If I asked you to close your eyes right now and
picture the Wild West, the real gritty, dusty
American frontier. What is the very first image
that hits your brain? Oh, that's a good question.
Don't overthink it. Just the first flash. It's
almost always the same reeling film strip for
everyone. You know, you see a stagecoach racing
across the desert, kicking up all this dust.
Yeah, the stagecoach for sure. You see a saloon
with those swinging doors, maybe a cowboy on
a bucking bronco. And if you zoom in on that
cowboy, if you get right up in his face. Well,
then you see the fringed buckskin jacket. You
see the long flowing hair down to the shoulders.
The goatee. The white Stetson hat. The white
Stetson. You see, William Frederick Cody. Better
known to the entire world as Buffalo Bill. The
face that essentially branded the American West
for the rest of history. Welcome to the Deep
Dive. Today, we are unpacking the man behind
that face. And I have to be honest, before we
started digging into these sources, specifically
the biography and the historical records. I thought
I knew this story. Right. I thought, okay, famous
cowboy, good shot, had a circus. That is the
caricature. That is the version on the lunchbox.
Exactly. But the mission for this deep dive is
to look at the historical record and peel back
those layers. Because when you actually look
at the documents, the man underneath that fringe
jacket is, well, he's messy. Messy is a polite
way to put it. He is a massive walking contradiction.
I mean, we're talking about a man who is famous
for killing bison. thousands of them, yet became
a conservationist who fought to save them. A
man who fought in the Indian Wars, effectively
a soldier of the empire, yet became a vocal advocate
for Native American rights. It's a lot to square.
And a rough and tumble frontiersman who was also
a progressive feminist fighting for equal pay
in the 1800s. And a man whose entire life was
a blur between cold, hard reality and the legend
he manufactured to sell tickets. That's the core
theme we want to explore today. Invention. how
one man effectively invented the concept of the
Wild West for global consumption while living
a life that was often stranger and much darker
than the fiction he was selling. We have a lot
to cover. The violence of his childhood, the
military service, the massive logistics of his
show, and the bizarre body -snatching rumors
after he died. It's a wild ride, and I think
it's important to start with that idea of invention.
We tend to think of history as this static list
of facts. But Cody proved that history is a story
you tell. Yeah. And if you tell it loud enough
and with enough flair, your version becomes the
truth. So let's go back to the very beginning.
I think the assumption most of us have is that
Buffalo Bill just sort of sprang out of the ground,
fully formed in the middle of a buffalo stampede.
Right. The jacket and everything. But his origin
story is surprisingly political. It is. And to
understand Cody, you have to understand the geopolitical
temperature of America when he was a kid. He
was born in the Iowa Territory in 1846, but the
family moved to the Kansas Territory when he
was young. And this wasn't Little House on the
Prairie, Kansas. This was Bleeding, Kansas. Right.
For those of you who might have slept through
that day in history class, Bleeding, Kansas was
essentially a prelude to the Civil War. A really
nasty one. Oh, it was a violent guerrilla war
between pro -slavery and anti -slavery factions
fighting over whether Kansas would enter the
Union as a free state or a slave state. It was
terrorism, it was arson, it was murder. And Cody's
father, Isaac Cody, stepped right into the middle
of this buzzsaw. He did. The sources detail a
specific incident at Reveley's trading post.
This was a local spot where pro -slavery men
gathered. So hostile territory. Extremely hostile
territory for an abolitionist. Isaac Cody was
invited to speak. Now, he could have just offered
some platitudes, kept his head down, and sat
down. But he didn't. No. He gave a fiery, impassioned,
anti -slavery speech in a room full of men who
violently disagreed with him and were, you know,
armed. That is brave or incredibly reckless.
Or both. Probably both. The crowd turned on him
immediately. They threatened to kill him if he
didn't step down. And then it wasn't just threats.
What happened? A man jumped onto the platform
and stabbed Isaac Cody twice with a bowie knife.
A Bowie knife. We aren't talking about a little
pocket knife here. No, no. A Bowie knife is a
combat weapon. Massive blade. This was a brutal,
brutal assault. Wow. And keep in mind, young
William is there. He's a child witnessing this
happen to his father. That is just... unbelievably
traumatic. It is. And Isaac never really recovered
from those wounds. He lingered for a while, but
the family was persecuted. Their finances were
ruined because Isaac couldn't work. And he eventually
died in April 1857 from complications related
to the attack. So William is 11 years old. His
father is dead, effectively killed by political
violence. The family is destitute. This isn't
a yeehaw adventure story. This is a desperate
survival story. It is trauma, pure and simple.
