Messrs. Buffalo Bill, Texas Jack, and Wild Bill devoted two and a half hours to killing off Indians. During the four acts 300 Indians must have bit the dust. Some of these days the material will give out, and there will be no Indians left to exterminate. When that event occurs, these scouts of the plains will find good substitutes for red men in the police court rabble.
Daily Times, Troy, New York
February 25, 1874
So vexed was I by my two tons of trouble that, when we performed at the Springfield Opera House, after two rousing shows at the Worcester Hall, I forgot my lines. Naturally even the greatest Thespian blunders on stage. Why I have even heard of Edwin Booth botching a Shakespeare soliloquy, and, anyway, our talk seemed as worthless as an old buffalo bone. Half the time we made up the things we said, or I recited Texas Jack’s line, and he said mine, and Jim Hickok said nothing (or when he did say something, you couldn’t rightly hear him). Folks didn’t ante up 50¢ to see the living heroes talk; they wanted us to kill Indians. Which is what I should have done. Oh, how many times have I chuckled as Texas Jack or Jim Hickok forgot what they were supposed to say, then simply drew their six-shooters and filled the theater with gunsmoke and noise as our score of supes rushed on stage to be mercifully, or unmercifully when Hickok felt so inclined, slain? On this night, after a slight pause, I reached for my Smith & Wesson, thinking to escape my blunder with some boisterous shooting, when I perchance looked up in the balcony and spotted Louisa Frederici Cody, my wife.
“Mama,” I said, “I’m such a horrible actor.”
That line excited those New Englanders more than killing and scalping savages could have. They laughed, applauded, cheered, and everyone turned to search for Mrs. Buffalo Bill. I doffed my hat, bowed, and joined the commotion, calling out: “Be honest, Mama, does this look as awful up yonder as it feels down here?” Pretty soon, everyone started hurrahing, screaming for Mrs. Buffalo Bill to come on stage and say a few words.
“Come take a bow, Mama!” I encouraged.
A portly usher appeared beside her, and the fuss became deafening. Lulu resisted at first, but eventually fled the balcony with the usher, who led her downstairs, down the center aisle, and around the orchestra pit, where I helped her onto the stage. Even with the limelight, Lulu looked redder than Major Burke’s ears had the other night, only she wasn’t raging, but downright humbled, embarrassed.
The crowd quieted, and Lulu cleared her throat. “I. . . .” She shot a glance back at me. I grinned. “I . . . thank . . . er . . . I . . .”
I walked up beside Lulu, and put my arm around her shoulder.
“This is my wife, mother of my three darlin’ children, a grand woman from Saint Louis, Missouri, Louisa Cody,” I announced, and kissed her cheek, which caused quite a stir in the audience and in Louisa. I mean to tell you, she shied away from me like a green filly. She wanted to stampede like a frightened buffalo calf, only her legs wouldn’t work. Almost like she had buck fever. I couldn’t help but giggle as I went to comfort her.
Behind me, I heard Texas Jack, ever the true friend with theater savvy, whispering some lines to Lulu. “It is a pleasure to be here . . . I wish to thank everyone in Springfield for making our stay enjoyable.”
Jim Hickok had some advice, too.
“Hell, get her off the damned stage,” said my pard, “and let’s wipe out some Injuns.”
All Lulu could manage, though, was: “Uhhh. . . .”
Hugging her tightly, I said, more to the audience than to her: “Now you can understand how hard your poor husband has to work to make a livin’.”
Folks liked that line, too. They stomped their feet as I walked Lulu off stage right, where Major Burke waited with a snifter of brandy to steady Lulu’s nerves. Not right sure what Lulu thought, I figured she’d let me know on the train ride to Pittsfield after the show. I had to hurry back on stage. Jim Hickok had started firing his Colts, and there were Indians to be killed.
Lulu wasn’t as perturbed about the incident as I thought she’d be. I had her pegged to be madder than a hornet, accusing me of shaming her so, but, as the train rocked along, she even smiled at me.
Smiled, that is, till I suggested that we should make it a regular routine in the show, the way I had done with Jim Hickok and his “cold tea don’t count” outburst. Lulu wasn’t about to let that happen.
“You’ll do no such thing, Will Cody,” she snapped. She could turn that smile off like the spigot on a keg of beer, be sweet and warm one moment, and bitter and cold the next. I could predict her moods no more than I could Nebraska weather in the spring, although it was getting easier of late. Yes, sir, that woman was as disagreeable as fried rattlesnake, and as pitiless as Jack Omohundro’s coffee.
“Oh, Mama,” I pleaded. “You’ll get used to it, the way I took to it. Takes time, is all. Why, you can even bring Arta, Kit, and Orra Maude with you. Folks would enjoy that just fine.”
“Newspapers would like it, too,” chimed in Major Burke, sitting behind us.
“I’d just look into the balcony, find you, and. . . .”
