The Searchers

by Glenn Frankel

  This was not the version that most of the Comanche Parkers believe in, but no one seemed angry or tried to challenge Carlson’s account. The legend of Cynthia Ann was so entrenched in their minds that no one could harm it. It had sustained them for generations, honored their name, and made them special through good times and bad. “We’re not just Native Americans, we’re a cross section of America because of Cynthia Ann Parker,” Ron Parker had told me when I first met him in 2008. “I’m a Parker because my great-grandfather loved his mother. He never forgot her after they took her away, and he took his mother’s name.”

  Baldwin Parker Jr., age ninety-three, at the family reunion in Quanah, Texas, marking the hundredth anniversary of his grandfather’s death.

  Paul Carlson continued. Sul Ross and his Texas Rangers didn’t capture her at the Pease River battle, he insisted; U.S. Cavalry troopers did, but Ross took all the credit. The battle itself was a massacre that Ross and his supporters managed to repackage as a glorious military triumph. Carlson said he and his coauthor, Tom Crum, studied nineteen separate accounts from nine alleged participants, all of them partial and contradictory. Ross himself gave six different versions over the years, he added. Several of the most vivid accounts came from men who were not even at the site when the fight occurred. “But not having participated did not prevent them from reporting what they did not see,” said an indignant Paul Carlson.

  The argument could never end because it was not about specific facts so much as their larger meaning. Were the Comanches noble warriors or murderers and rapists? Were the bloody clashes between them and the Texans battles or massacres? Was Cynthia Ann Parker the ultimate Texas heroine or the ultimate victim? Were Comanches the victims or the perpetrators of their own demise? Was the Savage War of Peace and the Conquest of the American Frontier justified or immoral? Whose myth is real?

  “We are shape shifters in the national consciousness, unwanted reminders of disagreeable events,” writes Paul Chaat Smith, a Comanche who is associate curator of the National Museum of the American Indian in Washington. “Indians have to be explained and accounted for, and somehow fit into the creation myth of the most powerful, benevolent nation ever; the last best hope of man on earth … We’re trapped in history. No escape.”

  THE NEXT MORNING, Don and Ron Parker and their cousin Bruce traveled out to the Pease River with a small entourage consisting of Lucia St. Clair Robson, author of a romantic historical novel called Ride the Wind about Cynthia Ann; Tom Crum, the retired Texas judge who co-wrote the Pease River massacre book with Paul Carlson; and Tom’s son Carl, a documentary filmmaker based in Fort Worth.

  The caravan bounced down narrow dirt lanes, past the site of a Texas state marker located in the wrong place and inscribed with the wrong date for the battle, past salt cedar trees, bear grass, sagebrush, dove weed, prickly pear cactus, sand drop seed, and windmill grass, all of it going brown and brittle from the June heat invasion. Virtually none of this vegetation existed 150 years ago when waves of buffalo regularly swept through the area like Noah’s flood, stomping or devouring every growing thing in their path. “It would have been bare and flat as a billiard table,” said Tom Crum, who led the way. “You could see everything.”

  The drought had sucked dry most of the wide bed of the Pease River, and Mule Creek was just a memory. Crum stood in the middle where a freshwater stream once flowed and told the story one more time: how Ross and Spangler in the early morning rain had observed the nine grass huts of the Comanche encampment from a ridge two hundred yards away; how Ross led his tired men forward while Spangler and his troopers flanked the camp from behind; how the Comanche women and children panicked and ran from the surprise attack; how Ross and his men ran down and shot the old warrior on horseback; how Cynthia Ann cried out “Americano! Americano!” as the trooper pointed his gun in her face.

  Don Parker lit a small clump of sage and sent the smoke in four directions. Then he reached into the cedar case he carried like a doctor’s kit for rituals and solemn occasions and pulled out eagle feathers and a gourd. He gently shook the rattle as he sang the “Bull Eagle Song,” about an eagle who flew so high it went into orbit around the earth. “This is holy ground to me,” said Don when he had finished.

  Then he put the items back in the case and snapped it shut. The participants climbed into their pickup trucks and cars and roared away. The Quanah Parker Family Reunion was over for another year.

