ACT
ONE
THE BOY WILL CODY OR
“ATTACK ON THE SETTLER’S CABIN BY INDIANS AND RESCUE BY BUFFALO BILL WITH HIS SCOUTS, COWBOYS, AND MEXICANS.”
—Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Program, 1894
A SCENE FROM THE WILD WEST
The audience leans forward. In the center of the arena sits a log cabin. Behind it, painted scenery depicts thick woods, peaceful green meadows, and sparkling streams. Into this blissful setting steps the weary hunter, rifle slung over his shoulder. His son waves happily to him from the cabin window. His wife, with open arms, welcomes him at the door. The hunter is home at last.
There comes a shout. It is a Lakota warrior in paint and feathers. He charges toward the cabin.
Pushing his wife behind him, the hunter aims his rifle. He fires.
The attacker drops to the showground. Lifeless.
Now dozens of screaming Lakota—some on foot, some on horseback—hurtle into the scene. They surge toward the cabin.
The hunter and his wife barricade themselves inside. Loading and reloading their weapons they all—even the boy—fire at their attackers.
The arena fills with gun smoke. Audience members’ ears ring from the rifle shots and war cries.
Inside the cabin, the hunter and his family are tiring. They are almost out of bullets. All appears lost.
And then another shout!
Riding into the fray, guns blazing, is Buffalo Bill. Behind him gallops a posse of rifle-toting cowboys. There are more gunshots, more bodies dropping to the ground. At last, defeated, the Lakota leap onto their horses and gallop away.
The grateful hunter and his family step out of their cabin. They thank Buffalo Bill and his cowboys. As they do, the audience leaps to its feet, clapping and whistling and tossing hats in the air.
A nugget of truth lay behind this popular act from the Wild West show. William Cody had faced savage foes. He was just ten years old when he first pointed a rifle at a man. Less than a year later, he outran a gang of would-be assassins. But in real life, it wasn’t American Indians who’d threatened and terrified little Will Cody. Instead, it was his fellow frontier settlers who attacked his home.
But not at first.
At first, remembered his sister Helen, there was “dancing sunshine … wood and meadow.” And the birth of a baby boy.
THE FORTUNE-TELLER MAKES A PREDICTION
According to family legend, Isaac and Mary Cody believed the birth of their second son, William Frederick, on February 26, 1846, fulfilled a mystical prophecy. Seven years earlier, when she was still unmarried, Mary had been visiting her sister in Louisville, Kentucky, when a traveling fortune-teller arrived in town. On a lark, the sisters decided to go. They stepped into the darkened parlor with its mysterious cards and crystal ball.
The fortune-teller took Mary’s hand in her own. Turning it palm-side up, she studied the lines she found there, tracing them with her finger. Then she shuffled her cards. “You will meet your future husband on the steamboat by which you are expected to return home,” the fortune-teller finally said. “[You] will be married to him within a year and bear him three sons, of whom only the second [will] live, but the name of this son [will] be known all over the world.”
Mary did not believe a word of it. That is, not until the first part of the fortune-teller’s words came true. She did meet Isaac on the steamboat home, and she did marry him within a year. So when she gave birth to her second son in the Codys’ four-bedroom cabin just west of Le Claire, Iowa, a town on a bend of the Mississippi River, both parents looked on him with special hope.
Will grew into a smart, lovable boy who was doted on by his older siblings—Martha, Samuel, and Julia—and later worshipped by the younger ones—Eliza, Helen, May, and Charlie. “He was a superior being,” his sister Helen once admitted. “Never did we weaken in our belief that great things were in store for our brother.”
His mother, too, fussed over him. She never punished him and only rarely scolded him. Mostly, she worried. Will, it was plain to see, had been born with an adventurous spirit that led him into all kinds of mischief and even danger.
He exhibited this spirit early on. One day in the summer of 1847, when Will was a year old, the town doctor stopped in at the Codys’ for a visit. After tying up his horse—“a mean horse [that liked] to kick”—he went inside. Little Will seized his chance. As his family busied itself with its company, Will toddled out the door. He made straight for the cantankerous animal. He was already standing behind the horse’s hind legs, his pudgy arms stretching up to pat the horse’s flank, when his older sister Julia saw him. Racing outside, the four-year-old girl snatched up her brother just as the horse snorted and kicked. Its powerful hooves just missed the children. “They all sayed I saved Will’s life,” Julia later recalled, “[and] when the doctor came out … he called me a brave little girl.”
It was obvious that Will needed to be watched every minute. But how? Isaac had a farm to run—cows to milk and fields to plow. And Mary was busy morning to night hoeing the garden, shelling beans, fetching water from the spring, making soap, knitting socks, and cooking. So she turned to Julia. “Your charge is to look after Willie,” Mary told the girl. And although Julia was just four years old at the time, she took the job seriously. She never left the boy unattended, not even when she went to school.