And it forced him to grow up instantly. He became
the breadwinner at age 11. At 11. He had a mother
and sisters to support. There was no social safety
net. If he didn't work, they didn't eat. And
this is where he enters the workforce. The source
says he started as a boy extra. What does that
even mean? Sounds like a movie role. It does,
but it was far less glamorous. He was working
for freight carriers, specifically the famous
firm Russell Majors and Waddell. These were the
logistics giants of the frontier. A boy extra
usually meant a messenger. He would ride up and
down the length of a wagon train, delivering
messages from the wagon master to the drivers.
Which brings us to the first big myth we need
to tackle, the Pony Express. Ah, the Pony Express,
yes. If you go to a museum or watch an old western,
Buffalo Bill and the Pony Express are synonyms.
He is the star rider. The poster boy. It's part
of the brand, absolutely. But historians are
waving a red flag here. They are waving a very
large red flag. This is where we see the legend
starting to overwrite the man. Later in his life,
and certainly in his show's publicity materials,
Cody claimed he was a Pony Express rider. Right,
telling these epic stories. He told stories of
these epic hundreds of miles rides, dodging arrows,
galloping across the plains, swapping horses
at lightning speed. Real hero stuff. But the
math doesn't check out. Or the timeline. The
timeline is incredibly tight, and the nature
of his employment is disputed. The general consensus
among serious historians is that while he worked
for the parent company, he was likely a messenger
boy. He probably rode from the firm's office
to the telegraph station. So we're talking about
a commute of, what, a few miles? Maybe three
miles. Three miles. Okay. So not exactly galloping
across the burning desert with bandits on his
tail for days on end. Not quite. But and this
is crucial for understanding him. The fact that
he embellished it doesn't mean he wasn't capable.
He was a skilled writer. He was growing up in
that environment. But he understood even at a
young age that the story matters more than the
strict facts. He took a kernel of truth. I rode
horses for this company and expanded it into
a legend that the press would eat up. He was
building a brand before personal branding was
a concept. He was realizing that the truth is
flexible if you're charismatic enough. Exactly.
He was rewriting his resume for the history books
before he even had a biography. But he did earn
the name Buffalo Bill. That wasn't just a marketing
gimmick he pulled out of thin air. It was a literal
job description. Correct. This happens after
the Civil War. The Kansas Pacific Railroad is
pushing west. You have these massive crews of
men laying track in the middle of nowhere. And
they need to be fed. They need to be fed. Logistics
are a nightmare. You can't ship fresh beef from
Chicago easily. They need protein. They need
meat. And they need it cheap. And the cheapest,
most abundant meat available was the American
bison. Right. Millions of them. So Cody was contracted
to supply buffalo meat to the workers. The numbers
here are just... What are we talking? The source
indicates he claimed to kill 4 ,282 buffalo in
just 18 months between 1867 and 1868. 4 ,282.
That is, that's industrial slaughter. It is.
By modern standards, it is horrific for conservation.
It helps explain why the species nearly went
extinct, but at the time it was seen as a necessary
service for industrial expansion. He was a contractor
doing a job. Exactly. But he wasn't the only
one doing it. There was actually a dispute over
the nickname Buffalo Bill, right? Yes. I love
this part of the story. There was another man
named Bill Comstock. He also claimed the title.
He was well -known in the territory. So what
did they do? Well, they did the most Wild West
thing possible. They didn't go to court. They
didn't flip a coin. They had a shoot -off. A
literal duel for the trademark. A buffalo hunting
duel. They agreed. The winner gets the title
Buffalo Bill for life. The loser has to go by...
Well, just Bill, I guess. This reads like a sporting
event in the source material. It was an eight
-hour contest. An eight -hour contest. But what
strikes me is the difference in strategy. It
wasn't just about who was a better shot. It was
about who understood the animals better. Right.
Exactly. This is where you see Cody's intelligence.
Comstock was a scout air interpreter, part Cheyenne.
He used a Henry repeating rifle. For those of
us who aren't gun experts, that's a fast -firing
gun, right? Very fast. Lever action. You can
pump out rounds quickly without taking your eye
off the sights. Okay, so what was Comstock's
strategy with it? Comstock's strategy was to
ride up behind the herd and fire rapidly into
the rear of the animals. Which seems logical.
