Ruffian Dick by Joseph Kennedy

Author:Joseph Kennedy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Skyhorse Publishing
Published: 2016-03-14T16:00:00+00:00

23 Richard Burton coined the term Extra Sensory Perception. —Ed.

24 These three draft responses to Palmerston’s letter were all written on a single sheet of paper in Burton’s tiniest handwriting. Note the degeneration of his salutations and the corresponding reluctance to contrition or convention. —Ed.

XI

PREPARATIONS FOR THE RED INDIAN WEST

July 22, 1860

St. Joseph, Missouri

Eccomi qua25 across the mighty river and at the frontier of the great and wild American West. I am alone now and this is probably the condition that best suits me, but considering dear John, the alcohol and the problems that surpassed its pleasures overtook him—the embarrassments, the wasted days, and so forth. Curiously, he always advised me when entering the realm of Bacchus that it is all about “control, control, control.” I cannot suffer many men who would turn their back on one of the world’s best remedies—and why did the learned Arabs of old ever abandon the pleasures that would have continued their advancement?—but America is a different world, where “control” is hard to come by and a land where certain kinds of attractive freedoms constantly dare to challenge the sensibilities of what drink has to offer. There is the newness here and a certain exhilaration that seems to fuel excesses of all sorts. Ah, well. My best to him, but now a different stage of the hunt begins.

At first sight, the dry land port of St. Jo appears to be under siege, for hundreds of white tents surround the city and the crackling of gunfire can be heard any time of the day or night. This later condition may be explained by the scores of bivouacked would-be pioneers and their preposterous preparations for the journey West—to wit, every dirt farmer and shopkeeper inhabitant of this tent city has recently armed themselves against all perceived trail hazards and are becoming acquainted with their unfamiliar possessions by shooting apart every stray dog, tree stump, and glass bottle in sight. One finds it nearly impossible to enter the city proper without running a gauntlet of “tenderfeet” playing with their new toys.

Once past this dangerous free-fire zone, the traveler may gain some understanding of how this situation came about. A sign posted on the first frame building in town warns:

BEWARE OF CONFIDENCE MEN AND BAD ADVICE, DO NOT LEND YOUR MONEY TO STRANGERS, and finally, WELCOME TO ST. JOSEPH, GATEWAY TO CALIFORNIA.

The so-called pioneers swarm here at St. Jo and then leave like columns of ants heading West in lines of wagons. These are no real pioneers, of course, because all available literature demonstrates that the land had already been nicely pioneered and was well-known to those Indians who came long before them. It may be allowed that it was not populated or exploited enough to suit European tastes, but herein rests the core of the problem—half of the “wildness” of “The Wild West” is based on the resistance to the wagons, their passengers, their designs, and the suffocating feeling that they were never going to stop coming.

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