dead mans hand

Did Wild Bill Hickok really have the Dead Man’s Hand of aces and eights when he was killed?

Nobody knows what hand Wild Bill Hickok was holding. The late Joe Rosa, Hickok’s biographer, said, “The bottom line is nobody seems to know what particular poker game they were playing at the No. 10 Saloon in Deadwood [Dakota Territory] that day.”

I doubt if anyone thought the details were important at the time. During the chaos after the shooting, the cards were scattered. The aces and eights story did not surface until Frank J. Wilstach published it in his 1926 book, Wild Bill Hickok: The Prince of Pistoleers. I don’t think we will ever know what hand Hickok was holding.

The exploits of Wild Bill Hickok - spread by word-of-mouth and embellished by dime novels - would shape the popular image of America's frontier. Tall, lean, muscular, long blond hair falling to his shoulders, two pistols shoved into his belt, wearing a law man's badge on his chest: he personified the image of the Western hero for both his and later generations.

One incident in particular had a major impact on the birth of an icon of the Old West - the gunfight in which two lone gunman face 

Wild Bill Hickok, 1873

off in the middle of a dusty street. There is no evidence that these shootouts occurred with any frequency in the West - after all, who in their right mind would participate in such a dangerous enterprise? However, an incident in Springfield, Missouri soon after the close of the Civil War did much to inspire the myth.

There was no love lost between Wild Bill and Dave Tutt

. Hickok had fought for the Union, Tutt for the Confederacy. Their enmity only increased when both became interested in the same woman. The matter came to a head when Tutt

 stole Wild Bill's pocket watch during a poker game and bragged he would parade through Springfield's town square wearing his rival's prized possession. At the announced time, Wild Bill stood in the square and warned Tutt not to proceed. Unfazed, Tutt boldly strode towards his enemy and pulled his pistol. Wild Bill simultaneously drew his pistol and fired. Tutt fell - dead. Wild Bill quickly turned and leveled his gun towards a crowd of Tutt's supporters who had gathered nearby, warning them not to interfere. They took the hint.

Later, when Hickok became the law in such wide-open towns as Abilene and Hays City, Kansas, his reputation alone was often sufficient to persuade dusty cowhands to think twice about disrupting the peace.

However, his fame was a double-edged sword - to some, killing a man of such repute was a trophy worth having. During the afternoon of August 2, 1876 Wild Bill sat playing poker in the No. 10 saloon in Deadwood, Dakota Territory. Abandoning his usual precaution of always sitting with his back to a wall and engrossed in the game, he failed to notice Jack McCall sneak in through a back door. McCall calmly approached Hickok from behind, raised his pistol and shot him dead for reasons still not fully understood.

In 1869 thirty-two-year-old Wild Bill Hickok was marshal of Hays City Kansas. Miguel Otero witnessed one of the exploits that would make Wild Bill a legend:

"I was an eye-witness to Wild Bill's encounter with Bill Mulvey, and shall relate the details as they linger in my mind:

I was standing near Wild Bill on Main Street, when someone began 'shooting up the town' at the eastern end of the street. It was Bill Mulvey, a notorious murderer from Missouri, known as a handy man with a gun. He had just enough red liquor in him to be mean and he seemed to derive great amusement from shooting holes into the mirrors, as well as the bottles of liquor behind the bars, of the saloons in that section of the street. As was usually the case with such fellows, he was looking for trouble, and when someone told him that Wild Bill was the town marshal and therefore it behooved him to behave himself, Mulvey swore that he would find Wild Bill and shoot him on sight. He further averred that the marshal was the very man he was looking for and that he had come to the 'damn' town' for the express purpose of killing him.

The tenor of these remarks was somehow made known to Wild Bill. But hardly had the news reached him than Mulvey appeared on the scene, tearing toward us on his iron-grey horse, rifle in hand, full cocked. When Wild Bill saw Mulvey he walked out to meet him, apparently waving his hand to some fellows behind Mulvey and calling to them: 'Don't shoot him in the back; he is drunk.'

Mulvey stopped his horse and, wheeling the animal about, drew a bead on his rifle in the direction of the imaginary man he thought Wild Bill was addressing. But before he realized the ruse that had been played upon him, Wild Bill had aimed his six-shooter and fired-just once. Mulvey dropped from his horse - dead, the bullet having penetrated his temple and then passed through his head."