is good friends with my wife, Constance. You met her inside, did you not?’ Bill nodded and made some gratuitous compliment about her beauty, which the other man took with an amused smile. ‘Quite,’ he said. ‘Anyway, I’m a playwright, myself. Have a couple of shows running in the West End at the moment actually. So when something new opens I get invited along. Somehow they seem to think my opinion of their plays is important to them while their opinion of mine is the only thing important to me. Assuming their opinions are the correct ones, of course.’
‘I’m sure you have as little control over their opinions as my audience does over mine.’
‘My dear sir, I give them their opinions.’
Bill smiled. ‘Perhaps I should attend one of your plays while I’m here,’ he said. ‘Which one would you recommend?’
Mr Wilde, for that was his companion’s name, shrugged as if deciding between them was a pointless exercise. ‘Any of them is worth the price of a ticket, of course, but tell them at the box that I sent you and they’ll give you a good seat. Anything would be better than this claptrap, that’s for sure.’
‘You don’t like Shakespeare?’ asked Bill. ‘Surely that’s a heresy for a playwright?’
‘I do like him, of course. But this production is hardly the most riveting of evenings, now is it? Titania is talking into her breasts for one thing. Ample as they are. She seems to keep addressing them as if she’s afraid they might run away into the wings at some point. And I’m sure I could see Puck asleep at one point. I wouldn’t mind joining him if that was the case.’
Bill laughed, not quite sure what Mr Wilde meant. He never quite looked at him while he spoke but scanned the bar instead, occasionally raising a couple of fingers to wave to an acquaintance across the room. ‘Look, there’s Carstairs, The Times’s drama critic,’ he remarked after a moment. ‘He looks like he’s having almost as good a time as we are. That’s good news anyway. There’s nothing I enjoy more than someone else’s bad reviews. Gets the morning off to a good start. Along with the tea and pastries, that is,’ he added quietly.
‘Ain’t you got a solidarity among playwrights then?’ asked Bill, smiling quietly for he found his companion amusing and cantankerous at the same time.
‘Not at all,’ he said. ‘We scan the obituaries every morning checking to see whether one of our adversaries has died. Finally gives us a chance to say something nice about each other. The dead can’t compete, you see. But you should know about the nature of rivalry, Mr Cody. Yours is the not the only wild west show touring at the moment, is it?’
Bill nodded. ‘That’s true,’ he said, a trace of bitterness creeping into his voice. ‘We’ve had one or two imitators in recent times. Our show remains the best though. And we’re the only one who’s touring the world, that says something about us, I think.’
‘You’re not afraid of leaving America in the hands of your competition then?’
‘None of our competitors have a name like mine in their lead,’ said Bill proudly, his body puffing up in self-congratulation. We also have Sitting Bull, Red Shirt, Annie Oakley—’
‘Oh I’ve heard of her,’ said Wilde. ‘Little Miss Sure Shot they call her, is that right?’
‘Some do.’
‘They say she’s the finest shot in the world. I’d like to see her shooting. I’m something of an aficionado of that myself.’
‘You must come along and see her then,’ said Bill. ‘I’ll leave your name on the box too. How’s that for double dealing?’
Mr Wilde smiled and at that moment the bell rang to indicate that they had only a few minutes to return to their seats for the second half of the performance. A striking young man in a tight tuxedo approached them, strutting towards them with one hand in his pocket and eyeing Bill up and down suspiciously. Wilde got a slightly pained look on his face as the man tapped him on the arm and spoke to him without acknowledging my great-grandfather.
‘Time to go back in, Oscar,’ he said. ‘The old bastard will be looking for you.’
‘Heaven forefend,’ replied Wilde sarcastically. ‘You’ve met Mr Cody, haven’t you, Bosie? Mr Cody, this is Lord Alfred Douglas, a particular friend of mine.’
‘Pleased to meet you, Lord Alfred,’ said Bill, stretching out his hand to shake that of the young man, who offered his reluctantly and even then barely pressed on the fingers of the other as his lip snarled slightly.
‘You’re Buffalo Bill, aren’t you?’ asked Lord Alfred. ‘That’s what they call you?’
