Aces and Eights

When James Butler Hickok walked into Saloon No. 10 in Deadwood on the afternoon of August 1, 1876, he wasn’t carrying a lawman’s badge or riding high on a hero’s welcome. He was tired. His eyesight was failing. His gambling luck had soured. And worst of all, he sat with his back to the door. That would prove fatal. Within moments, a drifter named Jack McCall would fire a pistol into the back of Hickok’s head, ending the life of one of the most famous figures of the American frontier.

Wild Bill Hickok’s death has become legend. So has much of his life. But between the dime novels and the Deadwood reenactments, there’s a real man worth knowing. One who didn’t always fit the myth.

James Hickok was born in 1837 in Homer, Illinois. The place is called Troy Grove now. His father, William Alonzo Hickok, was an abolitionist who ran a stop on the Underground Railroad. The family had deep roots in New England and revolutionary blood. James grew up with a strong sense of justice and a sharper eye for trouble.

By the time he was eighteen, Hickok had tangled with a man in a canal brawl. Both thought they’d killed the other. Neither had. But James fled west anyway. He started using aliases, eventually landing on “Wild Bill,” a name that stuck tighter than a burr in buckskin.

His first brush with lasting fame came at Rock Creek Station, Nebraska, in 1861. He was working for the Pony Express outfit when David McCanles came to collect on an unpaid debt. Accounts differ wildly. Some say McCanles was armed and dangerous. Others suggest he was just a loud creditor. Either way, three men ended up dead, and Hickok’s name began to circulate as a deadly shot who didn’t hesitate.

That incident gave rise to the legend. And Wild Bill fed it. In 1867, a journalist named George Ward Nichols published an article that claimed Hickok had personally killed hundreds. The real number was likely closer to six.

Still, Hickok leaned into the persona. He wore embroidered shirts, posed for photographs, and took part in shows that blurred entertainment and reality. For a short time, he even shared the stage with Buffalo Bill Cody and Texas Jack Omohundro.

The Civil War gave Hickok a job as a Union scout and occasional spy. After the war, he moved into law enforcement in Kansas, where things got violent in a hurry.

In Springfield in 1865, he faced down Davis Tutt in a town-square shootout over a gambling debt and a pocket watch. That single bullet — Hickok’s — struck Tutt in the heart. It was the classic “Wild West duel,” and it cemented Hickok’s place in frontier folklore.

As marshal of Hays and later Abilene, Hickok killed several men, including Phil Coe, a saloon owner with a vendetta. Tragically, after shooting Coe, Hickok turned and fired again, accidentally killing his own deputy, Mike Williams. That mistake followed him for the rest of his life.

By the 1870s, Hickok was wearing out. His vision was getting worse. He had eye trouble that may have been syphilitic in nature or perhaps chronic trachoma. Either way, it was bad enough that he couldn’t shoot with the same precision. He drifted. Took odd jobs. Gambled. Got arrested for vagrancy. The hero of Harper’s Magazine was aging fast and fading from view.

In March 1876, he married Agnes Thatcher Lake, a widow who ran a traveling circus. They barely had time together. Hickok joined Charlie Utter’s wagon train and headed to Deadwood in the Black Hills, hoping for one last stake in the gold camps.

His health was poor, and he knew it. In a letter to Agnes shortly before his death, he wrote, “If such should be we never meet again, while firing my last shot, I will gently breathe the name of my wife — Agnes.”

Deadwood in 1876 was a rough camp filled with speculators, drunks, and outlaws. Hickok played poker in Saloon No. 10 most days. Locals said he normally sat with his back to the wall. On August 2, he couldn’t get that seat.

At 4:15 in the afternoon, Jack McCall — a nobody with a grudge — walked in and shot Hickok in the back of the head. The gambler died instantly. McCall tried to shoot others, but every remaining round in his pistol failed to fire.

Deadwood’s legends claim Wild Bill died holding the infamous “Dead Man’s Hand” — two black aces and two black eights. But that detail didn’t show up until 1926, fifty years later, in a biography that relied more on lore than fact.

Hickok was buried in Deadwood’s Mount Moriah Cemetery. His grave became a tourist stop. His image became a symbol of the Old West — sometimes righteous, sometimes ruthless, never dull.

Historians still argue over how many men he actually killed. Some called him a murderer. Others said he only drew in self-defense or in the line of duty. The truth is somewhere in the middle.

What’s clear is that Wild Bill was complicated. Vain and charming. Brave and reckless. A man of justice, and a man who made mistakes that cost lives. He died not in a blaze of glory, but from a cheap shot to the back of the head.

There’s no tidy ending to his story. But then again, Wild Bill Hickok never fit the mold. Not in life. Not in death.

And that’s what keeps the legend alive.