The Wilderness Warrior
Page 80
By 1905, what had really made Abernathy legendary, a one-man show more dazzling than Annie Oakley shooting glass balls out of the sky, was his ability to catch a wolf alive by jumping off a horse, wrestling the wolf bare-fanged to the ground, and jamming his fist into the back recesses of the wolf’s jaw. Hence his sobriquet, “Catch ’Em Alive.” The wolves (or “loafers,” as cowboys called them), unable to bite, would become utterly passive and submissive. With the skill of a wrangler, Abernathy would then wire the captured wolf’s muzzle closed and hog-tie its feet.
“Coyote” was the Spanish name to distinguish these wolves from the larger gray wolves that lived in the same Mexico-Texas-Oklahoma range. (In writing about Oklahoma, Roosevelt often used the terms “coyote,” “prairie wolf,” and “gray wolf” interchangeably. “Thus was born Catch ’Em Alive Jack,” the historian Jon T. Coleman writes in a foreword to Abernathy’s autobiography, “the alter ego that would carry Abernathy from Texas to the White House.” 20
Roosevelt first learned of Abernathy’s bold, enterprising feats from a doctor friend, Sloan Simpson of Fort Worth, in January 1903.21 In his customary way, he grunted in disbelief and raised his eyebrows questioningly. Abernathy was brought to Roosevelt’s attention again by Colonel Lyon, over Christmas 1904. Apparently, Lyon had witnessed Catch ’Em Alive Jack hand-trap a few coyotes and immediately told the president about the crazy stunt. A vague plan was begun—that he’d go wolf coursing with Abernathy in Texas or Oklahoma soon and make the Wichita Forest Reserve the site of the buffalo preserve inspired by Baynes, Hornaday, and Lacey. Before long Roosevelt would give Abernathy the highest praise he could, saying that the plainsman had “a perfect knowledge of the coyote.”22
II
As the “Roosevelt Special” pulled out of New York on April 3, 1905, the president was in a fun-loving mood, even though he was grappling with the Moroccan crisis (involving Germany, Spain, and France, whose military and economic interests in Morocco were threatened when its emperor called for Moroccan independence and anticolonial integrity). About foreign affairs in general, Roosevelt joked to the press that he had left the 300-pound William Howard Taft “sitting on the lid keeping [it] down.” Reporters covering Roosevelt’s trip asked why he had chosen dusty Texas and the Twin Territories, of all places, for a holiday. “I don’t exactly say that I need a rest,” Roosevelt said, “but I am going to take one in the open, under God’s blue heaven.”23
Excitedly, Roosevelt talked of meeting with Rough Riders at a reunion in San Antonio, riding with Quanah in the Big Pasture, and coursing for wolves with Catch ’Em Alive Jack in the Wichitas near Sheridan’s old Fort Sill. The prospect of being caked with cracked mud seemed idyllic to Roosevelt. Other easterners might seek comfort, but he spoke in favor of burrs and smelling the blossom-spray of spring on the prairie. One of his favorite Rough Riders—“Little” (five-foot-two) Billy McGinty of Ripley, Oklahoma—would be around for casual laughs. As a horseman, Roosevelt said, McGinty had no peer. And holidaying in the dry plains had obvious benefits for Roosevelt’s heath. Asthmatic wheezing was unheard along the 1,290-mile Red River of the South: this was open-lung country. Unbeknownst to reporters at the time, Roosevelt, as noted, was also planning to see if the Wichita Forest and Game Preserve would be a suitable place to reintroduce bison. In fact, predator control was a major reason why he wanted to hunt wolves. The zoologist William Temple Hornaday at the Bronx Zoo had informed Roosevelt that he was ready—more than ready—to send his hand-fed bison herd by railroad from the Bronx to Oklahoma. All he needed was Roosevelt’s go-ahead. Roosevelt, in a sense, was serving as Hornaday’s advance scout.
Although this is unprovable, at his inauguration in March 1905 Roosevelt probably told Quanah Parker (the last of the Quahadi Comanche chiefs) about the buffalo repatriation that the New York Zoological Society was overseeing; after all, Congress had (through the Lacey Act) authorized the president to create a big game reserve in the Wichitas, just two months earlier.* There was never a Native American that Roosevelt liked more than Parker. Because he had a white mother—Cynthia Ann Parker, who had been captured by Comanches in a raid near Groesbeck, Texas—Chief Quanah was a so-called half-breed. A tough Plains fighter in his youth, by 1905 he had become an American pragmatist, more of an optimist like William James than a fatalist like Crazy Horse. Yet there was also something mystical about him, an unaccountable reverence in his every utterance. Actually, some of Quanah’s guru wisdom may have been drug-induced. The chief used peyote; eating mescaline made him feel equal to every task, able to glide like a bird or crawl like a snake.