‘It is, to my honour,’ replied Bill. ‘On account of the thousands of buffalo I’ve killed over the years.’
‘How lovely for you,’ came the reply with barely concealed distaste. ‘That must give you a taste for dinner. Or do you eat the meat raw off the bone in the colonies?’ Wilde checked his watch and looked as if he wanted to separate the two men.
‘Bosie’s right, I’m afraid, Mr Cody,’ he said. ‘We really should return to the prince. Perhaps we can continue our discussion later? Maybe I will attend your show with their royal highnesses next week anyway. Would that be acceptable? And you could introduce me to your Annie Oakley.’
‘Oscar loves a straight shot,’ said Bosie, leading the way back to the royal box. ‘And how about you, Mr Buffalo Bill,’ he asked as they went inside, uttering the name with slight contempt. ‘What land of shot do you prefer?’
‘Bourbon, mostly,’ said Bill, reaching into his inner pocket for the small flask he often brought with him. ‘Care for a taste?’
Bosie raised an eyebrow with a shudder and shook his head, saying nothing more to Bill as he took his seat. The lights went down and my great-grandfather sighed as he looked around him. With the exception of Mr Wilde, they were a cold lot. He would shake that out of them if nothing else, he thought. Wait till they get a load of my show, he thought to himself, wondering whether anyone would notice if he took ten minutes’ sleep during the next act. That would ruffle them out of their stuffed shirts.
The royal party enjoyed the wild west show so much that Bill and his colleagues were invited to perform for Queen Victoria on the occasion of her jubilee the following month, June of 1887. Although she had been in mourning for her late husband for the best part of thirty years, the queen had agreed to step out in public for a celebration of her fifty years on the throne and a gala performance was to be staged in her honour. When the invitation came for their own troupe to perform, it was agreed that a scaled-down version would be appropriate as many different performers from various parts of the empire would also want to have their moment in the spotlight. However, since the evening when the Prince and Princess of Wales had attended the show and delighted in it, the queen had specifically requested that the wonders of the wild west be presented to her too and it was with great pride that my great-grandfather designed a special performance of the robbing of the Deadwood stagecoach for the evening in question, along with a display of marksmanship from himself and the increasingly popular Annie Oakley.
Hundreds of people were working at the arena that day and Bill’s troupe were but a small part of it and he felt it slightly strange not to be the centre of attention for once. Some of the other performers did, however, take the time to visit him and shake his hand for his visit to London had been heavily reported by the newspapers and the acts of valour which he had invented for some of his stage shows back in America were increasingly being passed off as actual historical facts.
Special tents had been erected behind the arena where the performers could eat and Bill made his way towards one of these as he waited for his call. He was dressed in his regulation showman outfit and had paid particular attention to his hair and beard as he wanted to appear as handsome as possible for this, perhaps his greatest ever show. The tent was empty, save for a few members of an acrobatic troupe who were eating noisily in one corner. They stared at him as he walked inside, resplendent in his uniform, for they knew exactly who he was, the most famous performer at these jubilee celebrations. On any other occasion he would have invited himself to join them and regaled them with stories about his life and adventures but for some reason that evening he did not and instead wandered to the top of the tent, where a young girl was clearing away food from a buffet.
‘Excuse me,’ he said, approaching her and she jumped, startled, for she had been paying no attention to anyone around her and had not even noticed him entering the tent. She stared at him in surprise, for his outfit was unlike any she had ever seen before, and placed a hand to her heart to indicate her surprise, or perhaps her sudden attraction.
‘I’m sorry,’ she said, giving a spontaneous laugh. ‘You startled me. I didn’t see you come in.’
My great-grandfather looked at her for a moment, struck by her beauty, and then laughed himself. She had said no more than a dozen words to him but the lack of affectation in them, the honest surprise, was something fresh to him, her youthful voice endearing. He had the impression she didn’t laugh much for within a moment she had turned it into a cough and was looking at him in a more serious, professional way.
‘I do apologise,’ she said. ‘Can I help you at all?’
