The Two Last Wills and Testaments of "Deadwood Dick"

THE TWO LAST WILLS AND TESTAMENTS OF “DEADWOOD DICK” MAX SINGER

After his Hanging

The FIRST Last Will and Testament of “Deadwood Dick” Found On Top of the Straw Mattress in His Cell Shortly

this yeer is bein the last wil an testy mint of me da vilin

dedwud dik… trane robber hores theef skeemer… also be noen as dik the kid irvin miktwain doc doolee en profeser helth … bein not enny loonier than enny bodee else doomid to wander the erph wif da culler of me skin an a brane no smaller no bigger than your aferage uman… en me bein stil yet in one pees en breethen leest tils i danse on air for the gud peeple of yeller gulch texass en they cuts me down on the mournin efter… i deeclars fursht i aint got nuttin werth a pigs ess to leave enny bodee sertinlee not the locashin of the tree bockses of gold i tooked offa the topeeker trane… sekind eevin iffin i membred war it twas i hiddin et i woodin be lettin any of those dumass furkin bumkens out thar singin that gawd awful song wilest dey wates for me to swing no ware et is… troof bein i was a bit in a hurree to stays a head of the possee… en to be evin honister also a bit sawsed wen i hid it and cant member fer sure ware et wer… thurd i gots no femily stil wawkin to morn me passin or to say farwel or leeve enytheng to… an eevin iffin i did et woodin be to them… caus iffin I did en dey noo bouts the hangin purty i bee sure dade be furst to arive on the mornin trane to see me off wit a hip hip horey caws i wernt nevir gonna be any ewes to enny uf dem nore dey to me… forf bouts my last meal wich i taut i bee intitelled too acordin too my unner stendin uf da tredishin i axed fer a big thik tendraloin stake… wit a pile o fride taters servid up to me by wonna dem sportin wimin from claras hooer house wile she pores me glasis aftra glasis uf sum o dat hunderid prufe hooche witch i nose dey gots… butt i be toled what i gonna git instead is jus a plato colled beans sum stale bred en a tinno flat piss beer… en i kin eets et or not… en sfars es me wontin a prechair man to helps me bee meatin me maker… iffin i did meats him i aint got much ta say ta him enny howl bein he aint done so wel by me… en iffin wat the holly rollers say is da troof wich i dout eniways i wernt gonna be seein him enihows… butt problee da udder one wit horns en a tale… so agin fuk dem dumass yokills howlin outside an mays i waches em all rot in hell longside me… caws sherly dat is whar im goin for sertin… en sfar ess wat i done i got no regerets… i nevir kilt no one who dint deserve it septing dat cowpoke i shot in vergini sitti just causin i was piss drunc… dis yeer bein ritten the nite afors me swingin… en witnesid by depooty shirif smits… yers trooly deadwood dick… pee ess i got a seecrit that i be takin to the gerave wif me

The SECOND Last Will & Testament of “Deadwood Dick” Discovered a Week After His Hanging Stuffed Inside the Straw Mattress in His Jail Cell

I fear that I will be spending my last hours on this earth sitting here in this cell, listening to the crowd of torch-carrying, drunken yahoos, rustics and bumpkins gathered outside the jail in hopes of a front row seat to a good-oldfashioned lynching, singing the chorus to the recently composed (and abominable) “Ballad of Deadwood Dick”…

“Limp-Dick Half-Breed Came To Town, Hogtied On A Donkey, Strung A Rope

’Round His Neck, & He Danced Like A Monkey”

I also fear that my laissez-faire attitude towards life will fail me and my deepestmost thoughts on that occasion will sink, unfortunately, to the basest of emotions, tossed from atop the fiercest waves of loathing, onto the rocky shores of the deepest sloughs of despondency, as I contemplate the events that brought me to this particular denouement, rather than the alternative, which would have been mine had not a strange series of events led me here and my true identity been revealed.

How I arrived here is a tale of the city, where at least a semblance of culture exists, New Orleans, Louisiana, where it and I began.

And of one hickified hamlet, Yellow Gulch, Texas, where it all will have ended by the time anyone has read this.

It is a tale of my own Odyssey, of being betwixt my personal Scylla and Charybdis, the proverbial rock and a hard place.

It is a tale of irony.

And also, a tale of mistaken identity.

