The rifle ball took David McCandless square in the heart, and the big man toppled backward off the doorstep onto the Nebraska dirt. His twelve-year-old son Monroe, standing at his side, watched him raise himself to an almost sitting position, take one last look as though he wanted to speak, and then fall back dead. Inside the one-room log cabin at Rock Creek Station, behind a flimsy calico curtain, Wild Bill Hickok lowered the rifle he had just fired—the rifle, in fact, that belonged to the man he had killed. The shot was not fired in self-defense, nor in the heat of any struggle.

It was deliberate, calculated, and precisely aimed. And it set in motion a chain of events that would be argued over for more than a century: whether Wild Bill Hickok was a hero who stood alone against a gang of Confederate cutthroats, or a cold-blooded murderer who shot down three unarmed men. To understand how it came to that moment in the summer of 1861, one has to begin with the man himself. James Butler Hickok was born near Troy Grove, LaSalle County, Illinois, on May 27, 1837, the fourth of six children born to a Vermont couple who had drifted west.

His father died in 1852, his mother lived until 1878, and by the time James was nineteen, the border troubles in Kansas were pulling him west. From the age of twelve, he had made the rifle and pistol his earliest companions, and when he left LaSalle County, he was already reputed to be the best shot in that part of the state. His first recorded exploit came in 1856, in Independence, Missouri, a rough border settlement where a dozen drunken teamsters had surrounded a house where the saloon keeper had taken refuge after nearly braining one of them in a fight. The crowd had drawn pistols and sworn vengeance.

Hickok, hearing the disturbance, dashed into the midst of the mob with two pistols drawn and offered to fight the entire party—or rescue the man they wanted. When they did not respond, he commanded them to disperse, adding that otherwise there would be more dead men around than the town could bury. Within thirty minutes the teamsters had left. It was there that he gained the name that would stick with him for life: Wild Bill, though why “Bill” instead of his real name “Jim” is difficult to understand.

He did not stay long in Independence. Finding it too close to civilization, he attached himself to a wagon train as driver and made the overland trip to California in the latter part of 1856. But the wild scenery and abundant game of the plains pulled him back, and he ended up near Denver, where he spent three years trapping and hunting with two companions. In 1860, he was placed in charge of the teams of the Overland Stage Company on the route between St.

Joseph, Missouri, and Denver, working out of Rock Creek Station, about fifty miles west of Topeka, Kansas—though the station was actually across the line in Nebraska territory, in Jefferson County. The country for many miles around Rock Creek had for years been troubled by a band of men headed by the McCandless brothers, Jim and Jack. George W. Hansen, writing in the journal *Nebraska History* in 1968, offered a far different picture than the one popularized in the dime novels.

David C. McCandless—not Jim or Jack—was a former sheriff from North Carolina who had moved west with his wife and five children. He was a respected landowner, a farmer, and a man accustomed to settling disputes with his fists rather than with weapons. He and his brothers, James and another, had no connection to any Confederate recruiting scheme.

The “notorious McCandless gang” that hounded the countryside, robbing farmers and stealing horses, was, according to Hansen, an invention of sensation-seeking writers after the fact. What is certain is that early in the spring of 1861, the Overland Stage Company sent the young Hickok, twenty-three years old, to Rock Creek Station as an assistant stock tender—a stable hand, not a peace officer, as has often been erroneously stated. The station was on McCandless property. The company had entered into negotiations with McCandless for the purchase of the buildings at East Rock Creek Station, and in late April 1861 they had reached an agreement: the company would pay, with a third or a quarter in cash and the balance in two or three equal monthly payments, to be made through Mr.

Wellman, the station keeper and agent of the company. As security, McCandless retained title to the property. The stage company never made those deferred payments. Within five months, the company was so deeply in debt that it lost all its properties through foreclosure, the entire concern passing to Ben Holladay.

But in the summer of 1861, all McCandless knew was that his money was owed and not forthcoming. When the first payment fell due, he called to collect and was told by Wellman that the money had not yet arrived. This excuse was repeated through the month, and on July 1st, when the final payment came due and was not paid, McCandless demanded full payment or possession of the station premises. Wellman replied that he would make a trip to the Missouri River at once for supplies and would then collect the money for him.

It was arranged that Monroe McCandless, David’s twelve-year-old son, would accompany him. They started on July 2nd, with the boy carrying a shotgun and picking off game along the road, making a perfect holiday of the trip, never dreaming of the tragedy with which it would close. High water delayed them, and the trip took about ten days. They arrived back at the station around four in the afternoon of July 12, 1861.

