History Lives!

In previous posts I have mentioned Wyatt Earp, Doc Holiday and the shoot-out at the OK Corral; I have written about George Custer, Crazy Horse and the Battle of the Little Bighorn; Wild Bill and the Rock Creek Massacre; and dozens of other 19th-Century topics. When most folks read the gory details about any of the above, and when they get over their shock and horror, a certain disconnection unavoidably sets in. After all, these incidents occurred well over a century ago and to most people anything that happened that far back seems as remote and distant as the Bronze Age. I felt much the same way until a couple of interviews I did a dozen years ago while researching my book, Scalp Dance.

One of the interviews was with a lady in her 95th summer; her Kansas mother had been captured by Indians in 1874. The other meeting was with Agnes Shrader of Topeka; she was 92 at the time and her aunt had suffered the same fate in the same state in the same year. Mrs. Schrader was as lucid and bright in her chat with me as most people half her age. She still lived in her own home and kept it neat and tidy. Indeed, it was immaculate. Mrs. Schrader even walked around the block every day for exercise. Although neither woman knew much about the ordeal of their loved ones, this to me was unimportant. Just sitting and talking to someone who was a single generation removed from the Indian Wars was everything. It was something akin to time travel.

A few years later, during the Q&A following a talk we had just given in San Francisco, Deb mentioned that William F. Cody (top) was her hero and that he was perhaps the greatest American of all time. Out in the audience, an old man stood up and, with the drama of a Shakespearian actor, he announced: "I'll have you know that I SAW Buffalo Bill!" The feeling was electric.

Suddenly, after being with the ladies above and hearing the words of this old Californian, the accounts of Wild Bill Hickok, or Wyatt Earp (above), or the Little Bighorn, were not something from the dark and dead past. They were close, very close . . . and they were real. For me, from that time forth, History Lives!