‘I was hoping for a little snack,’ he said. ‘But if you’re clearing everything away, I can always—’
‘No, no, that’s fine,’ she said, interrupting him. ‘We’re still open. I can fix you something. What would you like? I could make you a sandwich perhaps?’
‘Sounds perfect,’ said Bill, extending his hand across the counter. ‘Bill Cody,’ he said. ‘I’m putting a show on here for the queen’s jubilee. Visions of the wild west of America, that sort of thing.’
The girl nodded her head slowly and smiled, shaking his hand but pausing before saying anything else. ‘I know exactly who you are, Mr Cody,’ she said finally. ‘Why you’re the man everyone’s waiting to see. Look at them over there,’ she added, nodding across at the troupe of performers at the other side of the tent who were watching the conversation between the two intently. Bill turned to look at them and frowned at their intrusiveness. ‘They can’t take their eyes off you.’
‘It’s probably you they can’t take their eyes off,’ said Bill gallantly and there was that sudden burst of laughter from the girl again.
‘I doubt it,’ she said. ‘I know them too well. My name’s Ellen Rose,’ she added, and Bill nodded to acknowledge it.
‘Very pleased to meet you, Ellen Rose,’ he said. ‘And what makes you think that a bunch of honest men like them wouldn’t want to stare over at you?’
‘For a start, one of them’s my father, one of them thinks he’s above me, one of them’s too shy to speak to me, and one of them isn’t interested in ladies at all. And even if any of them was, there’s not too many people these days would show a lot of interest in a crippled girl, now is there?’ Bill raised an eyebrow in surprise, not knowing exactly what she meant, but as she turned to walk towards the kitchen area he saw her reach for a stick and followed her slow, heavy walk with sadness. ‘Come with me, if you like, Mr Cody,’ she called back to him. ‘I’ll make you your sandwich out of the way of their prying eyes.’
Bill stood up and followed her back, sitting now at a tall stool beside a table as she began to fix his snack. ‘What happened to your leg then?’ he asked, determined not to pretend that she had not said what she had said. He watched her as her face betrayed a slight tic; he suspected people were rarely this quick and honest with her.
‘I used to be a trapeze artist,’ she explained. ‘I grew up wanting to be one. I had an accident this one evening and fell. I was lucky I wasn’t killed, to be honest with you. I suppose I have to be grateful for that.’ Bill nodded and said nothing for a moment. A silence hung between them which Ellen Rose eventually cut. ‘I say I fell,’ she muttered. ‘Actually, I was dropped. A man who had a thing for me got his nose out of joint when I wouldn’t go with him. He was supposed to catch me. He let me fall instead. Not fair.’
Bill said nothing but felt his jaw clench in an unexpected anger against this unknown man who had hurt this girl he had never met until a moment before. He considered offering expressions of sympathy but decided against it. ‘What happened to him?’ he asked. ‘The man who let you fall. He’s not out there, is he?’ He nodded towards the tent area and the group of men he had seen when entering. Ellen shook her head.
‘No, he’s long gone,’ she said. ‘Nothing dramatic. He admitted what he’d done and was jailed for it. That’s all. He’s in jail and I work in the kitchens. Not sure which of us got the better deal out of it though,’ she added with a half smile as she took a long knife and cut the sandwich in half, put it on a plate and handed it across. ‘Now Mr Buffalo Bill,’ she said with a smile. ‘Eat up.’
‘Thank you,’ he said. He reached out to take the plate from her and as he did so his hand touched hers and for a moment they allowed their fingers to rest there. He smiled at her. She had long dark hair and pale skin. A slight blush had crept unknowingly into her cheeks and he got the sense from her that she was looking for a release, praying for someone to save her from this life. After a few moments, flustered, she took her hand back and turned away, lost for things to say. What she wanted to do was walk around to this cowboy and kiss him. Instead, she said something she could never have imagined herself saying in a million years to a fiancé, let alone a perfect stranger. But then that was exactly what he was – a perfect stranger.
‘I’ll be here tonight,’ she said quietly, barely aware of how she was finding either the courage or the language for the words. ‘After the show. Around midnight. I’ll be here then.’
Bill reached down and took a bite from his sandwich and nodded. He said nothing for now but knew that he would be there at midnight also.