First. The mistaken identity…

I am not “Deadwood Dick”.

I am “Deadeye Dick.”

Nicknamed as such by my friends, for reasons essential to this tale, which I shall shortly reveal.

Second. The irony…

As you will discover, if I were Deadwood Dick, to be crude if my pecker

pardonez moi – if “Mon Bité” were dead wood, I’d not have been in this peculiar predicament today.

Far from it.

From the beginning then.

My birth name is Ricardé Delachais Rubiné. I am the sole offspring – lovechild, one might say

of Rénaldé Binyamin Rubiné, a freethinker, polyglot, child of the Enlightenment, scion and last living member of a wealthy Spanish-Jewish family of Nouvelle Orleans, and Colette Delachais, his “life’s love”, my Maman, an educated, talented, untamed, woman-of-color, once contracted, nay, virtually indentured by an obscure footnote in an arcane subsection of the “enlightened” yet nonetheless deplorable legal code of that city, to serve as the mistress of a rich and powerful, notoriously anti-Semitic, xenophobic Frenchman, whom, out of my distain and loathing for him and the wrongs he did to us, I have vowed to never honor by never writing or uttering his name, only referring to him, disdainfully, as “The Frenchman.”

Under people’s breath I was called the “bâtard métis”.

The half-breed bastard!

Because of my father’s wealth and place in the community at large, “half-breed” was, gratefully, the least offensive epithet that could have been publicly attached to my name – the others of which were are, I suspect, oft spoken in whispers in public, most probably aloud in private, and are, I am quite sure still widely in circulation among the “God-fearing Citizens” of our “God-fearing City” and our “God fearing Republic.” And I need not elucidate further as they will be all too familiar to those that read this history.

“Bâtard”?

Simply because none of the local clergy, including the city’s “rabinos” – the rabbis

would sanctify my parents union, either out of fear of “The

Frenchman”, their aversion at the prospect of uniting a white and black, or, simply because it was considered “Impropre.”

Fortunately, my parents cared little about the clergy’s opinion. Having as little faith in the professed and sanctimonious faith of such holy-men, as Papa had in his inherited faith and Maman in that imposed upon her ancestors, they went about their lives with an unapologetic plaisir et joie de vivre with their middle fingers raised – as a result, so too, gratefully, my formal religious education was non-existent, instead I learned about such matters by gleaning the mendacity of the clergy through close observation of their two-faced practices and a closer reading of the more unbelievable, ludicrous and, or, inhumane passages of their two sacred testaments: “The Old Book of Hypocrisy” and “The New Book of Hypocrisy.”

Having no direct contact with Mohammedans or those of other Eastern beliefs –except for the occasional intoxicated Chinese seaman I might have come across in a riverfront tavern or opium den – I am ignorant and thus cannot speak of them. As far as the Vaudoux rituals practiced by many in this city, I am at a loss to understand their curious rituals, but I cannot but admire the energy and vitality they possess which are lacking in the established churches of the ruling class Other than that I will keep my suspicions to myself.

Maman was considered the most beautiful woman, white, black, free or slave, in New Orleans. My father fell head over heels for her from the moment he first espied her in the company of her “maistre,” “The Frenchman.” She was always on his arm as he strutted about town, acting like he was the Cock-O-The-Roost, whether to church, to lunch at Antoine’s, to Livaudais’s plantation to bet on the horses, wherever, whenever.

And after his fateful first glance of Maman, Papa was a besotted, love-struck youngster, amoureux as we say. He would stare at her longingly from a distance, would curse and moan and weep like a lost child; when alone he would flail about and beat his breast whenever he thought about her being “intimate” with “The Frenchman”.

But after much breast-beating, Papa finally found the courage to act. He approached “The Frenchman” through an intermediary and offered him a small fortune to release Maman from her obligations – even though Papa’s friends

warned him that “The Frenchman” would never part with Maman, certainly not to “le Juif” – The Hebrew – as “The Frenchman” disdainfully called him. But “The Frenchman,” surprisingly, said he would consider it.

Papa agonized while waiting for his response, which, when it eventually came, was in the form of a note, handwritten by “The Frenchman”, delivered by a servant, and simply read: pas assez d’argent – not enough money. Undeterred, my father sent a note back raising his offer.

“The Frenchman” again indicated he would consider it. But the response yet again was: not enough.