  Acknowledgments

  Some book projects sneak up on you. When I first thought of writing about The Searchers, I had in mind a modest coffee table book for the film’s fiftieth anniversary in 2006. That’ll be the day. Six years, eleven states, and maybe 20,000 miles later, the result is far more ambitious, sweeping, and unwieldy, and boasts, as they used to say in Hollywood, a cast of hundreds, if not thousands. In researching this story, I covered vast amounts of ground ranging from the former Indian agencies of southwest Oklahoma to the high limestone plains of North Texas, to the stunning vistas of Monument Valley to the studios, archives and other man-made landmarks of Hollywood. Not to mention some wonderful side trips to Bloomington, Indiana, where the John Ford Papers reside; Provo, Utah, where James D’Arc has built an extraordinary archival film collection; Boston University, keeper of the Frank S. Nugent papers; Winterset, Iowa, birthplace of Marion Morrison, and Fallbrook, California, home of Dan LeMay, Alan’s oldest son and keeper of his father’s literary legacy.

  The journey began at Stanford University, where I worked as a visiting professor of journalism between 2006 and 2010, with two essential courses. Richard White’s “A History of No Place: The Creation of the North American West” lecture class was a powerful and lyrical introduction to the legends and reality of the settling of the West. Scott Bukatman’s “Being John Wayne” seminar gave me the opportunity to study the actor and icon with an inspired teacher and a group of bright, engaging film students. Every paragraph about John Wayne in this book was informed by our discussions in this class and by Scott’s deep insights and infectious enthusiasm.

  I owe many more debts of gratitude. The proud members of Quanah Parker’s extended family treated me with extraordinary warmth and hospitality over multiple trips to Cache, Oklahoma, and three annual family reunions, starting in 2008. My deepest thanks to Ron and Don Parker, Totsiyah Parker, Ardis Parker Leming and her husband Glen, Baldwin and Marguerite Parker, Rebecca Parker, and Jacquetta J. McClung; plus their adopted kinfolk, including Anna Tahmahkera, Russell Neese, Chuck Waltrip, and Paul and Linda Davis; and W. Scott Nicholson and Jo Nell Parker, on the Texan side of the family. Thanks, too, to Donna Lindsay, my canny and well-informed guide to Cache, and to the Woesner clan: Wayne Gipson, Ginger Gipson-Seibold, and their wonderful mother, the late Kathy Treadwell.

  Many fine experts in Texas and Comanche history helped guide me as well: Paul H. Carlson of Texas Tech in Lubbock, Tom Crum of Granbury, Texas, H. R. Fehrenbach of San Antonio, Margaret Hacker of the National Archives in Fort Worth, Pekka Hämäläinen of the University of California at Santa Barbara, Sarah McReynolds of Old Fort Parker, Joaquín Rivaya-Martínez of Texas State University in San Marcos, Garvin Tate of Rockwall, Texas, and David D. Turner of Copper Breaks State Park. A special thanks to many librarians and archivists along the way, including Deborah A. Baroff, of the Museum of the Great Plains in Lawton; Scarlett Daughery at the Hardeman County Historical Museum in Quanah, Texas; Towana Spivey of the Fort Sill Museum and Archive, who is a national treasure of Comanche history and lore and who loaned me Jo Ruffin, a volunteer worker, for a long day in the archive, and Warren Stricker, director of research at the Panhandle Plains Museum. Thanks, too, to Parker family geneaologist Doris Cozart, who ran her own small library out of a former coffee shop in Chillicothe, Texas; Dorothy Poole at the Log Cabin Village in Fort Worth; Joel Lowry, DDS, who showed my wife and me around the site of the Pease River battle located on his property; Bob Montrose and Herbert Riley, who helped us find Cynthia Ann’s original gravesite and recounted their r
ole as grade school boys in helping clean up and restore the cemetery for the Texas Centennial in 1936; and novelist Lucia St. Clair Robson for her hard-won insights and high spirits.

  Dan Ford, grandson of the late director, granted me complete access to the John Ford Papers at Lilly Library at Indiana University and consented to interviews and countless email consultations. John Ford was a very private and difficult man, but he was so proud of his grandson’s military service as an Army officer in Vietnam that he cooperated with Dan’s book project, Pappy. The interviews Dan conducted in the 1970s with his grandfather, friends, and coworkers, along with the personal and professional papers Dan retrieved from his grandfather’s attic, constitute the invaluable primary material for anyone researching John Ford’s life and work.

