Abbreviations
BYU Brigham Young University Library
CVW Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney Papers
FSN Frank S. Nugent
JFP John Ford Papers, Lilly Library, Indiana University
JW John Wayne
JWP James W. Parker
KCA Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Indian Agency Files
MHL Margaret Herrick Library
NYT New York Times
OKU University of Oklahoma Library
OKHS Oklahoma Historical Society
PPHM Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum
QP Quanah Parker
SMU Southern Methodist University Library
TSL Texas State Library and Archives Commission
WB Warner Brothers Archive
“It’s so absolutely right”: Fonda to JF, April 5, 1954 (Lilly).
“Pappy, you know I love you”: Henry Fonda, Fonda: My Life, pp. 233–4.
Sometimes, when Ford was too wasted: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford: A Life, p. 550.
He had had cataract surgery: Gerald Peary, John Ford Interviews, p. 32.
“John Ford was going through changes”: Maureen O’Hara, ’Tis Herself: A Memoir, p. 193.
“My name is John Ford”: Robert Parrish, Growing Up in Hollywood, offers a detailed account of the meeting, pp. 207–210.
Ford … had once commissioned: See Larry Swindell, “Yes, John Ford Knew a Thing Or Two about Art,” John Ford Interviews, pp. 146–7.
“Wayne is plainly Ahab”: Greil Marcus, “John Wayne Listening,” p. 321.
“It was a sacred feeling”: Rachel Dodes, “IMAX Strikes Back,” Wall Street Journal, April 19, 2012.
“all modern American literature”: Stuart Byron, “The Searchers: Cult Movie of the New Hollywood,” New York, March 5, 1979, p. 45.
“Thus was the wilderness”: James W. Parker, Narrative of the Perilous Adventures, p. 7.
the Night the Stars Fell: Joseph Taulman note, 2F 206 (Taulman Papers).
“The remainder of the night”: Carl Greenwood to Joseph Taulman, September 11, 1931 (Taulman); see also Jo Ella Powell Exley, Frontier Blood, pp. 36–7. For an extended family history of the Parkers in Illinois and Texas see Eugene G. O’Quinn, “Quanah—The Eagle: Half-White Comanche Chief,” unpublished (Van Zandt).
“not a good day for bee hunting”: Charles E. Parker to Joseph Taulman, Feb. 8, 1928, 2F 205 (Taulman).
“Farming was my only way”: Joseph Taulman, “First Regularly Organized and Constituted Protestant or Non-Catholic Church in Texas” (Taulman).
“He seemed full of his subject”: Max Lee, “Daniel Parker,” p. 2.
“without education, uncouth in manners”: Ibid., pp. 2–3.
“awakened in me feelings”: JWP, p. 5.
“We now shot them down”: Dyersbury (TN) State Gazette, May 29, 2002.
“We believe that God created man”: “Records of an Early Texas Baptist Church,” p. 86.
“The grass is more abundant”: Stephen F. Austin, “Journal,” p. 289.
“vicious and wild men”: Texas by Terán: The Diary Kept by Manuel de Mier y Terán on His 1828 Inspection of Texas, p. 79.
“literally shot to pieces”: JWP, p. 6.
“an honest man”: Character Certificate, July 20, 1833, 2F 192 (Taulman).
“an Enemy to truth”: Reverend Bing, undated handwritten note, Daniel Parker Papers 3G 479 (Briscoe).
“the most fertile, most healthy”: JWP, p. 63.
“forests of cast iron”: Washington Irving, A Tour of the Prairies, p. 113.
They shot the two chiefs: Papers Concerning Robertson’s Colony in Texas XIV, p. 72. For description of tensions, see also Jack Selden, Return, pp. 22–4.
“If this region was not infested”: JWP, p. 70.
“to destroy my reputation”: “Defense of James W. Parker,” p. 5 (Bancroft).
The settlers had no nails: See museum displays at Old Fort Parker, Groesbeck, Texas.
“to secure the inhabitants”: Telegraph and Texas Register, October 26, 1835.
winter of 1836 was a desperate time: Typescript ms. by Morris Swett, Fort Sill librarian who collected Comanche oral folklore (Fort Sill, Swett File Collection B1 F3).
Daniel signed his name: Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum, Austin.
“To our minds this was a far more trying time”: A. D. Gentry, “The Runaway Scrape,” Frontier Times, p.9.
“for the purpose of Killing the white people”: Daniel Parker handwritten statement, June 18, 1836 (Taulman).
“voices that seemed to reach the very skies”: Rachel Plummer, Narrative of the Capture and Subsequent Sufferings, 1839, p. 6. The details of the massacre are from Plummer, pp. 5–8, and JWP, pp. 9–11.
“We were in the howling wilderness”: JWP, pp. 12–13.
“dressed in white with long, white hair”: “The Charmed Life of Abram Anglin,” Groesbeck Journal, May 15, 1936, p. 5.
“We found the houses still standing”: JWP, pp. 14–15.
“feelings of the deepest mortification”: Plummer, pp. 7–8.
“abandon once more the habitations of civilized men”: Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence, p. 430.
clad in native garb: Grant Foreman, Pioneer Days in the Early Southwest, p. 184.
“jealous, envious, dissipated”: Lawrence E. Honig, John Henry Brown: Texas Journalist, p. 11.
“Your enemies and ours are the same”: Thomas W. Kavanagh, Comanches: A History, p. 251.
“All argument failed”: JWP, p. 17.
“with mingled feelings of joy”: Ibid., pp. 18–9.
“something inexpressibly lonely”: Irving, p. 162.
Comanches called themselves Nemernuh: T. R. Fehrenbach, Comanches: The History of a People, p. 31; also Ernest Wallace and E. Adamson Hoebel, The Comanches: Lords of the South Plains, pp. 25–8.
“most horrible attire”: Gerald Betty, Comanche Society, p. 122.
“the largest and most terrible nomadic nation”: Jean-Louis Berlandier, The Indians of Texas in 1830, p. 114.
“a vast hinterland of extractive raiding”: Pekka Hämäläinen, The Comanche Empire, p. 182.
Rachel Plummer never said: This account of her captivity, including her baby son’s murder, is from Plummer, pp. 9–18.
“Its light turned the evening mist”: Larry McMurtry, Lonesome Dove, p. 285.
the country’s first indigenous literary genre: Gary L. Ebersole, Captured by Texts, p. 10.
“the special demonic personification”: Slotkin, Regeneration, p. 4.
“Their glittering weapons so daunted my spirit”: Mary White Rowlandson, Narrative of the Captivity and Removes of Mrs. Mary Rowlandson, p. 7.
“the tresses of this lady were shining”: James Fenimore Cooper, The Last of the Mohicans, pp. 16–17 and 109–10.
“This intelligence kindled anew”: JWP, pp. 22–3.
She would soak the hides to soften: Marcus Kiek, “Brain-Tanned Buffalo Hide.”
The dead bison provided food, hardware, clothing: “Skinning and Butchering a Bison,” PPHM video presentation.
“It was the sweetest stuff”: T. A. “Dot” Babb obituary, undated (PPHM).
“The squaws did all the manual labor”: T. A. Babb, In the Bosom of the Comanches, pp. 39–40.
“if she attempted again to force me”: Plummer, p. 17.
“You are brave to fight”: Ibid., p. 19.
Humans became just one more commodity: Michael Tate, “Comanche Captives,” pp. 231–4.
forced to scrape and clean her own dead mother’s scalp: J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, p. 401.
“trained, from infancy to age, to deeds of cruelty: Carl Coke Rister, Border Captives, p. 68.
“all females were chattels”: Fehrenbach, p. 287. For a conflicting view, Joaquin Rivaya-Martínez, “Becoming Comanches.”
“The sweeping generalizations by Dodge and Fehrenbach”: Gregory and Susan Michino, A Fate Worse Than Death, p. 473.
Bianca produced an unpublished memoir: Her account finally appeared in print fifty-three years after her death: “‘Every Day Seemed to Be a Holiday’: The Captivity of Bianca Babb,” Daniel J. Gelo and Scott Zesch, eds.
“No man can regret”: Sam Houston, The Writings of Sam Houston, pp. 53–4.
Still, James persisted: The ambush is narrated in JWP, pp. 24–7.
Houston was no city: For details of the five capitals and the executive mansion, see Selden, Return, p. 106, and Exley, pp. 79–80.
“Calling me a fool and a mad man”: Parker to Houston, June 6, 1837 (TSL).
“flog those Indians”: Houston, p. 36.
the truce did not last long: Selden, p. 89.
“As soon as the opportunity presented itself”: JWP, p. 30.
“Had I the treasures of the universe”: Plummer, p. 28. For her account of her rescue and return to her family, see pp. 27–30.