And so, for what seemed an eternity to Papa, together they danced this pas de billet-deux until the music stopped, and when it did, the final echoing note was always: pas assez d’argent.

It was apparent to all but Papa that “The Frenchman’s” sadistic pleasure at torturing him so was inexhaustible.

Finally, in a move of either rash desperation or clever calculation, Papa, who had no reputation as a gambling man, challenged “The Frenchman” to a certain ancient and incomprehensible card game. The stakes being my father’s entire estate against Maman’s freedom. His friends tried to talk him out of it, but to no avail. He was Don Quichotté and Colette his Dulcinea. Some wags quipped Papa was also his own Sancho Panza, and, as well, his own jackass.

Papa had known this game as Juego de Los Cientos, and, of course, deemed it being of Spanish-Jewish origin, invented by his people’s ancestors during their hiatus in Española known amongst his tribe as “The Golden Age”.

For “The Frenchman”, however, the game was called Piquet and knew it as a game of the French “aristocratie” and thus considered it a national “point d’honneur,” a point of honour, to accept the wager, assuming he could not be beaten by a mere Hebrew.

The game took place one humid night in the main parlor in the upstairs apartment of what was, once upon a time, home of the city’s mayor, located across from a slave exchange in the Vieux Carré, a few blocks from the Old Cathedral. The night of the game the room was thick with the smoke of la belle

Creole cheroots mixed with the heady scent of sweat, perfume and absinthe. And it was crowded with onlookers. Some, it was said, to bear witness to the rectitude of the proceedings. Some to wager on its outcome. Some merely curious to witness the event. Some to pick pockets.

The game went on for hours, interspersed with shouts and applause.

"Not good!"

“Equal!"

“Carte Blanche!”

“Repique!”

“Pique”

“Capot.”

“A good point of five!”

“A good quint!”

“Quatorze!”

And, when the sun rose in the morning, the final count was made and somehow Papa was declared the winner – which was considered by some a minor miracle, by others, something more nefarious: “The Frenchman” quietly stewed and sputtered, and among his lick-spittle familiars accused my father of using Jewish guile and cunning to cheat him, and they eagerly agreed with him But, as chosen representatives of both parties had observed the game , at the moment he could do nothing.

Still, for the loss of Maman, his Creole trophy, which he considered an ignominious blow to his self-esteem, my father incurred “The Frenchman’s” everlasting wrath, who, feeling humiliated by being bested by “le Juif,” silently vowed revenge if it took him to the end of his days.

As far as Papa went, immediately afterwards he lived in a state of delirium and ecstasy, preparing for his life with Colette and as well as dread and agony over what he would say to her and what her reaction to her new situation might be.

When dare he reveal his love for her? That question was always in the back of his mind.

In the interim, he spent his days having one wing of the house redecorated for her and in a constant whirlwind of visits to the finer shops around the city filling it with imported furniture, Italian mirrors, fine linens and lace, perfumes and powders and ribbons and silk handkerchiefs and whatever else he could think of purchasing for her boudoir.

But as it turned there was, unfortunately, no time for delicate introductions or explanations let alone a courtship. “The Frenchman” started to get cold feet and insisted the matter be completed as soon as possible. He threatened to renege and said Papa could sue him and “va au diable” for all he cared. And so, the necessary legal niceties were hastily settled, and Papa arrived unheralded one night at “The Frenchman’s” home in a carriage to take Maman away to enter her new life, uncertain as to what at least had been explained to her.

Whatever Papa expected her to do or say is unknown.

Was she kept ignorant of all that had transpired between “The Frenchman” and “le Juif”? Did Papa expect gratitude or thanks? Once in the carriage he received neither. Maman was direct and unabashed – which only increased his passion for her – unexpectedly bombarding him with questions. She demanded to know who was this man who had risked his fortune for her? What were his motives? Was she merely exchanging one master for another? And if so, what kind of master? Would he be kinder or crueler then “The Frenchman”?

Papa, quietly relished her free spiritedness, and calmly reassured her he had nothing but her best interests in mind. He gave her the papers his agent had drawn up and notarized, which released her from her contractual bondage, explaining she was now free to come and go as she pleased. He told her he had been in the process of purchasing for her a small cottage in the lower Vieux Carré, but because “The Frenchman” insisted on settling things rapidly there was no time to finalize the deal.