Chase them, shoot them. But think about the physics
of a herd. If you shoot from behind, they panic.
They run faster. They scatter. So you shoot one,
and now you have to ride half a mile to catch
the next one. You are exhausting your horse and
scattering your targets all over the prairie.
Okay, so what did Cody do differently? Cody used
a Springfield Model 1866. It's a larger caliber,
single -shot rifle. It's slower. It kicks like
a mule. And he named it. We have to mention the
name. He named his rifle Lucretia Borgia. After
the notorious Italian noblewoman and subject
of a Victor Hugo play, that is a level of flair
that I honestly appreciate. See? It shows he
had a sense of drama even then. He really did.
But his tactic was the key. He likened it to
playing billiards. He wouldn't chase from behind.
He would ride to the front of the herd, to the
flank, and target the leaders. The alpha animals.
Right. By dropping the leaders, he forced the
herd to turn. They would circle back on themselves
to regroup. So instead of scattering, they clumped
up. Exactly. He created a mill. They were running
in a circle. He made them easy, stationary targets.
He didn't have to chase them. He just had to
reload. That is dark, but tactically brilliant.
It was efficiency. And the final score. Was it
close? Not at all. The final score was Cody,
68, Comstock, 48. 68 to 48. He crushed him. He
did. And that victory secured the name that would
eventually become one of the most famous brands
in the history of the world. It shows that Cody
wasn't just a brute force hunter. He was a strategic
thinker. He understood animal psychology. Absolutely.
So he has the name. He has the childhood trauma
that hardened him. But before he became the showman
in the jacket, he was a legitimate soldier. And
this part of his life is fascinating because
he actually won the Medal of Honor and then...
Lost it. It's a complete roller coaster. It's
a very strange story. He tried to enlist in the
Union Army early in the Civil War, but was refused
for being too young. He eventually got in and
served. But his most famous work was as a scout
during the Indian Wars. He was chief of scouts
for the 5th Cavalry. And we need to talk about
the ride. We mentioned earlier that the Pony
Express stuff might have been exaggerated, but
this ride as a scout is fully documented in the
military records. Oh, yeah. This is the real
deal. He rode 350 miles in 58 hours to deliver
dispatches through hostile territory. Wait, let's
pause on that. 350 miles. In 58 hours. That is
two and a half days. I mean, I complain if I
have to sit in a car for six hours. The physical
toll of riding a horse for that long. It's grueling.
The chafing, the exhaustion, the dehydration.
And remember, he's not riding on a highway. He's
in territory where if he is caught, he is dead.
He's an enemy combatant. Exactly. He's navigating
by landmarks, watching for ambushes. The sources,
he even had to cover the last 35 miles on foot
because the terrain was too rough or the horses
just couldn't make it. Wow. It was feats like
this that led to him being awarded the Medal
of Honor in 1872 for gallantry in action. The
highest military honor. Yes. It was the highest
military honor the U .S. could bestow. He had
it. He wore it. It was proof that he wasn't just
a talker. But then... Decades later, the government
takes it back. That seems incredibly Betty. It
wasn't just him, which is a key part of this.
This is a fascinating bit of bureaucracy. Okay.
In 1917, literally just days after Cody died,
Congress revised the standards for the Medal
of Honor. Why? They wanted to clean up the rolls.
They created a new hierarchy of medals and decided
that to be eligible for the top one, the Medal
of Honor, you had to be a sworn officer or an
enlisted soldier. And Cody was a civilian scat.
Exactly. He was technically a civilian employee
of the Army. He got a paycheck, not a soldier's
wage. So his paperwork wasn't right. Pretty much.
So along with 910 other recipients, including
some famous ones like Dr. Mary Edwards Walker,
his medal was rescinded. That feels incredibly
harsh. Right. Thanks for the gallantry. Thanks
for risking your life. But your paperwork isn't
in order. His family felt the same way. They
were furious. They spent decades appealing this
decision. Decades. Decades. Finally, in 1989,
over 70 years after he died, the decision was
reversed. What was the argument that finally
won? The argument was that civilian scouts in
the frontier wars did the work of officers. They
took the risks of officers. They led troops into
battle. They were functionally officers. They
were treated as officers in the field. The distinction
was technical, not functional. So his medal was
reinstated. It's amazing that the bureaucracy
followed him almost a century after his death.
