Wild Bill

by Tom Clavin

  The crowds were not put off by the sketchy acting and poor dialogue. “The money was flowing in,” Louisa Cody recalled. “Bad as the ‘stars’ knew their play to be, it was what the public wanted, and that was all that counted. Week after week they played to houses that were packed to the roofs, while often the receipts would run close to $20,000 for the seven days. It was more money than any of us ever had dreamed of before.”

  Hickok felt like he was risking his integrity and dying a bit with every performance because he became further convinced that acting was a foolish occupation. One night, hoping to escape attention, he took one of his real pistols and shot out the spotlight that had been fixed on him. The audience applauded the dramatic reality of the production as well as Hickok’s famous marksmanship.

  There may have been another, much more serious reason for this incident. Hickok’s vision continued to deteriorate. Sensitivity to light was one symptom of whatever the true ailment was. When he was out and about during daylight hours (which was not often), Hickok sported a pair of dark-hued spectacles. Supposedly, during performances, when he could not protect his eyes with glasses, the theater’s lights were bothersome, especially a spotlight trained on him. It could be that on the night of the shooting, his frustration boiled over.

  Cody was not pleased with such unpredictable and destructive behavior, especially when payment for damage came out of his pocket. He and Texas Jack ad-libbed when Hickok went blank onstage or gagged on Buntline’s dialogue. When they realized that Hickok gave a more natural and compliant performance after a few shots of whiskey, they encouraged imbibing before the curtain went up—until one night. One scene had Wild Bill, Texas Jack, and Buffalo Bill passing around a bottle as they sat at a campfire offering stories about adventures on the Great Plains. Fed up with the iced tea the bottle contained, Hickok suddenly spit it out and shouted, “You must think I’m the worst fool east of the Rockies that I can’t tell whiskey from cold tea!” He then called offstage for someone to bring him a bottle of real whiskey.

  The audience cheered in agreement. A bottle was produced, and Wild Bill took a long pull and then told a story as casually as if he’d been sitting at a gaming table in an Abilene saloon. That was the good news. The bad news was from that night on, Hickok wanted whiskey before and during each performance. His acting became even more unpredictable, and during his scenes with Pale Dove, according to Cody, Hickok “grew fonder of the heroine onstage than the script stipulated.” This added to the tension already percolating offstage between Texas Jack and Arizona John Burke caused by the latter trying to steal away the affections of the beautiful Miss Morlacchi.

  Critics finally gave up on panning Scouts of the Plains, and audiences kept flocking to it through the fall of 1873 and the winter. As spring approached, Cody and Burke decided to get out of New York while the getting was good and to take the show on the road. By this time, Hickok had settled into the city life well enough, especially the saloons and high-quality liquor—which, thanks to the handsome and steady paychecks, he could afford. While still having a reserved personality, he enjoyed the attention and deference given to a celebrity. So Hickok was not keen on going on tour. He was overruled. The demand for the production was out there, and he couldn’t welsh on a contract.

  The troupe’s first stop that spring would be Titusville, Pennsylvania, known for hosting the nation’s first oil boom. This did not tempt Hickok from the city comforts, but he packed his bags and went along.

  Beginning with Titusville, the players found even more appreciative audiences. In New York, there was no longer much excitement about Wild Bill Hickok and Buffalo Bill Cody being in town, especially in such a wheezing vehicle as Scouts of the Plains. In towns and smaller cities, however, the arrival of the two legends generated much excitement—and ticket sales.

  The troupe got off the train in Titusville and checked into their hotel, which was adjacent to the theater. To kill the few hours before the first performance, Hickok, Cody, Texas Jack, and Burke went downstairs to play billiards in the parlor. But just outside the door, they were stopped by the hotel’s manager, who explained that presently playing billiards were several oil-field roughnecks who had made noises about challenging the Cody company to a game or anything else competitive. The manager begged them to avoid a confrontation. Cody agreed and persuaded the others to return to their rooms.

