The Congress of Rough Riders

  I thought about it. ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘As far as I can tell it is. I’ve never done much research, I have to admit. It’s all gone on what Isaac’s told me and I’ve told you most of those stories. But it seems to fit. You know, the meeting with my great-grandmother, there’s photographs of them together. And she did get pregnant just after she met him, so it makes sense. And you know, when he was younger, I could see something of Buffalo Bill in Isaac. Something about the way he smoked a cigarette. It reminded me of these pictures.’

  Hitomi nodded. ‘It’s no wonder your father’s so obsessed,’ she said.

  ‘I don’t see how you figure that,’ I said, slightly irked. ‘He’s my great-grandfather and I’m not obsessed. Why should he be?’

  ‘You’ve made a life for yourself, William,’ she said quietly. ‘You’ve got a successful career. You’ve travelled. You’ve got a wife. When did your father ever have any of those things? I mean he didn’t meet your mother till he was, what—’

  ‘Fifty-one,’ I said.

  ‘Family life only hit him at the end then. You said yourself he’s never been outside London. He spent time in prison, didn’t make anything of his life really. His wife left him early. It seems the only things he’s ever had in life have been one important ancestor and one descendant, you. One of whom is dead and the other who doesn’t care less.’

  ‘I do care,’ I protested. ‘Christ, Hitomi, he is my father.’

  ‘I meant you don’t care about your ancestry, William. He does. Maybe he’s obsessed with it because it’s all he has. He’s never been able to see any future for himself.’

  ‘You don’t know him,’ I said, sitting down on the bed now and looking up at her. I could feel a sting behind my eyes and wasn’t sure why. I wanted her to stop talking about this but at the same time I felt I needed to go on. ‘You don’t know what it was like,’ I said. ‘It’s all we’ve ever had between us. Can you imagine what that was like? It’s all we had to talk about.’

  ‘My father was not different,’ she said. ‘He tells stories of his ancestry all the time. He’s proud of where he comes from.’

  ‘I took down every one of these posters,’ I said, ignoring her comment. ‘Years ago I ripped them all down and thought they’d gone in the bin. Then I get back here one time and they’re all back on the walls. It’s not my bedroom at all, never has been. It’s just part of his museum. And I’m the unpaid curator of one of the rooms, that’s all.’ I leaned forward and willed myself not to cry but couldn’t help it somehow. The combination of seeing Isaac so frail and old with being back in my boyhood room was overwhelming me.

  ‘You want a relationship with him, that’s all,’ she said, sitting down beside me and placing my head on her shoulders. ‘He’s never offered you one based on the two of you alone and that’s all you wanted.’

  ‘He wanted my help,’ I said. ‘That was why I came back here a couple of years ago. You know that. He lied to bring me here. We nearly lost each other because of him. Just so he could set up another one of these stupid wild west shows. How much is that about the two of us?’

  ‘He wanted you to do it with him,’ she said. ‘That was all. He wanted you to work together.’

  I sighed and dried my face. ‘I can’t stay here,’ I said. ‘Maybe you were wrong. Maybe it isn’t you who dies if you come to England. Maybe it’s me.’

  She took my face in her hands and stared at me. Her eyes pierced through me. ‘He’s not dead yet,’ she said in a clear voice. ‘Take your chance while it’s there or you’ll regret it for ever. Listen to me, William, because I’m right.’

  We went to bed and made love as quietly as we could. It seemed strange to have a woman in my boyhood bed and as we fell asleep afterwards I felt a strange fear of discovery when I heard the door of Isaac’s room open and his footsteps going down the stairs to the kitchen. I listened but after he had switched on the light and closed the door I couldn’t hear him any more and within a few minutes, while I was deciding whether I should take this opportunity to go down and talk to him on my own or not, I fell asleep.