Oh. But let's pivot to the thing he is most famous
for. The transition from scout to star. Right.
How does a guy who smells like buffalo and gunpowder
become a theater icon? It starts with a writer
named Ned Buntline. He was a dime novelist. Yeah,
what's a dime novel? Think of them as the superhero
comics of the 19th century. Cheap, sensationalized
adventure stories. Buntline met the 23 -year
-old Cody and realized he was a goldmine of a
character. He was handsome, charismatic. He was
handsome, he could talk, and he had these stories.
So Buntline started writing these highly sensationalized
novels about Buffalo Bill, and they were wildly
popular. So Buntline says, let's put this on
a stage. Exactly. And the reviews, they weren't
exactly glowing, were they? The source material
is pretty clear on this. They were terrible.
Critics called him a diffident schoolboy. They
said he was wooden. He wasn't an actor. He was
a scout memorizing lines. He would mumble. He
would look at the floor. But the crowds didn't
care. No. And this is the key to celebrity. The
crowds didn't come to see Hamlet. They didn't
care about diction. They came to see the guy
who killed the buffalo. The real deal. They loved
the authenticity. They loved seeing the real
guy from the story standing right in front of
them. I love the anecdote about Wild Bill Hickok
trying to act with him. Oh, Hickok was a disaster
on stage. A complete disaster. What happened
there? He joined the troupe briefly because he
needed the money. But he hated the spotlight,
literally. The spotlight followed him around
the stage and it annoyed him so much that he
pulled out his revolver and shot the light out.
He shot the spotlight? Shot it dead. That is
a very specific way to give lighting notes to
the crew. Turn that off or I'll kill it. He was
fired shortly after. But Cody, Cody stuck with
it. He realized there was real money here. And
in 1883, he launched the big one. But it's important
to note. He didn't call it a show. Right. The
source makes a big deal of this. It wasn't the
Wild West show. It was Buffalo Bill's Wild West.
He was very specific. He wanted it to be viewed
as a reality exhibition, a documentary in the
flesh. He wasn't acting out the West. He was
bringing the West to you. But the scale of this
thing is mind blowing. We aren't talking about
a few guys and a horse in a tent. No, no. This
was an arena spectacle. At its peak, he had 1
,200 performers. 1 ,200. 1 ,200 performers. Think
about the catering alone. Think about the waste
management for the horses. It's a logistical
nightmare. A moving city. A moving city. And
it wasn't just cowboys and Indians, so to speak.
He had a segment called the Congress of Rough
Riders of the World. What was that? He brought
in Turks, Arabs, Mongols, Cossacks. georgian
horseman it was like the epcot of the frontier
in a way yes he was contextualizing the american
cowboy alongside the great horse cultures of
the world it was brilliant marketing and they
would reenact famous events famous events reenactments
of the pony express stagecoach robberies, and
even Custer's last stand. Which is bold, considering
he knew the people involved in the actual wars.
And sometimes he played Custer himself. He was
restaging history that had happened only a few
years prior. It would be like someone today staging
a massive reenactment of a conflict from five
years ago, starring the people who were there.
The surrealism of that is incredible. But the
impact of this show, sorry, exhibition, cannot
be overstated. No, it can't. When he toured Europe,
it wasn't just entertainment. It was a diplomatic
event. It was. He went to England for Queen Victoria's
Golden Jubilee, and the queen herself attended
the show. And this is the moment that made headlines
everywhere. Yes. During the performance, as the
American flag was carried around the arena, Queen
Victoria stood up and bowed to the flag. The
Queen of England bowed to the U .S. flag. She
did. And you have to understand, that was a massive
symbolic moment. The U .S. was still a young,
somewhat rough nation in the eyes of Europe.
Still the upstart colony in a way. Exactly. For
the monarch to bow to the flag, it signaled a
shift in global power. And it happened at a cowboy
show. It legitimized the American identity on
the world stage. That is wild. He also met the
pope. He did. A delegation from the show went
to the Vatican to meet Pope Leo III. I just picture
cowboys in chaps walking through St. Peter's
Square. It's surreal. It is. But my absolute
favorite story from the European tours has to
be the Italian defeat. Oh, the rodeo challenge.
The source mentions this took place in Rome.
