Wild Bill

(woman)? What a fellowship

What a joy divine

Leaning on the everlasting arms

What a blessed peace

What a joy is mine

Leaning on the everlasting arms

Leaning on Jesus

Leaning on Jesus

(man) His funeral was

on a blistering hot August afternoon,

just outside the town of Deadwood.

I suppose there was a rough justice to it,

the way he met his end after sending

so many others to early graves.

It didn't make the moment easier

on any of his friends.

I don't know why he never slept in my bed

sinced he come to Deadwood.

Only got interested once.

The timing was just wrong.

Too much had happened to him

before he got here.

I was awful attached to him.

All of us were. He had

that kind of effect on people.

I got a feeling maybe in some ways

you knew him best, Charley.

(glass smashes)

You know, I don't mind you shootin'

glasses off of my dog's head, Marshal,

but fondlin' him like that,

you'll ruin him for fightin'.

That dog's bred for fightin'.

You oughta understand that.

You've had more fights than anybody.

(Charley) He fashioned himself as

just an ordinary man, in no way special.

But, of course, that was a deception.

By luck or design, it had fallen to him

to play the hero's part,

and, to the very end,

he embraced his fate.

Two damn weeks,

ain't a damn sight of a buffalo.

Never thought it possible.

How's a man supposed to make a livin'?

(tribal chanting)

(horse whinnies)

That's a funeral platform.

Must be on some kind of vigil

for the dead Indian next to him.

(speaks Sioux)

Says he's a Sioux,

named He Who Whistles.

He's a chief.

That's his wife lying there next to him.

They had to leave a tribe.

They couldn't find no buffalo.

Figured since he'd failed his people

and he'd failed his wife,

he had to go off

and find his own medicine.

Said he had a dream.

Had to fight a white-eye with long hair.

That looks to be you, Bill.

What the hell does this whistler

want to fight me for?

His religion.

He wins, his people live.

He's gonna hang your scalp

on a lodge pole.

Tell him I'm sorry

about his woman and his tribe.

(speaks Sioux)

Tell him thanks, and I'll be on my way.

(war cry)

He wants me to show some colour.

Fine.

(c*cks rifle)

- Don't kill him, Bill.

- Man knows what he wants!

Bad luck to kill an Indian

in a religious frame of mind!

He chose it!

He must have got more than 20 hides

out there. Winter prime.

Them hides'll fetch a dollar apiece in

Omaha. Let's run him off. What say you?

First feller who shows up today gonna

buy a drink, and you're gonna run him off.

NEBRASKA TERRITORY

Whisky.

It'd be awfully neighbourly

if you was to buy me a drink.

I generally only buy whisky

for my friends.

I don't see no reason why a man

come in here and insult me.

Watch his gun!

Oh! I'm shot!

You oughta understand,

you ever touch another man's hat...

TOMMY DRUM'S SALOON

HAYS CITY, 1870

"Ma, Ma, who's my pa?"

"Wild Bill Hickok. Ha-ha-ha."

Please, Mr Wild Bill. Don't shoot me now.

I ain't done nothin' wrong.

- Don't shoot me, Mr Wild Bill.

- What's this about?

I kicked some drunk soldier's ass around

about a week ago. Threw him in jail.

Figure these are his friends.

- Maybe you oughta apologise...

- I don't apologise!

Not to you or anybody else. Not ever.

Shouldn't touch another man's hat.

I ain't wearin' no pistols.

(woman screams)

Aaaagh!

Take 'em, Bill. They're gonna kill you.

(woman screams)

(soldier) Damn you! Kill him!

(band plays "The Yellow Rose of Texas")

ABILENE, KANSAS

(whooping)

Yee-ha!

Yee-ha!

(silence)

- Just funning, Marshal.

- Where are you from?

Texas, 50 miles north of Waco.

I work for...

I'm a Union man.

Fought four years against your kind.

- You been firing that weapon, Phil?

- Lots of fellers here...

I'm not talking to them, I'm talking to you!

You got an explanation why you was firing

that weapon, breaking a city ordinance?

What's the matter, Bill? You miss me?

That why you're mad at Phil here?

You'd best hand over the gun, Phil.

Otherwise I'm just gonna have to step

over there and slap you around some.

Who else?!

(man) Bill!

He's dead. You shot your own deputy.

(man) He shot Phil Coe,

then he shot Mike Williams.

I'm gonna go get my shotgun,

then I'm gonna go get my horse.

By the time I get back, I see one

son of a b*tch on the street, I'll kill 'em.

(sobs)

After Abilene, Bill was at loose ends.

He drifted East and accepted the

invitation of his friend Buffalo Bill Cody

to join his theatrical production

"Scouts of the Plains".

As a thespian he was,

by all reports, simply dreadful.

BOWERY THEATRE:

NEW YORK:

And now, my friends, a true story of

courage as actually lived and fought

by my dear friend of many years,

James Butler Hickok,

known throughout the West as Wild Bill!

(applause)

I say, Wild Bill, where have you been?

(audience murmuring)

I say, old pard, where have you been?

(laughter)

What has detained you so long?

(sparse applause)

I was riding my horse, Black Nell,

peacefully along the river

when I was corralled

by a party of hostiles.

- (war drum)

- Hostiles? What kind of hostiles?

Indians!

Yes. What tribe of Indians, Wild Bill?

- They were Sioux. Sioux Indians.

- And who was their chief?

Up there! Turn down the damn light.

Damn near blind a feller.

I say, Wild Bill, who was their chief?

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI

Keep your eyes open.

You have glaucoma, Mr Hickok.

It's often a result from too much proximity

to, uh... infected females.

Keep your eyes straight ahead.

If you take my meaning.

I had some trouble about ten years back.

Cleared right up when the local doc

stuck a hot wire up my privates.

How bad's it gonna get?

You are losing your eyesight, Mr Hickok.

May take... two years,

may take... ten.

I expect I just spent too much time

staring at the prairie sun.

By the summer of the nation's centennial,

CHEYENNE, JULY 1876

Bill had become an idle drifter.

Like myself, he was addicted to whisky,

cards, and the wastrel's life.

My name is Charles Prince,

English born and educated,

but for reasons of temperament,

America had become my adopted home.

As I much prefer to observe life

in the raw, I took myself west.

I was not disappointed.

Mighty interesting game, poker.

Can't tell you how many times in my life

I've gone bust.

Yes, but it's not the same for you.

You don't know what real poverty is.

Everybody wants to buy

the great Wild Bill dinner or drinks.

This pot is mine. Three kings.

Mr Hickok?

Mr Hickok, there's a man in the street

gonna give me a dollar

to come in here and tell you that

you're a coward, and a wife stealer...

and I can't say the rest,

but it was much worse.

What'd he say?

Bill Hickok!

I'm callin' you out!

Hickok!

You gonna ride or hide?

What's the matter?

Afraid of a cripply old man in a wheelchair

who can't even face you, are you?

What'd he say?

He said that you were a horse molester.

He say what horse?

What, are you hidin'?

The great Wild Bill Hickok

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