Ellen Rose had never been with a man and even as she stole along the back of the trailers towards the tent where she had met my great-grandfather only hours earlier, she felt a wave of nausea rushing through her stomach with the tension of her intended actions. Although she was terrified at what might be to come, and amazed at her own intentions, she resolved not to stop walking, for if she stopped for even a moment to consider her actions, she ran the risk of changing her mind and returning to her tent and then what would become of her?
Through all of Isaac’s stories, he has never been fully able to explain to me the reason why Ellen Rose and Buffalo Bill Cody were so immediately attracted to each other. My theory is that Ellen, my great-grandmother, saw in Bill a way out of the Regis-Roc Circus. He was an extravagant, famous man from the other side of the world; she was a crippled girl, albeit a beautiful one. For Bill’s part, he had long since separated from his wife, Louisa Frederici, although the legalities of that relationship remained intact. In the intervening years he had made a habit of seducing the majority of the girls who came through the wild west show, not to mention the thousands who came to see him as he travelled around America and who were happy to sacrifice either their honour or simply the night to a man with such a reputation as his. My theory is an unromantic one: she was using him, and he was just doing what he always did. Isaac, on the other hand, told it differently.
His take on that night is that Ellen Rose and Bill Cody met as arranged in the kitchen area of the tents. It was dark but Ellen lit a candle as she waited, somewhat irritably, for her paramour to appear. She glanced at her watch. There were still two minutes to go before midnight but she feared that he would not arrive. She could feel her heart beating heavily inside her chest and her left leg ached slightly, as it always did in moments of tension. The slightest thought could have seen her hurry from her waiting post and back to her safe bed, but she refused to allow herself to give in to these ideas and sat patiently, biting her lip as she nervously gripped the table before her. She could feel a warmth inside her and knew that now, at last, at the age of twenty-four, she wanted to be with a man. And what was wrong with that, she reasoned.
‘Miss Rose,’ said Bill as he appeared from the shadows, just as midnight struck. ‘True to your word, I see.’
She sighed and nodded, as if she had given up any pretence of being there for any innocent reason. ‘I was determined to come,’ she said quietly, glancing around to make sure that no one could hear or see them.
‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘I did a quick scout around before I came in here. Everyone’s in their beds. It was a long day, after all.’
‘Yes,’ said Ellen. ‘I saw you, you know. With the queen.’ The wild west show had performed their regular routine before Queen Victoria earlier in the day and afterwards, in quite a break with her normal procedures, the queen asked for its founder to be presented to her. ‘What did she say to you anyway? She looked quite enamoured.’
‘She said that she had never seen such a display of courage before and that, despite our turbulent histories, she would raise a toast to America that evening at dinner.’
‘And you. What did you say to her?’
‘I was told not to say anything unless she asked a direct question,’ he replied, stepping behind Ellen and lifting her hair out of the way so that he might kiss her gently on the neck. ‘And she never did so I simply smiled and bowed. That was it. That was all the uses she had for me.’
Ellen sighed as she felt the warm breath of her intended lover whispering around her bare shoulder. As he kissed her towards her shoulder, the front of his teeth skimmed her skin gently and she felt an urge to press her body back against that mouth, so that he might bite into her and enter as deeply into her person as he could possibly do. She shut her eyes and spun around as if being carried along by the air, their lips met and he raised her on to the table, standing between her legs, edging them apart slightly despite her natural inclination to modesty.
‘If he was still here,’ said Bill, stepping back for a moment and looking at the young girl directly in the eyes, even as he lowered her blouse to reveal her breasts by candlelight, pale, trembling. ‘I’d kill him for what he did to you.’ He reached a hand down and hooked it under the knee of the damaged leg and buried his face in her bosom for a time as she closed her eyes again and leaned backwards, clearing her mind of all worry as she allowed him to do with her what he would, never interfering, never speaking, never asking for anything. When they made love, all she could see was the hero, the adventurer, the great American Buffalo Bill Cody, who was in love with her and would take her away to a fantasy life. She could never love or be loved by anyone quite like this man.
At least, that’s the way Isaac tells it.