We would advise our readers to go and see the play if they would get a good idea of life on the plains. Those who witness the performance of this play will not care to take Greeley’s advice to go West.
Gazette, Terre Haute, Indiana
October 10, 1873
Where Hickok was, we hadn’t the foggiest notion till an account of him appeared in the Democrat and Chronicle. Wild Bill, the newspaperman wrote, had left the Buffalo Bill Combination. His duty was to his country, and with the Sioux wearing war paint and trouble brewing at the agencies he had been called away to the West, to “the free, wild life he loves so well.” That “noble fellow,” so “truehearted,” spoke kind words of Texas Jack and Buffalo Bill, who understood that duty and destiny awaited him on the border.
“By my boots and socks,” I said upon reading the article Texas Jack had just showed me, “he stole my idea. I was goin’ West.”
Suddenly I laughed. That old dog had done another caper, had tricked me. Now I understood what Fletcher, Johnson, and MacEvey had meant all this time with their bickering after performances. Hickok had upstaged me. I couldn’t leave the Combination now, couldn’t say my services were needed on the frontier, not after Hickok had said so first. Besides, I was stuck with the show. I had purchased a house in Rochester, which Lulu loved, had been given another chance at being a better husband and daddy, and had even told Jennie Fisher that we no longer could consort like we had done, that everyone knew Buffalo Bill Cody was a man of his word, and, by thunder, I was a married man with three little angels.
“It says here that Wild Bill isn’t going West just yet,” Texas Jack pointed out. “He left Rochester for New York City.”
“For business,” I added.
“What business would he have in New York?”
I pondered Texas Jack’s question, but didn’t answer. The Buffalo Bill Combination was scheduled to board a westbound train for performances in Lockport, Buffalo, and Dunkirk before entering Pennsylvania and traveling on to the Midwest and Canada. We wouldn’t return to New York until the end of the season in June.
“Well,” I said.
“Well,” said Texas Jack.
We stared at the tavern across from the depot, stood, headed that way for a drink, went inside, ordered a shot each, and leaned against the bar next to a walking whiskey vat whose head was buried atop the spilled suds and cherry wood.
“Wild Bill can look after himself,” Texas Jack commented after our whiskies arrived.
“Yes, he can.”
We downed the shots, and ordered another.
“He quit us,” Texas Jack said. “We didn’t quit him.”
“Yes, I know.”
We downed the whiskey, and told the barkeep to leave the bottle.
“We don’t owe him a thing,” Texas Jack said.
Instead of agreeing, I refilled our glasses. The locomotive’s whistle screamed. Major Burke would be in a panic now, trying to find us before the train pulled out of the station.
“Fiddlesticks.” Texas Jack leaned against the bar with a heavy sigh. “Wild Bill helped get me my first job,” he said. “Saved my hide a time or two, as well.”
I nodded. “He stopped some bullwhacker from stovin’ in my head when I was just a boy. We never had no harsh words till . . .”
“I don’t fancy leaving him in New York City,” Texas Jack said.
“Nor do I, and I sure don’t want to leave with bad feelin’s betwixt us.”
“Wild Bill,” Texas Jack said.
“Jim Hickok,” I said.
The walking whiskey vat lifted his head, and slurred out a string of profanity and slurs about the Buffalo Bill Combination and something called the Daniel Boone Company. I couldn’t catch all of those words, but I did make out “Wild Bill . . . damned fools . . . Buffalo Bill . . . sons-of-bitches . . . Texas Jack . . . shit.”
I swung around, almost spilling my whiskey when I reached out to catch the drunkard before he fell to the floor.
“Criminy,” Texas Jack said, “that’s Lawrence Barnett.”
Sure enough, it was. Texas Jack tossed some coins on the bar, and helped me carry the world’s greatest Thespian outside to feel the morning sun. We almost knocked over Major Burke, on his way inside to find us.
“The train’s about to leave!” the major shouted, then gaped. “Great Scot, is that . . . ?”
Barnett vomited all over Major Burke’s boots. Texas Jack and I released the actor and jumped back, as if the man was spitting out fire. Barnett fell to the boardwalk, groaned, and rolled over.
“Ruined,” Barnett said. “I’m ruined.”
“What do you mean?” Texas Jack asked.
“My show’s failed . . . all because of . . . the Buffalo Bill Combination . . . and Hickok’s new show.”
New show? I dropped beside the actor. “What do you mean? What new show?”
“Hickok’s in New York . . . The Black Crook is finished. I . . .” His eyes rolled back into his head.
“Damnation!” Texas Jack yelled. “Wild Bill has betrayed us!”
The whistle shrieked again, and the conductor begged us to hurry. The major cleaned his boots, and cussed Lawrence Barnett. I waved the conductor over, my mind working rapidly.
“Sir,” I said, “help Major Burke get this man aboard the train. Burke, you listen, and listen good. You’re takin’ Mister Barnett. He said he always wanted to play me, and he shall.”