Yes. In 1890, Buffalo Bill's cowboys were in
Rome. They were feeling confident. They're the
kings of the Wild West, right? Of course. So
they issued a challenge to the local Italian
cowboys, the buttery from the Pontine Marshes.
I assume the Americans thought this would be
an easy win. We're the pros. You guys heard cows
in a swamp. Exactly. They challenged them to
a skills competition, breaking untamed horses,
roping calves, and the Americans lost. They lost.
The Wild West cowboys lost. The Italians won
the roping competition. The leader of the Italian
team became a local hero in Rome. That is fantastic.
It's a great check on the American ego. It just
goes to show that while Cody was exporting the
myth of the American cowboy, the actual skill
of working cattle was universal. The Italians
had been doing it for centuries. I love that.
It humanizes the whole machine. But speaking
of humanizing, we need to move to perhaps the
most surprising part of the research. We called
it the progressive. paradox in our notes because
Cody's relationship with Native Americans and
women is it's surprisingly modern it is incredibly
complex and we have to be careful not to paint
him as a saint because he wasn't right this is
a man who fought in the Indian Wars he claimed
to have scalped a Cheyenne warrior in retribution
for Custer he literally reenacted that scalping
in his show for years he did the first scalp
for Custer it was gruesome but and here's the
paradox in his show he was one of the few employers
who paid native americans genuinely well and
treated them with respect right the source quotes
him on this he did he famously said every indian
outbreak that i have ever known has resulted
from broken promises and broken treaties by the
government that is a very clear condemnation
of u .s policy Especially coming from a former
Army scout. It is. And in the show, he encouraged
the Native performers to bring their families.
They set up camps that the public could visit.
Why? He wanted the audience to see them as human
beings. Families, mothers, and children. Not
just the savages they read about in the sensationalist
papers. He called them the former foe. present
friend. It's a weird dynamic, though, isn't it?
He's using them to reenact their own defeat for
entertainment. Right. But also giving them a
platform and economic agency they couldn't get
on the reservation. Exactly. It's exploitation
and empowerment happening simultaneously. If
they stayed on the reservation, they were starving
and controlled by government agents. But with
Cody. With Cody, they traveled the world, met
royalty and made money. Sitting Bull himself
toured with the show for a season. They were
co -workers. And then you look at his stance
on women. This one really surprised me. You expect
the macho cowboy to be traditional, but he was
a vocal advocate for suffrage. He was. He is
quoted as saying, if a woman can do the same
work that a man can do and do it just as well,
she should have the same pay. Equal pay for equal
work. In the late 1800s, that's... That's amazing.
It's remarkably progressive. And he walked the
walk. Annie Oakley was the star of his show.
Not a side act? Not a side act. She was a headliner.
She was paid better than almost anyone else,
man or woman. The source mentions a horrific
incident involving the show train that really
highlights the dangers they faced. Yes. In 1901,
traveling shows were dangerous. A freight train
crashed head on into the show's train. It was
devastating. How bad was it? 110 horses were
killed. Oh, that's awful. It was. And Annie Oakley
was severely injured. She was partially paralyzed
for a time. Doctors told her she would never
walk again. But she did. She recovered after
five surgeries and eventually went back to performing.
It shows the resilience of the people Cody surrounded
himself with. He respected that grit, regardless
of gender. And then there's conservation. The
man who killed 4 ,000 buffalo eventually wanted
to save them. He did. He saw the frontier disappearing.
He saw the bison herds vanish, partly by his
own hand, and he pivoted. How so? He spoke out
against hide hunting. He advocated for hunting
seasons. He wanted to preserve the Wild West
because he realized it was finite. It seems like
he spent the second half of his life trying to
preserve what he spent the first half of his
life destroying. That is a profound way to put
it, yes. He was nostalgic for a world he helped
conquer. And nowhere is that struggle, that messiness,
more evident than in his personal life. Because
while he was playing the hero on stage, his marriage
was an absolute disaster. Oh, a total train wreck.
The section on his marriage to Luisa Frederici
reads like a modern tabloid. They got married
young in 1866. Very young. And almost immediately
the friction started. He was never home. He was
scouting, hunting, touring. Yeah. I mean, he
was home. When he was home, he brought the chaos
with him. He was terrible with money, always
generous to a fault with strangers, but leaving
the family finances in disarray. He called her
cranky in letters. He did. And she probably was.
