The Sunset Trail

by Alfred Henry Lewis

Now this, in a blind sort of way, told upon Mr. Hickok as something irreligious. A Colt’s-45 was not a joke; its mechanism had not been connived in any spirit of facetiousness. It was hardware for life and death; it owned a mission, and to make of it a bauble and a tinsel thing smote upon Mr. Hickok like sacrilege.

And then, to shoot over the heads of folk shook one’s faith. It was as though one mocked the heavens! In good truth, Mr. Hickok never did this last. It was his wont to empty his weapons, right and left, at the shrinking legs of Indian-seeming supers. The practice was not lacking in elements of certain excellence. The powder burned the supers, and brought yells which were genuine from those adjuncts of the theatre. In that way was the public gratified, and the integrity of the stage upheld.

But the supers objected, and refused to go on with Mr. Hickok. They might love the drama, but not to that extent. It was the rock on which they split. Mr. Hickok would not aim high, and the burned ones would take no part in the presentation unless he did. The situation became strained. As a finale, after bitter words had been spoken, Mr. Hickok quit the mimic world and returned to a life that, while it numbered its drawbacks, might make the boast that it was real. It was then he came to Kansas City, there to experience ebbing, flowing nights at farobank, with that final ebb adverted to, which left him dollar-stranded as described.

This chronicle deserted Mr. Hickok in Battle Row, thinking on the strangeness of things. Having sufficiently surveyed his bullet work of another day, as set forth by the Odd Fellows’ emblem, Mr. Hickok was about to resume his walk when a telegraph boy rushed up. His rush over, the urchin gazed upon Mr. Hickok with the utmost satisfaction for the space of thirty seconds. Then he took a message from his book.

“Be you Mr. Hickok?”

“Yes, my child,” replied Mr. Hickok blandly.

“Mr. Wild Bill Hickok?” Mr. Hickok frowned; he distasted the ferocious prefix.

It had been granted Mr. Hickok by romanticists with a bent to be fantastic, and was a step in titles the more strange, perhaps, since Mr. Hickok was not baptised “William,” but “James.” But “Wild Bill” they made it, and “Wild Bill” it remained; albeit in submission to Mr. Hickok’s wishes—he once made them plain by shooting a glass of whiskey from the hand of one who had called him “Wild Bill,” to that gentleman’s disturbance and a loss to him of one drink—he was never so named except behind his back. When folk referred to him, they called him “Wild Bill”; when they addressed him they did so as “Mr. Hickok.” Now, when the world and Mr. Hickok understood each other on this touchy point, every sign of friction ceased. The compromise won ready adoption, and everybody was satisfied since everybody went not without his partial way.

Mr. Hickok tore open the message, while the boy admired him to the hilts. The message was a long one, by which Mr. Hickok deduced it to be important. Mr. Hickok was not over-quick with written English; he had been called in the theatres a “slow study.” To expedite affairs he went at once to the signature. This was intelligent enough. As a rule, one could give you every word of any eight-page letter he receives by merely glancing at the signature. That rule will prove particularly true when the signature is a lady’s. However, this time the rule failed.

Mr. Hickok, while he knew the name, was driven to wade through the communication before he could come by even a glint of its purport. This he did slowly and painfully, feeling his way from word to word as though fording a strange and turbid stream. At last, when he made it out, Mr. Hickok’s face came brightly forth of the shadows like the sun from behind a cloud. Evidently the news was good. Mr. Hickok glanced again at the name. It was the name of Mr. Masterson, whose life he had once saved.