The Wilderness Warrior - Douglas Brinkley [383]
What prevented Roosevelt from considering the whole experience perfect, however, was the absence of buffalo. They were gone—and sadly, even the white-tailed deer were vanishing. A wilderness not abounding in game was a contradiction in terms. All Roosevelt could do was ride the buffalo trails, the great highways of Oklahoma, which were the easiest route to water, and imagine the Old Days. Francis Parkman had caught the tail end of them in the summer of 1846 with the Oglala band of Sioux. If you wanted to see a wild buffalo in North America in 1905, Yellowstone and the northern woods of Alberta were your only bets.60 For now, Roosevelt studied the ancient buffalo herds’ well-worn paths. He wore cowboy leggings and felt superior for having left his silk shirt behind in a closet in the East Wing.
Once again Roosevelt was playing the “great natural man.” While talking with Quanah one evening at Star House, Roosevelt mentioned Baynes and Hornaday’s idea of a bison refuge. “Grandfather wanted to entertain Roosevelt just so-so,” Quanah’s granddaughter Anona Birdsong Dean recalled of the evening. “He had a table that sat thirty people. Each woman had a job. Mother went to see if the table was set properly. She found goblets filled with wine setting next to each plate. Grandfather, who never drank, had gotten wine somewhere and told one of the women to fill big glasses with the wine. Mother said, ‘Why did you do that?’ Grandfather explained that when he went to Washington, Roosevelt served wine in small glasses and he wanted to be more generous than Roosevelt.”61
But now Roosevelt was truly offering buffalo! Quanah realized that Roosevelt was a generous man at heart, and the very notion of the Wichita Forest Reserve repopulated with buffalo brought tears to his eyes. Although Quanah spoke several dialects and was fluent in English and Spanish, he was nevertheless speechless.62 Could his peyote vision be becoming true? Could a boyhood dream he had on the lonely Llano Estacado now be reality? Would Oklahoma—or at least a portion of its most scenic terrain on the western side of the Cross-Timbers in the Indian Territories—become a bison refuge?
A few days after that historic dinner, Quanah hung an autographed photo of Roosevelt on his dining room wall. To him, Roosevelt truly was the “Great White Chief.” More than any other white man, Roosevelt had his heart in the right place, and Quanah knew that few Americans had ever loved the Wichitas–Big Pasture as Roosevelt did. He and Roosevelt smiled when rattling off the colorful names of the Twin Territory’s towns as if they were superior to anyplace Queen Victoria had ever seen: Arapaho, Bowlegs, Etowah, Hydro, Oologah, Talihina. Side by side on horseback, snacking on pecans, the two warriors spoke of black-tailed prairie dogs, armadillos, bald eagles, and the rare black-capped vireo.
Besides bird-watching and wolf hunting Quanah spent time teaching Roosevelt how to properly track horse thieves. Roosevelt, in turn, gave him a thick porcelain cup. Both men enjoyed being conspicuously attired and talking nonstop. In Washington, D.C., the press corps called Roosevelt the “cowboy president.” Quanah knew better: Roosevelt was the “buffalo president.” As if a spell had been cast over him, Quanah told the Comanche that Roosevelt loved the beauty of southwestern Oklahoma like someone born and raised along the Red River. Roosevelt, in turn, wished that the chief had been a Rough Rider. It had been rumored that William “Buffalo Bill” Cody had offered Quanah $5,000 to perform in Europe with the legendary Wild West Show. Quanah said no. “I’m afraid I would be put in a little pen,” Parker informed Roosevelt. “And