Her appearance was “most pitiable”: James W. Parker, p. 31.
“The prejudice existing”: Petition, 1840, Star of the Republic Museum Archive.
He went into hiding: Exley, pp. 99–101.
“My success engendered malice”: Parker, “Defense,” p. 6.
“feeling assured that before they are published”: Plummer, pp. 31–3.
“This life had no charms”: JWP, p. 32.
Wilson died two days later: Exley, p. 104.
“John Parker and Sinthy Ann”: Petition, November 22, 1840 (Star of the Republic).
a wild scheme to raise an army: Exley, p. 106.
“If the wild cannibals of the woods”: Indian Relations in Texas (TSL).
intimate enemies: Rupert N. Richardson, The Comanche Barrier to South Plains Settlement, p. 101.
the centrality of attacks on women and children: see Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, p. 48.
The elderly Cherokee leader: see Gary Anderson, The Conquest of Texas, p. 179.
“Her head, arms, and face were full of bruises”: Mary A. Maverick, Memoirs, p. 44. This account of the Council House massacre is largely from her memoir, from Fehrenbach, pp. 322–9, and from “Hugh McLeod’s Report on the Council House Fight,” March, 20, 1840 (TSL).
“These the Indians made free with”: Handbook of Texas Online.
“The bodies of men, women, and children”: Fehrenbach, pp. 347–8.
“The two cousins … exulted”: Foreman, p. 285.
“He then asked if he had a father”: JWP, p. 36.
“It evinces a degree of heartlessness”: Houston, pp. 180–1.
“holding correspondence with suspicious characters”: Exley, p. 118.
“My time is at hand”: “Biography of Daniel Parker,” 3G 749 (Daniel Parker Papers).
“lamented that thear was many”: Exley, pp. 123–5.
“I wish to make this public”: JWP letter, Texas National Register, June 26, 1845, p. 231.
“we believe the church has bin … unjustly implecated”: Records, p. 156.
Williams sought to purchase her: Hacker, p. 30.
“she continued to weep incessantly”: Exley, p. 134.
“she is unwilling to leave the people”: “Texas Indians—Report of Butler and Lewis,” p. 8.
The birth process was a communal event: Wallace and Hoebel, pp. 142–4.
“She shook her head in a sorrowful negative”: James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker, p. 32.
“She seemed to be separated”: Rupert N. Richardson, “The Death of Nocona,” p. 15.
The cavalry, stretched thin: Ranald S. MacKenzie’s Official Correspondence Relating to Texas, 1871–75, p. 4.
Ford joined forces with Shapley Prince Ross: Exley, p. 139.
“with both eyes shot out”: Recollections of B. F. Gholson, p. 9, 2Q 519 (Briscoe).
the worst moment came that November: See account in Paul H. Carlson and Tom Crum, Myth, Memory and Massacre, pp. 22–3. Carlson and Crum offer the most painstaking and definitive account to date of the Pease River massacre and myth, and I rely on them for my own.
“an Indian scalp thoroughly salted”: J. Evetts Haley, Charles Goodnight, pp. 50–1.
“a fine horseman and a good shot”: This and other descriptions of Ross: Judith Ann Benner, Sul Ross: Soldier, Statesman, Educator, pp. 45–50.
“killed every one of them”: Haley, p. 55.
“Sul ran up to him”: Gholson, p. 29.
“They had to force her away”: Felix Williams interview with Frank Gholson, August 26, 1931, p. 20 2Q 519 (Briscoe).
the woman “was so dirty you could hardly tell”: Recollections of H. B. Rogers, p. 2, Ibid.
“I’m greatly distressed about my boys”: Gholson interview, p. 12 (Briscoe).
“We rode right over her dead companions”: Haley, p. 56.
the volunteers found only four dead bodies: Dallas News, November 28, 1937; see also Carlson and Crum, p. 5.
killing a chief named Mohee: Carlson and Crum offer the most thorough account on pp. 70–8.
“this Pease River fight … made Sul Ross governor”: Walter C. Cochran, Reminiscences, p. 11.
“The fruits of this important victory”: E. E. White, Experiences of a Special Indian Agent, p. 263; also pp. 271–2.
the child never cried: Susan Parker St. John Notebook, p. 4, 2F 260 (Taulman).
“would be a waste of the materials”: Selden p. 176.
she looked and smelled like a savage: Gholson, p. 40.
“It was a race”: Gholson interview, p. 18.
she was a wild Indian: Marion T. Brown, Letters from Fort Sill, p. 78.
Over the years he had honored the memory: Selden, p. 117.
“Make them plenty big, Nancy”: Ibid., p. 179.
“After the lapse of a few moments”: Galveston Civilian, February 5, 1861, quoted in Hacker, p. 28.
“Me Cynthia Ann”: Ibid.
she pleaded with Horace Jones: Brown, p. 78.
They finally arrived in Birdville: Selden, p. 182.
Her “long night of suffering”: Hacker offers various press accounts on pp. 30, 33, and 40.
“people came from near and far” I. D. Parker to DeShields, ca. 1895 (SMU).
“She looked like a squaw” Exley, pp. 170–1.
“I was told of the many futile efforts”: St. John, p. 5.
“As savage-like and dark of complexion”: Taulman, Notebook No. 8, pp. 44–5, 2F 258 (Taulman)
she often sacrificed herself: Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, pp. 14–5.
“Theirs must have been a hard … life” Taulman Notebook No. 8, p. 4.
“When the fire was started”: Parker letter to DeShields.
she bolted for the door: DeShields, “Indian Wars of Texas,” p. 42.
A. F. Corning’s photographic studio: This account is from Araminta Taulman’s interviews with Mrs. R. H. King, July 5 and September 13, 1926; and with Mrs. Turnbill, September 24, 1926 2F 263 (Taulman).
“she took out the kidneys and liver”: I. D. Parker to DeShields.
She interviewed William and Mattie: Details of Susan Parker St. John’s account are from her unpublished notebook, pp. 8–11, 2F 260 (Taulman).
“My heart is crying all the time”. Coho Smith, Cohographs, p. 71.
“She had a wild expression”: Exley, p. 178.
As for James Parker … there is no record: Selden, pp. 282–3.
I.D. Parker … claimed that mother and daughter both died: Parker to DeShields.
Another legend: “Mystery of Prairie Flower, Daughter of Chief, Solved,” Wichita Falls Times, May 3, 1959; also Frank X. Tolbert, “More on Mystery of Topsannah,” Dallas News, October 17, 1960.
An 1870 census: 1870 United States Federal Census in the County of Anderson, State of Texas, Page No. 212 (National Archives Fort Worth).
“Cynthia Ann had united with the Methodist church”: St. John Notebook, pp. 19–20.
“A Romance of the Border”: San Francisco Bulletin, October 26, 1885; also “A Border Romance,” St. Louis Globe-Democrat, June 20, 1884; “Cynthia Ann Parker,” Dallas News, March 4, 1928.
“Strong as buffalo hide”: Jan Reid, “The Warrior’s Bride,” Texas Monthly, February 2003.
“the most unhappy person [he] ever saw”: Araminta Taulman interview with Mrs. J. J. Nunally, 1926, 2F 263 (Taulman).
Tseeta … became Quanah … and Pecos became Pee-nah: Aubrey Birdsong, “Reminiscences of Quanah Parker,” 1965 (Fort Sill).
his father became “very morose”: Quanah Parker to Charles Goodnight, n.d. (PPHM).
Quanah was truly on his own: See William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker: Comanche Chief, p. 11. Also Exley, p. 183.
“so vast that I did not find their limit”: Francisco Coronado letter to the king of Spain, October 20, 1541.
“The land is too much”: Timothy Egan, The Worst Hard Time, p. 1.
A young Comanche male without standing: James F. Brooks, Captives & Cousins, pp. 177–8.
Weckeah elopement tale: Parker family oral history; also White, Experiences of a Special Indian Agent, pp. 278–88.
“stealing white women is … more lucrative”: Rister, Border Captives, p. 134.
Sand Creek Massacre … sexual mutilation: J. P. Dunn, Massacres of the Mountains, p. 152.
“Sometimes a Comanche man dreams”: QP Interview with Hugh Scott (Fort Sill).
Putting his skepticism aside: QP to Scott, p. 23.
The “Grand Council” met in a clearing: Stanley Noyes and Daniel J. Gelo, Comanches in the New West, 1895–1908, p. 1.
Behind them was Ten Bears: This account of the Medicine Lodge Treaty comes largely from Henry M. Stanley, My Early Travels and Adventures in America, pp. 261–6.
