Wild Bill Hickok and the Night of October Fifth

After Tom Smith's murder in November of eighteen seventy, Abilene needed a new marshal for the coming cattle season, and in April of eighteen seventy-one the city council hired James Butler Hickok, known across the West as Wild Bill. He had a fearsome reputation as a gunfighter and scout and had served as a peace officer in several Kansas towns. The cattle-season wage of one hundred fifty dollars a month was the highest Abilene had ever paid a marshal.

Hickok was a more conventional lawman than his predecessor. He wore two ivory-handled revolvers and was understood to be willing to use them. The summer of eighteen seventy-one passed without major incident.

Then came the night of October fifth. A gambler and saloon owner named Phil Coe fired a pistol in the street, saying he had shot at a stray dog. Hickok arrived, words were exchanged, and Coe fired at the marshal twice without hitting him.

Hickok fired back, striking Coe with a wound that would kill him three days later. In the same moment, a figure came running toward Hickok through the darkness. It was Mike Williams, Hickok's own deputy, running to help his marshal.

Hickok, not recognizing who was coming, fired and killed his friend. The accident was the defining fact of Hickok's tenure in Abilene. Those who knew him said it haunted him for the rest of his life.

The city council declined to renew his contract that December. Wild Bill Hickok left Abilene, and five years later he was shot dead in Deadwood, Dakota Territory, holding a poker hand that became famous as the Dead Man's Hand.