  Though they had been friends since before the Civil War, somehow Cody had underestimated Hickok’s competitive nature. Later, while Burke and Buffalo Bill were at the theater making sure all was ready for the local debut of Scouts of the Plains, Hickok stepped into the billiard room. He didn’t know what to expect and was prepared for anything … except for what happened. One of the hulking oil men clapped a hand on his shoulder and said, “Hello, Buffalo Bill. We’ve been waiting for you all day.”

  Hickok had been greeted with a lot worse than being confused with Cody, so with a grin he removed the man’s hand and said he was not Buffalo Bill. He was informed that he was a liar. Bristling, Hickok replied, “You’re another.”

  The hotel manager had rushed next door to alert Cody about a possible confrontation. He and Burke arrived to find Hickok in the midst of fighting five large men. Actually, they did not witness the brawl, just heard the commotion within, then quiet; then a barely ruffled Hickok emerged from the parlor. He reported that he had subdued the “hostiles” by knocking the apparent leader out with one punch and disposing of the others with a solid wooden chair. “They won’t bother us anymore,” Hickok declared. Then, whistling, he went up to his room to ready for that evening’s performance. Cody and Burke had to applaud the one he had already given.

  During the spring and into the summer of 1874, the Scouts of the Plains tour was successful. There were no further confrontations reported. A close call was in Portland, Maine, when the troupe was staying at the United States Hotel. After one night’s show, a tired Hickok voted against hitting a saloon and instead repaired to his room before midnight. Soon after he drifted off, there was a burst of shouting from the next room. Irritated, and clad only in a nightshirt, he went out in the hallway and knocked on the door. It was opened to reveal several of the city’s prominent business leaders using the room as a gambling den. Hickok’s irritation faded as the men offered him a seat at their poker table and access to their bottle of whiskey.

  By dawn, he was up seven hundred dollars and feeling more refreshed than if he had enjoyed uninterrupted slumber. Grinning, Hickok said, “Let that be a lesson to you gentlemen about destroying a man’s sleep,” and he pushed the cash into a pocket. True, the men were out the money, but no doubt it was worth it to for years tell the story about an all-night poker session with Wild Bill Hickok in a nightshirt.

  But being on the road, with no end in sight and with audiences continuing to lap up the “slop,” was wearying. And if indeed there was a light-sensitivity issue, it was probably painful for Hickok, too. One stop had the production in Rochester, and during a show, a footlight lamp exploded as he sat near it. The sudden searing light was like knives in his eyes. A doctor was called and treated them with some drops and later fitted him with glasses with thick blue lenses. Hickok was not only embarrassed—even more than by having to still be reciting Buntline’s dialogue—about wearing the odd contraption but concerned that others might come to realize his eye issues were not temporary.

  Either he decided it was time to go or the barely suppressed frustration did it for him. One night, standing in the wings with Louisa Cody, Hickok exclaimed, “Ain’t this foolish? Ain’t it now? What’s the use of getting out there and making a show of yourself? I ain’t going to do it!”

  A couple of nights later, Hickok simply left the production. He had played another practical joke on a few “Indians” with the pistol of blanks, and Cody asked him again to behave himself. Without a word, Hickok took off his buckskin outfit, put on his usual clothes, and left the theater. He had the stage carpenter deliver a message to Cody: “That long-h
aired gentleman, who walked out a few minutes ago, requested me to tell you that you could go to thunder with your old show.” He was done with show business this time for certain … or so he thought.

  Though the production had often played to full theaters for close to a year, Hickok had not saved much of his salary, having spent it on top-shelf liquor and gambling. So, before he left Rochester, Cody and Texas Jack—who despite everything else remained his devoted friends—ponied up a thousand dollars as a gift for their departing cast member. Then Hickok and Scouts of the Plains went their separate ways.3

  There was another reason for Hickok’s distress: Agnes Lake was in Rochester. Once more, she was on tour, this time with the 1874 edition of her circus. She may have noticed an advertisement for Scouts of the Plains or he saw one for the circus, but in any case, they were reunited, albeit briefly. Whatever feelings had been kindled in Abilene were still there between them.