He told her, as he understood she had no immediate place to stay comfortably, added, almost as if an afterthought, an “invitation” for her, if she so wished, to please come and stay at his home which he defiantly and sarcastically called “Maison de Juif” – a large rambling, ornate fairytale mansion on Rue St. Charles which legend told a merchant built for his wife to atone for not having taken her

on a proper honeymoon. There, he said, she would be comfortable until other arrangements could be made. He said had arranged for her to have her own private quarters, and a servant, as well as a generous allowance and full run of the house, he explained. Assured her he had nothing but her best interests in mind. And, to his quiet delight, she eventually agreed to this offer Wisely, he did not, at this point, dare reveal anything about his feelings for her. He added he would answer all her questions once she made herself comfortable.

For the first few weeks, Papa left Maman to her own devices in the private quarters set up for her in one wing of the house, as he had promised, and she came and went freely, often accompanied by her maidservant, boldly, unabashed, as if relishing and testing the boundaries of her new freedom. They initially communicated only through notes passed by one of his servants to her and vice-versa. Innocuous subjects: Was she in need of anything? Was she comfortable? Often accompanied by a small gift. A tortoise shell barrette. A silver perfume flacon. A silk scarf from the shop of M. Lacroix.

Soon, there were invitations to coffee on the veranda, a stroll on the avenue, and eventually a quiet dinner together. Invitations that she increasingly accepted. Until much of their time was spent together Speaking of each others’ pasts, their dreams, their futures, their likes, their dislikes.

On chilly nights, they might sit by the fireplace in the main room, laughing, gossiping, reading poetry aloud together, discussing the events of the day. And always playing music. Papa screeching away on his violin. Maman playing passages from Gottschalk’s Bamboula, or d’Albert’s Constantinople on the harpsichord Papa bought for her at T. Mayo’s, or singing popular songs of the day, her favorite being “Quan’ patate la cuite.”

Thus began this oddest of courtships. Not yet having been born, I cannot describe, nor, if I could, I would not wish to divulge, the course and details of their love; which is, after all is said and done, a private matter between one’s mother and father. I have no knowledge of when he first dared to reveal his love for her, how she reacted, when and how it first became mutual. But, needless to say, they eventually became lovers, remaining unmarried, for the reasons I have previously explained, but yet bound together by the higher laws of true love. And, finally, enter moi. Born one stormy night with the assistance of a creole midwife, in Maman’s boudoir in “Maison de Juif.”

I enjoyed a fairly carefree childhood, surrounded by the warmth of my dear father’s and mother’s love, and kept blissfully ignorant of the depth of the enmity which “The Frenchman” held towards us. I was allowed to roam freely through the mansion, exploring the house’s many hidden nooks and crannies, passageways, towers and particularly the captain’s watch where I would often spend many hours following the paddle-wheelers as they steamed up and down the river. I especially loved spending many hours devouring the vast collection of books in the house’s library.

My education was undertaken at home, since there were few local ecolés, secular or religious, willing to take in a “bâtard métis.” At first by Papa and Maman, who took it upon themselves to teach me to read and write at an early age, and later, when I began to approach my adolescence, under the watchful eye of a beautiful and brilliant young prodigy, Cecily, an English girl, a few years older than I, who had sparkling hazel eyes and long strawberry tresses, whom Papa had brought to America to be my governess and to tutor me in French, Italian, literature of the world, philosophy, music, the classics, history, whatever else might arouse my curiosity. All of which I devoured voraciously.

And then, quite by accident, both our curiosities were aroused by an unexpected addition to the curriculum which we voraciously devoured together:

One stormy afternoon, while we were in the library, curious about the ribald tomes we inderstood Papa had in his collection, Cecily went to climb up the sliding library ladder to reach one of the higher shelves and pull out a volume by Rabelais (Book Two of The Life of Gargantua and of Pantagruel, I believe.) She twisted her delicate foot, missed a step, and fell into my arms. I held, comforted her, and gently massaged her ankle. Then, my hand, uncontrollably, developed a mind of its own, moved up to her calves, then her thighs, and, continued on, creeping slowly, up under her dress, without meeting any resistance, until it reached her “fairest flower”, and, thereafter, quite simply, matter-of-factly, we introduced each other to “Ars Amatoria” – the arts of love.