“The Comanches are not weak and blind”: from Indian Oratory: Famous Speeches by Noted Indian Chieftains. W. C. Vanderwerth, pp. 132–3.
The Indian “must change the road”: Stanley, pp. 271–2.
“I went and heard it”: QP to Scott, p. 23.
the Civil War’s ruthless apostle: The description of Sherman’s life and role is from John F. Marszalek, Sherman: A Soldier’s Passion for Order, pp. 378–9, 390.
“The only good Indian”: New York Times, January 29, 1887; Southern Workman, April 21, 1892, p. 63.
“In the end they must be removed”: Sherman to David French Boyd, August 9, 1867, Marszalek, p. 390.
In a two-and-one-half-year period: The casualty toll is from Michino, A Fate Worse than Death, p. 471.
Kiowas killed “several families”: Philip McCusker to General W. B. Hazen, December, 22, 1868, Sherman Papers, p. 478.
Kiowas hauled out to the prairie: W. S. Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 114.
Walkley recovered five white captives: S. T. Walkley to Hazen, October 10, 1868, Sherman Papers, pp. 348–9 (OKU).
“the mildest remedy”: Sherman Papers, p. 487.
“If a white man commits murder”: Hämäläinen, Comanche Empire, p. 328.
“the aiders and abettors of savages”: Sheridan’s 1869 report, in Report of the Secretary of War, Vol. I, 1869, p. 48.
“Let us have peace”: Lawrie Tatum, Our Red Brothers, pp. 17–18. Tatum’s experiences at Anadarko are detailed in his book on pp. ix, 25, 30–6, 42–3, 134, 152, and 182.
Mamanti received a vision: Bill Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief, p. 107.
“The poor victims were stripped”: Carter, Tragedies of Cañón Blanco, pp. 81–2.
Sherman pushed on to Fort Sill: Marzsalek, p. 395.
The Kiowa chief quickly shifted into servile mode: Nye, Carbine and Lance, pp. 195–6.
“I answered … that it was a cowardly act”: Stanley F. Hirshson, The White Tecumseh, p. 347.
“Tell my people that I am dead”: See Carter’s account of Satank’s death, pp. 188–91.
His father had been a naval commander: For Mackenzie’s family tree, see Neeley, p. 105.
“the most promising young officer”: Michael D. Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer: A Life of Ranald Slidell Mackenzie, pp. 46–7. See also pp. 52, 71–2, and 106.
Mackenzie generously paid off the $500 debt: Carter, p. 73.
“They trembled and groaned”: This account of the Cañón Blanco attack is Ibid., pp. 166–97. See also Exley, p. 214.
buffalo hunters were a breed apart: T. Lindsay Baker and Billy R. Harrison, Adobe Walls: The History and Archaeology of the 1874 Trading Post, p. 29. The gist of this account of the Battle of Adobe Walls is from Baker and Harrison.
Born in West Virginia: The description of Billy Dixon is from Olive K. Dixon, Life of Billy Dixon.
destroying “the Indians’ commissary” T. R. Fehrenbach, Lone Star, p. 537.
Buffalo were so plentiful: G. Derek West, “The Battle of Adobe Walls 1874,” p. 2.
“I have seen their bodies so thick”: The Recollections of W. S. Glenn, Buffalo Hunter, p. 6 (PPHM).
“The whole country appeared one mass of buffalo”: Richard Irving Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 284.
“where there were myriads”: Tatum, p. 295.
The idea of attacking Adobe Walls: Quanah’s narrative is from “Chief Quanah Parker’s Account of the Battle of Adobe Walls” as told to General Hugh L. Scott, 1897 (Fort Sill). I have blended his story with Dixon’s firsthand story and with Baker and Harrison’s history.
“to act with vindictive earnestness”: Marszalek, p. 397.
A series of fourteen skirmishes: Adrian N. Anderson, “The Last Phase of Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie’s 1874 Campaign Against the Comanches,” pp. 72–4.
Mackenzie trailed the Comanches: Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer, pp. 151–4.
he set out from Fort Sill: Sturm’s journey is from “The Journal of Ranald S. Mackenzie’s Messenger to the Kwahadi Comanches,” Ernest Wallace, ed.
one of them … took Jones aside: Selden, pp. 1–3.
“I shall let them down as easily”: Pierce, The Most Promising Young Officer, p. 168.
“They fed us like we were lions”: Nye, Carbine and Lance, p. 229.
the Comanche population had been decimated: James M. Haworth, Reports of Agents in Indian Territory, 1878, pp. 58–9 (KCA).
Quanah volunteered: Pierce, Most Promising Officer, p. 169.
“I understand the heads are now preserved”: Haworth, Reports, p. 274.
Quanah insisted that they not be shipped off: William T. Hagan, Quanah Parker, pp. 24–5.
“The plains were literally alive”: Hermann Lehmann, 9 Years Among the Indians, pp. 167–8.
a lone buffalo man named Marshall Sewell: See Scott Zesch, The Captured: A True Story of Abduction by Indians on the Texas Frontier, pp. 215–6.
He “told us that it was useless”: Lehmann, pp. 186–7.
Quanah used a pair of army field glasses: Zesch, p. 220.
“the emergency is pressing”: Nye, p. 250.
The letter was published: Dallas Weekly Herald, June 5, 1875.
“After an Indian custom”: Mackenzie to Isaac Parker, undated (Fort Sill).
“I do not listen to any foolish talks”: Hagan, QP, p. 40.
“all acts … had been considered void”: L. H. Miller to Philemon Hunt, June 4, 1881 (KCA).
The buffalo would emerge again: The Mount Scott buffalo legend is recounted in a display at the Fort Sill Museum.
But the supplies came erratically: Theft and profiteering on the reservation is from Hagan, QP, pp. 18–24.
“The steers were penned in”: “Reminiscence of an Indian Trader,” Chronicles of Oklahoma 14:2, June 1936.
“The herd rushes out”: Dodge, Our Wild Indians, p. 536.
“the place of putrid meat”: Noyes, p. 86.
By the time Quanah and his hunting party arrived: For QP’s first meeting with Goodnight, see Haley, Charles Goodnight, pp. 306–12.
“I got one good friend, Burk Burnett”: Neeley, The Last Comanche Chief, p. 231.
cattlemen went to work cultivating … Indian leaders such as Quanah: Hagan, QP, pp. 28–38.
“He was a fine specimen”: Susan Parker St. John Notebook.
“Quanah Parker started the fight”: Neeley, p. 196.
There were many conflicts of interest: Hagan, QP, p. 39.
“they will have a bully good time”: Burk Burnett to QP, October 24, 1908 (Fort Sill).
a large, swarthy, well-dressed man: Fort Worth Gazette, December 23, 1883.
“He certainly was a wonderful friend”: Interview with Knox Beal, April 15, 1938, Neeley Archives (PPHM).
Quanah first proposed the idea: The building of the Star House is in Hagan, QP, pp. 43–4.
“I did not deem it wise”: Thomas J. Morgan to Charles E. Adams, December 18, 1890, Parker Family File (Museum of the Great Plains).
“Geronimo dipped in”: Neda Parker Birdsong as told to Gillett Griswold, Fort Sill Museum Librarian (Fort Sill).
“Comanches on the War-Path”: St. Louis Globe Democrat, March 27, 1886.
“Me and my people have quit fighting”: Quanah to James Hall, April 7, 1887 (OKHS).
A woman … heard the shots: Byron H. Price, “The Great Panhandle Indian Scare of 1891,” pp. 128–29.
Quanah and his moderate … ally, Apiatin: James Mooney, The Ghost-Dance Religion and the Sioux Outbreak of 1890, pp. 171–73.
The same kind of panic: Author’s interview with Towana Spivey, Fort Sill archivist, June 11, 2009.
“a savage and filthy practice”: Thomas J. Morgan to U.S. Indian agents, July 21, 1890, Neeley Archive (PPHM).
He even banned Indian participation: See “Thomas Jefferson Morgan” in The Commissioners of Indian Affairs, 1824–1977, p. 200.
“The Indians are destined to be absorbed”: Morgan to Indian agents, December 10, 1889, Neeley Archive.
“kill the Indian and save the man”: Richard White, It’s Your Misfortune and None of My Own, p. 113.
“Me no like Indian school”: See “Chief Fought for Progress,” undated (PPHM).
“Like slaves on a plantation”: Hagan, QP, p. 53.
Each wife had a specific set of household duties: David La Vere, Life Among the Texas Indians: The WPA Narratives, pp. 223–24.
“I cannot … ask you to turn him loose”: QP to S. M. McCowan, January 14, 1907, OKHS files.
he met clandestinely: For the fleeing-with-Tonarcy story, see Comanche Ethnography, p. 34. Also, Lena R. Banks Interview, May 5, 1938, WPA 10644, affirmed by Parker family and Towana Spivey in the author’s interviews.