The next fall, Julia, along with Martha and Samuel, trudged through woods and meadow to a one-room schoolhouse built of logs. Here Miss Helen Goodrige taught the basics of reading and arithmetic to a handful of students ranging in age from five to fourteen. Eighteen-month-old Will went along, too. But the lively toddler was disruptive. He ran around the room, dipping his fingers into ink bottles and drawing on walls and furniture. Recalled Julia, “[I] took him outdoors when he wanted to go, and when he got sleepy [I] just laid him on one of the benches.” Neither Julia nor Will learned much that year.
SKINNY-DIPPING, SKIFFS, AND SKIPPING SCHOOL
In 1849, news that gold had been discovered in California reached the Cody farm. Overnight, Isaac was seized with gold fever. All he could think about, according to Will, was “that exciting climate of gold, flowers, oranges, sweet odors and fighting whiskey.” Selling his property, he bought a covered wagon and prepared to move his family across the country.
The trip, however, didn’t happen. “Why, I never knew,” wrote Will years later. Some claimed it was because Isaac fell ill. Others say it was because the group he planned to travel with got cold feet after hearing reports about American Indian attacks on the trail. Either way, the Codys remained in Iowa. Renting a house in downtown Le Claire, Isaac went to work as a stage driver on the route between Davenport and Chicago.
Will became a town boy. Barefoot, wearing a brimless hat, one suspender, and a mischievous smile, he raided his neighbors’ melon patches, rode other people’s horses when he could catch them on the town square, and tied his friends’ clothing to the tops of trees while they were skinny-dipping in the river. “I was quite as bad,” Will later confessed, “though no worse, than the ordinary, every-day boy.”
In 1851, Will—now five years old—was sent to school again. For the next year he struggled with his numbers and letters. “By diligence … I managed to familiarize myself with the alphabet, but further progress was arrested by a suddenly developed love of skiff-riding on the Mississippi,” he later admitted.
Day after day, Will and a handful of friends would sneak away from the schoolhouse. Heading down to the river, they would “borrow” one of the many small flat-bottomed boats that lined the bank. After rowing into the water, they would float along with the current, their fishing lines dragging behind them. Indeed, skiff-riding “occupied so much of my time thereafter that really I found no convenient opportunity for further attendance at school,” said Will. His parents, he claimed, never knew he was skipping class. How he managed to escape Julia’s ever-watchful eye, however, remains a mystery.
Then one morning Will and two other boys were out on the river when they suddenly found themselves far from the shore. Spring rains had swollen the Mississippi, creating a roiling current filled with tree branches and green ribbons of vegetation. The little boat bumped and rocked. “We lost our presence of mind, as well as our oars,” recalled Will. Terrified, the boys screamed for help. Minutes later, a man in a canoe came to their rescue and towed them to shore. But the boys’ troubles did not stop there. “We had stolen the boat … We each received a … whipping.” It was the end of Will’s skiff-riding days.
The same year, the mischievous boy took his mother’s keepsake five-franc silver coin (similar to a silver dollar) from her sewing basket. Strolling down to the riverbank where a group of older boys were playing, he showed them the coin. Then he walked innocently out onto the pier.
The boys returned to their play.
But just minutes later, Will frantically began searching his pockets. “I guess it must have dropped in the river,” he exclaimed.
He had the boys’ instant attention. “What dropped?” they asked.
“That five-franc piece,” he replied. “Let’s see if you can find it.”
So while the five-year-old stood on the pier and gave directions, the older boys waded and groped in the shallow water, searching with fingers and toes for the coin.
Meanwhile, someone ran to tell Mary Cody what had happened. Furious, she stormed down to the river, switch in hand, and shouted, “Willie! I told you not to take that [coin] didn’t I? And now you’ve gone and lost it in the river. Come here! I want to see you.”
“Aw, Ma,” replied Will. “I ain’t lost it. Here it is. I was just learnin’ ’em how to dig for gold in California.” And he handed over the coin, safe and dry.
Already, Will was exhibiting a talent for leadership.
In 1852, Isaac uprooted his family again. This time he moved them to a large farm in Walnut Grove, fifteen miles west of Le Claire. For the next year the family lived in a pleasant, roomy farmhouse set in the sunlight against a background of cool green wood and mottled meadow. Will roamed the countryside, his big black dog, Turk, padding along behind. He built quail traps with string, twigs, and boxes, and checked them twice a day. “I greatly enjoyed studying the habits of the little birds, and devising [ways] to take them in,” Will recalled. “Thus I think it was that I acquired my love for hunting.”
A DARK AND MOURNFUL DAY
On a September afternoon in 1853, the Codys gathered around the table for the midday meal. The family had grown, and now seven children tucked into Mary’s corn dodgers and crispy fried pork: eighteen-year-old Martha, twelve-year-old Samuel, ten-year-old Julia, seven-year-old Will, five-year-old Eliza, three-year-old Helen, and Mary (called May), who was not quite one. Meal finished, Samuel pushed back from the table. It was time to bring the cows in from the pasture two miles away.