  Dan LeMay was generous in granting me an interview and access to his own research into his father’s life and times, even accompanying me to review Alan LeMay’s papers at the UCLA library. My thanks as well to Dan’s wife Mary Ann and his younger sister Mollie. One of the highlights of my work was the day in June 2009 we spent journeying to the various LeMay homesteads in the Los Angeles area, culminating in a trip to the Toyopa Drive house in Pacific Palisades and the office where Alan LeMay wrote The Searchers.

  The late Kevin Nugent, son of the screenplay writer Frank S. Nugent, shared memories of his father and devoted mother, including his father’s unpublished diary, and lent me an obscure screenwriting book in which Frank Nugent discussed writing the opening to The Searchers. It has never been cited before.

  Although we never met in person, I owe a great debt to Marylou Whitney and her husband, John Hendrickson, who granted me exclusive access to the papers of Marylou’s late husband, C. V. Whitney. When I couldn’t travel to Saratoga Springs, New York, Marylou and John arranged to have the papers shipped to me in Palo Alto. This was an extraordinary act of trust and generosity. Thanks, too, to Karrie Steuer of the Whitney staff and Barbara Lombardo, managing editor of the Saratogian.

  Speaking of trust and generosity, Gregory E. Reed went through boxes of negatives of photos taken by his late father, Allen Reed, an extraordinarily talented freelance photographer who had complete access to the Searchers set in Monument Valley for a special issue of Arizona Highways. Allen’s evocative photos dominated that issue, but Greg also discovered several wonderful shots that have never been published before.

  Leith Adams, Harry Carey Jr. and his wife, Marilyn, Nick Redman, Pippa Scott, Charles Silver, and Patrick Wayne all shared their memories and insights. Ford biographer Scott Eyman generously shared his notes of interviews with Jean Nugent and Marylou Whitney; and Joseph McBride, author of the masterful Searching for John Ford, sat for two long interviews and corresponded with me over a three-year period. Kevin Stoehr at Boston University offered sources and encouragement.

  The folks at Goulding’s Lodge in Monument Valley maintain Ford’s legacy there with great care and arranged for my travel around the Valley in 2008. Special thanks to the manager, Julie Viramontes, and her staff. David Rowell, deputy editor at the Washington Post Magazine, paid for the trip and introduced me to Peter McBride, whose fabulous photos also grace these pages.

  Struggling authors need places to stay, and Karl Vick, Rick Levine and Janet Gold, Tom and Judy Wilson, and Donna Lindsay all provided guest beds. Fellow travelers Tom Frail, Bob Thompson, and Sharon Waxman offered good advice and moral support.

  Margaret Edds, David Hoffman, Joseph McBride, and David Rowell read large parts of the manuscript and made many helpful suggestions. But I bear full responsibility for the accuracy of the material herein.

  My thanks to my agent, Gail Ross, of the Yoon Ross Literary Agency, once again for her careful and conscientious stewardship. Howard Yoon and my friend Steve Luxenberg helped me craft the book proposal. At Bloomsbury, Anton Mueller, Rachel Mannheimer, Patti Ratchford, Laura Phillips, Lisa Silverman, and David Chesanow were thoughtful collaborators and good shepherds.

  I have had the great fortune of teaching journalism at two fine institutions of higher learning, both of which provided me with funding and wonderful research facilities during the five years I worked on this project. At Stanford University, my thanks to Professor James Fishkin and Barbara Kataoka of the Department of Communication for their funding and logistical support; to Charlotte Lau, my research assistant; to Jim Kent and Ben Stone at Green Library, and to Joel Brinkley, Jim Campbell, Ted Glasser and Fred Turner for their friendship and moral support.

  At the University of Texas at Austin, my thanks to Professor Roderick Hart, Dean of the College of Communication; to researchers Elissa Nelson and Tamir Kalifa, and to Janice Henderson, Sonia Krempin-Reyes, and Phillip Salazar on the staff at the School of Journalism. UT has many superb libraries and archives, and I relied on two: the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, under the able leadership of Don Carlton; and the Harry Ransom Center under Tom Staley’s inspired direction. My thanks to both of them and their dedicated staffs, especially Cynthia DuBois.