The advisability of taking such drugs is always doubtful, but they seemed to work for Quanah. He was bookish and knew that mescaline in the form of peyote buttons had been used along the Rio Grande Valley by Native Americans since 3,700 BC. In the sixteenth century, Spanish priests in Mexico forbade native people to use it; but as the Comanche lost their foothold in the American Southwest in the late nineteenth century, peyote came into vogue among them, like the Ghost Dance.24 In the face of defeat, why not get high and pray? Around 1890, after a particularly intense vision, Quanah created the Native American church movement. This religious experience led to his denouncing his past raids against white settlers and becoming a committed pacifist. He adopted peyote as a ritual for the Comanche and Kiowa. The bitter sweet taste of mescaline could, he believed, free his people’s minds from the white man’s tyranny, and at the very least it was far better than being locked up at Fort Sill or Fort Leavenworth. The fact that Quanah ate Lophophora williamsii was unimportant to Roosevelt, because the drug had brought Parker into the arms of Christ. “The white man goes into his church and talks about Jesus,” Roosevelt famously said. “But the Indian goes into his tipi and talks to Jesus.”25
No one knew for certain where Quanah was born. However, he claimed it was somewhere around the Wichitas; and just as Roosevelt had learned the North Dakota topography inside-out, Quanah understood every nook and cranny of his beloved Wichita range and the Llano Estacado (Stalked Plains). Even though Quanah wore his hair in long braids and had several wives, he nevertheless adopted many of the white man’s ways. An impetuous cordiality informed his dealings with white men. Often, he wore a business suit and derby hat. For example, his home in Cache, Oklahoma—the two-story, twelve-room “Star House,” where Roosevelt dined and slept on the porch one evening—was modeled after the U.S. Army general’s headquarters in Fort Sill. (Fourteen white stars symbolizing generals in the cavalry were painted on its red roof.26) It had been a gift of the Texan rancher Burk Burnett and was equipped with one of the first residential telephones in southwestern Oklahoma.27
What Roosevelt most admired about Quanah was his never-failing reverence for buffalo. Unlike Geronimo, the Chiricahua Apache who appeared in William Cody’s Wild West Show, Quanah never abandoned his vision of a vast “buffalo common” on the Great Plains. The deeds of the U.S. Cavalry never diminished his fervent belief in the prophecy of a rebirth for the buffalo. A hard worker, not given to idle hours, the soldierly Parker had no concept of quitting. In 1903, Roosevelt had been informed that the 101 Ranch in Bliss, Oklahoma, had hired the capricious Geronimo to lead a hunt for captured buffalo. This was a theatrical pageant: Geronimo, in war paint, would lead on horseback, followed by a convoy of automobiles whose drivers would shoot at terrified buffalo acquired from the Goodnight Ranch in Texas. When Roosevelt heard from the National Editorial Association about this inhumane and unsportsmanlike hunt, he was furious. He wired Governor Thompson B. Ferguson of the Oklahoma Territory to stop the brutality at once. Also, according to the New York Times, federal troops from Fort Sill were ordered to arrest the culprits.28
Now, heading toward Fort Sill two year later, huge crowds showed up to hear President Roosevelt’s speeches in Pittsburgh, Louisville, Saint Louis, and a hodgepodge of depots in between en route to Texas. A high-pitched train whistle always announced his arrival. Children—anonymous and interchangeable—stood along the
tracks, waving flags and looking for a glimpse of their hero. Refusing to disappoint them, Roosevelt thrust his head out the train window, shouting hellos and farewells. Courthouse bells usually clanged on his arrival in every village. Water tanks were invariably painted red, white, and blue. Vendors set up wiener and lemonade carts, hoping to capitalize on the whir of anticipation that a visit by T.R. brought to town. Usually, Roosevelt’s impromptu stages were fairground bleachers, hotel balconies, or railroad sidings. As on all of Roosevelt’s whirlwind tours, whistles blew and the atmosphere accompanying each speech was festive. Americans had acquired a new respect for Roosevelt following the 1904 election, and this respect burst forth like the plume of a fountain.
