Frontier Gentleman: Rosebud Creek

Okay, I confess:  I love Frontier Gentleman.  It’s by no means perfect—as this episode, “Rosebud Creek,” makes obvious, 1958 is still a far cry from 2013 in terms of racism and representing Native Americans in an accurate light—but it’s a great ongoing story and far better (dare I say it?) than any other radio Western (except perhaps Gunsmoke, of which I’ve only heard one, admittedly excellent, episode). 

Broadcast quite early in Frontier Gentleman’s admittedly truncated run, “Rosebud Creek” comes from 23 February 1958 and sees our intrepid hero, Englishman and reporter for the London Times, J.B. Kendall journeying to Yellowstone and the mouth of Rosebud Creek.  Kendall is caught between the dogmatic pragmatism of Lieutenant Snow—“they’ve sent Custer and the Seventh:  they’ll finish the Sioux”—and Captain Thomas, who thinks Custer is a bad soldier and out for personal gain. Thomas is “not West Point.  Resents anyone who is.” We know that Thomas is in the right, but one feels curiously ambiguous about the situation, as Thomas’ words deterring Custer would surely grant posterity even more in the way of Native American massacres. 

Frontier Gentleman’s relatively enlightened approach would be interesting at the Battle of Little Bighorn, but the creators’ sideswipe expectation and have Kendall go with Snow to try to move some civilians out of harm’s way.  “What about the civilians?”  “It’s their look-out.  Don’t risk the lives of your men.”  Although we are slowly getting notions of Kendall’s character teased out, I love when this episode references his service in India.  Certainly the fact that he was part of an imperialist government there does not make him enlightened, but it does make a change from white American exceptionalism.  He draws a parallel between the Rosebud Creek situation and a massacre a superior officer in India led him into. 

Snow takes Kendall, four men, and a Crow Scout named Six Toes, who disappointingly is a stereotype, complete with staggering language.  The seven men run into trouble in their attempt to liberate the civilians.  Action sequences in this story are conveyed by a combination of Kendall’s “article,” which is an absolutely inspired narrative device, music (which is quite fine, far better than the organ grinding I’ve heard during I Love a Mystery and Against the Storm), and SFX.  During an ambush by “renegade Indians,” only Kendall and Six Toes make it to the cabins, where the only person still alive is Amelia Mitchell.

Amelia Mitchell!  What a great character.  She wouldn’t be out of place in a Zoe-like role in Firefly.  She’s been defending her cabin with her Winchester and is not without prejudice in her trying situation.  “He’s an Indian,” she says of Six Toes.  “He’s not coming in.”  Kendall manages to convince her to give them shelter and asks if she’s been defending the place on her own.  “I know how to shoot.”  “Couldn’t be better.”  Aw, I love Kendall.  In their dire straits, Amelia and Kendall share things about themselves they probably wouldn’t otherwise.  Amelia intimates that the renegades tried to smoke the other civilians out of the cabins by setting them on fire, including killing her son.  “I hope he died before the fire.”     She had harboured hopes that he would have gone on to a good education at somewhere like Cambridge, which is where Kendall went (so he says).  

Intriguingly, Amelia confesses that she’s never been married.  She was a schoolteacher who met a man but it sounds like they only had a one-night stand.  In a world of uncomplicated Westerns where womenfolk are either stainless townsfolk or whores with hearts of gold, Amelia is neither.  And Kendall has been no angel either; when he came back from India, the woman with whom he shared an intimate relationship “married someone else.”  “It’s funny, you and me—you and I—talking like this,” says Amelia.  Before things can go further, they hear the agonized cries of Snow as he is tortured by the renegades, presumably being scalped.  Oh dear.  “There’s nothing we can do,” says Kendall.

Kendall determines (as he is the patriarchal hero and has obvious precedence over a Crow Indian and a woman, oy vey) that he and Six Toes should silently and swiftly, under cover of darkness, take out the renegades so all three can make their escape before morning and the cabin is set alight.  “I am a Crow,” says Six Toes.  “I am not afraid of noise.  I know what Cheyenne do.  Of that I am afraid.”  I have to confess that from this point on, the audiopositioning becomes a bit confusing.  I can’t picture clearly in my mind where Six Toes and Kendall are spatially, so my attention wanders a bit.  Six Toes offers the truly horrid observation, “You make good Indian.”  Interestingly, like the Lone Ranger and Tonto, Kendall and Six Toes gets out of this bloodbath alive—but not so poor Amelia Mitchell.  Amelia was played by the well-known actress Jeannette Nolan.