Eager for any chance to sit a horse, Will offered to help. And Samuel agreed. He must have been glad of the extra hands since Isaac wouldn’t be helping. Their father was headed to a political meeting at Sherman’s Tavern, about a mile away.
The boys went down to the barn. Will clambered bareback onto a slow old mare. Even though he’d been riding since he was old enough to straddle a saddle, his parents refused to let him ride anything but the gentlest horse.
Samuel, though, saddled up Betsy Baker. Betsy came from racing stock, and she was nervous. Time and again their mother had told him not to ride Betsy. The horse was too unpredictable and sometimes behaved badly. But Samuel liked her because she was so fast.
Out of the barnyard the boys rode, Betsy skimming over the fields like a bird, Will’s horse lumbering behind. The riders turned onto the road where the schoolhouse sat. Its doors opened, and the students spilled out.
How could Samuel resist such an audience? He had to show off his horsemanship skills. He pulled back on the reins.
Betsy Baker’s temper flared. Rearing onto her hind legs, she furiously struck the air with her front hooves before plunging forward to kick out her back legs.
Samuel clung to the reins and kept to the saddle as Betsy reared and bucked again and again.
Then suddenly she calmed, seemingly giving up the fight.
Aware of the schoolchildren’s wide eyes looking at him, Samuel cried victoriously, “Ah, Betsy Baker, you didn’t quite come it that time!”
At that, the mare reared up, up, up.
Samuel clung to the horse as she hurtled over backward, crushing the boy beneath her.
Will arrived just as Betsy Baker scrambled to her feet.
Samuel, though, remained on the ground. He didn’t move.
As the schoolmaster and a group of older students carried the unconscious boy to a nearby house, Will slammed his heels into the sides of his horse. He had to fetch Isaac.
Sherman’s Tavern must have seemed a thousand miles away. Arriving at last, he told his father the news. Frantic, Isaac pulled Will off the mare, leaped up in his place, and galloped off for the schoolhouse. Will was left to drive his father’s ox-drawn wagon back by himself.
When he finally arrived at the house where Samuel had been taken, he found his entire family huddled around his brother’s bedside, weeping bitterly. The boy’s injuries were fatal, the doctor told them. There was nothing to be done. “He died the next morning,” Will remembered.
THE CODYS HEAD WEST
After Samuel’s death, life became almost unbearable for Isaac and Mary. Everywhere they looked they saw their older boy—in the barn, in the pasture, at the supper table. “Gloom fell over the farm,” remembered Will. “Father … [was] heartbroken over it.”
It was time to leave. Isaac, who had not been content with Iowa since his failed plans to move to California, now set his sights on Kansas.
In early 1854, the U.S. Senate passed a bill opening up the territories of Nebraska and Kansas to settlement. All a man had to do to acquire territorial land from the government was file a claim and “make improvements,” that is, build a house and grow crops.
“Now is the time to make claims,” urged one Missouri newspaper. “The country is swarming with [settlers]. Men on horseback, with cup and skillet, ham, flour and coffee tied behind them, and axe on shoulder, are hurrying westward, companies with flags flying are staking out the prairies, trees are falling, tents are stretching, cabins are going up … Hurrah for Kansas!”
Isaac sold the farm and all the stock except for enough mules and horses to pull his three wagons. He loaded up the family’s furniture, as well as the farm equipment. And he hired a man to help drive the rigs to the new territory. Then on a bright spring morning in April 1854, he gave the wagon reins a slap. The Codys headed west.
The journey took weeks. They traveled across Iowa, and through a small section of Missouri. Since this region was already settled, there was no reason to camp or hunt. Instead, the family stopped each night “at the best hotels,” recalled Julia, where the maids helped put the children to bed. At last, after crossing the Missouri River by ferry, the family arrived in the new territory.
Eastern Kansas seemed to promise a bright future. From the top of Salt Creek Hill the family looked down on a valley—“the most beautiful valley I [had] ever seen,” recalled Will.
But it wasn’t the grassy hills or sparkling streams that dazzled the eight-year-old boy. It was the sight of a long line of prairie schooners moving through the valley. Will “got wild with excitement,” remembered Julia. Echoing through the valley came the clink and rattle of the wagons, the sharp snap of bullwhips, and the lowing of cattle.
“Where [are] they going?” Will asked his father.
“Utah and California,” replied Isaac.
“Oh, my,” the boy reportedly gushed, “that is what I am going to do [someday].”
Wasting little time, Isaac staked his claim in Salt Creek Valley. He planted a spring crop of hay. And he hired men to help build a two-story, seven-room log house. While the family waited for it to be completed, they lived in tents on their new land—“the first time I ever camped, or slept upon the ground,” recalled Will.
FLYING OVER THE PRAIRIE ON A PONY NAMED PRINCE
The Salt Creek Trail ran past the Codys’ Kansas homestead, and there was always something interesting to see. Sometimes the children in the westbound wagons waved to Will as they passed. Cavalrymen from nearby Fort Leavenworth often stopped in. Prospectors, scouts, guides, and traders dropped in with tales of the far west.