  Just over five hundred men comprised the group that General Merritt and Buffalo Bill Cody brought from Fort Laramie across the plains to intercept the Cheyenne warriors. Bill, Buntline and Merritt often rode far ahead of the group, scouting for information along the way. They were agreed that if they could reach War Bonnet Valley before the Indians, they would make camp there and await their arrival in order to ambush them, as this was the trail to the north that the Cheyenne would necessarily have to take to reach Sitting Bull’s land. It took about a day and a half to reach the creek and once there, Bill and Buntline went down alone to investigate whether they had been too slow or not.

  ‘They’ve not been here yet,’ said Bill after they had descended into the valley and allowed their horses to rest and drink from the stream nearby. ‘This land hasn’t been travelled over in a week or more.’

  ‘Then this is where we will take them?’

  Bill looked around at the valley surrounding them. It opened up on either side into a vast prairie area where there was nothing in sight for miles but open land. War Bonnet Valley itself was not a narrow valley – two hundred horses could have passed through it side by side – but it did have the advantage of being the one place between the Cheyenne home and the Sioux reservation where an effective trap could be set.

  ‘Looks like it,’ said Bill. ‘But we’ve little time to plan. They may not have been here yet but if they left when they were supposed to, then they can’t be too far away.’

  They made their way back to the top of the Rockies where, at some distance, Merritt had set up camp. He had assumed that what Bill had discovered down there would be the case and did not want to be so close to the peaks of the mountains that the Cheyenne might discover them in advance.

  ‘Do you think they know we’ll be waiting for them?’ asked Bill and the general shrugged his shoulders slightly.

  ‘It’s hard to tell,’ he said. ‘But I suspect not. Their intelligence gathering is primitive compared to ours. But they might assume that we know they’re on their way. Whether they realise this is where we will be cutting them off is hard to tell. We’ll just have to wait. But they’ll be here soon, there’s no question about that and a heavy battle lies ahead of us,’ he added sadly. Unlike some of the other generals in the army – unlike Bill himself – Merritt did not find these events exciting or adventurous. He felt a close connection to the boys under his command and had lost too many of them in recent years to be seduced by the romanticism of war. If it was not for the fact that Bill’s plays turned the soldiers into heroic and historical figures, he probably would have despised the younger man for his part in creating glamour out of warfare.

  At this point, Bill excused himself from the company and, taking his rucksack from his saddlebag, disappeared out of sight for a time. Merritt and Buntline watched him go and wondered what he was doing but they did not have to question it for long for shortly afterwards he re-emerged into the crowd of resting soldiers. The general turned around as the young men – mostly aged between sixteen and twenty-one – gave a rousing cheer as their hero appeared in their midst and as he made his way through their ranks and back towards the general, Merritt gasped in amazement at the sight he saw before him. Buntline’s mouth dropped open in surprise and he didn’t know whether to feel pride or embarrassment at his employer’s actions. For although he had started the day in regulation, fairly nondescript scouting uniform, he appeared now in a uniform of his own design which was as exotic as it was grandiose. Modelled after the uniforms worn by Mexican vaqueros, Bill’s black-velvet costume was embroidered along the arms with gold and silver sequins and snow-white lace. A scarlet sash crossed his chest from right shoulder to left hip and his patent-black leather boots were as shiny as ever worn by a soldier before or since. Like all his uniforms, it was one that Bill had designed himself and Buntline recognised it immediately, not as a military uniform, but as a stage c
ostume. In fact, it was one of three identical costumes worn by Bill nightly at the Elysium Theatre during the third act of Scouts of the Plains, the same play he had been performing in the night he had heard of General Custer’s death.

  ‘Good God man, what are you wearing?’ asked Merritt, unsure whether he should be shocked, amused or admiring of the fashion extravaganza walking towards him. Bill nodded to acknowledge the question but declined to reply, wanting the effect of the costume to sink in with people without his having to explain it. He threw Buntline a quick, harsh look, as if he was aware that at any point the other man might mention the stage origins of this uniform and wanted to make sure that he didn’t. He knew that the eyes of all the soldiers were on him admiringly and wondered whether he should turn and take his bow, perhaps passing the time with them by telling them one of his stories of earlier adventures, wondering whether he was standing in an appropriate place where the lighting would be quite right for all to see him, when Merritt shouted out to the soldiers to quieten down and as they fell silent under his orders, he nodded for Bill to join him at the peak of the mountain, looking down into the valley below.

