The Searchers (61 page)

Laura … believed the rheumatism:
Laura Birdsong's account is in an undated letter to Susan Parker St. John, 2F 203 (Taulman).

“Father in heaven, this is our brother”:
Lawton Daily News
, February 23, 1911, p. 1.

“Every automobile that could be rented”:
Cache Register
, March 3, 1911. It also gave a detailed account of the funeral day.

“It just seemed as if my heart”:
Birdsong letter.

Quanah's surviving relatives sat down:
S. Hilton to Ernest Stecker, May 29, 1911, KCA File 2246 (National Archives).

“richest Indian in America”:
See, for example, Carter, p. 80.

“the Indian Who Made Good” Christian Herald
, July 26, 1911.

“a beacon of light”:
James C. Nance, unidentified news clipping, QP File (Fort Sill).

“Fearless and Effective Foe”:
Olive King Dixon, “Some Intimate Glimpses of Quanah Parker,”
Fort Worth Star Telegram
, April 12, 1936.

The opera,
Cynthia Parker
: Fanfare
, “40 Acres Arias” (Taulman).

The world premiere was held:
Dallas Times Herald
, February 17, 1939.

the main architects of the … legend:
Details of Joseph and Araminta Taulman's lives are from
A Guide to Joseph E. Taulman Collection
(Briscoe).

“So many wrong statements”:
Joseph Taulman to Mrs. A. C. Birdsong, December 29, 1925, 2F 200 (Taulman).

“I wonder if you are fortunate enough”:
Mrs. Birdsong to Taulman, January 17, 1926.

“The market for historical scenarios”:
Adeline M. Alford to Araminta Taulman, October 10, 1936, 2F 201 (Taulman).

“On one occasion the Redmen declared war”:
The Rachel Plummer Narrative
, 1926; the fantasy foreword is signed by “Mrs. Jane Kennedy, Granddaughter of J. W. Parker, Mrs. Rachel Lofton, great granddaughter, and Mrs. Susie Hendrix, granddaughter” (SMU).

a primary school teacher in nearby Mexia:
Details of Elsie Hamill's efforts to learn about the Parker story are from “Mexia Teacher Brought Together White and Indian Descendants,”
Mexia Daily News
, August 15, 1965 (Baylor).

“Dear Mrs. Hamill,”:
Wanada Parker Page to Mrs. Weldon Hamill, April 6, 1952 (Baylor).

the army decided:
The story of the army's campaign to move QP and Cynthia Ann graves is from Angie Debo, “Two Graves in Oklahoma,”
Harper's
, December 1956, p. 66; and Douglas C. Jones, “The Grave of Quanah Parker,”
Public Relations Quarterly
, 1970.

“To tell the truth, Captain”:
Houston Chronicle
, October 3, 1965, Sect. 3, p. 11.

They left it there:
Saving the Star House is from Herbert Woesner speech at Parker Reunion, June 23, 2000; Edward Charles Ellenbrook, “Cache's Woesner Saves Historic Buildings,”
Lawton Constitution
, December 9, 2003; author's interview with Kathy Treadwell Gipson, June 28, 2009.

“It was one of the happiest moments”:
Audrey Routh, “Chief Quanah's Star House and Its 4-Year Trek,”
Daily Oklahoman
, October 13, 1963.

Ben was born in 1868:
Details of Ben Parker's life are from author's interview with Jo Nell Parker and her son W. Scott Nicholson, June 9, 2011.

Ben said later he was surprised:
Author's interview with Jim Bob Parker, July 4, 2009. Ben J. Parker told his own version of the Parker legend, “Early Times in Texas and History of the Parker Family” (Taulman).

the orange-backed dime novels:
Henry Nash Smith,
Virgin Land: The American West as Symbol and Myth
, p. 91.

One recurring character:
Ibid., p. 112.

The first great cowboy novel:
Castle Freeman Jr., “Owen Wister: Brief Life of a Western Mythmaker, 1860–1938.”

He is not too fond of foreigners:
Owen Wister,
The Virginian
, pp. 14 and 39.

“a slim young giant”:
Ibid., p. 4.

