EXCERPTS FROM WILD WEST 365

by Michael Wallis

The following are excepts from The Wild West 365, published by Abrams and now available at bookstores nationwide.

Gaudy Liar Bass Reeves Dusky Demon In 1856, the appearance of the action-packed Life and Adventures One of the most feared deputy U.S. marshals in There never was another cowboy quite like Bill Pickett. This of James P. Beckwourth, Mountaineer, Scout, and Pioneer, and Chief during his thirty-two years of service, Bass Reeves was born black wrangler, who endured extreme racial prejudice, invented of the Crow Nation of Indians offered the first published account a slave and died a hero. Reeves, the first black federal lawman bulldogging—the only event ever originated by an of the escapades of a black man in the American West. In the commissioned west of the Mississippi, had fled Texas as a fugitive individual. Pickett’s style for bringing down a steer was unusual. goldfields of California, Beckwourth dictated his rousing life slave during the Civil War. He settled in Indian Territory and He would leap from his pony, Spradley, on the steer’s back, grab a story to T.D. Bonner, an itinerant justice of the peace, journalist, in 1875 was hired to ride for Judge Isaac C. Parker, when the horn in each hand, and dig his boot heels into the ground. After and temperance advocate with a drinking problem. The book was “Hanging Judge” first took the bench in Fort Smith, . twisting the critter’s head to bring up its nose, he chomped his an immediate success. It was released in England later that same Reeves became fluent in Creek and several other Indian languages teeth on the cow’s tender lip and fell backward causing the beast to year, followed by a second U.S. printing and a French edition in and was a master of disguise, a talent he often employed when fall down. With flair, Pickett threw his hands into the hair to show 1860. While much of the public eagerly devoured the tales of pursuing criminals. He also was ambidextrous and could shoot the audience that he no longer needed to hold the horns. Billed as high adventure among the Indians, others, in that time of blatant a pistol with great accuracy using either hand. At a time when the “Dusky Demon,” Pickett signed on with the Miller Brothers’ racism, dismissed the book as the musings of a “mongrel of mixed unconcealed racism was widespread, the physically imposing 101 Ranch in 1905. He rode with them as both a performer and blood.” Critics pointed out that among his fellow mountain men, Reeves won the respect of his fellow deputies and even some of the cowhand until his death at age sixty after he was kicked in the Beckwourth was jokingly referred to as a “gaudy liar.” But later outlaws he tracked down and brought to justice. He reportedly head while tanning an unbroken chestnut gelding. Will Rogers historians, such as the acclaimed Bernard DeVoto, reassessed apprehended the largest number of fugitives of any of Parker’s spoke of his passing on national radio. More than one thousand Beckwourth and found that much of what he described actually lawmen, pursuing such infamous outlaws as Ned Christie and people gathered on the ranch for Pickett’s funeral. He was laid to happened. They also pointed out that to be a “gaudy liar” among , who turned herself in after learning that Reeves had rest on a windswept hill, not far from where his beloved Spradley mountain men was actually a compliment, since exaggerated tale a warrant for her arrest. Reeves sported fourteen notches on his was buried. For the rest of his own life, Zack Miller looked folks spinning was a skill as valued as marksmanship and tracking. six-gun, but despite having many close calls of his own, he was straight in the eye and told them, “Bill Pickett was the greatest Beckwourth’s autobiography remains the best account of several never wounded. He was, however, wrongly charged with murder sweat-and-dirt cowhand that had ever lived—bar none.” Indian tribes in the first thirty years of the nineteenth century. in the accidental shooting of his camp cook, but won an acquittal. In 1902, the aging lawman arrested his own son for the murder of his wife, and the young man was sent to the federal prison in Leavenworth, . In Reeves’s book, no one was above the law.