Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
evening train rolling past to make you take leave of your senses. But instead I just turned
around and trudged back along the tracks into town, feeling oddly content.
CHAAPTER 27
THE NEXT DAY I was torn between driving back into Wyoming further east along Inter-
state g0 and going to the little town of Cody or staying in Montana and visiting the Custer
National Battlefield. Cody takes its name from Buffalo Bill Cody, who agreed to be buried
thereiftheynamedthetownafterhim.Therewerepresumablytwofurtherstipulations:(1)
that they waited until he was dead before they buried him, and (2) that they filled the town
with as much tourist tat as they could possibly manage. Seeing the chance to collect a little
lucre,thetownspeoplehappilyaccededandtheyhavebeencashinginonCody'sfameever
since. Today the town offers half a dozen cowboy museums and other diversions and of
course many opportunities to purchase small crappy trinkets to take back home with you,
ThepeopleofCodylikeyoutothinkthatBuffaloBillwasanativeson.Infact,I'mawfully
proud to tell you, he was an Iowa native, born in the little town of Le Claire in 1846. The
people of Cody, in one of the more desperate commercial acts of this century, bought Buf-
falo Bill's birthplace and re-erected it in their town, but they are lying through their teeth
whenthey hint that hewasalocal. Andthe thing is,they have atalented native sonoftheir
own. Jackson Pollock, the artist, was born in Cody. But they don't make anything of that
because, I suppose, Pollock was a complete wanker when it came to shooting buffalo.
So that was option one. Alternatively, as I say, I had the choice of driving on across
MontanatoLittleBighorn,whereCustercameacropper.Tobeperfectlyfrank,neitherone
of them seemed terribly exciting-I would have preferred something more in the way of a
talldrinkonaterraceoverlookingthesea-butinWyomingandMontanayoudon'tgetalot
tochoosefrom.Intheend,IoptedforCuster'slast stand.Thisrathersurprisedmebecause
as a rule I don't like battlefields. I fail to see the appeal in them once they have carted off
the bodies and swept up. My father used to love battlefields. He would go striding off with
a guidebook and map, enthusiastically retracing the ebb and flow of the Battle of Lick-
spittle Ridge, or whatever.
Once I had the choice of going with my mother to a museum and looking at dresses of the
presidents' wives or staying with my dad and I rashly chose the latter. I spent a long af-
ternoon trailing behind him certain that he had lost his mind. “Now this must be the spot
where General Goober accidentally shot himself in the armpit and had to be relieved of
command by Lieutenant Colonel Bowlingalley,” he would say as we hauled ourselves to
the top of a steep summit. “So that means Pillock's forces must have been regrouping over
there at those trees”-and he would point to a grove of trees three hills away and stride off