But to Will’s mind, the most fascinating visitors were members of the Kickapoo tribe. They came often to the Cody place to trade venison for colored beads or to trade animal pelts for blankets, knives, or kettles. Sometimes they brought along their children, and Will made friends with some of the boys. He tried to learn their language, although he later admitted that his “conversations were very limited.” He did better at learning their games. And he admired their ponies. Hard-fleshed and trim-legged, the ponies had delicately curved necks and small bodies, making them fast and powerful. Will longed to own one himself. When would his father ever let him ride anything but the family’s old mare?
One morning a band of Kickapoo arrived at the Codys’. To Will’s surprise, his father began trading for two ponies. The first, a gentle bay mare, was meant for Julia. Will named the horse Dolly. The second, a spirited stallion, was Will’s. “I called him Prince,” he said.
A real eye-catcher, Prince was a copper shade of chestnut with a lighter mane and tail. Will couldn’t wait to hop onto his back and tear across the fields. Problem was, Prince had never been ridden. When Will patted the pony’s withers, he snorted and jumped away. “I was somewhat disappointed at this,” confessed Will.
As luck would have it, just hours later a rider came over the green crest of the valley. Trotting onto the Codys’ land, he hopped off his horse and made his introductions. His name, he said, was Horace Billings, and he was camped nearby with a group of Californians bringing back a herd of mustangs to market.
Will had never met anyone like Horace Billings. He was a “genuine Western man … dressed in a complete suit of buckskin, beautifully trimmed and beaded.”
After a few minutes of conversation, Horace turned to the boy. “Little one,” Horace said, “I see you are working with your pony. [He] is wild yet.”
“Yes,” answered Will. “[He] … has never been ridden.”
“Well, I’ll ride him for you,” cried Horace. “Come on.”
Quick as a wink, Horace untied Prince’s rope and, making a half loop around the pony’s nose, jumped onto his back.
“In a moment he was flying over the prairie,” remembered Will, “the untamed steed rearing and pitching … But the man was not unseated.” Obviously, Horace was an experienced horseman. “I watched his every movement,” said Will.
Horace stayed on the pony until it calmed. Then trotting over to Will, he hopped off and tossed the boy the rope. “Here’s your pony,” he said. “He’s all right now.”
But Horace wasn’t done showing off yet. Untying Isaac’s horse, Little Gray, from a nearby tree, the Californian demonstrated a few riding tricks. Galloping full tilt across the prairie, he stood straight up on Little Gray’s back. As he passed Will and his father, Horace jumped to the ground. Then letting the horse have the full length of rope, he gave a mighty tug. Incredibly, the animal did a complete somersault.
Will thought this was “really wonderful … skillful and daring.”
“Oh, that’s nothing,” said Horace. “I was raised on horseback.” And he told the Codys about his life traveling with a circus and becoming a celebrated bareback rider. And as the conversation wore on, the three discovered an incredible coincidence. Horace was Isaac’s nephew—the long-lost son of his sister Sophia!
Horace decided to move in with his uncle Isaac. For the rest of the summer, he worked on the Cody homestead, cutting logs and building split-rail fences. In his spare time, he showed Will how to train his pony. Soon Prince came when Will whistled and kneeled down so the boy could climb easily onto his back.
But Horace became bored with farmwork, so he took a job rounding up the wild horses that still stampeded across the Kansas prairie. Sometimes he took Will along. Because the horses had to be caught with a lasso, Horace taught the boy how to throw one. He also taught him how to throw an obstinate horse to the ground. “Everything that he did, I wanted to do,” said Will. “He was a hero in my eyes and I wished to follow in his footsteps.”
Sadly, Horace did not stay on with the Codys. In the spring of 1855, longing for the adventure of the far west, he signed up with a wagon train headed for Utah. By that time, bragged Will, “I had become a remarkably good rider for a youth.”
The family never heard from Horace again.
BLEEDING KANSAS
When Congress had opened up the Kansas Territory to settlers, it had dodged the most controversial subject in America—slavery. Should slaves be allowed in Kansas or not? Congress chose not to answer this question. Instead, it decided to allow the people of the territory to decide for themselves. This decision unleashed, as one U.S. senator called it, “a hell of a storm.”
In the North, abolitionist groups formed organizations that sent thousands of antislavery settlers, called “free-soilers,” into the territory. “Kansas is the great battlefield where a mighty conflict is to be waged against the monster slavery,” wrote Julia Lovejoy, a settler from New Hampshire, “and [it] will be routed and slain. Amen and Amen.” The Lovejoys, like so many others, were willing to give up their old lives to keep the soil of Kansas free from slavery. They were also prepared to fight if necessary. “I can assure you, every man … was prepared for them,” said Mrs. Lovejoy.
