Time & Perspective Quote by Buffalo Bill

“The McCarthy boys, at the proper moment, gave orders to fire upon the advancing enemy” reads like a clean, cinematic cut: hold, hold, now. Buffalo Bill isn’t just narrating a skirmish; he’s staging authority. The phrase “at the proper moment” does the heavy lifting, laundering violence into timing and professionalism. It turns killing into competence, a performance of cool nerve under pressure. That’s not accidental coming from a man who made his living converting the frontier into spectacle.

Calling them “the McCarthy boys” also softens the scene with familiarity. “Boys” suggests local lads, neighbors, dependable types - a folksy label that smuggles moral innocence into a decision to shoot. It frames command as communal and organic rather than imposed: these aren’t faceless soldiers or hired guns, they’re the kind of men you’d trust to act correctly when it counts. Meanwhile, “advancing enemy” is conveniently generic. No tribe, no individuals, no reasons, no humanity - just a moving threat. The sentence denies the enemy a story so the shooter can keep his.

Context matters: Cody’s era hungered for frontier narratives that justified expansion while thrilling audiences with controlled danger. This line feels like material that could travel effortlessly from a memoir into a Wild West show program, where gunfire becomes a moral punctuation mark. The intent is reassurance: violence was regrettable, yes, but orderly, timely, and executed by the right kind of people. Subtext: history was won not by chaos or conquest, but by “proper” men making “proper” choices. That’s mythmaking with a rifle crack at the end.