“You’ll have a hard time finding me, Will Cody,” Lulu said. “I’ll be hiding in the darkest, nethermost regions of the halls if and when I ever see another one of Elmo’s asinine melodramas.”
Elmo would be Judson. I informed her that Judson had nothing to do with our Combination any more, although she already knowed that. She just put men like Judson, Maeder, and Robbins in the same tribe, a tribe lower than temperance screamers and mealy-mouthed Republicans.
“All right, Mama,” I said. “Forget I brung it up.”
She forgot about it, too, for about a mile as the train lumbered along. Then she hauled off and whacked me a good one with her handbag, sending my hat flying to the aisle.
“What in tarnation . . . ?” I began.
“Is that what you think, Will Cody?”
“Think? Mama . . . ?”
“You think you can threaten me, drive me back to our home in West Chester with our children? Or maybe you’d prefer if I took the children back home to North Platte, to be as far from you as possible!” I looked around, hoping the children weren’t near, wouldn’t see their mama like this. I mouthed a silent prayer when I saw them three angels asleep away back in the coach. I thought up some choice cuss words, too, when I noticed everybody in the coach staring at us. Although I didn’t say anything, I sure wanted to.
“That’s just like you, you rascally bastard,” Lulu went on. “Threaten me with embarrassment so I’ll take my leave? Well, I’m harder than that, mister. I’m not about to leave you with that . . . !”
I followed her big finger, pointing catty-corner from us.
“Jack Omohundro?” I said, all bewildered.
She smacked me again. “You know damned well I don’t mean Jack. It’s her. That actress!”
“Louisa.” I fought down my own anger, and my cowardly desires to retreat to the smoking car and have a snort from Jim Hickok’s flask. I fetched my hat, jammed it on my head, and told her: “I don’t want you to leave. I wasn’t thinkin’ of nobody but you when I suggested we bring you on stage for every show. All I’ve ever wanted . . . the only reason I even put up with these shenanigans . . . is for you and the little ones.”
She snorted, pawed the floor with her button-up boots like a mad bull, and just stared ahead at F. N. Watson’s bald spot. She didn’t say nothing, hardly even blinked, till we reached the station a little while later, although it felt a whole lot longer than a little while, with me sitting next to that frigid crone.
The night had turned bitterly cold, made even colder by the wet snow, blustery wind, and my wife’s mood. From the Pittsfield depot, we hurried to our hotel—the Emler House, four stories tall but as rowdy and randy as that hostelry in Titusville, Pennsylvania. I’d have to speak to the major about his choice of accommodations, now that my family had joined me. The Emler House rested next door to the Opera Hall, but it also adjoined Ron’s Saloon, and folks were having a fine time at Ron’s that night when we checked in. How I longed to join them, but I had a family to care for. The clerk gave me a key to a room on the second floor, but upon a brief inspection I deemed it unsatisfactory, and hurried downstairs to confront the pockmarked innkeeper with the nasal whine.
“Is there something wrong, Mister Cody?” the gent asked.
I nodded. “It’s too noisy. It’s on the wrong side of the hotel, too close to the grog shop next door.” I pointed my goatee at dear Orra Maude, asleep in her mama’s arms, and then at poor Kit, asleep in mine, and finally at Arta, who could barely stand up, so tired was she. “I desire a room with some peace and quiet.”
“It’s the weekend, sir,” the clerk began.
“It’s Thursday,” Lulu corrected him.
The fellow shrugged. “Be that as it may, I can’t control the noise at Ron’s. I can scarcely keep our own customers quiet.”
“I’d like a new room,” I said, “one where peace and quiet can be found.”
The fellow gave me a grin I didn’t like. “Mister Cody, ma’am, the only way you could have absolute peace would be to rent the whole fourth floor, and, of course, and you don’t want to do that.”
Sure as Satan, that fellow didn’t know William F. Cody.
“Oh, don’t I?” I said. “How much is it?”
There appeared that grin again. “Sir,” the innkeeper said, “two hundred dollars would be a pretty stiff price to pay for peace and quiet.”
“Paid!” I pulled out the buffalo bull scrotum I had made into a money pouch, withdrew a handful of greenbacks that I tossed in the uppity gent’s face. I must say I enjoyed the look on Lulu’s face reflected in the mirror behind the front desk. “Now, let’s see how quick you can make things comfortable, my good man. I got a wife and babies, and we’re all tuckered out.”
By grab, I thought that act of generosity would make my darling bride bring out the peace pipe, but she took to the warpath once we got the kids tucked into their beds in their fourth-story room. “Two hundred dollars!” she screamed. “Do you know how much two hundred dollars can buy, Will? You have not one inkling about finances. Two hundred dollars! For one night? My God, man, and I thought you were a skinflint when I first met you.”
So much for peace and quiet, I thought, and then it struck me. By jingo, I didn’t have to spend the night with the likes of her. I had a whole floor of rooms to pick from.