Wild Bill

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

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.

Leaning on the everlasting arms

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

since he come to Deadwood.

Only got interested once.

Leaning on the everlasting...

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.

Thank you.

Thank you. Appreciate that.

Nice shot.

Nice shot, Bill.

You know, I don't mind you shooting glasses off of my dog's head, Marshal,

but you fondling him like that,

you're going to ruin him for fighting.

That dog's bred for fighting.

You ought to understand that.

You've had more fights than anybody.

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 living?

That's a funeral platform.

Must be on some kind of vigil

for the dead injun next to him.

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 failed his people

and he failed his wife,

he had to go off and find his own medicine.

Said he had a dream.

Had a fight with a white-eye

with long hair.

That looks to be you, Bill.

What the hell's this whistler want to fight me for?

His religion.

He wins, his people live.

He's gonna hang your scalp on a lodgepole.

Tell him I'm sorry about his woman and his tribe.

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

He wants me to show some color.

Fine.

Don't kill him, Bill!

Man knows what he wants!

Bad luck to kill an injun in a religious frame of mind!

He chose it!

He must have got more than 20 hides out there.

Winter prime.

Them hides will fetch a dollar apiece in Omaha.

Let's run him off. What say you?

First fella shows up today gonna buy a drink,

and you gonna run him off.

You better...

Whiskey.

It would be awfully neighborly

if you was to buy me a drink.

I generally only buy whiskey for my friends.

Don't see no reason why a man come in here and insult me.

Watch his gun!

Oh! Oh, I'm shot!

Ought to understand,

you don't ever touch another man's hat.

Ma, ma, who's my pa?

Wild Bill Hickok. Haw, haw, haw!

Oh, please, Mr. Wild Bill, don't shoot me now.

I ain't done nothing 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 ought to apologize for that kind of talk.

I don't apologize!

Not to you or anybody else. Not ever.

Shouldn't touch another man's hat.

I ain't wearing no pistols.

Stop him!

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

Damn you! Kill him!

Yee-haw! Yee-haw!

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 fellas here been shooting...

I'm not talking to them. I'm talking to you.

Now, 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 best hand over the gun, Phil.

Otherwise I'm just going to have to step over there

and slap you around some.

Who else?

Bill!

He's dead! Shot your own deputy.

He shot Phil Coe, and 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 bitch on the street,

I'll kill him.

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.

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.

I say, Wild Bill, where have you been?

I say, old pard, where have you been?

What has detained you so long?

I was riding my horse, Black Nell,

peacefully along the river, when I was corralled by a party of hostiles.

Hostiles? What kind of hostiles, Wild Bill?

Injuns.

Yes? What tribe of Indians, Wild Bill?

They were Sioux, Sioux Injuns.

And who was their chief?

Up there!

Turn down the damn lights.

Damn near blind a fella.

I say, Wild Bill, who was their chief?

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, sir.

I had some trouble about 10 years back.

Cleared right up when the local doc stuck a hot wire up my privates.

Hmm.

How bad's it gonna get?

You are losing your eyesight, Mr. Hickok.

May take, uh,

two years, may take 10.

Mmm.

Oh, I expect...

I just spent too much time staring at the prairie sun.

By the summer of the nation's centennial,

Bill had become an idle drifter.

Like myself, he was addicted to whiskey, 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 did he say?

Bill Hickok!

I'm calling you out!

Hickok!

You gonna ride or hide?

What's the matter?

You ain't afraid of a cripply old man in a wheelchair

who can't even face you, are you?

What did he say?

He said that you were a horse molester.

He say what horse?

What, are you hiding?