“Now it’s time to kill that white man”: Comanche Ethnography, p. 342.
“one of the finest Indian women in America”: Daily Oklahoman, May 15, 1895, p. 3.
The peyote plant is a small, spineless cactus: Garrett Epps, To an Unknown God: Religious Freedom on Trial, p. 60.
Peyote worship was a direct result: See Epps and Omer Call Stewart, Peyote Religion: A History.
“The white man goes into his church house”: Hagan, QP, p. 57.
“It is a drug habit”: J. J. Methvin, Reminiscences of Life Among the Indians, p. 177.
“My Indians use what they call pectus”: Hagan, QP, p. 75.
The reporter was clearly fixated: Daily Oklahoman, June 25, 1902, p. 5.
“I am not a bad man”: Quanah Tribune, July 9, 1896 (Fort Sill).
Brown … asked to introduce Isaac: Selden, p. 210.
Ross had killed a warrior named Mohee: John Henry Brown, Indian Wars and Pioneers of Texas, p. 42.
“narrative of plain, unvarnished facts”: James T. DeShields, Cynthia Ann Parker: The Story of Her Capture, p. v. Other quotes in this section are from the book.
DeShields’s account became enshrined: “Parker Fort Massacre,” in J. W. Wilbarger, Indian Depredations in Texas, pp. 302–20.
“maudlin, sentimental writers”: Wilbarger, pp. 6–7.
“a popular and trustworthy chief”: Brown, p. 43.
“I sent you plenty of paper”: J. H. Brown to Marion Brown, undated, J. H. Brown Papers, 2 E5 (Briscoe).
“I can scarcely understand anything he says”: Marion T. Brown, Letters from Fort Sill, 1886–1887, p. 33.
The two men sat out in the yard: Ibid., p. 79.
“What will Sul Ross say about Puttack Nocona?”: Ibid., p. 65.
Her father … made no attempt: For discrepancies in J. H. Brown’s book, see pp. 42 and 317.
“No like to come this way”: Marion Brown, p. 63–64.
“Out of respect to the family of General Ross”: See “Cynthia Ann Parker,” an account by QP’s daughter, Neda Birdsong, as told to Paul Wellman, in Barb Wire Times, October 1968.
“The Indian does not want to work”: William T. Hagan, Taking Indian Lands, pp. 42–43.
Commissioner Morgan designated February 8: Hagan, United States-Comanche Relations, p. 166. My account of the Jerome Commission is largely from Hagan and QP’s testimony, September 27, 1892 (KCA).
He felt he had gotten the best deal: Indian Journal, March 15, 1894, p. 4.
“Quanah jumped up in a great rage”: Hugh L. Scott, Some Memories of a Soldier, p. 200.
Lone Wolf v. Hitchcock: Kracht, Benjamin R., “Kiowa-Comanche-Apache Opening.”
Tent cities of 10,000 people each sprang up: Details of the scene of the opening of Oklahoma Tribal lands are from Charles Moreau Harger, “The Government’s Gift of Homes,” Outlook, pp. 907–10.
Theodore Roosevelt … ordered bison heads: Douglas Brinkley, The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for America, p. 630.
a contest between a superior white race: See “The Winning of the West” in Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, pp. 29–62.
“war was inevitable”: Theodore Roosevelt, The Winning of the West, Vol. I, pp. 116–7 and 273–74.
“a race of heroes”: Slotkin, p. 54.
the Comanche chief was “never forgetful”: Hagan, QP, p. 113.
“Roosevelt’s own Buffalo Bill production”: Brinkley, p. 583.
“fully equipped with Indian clothing”: W. A. Mercer to James F. Randlett, January 18, 1905 (KCA).
“good Indians … most of whom had dipped their hands”: Carter, Tragedies of Cañón Blanco, pp. 79–81.
“Give the red man the same chance”: Hagan, QP, p. 183.
Quanah … wore his six-shooter: Charles H. Sommer, “Quanah Parker: Last Chief of the Comanches,” p. 10.
serenaded by cardinals and mockingbirds: Theodore Roosevelt, Outdoor Pastimes of an American Hunter, p. 113.
“It was a thoroughly congenial company”: Roosevelt, p. 114.
Roosevelt mentioned the idea: TR’s buffalo repopulation plan is from Brinkley, p. 609; on the buffalo arrival, see p. 626.
“My mother’s job”: Bill Neeley interview with Anna Birdsong Dean, March 27, 1985 (PPHM).
“This is to certify that Quanah”: W. A. Jones to QP, September 23, 1899 (Fort Sill).
“I wish you to go over to Quanah’s”: Hagan, QP, pp. 107–109.
an Interior Department bureaucrat rejected the request: Acting Commissioner to Charles Adams, March 14, 1891, KCA Files; the files contain many similar examples.
“My grandfather never trusted a white man”: Baldwin Parker Jr., “Quanah Parker Lives,” Focus, Autumn 1985, p. 13.
“Painted, brandishing their bows”: Hagan, QP, p. 102.
he had sat down in a train coach: Susan Parker St. John Notebook.
“The real reason is because he is an Indian”: Oklahoman, November 3, 1906.
“You put me in little pen”: Sommer, p. 10.
Quanah was “a most interesting character”: Adam Parker to Susan Parker St. John, undated, Box 2F 197 (Taulman).
“Quanah is a man worth looking at”: “Story by Ex.-Gov. J.P. St. John’s Wife,” Indian School Journal, October 1909, p. 37.
“Is this the cousin?”: Susan Parker St. John Notebook and quotes that follow.
“Dear Sir, Congress has set aside money”: QP to Governor Thomas Campbell, July 22, 1909 (Fort Sill).
“I see your advertisement”: J. R. O’Quinn to QP, June 19, 1908, Doc 997 (Fort Sill).
“The relatives of Cynthia Ann … did not”: Interview with Mrs. Ambrosia Miller July 5, 1926 (Taulman).
Quanah dispatched … Aubrey C. Birdsong: Aubrey Birdsong interview, February 23, 1959 (Fort Sill).
Birdsong decided to put the bones: Aubrey Birdsong affidavit, September 2, 1956, OKHS.
“I felt that this meant so much to Quanah”: Birdsong interview.
“Are you sure this is my little white mother?”: Birdsong interview in Daily Oklahoman, August 9, 1964.
“I love my mother”: “Cynthia Ann Parker Is Buried for Second Time,” Daily Oklahoman, December 5, 1910, p. 1.
“as you know there is considerable prejudice”: Burk Burnett to QP, October 24, 1905 (Fort Sill).
Quanah spoke to the crowd: Sommer, p. 9, as well as description of the event and other quotes from QP’s speech.
“I run to one side and use this knife”: Ibid. There remains a discrepancy with Carter’s version, in which QP kills Gregg with a pistol.
“I am going to bring some old Indians”: QP to Goodnight, January 7, 1911 (Neeley)
Laura … believed the rheumatism: Laura Birdsong’s account is in an undated letter to Susan Parker St. John, 2F 203 (Taulman).
“Father in heaven, this is our brother”: Lawton Daily News, February 23, 1911, p. 1.
“Every automobile that could be rented”: Cache Register, March 3, 1911. It also gave a detailed account of the funeral day.
“It just seemed as if my heart”: Birdsong letter.
Quanah’s surviving relatives sat down: S. Hilton to Ernest Stecker, May 29, 1911, KCA File 2246 (National Archives).
“richest Indian in America”: See, for example, Carter, p. 80.
“the Indian Who Made Good” Christian Herald, July 26, 1911.
“a beacon of light”: James C. Nance, unidentified news clipping, QP File (Fort Sill).
“Fearless and Effective Foe”: Olive King Dixon, “Some Intimate Glimpses of Quanah Parker,” Fort Worth Star Telegram, April 12, 1936.
The opera, Cynthia Parker : Fanfare, “40 Acres Arias” (Taulman).
The world premiere was held: Dallas Times Herald, February 17, 1939.
the main architects of the … legend: Details of Joseph and Araminta Taulman’s lives are from A Guide to Joseph E. Taulman Collection (Briscoe).
“So many wrong statements”: Joseph Taulman to Mrs. A. C. Birdsong, December 29, 1925, 2F 200 (Taulman).
“I wonder if you are fortunate enough”: Mrs. Birdsong to Taulman, January 17, 1926.
“The market for historical scenarios”: Adeline M. Alford to Araminta Taulman, October 10, 1936, 2F 201 (Taulman).