The land was a metaphor:
See Richard Slotkin,
Regeneration Through Violence
, p. 554.

His ancestors were pioneers:
Dan LeMay,
Alan LeMay: A Biography of the Author of
The Searchers, pp. 6–13.

Dan Brown, Alan's maternal grandfather:
Undated note, Box 11 (LeMay Papers).

“in which I accomplished nothing”:
Letter dated December 29, 1954, Box 23 (LeMay).

“I've also tried several other things”:
Ibid.

It was, of course, a Western:
Dan LeMay, p. 20.

“a face as friendly in expression”:
Alan LeMay,
Painted Ponies
, p. 6. The plot description and quotations are from the novel.

He broke into the high-end magazine
s
:
Dan LeMay, p. 24.

“a completely literate Western”:
New York Herald Tribune
, July 21, 1935.

“I am now thirty-eight years old”:
Dan LeMay, p. 37.

“Dad said they tasted like a steam kettle”:
Author's interview with Dan LeMay.

“The deadline I believe would actually be a help”:
Alan LeMay to Max Wilkinson, January 30, 1959, Box 23 (LeMay).

he and Arlene got married:
Dan LeMay, p. 44.

“a more primal tint of virility”:
Jesse L. Lasky Jr.,
Whatever Happened to Hollywood?
p. 195.

He summoned Alan just days:
Dan LeMay,
Never Dull
, p. 59.

“a hashed-over product”:
Ibid., p. 57.

“In social moments, as at dinner”:
Ibid., p. 60.

“the world's most bewildered inner tube”:
Ibid., p. 65.

Alan and Arlene's lifestyle:
Ibid., p. 51.

The great Frank Sinatra rented a house:
James Kaplan,
Sinatra: The Voice
, p. 444.

Gary Cooper intervened:
For Gary Cooper's purchase of
Useless Cowboy
, see
Never Dull
, p. 147.

“All I want of this business
”:
Ibid., p. 226.

an original screenplay treatment called
African Pitfall
:
For more on
African Pitfall
, see Box 1 (LeMay).

It wasn't long before he found another, similar story:
There is an ongoing and perhaps irresolvable conflict among aficionados of
The Searchers
over the true origins of the novel. Some insist Alan LeMay was inspired by the story of Brit Johnson, a black teamster who ransomed his abducted wife and children from Comanches in 1865. Others point to the story of Millie Durgan, captured as a baby by Kiowas in 1864. LeMay's papers at UCLA are incomplete and inconclusive. But the parallels between the original story of Cynthia Ann Parker and the book—a nine-year-old girl captured by Comanches in a raid in which family members are slaughtered, her long sojourn as a Comanche, and the obsessive efforts of her uncle to find her—are undeniable. As is LeMay's journey to Elkhart, Texas, the heart of Parker country, and his visit with Ben Parker, the details of which have never been published before.

He rented office space:
Author's interview with Dan LeMay, June 2008.

“holding the back door of Texas”:
Alan LeMay,
The Searchers
, pp. 4–5. The plot summary and quotations are all from the novel.

LeMay collected information on sixty-four Indian abductions:
LeMay Papers, Box 23, and LeMay letter to Mrs. Marcus McMillin, December 12, 1960.

“a big burly figure on a strong but speedless horse”:
LeMay,
The Searchers
, pp. 8–9.

“a quiet boy, dark as an Indian”:
Ibid., p. 4.

“It was Martha who would not quit”:
Ibid., p. 5.

“This is a rough country”:
Ibid., p. 53.

“Did they—was she?”:
Ibid., p. 58.

“This don't change anything”:
Ibid., p. 64.

“That's what scares me, Laurie”:
Ibid., pp. 82–83.

“I see now why the Comanches murder”:
Ibid., p. 247.

“I believe you'd do it”:
Ibid., p. 219.

“That country seemed to have some kind of weird spell”:
Ibid., pp. 173–74.

“It tore at them, snatching their breaths”:
Ibid., p. 122.

“I have no place,” she tells him:
Ibid., pp. 271–72.

“I ain't larned but one thing about an Indian”:
Ibid., p. 32.

