Hickok & Mather

American cowboy Will James once said, “Whenever there is (trouble), we’ll depend on ourselves. We’ll take care of it – when it comes, not after it’s too late. I think that’s what Mysterious Dave Mather was thinking on this day in 1884, when he got a few shots at Tom Nixon inside the Opera House Bar in Dodge City, Kansas. The first shot dropped Nixon passing right through him and wounding a bystander. Nixon was hit three times more. No offense to Mysterious Dave, but that’s pretty easy to do when no one is shooting back at you. It’s a common misnomer to think gunfighters that shot it out in a saloon or on the street hit one another with a bullet the first time out. Several shots would be exchanged before a bullet made contact, unless of course you were Wild Bill Hickok. He was the best shot in the west and on this day in 1865, he proved just how good he was. In a romantic duel over the affections of Susanna Moore Wild Bill Hickok shot Dave Tutt through the heart at 75 yards in the town square in Springfield, Missouri. Tutt fired first and missed. Now that’s some shooting. I’m doing a couple of radio interviews this week for stations on either side of the country. I’ll be speaking with the folks at NEWD Magazine and radio in New York and LA Theatre Works radio in Los Angeles. I wrote a book some time back called Hearts West: True Stories of Mail Order Brides on the Frontier and that will be the subject matter for both interviews. The second edition of Hearts West will be available next year – if I ever get it done. Things seem to be going better for my brother. I look for big changes to come spring 2012. What’s on the way reminds me of the creed the Texas Rangers had. “No man in the wrong can stand up to a man in the right who just keeps on a-comin.” And that’s just what’s going to happen.