“On one occasion the Redmen declared war”: The Rachel Plummer Narrative, 1926; the fantasy foreword is signed by “Mrs. Jane Kennedy, Granddaughter of J. W. Parker, Mrs. Rachel Lofton, great granddaughter, and Mrs. Susie Hendrix, granddaughter” (SMU).
a primary school teacher in nearby Mexia: Details of Elsie Hamill’s efforts to learn about the Parker story are from “Mexia Teacher Brought Together White and Indian Descendants,” Mexia Daily News, August 15, 1965 (Baylor).
“Dear Mrs. Hamill,”: Wanada Parker Page to Mrs. Weldon Hamill, April 6, 1952 (Baylor).
the army decided: The story of the army’s campaign to move QP and Cynthia Ann graves is from Angie Debo, “Two Graves in Oklahoma,” Harper’s, December 1956, p. 66; and Douglas C. Jones, “The Grave of Quanah Parker,” Public Relations Quarterly, 1970.
“To tell the truth, Captain”: Houston Chronicle, October 3, 1965, Sect. 3, p. 11.
They left it there: Saving the Star House is from Herbert Woesner speech at Parker Reunion, June 23, 2000; Edward Charles Ellenbrook, “Cache’s Woesner Saves Historic Buildings,” Lawton Constitution, December 9, 2003; author’s interview with Kathy Treadwell Gipson, June 28, 2009.
“It was one of the happiest moments”: Audrey Routh, “Chief Quanah’s Star House and Its 4-Year Trek,” Daily Oklahoman, October 13, 1963.
Ben was born in 1868: Details of Ben Parker’s life are from author’s interview with Jo Nell Parker and her son W. Scott Nicholson, June 9, 2011.
Ben said later he was surprised: Author’s interview with Jim Bob Parker, July 4, 2009. Ben J. Parker told his own version of the Parker legend, “Early Times in Texas and History of the Parker Family” (Taulman).
the orange-backed dime novels: Henry Nash Smith, Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth, p. 91.
One recurring character: Ibid., p. 112.
The first great cowboy novel: Castle Freeman Jr., “Owen Wister: Brief Life of a Western Mythmaker, 1860–1938.”
He is not too fond of foreigners: Owen Wister, The Virginian, pp. 14 and 39.
“a slim young giant”: Ibid., p. 4.
The land was a metaphor: See Richard Slotkin, Regeneration Through Violence, p. 554.
His ancestors were pioneers: Dan LeMay, Alan LeMay: A Biography of the Author of The Searchers, pp. 6–13.
Dan Brown, Alan’s maternal grandfather: Undated note, Box 11 (LeMay Papers).
“in which I accomplished nothing”: Letter dated December 29, 1954, Box 23 (LeMay).
“I’ve also tried several other things”: Ibid.
It was, of course, a Western: Dan LeMay, p. 20.
“a face as friendly in expression”: Alan LeMay, Painted Ponies, p. 6. The plot description and quotations are from the novel.
He broke into the high-end magazines: Dan LeMay, p. 24.
“a completely literate Western”: New York Herald Tribune, July 21, 1935.
“I am now thirty-eight years old”: Dan LeMay, p. 37.
“Dad said they tasted like a steam kettle”: Author’s interview with Dan LeMay.
“The deadline I believe would actually be a help”: Alan LeMay to Max Wilkinson, January 30, 1959, Box 23 (LeMay).
he and Arlene got married: Dan LeMay, p. 44.
“a more primal tint of virility”: Jesse L. Lasky Jr., Whatever Happened to Hollywood? p. 195.
He summoned Alan just days: Dan LeMay, Never Dull, p. 59.
“a hashed-over product”: Ibid., p. 57.
“In social moments, as at dinner”: Ibid., p. 60.
“the world’s most bewildered inner tube”: Ibid., p. 65.
Alan and Arlene’s lifestyle: Ibid., p. 51.
The great Frank Sinatra rented a house: James Kaplan, Sinatra: The Voice, p. 444.
Gary Cooper intervened: For Gary Cooper’s purchase of Useless Cowboy, see Never Dull, p. 147.
“All I want of this business”: Ibid., p. 226.
an original screenplay treatment called African Pitfall: For more on African Pitfall, see Box 1 (LeMay).
It wasn’t long before he found another, similar story: There is an ongoing and perhaps irresolvable conflict among aficionados of The Searchers over the true origins of the novel. Some insist Alan LeMay was inspired by the story of Brit Johnson, a black teamster who ransomed his abducted wife and children from Comanches in 1865. Others point to the story of Millie Durgan, captured as a baby by Kiowas in 1864. LeMay’s papers at UCLA are incomplete and inconclusive. But the parallels between the original story of Cynthia Ann Parker and the book—a nine-year-old girl captured by Comanches in a raid in which family members are slaughtered, her long sojourn as a Comanche, and the obsessive efforts of her uncle to find her—are undeniable. As is LeMay’s journey to Elkhart, Texas, the heart of Parker country, and his visit with Ben Parker, the details of which have never been published before.
He rented office space: Author’s interview with Dan LeMay, June 2008.
“holding the back door of Texas”: Alan LeMay, The Searchers, pp. 4–5. The plot summary and quotations are all from the novel.
LeMay collected information on sixty-four Indian abductions: LeMay Papers, Box 23, and LeMay letter to Mrs. Marcus McMillin, December 12, 1960.
“a big burly figure on a strong but speedless horse”: LeMay, The Searchers, pp. 8–9.
“a quiet boy, dark as an Indian”: Ibid., p. 4.
“It was Martha who would not quit”: Ibid., p. 5.
“This is a rough country”: Ibid., p. 53.
“Did they—was she?”: Ibid., p. 58.
“This don’t change anything”: Ibid., p. 64.
“That’s what scares me, Laurie”: Ibid., pp. 82–83.
“I see now why the Comanches murder”: Ibid., p. 247.
“I believe you’d do it”: Ibid., p. 219.
“That country seemed to have some kind of weird spell”: Ibid., pp. 173–74.
“It tore at them, snatching their breaths”: Ibid., p. 122.
“I have no place,” she tells him: Ibid., pp. 271–72.
“I ain’t larned but one thing about an Indian”: Ibid., p. 32.
“The Comanches themselves seemed unable”: Ibid., p. 68.
“A great deal has been written”: Alan LeMay letter, January 26, 1960, Box 23 (LeMay).
Debbie has “had time to be with half the Comanche bucks”: The Searchers, pp. 203–205.
“In all I wrote about 2,000 pages”: Alan LeMay letter, January 20, 1960 (LeMay).
The Searchers … “represents about all I have”: Alan LeMay to Dolores Napoli, June 9, 1958 (Box 23).
“Its simplicity is one of subtle art”: Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,” NYT, November 3, 1954.
“One of the White House correspondents”: Evan Thomas to Alan LeMay, February 10, 1955 (Harper & Row Papers).
“I am told (not too reliably)”: Alan LeMay to Evan Thomas, November 18, 1954 (Ibid.).
“A running horse remains”: Frank Nugent, “Opening Scenes” in TV and Screen Writing, p. 22.
a template for the Western film: A. O. Scott, “How the Western Was Won,” NYT Magazine, p. 56.
The first moving pictures of Indians: Paul Chaat Smith, Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, p. 44.
One of the first was a short called The Bank Robbery: “Sham Bank Robbery,” Clarion and Indiahoma News, August 21, 1908.
just as Indian characters helped shape movies: Peter C. Rollins and John E. O’Connor, Hollywood’s Indian, p. ix.
“A director can put his whole heart and soul”: Illustrated Daily News (Los Angeles), February 22, 1925 (JFP).
Francis acted in and helped direct: Scott Eyman, Print the Legend, pp. 41–42.
he played a Ku Klux Klansman: Joseph McBride, Searching for John Ford, pp. 77–78.
he teamed up with a dark-eyed actor: Peter Bogdanovich, John Ford, p. 40.
a strapping teenager named Marion Morrison: For Marion Morrison’s regard for Harry Carey, see Garry Wills, John Wayne’s America, 114–15.
The two men went on to make … twenty-three Westerns: Dan Ford, Pappy, p. 18.
“They weren’t shoot-’em-ups”: Bogdanovich, p. 39.
By 1923 he was making almost $45,000 per year: Dan Ford, p. 27.
“When he walked on the set”: Andrew McLaglen interview, The Filmmaker and the Legend (documentary).
“bruised and battered”: Eyman, pp. 131–32.
Born in Georgia of southern aristocrats: For Merian C. Cooper’s life story, see Mark Cotta Vaz, Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper.
he would tear out enough pages: “Man with Camera,” New Yorker, May 30, 1931, p. 25.
“That’s too bad,” said Cooper: Merian Cooper to John Wayne, 1971 (BYU).
