"You know what I hate more than ...."

This is James Butler Hickok, better known as Wild Bill. He was murdered in Nuttal & Mann's Saloon No. 10, Deadwood Gulch, South Dakota, on August 2, 1876. Hickok -- who at various times during his life had been an army and Indian scout, a wagon-master, courier, frontiersman, gunfighter, lawman, prospector, addicted gambler and short-time actor -- was thirty-nine years old when shot in the back of his head while playing poker. The photograph probably shows him approaching that age. This post really is not specifically about him, but if you wish to learn more, there is a thorough biography written by Joseph G. Rosa.

 

The song below, written and performed by Ted Nugent, sort of contrasts the Native American way of life and their utilization of buffalo, and their reality and spiritual / religious concept of the "Great White Buffalo," with that of, in Nugent's words, "the white man, with his thick and empty head ...." Who am I to dispute that verdict?

Located between these two elements is dialogue from a novel / film entitled, "The White Buffalo," between Hickok and a fellow-frontiersman named Charlie Zane. The fictional story is about Hickok's hunt for a rumored, yet legendary, white buffalo and his encounter and subsequent friendship with a Sioux named Crazy Horse, who was hunting the same creature. It is a fascinating tale on a few levels, from my point of view. Those lines of dialogue are where this post began, with Hickok's remark that the thing he hated most in this world was being afraid of what awaited him in "the Big Open and the Black Hills:" That was the domain of the white buffalo.

So, that is the nexus of this post. What did Hickok mean? With his background, physical fear should not be present. Or, maybe it was, since he gradually was losing his eyesight, and the white buffalo had a fearsome reputation for ferocity. Or, maybe not; maybe the fear was deeper, more primitive, more profound, stemming from the Native American mythology of the white buffalo.

Anyway .... since this post is long already, it now has become Part 1 of 2. The question is whether Part 2 ever will be completed. As of today, who can say ??

The depths of fear in a fearless man

A few lines of conversation

between Wild Bill Hickok & Charlie Zane
moments after a gunfight
in which Wild Bill killed three men
from the novel / film, "The White Buffalo,"
novel and screenplay by Richard Sale (1977)

Charlie: You sure used this town up fast.  We'd best show a heel in these parts.

Wild Bill: Question is, which way?

Charlie: New camp forming up north. Place called Deadwood Gulch.

Wild Bill: Charlie, you know what I hate more than anything else in this world?

Charlie: More than Indians?

Wild Bill: Even more than dying.

Charlie: What?

Wild Bill: Being afraid.

Charlie: What, you mean in there? (Pointing back to the saloon where the gunfight took place.)

Wild Bill: I mean out there.

Charlie: Easterly? That's Sioux land. There's nothing out there but the Big Open and the Black Hills.

Wild Bill: And the white buffalo.