McCandless had been calling at the station for several days, expecting their return. When Monroe reached the station, he saw horses hitched at the ranch of Jack Nye, situated a short distance southeast of the stage station. He recognized the horses as belonging to his father and ran over to see if he was there, finding his father glad to see him and asking how Wellman had treated him. Monroe later said that his father appeared worried that Wellman had apparently not been successful in obtaining the money due him from the stage company.

After a pleasant conversation between father and son, McCandless, accompanied by his boy, went over to the stage station to talk with Wellman. With him were two farmers, Woods and Gordon, who had come along that day. These three men and the twelve-year-old boy were the entire McCandless party. None of them, according to every reliable piece of evidence, was armed.

The station itself was a one-room log cabin, twenty feet long by eighteen feet wide, with a lean-to twenty feet long and twelve feet wide. The east ends were curtained off forming bedrooms; the kitchen, fireplace, and chimney were at the west end. The barn stood a short distance to the west and south. Wellman was in charge of the station, with a man named Brink as stock tender and Hickok as his assistant.

These three men and Mrs. Wellman were positively known to have been at the station that afternoon. Arriving at the station, McCandless and Monroe went to the kitchen door on the west. McCandless asked for Wellman.

Mrs. Wellman appeared and said that he was in but that he would not come out. This added to McCandless’s suspicion and anger, and he told her that if Wellman would not come out, he would go in and drag him out. At that moment Hickok stepped to the door.

McCandless was disconcerted by his sudden appearance. He could not understand why this young stable hand would take part in a matter in which he had no personal interest, while Wellman remained out of sight. McCandless’s anger at what he saw as evasion increased. He believed either that the stage company was bankrupt and could not pay, or that Wellman had collected the money and was planning to trick him out of it.

He had mentioned these suspicions to his family frequently during the previous month. Now he was determined to collect what was due him or take possession of his property. He was powerful, courageous, and unafraid of any living man. And he was in a country without courts or peace officers.

As a former sheriff in North Carolina, he had learned considerable law, and he knew that no court of competent jurisdiction would be held in the district for the next two or more years. His only effective remedy was to take the matter into his own hands, repossessing his premises if necessary by throwing out the occupants by physical force. Having no quarrel with Hickok, McCandless asked him if they had not always been friends, and if they were not still friendly. Assured that they were, McCandless asked Hickok for a drink of water.

It was a strange request in such a tense situation, but McCandless seemed to sense his precarious position and took this method to gain time and survey the situation. While drinking, he evidently saw something that aroused his suspicions, because as soon as he finished, he handed the dipper back and quickly walked to the other side of the cabin. Hickok had already gone behind the flimsy calico curtain that separated the rooms. McCandless realized that he now had both Wellman and Hickok to deal with.

Hickok, for his part, knew that by injecting himself into the controversy, he had become involved, and that he and Wellman together were no match in a physical encounter for McCandless’s well-known strength and courage. McCandless called to Hickok to come out, and if he had anything against him, to fight it out square. At that moment, according to Hansen, Hickok decided on a course that was so successful he would follow it for the rest of his life on the frontier: to shoot to kill at his first suspicion of physical encounter or personal danger. From his concealed position behind the curtain, he shot McCandless through the heart with the rifle McCandless had left at the stage station.

McCandless fell backward from the doorstep to the ground. His son Monroe, standing beside him, watched him fall, raise himself almost to a sitting position, take one last look, and then fall back dead. The shot was entirely unexpected. McCandless had at no time made any effort to protect himself from gunfire.

He would never have brought his twelve-year-old son to the door with him had he expected gunplay. In all his years on the frontier, McCandless had never used a gun, nor threatened to use one on any man. When he fought, he fought with his bare fists. Woods and Gordon, hearing the shot, came running to the cabin.

Hickok came to the door and fired two shots at Woods from a Colt revolver, wounding him severely. Woods ran around to the north of the cabin, followed by Wellman, who was carrying a heavy hoe. Gordon turned to run and Hickok fired two more shots, wounding him. Wellman caught Woods and crushed his skull with the hoe.

Then, running around the house to where young Monroe McCandless was kneeling over his father, stupified by the horror unfolding around him, Wellman struck at the twelve-year-old with the hoe, yelling, “Let’s kill them all. ” Monroe dodged the blow and ran, terrified, chased by Wellman. But Monroe knew every foot of the ground and found a hiding place in the ravine south of the station. Mrs.

Wellman stood in the doorway during the chase, screaming, “Kill them all. Kill them all. ”

Gordon, though severely wounded, had made it into the brush about eighty rods down the creek from the cabin, where he fell exhausted from loss of blood. He was followed by the Hickok party, and while he begged for his life, he was finished with a load of buckshot fired from a shotgun.