Over time Cooper became the middleman: Vaz, p. 250. See also Bea Benjamin interview, p. 1, Box 11, F17 (JFP).
“There was an essence of fear”: Frank Baker interview, July 30, 1977, OH1 (MHL).
“Daddy is what we called … a periodic”: Barbara Ford interview (JFP).
“One drink—he’s the type of person”: Mark Armistead interview (JFP).
“They’d go on his yacht and drink”: McBride interview with author, November 14, 2008.
His “thick eyeglasses protruded”: Maureen O’Hara, ’Tis, Herself: A Memoir, pp. 65–68.
“I looked at its enormity”: Ibid., p. 69.
“I felt my head snap back”: Ibid., p. 104.
Ford … “built walls of secrecy”: Ibid., p. 261.
“one of the most famous leading men”: Ibid., p. 190.
“I didn’t really feel I could act”: Harry Carey Jr. interview with Dan Ford, B11 F18, Reels 3 and 4, p. 14 (JFP).
“Ford was a bully”: Author’s interview with Harry Carey Jr., March 25, 2009.
“I remember Jack … put his head on my breast”: Olive Carey interview (JFP).
“Read this,” Pat told his father: Pat Ford interview by James D’Arc (BYU).
“I went into Dave’s office”: Cooper to Wayne, March 15, 1971 (BYU).
With a wife and four children to support: Randy Roberts and James S. Olson, John Wayne American, p. 117.
“When I started, I knew I was no actor”: Dean Jennings, “John Wayne: The Woes of Box-Office King,” Saturday Evening Post, October 27, 1962.
Thus … “the beginning of the finest relationship”: John Wayne, My Kingdom Is a Horse ms., p. 9 (Zolotow).
“I’d never seen a genius at work before”: Pilar Wayne, John Wayne: My Life with the Duke, p. 19.
“I poured out my troubles to him”: My Kingdom ms., p. 6.
“I walked out of the gate”: Ibid., p. 8.
“I should have complained to Ford”: Ibid., pp. 1–2.
Walsh was looking for a new talent: Interview with Raoul Walsh, April 10, 1972, Box 12, F6 (Zolotow).
“We looked high and low”: Man and Superman draft, “The Making of John Wayne,” p. 204 Box 11, F1 (Zolotow).
“He had a certain western hang”: Ibid., p. 209.
“They came up with John Wayne”: Playboy interview, May 1971.
“Instead of facing me with it”: John Wayne interview (JFP).
John Ford “did not surround himself”: Dan Ford, Pappy, p. 118.
The Gower Gulch cowboys: Diana Serra Carey, daughter of cowhand Jack Montgomery, gives the most detailed and loving account of the horsemen and their work in The Hollywood Posse, dedicated to her parents and “the Gower Gulch men.”
“I studied him for many weeks”: “Lights! Camera! Action!” chapter of My Kingdom ms., p. 9.
“Before I came along”: Ibid., p. 8.
Paul “coached him, he taught him”: Author’s interview with Carey.
“Duke’s basic problem”: Paul Fix, Man and Superman draft, p. 257, B11 (Zolotow).
He believed the pause helped rivet the audience: Joseph McBride note to the author, p. 5.
no one expects Laurence Olivier: Jeanine Basinger, The Star Machine, p. 75.
“I’ve found the character”: “John Wayne—Arnold Michaelis Interview,” Saturday Evening Post, 1962, p. 5.
“We treated them as if they had the same moral code”: Joe McInerney, “John Wayne Talks Tough,” Film Comment, p. 54.
something that was true: David Denby, “Clint Eastwood’s Shifting Landscape,” New Yorker, March 8, 2010, p. 55.
“Christ, if you learned to act”: McBride, p. 280.
“You idiot, couldn’t you play it?”: Ibid., p. 281.
“Can’t you walk, for Chrissake”: Ibid., p. 298.
“Ford took Duke by the chin”: Roberts and Olson, p. 155.
“I was so fucking mad”: McBride, p. 297.
Just like Humphrey Bogart: Denby, p. 55.
“One thing I can’t understand”: Bogdanovich, p. 72.
“Mr. Ford is not one of your subtle directors”: Frank Nugent, “Stagecoach,” NYT, March 3, 1939.
he got to Midway Island: Account of JF’s filming of the Battle of Midway is largely from McBride, pp. 335–7, and Robert Parrish, Growing Up in Hollywood, pp. 144–51.
“Well Jesus, I’m forty years old”: JW interview, Tape 2, Side 4, pp. 4–5 in Box 12, F17 (JFP).
“You represent the American serviceman”: Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, pp. 514–15.
“Duke, can’t you manage a salute”: Lindsay Anderson, About John Ford, p. 226.
“Don’t ever talk to Duke”: Eyman, p. 279.
Argosy, which was partly bankrolled: Vaz, p. 335.
“I never knew the big son of a bitch could act”: McBride, p. 459.
“I don’t think he ever really had any kind of respect”: Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington, John Ford, p. 153.
“It was an emotional reaction”: JW interview, Tape 80, 1 (JFP).
the melancholy authority figure: Wills, p. 13.
“not the world’s greatest actor”: “The Wages of Virtue,” Time, March 3, 1952.
“There is enough unacknowledged sorrow”: A. O. Scott, “How the Western Was Won,” NYT, June 11, 2006.
“His role … was to emerge after the battle”: Wills, p. 197.
“My name is John Ford”: A detailed account of the meeting is in Parrish, pp. 207–10.
three to six packs of cigarettes: Pilar Wayne, p. 103; James Bacon, “John Wayne: The Last Cowboy,” Us, June 27, 1978.
“My dad had tremendous loyalty”: Author’s email interview with Patrick Wayne, February 5, 2009.
“No Western picture”: Frank Gruber, “The Western,” in TV and Screen Writing, pp. 39–44.
MGM offered a 50–50 split: Merian Cooper telegram, December 14, 1954 (CVW)
John Ford got a flat fee: Whitney contract, Nov. 29, 1954, Box 12, F23 (JFP).
“We are busy working on the script”: Ronald L. Davis, John Ford: Hollywood’s Old Master, p. 271.
Ford had intended to make a film: Swindell, pp. 146–47.
“I go out to Arizona, I breathe fresh air”: Ford undated audio interview (MHL).
“a very strange man”: James D’Arc interview with Pat Ford, April 25, 1979 (BYU). Scott Eyman’s Print the Legend has a detailed accounts of Pat’s relationship with JF: see pp. 298–99, 307, 499–500, 507–508, and more.
“Pat was an able guy”: Author’s interview with Dan Ford, March 22, 2009.
“that capon son of a bitch”: O’Hara, p. 179.
“There is no communal life”: Inter-Office Memorandum, February 1, 1955; the account that follows is from Pat Ford’s extensive notes (JFP).
“We hope to portray … with as much barbarism”: JF, “Notes on The Searchers,” January 26, 1955 (JFP).
“Their villages … are scenes of utter squalor”: PF, Notes on The Searchers, January 26, 1955.
“The Indians were to be treated fairly”: Eleanor S. Whitney, Invitation to Joy, p. 5.
“It is important that the costumes”: JF, “Notes” (JFP).
“rough … rugged … cold”: JF memo, p. 3, January 26, 1955 (JFP).
“in the style of Donald O’Connor”: Kathleen Cliffton interview, Side 1, p. 7, Box 11, F20 (JFP). See also Joseph McBride, “The Pathological Hero’s Conscience: Screenwriter Frank S. Nugent Was the Quiet Man Behind John Ford,” Written By, May 2001.
“The Grapes of Wrath … is just about as good as any picture”: Nugent review, NYT, January 25, 1940.
“a very exorbitant salary”: Dave Jampel, “Films More Mature Today, Says Screenwriter Nugent,” Mainichi Daily News, 1961 (FSN).
“My opinion of this script”: Nugent to Zanuck, May 20, 1942 (FSN).
“Dear Frank”: Zanuck to Nugent, May 17, 1944 (FSN).
He even tried unsuccessfully: Nugent to Lester Markel, March 14, 1944 (FSN).
“to get the smell and feel of the land”: Anderson, p. 242. British film critic Lindsay Anderson corresponded with Nugent, Dudley Nichols, and Nunnally Johnson in the early 1950s and published their accounts of screenplay writing for Ford.
“groping like a musician”: Anderson, p. 244.
“He used to fight your grandfather”: James W. Bellah interview, p. 5, Box 11, F16 (JFP).
“just a little right of Attila”: Ronald L. Davis, John Ford, p. 204.
“I liked your script, boys”: McBride, p. 497.
“There’s no such thing as a good script”: Bogdanovich, p. 107.
his favorite “body and fender man”: JF interview, Tape 28 (JFP).
