Wild at Heart

by Layce Gardner

  I must admit that I got plenty tired of this line of questioning. It seemed that most everybody thought all dwarfs travelled in packs or something.

  Wild Bill rose to his feet and, with a flourish of his arms, bowed from the waist and said, “Charlie, I am pleased to make your acquaintance. Any friend of Calamity Jane is a friend of mine.”

  “Pleased to meet you, Mr. Hickok,” I said. I climbed up on the chair and kneeled. That way I was a bit taller and he wouldn’t get a crick in his neck from looking down at me.

  “Calamity! Charlie!”

  The double doors swung open with enough force to slam against the walls behind them. Pete ran into the room and up to the table. He bent over at the waist with his hands on his knees, gasping for breath. He must have run all the way down the street. He said in a rush, “Charlie, you ain’t going to believe this! Guess who I just saw ride into town! Just as big as you please!”

  “Who?” asked Wild Bill.

  Pete looked right at Wild Bill and said, “Wild Bill Hickok! He was riding a big black horse and looked…” His voice faded as he realized who he was talking to.

  “You don’t say,” Wild Bill said.

  Pete took off his hat and nervously twisted it in his hands. “You’re him. You’re Wild Bill in the flesh.”

  “That’s me, all right.” Wild Bill snatched the pint back from Calamity and took a long drink. He emptied the bottle, looked at it, held it upside down and shook it. When nothing came out, he stuck it back in his pocket.

  Calamity made the introductions. “Bill, this here is Li’l Pete.”

  Pete shot Calamity a sour look. “Just Pete is fine.”

  “Well, Just Pete, it’s a pleasure to be making your acquaintance,” Wild Bill said. He tried to stand, probably thinking he wanted to make another of those ringmaster bows, but he didn’t quite make it all the way out of his chair. He wavered in mid-air, decided it was too much trouble for a drunk man and flopped back into the seat.

  Pete wiped his hand on his trousers and held it out to Wild Bill. “Been wanting to shake your hand for some time, sir. We met a long time ago, I don’t expect you remember.”

  Wild Bill frowned at Pete’s outstretched hand. “Men who are too eager to please make me all agitated.”

  “I take it back,” Pete said, withdrawing his hand. He wiped his palm on his trousers again.

  “Buy me a drink, Just Pete, and maybe I’ll grow to like you,” Wild Bill said.

  Pete looked across the table at me and said in an uppity tone I didn’t much care for, “Charlie, bring this man a bottle of your best rye! None of that rotgut either. Wild Bill deserves only the best.”

  Wild Bill clapped Pete on the back. “We’re going to get along just fine!”

  The force of Wild Bill’s clap on the back expelled all the air in Pete’s lungs. “Good,” he mumbled between wheezes, “that’s good.”

  I stood up in my chair, making myself eye-level with Pete. “I am going to get this man a libation. But I’m not going to do it because you commanded me to. I don’t take orders from any man.” I puffed out my chest as I said this. “I don’t care how high his boot heels are.”

  “That’s the spirit,” Wild Bill said. “Don’t take any shit, Charlie. A man’s only as tall as he thinks he is.” He stood and wavered a bit. “And with your permission, I’ll go fetch the bottle.”

  I nodded. He took off for the bar, threading a crooked path like a one-armed seamstress. I watched him pull a full bottle off the shelves. I whispered to Calamity, “He always this drunk?”

  She whispered back, “No. Sometimes he’s drunker.”

  Wild Bill came out from behind the bar and spotted the row of wanted posters on the far wall. He weaved over to them and studied them one at a time.

  “Ain’t those posters something?” Calamity said. “They must be pasted across the entire country.”

  Wild Bill pointed at one of the posters and said, “That picture don’t do me justice. I’m better looking than that.”

  “That’s a picture of me,” Calamity said. “You’re the one next to it.”

  “Oh.” He moved a step over. He leaned in close and stood nose to nose with his own likeness. “I didn’t realize I was so all-fired handsome.”

  Calamity laughed. Wild Bill backed up and studied all the posters. “Six?” He turned to Calamity. “How come it says I only got six and you got twelve?”

  Calamity shrugged. “’Cause I can count higher, I reckon.”