  Bill squinted as he leaned over and followed the general’s pointed finger until he saw what had grabbed Merritt’s attention. Two men, white men, riding alone towards the valley from the opposite side, as if aiming to meet eight hundred Cheyenne on their own.

  ‘Good God,’ said Bill, amazed to see them there, an unexpected sight. ‘What on earth—?’

  ‘Couriers,’ said Merritt quickly. ‘They must be headed back towards Fort Laramie to deliver a message to us, there’s no other explanation. They’ll be going through the valley and turning to the left across the Platte, the way we arrived.’

  ‘We should go down then,’ said Bill. ‘Cut them off. They’d never hear us call from here.’

  ‘Too late,’ said Merritt, looking in the opposite direction. ‘They’re here.’

  Both men turned and saw in the distance the sight of the Cheyenne gradually coming into focus. At the speed they and the couriers were going, it would be a good twenty minutes before either reached the centre of War Bonnet Valley, but when they did, Merritt estimated they would meet at the very heart of it. They returned quickly to their troops and sortied them into position, keeping them clear from the edges of the mountain, not wanting the Cheyenne to know they were present until they were already safely locked into the heart of the creek. It would be eight hundred men against five hundred, but the soldiers had the element of surprise on their hands, not to mention better firepower, and taking this into account, it became a more even contest.

  Buntline held back into the group as Merritt and Bill took the lead; he planned on retreating to the rear once the charge started, perhaps even watching from this mountain top and making his notes from there. After all, he reasoned to himself, he was not a solider but a playwright and an actor. He could not be accused of cowardice for not taking part in a battle for which he had never joined up. By the time the action began, everyone would be too busy attempting to stay alive to worry about him anyway. It was a good plan, he reasoned, and he turned his horse.

  ‘The couriers are going to enter stage right at the same time the Cheyenne come in from stage left,’ said Bill as he watched the progress of the two groups from the mountain. Merritt glanced at him quickly, disliking the terminology, and felt a sudden rush of irritation.

  ‘This is a real battle,’ he said quickly. ‘You do know that, Bill, don’t you?’

  Bill snorted. ‘We’ll have our revenge here, General. Wait and see.’ They watched as the couriers and the Indians did indeed enter the creek simultaneously and each paused for a second before continuing on their way. Neither group had any choice. The Cheyenne had little to fear from two men ambling towards them, even if their appearance did suggest the possibility of others. The couriers on the other hand could hardly defend themselves from eight hundred tribal warriors; their only hope was to carry on and hope that they would be allowed to pass, which was not inconceivable.

  Merritt waited until the two groups were almost on top of each other before giving the order and the entire Fifth Cavalry began their charge down the mountains towards the creek below. The Indians looked up in surprise and their leader, Yellow Hand, quickly tried to sortie his group into order so that they might defend themselves. The two couriers stared around in surprise, unsure who to fear more – the scrambling and shouting Indians before them, or the hundreds of soldiers appearing as if by magic from the mountain tops.

  Within minutes the battle had begun and soldiers and Indians fought against each other. Vision became impaired by the amount of gun smoke in the air and the soldiers struck out in terror at whoever was around them as the bullets and arrows whizzed past their ears, missing some, pinning others. The horses all reared up and their sounds became part of the battle itself as some threw their riders and others fell after being shot themselves. Merritt, a brave and well-decorated general, cut a sweep before him until his ear was blown off by a bullet.