“The difference between his Westerns”: Kevin Nugent interview.
“Character is not shown so much”: Frank Nugent, “Notes on Screenwriting,” January 30, 1947 (FSN).
“Ford never has formally surrendered”: Nugent, “Hollywood’s Favorite Rebel,” Saturday Evening Post, July 23, 1949.
“There is a situation or a condition”: Nugent, “Opening Scenes,” pp. 20–21.
“It is no accident”: Ibid., p. 22. The quotes that follow are also from Nugent’s explanation of how The Searchers begins.
“I know John Wayne is a certain type of man”: Jampel article.
“the bedded-down meadow lark”: LeMay, The Searchers, p. 7.
“Yes … we got a chance”: Ibid., p. 47.
“A Texan is nothing but a human man”: Ibid., p. 53.
“a world of sadness and hopelessness”: Nugent, “Revised Final Screenplay,” p. 9.
“Fella could mistake you for a half-breed”: The actual film dialogue. In the screenplay: “Mistook you for a half-breed,” ibid., p. 4.
“She’s your nothin’ ”: Ibid., p. 49.
Using a letter that Martin writes to Laurie: Ibid, beginning on p. 59.
“Frank worked awfully hard”: Scott Eyman interview of Jean Nugent, p. 1.
“He’d come home at night exhausted”: Kevin Nugent interview.
“What you did was simple”: Harry Carey Jr., In the Company of Heroes, p. 7.
“There was absolutely no chain of command”: Ibid., p. 8.
“I was dropped by the best studios”: Vera Miles quote is repeated constantly, but never with attribution. See http://good-old-hollywood.buzzsugar.com/Vera-Miles.
Natalie’s mother consented: Suzanne Finstad, Natasha: The Biography of Natalie Wood, p. 199.
“They wanted you for that”: “Fess Parker: An Interview with Michael Barrier,” 2003–4, www.michaelbarrier.com/Parker/interview_fess_parker.html.
“You’d like to play the part”: Eyman, p. 444.
another impossibly handsome young actor: see Hunter’s biographical information at www.jeffreyhuntermovies.com.
“nowhere near the type”: Hunter’s account is from Picturegoer, September 29, 1956.
Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney was one of those improbable: Eyman, pp. 442–43. For Whitney’s authorized biography, see Jeffrey L. Rodengen, The Legend of Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney.
They formed a new film company: Vaz, p. 355.
“not for self-aggrandizement”: Thomas M. Pryor, “Hollywood Newcomer,” NYT, April 1, 1956.
“Jack Ford is back and raring to go”: Merian Cooper to C. V. Whitney, January 29, 1955 (CVW).
“I wish to again emphasize to you”: Whitney to Cooper, February 25, 1956 (CVW).
“My husband admired Ford so much”: Eyman interview with Marylou Whitney, p. 3.
“HAVE BEEN WORKING INTENSIVELY ”: Whitney to JF, February 21, 1956, Box 12 (JFP).
“It seems that the market is being flooded”: Whitney to Ford, March 23, 1955 (JFP).
Sonny Whitney “could afford to be a very nice man”: Pat Ford interview (D’Arc).
“A man with that many millions”: Box 21, Tape 23 (JFP).
“My favorite location is Monument Valley”: Peter Cowie, John Ford and the American West, p. 186. For the influence of Charles M. Russell, see also William Howze, “The Influence of Western Painting and Genre Painting on the Films of John Ford.”
Geologists don’t know exactly: Arthur Frankel e-mail to the author, August 5, 2010.
Willa Cather wrote: Willa Cather, Death Comes for the Archbishop, pp. 94–95.
The Navajos loved canned tomatoes: For this and other details of the Gouldings’ early years in Monument Valley, see Sam Moon, Tall Sheep: Harry Goulding, Monument Valley Trader, pp. 46–48.
“It was their lands”: Ibid., p. 29.
Harry “just wandered in”: Pat Ford interview (BYU).
Pat’s father was entranced: For the story of meeting JF, see Moon, p. 145–49.
about ninety seconds of the footage: James D’Arc, When Hollywood Came to Town, p. 208.
It had a double bed: Moon, p. 199.
“It gives me a chance to get away”: Burt Kennedy, “A Talk with John Ford,” Action! September–October 1968, p. 6.
bad weather in Arizona: Daily Production Reports, June 13, 1955, Box 6, F. 22 (JFP).
the Super Chief was the appropriate: For a description of the Super Chief, see www.american-rails.com/super-chief.html.
“A shooting schedule”: Cooper to Whitney, June 15, 1955 (CVW).
They carved roadways: Warner Brothers Presents, March 12, 1956, TV show, narrated by Gig Young (see Searchers DVD).
“The women were installed”: A Turning of the Earth (documentary).
“Wind was an enemy”: Frank Perrett, C. V. Whitney Productions press release, undated, p. 4 (WB).
“adobe, whitewashed but with the bricks showing”: JF Notes, February 10, 1955 (JFP).
Lana Wood recalled: Finstad, p. 171.
The men earned $15 a day: “AGREEMENT between C.V. Whitney Pictures and District Tribal Council (MHL).
“A lot of people came”: Susie Yazzie interview with the author, March 24, 2008.
“When we first went into the Indian reservations”: Bill Libby, “The Old Wrangler Rides Again,” 1964, in JF Interviews, p. 55.
“People have said that on the screen”: Ibid., p. 71.
“We’ll get it off”: The Hosteen Tso story is from Moon, pp. 149 and 153–55.
“the valley was buried”: Eyman, p. 207.
“At Monument Valley I have my own personal tribe”: Ibid., p. 351.
“They were a very dignified people”: Bogdanovich, pp. 94–95.
“My sympathy was always”: Tag Gallagher, John Ford: The Man and His Films, p. 254.
like a horror movie: Slotkin, Gunfighter Nation, p. 361.
“It was a job”: McBride, p. 295.
“The Indian children looked on him”: Chuck Roberson, The Fall Guy, p. 169.
a two-year-old Navajo girl: CVW Productions press release, undated (WB).
he filmed eleven setups: Daily filing from Shooting Schedule and Daily Production Reports of CV Whitney Pictures (JFP).
Ford also shot scenes: Some of the few surviving outtakes contain this ride, which appears in A Turning of the Earth, Nick Redman’s 1998 documentary.
“They had bodies like iron”: Carey, p. 159.
“I like the cowboys”: JF Interview, undated, audio file (MHL).
Lee Bradley … Frank McGrath … Jack Pennick: See A Turning of the Earth.
“We were his personal soldiers”: Roberson, p. 66.
“He never shot in continuity”: Clothier interview, p. 15, Box 11, F21 (JFP).
The man who emerged: For a physical description of JF, see Carey, p. 19.
“It was a feeling of reverence”: Carey interview, p. 13 (JFP).
The two men had been partners: See Carey’s account of JF and Hoch, p. 18.
“Winnie, what do you think?”: Ibid., p. 67.
“images that are so detailed”: Ruthurd Dykstra, “The Search for Spectators,” Kino, p. 1.
“he avoided the temptation”: Winton Hoch, p. 1, Box 12, F3 (JFP).
“Too many directors”: Ken Curtis, p. 4, Box 11, F22 (JFP).
“He didn’t want any rehearsing”: Pippa Scott interview with author, March 24, 2009.
“The actors get tired”: Bogdanovich, p. 99.
“He never let us get into the scene”: Curtis Lee Hansen, “Henry Fonda: Reflections on 40 Years of Make-Believe,” Cinema, p. 15.
“Oh God, how the man would cheat”: Ace Holmes, Box 12, F5, p. 20 (JFP).
“He had all his people there”: Chuck Hayward, Box 12, F1, p. 2 (JFP).
The average film director: For a discussion of master shots, over-the-shoulder shots and coverage, see 4 Filmmaking website: http://production.4filmmaking.com/cinematography1.html.
“John Ford shoots a picture”: Wingate Smith, Box 12, F15, p. 3 (JFP).
“If you give them a lot of film”: Gallagher.
There were thirty-three drivers, five five-ton trucks: Daily Production Report, June 13, 1955, Box 6, F22 (JFP).
Sonny Whitney … arrived by Cessna: Whitney telegram, June 14, 1955 (CVW).
“Crockery flew”: Eleanor Searle Whitney, p. 5.
“I would surely like to give her”: Whitney to Cooper, May 3, 1955 (CVW).
The superrich … “look upon everything”: E. S. Whitney, p. 122.
“Whitney had been a polo player”: Pat Ford interview by D’Arc.
Sonny “came riding up and he was proud”: Terry Wilson, Box 12, F19, p. 19 (JFP).