In that way we escorted each other from childhood into adulthood .

A few years later, Cecily was called home to England to care for an aging parent, was given a generous farewell gift by Papa – who was still quite ignorant of the nature of our mutual education – and from me, a slim volume of erotic

poems I had penned for her and illustrated with some naughty drawings I secretly cut out of Papa’s first edition of Sir Richard Burton’s translation of the Kama Sutra.

I bade a tearful farewell to Cecily, my first lover, my first and truest love, at the levee, where I watched as she boarded a paddle-wheeler that would take her upriver to St. Louis, and thence by stagecoach and rail to New York, to embark upon the S.S. British Queen on her long journey home to London. I did not know it at the time, as I stood at the river waving farewell, but the die had been cast, my path had been decided.

Sans her sweet embrace, I mourned Cecily.

For about a fortnight. Or two.

I sulked and withdrew into myself, but eventually emerged from my grief one morning with the help of a buxom, black-haired chambermaid named Emma, who – perhaps by accident? – unexpectedly came into my bed-chamber whilst I was pleasuring myself to drown my sorrows, and quite to my pleasant surprise, assisted me to completion with her full sweet lips. Thereafter, whatever was left of the sadness at the loss of Cecily, began to dissipate into exploring Emma’s “nooks and crannies”, and, later, those as well of some of the various other young serving girls of our establishment.

In that manner, over time I gradually grew aware I possessed a certain “je ne sais quoi” that made me seductively attractive to many females of all shapes, sizes and ages. The attraction was mutual, I might add.

What it was that they found seductive I was not, am not, certain– I do not, did not, consider myself an extraordinarily handsome or attractive man. Perhaps it was the nature of my lovemaking? And my deep natural pleasure I found in their company? Perhaps it also had something to do with this: as time passed, I also discovered I possessed certain natural sexual talents – being amongst them the ability to control the “high and low tides of my prodigious engine” which enabled me to bring my lovers and myself to the heights of mutual passion –which skills I later perfected and indulged in, thanks to the happy meeting of my fathers largesse and the ready availability of such diversions in the brothels and parlours of my fair city, as well as discreetly in the bedrooms and gardens of certain wives and daughters of the local gentry, always when the men of the

house were absent, usually engaged in their own secret trysts. As you will discover, as you read on, such skills played a central role in the final act of this tale.

Papa and Maman made no scolding mention of any descent into a misspent youth. Perhaps in their unapologetic plaisir et joie de vivre, silently approving. Or perhaps assuming it was a temporary phase that I would outgrow. Or perhaps merely so wrapped up in the cocoon of their love they did not notice. And I made no effort to enlighten them.

But among my friends my escapades were legendary, admired, and joking that I had a supernatural eye to identify the willing lass, as is the habit among friends they bestowed upon me the moniker Deadeye Ricardé, which, ringing harsh upon the ears – and pretentious –soon became Deadeye Rick, and finally someone blurted out the alliterative, and droll, Deadeye Dick. And it stuck. Thus the years of my youth passed happily with little sturm und drang.

But “The Frenchman’s” wrath was a long-smoldering ember, as I suddenly discovered, when it was lit into an inferno, after one of his cohorts

perhaps mishearing

or perhaps maliciously mishearing, reported that my father was overheard saying “The Frenchman” “IL a un pénis inutile” – he “HAS a useless prick.” What Papa actually said was “C’EST un bite inutile” –“he ‘IS’ a useless prick.” But it mattered not. For “The Frenchman” it was close enough. And upon this slimmest of imagined snubs, he challenged Papa to a duel under the oaks in one of the city’s parks. His choice of weapons, pistols.

Maman and I tried in vain to persuade him to ignore the challenge, but for all his seeming freethinking rebelliousness he was at heart, a man of the Old World, and accepted the challenge rashly with a note to “The Frenchman” merely reading “M. Bite Inutile, J’accepte”.

The night of the duel was moonless, dark and foreboding. Maman and I waited nearby in a carriage to take Papa home and tend to whatever minor wounds we expected he might receive, “The Rules of the Duel” being well-known to all “Gentlemen” of the city: the purpose was NOT to kill. If sword be the weapon of choice, a saber scar on the cheek was sufficient to end the matter. A bullet in the shoulder, if pistols the weapon, likewise would suffice to uphold one’s honor. So we were not overly concerned. But we had underestimated “The Frenchman’s” thirst for revenge.

