Many Loves of Buffalo Bill by Chris Enss

FOREWORD

I’ve got a good woman — what’s the matter with me? What makes me want to love every woman I see?
    â€”H ANK W ILLIAMS J R.

    In 1883 a remote cow town in Nebraska was treated to the grand opening of a show that would reign as America’s favorite for thirty years. It was Buffalo Bill’s Wild West. Bill Cody played Buffalo Bill professionally for more than forty years, a role that probably will never be topped.
    In 1900 the Who, What and Where book published hundreds of photos and biographies of kings, presidents, world leaders in business, and other famous people. Buffalo Bill is the only personality from America’s western frontier. Daniel Boone, Davy Crockett, Jesse James, General George Custer, Billy the Kid, Wild Bill Hickok—not one of them appeared in these pages. Only William F. Cody—Buffalo Bill—received that honor. His fame was so wide that he ranked with the most powerful men of all time. Virtually every American knew of Buffalo Bill: how he earned his nickname, rode for the Pony Express, fought and befriended Indians, scouted for the U.S. Army in both the Civil War and Indian wars, and performed for ten seasons as a professional actor—all before the age of forty.
    When he created his Wild West Exhibition, Cody gave his audience their money’s worth: wild Indians, fancy roping, and deadeye marksmanship. But Bill himself topped them all, shooting his rifle from horseback at a full gallop and breaking dozens of glass balls thrown into the air. The crowd loved it, and so did the press and dime novelists, with writers such as Mark Twain praising the show. In short, he out-Barnumed P. T. Barnum. The exhibition set attendance records throughout the United States and Europe.
    More than a hundred books and articles have been written about Cody the frontiersman and entertainer. What more could be said? Well, in The Many Loves of Buffalo Bill , Chris Enss has uncovered another notch in the Shakespearean life of Bill Cody. Yes, Cody was a showman, a frontiersman, a man whose life started during the Mexican-American War and ended just as the United States entered “the war to end all wars,” World War I. Yet he was a man, a man in the truest sense of the word, one who cut his own trail and followed his own spirit guide. As a boy, he marveled at men like Kit Carson, who taught him how to shoot from horseback, and Jim Bridger, who taught him Indian sign language. As a ten-year-old he dreamed of becoming one of his buckskin-clad heroes, and by golly by gum, he did. But he was tainted with the sins of man: an eye for beauty and strength; an admirer of courage and adventure; and in some circles, a weakness for cigars, whiskey, and women. In his own words, “Yeah, I like my cigars and whiskey and I sure do love those women.”
    Chris Enss gives us the stories behind many of the beauties who captivated Buffalo Bill. She gives us a clearer insight into a simple yet complicated man—the showman Buffalo Bill and the man Bill Cody. Yet for all of his fame, money, and problems, he was a complex hero, and Chris Enss gives us some clues and answers to his character. It’s great how writers and researchers uncover questions that so many of us curious followers of American history have. My hat is always doffed and a glass is raised to the hero of the West, Buffalo Bill, and now, thanks to Chris—a glass is raised to her.
    Chris Enss is truly a woman of the West. Her previous books, mostly about women of the frontier West, are enjoyable and informative. We met several years ago at a mutual book signing in Tombstone, Arizona. I was impressed not only by her charm and style but also by her incredible knowledge and passion for what Buffalo Bill called “God’s biggest playground.” We are indeed lucky today that a whole new breed of people are influencing, educating, and entertaining those of us who are interested in American history. Chris Enss is