“The Comanches themselves seemed unable”:
Ibid., p. 68.

“A great deal has been written”:
Alan LeMay letter, January 26, 1960, Box 23 (LeMay).

Debbie has “had time to be with half the Comanche bucks”:
The Searchers
, pp. 203–205.

“In all I wrote about 2,000 pages”:
Alan LeMay letter, January 20, 1960 (LeMay).

The Searchers
… “represents about all I have”:
Alan LeMay to Dolores Napoli, June 9, 1958 (Box 23).

“Its simplicity is one of subtle art”:
Orville Prescott, “Books of the Times,”
NYT
, November 3, 1954.

“One of the White House correspondents”:
Evan Thomas to Alan LeMay, February 10, 1955 (Harper & Row Papers).

“I am told (not too reliably)”:
Alan LeMay to Evan Thomas, November 18, 1954 (Ibid.).

“A running horse remains”:
Frank Nugent, “Opening Scenes” in
TV and Screen Writing
, p. 22.

a template for the Western film:
A. O. Scott, “How the Western Was Won,”
NYT Magazine
, p. 56.

The first moving pictures of Indians:
Paul Chaat Smith,
Everything You Know About Indians Is Wrong
, p. 44.

One of the first was a short called
The Bank Robbery
:
“Sham Bank Robbery,”
Clarion and Indiahoma News
, August 21, 1908.

just as Indian characters helped shape movies:
Peter C. Rollins and John E. O'Connor,
Hollywood's Indian
, p. ix.

“A director can put his whole heart and soul”:
Illustrated Daily News
(Los Angeles), February 22, 1925 (JFP).

Francis acted in and helped direct:
Scott Eyman,
Print the Legend
, pp. 41–42.

he played a Ku Klux Klansman:
Joseph McBride,
Searching for John Ford
, pp. 77–78.

he teamed up with a dark-eyed actor:
Peter Bogdanovich,
John Ford
, p. 40.

a strapping teenager named Marion Morrison:
For Marion Morrison's regard for Harry Carey, see Garry Wills,
John Wayne's America
, 114–15.

The two men went on to make … twenty-three Westerns:
Dan Ford,
Pappy
, p. 18.

“They weren't shoot-'em-ups”:
Bogdanovich, p. 39.

By 1923 he was making almost $45,000 per year:
Dan Ford, p. 27.

“When he walked on the set”:
Andrew McLaglen interview,
The Filmmaker and the Legend
(documentary).

“bruised and battered”:
Eyman, pp. 131–32.

Born in Georgia of southern aristocrats:
For Merian C. Cooper's life story, see Mark Cotta Vaz,
Living Dangerously: The Adventures of Merian C. Cooper.

he would tear out enough pages:
“Man with Camera,”
New Yorker
, May 30, 1931, p. 25.

“That's too bad,” said Cooper:
Merian Cooper to John Wayne, 1971 (BYU).

Over time Cooper became the middleman:
Vaz, p. 250. See also Bea Benjamin interview, p. 1, Box 11, F17 (JFP).

“There was an essence of fear”:
Frank Baker interview, July 30, 1977, OH1 (MHL).

“Daddy is what we called … a periodic”:
Barbara Ford interview (JFP).

“One drink—he's the type of person”:
Mark Armistead interview (JFP).

“They'd go on his yacht and drink”:
McBride interview with author, November 14, 2008.

His “thick eyeglasses protruded”:
Maureen O'Hara,
'Tis, Herself: A Memoir
, pp. 65–68.

“I looked at its enormity”:
Ibid., p. 69.

“I felt my head snap back”:
Ibid., p. 104.

Ford … “built walls of secrecy”:
Ibid., p. 261.

“one of the most famous leading men”:
Ibid., p. 190.

“I didn't really feel I could act”:
Harry Carey Jr. interview with Dan Ford, B11 F18, Reels 3 and 4, p. 14 (JFP).

“Ford was a bully”:
Author's interview with Harry Carey Jr., March 25, 2009.

“I remember Jack … put his head on my breast”:
Olive Carey interview (JFP).