The ground beneath the oaks was moist and slippery. Those who gathered to watch held lanterns, dimly illuminating the field. Twenty paces was agreed upon before turning and firing. My Papa and “The Frenchman” stood back to back as the duel master called out the paces. And they stepped away from each other on the count.

…14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19…

What happened on the count of twenty is still disputed. Was it ever actually spoken aloud? Did a distant crash of thunder drown it out? Did “The Frenchman” turn and fire prematurely? On purpose? Did my Papa misstep and falter? The outcome was nonetheless the same. Papa was mortally wounded. “The Frenchmen” and his seconds immediately turned and departed the field without the customary salutation or acknowledgement and left us there as we knelt weeping by my father’s body.

Had I abided by the “Gentleman’s Code of Honor” it should then have fallen upon me as a gentleman and son to avenge Papa’s death by challenging “The Frenchman” to a rematch and thus uphold the family honor. But I was in the depth of mourning. Besides I was no gentleman and had no aspirations to be one. Plus I was useless, either as a swordsman or pistoleer. And I did not desire a pointless demise. (Had I only known what the future had in store, things might have been different: An honorable death under the oaks in the city of my birth rather than a disreputable end in Yellow Gulch, Texas? But Youth does not gaze that far into the future.)

Besides, shortly thereafter, “destiny” intervened: “The Frenchman” took advantage of the period of our mourning, through a complex and devious plot which utilized the services of a “well-lubricated” friendly magistrate and notary – some frankly said bribed – who conveniently interpreted an arcane footnote in the Napoleonic Code regarding the laws of inheritance in a mixed-butunconsecrated union, to prevent both my mother and myself from participating in the estate. The same friendly magistrate ruled as well, based on perjurious testimony from a number of “The Frenchman’s” friends that he was indeed cheated out of his rightful winnings the night of the card game by my Papa, whose estate was then granted in its entirety to “The Frenchman” as recompense.

And so, in the midst of mourning Papa’s sudden death, we also faced the end to our comfortable circumstances: late one night we were rudely awakened by an insistent banging on the door of “Maison le Juif” and when we answered, there stood a magistrate and a group of armed bailiffs, who pushed their way inside. They flung some “official” papers at us and unceremoniously threw us out on the streets without any of our possessions. We wandered the streets aimlessly that night in a state of shock.

But fortunately, friends among the “gens de colour libres”, and free-thinking citizens, who had a quiet respect for Papa, and a mutual loathing of “The Frenchman”, the code noir, or both, heard of our situation and quickly managed to secure quarters for us in a small cottage in a Creole area, Fauborg Tremé, on the outskirts of the Vieux Carré, where my mother found some old friends and re-discovered distant relations. And there, for a time, we settled in and where, eventually, we felt safe again.

Maman and I adapted adequately to our reduced circumstances. She earned a small living – calling herself Queen Aliyé – as a chanteuse, piano player and teller of fortunes in the Shabeens, Brothels and Sporting Houses that abounded therein and where she became a welcome and popular figure. I was often at her side, and so I too became a familiar, a fixed feature, and, although absent the generous coin that formerly jangled in my pockets, thanks to the many ladies of the night, who “took me under their wing” and taught me the “business,” I turned to my natural talents and became a professional “fancy man”, as it were, receiving graciously the gifts which grateful ladies generously and willingly bestowed on me.

But I had not forgotten that which “The Frenchman” had done to us.

So then, when it happened that outside the Cathedral one Sunday, I saw on his arm a stunningly beautiful young woman – who turned out was his niece and ward named Feliceé, who lived with him – so determined as I was to avenge myself upon “The Frenchman” someday, it occurred to me, almost immediately, that the weapon of choice for my revenge might hang between my legs and not from my buckler, that my revenge could be a silent and unseen symmetrical blow to his honor, the seduction of Feliceé.

Thereafter, I managed to place myself in situations where our paths might cross and Feliceé would be sure to notice me “shyly” standing at a distance, shooting

longing glances in her direction. After a few such occasions, she began to blush and hide her face behind a fan and look back. Finally, one day, still watching her from a distance, a Creole woman, a certain Célestine, who was as it turned out Feliceé’s servant, said “Por vous Monsieur” and slipped me a note that read simply “Je te vois, Feliceé” – I see you!