  Finally, as always, to my family: my wonderful children, Abra and Paul Frankel and Margo Brush, and sons-in-law Matt Ipri and Danny Brush; my late father, Herbert Frankel, who encouraged my work even in the last months of his life; and most of all to my wife, Betsyellen Yeager, who accompanied me to Monument Valley, Hollywood, Texas and Oklahoma, watched more John Wayne movies than she ever thought possible, and gave me the moral and emotional support to see it through to a satisfying ending.

  Photograph Credits

  Frontispiece: Courtesy the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana, and Warner Brothers.

  Allen Reed, courtesy Gregory Reed (originally appeared in Arizona Highways).

  Author’s photograph.

  Author’s photograph.

  William S. Soule Indian Photographs Collection, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin, di_08011.

  William S. Soule Indian Photographs Collection, Dolph Briscoe Center for American History, the University of Texas at Austin, di_08010.

  A. Zeese & Co., Prints and Photographs Collection, Briscoe Center, di_08021.

  Briscoe Center, di_03693.

  Joseph E. Taulman Collection, Briscoe Center, di_08019.

  Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

  William S. Soule Indian Photographs Collection, Briscoe Center, di_05437.

  William S. Soule Indian Photographs Collection, Briscoe Center, di_08013.

  Betsyellen Yeager.

  Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

  Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

  Research Division of the Oklahoma Historical Society.

  Scotford, Kansas City, Joseph E. Taulman Collection, Briscoe Center, di_08018.

  Edward Bates, Joseph E. Taulman Collection, Briscoe Center, di_08020u.

  Betsyellen Yeager.

  Courtesy Dan LeMay.

  Courtesy Dan LeMay.

  Author’s photograph.

  Courtesy the Lilly Library, Indiana University, Bloomington, Indiana.

  Lilly Library.

  Lilly Library.

  Lilly Library.

  Courtesy Peter McBride (originally appeared in the Washington Post Magazine, Sept. 14, 2008).

  Allen Reed, courtesy Gregory Reed.

  Allen Reed, courtesy Gregory Reed.

  Lilly Library and Warner Brothers.

  Lilly Library and Warner Brothers.

  Author’s photograph.

  Author’s photograph.

  Betsyellen Yeager.

  Betsyellen Yeager.

  Note on Sources

  This book uses a broad range of primary and secondary sources, including archives, interviews, newspaper articles, scholarly works, memoirs, Comanche oral tradition, and visits to historical sites. It covers events that span a century and three quarters and took place over a broad expanse of the southwestern United States, from Texas to Hollywood. Some of the research stops were to long-stand
ing repositories of essential materials—for example, the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin, which is home to the Joseph and Araminta Taulman Collection, the foremost archive of documents and photos for the Parker family. It includes many unpublished and unannotated documents, including the handwritten notebook and letters of Susan Parker St. John and similar treasures from Araminta Taulman. There is a web of museums, libraries, and archival collections in southwest Oklahoma and the Texas Panhandle that also house a host of treasures, many of them overlapping thanks to the miracle of modern photocopying: the Fort Sill Museum and Archives and the Museum of the Great Plains, both in Lawton, Oklahoma; the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum in Canyon, Texas; the Oklahoma State Historical Society in Oklahoma City, and the University of Oklahoma Library in Norman. But virtually every public library in southwest Oklahoma and northern Texas, including the Panhandle, has a file of documents, letters, or photographs covering the years of Comanche-Texan wars and their aftermath. Bill Neeley’s files, which he accumulated in researching his book The Last Comanche Chief, are an invaluable source of primary documents and are available at the Panhandle-Plains Historical Museum.

  When it comes to Quanah Parker and the Comanches, the Kiowa Indian agency files, available on microfilm, are an invaluable source of official documents about life on the reservation. The National Archives—Southwest Region in Fort Worth is a repository for these files. The Works Progress Administration Indian-Pioneer Papers were an ambitious and systematic attempt in the 1930s to interview everyone of prominence or interest concerning the Indian agency and its residents. These, too, are available on microfilm in many locations, and the Western History Collection of the University of Oklahoma Library in Norman has a complete set. The Indian Archives of the Oklahoma Historical Society are also an excellent source of primary materials. Chronicles of Oklahoma is a tireless and thorough collection of articles, interviews, and memoirs of the state and its residents, all of it now available online.