  Wild Bill harrumphed and patted his coat pockets. Not finding what he wanted, he asked me, “You got a pencil on you?”

  I took the pencil from behind my ear and underhanded it over to him. Wild Bill snatched for it but missed. “Careful, there, Charlie. You could put somebody’s eye out.” He picked up the pencil and marked a big X through the number six and underneath it wrote in “7.”

  Calamity said, “You still got a ways before you catch up to me.”

  “The evening’s still young.” He raised his bottle in the air, toasting something only he could see, and took a long drink.

  I exchanged a worried look with Calamity. She nodded in answer to my unspoken question and said, “Take it easy, Big Bill. You’re getting soaked too fast.”

  Wild Bill belched and took a step back from the force of it. He wiped his mouth with his shirt cuff and said, “I’m not as think as you drunk I am.”

  Calamity looked apologetic for her friend. “I don’t know what’s got into him. He never used to have a drinking problem.”

  “Drinking problem!” Wild Bill bellowed. “My only drinking problem is that I got two hands and only one mouth.” He laughed too loud and too long. He noticed the pencil still in his hand and tossed it back to me. His aim was good and I caught it all right, but the force of throwing it sent him a-reeling. He faltered two steps to the right, one to the left, clutched at the air in front of him and would have fallen if the wall hadn’t got in his way. Calamity jumped up and steadied him by grabbing his coat lapels before he sank to the floor. She wrapped her arm around his waist, threw his arm over her shoulders and led him back over to the table.

  Full of drunken good cheer, he raised the bottle high in the air and exclaimed, “To Calamity Jane, Queen of the Plains!”

  Calamity took the bottle out of his hand and crowed, “To old Wild Bill, King of the Hill!” She deposited him butt-first into his chair. He bounced back up like he had springs in his back pockets. She put her hands on his shoulders and pushed him back down. He bounced up again. She pushed him down again. This time he looked up at Calamity, bared his teeth and growled at her like a rabid dog. She backed up a step. Afraid of getting bitten, I guess.

  Pete chuckled. Wild Bill looked across the table at Pete and barked.

  I couldn’t help but laugh. Wild Bill eyed me next. He snapped his jaw, barked and growled something ferocious. I stopped laughing, and when I did, Wild Bill threw his head back and yowled like an old coyote looking up at a full moon. When he was done yowling, he closed his eyes, dropped his chin to his chest and took up snoring.

  Pete and I looked at Calamity. She only shrugged and said, “What kind of liquor you got back there, Charlie?”

  All of a sudden, Wild Bill’s eyes popped open and he stood up. Holding onto the edge of the table for support, he vigorously shook himself all over like a wet dog after crossing a creek.

  Calamity and Pete backed away, eyeballing Wild Bill with concern and no small amount of trepidation. I stayed standing on the chair. Not because I was so brave, but because I was too astounded to move.

  Once he got all the water shook off his pelt, Wild Bill sat down and smiled ear to ear. “Let’s have us a drink,” he said.

  “I think you got a pretty big head start on us,” Calamity said.

  “Nope.” He shook his head. “Just drank myself sober. Now I got to start all over.” He dug in his pocket and took out a leather pouch. He tossed it to me, saying, “Bring us some glassesesses. And another bottle. Better m
ake it two bottlessesses.”

  What could I do? If he wanted to drink himself to death and pay me to watch him do it, so be it. “Coming right up.” I took a couple of coins out of the pouch and laid it back on the table in front of him. I went to the bar and Pete shadowed me all the way. My guess was that Pete didn’t want to get caught up in a dogfight. I didn’t blame him.

  Calamity sat next to Bill. “So,” she said casual-like, “what’re you doing now that you quit working with Cody?”

  “I was keeping the peace down in Abilene.”

  “How’d you like that side of the law?”

  “I quit it!” Wild Bill said, pounding the table top with his fist.

  “Why’s that?”

  Wild Bill frowned and hung his head. “It’s a god-awful job. No respect. Pays poorly to boot.” He brightened and looked up at Calamity. “Thought I might try my hand at being a bounty hunter. Been tailing you to ask if you want to strike out with me.”

  Calamity hemmed and hawed, “I dunno, Bill. There’s a bit of business…I got something I’ve got to do first. Whyn’t you get Tame Bill to ride with you?”