In New Orleans it was commonly believed that Creole servants knew more than they have any business to know; that they were twofaced, seemingly virtuous but deep down vicious; would do anything as long as the money holds out. I ignored those sentiments, being the target of similar general prejudices au courant, and so I slipped Célestine a few sou in thanks. We agreed to meet regularly in Pere Antoine alley beside the cathedral during Sunday Mass to exchange further messages between Feliceé and I, and thus, wittingly, she became my collaborator and accomplice.

And thus, with just a few first surreptitious exchanges of “billets-doux” between Feliceé and myself, her seduction began.

Me to Feliceé:

“I see you also!”

And Feliceé back to me:

“What is your name?”

And so on…

“Who are you?

“I dare not tell you?”

“Are you afraid?

“I am afraid of your uncle?”

“Porquoi?”

“He bares me ill-will!”

“Porquoi!?”

“Something that happened many years ago!”

“Tell me, si vous plait!”

And then after many messages had been exchanged, at some point later with Célestine continuing to serve as go-between, we arranged to have “chance encounters,” which at first just entailed whispered sweet words and surreptitious brushing and pressing together of our bodies as we passed each as were mading our way through the crowded streets.

Finally, we dared to meet at the many “bals masqués” – masked balls – that were such a central part of the city’s social life, where it was safe – my identity, visage and skin color being concealed – to whisper to each other, to touch, to dance the Schottische, the Valse à Deux Temps, Five-Step or Varsouvienne, and steal the occasional kiss. These clandestine meetings were thrillingly heady and intense, their erotic frissonne only adding to the already head spinning danceand wine-induced giddiness.

And as I began to gain her trust she began to speak freely of her life. And slowly, without revealing too much, I of mine and of the animosity between her uncle and my parents.

She was, I learned, originally from Liege in France. Her parents – from a landpoor family of the minor nobility – died during one of Europe’s recurring cholera epidemics, and, once the estate settled their outstanding debts, she found herself impoverished, and as a result was reluctantly taken in by a Carmelite convent of a fairly restrictive and cloistered order , in return for her signing over the last remaining pittance of her inheritance, a few acre ordinaire of rich farmland Miserable living under the watchful eye of the Abbess, d esperately she sought a means to extricate herself from her circumstances. She had early on been made aware by her parents that she had some distant relations, including an uncle, “The Frenchman,” the last living one of five of her Mother’s brothers, who resided in New Orleans, and she managed to have a letter secretly sent to him. The Mother Superior was enraged at first but once realizing Feliceé’s uncle had deeper pockets to ply, she allowed her to continue communicating with her uncle.

And after months of transatlantic correspondence between herself and her uncle, he agreed to make her his ward, and, after much haggling with the Abbess of the Convent, reluctantly agreed to compensate them for expenses incurred during her upkeep, and, eventually, she found herself on a ship en route to America. She found America at first a wondrous place and was optimistic about the future.

“When we are at last alone, my dear Feliceé!”

But Feliceé revealed to me that almost immediately upon her arrival in New Orleans she took a vehement dislike to her uncle, and now, time having passed, her initial impression was confirmed. She hated living under the thumb of whom she described as “such a miserly, suspicious and jealous martinet”.

Then, as “the best laid plans” go, and we stole more time together, any thoughts I had to revenge myself upon “The Frenchman” through the seduction of Feliceé fell away and, alas, like poor Papa before me, without any conscious awareness of its happening, I awoke to my own heart one day and discovered I too was besotted, love-struck, and amoureux. All I could think of was for us to be alone together. In private.

At last, one fateful night, “The Frenchman” was supposedly traveling upriver to review the accounts of his plantation and, since we thought it was safe for us to finally consummate our love, I found myself climbing up a large oak that grew outside of Feliceé’s window, onto a small balcony and into her boudoir.

Our coupling was loving.

Her deflowering gentle.

And she experienced her first “Paroxysm of Bliss. ”

Unfortunately, neither of us could have known beforehand the bellowing depths of her passion, as she let out a long, loud, bloodcurdling scream at the peak of her pleasure, which awakened the entire household. The servants, misinterpreting the outburst, and thinking the worst – an intruder, a rapist, a kidnapper? – rushed to her defense and burst into the room, in time to see a light-skinned colored man, just as he was making a half-naked, pants-down escape, jumping off the small balcony overlooking the garden, into the bushes, and into the night – a manner of escape, with which, unbeknownst to me at the time, I would shortly become all too familiar.

