Time Travel

The grave of "Wild Bill" Hickok

I can't take the pine trees.
Don't get me wrong. I love the smell of a pine forest but, for some unknown reason, lately my nose slips into mucus overdrive when I'm frolicking in the evergreens. Maybe it's age. It never bothered me when I was nineteen and working in the Black Hills.

That's where I've been, in case you missed me. Linda had some family business to attend to in her home town of Rapid City; so a couple of days in nearby Deadwood, South Dakota communing with the ghosts of "Wild Bill" and "Calamity Jane" seemed like a fine Autumn outing for the two of us. I love Deadwood. It is a wonderfully beautiful little burg that has so much history crammed into its city limits that you can spend days wandering the in the mists of Old West and Indian lore. To the Indians the Black Hills is sacred ground that was violated by the white man as he scavenged for gold during the rush in the 1800's. You can spend days soaking up the history of both Indians and whites, not to mention the Chinese, if you have the time.

We climbed Boot Hill to visit the graves of "Wild Bill", who was gunned down by the coward Jack McCall on August 2,1876 while playing poker at the Number 10 saloon, and "Calamity Jane" Canary who is often referred to as the Queen of the Wild West. The view was spectacular. The Aspen are turning to gold and the air was crisp and clear. The shadows left no doubt that Fall had begun and that frost was soon to be making a regular appearance in the forecast.

I hadn't been to Boot Hill in over forty years and the sense of deja vu was overpowering. There aren't many places left anywhere that show little or no sign of change in a stretch of that duration. I couldn't help wondering how much of the view remained unchanged from the 1800's.

Pete Dexter's book, Deadwood, does a wonderful job of capturing this area and the times of "Wild Bill". If you get the chance, read it. You'll want to make the same trek to the Hills. HBO used Pete's book as the basis for their mini-series of the same name and it was pretty good. The only thing they got wrong was the language. I'm no prude, but the words used in the television series were not the common vernacular of the old West. In the 1800's folks were more inclined to cuss utilizing the music of the scatological...not the sexual. That came later...mostly post World War II.

I like to think that I could one day live in Deadwood. But, I'm reasonably sure that it's just another pipe dream that the clock is running out on. I'm also fairly certain that I've spent too many years in cities and would miss the amenities they provide.

No, I'll just file away my memories of the view from Boot Hill and hope that "Wild Bill", "Calamity" and the other denizens of this garden of stone are resting peacefully and also enjoying the view.





Deadwood, South Dakota...looking down from Boot Hill 2007