  My great-grandfather, however, circled the groups, killing no one and miraculously avoiding being killed as he sought out the prize he wanted the most. He saw him eventually, Yellow Hair, the great Cheyenne chief who was leading these warriors now to Sitting Bull, and Bill dug his spurs into Buckskin Joe as he made his way towards him. Yellow Hair saw him coming towards him and turned to ride away but Bill drove him towards the left-hand side of the valley beneath the rocks. As he approached him, he spotted Buntline on the mountain top, watching the action from a distance of safety, and shot a bullet in his direction so that his attention would be fully focused on him over the next few minutes. Almost collapsing from shock as the bullet narrowly missed him, Buntline did indeed fix his gaze on the familiar and outlandish stage costume of Buffalo Bill Cody as he shot the horse of Yellow Hair from under him and beast and rider fell to the ground in a heavy heap.

  Bill jumped from his horse and the two men circled each other for a moment, both grinning with the determination of their violence.

  ‘I know you,’ growled Yellow Hair, sizing his opponent up and down as they circled, their arms held out slightly from their bodies as they waited for each other to reach for a gun.

  ‘And I you,’ shouted Bill back quickly. ‘And this is the day you die, my friend.’

  For Buntline, the seconds seemed like hours as he waited for either man to shoot, but for the two warriors they could have stood like that all day because they each revelled in the power of their moment. Two great men, two famous names, and one about to kill the other.

  They reached for their guns at the same moment and incredibly, despite their proximity, both men seemed to fumble. Yellow Hair’s shot whizzed past Bill’s left ear, missing him completely, at the same moment as my great-grandfather’s own bullet, aimed square at the heart of the Cheyenne warrior, entered his shoulder instead, throwing the Indian back against the rocks, his gun fallen to the ground, his eyes filling with terror as his nemesis walked towards him determinedly, no pause now as Bill pinned him to the rocks behind him, pulled his own knife from around his waist, and pressed it into the forehead of his opponent, just below the hairline, dragging it across and around the back of the head, slicing through the skullcap as he finished his job and the Indian fell to the ground dead, a bloody heap by his feet.

  Bill stepped back a few feet, covered in blood and slime now, and looked up to the mountain top where Buntline, his audience of one, stood watching, the reporter’s stomach rotating within itself as he started to retch. Bending over to throw up, he caught Bill’s last line, shouted up towards him from the ground below and never forgot it again, the line being the one he heard whenever he woke in the night with that ghoulish scene replaying before him.

  ‘Buntline!’ cried Buffalo Bill the showman, the actor, the stage performer re-enacting his stage moment from a few weeks earlier, only this time holding the bloody hairpiece and top-skull of Yellow Hair in his hands as he shouted: ‘The first s
calp for Custer!’

  Chapter Ten

  The New American Way

  When Hitomi and I returned to Paris, I began to make more of an effort to stay in contact with Isaac. Our visit there had upset me somewhat, for despite all his continuing talk about entering show business it was clear that he was ailing. I tried not to think about it but I knew that I might receive a phone call some night telling me that he was gone. Although I dreaded such an eventuality I still couldn’t bring myself to relocate to London like he wanted, which felt nothing like home to me any more. I would have liked to return to Japan, but Hitomi was opposed to that.

  ‘I feel about Japan the way you feel about London,’ she explained to me. ‘I’ve spent all my life there. I don’t want to be there any more. You were just a visitor, that’s all. I could live in London quicker than I could live in Kyoto again.’

  ‘Well we’re not going to be living there,’ I said firmly. Paris had proved a successful city for us. We enjoyed our jobs, had made a lot of friends there and we were happy. However, after almost two years living there we began to wonder whether it was time we moved on. We were heading into our late twenties now and had agreed that we would put off starting a family until we had both turned thirty; this gave us a little time to see some more of the world and enjoy our youth. My travel book had been published and proved reasonably successful. The money I had earned had helped boost our savings, and although we didn’t expect to make any further royalties from it, a couple of publishers had bought the translation rights, which helped us even more.

  In early summer of 1997, Hitomi phoned me one afternoon at the newspaper offices and asked me to meet her after work for a drink. We arranged a place and I sat there for almost an hour waiting for her, growing frustrated by her tardiness, and frowned when she eventually arrived, slightly flustered, and immediately ordered a cold beer.