Meanwhile, the South responded by sending thousands of armed men, mostly from Missouri, across the border. Called “border ruffians,” these men promised to defend the institution of slavery “with the bayonet and with blood” and “to kill every damned abolitionist in the district.”
There was little local government to speak of. “Govern Kansas?” said Wilson Shannon, the second territorial governor. “You might as well have attempted to govern hell.”
Violence became inevitable. Every day brought kidnappings and killings. People were tarred and feathered, their homes burned, their property stolen.
“We are in the midst of … a war of extermination,” wrote Julia Lovejoy. “Freedom and slavery are interlocked in deadly embrace, and death is certain for one or the other party.”
Seemingly overnight, the Codys found themselves living in one of the most dangerous places in America—what some people were calling Bleeding Kansas. Still, Isaac wasn’t worried about getting mixed up in the turmoil. He’d come to Kansas to make money, and nothing else. Besides, he wasn’t an abolitionist. He was all for letting slave owners keep their slaves, just not in Kansas. Like many settlers, Isaac resented the possibility of competing against black labor. For this reason, he believed Kansas should be an all-white territory, a place where black people—free or slave—were outlawed.
A SPEECH AND A STABBING
On September 18, 1854, Isaac headed home from Fort Leavenworth. He must have been feeling pleased with himself. He’d just struck a deal with the fort commander to provide hay for the army’s horses—hay that already stood cut and stacked in his fields.
As he turned onto the Salt Creek Trail, he noticed a large group of men in front of Rively’s trading post. This wasn’t unusual. On most Saturday nights, men gathered there to drink whiskey and talk politics. Isaac knew this part of the territory was filled with pro-slavery men, so he figured the people in the crowd were mostly cursing and railing against abolitionists.
He didn’t intend to stop. But as he passed by, some of the men called out to him. They grabbed the reins of his horse, insisting he say a few words on the issue of slavery.
Isaac tried to beg off. It was late. He was tired. His family was waiting.
But the men would not take no for an answer. “Speech! Speech!” they shouted. Pulling him from the saddle, they hustled him over to a large, wooden dry goods crate being used as a stage. Hop up there, they insisted. Give us a speech.
Isaac gave in. “Gentlemen,… [Kansas] should be a white State,” he began, “… that [blacks], whether free or slave, should never be allowed to locate within its limits.”
His words shocked the crowd. They knew Isaac’s brother Elijah was a slave owner in Missouri and had assumed Isaac and Elijah held the same political views. They began hissing and booing.
“Get down from that box!” one man hollered.
“You black abolitionist, shut up!” cried another.
“Kill him!” called yet another.
Isaac tried to explain he wasn’t an abolitionist. “I believe in letting slavery remain as it now exists,” he shouted above the noise. “These are my sentiments, gentlemen, and let me tell you—”
He never finished his sentence. A drunken, swearing man named Charles Dunn pushed his way through the angry mob. Pulling out a huge bowie knife, Dunn leaped onto the crate and stabbed Isaac twice.
Isaac reeled and fell to the ground.
Dunn sprang after him. Aiming for Isaac’s heart, he raised his knife for one last thrust.
That’s when M. Pierce Rively, owner of the trading post, stepped in. Grabbing Dunn’s wrist, he dragged the would-be killer away.
Rively’s actions sobered the crowd. No one argued when Dr. Hathaway, who was also attending the gathering, took Isaac into the store and examined his wounds. They were severe. His lung had been hit. Sending word to Mrs. Cody to bring a wagon, he suggested Isaac be taken to his brother’s house in Missouri. Not only would he get better medical care there, but he’d be away from his angry neighbors. Let tempers cool, suggested the doctor. Mary Cody agreed.
For the next three weeks, Isaac recuperated at his brother’s house. While he was gone, the anger of his pro-slavery neighbors continued to simmer. Ten days after the event, a local newspaper, the Democratic Platform, wrote about Isaac: “A Mr. Cody, a noisy abolitionist … was severely stabbed … but not enough to cause his death. The settlers on Salt Creek regret that his wound is not more dangerous.”
DEATH THREATS, DISGUISES, AND DANGER
His father’s speech, Will later said, “brought upon our family all of the misfortunes and difficulties which from that time on befell us.” Within days of Isaac’s return from Missouri, a “body of armed men mounted on horses rode up to our house and surrounded it.”
Isaac, who was still bedridden, knew he was too weak to confront the men. His only hope, he realized, was escape. So he hastily disguised himself in his wife’s clothing. Then, with the rim of Mary Cody’s sunbonnet pulled low over his face, he boldly walked between the murderous horsemen and made his way out into the cornfield.
He hid there for three days, signaling to his family by raising the tip of his walking stick above the tall plants. After making sure all was clear, eight-year-old Will and eleven-year-old Julia plunged into the field carrying food, water, blankets, and clean bandages. “My first real work as a scout began then,” Will later wrote, “for I had to keep constantly on watch for raids by [men] who had now sworn my father must die.” Eventually, Isaac escaped to Fort Leavenworth, although exactly how he accomplished this is not known. He didn’t dare return to his family for weeks.
