By
Gerald Hausman
Santa
Fe, NM, USA
My ninety-five year old friend, Karl asked me if I knew what
a Buffalo Nickel looked like.
"Of course I do," I told him, "and the buttons
on my black dress shirt testify to this, all nickel-bright buffaloes and Indians."
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| Gerald Hausman |
Karl smiled. "Well, all right, so you know ... but did
you know that I met the man on the coin on 57th Street in New York City when I
was just a little boy?"
I asked him, "Did you know that my dad met Buffalo Bill
Cody on 42nd Street in New York City when he was a little boy?"
"Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show?" Karl questioned.
"Just so."
"Well," Karl said after a moment or two, "The
buffalo, I mean, the bison, as the school teachers would have us say today, is
on one side of that classic coin and on the flip side is Two Guns White Calf
who signed his name pictographically: two guns and calf.
A month to the day later I was on Useppa Island off the Gulf
side of Florida at a little museum. And right there on the wall was a life-size
portrait of Two Guns standing there in full regalia, as we used to put it, and
next to Two Guns was his friend, Mary Roberts Rinehart, the great author of American
mystery novels.
I could not get close enough to Two Guns. I kept getting
closer and closer though until our noses nearly touched. "I meet you at
last," I said, and then, "Karl sends his regards."
Well, truth is tricky and truth be known, it turns out that
Two Guns' face might not be on that celebrated coin originally designed in 1913
by James Earl Fraser. History seems to falter, or fall away into myth on this
silver-sided issue. Karl would not be pleased to know that Fraser himself said
the model might be Two Moon, a Cheyenne man. Or, maybe, just maybe Two Guns, or
possibly another Indian altogether.
Rodeo cowboy Jimmy Rogers, who as a boy grew up in Colonel
Eskew's Wild West Show, said the
distinguished face on the coin belonged to Iron Tail, a Lakota Sioux.
How did
he know? "Well," he said, "I knew
Iron Tail."
I wonder why I am wondering about all these disparate things.
Here I am in a trailer in Questa, New Mexico, mid-spring in a mild snowstorm of
high mountain flakes. I pull the covers up to my chin, and dream. And wake to
the boom of a high caliber gun. And then another of the same. I jump out of bed
and shout, "Two Guns? Forgive me, my friend. I never doubted it was
you!"
(Gerald Hausman photo credit: Mariah Fox)
Links:
Gerald Hausman
Gerald Hausman at Stay Thirsty Publishing
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Gerald Hausman is the author of Not Since Mark Twain and
a regular contributor to Stay Thirsty Magazine.