I mean, she was raising his children alone while
he was off being Buffalo Bill. I know. In 1904,
he actually sued for divorce. This was a huge
scandal. Divorce was rare. A celebrity divorce
was headline news. And the accusations were wild.
He accused her of trying to poison him. He claimed
she put dragon's blood or some concoction in
his coffee. The housekeeper testified that she
saw Louisa tampering with his drink. So it seemed
like he had a case. For a minute. But then the
defense brought in witnesses who painted a very
different picture. What did they say? They claimed
Cody said the only way he could deal with her
was to get drunk and stay drunk. Yikes. So you
have the most famous hero in America telling
the court he has to stay drunk to handle his
wife. It completely destroyed the stoic hero
image. It revealed a sad, angry, trapped man.
And the kicker? What's the kicker? He lost the
case. He lost. The judge ruled that incompatibility
wasn't legal grounds for divorce. The poisoning
allegations weren't proven. So, legally, they
were forced to stay married. That sounds like
an absolute nightmare. It does. They eventually
reconciled in 1910 and stayed together until
he died. But it just shows how trapped he was
in his own private life, even while he was free
to roam the world. Let's move to the end, the
final chapter. You'd think a guy this famous
would die incredibly wealthy living in a palace.
You'd think so. He made a fortune, but he spent
a fortune. And he made terrible investments.
Like what? He poured money into mines that had
no gold. He poured money into founding the town
of Cody, Wyoming. Which is a cool legacy. It's
still a gateway to Yellowstone, but expensive
to build from scratch. Very expensive. He built
the Irma Hotel there, named after his daughter.
He pushed for the Shoshone Dam, which was the
tallest in the world when it was finished. So
he was a visionary developer? A visionary developer,
but cash poor. When he died in 1917, the source
says his liquid fortune had dwindled significantly,
less than $100 ,000. And even in death, there
was controversy. This is the body snatching part
that I teased in the intro. It's the final battle
over who owns Buffalo Bill. It's truly bizarre.
So break it down. What happened? Okay, so he
died in Denver, Colorado at his sister's home.
Now, his wife and sister said he wanted to be
buried on Lookout Mountain, overlooking the plains
in Colorado. But the people of Cody, Wyoming
said, no, he found it our town. He belongs here.
Right. The town of Cody relied on his name for
tourism. They felt they had a claim and relations
got so tense that rumors started flying. What
kind of rumors? The rumor, and it persists to
this day in Wyoming, is that a delegation from
Wyoming stole the body. Stole the body from the
mortuary. The story goes that they came down
to Denver, swapped the body with a drifter or
just a lookalike corpse, and took the real Buffalo
Bill back to Wyoming, burying him on Cedar Mountain.
That sounds like a conspiracy theory. A local
legend. It likely is. Historians are pretty sure
he is in Colorado. But the threat was taken seriously
enough that in 1948... Wait, 1948? That's more
than 30 years after he died. Yes. In 1948, the
American Legion in Denver had to mount an armed
guard over the grave because there were renewed
threats from Wyoming to steal the body. They
had to guard the grave with guns. That is the
power of the icon. Everyone wanted to claim the
legend. He was a tourist attraction even in the
grave. So, as we wrap this up, what does this
all mean? We have looked at the violence, the
showmanship, the progressive politics, the messy
marriage. What's the takeaway? I think Buffalo
Bill is the bridge. He is the bridge between
the real, violent, dirty reality of the frontier
and the Hollywood version we know today. He lived
the history and then he turned it into a sculpt.
He was the scout who became the showman. The
bison hunter who became the conservationist.
And his legacy is everywhere. I mean, you have
the NFL team, the Buffalo Bills. You have the
character in Silence of the Lambs. A dark twist
on the name. Even Bubba Lo Bill ice cream in
Australia, he is baked into the cultural DNA
of the West. There's one final detail in the
source material that I found really provocative.
It says that on his deathbed, he was baptized
Catholic. It's true. After a life of being a
Freemason, a life of violence, a life of performing,
in his final hours, he sought that ritual. Was
it one final attempt to rewrite his own narrative?
Or was it a genuine search for peace after a
life of noise? We will never know. But it adds
one last layer of mystery to the man. And ultimately,
I guess the question for you listening is this.
Does it matter if the Wild West was real? Or
is the version Buffalo Bill created, the one
of heroes and drama and spectacle, the only one
that really matters because it's the one we remember?
That is the power of the showman. Thanks for
diving in with us. See you next time.