“But I wanted . . .”
“All right, you can play me. Get Barnett to play Wild Bill.”
“But he doesn’t know the lines!”
“It don’t matter, Burke. Hickok never knowed his lines, neither! Now, shut up and listen. Get J. P. Winter to play Jack.”
“But you said you weren’t quitting the show, Will!”
“I’m not. We’ll be back. We’ll meet you in Erie, I hope. Maybe before. All you have to do is get through the plays in Lockport, Buffalo, and Dunkirk. Jack and I are headed back to New York to fetch Hickok.”
“But. . . .”
We didn’t give the major any more time to argue. We hurried back to the tavern to formulate a plan and finish our whiskey.
Lawrence Barnett, Esq., had not been mistaken, for newspaper advertisements and placards throughout the theater district proclaimed that “The True Hero of the Border, Wild Bill Hickok,” would be performing with Colonel Kenneth R. Stevens’s Daniel Boone Company for two weeks at Dewitt Davidson’s Globe Hall in Manhattan.
Texas Jack and I arrived at Globe Hall shortly before the ticket office opened. Recognizing us as living heroes ourselves, since we had performed at the hall before, Mr. Davidson himself escorted Texas Jack and me backstage to meet Wild Bill and Colonel Stevens. A short, pale man with a big mustache, plaid sack suit, and an old Army dress hat, Colonel Stevens looked more like a drummer than a theatrical manager, and his hand felt all sweaty when I shook it. The “Wild Bill” beside him didn’t stand much taller than the colonel and wore a blond wig and buckskins, and carried a brace of Remingtons when everyone knew that Hickok preferred Navy Colts and Williamson Derringers.
“We’re looking for Wild Bill,” Texas Jack said, and the fake Wild Bill smirked, sniggered, and said that we were addressing the same.
“Mister.” I stepped forward. “My name’s William F. Cody, and I know Wild Bill Hickok. Wild Bill is a friend of mine. You, sir, are no Wild Bill Hickok.”
Colonel Stevens quickly slipped between us, telling his Wild Bill, who he called Claude, to excuse us for a few minutes. The fraudulent Wild Bill sulked off into a corner, while the colonel guided us, along with Mr. Davidson, to his office, and offered us a whiskey, but we declined, not wanting to drink with the fobbing little weasel.
“I met Wild Bill in Rochester,” the colonel explained. “The real Wild Bill, your friend. Offered him fifty dollars a week to play himself, and he agreed to do so. I had my advance man place notices in all the New York City papers, but Wild Bill performed only once, then quit.”
“He’ll do that,” Texas Jack commented.
“Gentlemen,” Colonel Stevens went on, “I had no choice. The advertisements were already printed, and people have been busting down the doors to see him. So I hired Claude Cooper to take over.”
“Where’s Hickok?” I asked.
“I haven’t seen him since day before yesterday. That’s the honest truth, I swear.”
Well, believing the man, I nodded at Texas Jack, and we took our leave, followed by an apologetic Mr. Davidson. The colonel hollered out: “Please, you won’t tell. . . .”
“Don’t worry,” I said.
As he escorted us down the aisle, Mr. Davidson inquired if we’d care to take in tonight’s show, and I started to decline, figuring to begin searching the saloons in the area, but I abruptly reined in and accepted the gent’s generosity.
“I’ll introduce you . . . ,” Mr. Davidson began, but I asked him to do no such thing.
“We’ll be incoherent,” I explained, tucking my hair underneath my hat.
“Uh . . . incognito,” Texas Jack added.
“I understand,” Mr. Davidson said, and left us as we made ourselves comfortable on the back row.
We ate nuts and sipped whiskey from my flask while the theater filled up with patrons.
“I don’t understand why Wild Bill would do such a thing,” Texas Jack said. “Quit our show, only to join this skipjack colonel?”
“Jim’s notional,” I offered.
“So, why are we here since Wild Bill quit the show?”
I gave him a dumb look better than Texas Jack could ever give. My pard blinked, smiled, and grabbed a handful of nuts.
“Oh,” he said.
We didn’t have to wait too long. The play began, and Claude “Wild Bill Hickok” Cooper stepped out on stage, speaking a bunch of flapdoodle and began relating how he had wiped out the McKandlass Gang to avenge the death of his pa. Seconds later, a commotion began in the wings to his left, then a body flew across the stage, then another, and at last Jim Hickok rushed onto the stage, and Claude Cooper soiled his buckskins.
“Nobody’s Wild Bill Hickok,” Hickok shouted, “but me!”
He broke Cooper’s nose with one punch, pulled off the wig, and tossed it to an urchin in the front row, hit Cooper in the stomach, lifted him over his head, and tossed the actor into the orchestra pit. Colonel Stevens, cussing louder than my Lulu ever done, sent his supes, actors, and stagehands to corral Hickok, and a few burly men in the front row leaped onto the stage. Although I had him pegged for a coward, Colonel Stevens proved me wrong. He charged right in there with his boys. You’ve never seen such a plug muss.