Roosevelt formed an important alliance with the great Comanche leader Quanah Parker. Together they worked to bring buffalo back to the Wichita Mountains.
Quanah Parker. (Courtesy of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service)
On April 4, in Steubenville, Ohio, however, tragedy struck. The Roosevelt Special accidentally bulldozed into a man who was boarding a freight train and plowed right over him as it went west at thirty-five or forty miles per hour.29 Roosevelt grew despondent over this; he was also embarrassed. Yet he refused to dwell on the death, and his Roosevelt Special went on. He took in the varied American landscapes from the window of his train compartment: the indolent Ohio hamlets fading, the drainage ditches of Missouri receding, the dark and haunted Oklahoma prairie stretching for hundreds of miles south of Tulsa. On a map, it seemed obvious that Oklahoma had a weird language all its own: Okmulgee, Wetumka, Wapanuka. Staring out into the darkness Roosevelt sought the hills, tall pines, and thicket oaks beyond. The prairielands soothed the neurotic and agonized part of his spirit.
By the time the Roosevelt Special reached Dallas, the president, alert and curious, was in a buoyant mood. Cowboys along the tracks pointed at him in admiration. People craned their necks to see the Rough Rider who hadn’t lost his luster. In honor of his visit, Dallas had decorated the large public square near the Oriental Hotel with flags and bunting; an estimated 30,000 people came to hear the president speak about the “American century.” Even oil field scouts and get-rich-quick geologists had come to Dallas in wagons. Appealing to the chauvinism of the Lone Star state, he called Texas a “mighty and beautiful state,” a “veritable garden of the Lord.”30 Roosevelt promoted improvements for the Trinity River and irrigation projects around Dallas in general. Aridity could be conquered by forest conservation and modern engineering. More water and grass, he said, were needed in Texas. And appealing to the old Confederates’ pride, he boasted that he was half southern gray, half northern blue, but all Lone Star. This became a standard applause line in his stump speeches in Texas.
At Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Roosevelt inspected national troops and spoke of the Monroe Doctrine as a guiding American principle. He also called for restoring integrity to Wall Street. On every street Roosevelt was greeted as if he were a hometown boy who had made good. A major thoroughfare had been renamed Roosevelt Avenue in his honor (only the christening of the polar explorer ship made him prouder). While on horseback in Texas, Roosevelt always made sure a lasso was coiled around the horn of his saddle, just in case a wild horse or runaway cattle entered his domain. What a showman Roosevelt was! Speaking like a cowboy, Roosevelt acted as if dusty ole San Antone were the greatest place on earth. He had learned Texans’ lingo, mores, and folkways. “In the old days in Texas I understand that there used to be a proverb that while you would not generally want a gun at all; if you did want it you wanted it quick, and you wanted it very bad,” Roosevelt said to a crowd of well-wishers. “That is just the way I feel about the navy. I feel that if we have it the chances are that we will not need it, but that if we do not have it, we might need it very bad.”31
III
From San Antonio it was on to Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, where many of the largest cattle ranches in the world were situated. Two “old style Texas cattlemen,” as T.R. described them—Burk Burnett and Guy Waggoner—were going to lead the presidential wolf hunt to the Big Pasture.32 Between them, these two pro-Roosevelt ranchers practically owned Fort Worth. Burnett, in particular—who had been a trail boss on the 1,200-mile cattle drive along the Chisholm Trail to Kansas in 1867—was a legend along the Red River of the South. He was known for his financial acumen and hard deals, and his “Four Sixes” brand dominated the North Texas range for decades. He was also a meticulous caretaker of his cattle empire; there was no such thing as a collapsed corral fence on his property. Moving his ranch operations to Wichita Falls—as well as his Longhorns, Durhams, and Herefords—he produced the best cattle strains in Texas. A grin-and-bear-it type, a man of deliberate action who never knew regret, Burnett wasn’t enamored of grammar books, dictionaries, or the history of European civilization. Like Roosevelt he was an advocate of direct action.