Threats against Isaac were joined by attacks on his home and farm. Throughout that winter of 1854–55, pro-slavery neighbors drove off his horses and stole his livestock. Worst of all, they torched the hay he’d cut, stacked, and promised to Fort Leavenworth. Isaac wept. “In less than one hour the 3,000 [bale] of hay was in a blaze,” remembered Julia. “All we could do was look at it.”
Isaac, however, refused to be scared off; he continued improving his Salt Creek Valley home. In the spring of 1855, he built a barn for his new livestock and tried digging a well.
Around this time Mary started complaining about her children’s lack of schooling. They hadn’t stepped inside a classroom since they’d left Iowa a year earlier. So Isaac set up a school in a nearby abandoned cabin. After furnishing it with long benches and a blackboard, he hired a teacher, Miss Jennie Lyons. Soon twelve students—five of them Cody kids—bent over their slates. “It was a nice little school,” recalled Julia.
Then one afternoon a gang of rifle-toting ruffians galloped up to the schoolhouse. Pushing open the door, they swaggered up to Miss Lyons’s desk.
No “damned abolitionist,” one of them told her, was going to be allowed to have a school.
“If [we have] to come back,” threatened a second, “[we will] set fire to the schoolhouse and burn you all in it.”
Added another nastily, “As Cody [has] the most brats in the school.”
Terrified, Miss Lyons handed in her resignation that very afternoon.
The Cody children’s schooling had lasted just three months.
“THE FIRST BLOOD [SHED]”
In the fall of 1855, a territory-wide election was held to choose representatives to Kansas’s first legislature. On voting day, five thousand ruffians from Missouri flooded across the border. Seizing polling places, they stuffed ballot boxes with fraudulent votes. In Leavenworth alone, five times as many votes were cast as settlers living in the area. Because of these illegal activities, pro-slavery men gained control of the legislature. They quickly passed laws allowing slavery in Kansas.
Outraged at being denied a fair vote at the polls, those opposed to slavery refused to recognize the territory’s new government. Instead, they formed their own legislature to meet in Topeka.
One of the men chosen for this legislature was Isaac Cody. Since the stabbing, he’d gained hero status among antislavery men. Many declared his wounds “the first blood [shed] in the cause of freedom in Kansas.” Isaac Cody hadn’t considered himself a political man when he first arrived in Kansas, but events had pushed him into taking a stand. When the legislative sessions began in the spring of 1856, Isaac rode the sixty miles to Topeka. He left his family behind.
WILL VERSUS PANTHERS AND NEIGHBORS
“You will have to be the man of the house until my return,” Isaac had told his ten-year-old son before he’d left. “But I know I can trust my boy.”
It was a heavy responsibility. But Will promised to do his best.
His best meant taking care of the farm. Will and Julia plowed ten acres with their ponies and planted corn. “Willie drove the ponies and I held the plow,” remembered Julia. “All that seen [us] said we was doing a good job … [Then] Willie dropped the corn and I covered it with the hoe.”
That spring, too, Will milked the cows and fetched slopping buckets of water from the nearby spring. He chopped wood and mended fences.
His best also meant looking out for his sisters. According to family legend, one morning little Helen and Eliza wandered across the fields picking wildflowers. Turk trotted along beside them. But as they neared the woods, the dog suddenly grew restless. A ridge of fur stood up on his back. He growled. Moments later, the shrill scream of a panther echoed through the trees.
“With the heart of a lion,” Helen later wrote, “[Turk] put himself on guard.” The panther crept from the woods. Spying Turk, the big cat sprang. “With a scream such as I never heard from a dog before or after, our defender hurled himself upon the foe.”
But Turk was no match for the panther. Within minutes, the dog lay stunned and bleeding. Now the panther turned its glinting eyes on the little girls. “We scarcely dared to breathe,” remembered Helen, “and every throb of our frightened little hearts was a prayer that Will would come.”
Their prayers were answered. Seconds later there came a “rifle’s sharp retort.” The panther fell to the ground, and the girls rushed into their brother’s arms. Then together they picked up Turk, whose injuries were not fatal, and carried him home.
Worse than planting corn or shooting panthers was facing their neighbors’ wrath. Isaac’s role in the Topeka legislature infuriated the pro-slavery men, and they took their fury out on his family.
“We were almost daily visited by some of the pro-slavery men,” remembered Will, “who helped themselves to anything they saw fit, and frequently [forced] my mother and sisters to cook for them … Hardly a day passed without some of them inquiring where the old man was, saying they would kill him on sight.”
One night a wagon filled with hooting, laughing ruffians rattled up to the Cody house. Reeking of whiskey, they called for Isaac to come out, apparently not knowing he was away.
Mary sent Will for help. A group of workers from Fort Leavenworth was camping near the Cody farm. Hurry, she urged him.
