A Breed Apart

A Novel of Wild Bill Hickok

Aces and eights—everyone knows the tale of the Dead Man's Hand. Wild Bill Hickok was a giant in a vast land, a celebrity in the days of dime novels and the telegraph. Few men in the Old West could fill his boots, but fewer still knew the real story, the making of a legend.

To history, he was Wild Bill, but he came of age as James Butler Hickok. After his first showdown at the age of twenty-four, everyone could see that Hickok was a breed apart. As a green hand on the Overland Stage, he bravely faced off against a band of thieves. During the Civil War, he displayed nerve and savvy as a Union spy. And on one afternoon in the town square of Springfield, Missouri, Wild Bill Hickok wrote himself into the history books—with a revolver in his hand.