  Wild Bill placed his hands on the table and pushed him himself up, but he was too drunk to depend on his legs for support and ended up in the chair back where he began. He looked around and blinked a few times like he just woke up. “Anywhere around here we can scare up a game of cards?”

  “Sure, sure, we’ll do that, Bill,” Calamity soothed. “But let’s have a sit-down first.”

  He snatched the bottle from my hands and drank. It looked like more liquor went down the front of his shirt than went down his throat. He pulled the bottle away from his mouth and looked at his sopping shirt front. Unfortunately, he forgot to tip the bottle back upright when he was done drinking from it and all the liquor streamed out onto the floor. Once he noticed the empty bottle, he got angry. His face turned red and puckered up tighter than the sphincter on a scared pig. He slammed the bottle back onto the table and it shattered.

  “Whoops,” he said. He looked at me apologetically. “Sorry about that.”

  “Not to worry,” I mumbled. “Happens all the time.”

  He closed one eye and looked at me with the other. “I saw a dwarf once,” he said.

  “So you told me. In a circus.”

  “No, this was another one who was living in Richmond at the time. It was a woman, though.” He leaned in close enough to me I could smell the sour mash on his breath. He looked my face over real careful, this time using both his eyes. “She looked just like you. Same big honker in the middle of her face. You got a sister by chance?”

  “Not all dwarfs are related,” I said.

  Wild Bill caught sight of Pete meekly sitting on the bar stool watching him. “What’re you looking at?” he asked.

  Pete took off his hat. “I guess you don’t remember me, do you?”

  “’Course I do. I just met you not half an hour ago.”

  “I mean from before. ’Bout twenty some odd years ago.”

  “You’re not my progeny, are you?”

  “Progeny?” Pete asked, dumbfounded.

  Wild Bill raised his voice and answered, “Progeny. A product of my seed. My offspring.”

  Pete chuckled. “No, sir. But we have met before. Dodge City.”

  “I never done nothing but ride through Dodge on my ways to somewheres else.”

  “But on your way through you stopped at Pettis and Son Mercantile. I know ’cause I was there and I seen you. You robbed the place.”

  Wild Bill guffawed. “I sure enough did! Hell, that was a long time ago.” Wild Bill turned to Calamity and explained, “I was needing some quick cash. And the owner of that store was happy to oblige.” He patted his gun, adding, “With a little coaxing.”

  Pete moved into the chair across from Wild Bill. “The way I remember it you didn’t have to coax too hard.”

  “I don’t recollect seeing you,” Wild Bill said.

  “I weren’t but six years old. I was looking at all the penny candy displayed on the counter when you came in just as big as day and waving your six-shooter. Old Mr. Pettis forked over every cent he had and you had your pockets full of money before I knew what happened. You were a real gentleman bandit too. Said ‘please’ and ‘thank you’ and ‘have a nice day.’ You were halfway down the street when I figured if stealing was that easy, I’d just help myself. I grabbed a big jar of that there candy off the counter and hightailed it out. I was running down the street when you grabbed me up by the scruff of my neck. You walked me back inside the store, made me give all the candy back and tell Pettis I was sorry. Then you made me promise to never steal nothing again.”

  Calamity chuckled. Wild Bill shot her down with a hateful stare. He said to Pete, “You must be mistaken. That weren’t me.”

  “It was you, all right. Pettis bragged for days about how he’d been robbed by none other than Wild Bill Hickok.”

  Wild Bill grabbed Pete by the collar and yanked him halfway across the top of the table. “I said it weren’t me. I wouldn’t never give candy back.”

  Pete grew walleyed and squeaked, “Maybe you’re right. Yep, that feller just looked like you is all.”

  Calamity took hold of Wild Bill’s wrist. “Let him go, Bill. Let him go, okay?”

  Wild Bill shoved Calamity out of the way, stood and kicked his chair. He drug Pete by his shirtfront clear across the floor and over to the far wall. He pulled Pete up onto his tippy-toes and pushed him nose-to-nose with the wanted poster. “That there is me, Pete. That scoundrel right there. I don’t return stolen candy. I killed seven men and have a reward on my head. You understand? That’s the real me!”