During the entire affair, not a shot was fired by McCandless, Woods, or Gordon. Unarmed, they were shot down like brutes. Even the boy had escaped only by dodging a blow and outrunning his pursuer. Monroe ran three miles home to his mother, breathless and exhausted, horrified and unnerved by the ghastly scenes he had witnessed.

He was unable to return to the station with her. She resolved to go herself, hoping some spark of life might remain in her husband and friends. But her errand was in vain. After viewing the bodies, she sent Tom Finnen, a boy employed on the farm, to the home of James McCandless in Johnson County with news of the murder.

He saddled David’s favorite and fastest horse and made the fifty-mile journey during the night. The Hickok-Wellman version of the killing spread quickly to neighboring ranches and settlements: that they had been attacked by a gang of secessionists and had killed three men in self-defense, the rest escaping. The following morning, the Hely brothers—Frank, Thomas, and Jasper—came to Rock Creek Station, gathered up the bodies, and buried them: McCandless and Woods in a rude box in one grave, Gordon in a blanket in another. Frank Hely, who would speak of it for years afterward, said they found McCandless lying on the ground where he had fallen backward from the doorstep, Woods around the corner of the cabin with pistol wounds and his head crushed, and Gordon about eighty rods south, full of buckshot.

There were no guns near any of them. James McCandless arrived at Beatrice on July 13th and swore out a complaint before T. M. Coulter, a justice of the peace for Gage County, charging three men with murder.

Finnen did not know the names of the accused, only their nicknames. The justice titled the case “The Territory of Nebraska versus Dutch Bill, Doc, and Wellman, their other names unknown. ” Later documents named them properly: William B. Hickok, J.

W. Brink, and Horace G. Wellman. Neither the territory nor the defendants were represented by attorneys.

The justice himself made out all the papers and, in the preliminary examination, appeared to act for both parties—especially for the defendants. The warrants were served by the sheriff on July 15th, and the prisoners were brought to Beatrice late that afternoon. Monroe McCandless, the only eyewitness not criminally implicated, was excluded from the room during the entire examination. Justice Coulter instead called Mrs.

Wellman to testify for the territory, even though she was an actual accomplice and the wife of one of the defendants. The defendants and Mrs. Wellman testified that they had been attacked and had killed in self-defense. No other witness knew anything beyond hearsay.

On October 7, 1861, Justice Coulter filed his bill of costs with the finding that the charge of murder “was not sustained, and the costs have to come off the county. ” There were reasons beyond the testimony. It was the first criminal case ever heard in the county. There was no jail, and if the prisoners were bound over to the next term of district court, they would have to be guarded, fed, and sheltered for more than two years.

There was no money in the treasury. The cost for guarding and feeding prisoners already stood at $5,660; sheriff’s, witness, and justice costs were $141. 95; and county accounts were worth only fifty cents on the dollar. The defendants were employees of the Overland Stage Company, the most influential corporation west of the Missouri River, and many of its drivers were present at the trial.

Coulter was a candidate for county treasurer, and a few months later he was elected. The killing had occurred three months to the day after the declaration of civil war. War meetings were being held, volunteers enlisted and drilled and sent to the front, and the North was filled with consternation at early rebel successes. Hickok and Wellman took advantage of this inflamed condition of the public mind, circulating the report through stage and freight drivers and Pony Express riders that they had been attacked by a gang of secessionists, that they had killed three, and that the rest had escaped.

The story, repeated by word of mouth, grew further exaggerated and distorted until it bore little resemblance to the original affair. In the version that came to dominate the popular imagination, the McCandless brothers were Confederate recruiters who had threatened Wild Bill, then killed nine or ten of them in a desperate gunfight at the station, loading up the bodies and leaving the place a charnel house. The truth, as George W. Hansen pieced it together from probate records, court documents, and the testimony of those who had been there, was far more mundane and far darker: three unarmed men killed over an unpaid debt, a twelve-year-old boy who barely escaped with his life, and a series of killings in which, as Hansen wrote, Hickok never fought a fair fight.

At Abilene, Kansas, he had killed his most intimate friend, Mike McWilliams, before recognizing him. Hickok recovered quickly enough. Within six months he was out again, and within a year he was as sound as ever. And the McCandless brothers never entered the Confederate army.

David McCandless was buried in a rude box grave at Rock Creek. His son Monroe grew up, and lived to tell his version of the story. And James Hickok, who had arrived at Rock Creek Station as an obscure stable hand, left it as Wild Bill—the man who, in the telling of the dime novels, had stood alone against a gang of cutthroats and won. Whether that legend was true, or whether it was built on the bodies of three unarmed men, would be debated for more than a century.

The people of that section, in any event, worshipped Bill as no other man. He had, in the words of his first biographer, civilized the neighborhood.