“Shall we?” I asked Texas Jack.
“All for one, and one for all,” Texas Jack said, and we leaped from our seats, raced down the aisle, jumped onto the stage, and partook of the ruction.
Hickok cut loose with a Comanche yell when he spotted us, and flung Colonel Stevens into the Netherlands. I tackled the two burly men, and Texas Jack grabbed a lariat—don’t ask me where he found it—and roped a couple of members of the Daniel Boone Company, dragged them to him, and knocked them out with the barrel of his Smith & Wesson. After dispatching the burly men, I rolled over, kicked at one gent, got tackled by two more, crawled from underneath them, and smashed their faces when they kept on coming.
“Hip-hip-hurrah!” I shouted, and the crowd at Globe Hall echoed back: “Hip-hip-hurrah! Hurrah for Buffalo Bill. Hurrah for Texas Jack! Hurrah for Wild Bill!”
You see, our hats had been knocked off by then, so everyone recognized us as the true, living heroes. The sound of gunfire made me gasp, but I recognized those screams, and realized that Hickok must have grabbed Cooper’s pistols and had started singeing and tormenting the colonel’s supes. I dare say the people at Dewitt Davidson’s Globe Hall got their money’s worth that night. We had run just about everyone on stage to either unconsciousness or parts unknown when the first cop arrived, blowing his whistle.
“You men are under arrest,” he said.
Hickok wiped his bloody lip, and tossed Cooper’s pistols on the floor. “Just you?” he asked.
“Yes.” The cop had grit.
“I don’t think so,” Hickok said. “Wild Bill, Texas Jack, and Buffalo Bill don’t go along peaceably with just one peace officer.”
The crowd cheered.
“Very well,” the cop said. He walked to the rear door, and tooted that whistle again. Two more policemen arrived shortly thereafter.
“How about now, scouts?” the first cop said. “Will you come along peacefully?”
I started to answer, but Hickok spoke first: “You best get some more men, lad.”
The crowd cheered. Even the cops grinned.
So we waited till about ten more police officers arrived, signing a few autographs for some of them who had seen our performances and knew us to be heroes, but still Hickok wasn’t satisfied.
“You got a sergeant in that bunch?” he asked.
“No, sir,” the first policeman said, “but I’ll get one.”
Sure enough, he not only fetched a sergeant, but a captain, too.
“Well,” Hickok said, “I guess we can surrender to more than a dozen policemen, as long as one of them’s a captain.”
The crowd, even Mr. Dewitt Davidson himself, gave us a standing ovation as the cops escorted us to the calaboose. That was the last time Wild Bill, Texas Jack, and Buffalo Bill ever appeared on stage together. I reckon it was our best performance.
“Why did you join that grafter’s outfit after quittin’ us?” I asked Jim Hickok as we waited in a Manhattan precinct’s dark jail later that evening.
“Was broke,” he admitted. “Needed some cash to get back to Kansas.”
“But all the money we’ve made . . . ,” Texas Jack began, but Jim Hickok silenced him with a wave of his hand.
“Give it to kids,” he admitted, “spent it on whiskey.”
I crossed the cramped dungeon in mighty fine spirits, slapped my old pard Wild Bill on his back, and howled: “Pard, you are a demon! But don’t worry. When we leave here, I’ll have the major keep part of your salary so you won’t spend it. I mean . . .”
“I’m not going back, Billy.” The announcement, the resolution in my friend’s voice, silenced me and soured my stomach. “Not with you. Not with Dan’l Boone. I meant what I said about heading West.”
“But . . . ,” I started. Hickok didn’t seem angry, yet I knew this time he was bound and determined to leave the Combination.
“Remember what Agnes told me, Billy?” he began. “ ‘Be true to myself? Well, it’s time I started living my life again. My life, boys. Not yours. How’s Louisa, by the way?”
“She was in wonderful bliss, thanks to you, Jim,” I answered. “ ’Course, she might not be so joyful when she arrives here in a couple of hours . . . I hope . . . to go our bail. But we’ve buried the hatchet.”
“I’m glad,” he said, and, by jingo, he meant it. “Hell, it was my fault anyway. I tormented you more than I should. And you, too, Jack. You’ll be better off without me. And I’ll be better off on the border.”
“I wish you’d reconsider,” Texas Jack chimed in.
“I appreciate that, boys,” Hickok said. “I surely do. But I’ve made up my mind. It’s like this, pards. All the world’s a stage. There are exits and entrances, and a man, in his life, plays many parts. Well, we’ve played some parts these past six months or so, but it’s time for Wild Bill to make his exit.” He held out his right fist, which Texas Jack and I clasped. “All for one,” he started.
“And one for all!” we finished, and broke out laughing.
“That Dickens was a great writer,” I said with delight. “Almost as good as Judson, Hiram Robbins, and Fred G. Maeder.”
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