  Several accounts offer what was said between them during apparently their only meeting in Rochester (some suggest the meeting was in New York) … and they can be considered fiction, because there were no witnesses and no letters or journal entries. One version by Frank Wilstach even has Hickok saying, “Fact is, I’d be mighty glad to hitch up in harness with you, because I think we’d make a splendid team.” Even Ned Buntline would be hard-pressed to dash off such dialogue. It is believed that the two did not try to hide their feelings—Wild Bill and Agnes were not adolescents but thirty-six and forty-seven, respectively—and may well have discussed marriage. If Hickok proposed, one hopes it was in a way that did not view Agnes as a mule.

  The most likely scenario is that once again the two had crossed paths when both were unwilling or unable to give up what they were doing in their lives. Agnes had a circus to run and a payroll to meet and a daughter to support who was on her way to eclipsing her mother’s achievements as a circus star. Perhaps if Hickok was willing to sign on to help her … But he wasn’t so inclined. He was stuck in Scouts of the Plains, and as much as he liked Agnes, helping her run a circus was more than he could stomach at that particular time. Also, it was clear to him how much energy and effort Agnes put into the circus, top to bottom. That wouldn’t leave much left over for a new husband.

  So the circus, with Agnes Lake, moved on, a full summer of engagements lying ahead. Soon after, Hickok had his meltdown and declared he was done with Scouts of the Plains. He pocketed the thousand-dollar gift, packed his bag, and took the train out of Rochester.

  Unlike his last retreat after a failed production, Hickok did not head to Kansas City. He had mostly enjoyed his stay in New York, and he decided to pay the city another visit. While he could have suffered an unlucky streak in Kansas City, the unhappy fact was that gambling was not good to him in New York, either. He was already in a foul mood over this when he was informed that a production of Scouts of the Plains with even fewer theatrical standards and an actor billing himself as Wild Bill Hickok was playing in Binghamton. Incensed, Hickok took a train there.

  Indeed, such an imitation was being performed in Binghamton. Hickok attended that night, sitting in the first row. He was appalled by what he saw—not just that it was a second-rate version of what had been a third-rate play to begin with, but seeing it from the perspective of the audience, Hickok was intensely embarrassed to have been in it.

  During a scene when “Hickok” is fighting off several Comanche warriors, the real Wild Bill could not take it anymore. He jumped up onto the stage. A manager rushed from the wings to stop him, and Hickok tossed him into the orchestra pit. He then punched his impersonator, sending him through the cheap background scenery. As the curtain came down, Hickok stepped off the stage and went back to his seat, announcing to the audience that it was now okay for the show to go on.

  The cast, however, was too frightened to reappear, and the curtain stayed down. A policeman came down the aisle and told Hickok he was under arrest. Insulted that there was just the one police officer, Hickok told him that he would need help with the arrest. The cop believed him and waited until another officer arrived. “Better get more help,” Hickok told the uniformed duo. Finally, a sheriff showed up and asked politely, “Now, Mr. Hickok, will you accompany us to the jail?”

  He did. He spent the night in the Binghamton brig. The next morning, a judge fined him three dollars, and then Wild Bill Hickok headed to the train station. Now he was done with show business.

  Chapter Seventeen

  THE CHEYENNE LOAFER

  It would be George Armstrong Custer who gave Wild Bill Hickok fresh purpose. First, however, the aging gunfighter endured a period of wandering and wasting time and watching the American West begin to pass him by.

  To recover from the experiences in show business, and finally done with New York, Hickok returned to where he was most comfortable, the saloons and gaming tables of Kansas City, Topeka, and Independence. He had no job waiting for him and no prospects. He had earned money from gambling before, and he expected to do so again. He had no interest in patrolling the streets as a lawman again or in enduring the rigors of the trail as an army scout, even though veteran scouts were in even greater demand because of renewed resistance among the Plains Indian tribes. From time to time, Hickok interrupted the daily gambling schedule to put on shooting exhibits. Though his eyes continued to bother him, no one seemed to notice that his feats were not as impressive as they had once been.