As Will darted through the shadows, Mary bravely went out to meet the ruffians. She told them her husband wasn’t there. But, she added, men from Fort Leavenworth were on their way.
At that moment, from the workers’ camp, came the sound of shots being fired into the air.
Whipping up their horses, the ruffians tore away. As they did, a barrel rolled out of the wagon. In their haste, they didn’t stop to retrieve it.
Later, when Will returned from the workers’ camp, he and his mother went to see what the ruffians had left behind. They were shocked to discover a twenty-five-pound keg of gunpowder. The men had planned on blowing up the Cody house, or so they had boasted at the store where they’d bought the powder.
Amid these incidents, spring and summer wore on. The children picked strawberries, gooseberries, and raspberries. The corn grew tall, and the vegetables ripened. “[I] thought Kansas was beautiful,” said Julia, “if it was not infested with those pro-slavery men.”
FATHER IN THE SHADOWS
Isaac rarely came home now, and when he did he was in constant dread of being murdered. Careful to arrive after dusk when no one could see him, he always left before first light the next morning. He even kept a secret stable deep in the woods, a half mile from the house. Leaving his horse there so his neighbors wouldn’t see it in the yard, he crept through shadow and cornfield to spend a few precious hours with his family.
One night in the fall of 1856 he arrived sick. By the next morning he was so ill he could not get out of bed. Lying upstairs, he prayed no one would discover his presence.
But at lunchtime, a man with the last name of Sharpe rode up. Bursting into the house, he shouted, “I’ve come to search the house for that abolition[ist] husband of yours!” Then he plopped into a chair and demanded something to eat.
Hoping to keep Sharpe downstairs, Mary started cooking.
As she did, he unsheathed the big bowie knife he carried at his waist. He began sharpening it on the sole of his boot. When he noticed Will watching, he growled, “[This] is to cut the heart out of that Free State father of yours!”
Mary turned to her children. “Julia, you and Willie take the [younger ones] upstairs,” she instructed.
The two did as they were told. Behind them they heard their mother putting dishes on the table and telling Sharpe that Isaac had gone to Topeka.
From his sickbed, Isaac had heard every word. Now he whispered to his two older children, “You will have to protect me. Willie, you get your gun … and Julia you get that ax. Now if that man starts to come up the stairs, Willie, you shoot him, and Julia, if Willie misses him, you hit him with the ax.”
For several long minutes, brother and sister stood poised, weapons raised at the bedroom door. They must have been terrified, not only by the threat to their father but also by the prospect of what they might be required to do. Ears straining, they listened for the thump of boots on the wooden stairs.
It never came. Convinced that Isaac wasn’t there, Sharpe finished his food and headed for the door. But on the threshold he stopped and turned. “We will be on the lookout for [your husband] and we will fix him,” he threatened. “We are going to kill ever one of these abolitionists until we clear this territory of them.”
As the pounding of his horse’s hooves faded away, Will and Julia lowered their weapons.
A TERROR-FILLED CHASE
That same fall, pro-slavery men hatched yet another plot to kill Isaac. It was Dr. Hathaway—one of the family’s few friendly neighbors—who tipped off Mary. Border ruffians, he told her, were waiting to ambush Isaac on his return from Grasshopper Falls, a town some thirty miles from the Cody farm. He urged her to get word to her husband that he should not come home.
Will happened to be lying in bed with the flu, vomiting and dizzy, his body racked with chills. Still, he flung off his blankets when he heard the doctor. “I’m going to warn Father,” he said.
Mary argued. How could she send a sick child on such a long ride in the middle of the night?
But Will insisted.
While he dressed, Julia hurried out to the barn to saddle Prince and Mary wrote a letter to Isaac explaining the danger.
Tucking the message into his sock before pulling on his boots, the sick boy stumbled outside and climbed onto his pony. He headed off into the darkness.
He did not go fast. He felt too ill for that. Instead, keeping Prince at an easy gait, he sucked in the crisp night air in hopes of settling his stomach.
Eight miles out, at Stranger Creek, he came upon a camp.
One of the men there caught sight of him. “There’s Cody’s kid!” he cried. “Stop you, and tell us where your old man is!”
“Let’s go for him,” shouted another man.
Putting his heels to his pony, the boy galloped away. He knew the men had to catch and saddle their horses, giving him some time to ride to the top of the hill that sloped away from the creek and out onto the prairie. Only in that wide, open space might he have a chance to escape.
Within minutes, several men were galloping after him. Sick and scared, Will pushed his pony to the limit. The two pounded across the open range, their pursuers just a few hundred feet behind.
Will knew he could never outrace them all the way to Grasshopper Falls. What to do? He remembered a family friend, Mr. Hewitt, who owned a big farm just nine miles away. Will would be safe there, if he could make it without getting caught.
For the entire nine miles, Will rode in terror. Behind him he could hear the men’s curses and the thundering of their horses’ hooves. Ahead of him stretched an endless expanse of darkness. The wind kicked up, seizing the hat from his head and buffeting his weak body. Time and again, he leaned over Prince’s heaving neck to vomit. He could barely keep his saddle.