Smart Set column in the New York Journal-American: October 14, 1955.
“We were scared to death”: Pat Ford interview.
“Two things make Western pictures”: George Stevens, Conversations with the Great Moviemakers, p. 243.
Two stuntmen went down: Production Notes, June 22, 1955 (JFP).
“I don’t think he was terribly well”: Pippa Scott interview.
“he liked to push people”: McBride, pp. 567–68.
Even Ford’s beloved stuntmen felt his wrath: Roberson, p. 160.
“When will you learn to ride”: Ibid., p. 161.
“The whole relationship was something”: Scott interview.
He lit one Camel after another: Carey, p. 36.
“My father would say”: Patrick Wayne interview.
“When I looked up at him in rehearsal”: Carey, p. 170.
“Was she … ? Did they … ?”: Nugent, Revised Final Screenplay, p. 41.
“He didn’t say a word”: Carey, p. 172.
“He was very sweet with me”: Scott interview.
“I was his godson”: Pat Wayne interview.
“He used no technical terms”: Louis Pollock, “Alone–but Not for Long,” Motion Picture 46:550, November 1956.
“When I crossed my arm”: From The American West of John Ford, CBS documentary, December 5, 1971, p. 30 (JFP).
“Everybody thinks I’m crazy”: Olive Carey, pp. 21–3 (JFP).
July Fourth, they took a break: The description of the festivities is from the Carey interview and McBride, p. 555.
“More than having received the Oscars”: JF Interviews, p. 71.
RKO-Pathé Studio in Culver City: For a description of the studio’s history, see www.seeing-stars.com/studios/culverstudios.shtml.
“Captain, the Reverend Samuel Johnson Clayton!”: Revised Final Screenplay, pp. 12–14.
“She slugged me”: Pippa Scott interview.
“I remember being very unnerved”: A Turning of the Earth (documentary).
He once told Fred Zinnemann: McBride, p. 161.
some of the scenes “could have been shot”: Bosley Crowther, NYT, May 31, 1956.
Some of the captives … “have been enslaved”: JF Story Notes, February 15, 1955 (JFP).
“It’s hard to realize they’re white”: Screenplay, p. 74.
“Helluva shot”: Peter Bogdanovich, Who the Hell’s in It, p. 289.
“‘I’m sorry, girl’ he tells her”: Screenplay, p. 111.
“I wonder, did they box themselves in a corner?”: Author’s interview with James D’Arc.
Ford had shot 187,402 feet of film: Daily Production Report (JFP).
Max Steiner took over: Steiner’s biography is from Thomas Kiefner, “Max Steiner,” in Film Music: The Neglected Art, February 13, 2008.
“as a kind gesture”: James D’Arc notes to The Searchers music CD.
“that is completely haunting”: JF Story Notes, January 28, 1955, p. 2 (JFP).
Ford turned to Stan Jones: Jones’s bio is from Carey, pp. 91–94, and Stan Jones, www.westernmusic.com/performers/hof-jones-stan.html.
“You’ve got a guy alone”: Bogdanovich commentary on The Searchers DVD.
“I am sorry you are not altogether satisfied”: Whitney to Steiner, December 9, 1955, (CVW).
The Searchers “goes down as my favorite”: Whitney to JF, December 9, 1955 (CVW).
“The picture is brutal in spots”: Walter MacEwen to Jack Warner, December 5, 1955 (WB).
Whitney was eager to get paid: See Warner to Whitney, October 25 and November 11, 1955; Whitney to Warner, November 2, 1955 (CVW).
“Frankly I have been very disappointed”: Cooper to Warner, March 10, 1956 (BYU).
“a myth based on other myths”: Tag Gallagher, “Angels Gambol Where They Will,” The Western Reader, p. 272.
“icons of savage violent beauty”: Ibid.
“I wish Uncle Ethan was here”: Searchers screenplay, p. 20.
“You speak good American”: Ibid., p. 83. But in the screenplay Scar does not make his classic reply.
“These shots … are among the treasures”: Roger Ebert, “The Searchers,” November 25, 2001.
“organic, not imposed on him”: This and subsequent quotes are from Robert Warshow, “Movie Chronicle: The Westerner,” in The Western Reader, p. 36.
“The pictures … end with his death”: Ibid., p. 40.
“What these apologists forget”: Jon Tuska, The American West in Film, pp. xix, 61, 58, and 237.
Native Americans themselves: JoEllen Shively’s PhD thesis: Cowboys & Indians: The Perception of Western Films Among American Indians and Anglo-Americans.
“asking Indians to watch a John Wayne Western”: Tom Grayson Colonnese, “Native American Reactions to The Searchers,” in Eckstein and Lehmann, p. 335.
Scar cannot let go: Ibid., p. 342.
“Come along, Mrs. Pauley”: Screenplay, p. 63. Martin’s kick is in the script, p. 65.
“Do you know what Ethan will do?”: Ibid., pp. 103–104.
“The film is not an aberration”: McBride and Wilmington, p. 148.
“When Ethan picks up Debbie”: Michael Munn, John Wayne: The Man Behind the Myth, p. 176.
“Undoubtedly one of the greatest”: Hollywood Reporter, March 13, 1956.
“one of the greatest”: Motion Picture Herald, March 17, 1956.
“a rip-snorting Western”: NYT, May 31, 1956.
“strange but fascinating”: Film Bulletin, March 19, 1956.
“the lapses in logic” Time, June 25, 1956, p. 60.
“Racism was so endemic”: McBride interview.
“an unmistakable neurotic”: Anderson, p. 156.
“How can I hate John Wayne”: Lesley Stern, The Scorsese Connection, p. 38.
“You know, I just don’t understand”: McInerney, p. 55.
“Ethan Edwards … was probably the most fascinating character”: JW voice-over in The American West of John Ford (documentary), 1971.
“It made a lot of money”: McBride and Wilmington, p. 45.
“The worst piece of crap”: Pappy, p. 290.
“The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance is a serious assault”: Tara Brady, “In praise of an old Hollywood master,” Irish Times, June 7, 2012.
“Young people, including film students”: Peary, p. ix.
“I am not a poet”: Ibid., p. xvi.
A pivotal article: Joseph McBride and Michael Wilmington, “Prisoner of the Desert,” Sight and Sound, Autumn 1971.
“I wanted to be Scar”: From The Searchers: An Appreciation (documentary).
“So you wanna be a picture maker”: By John Ford (documentary).
“He was a great artist”: A Turning of the Earth (documentary).
As executive producer of Cowboys & Aliens: Rick Marshall, “Cowboys & Aliens’ Co-Writer Says Flick’s ‘Originality’ Sets It Apart,” April 27, 2011.
“Ford’s in my mind”: “War Horse and the Influence of John Ford on Steven Spielberg,” November 27, 2011.
“an unholy alliance of critics”: Byron, p. 45.
“a spoiled masterpiece”: Richard Schickel, “The Man Who Shot the West,” NYT Book Review, January 9, 2000.
“a peculiarly formal and stilted movie”: Pauline Kael, 5,001 Nights at the Movies, p. 662.
“The pressure of the film”: Jonathan Lethem, “Defending The Searchers,” Tin House, Winter 2001.
“His persona gathers in one place”: Lethem, “The Darkest Side of John Wayne,” Salon, July 1997.
“preposterous in its plotting”: Stephen Metcalf, “The Worst Best Movie,” Slate, July 6, 2006.
“Writers are forgotten people”: Gary Arnold, “Hero’s Welcome for The Searchers,” Washington Post, September 23, 1979.
feminist social critic Susan Faludi: See The Terror Dream, 2007.
“We worked together”: Author’s interview with James D’Arc.
“I’ve had people searching”: Author’s interview with Leith Adams, June 23, 2009.
The fierce Texas sun was incinerating: The author attended Quanah Parker Reunion on the one hundredth anniversary of QP’s death.
“May the Great Sprit smile”: Recorded on a monument outside Quanah’s City Hall.
Wayne took visitors for a drive: Author’s interview with Wayne Gipson, June 10, 2011.
“I don’t believe in restoring”: Herbert Woesner remarks, Parker Reunion, June 23, 2000.
“For us it’s a sacred place”: Author’s interview with Ron Parker, June 13, 2008.
“They say there was no jealousy”: Ardith Parker Leming tour, June 12, 2009.
“In the event these temporary measures”: “Structural Stabilization Report: Star House,” no author or date.
“Lots of people had wanted to buy it”: Author’s interview with Kathy Gipson Treadwell.
“There are people showing up”: Gipson interview.
“I know there are a lot of missing pieces”: Author’s interview with Dorothy Poole, July 9, 2008.
“We are shape shifters”: Paul Chaat Smith, Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong, p. 58.