  Even with the Washita Massacre in 1868 and the court-martial for abandoning his troops, by the summer of 1874, Lieutenant Colonel Custer was back in favor with his military superiors. He and his Seventh Cavalry were chosen to undertake a mission into the Black Hills of South Dakota.

  It was not overlooked that the Treaty of Fort Laramie signed in November 1868 ending what was called Red Cloud’s War prohibited the U.S. Army from making just such excursions into Paha Sapa, what the Lakota Sioux called the Black Hills: “No persons except those designated herein shall ever be permitted to pass over, settle upon, or reside in the territory described in this article.” It was precisely for the protection of that area that the war had begun in the first place, in 1866. Despite requests, complaints, and then warnings about too many migrants along the Bozeman Trail and the construction of forts, the influx of whites only grew stronger, especially in the year after the Civil War when the Bluebellies could turn their eyes from the South to the West.

  Red Cloud, seconded by his wartime protégé Crazy Horse, launched a series of attacks leading up to the most devastating one on December 21, 1866. Captain William Fetterman led his eighty men into an ambush, and all were killed by the coalition of Sioux, Cheyenne, and Arapaho who had rallied around Red Cloud. That the civilians and remaining soldiers at Fort Phil Kearny in northeast Wyoming were not also wiped out was due to a sudden and violent winter snowstorm that persuaded the tribes that they should make haste to their winter encampments.

  Given the power and prestige of Red Cloud and the blood that had been spilled at the Fetterman Massacre1 and other engagements, the administration of President Andrew Johnson tried to make the 1868 Fort Laramie Treaty work. Three forts along the Bozeman Trail were abandoned (and subsequently burned to the ground by Red Cloud), and army patrols turned away those who tried to explore or even just pass through the region. The Black Hills was not just a piece of territory the Sioux did not want violated but their most sacred place—a translation of Paha Sapa is “the Heart of Everything That Is.” Intruding there, above anyplace else, would risk the resumption of war.

  But six years later, the situation was different. Red Cloud, at fifty-three, had retired as a war chief. Crazy Horse was still two years away from joining up with Sitting Bull and their rendezvous with the Seventh Cavalry at Little Bighorn. The pent-up pressure of whites seeking to explore and exploit the Great Plains was greater, and bans on where they could go were being ignored. The army units on that frontier were in an unfamiliar position, having to transition from protection to crowd control.

  And while th
e Grant administration officially adhered to the Fort Laramie Treaty, there were individuals within who were already plotting its demise. “I am inclined to think that the occupation of this region of the country is not necessary to the happiness and prosperity of the Indians,” wrote Columbus Delano, the secretary of the interior, “and as it is supposed to be rich in minerals and lumber it is deemed important to have it freed as early as possible from Indian occupancy. I shall, therefore, not oppose any policy which looks first to a careful examination of the subject.”

  The treaty’s fate was sealed when there were rumors of the richest mineral of all being present: gold.

  Since the California gold rush of the late 1840s, gold strikes anywhere in the West had attracted prospectors, shopkeepers, entrepreneurs, and others looking to get rich. This was especially true in 1874, with the United States gripped by the Panic of 1873. Overspeculation in the railroad industry, inflation, and a large trade deficit had resulted in a depression that would last for six years, with unemployment peaking at 8.25 percent. What better time could there be for a gold strike to tantalize the thousands of workers idled by the economy and businessmen gone bust?

  In July of 1874, frustrated by the rumor of gold, the army was doing its best to keep white people out of the Black Hills, which straddled the borders of South Dakota and Wyoming. It was determined that the rumor had to be confirmed or dispelled. Lieutenant Colonel Custer was ordered to lead a thousand soldiers and several geologists and miners from Fort Abraham Lincoln on the west bank of the Missouri River in North Dakota south into the Black Hills and do some exploring. Yes, this was a clear and deliberate violation of the treaty. But the Sioux were not equipped to do much about it but hope the Custer expedition would find nothing and return to where it came from.