A HARD LOOK
AT THE HICKOK PAGE
by
-A legend
that survived
BOOK
Aces and Eights
Peter Forster
THE legend of the Wild West has been exploded often enough--even the makers of television films must know by now that in reality the Western "heroes" were mostly sordid, small-time criminals. But a new book, Wild Bill Hickok, by Richard O'Connor (Alvin Redman, 16s.), suggests that at least one of them was pretty much the fabulous figure of legend.
In fact, his story reads like a woman erled: "Good for you. script for Gary Cooper or John Wild Bill" And the nume Wayne-if those venerable gen- stuck.
flemen are still up to portraying
such exploits,
As U.S. Marghal Kansas
he
Not that Hickok was all that City Wild Bill entered on that
period
of his 1e when wild by nature, or even Dil by despatched very nearly 100 men nuine he wan born Jubies in gunfights. Buller-Hieltok in 1837, youngest brother of four in a respectable family Jiving in northern Illinois.
A fight
At the age of 13 he ran away from home, thinking mistaken- ly that he had killed another youth with whom he reluctantly became involved in a fight.
He grew to be a vain, ruthless man, a heavy drinker who was frequently high at noon,
10
In Kansas he joined a politi- clan's bodyguard, started wear Aamboyant clothes, and grew his curly hair to shoulder- length.
He also developed an extra- ordinary skill of marksmanship with a levy Colt revolver which enabled him, as a favou- and then put a bullet through a telegraph pole at a hundred paces.
Arab countries, but also that | rite trick, to draw none of his Alms can be shown
there.
The film, which I understand is not so hysterically anti- British and bigoter as the book, will be shown over here a few
PAUL NEWMAN, months. It has already enjoy
MR PAUL
he
banned
We finished our coffee and "You saw that pile of rub walked up the meys together,
film Exodus in which bish in the mews outside my She winced when she saw the
Well, I've become rubbish sull heaped outside her of the former baseball star. portrays a Jowish freedom house?
friend: fighter has been obsessed with the need to get front window.
Then she shook her head and "Marilyn and DiMaggio have from all Arab countries by it removed. I rang
the up
without never been bitter about and
the laughed again. And, them council
their divorce,
always the United Arab Republic. and mews locked like a slum. They bitterness, she said:
"You know. I really am de spoke well of each other. I This means that not only will passed me on to the Citizens' Advice Bureau.
lighted about the success Larry don't think they are going to he himself be denied entry to
1old
A bear
It was then that the facts of the Hickok legend started to take shape. He drove a stage- beach from Nebraska to Santa Fe.
QUOTE-from Mr Bren-
He was attacked by a grizzly dan Benan: "Any writer hear and killed it with a Bowie who, at 35, doesn't have a knife. He killed his first man Swiss bank account is a in a gun-fight at Rock Creek.
Later he rounded up a gang phoney,
of train-robbers, after which a
"
(London Express Service).
His next accomplishment was to go on the stage. And Mr O'Connor points out: "One of The oddest facts about the Western legend was that it wea hoing Actionalised almost at the moment
events on which it was based were taking place.
"Men like Wild Bill Hickok. Buffalo B Cody and a few others brave enough to face an audience. performed their heroles out West, then hastened East to act them...
A letter
Exaggeration about Hickok la unnecessary. What fiction, for instance, could approach the real-life lost letter of Wild Bill to his wife?
It read: "If such should bo We never meet again, whilo Bring my last shot I will gently breathe the name of my wife,
with wishes Agnes, and for my encnies I will make the phage and try to swim to the other chor,”
even
Alts, he arrived on the other shore without warning, and when he was only 80.
was playing
cards.
One August afternoon in 1870 a small-time gunman shot him
Hickok through the back of the head. According to Mr O'Connor he was holding aces and eights.
And they're still known today as the Dead Man's Hand.
(London Express Service)«
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