Wild Bill: The True Story of the American Frontier's First Gunfighter

by Tom Clavin

Overview

“The first thing you will notice about this engaging and delightful biography is that [Narrator Johnny Heller] sounds like a character actor who moseyed off the set of an old-fashioned oater. His voice is a little scratchy, a little seasoned and perfectly suits this biography of larger-than-life Bill Hickok and his pals, from Calamity Jane to Buffalo Bill Cody and General Custer.” —The Berkshire Edge

This program includes a bonus interview with the author.

The definitive true story of Wild Bill, the first lawman of the Wild West, by the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Dodge City.

In July 1865, "Wild Bill" Hickok shot and killed Davis Tutt in Springfield, MO—the first quick-draw duel on the frontier. Thus began the reputation that made him a marked man to every gunslinger in the Wild West.

James Butler Hickock was known across the frontier as a soldier, Union spy, scout, lawman, gunfighter, gambler, showman, and actor. He crossed paths with General Custer and Buffalo Bill Cody, as well as Ben Thompson and other young toughs gunning for the sheriff with the quickest draw west of the Mississippi.

Wild Bill also fell in love—multiple times—before marrying the true love of his life, Agnes Lake, the impresario of a traveling circus. He would be buried however, next to fabled frontierswoman Calamity Jane.

Even before his death, Wild Bill became a legend, with fiction sometimes supplanting fact in the stories that surfaced. Once, in a bar in Nebraska, he was confronted by four men, three of whom he killed in the ensuing gunfight. A famous Harper’s Magazine article credited Hickok with slaying 10 men that day; by the 1870s, his career-long kill count was up to 100.

The legend of Wild Bill has only grown since his death in 1876, when cowardly Jack McCall famously put a bullet through the back of his head during a card game. Bestselling author Tom Clavin has sifted through years of western lore to bring Hickock fully to life in this rip-roaring, spellbinding true story.

"[Narrator Johnny Heller] ensures that Western aficionados will enjoy listening to the life of Wild Bill" — AudioFile Magazine

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250178169
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	01/07/2020
Series:	Frontier Lawmen
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	124,823
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.80(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

TOM CLAVIN is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and has worked as a newspaper and web site editor, magazine writer, TV and radio commentator, and a reporter for The New York Times. He has received awards from the Society of Professional Journalists, Marine Corps Heritage Foundation, and National Newspaper Association. His books include The Heart of Everything That Is, Halsey’s Typhoon, and Reckless. He lives in Sag Harbor, NY.

Table of Contents

Author's Note
Prologue

ACT I
1. A New England Clan
2. Bloody Kansas
3. Death at Rock Creek Station
4. Behind Enemy Lines
5. The Gunfighter

ACT II
6. Along the Chisholm Trail
7. Frontier Fame
8. Life of a Frontier Marshal
9. Buffalo Bill and Wild Bill
10. "They Killed Me"
11. The Man-Killer
12. The Two-Fisted Marshal
13. The Streets of Abilene
14. A Three-Ring Romance

ACT III
15. The Running of the Bulls
16. The Reluctant Thespian
17. The Cheyenne Loafer
18. A Woman Called Calamity
19. A Married Man
20. Deadwood Days
21. The Premonition
22. Dead Man's Hand

Epilogue
Acknowledgements
Selected Bibliography
Index

Editorial Reviews

01/07/2019

Clavin (Dodge City) portrays the legendary James “Wild Bill” Hickok as a sometimes trigger-happy gunman who became a 19th-century celebrity, in this rollicking but vaguely sourced biography. Hickok, born in 1837 Illinois, landed his first job in law enforcement at 20 as the town constable for Monticello, Kans. While working for a stagecoach company in Nebraska, he killed for the first time, defending his boss in a violent business dispute. Hickok served the Union during the Civil War as a scout and spy, and afterwards he shot and killed Davis Tutt, an acquaintance and romantic rival, in an argument about gambling debts; he was acquitted of murder, but gained a wide reputation as a fast draw. Press accounts turned him into a nationally known figure and made him a target for those seeking to prove their gunslinging skills. Hickok served as a marshal in Kansas, where he burnished his reputation as a gunfighter, although his habit of reflexive firing killed his own deputy, Mike Williams. Ultimately, Hickok was murdered, shot in the back of the head by someone he had not considered a threat. The absence of detailed source citations and Clavin’s acknowledgment that many writings about Hickok are embellished or unverifiable suggest that this is less a sober work of history than an entertaining tale of the man and the legend. (Feb.)

Publishers Weekly

"The first thing you will notice about this engaging and delightful biography is that Johnny Heller sounds like a character actor who moseyed off the set of an old-fashioned oater. His voice is a little scratchy, a little seasoned, and perfectly suits this biography of larger-than-life Bill Hickok." -Christian Science Monitor

From the Publisher

2018-10-28

A vigorous yarn concerning the man who, by Clavin's (Dodge City: Wyatt Earp, Bat Masterson, and the Wickedest Town in the American West, 2017, etc.) account, set the template for the Wild West gunslinger.

There's a lot we don't know about Wild Bill Hickok (1837-1876), not least why a man born James Butler Hickok called himself Bill. The "wild" part of the moniker probably dates to the Civil War, when Unionist saloon patrons threatened to harm their secessionist-favoring bartender. "Though far from sharing the man's views," writes the author, "Bill believed in fair fights," and he backed the crowd down. As Clavin notes, just what Bill did during the war remains a matter of some history, but he may have served the Union while wearing a gray coat, working as a spy. Whatever the case, he was on the western frontier in time to stare down William Quantrill's guerrillas, turn up at the battle called the "Gettysburg of the West," and, soon after, to share friendships with Buffalo Bill Cody and George Armstrong Custer—and perhaps even with Mrs. Custer, who called him "a delight to look upon." Mixed up with all that was the gunfighter business: Hickok was fast enough and accurate enough to deter a whole passel of bad guys, gaining notoriety when they didn't back off, as when he had to square off with a sometime acquaintance who argued with him over a small debt and didn't live to collect it. Clavin writes fluently and often entertainingly of a man shrouded in legend while being all too human. For example, Hickok may not have recognized the man who gunned him down in Deadwood, South Dakota, because even in his 30s, his eyes were going bad. The author also ably picks apart what is likely or actual from what is invented, including a whole tangle of tales involving a certain Calamity Jane and penny-dreadful stories that were circulating about him even while Hickok was still alive.

Good history accessibly and ably told.

Kirkus Reviews