The Magic Wagon

His revolvers were just like the ones Hickok's corpse had. Cartridge converted Colt 60's. They were sightless, so as not to snag on the draw, and the gun metal was almost blue. The grips were magnolia white.

On his feet were moccasin-styled boots with heels, which put another two inches on his height. The boots were the same color as his hat and they had fancy bead and quill work that started at the top and ran down to the toe point.

Billy Bob held up his hand and the clapping stopped. He walked out to the edge of the stage, took a moment to look over the crowd and smile. It was the smile he used when he was wi

"My name is Billy Bob Daniels," he said. "I am the son of Wild Bill Hickok."

He let that soak in before he went on.

"Yes, I know what you're thinking. You're thinking I'm saying that for effect, that it's part of the act. But the truth is I am James Butler Hickok's illegitimate son. My mother was a fallen woman of Deadwood, and that is where I was conceived, shortly before that coward Jack McCall snuck up behind Wild Bill and shot him through the back of the head. Even so, my father's hand, out of pure reflex alone, had half drawn his pistol before he fell forward on his cards. Aces and eights, ladies and gentlemen. The cards that from that day forth have been known as the dead man's hand.

"Well, my mother didn't want me. That's the sad truth. I was given up to a family named Daniels and raised by them, and it wasn't until I was a grown man that I knew the truth, knew that I was actually a Hickok."

Billy Bob had a way of getting a little trill in his throat when he talked about Hickok, and I'll tell you, it was darn near enough to make you believe that Hickok was his papa, even if like me, you knew it wasn't so. Or reckoned it wasn't so. Albert told me it wasn't true, and that was enough for me.

"When we were in Deadwood some time ago," Billy Bob said, "I met a kindly old medicine man, and he told me a secret. He told me this because he recognized me as the son of Wild Bill. He said he knew it instantly. He came forward, and you know what he told me? He told me the body of Wild Bill was not in its grave. That's correct, ladies and gentlemen, not in his grave. This old Indian, whose life my father had saved on countless occasions, had stolen it, out of respect, mind you, and with herbs and spices known only to Indians, he had petrified the body and kept it in a cave where he bowed down before it twice a day to give thanks to Wild Bill for having saved his life.

"But you know what he did? He took me to that body, and because I'm Wild Bill's son, he gave it to me. And, ladies and gentlemen, that body is here today for you to see."

Albert had slipped into the back of the wagon, and now he came out from behind the curtain rolling the box on a hand truck, and when he stopped dead center of the stage, Billy Bob stepped over, grabbed the lid, and swung it back.

Hickok's body had been set up so that his arms were lifted and the revolver barrels were resting on what was left of his shoulders, and when the lid came off, the arms fell forward, locked on the hinges Billy Bob had built into the elbows, and two wires attached to the back of the box and the revolver hammers, grew taut and the hammers cocked. That sudden movement of the arms, those hammers cocking loudly, always made the crowd jump back and there was usually at least one woman in the crowd that would squeal. This time darn near everybody jumped and squealed. I just loved that part.

When the crowd settled down, Billy Bob said, "Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you Wild Bill Hickok, preserved and holding the very revolvers that sent many a man to hell on his shadow."

Billy Bob used his finger to point out the hole in Hickok's head where McCall's bullet had come out, then backtracked into a story about how Hickok had saved the medicine man's life, and how when the Indian preserved the body he blessed it. Well, it was a good story and all, but it wasn't the truth. I remembered how we came by that box clear as if it were yesterday, and the only thing about Billy Bob's story that was right was that there had been an Indian medicine man, and it happened in Deadwood. Or at least it got started there.

It was a rainy night in Deadwood and things had not gone well. Earlier that day we had given the show, but it was raining then too, and hardly nobody came, and them that did were soon run off by the rain, except for a couple of drunks, and Billy Bob nearly got in a fight with them. From then on Billy Bob's mood went from sour to mean. I think it had something to do with him expecting more from Deadwood, as it was the death place of his hero. But even the graveyard where Wild Bill was buried seemed to disappoint Billy Bob. I reckon he thought standing near the grave would be a spiritual experience or something, but I think all he got out of it was what me and Albert got out of it, and that was wet and cold.

So it was night and we had pulled out to the edge of Deadwood and were about to throw up a windblind for the mules and get bedded down, when this string-bean fellow in a black-and-orange check suit wearing a derby hat showed up. He got off his horse and came smiling up to us, the rain ru

I recognized him on account of that suit. He had been at the show that day, but like the others, the rain had run him off. I remembered that he had bad teeth, except for the front two. They were so big and thick-looking you could have tied either one of them on a stick and used it for a hoe.

"What's it we can do for you?" Billy Bob asked the fellow, and I seen his hand dip into his coat pocket, and for once I was glad Billy Bob had a pistol in there and knew how to use it. Something about the fellow in the checkerboard suit made me nervous.

"Mister," he says to Billy Bob, "I heard what you said about being the son of Wild Bill Hickok today, and I come to talk to you."

"That's about all you heard," Billy Bob said. "You left kind of early."

"Well sir, I wouldn't have, but the rain put a damper on the festivities."

"You didn't mind coming out here in it."

"No sir, I didn't. And that's because I got something to tell you, might be of interest."

"Well tell me, I'm wanting to get out of this rain."

"I know where the body of your father, Wild Bill Hickok, is."

"Well don't bandy it around, you idiot, only everyone in these United States and the territories knows that. He's in Deadwood cemetery, you hollow-headed fool. I was up there today to look at his grave."

"No sir, he ain't there. But let me explain myself now. I'm Bob Chauncey, but folks call me Checkers on account of my suit." And he smiled real big.

Well now, I'll tell you, A man that wears the same suit enough to be named after it ain't high on my list of would-be partners. I ain't the best for cleanliness myself sometimes, but I don't live in the same suit neither. I have been known to put on a clean shirt once in a while. And I wasn't one to believe old Checkers washed out his coat and pants nightly and dried it. He wasn't the type. I think the fact that he had what my mama used to call an unsavory habit led me to figure him as something of a messy person. He was a nose picker, and about the best I've ever seen at it. He didn't do it like a lady will do, like she ain't really doing it, but just scratching, and her finger will shoot in and scoop out the prize and she'll flick it away before you can say, "Hey, ain't that a booger?"

He didn't even do it like some men do, which is honest, but not unpolite. They'll turn sort of to the side and get in there after it in a businesslike ma