A close friend of Quanah, Burnett leased 300,000 acres from the Indian Territory to graze cattle. Often, Burnett slept on the wraparound front porch of Quanah’s Star House (which Burnett had purchased for Quanah), preferring Indian company to the drifters working in Fort Worth’s stockyards district. But for all his Texan down-homeness and honesty, Burnett was extremely rich. His feeder steers were selling at a fair market price, and he had a lot of them. At the time Burnett organized the wolf hunt for Roosevelt he had more than 20,000 head of branded cattle on a spread totaling 206,000 acres.33
In anticipation of President Roosevelt’s arrival, Catch ’em Alive Jack Abernathy scouted for the most desirable places to camp in the Big Pasture and found an ideal spot along Deep Red Creek in Oklahoma. Some chauvinistic Texans criticized Abernathy for not holding the hunt on Lone Star soil, but the objections passed. Both Burnett and Waggoner did supply Texan “daredevil” riders—their hired ranchhands with the best equestrian skills—to impress the president. (Guy Waggoner, in fact, was an expert rider himself. He became head of the Texas racing commission and eventually moved to New Mexico, where betting on horse races was legal.) Ranchers from some ten or fifteen counties tried to wangle a slot on the hunt party. Every man under fifty wanted to be an extra in the Roosevelt extravaganza.
Roosevelt’s longtime physician friend Alexander Lambert was designated as the official photographer for the hunt; no reporters would be allowed to witness it, because there was a strong possibility of an embarrassing moment for the president. Lambert was perhaps Roosevelt’s most intimate friend. He specialized in diagostics, internal medicine, and drug addiction and was also the president’s personal physician.34 His loyalty to the president and to the principle of doctor-patient confidentiality was so great that he left no diaries or reflections about their times together. With his thick goatee, large ears, and an ever-present doctor’s bag, he was a fixture on all of Roosevelt’s hunts. A professor of clinical medicine at the Cornell University medical school and director of the fourth division at Bellevue Hospital, he was one of the best doctors of his generation. Besides enjoying his company immensely Roosevelt was beholden to Lambert for his sophisticated knowledge of how mosquitoes carried yellow fever.35
Roosevelt’s hunt in the Great Pasture of the Indian Territories (near Oklahoma) attracted the eager participation of the richest ranchers in Texas.
The great pasture hunt. (Courtesy of Theodore Roosevelt Collection, Harvard College Library)
On April 5, as arranged, Roosevelt’s train arrived in the hamlet of Frederick, Oklahoma. Armed lawmen had the crowd of curiosity seekers under proper control. There was little chance of trouble. A grandstand had been built for the once-in-a-lifetime visit, with patriotic props in place. Wild cheers erupted when the president disembarked from his railroad car, waving his Stetson. About 5,000 to 6,000 people constituted the welcome committee. They came from Fort Sill–Lawton and west from Altus, from north of Hobart and south from Wichita Falls, Texas. Ranchers, farmers, and merchants had dropped whatever they were doing to come hear Roosevelt speak in the middle of nowhere. About twenty deputies p
atrolled Frederick, making sure that no troublemakers would disrupt the picture-perfect day. In particular, they kept a close eye on Indians. “The next time I come to Oklahoma,” Roosevelt said at the outset, to a roar of approval, “I trust I will come to a State.”36
Abernathy was sitting on his horse, Sam Bass, soaking in Roosevelt’s oratory. Accompanying Roosevelt were Colonel Lyon, Burnett, Waggoner, the former Rough Rider Bill Fortesque, Lieutenant General S. B. M. Young, Quanah (with three wives and a baby), Dr. Lambert, and the Rough Rider physician Sloan Simpson.37 There were also a few Texas Rangers. The hunt was going to be like a caravan in the Sahara. The main worry for local planners was Roosevelt’s notorious reckless riding (in October 1904 he had been thrown from his horse and received a serious injury).38 In the open space of the Twin Territories, T.R. was bound to let loose, galloping his horse’s hooves into prairie dog homes with disastrous results.
According to the Frederick Enterprise, President Roosevelt spoke boldly about building the Panama Canal and pleaded to be left alone by curiosity seekers while he was on his hunt. “Now I want four days’ play,” Roosevelt said. “I hear you have plenty of jack rabbits and coyotes here. I like my citizens, but don’t like them on a coyote hunt. Give me a fair deal to have as much fun as even a President is entitled to.” 39 The Washington Post ran a huge front-page headline: “President in Wild.” The reporter wrote that the elusive jackrabbits and coy wolves had better watch out: “The distinguished party of hunters will have plenty of elbow room. The whole Territory is theirs for the asking, but the programme is to confine the hunt to the tract of land thirty-six miles square leased by Capt. Burnett from the Kiowa and Comanche tribes.”40