At last, a welcome light gleamed in the darkness. The Hewitt farm!
Coaxing one last burst from his now exhausted pony, Will charged through the farm’s open gate and reined up at the house just seconds ahead of the men.
His would-be assassins brought their horses to a quick stop. They didn’t want to tangle with Hewitt and his farmhands. Turning, they hightailed it away.
Meanwhile, Will drooped over his pony’s neck. He was safe, for now.
All the commotion brought Hewitt from the house with rifle and lantern. He peered into the darkness. “Why, what is this?”
Will barely had the strength to explain. Still, he insisted on continuing to Grasshopper Falls. His father was in danger.
But Hewitt stopped him. He’d seen Isaac just that morning, he said, and he knew for a fact that Will’s father would not be heading home until the weekend. There was plenty of time to rest and relay the message.
Dragging the sick boy off his pony, he sent him to bed. Then he called a stable hand to care for Prince. The poor animal was not only foaming at the mouth and covered with lather but also flecked with Will’s vomit.
The next morning, Will awoke feeling much better. Prince, too, appeared rejuvenated. So after breakfast, the two traveled the remaining thirteen miles to Grasshopper Falls. Pride must have welled up in Will when he finally handed Isaac his mother’s message. He had risked his life to save the person he described as “dearer to me than any other man in the world.”
SAVING PRINCE
Their neighbors’ persecution continued. “They drove off all our stock, and killed our pigs and even the chickens,” recalled Will.
They stole Julia’s pony, Dolly, too. “I was left without anything to ride, or [any way] to go to the store … [I] felt all broke up,” she said.
This constant raiding reduced the family to “utter destitution,” said Will. “Our only food was what rabbits and birds I could catch with the help of our faithful old dog, Turk.” Isaac could not help his family anymore. “His presence, in fact,” Will continued, “was merely a menace.”
So in early 1857 Isaac left Kansas. He headed east to Ohio, where he made speeches in churches and at town meetings about the beauty of Kansas. His purpose was to recruit new settlers for the territory—all of them against slavery.
Not long after he left, border ruffians swept down on the Cody place yet again. This time they stole Prince. When Will discovered the empty stable, he cried. “The loss of my faithful pony nearly broke my heart,” he said. He was convinced he’d never see his friend again.
But just weeks later, as he walked to the fort, he saw something strange—notices fluttering from fence posts and trees. Stranger still was what the notices said. The Kickapoo Rangers, a group of border ruffians, were disbanding for the winter and returning to Missouri. Unable to take along all the horses they’d stolen, they were inviting folks to come and claim their property.
Notice in hand, Will set out for the rangers’ camp. Was he concerned about walking into their midst? Apparently not. He was determined to get Prince back.
At their camp, Will looked for his pony. He saw dozens of horses, but none of them were Prince. Still, he was sure the animal was there. So, putting his fingers in his mouth, he whistled sharply.
From behind a closed and locked stall door came an answering whinny.
Prince!
Will hurried to the captain of the rangers. Holding out the notice, he said, “I came to get my pony.”
The captain peered down at the boy. “Can you prove you have a horse here?”
“Yes sir,” Will replied. “If you will … open the door to stall 10 … I will show you.”
The captain agreed, and Will whistled for Prince again.
“The horse, he whinered, and Willie whistled again,” wrote Julia years later. “Prince kicked up and made a jump and started for Willie and got to him and began to fondle around him as much as a person could.”
Prince kneeled down as he’d been trained, and Will climbed onto his back. He nudged the pony forward.
That’s when the captain, impressed by Will’s horse skills and bravery, called after them. He wanted to know the boy’s name.
“William F. Cody,” said Will proudly.
Then boy and pony rode home together.
CHILDHOOD’S END
Just weeks later, Isaac returned to Salt Creek Valley. He brought along sixty free-soil families he’d recruited in the east. And he’d invited them all to make his home their headquarters. “As a result,” remembered Helen, “our house overflowed while the land above us was dotted with tents; but these melted away as one by one the families selected claims and put up cabins.”
In March, measles broke out in the settlers’ camp, killing four people. Isaac helped bury one of these victims—a little girl—in the cold rain. The next day he came down with a severe chill. Mary sent for Dr. Hathaway, but the physician could do nothing. Isaac’s condition worsened, and pneumonia set in. On March 10, 1857, at the age of forty-five, Isaac Cody died.
He left his family penniless.
And he left his son feeling scared and vulnerable. Unlike the brave hero of his later performances, Will Cody the child had not been able to drive the attackers away from his family’s cabin. They’d stolen almost everything and, to his mind, killed his father. The future must have looked bleak.
What could he—a skinny eleven-year-old boy—possibly do?
“I made up my mind to be [the] breadwinner,” he said.
Text copyright © 2016 by Candace Fleming