  Pete nodded, which amounted to rubbing his own nose on the poster.

  Wild Bill tossed him to the ground, pulled his gun and aimed it at Pete. Pete crab crawled away as fast as he could until he banged up against the wall and couldn’t go any farther. Wild Bill threatened, “You want to make it eight? What do you think, Just Pete? You want to be number eight?”

  “Hold it right there, Bill,” Calamity said.

  Wild Bill turned around to see Calamity with her gun drawn and aimed at him. “Pull in your horns and let him go,” she said.

  By this time I had my shotgun on the ready beneath the bar. All I had to do was lift, aim in the general direction and squeeze off a round or two.

  Wild Bill grinned. “You going to shoot me, Calamity? After all I done for you?”

  Calamity mulled it over a moment. Then she smiled and holstered her gun. “’Course I ain’t going to shoot you. Drawing my gun like that was just instinct and habit. But I was thinking maybe you’d let Pete go this one time. After all, today is his wedding day.”

  Wild Bill looked over to where Pete was cowering. “Your wedding day? Well, why didn’t you say something?” He holstered his gun. “No man should die on his own wedding day.” He walked over to Pete and extended his hand in friendship. “C’mon, Pete, let’s have a drink to celebrate the impending nuptials.”

  Wild Bill was crazy, that much was certain. I didn’t know him well enough to know if he was whiskey-crazy or mean-crazy or just general crazy. But I figured there wasn’t much I could do except get him drunk enough to pass out.

  I handed off another bottle to Calamity. She thoughtfully clanked a few of Wild Bill’s coins down on the bar top and I pocketed them with gratitude.

  Wild Bill was back at the table and had his arm draped over Pete’s shoulders like they were old friends chewing the fat. Pete looked whipped and scared as all get-out.

  Calamity poured one long stream of liquor over three glasses, saying, “Here we go, boys! Drinks all around!” She got some liquor in the glasses—the rest on the tables and floor.

  “My turn to toast, Just Pete,” Wild Bill said. “In honor of your marriage.”

  Pete grinned nervously and raised his glass alongside Bill’s and Calamity’s.

  Wild Bill made a show out of clearing his throat and smacking his li
ps. He straightened his shoulders and proclaimed, “With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage.”

  I couldn’t believe my ears. The son of a bitch was quoting from Hamlet.

  He clinked glasses with the other two and added, “Bottoms up.”

  ***

  Pete was the first to succumb to the alcohol. Calamity moved him over to a corner. He was slumped in the chair like a scarecrow who was missing most of his stuffing. His chin was touching his chest and he was snoring like a locomotive. I had moved over close by, kind of keeping an eye on him. I had my book propped open in my lap and was pretending to read. It was too dark to see the words on the page, but Calamity and Wild Bill were so wrapped up in themselves they didn’t take notice of that small fact.

  Calamity and Wild Bill had turned serious and were conversing in somber tones.

  “I’ve never known you to get cold feet,” Wild Bill said.

  “It ain’t cold feet. I got better things to do than go bounty hunting,” Calamity said. “How come you don’t ask Tame Bill to go along with you?”

  I had heard that Wild Bill had a brother with the sobriquet of Tame Bill. Rumor had it that Tame Bill earned his name one day when he interrupted a group of men about to stretch a noose around a negro’s neck. The man was innocent and only getting lynched because of the color of his skin. They say Tame Bill stepped forward, drew both his revolvers at the angry mob and said, “I’m usually the tame one of the Hickok brothers, but the first one of you to make a move is going to get gutshot.” The crowd dispersed and after that they all referred to him as Tame Bill.

  Wild Bill shook his head at the notion of his brother tagging along with him. “He can’t ride with me.”

  Calamity asked, “What’s he doing these days?”

  “Resting in peace,” Wild Bill mumbled.

  Calamity froze. “He’s dead?”

  “Dead.”

  “How’d that happen?”

  Wild Bill pointed a finger and aimed it at his own chest. “Bang bang. Clean shot right through the heart.” He wadded up a fist and pounded the table.

  “Who shot him?”

  Wild Bill shook his head. Calamity stood up, full to bursting with righteous rage. “Tell me who done it and they’ll be pulling my boot outta their ass!”