When the confusion had cleared and the actual nature of what had transpired quickly became apparent, that it was a tryst between Feliceé and the “bâtard métis,” “The Frenchman’s” Major-domo, like me also a free man of color, and also looking after his own interests, had her taken to an interior room where he would keep her guarded, under lock and key. He also immediately dispatched a

rider to inform “The Frenchman” of the night’s event and the shame brought upon his household.

Upon his hasty and unheralded return in the morning, Célestine, as I had been forewarned, turned traitorous – fearing her role in the matter would be revealed to her detriment, immediately switched her allegiances, hoping for a less harsh punishment, perhaps merely a whipping, hopefully just a scolding, revealed my identity – told her master that what had been transpiring between Feliceé and I was at his duplicitous niece’s command, claiming Célestine was fearful of Feliceé’s lies and her wrath. Célestine was convincing.

“The Frenchman” was beyond livid. He had Feliceé taken away to the convent on Ursulines, under instructions that she should remain under the stern and watchful eye of the Mother Superior, until he could arrange to have my dear Feliceé sent back to France, to be confined again in that same cloistered convent she found herself in after her parents demise, never to be free, never for me to see again.

The grapevine filled with reports and rumors of the “The Frenchman’s” tirades in which he described and vowed the retribution he planned for Maman and I: the nullification of her emancipation and sale back into servitude; for myself –the “bâtard métis” – who then, as the offspring of an enslaved mother would also be considered chattel, would face a public ceremony of the traditional kind reserved for audacious half-breeds who have crossed that “certain line.” Word reached us almost immediately, and Maman and I realized that our very lives were in peril.

And so, on that same, moonless night, a friendly Acadian fisherman of Maman’s acquaintance, who also had no liking for “The Frenchman,” hid us under the nets in his boat and managed to row us across the river and thence, hidden beneath bales of hay in a farmer’s wagon, taken to a friend of Maman, a Madame Chantelle who with her “friend,” Demoiselle Evaline, operated an infamous bawdy house on the outskirts of a small hamlet in Tangipahoa parish. There, they generously took us in, where secreted in comfortable rooms attached to their private quarters, we could safely contemplate our options, once the immediate peril had passed.

Chantelle was an “older” woman, past her prime years, with long salt and pepper tresses, but nonetheless still an attractive and imposing woman. Her “friend”

Mme. Evaline was much younger, sweet, charming, somewhat shy. She preferred dressing in a long black skirt topped by a mans short jacket over a white wing collar shirt, with a black fedora covering her short black hair. But I still found her quite seductive. I strictly avoided any erotic approach towards her, not just as she was one of our protectors, but what I suspected was the nature of their relationship, which I could only theorize by my observation of the behavior of the two together: Evaline’s giggling, Chantelle’s deep throated laughing, their billing and cooing, much secret whispering to each other. Not unlike the clandestine conversations between Feliceé and I. Vivre et laisser vivre!

(I should not neglect to mention, that whilst waiting, I became a familiar fixture amongst the ladies of the establishment. They took to me and I to them. And, as was later to become my habit, a pleasant diversion from our predicament, many an hour was spent in the company of one or more of them in the pursuit of our mutual pleasure – when they were not otherwise engaged in plying their trade .)

In the meantime, Maman and her friends devised a plan. As a journey North to freedom was lengthy and fraught with danger, we decided that Chantelle and Evaline would arrange for a boat to take Maman downriver to the Gulf and thence west to Galveston, where she would easily make her way south to Mexico where she was safe from enslavement – as chattel slavery had been abolished decades previous. I would head west, as a diversion, to lure “The Frenchman’s” band of thugs away from Maman’s trail. And, when we were finally both out of his reach, reunite in Ciudad Juárez.

We waited until it was safe to put our plan into action. And then, on the next dark moonless night, Maman and I kissed, had a long tearful embrace, said our au revoirs – “until we meet agains” – and silently slipped away down a hidden staircase and with a backward glance went our separate ways.

As I soon discovered, there was a “subterranean” – secret – network of “safe havens” throughout the south and southwest where people on the run could hide (no murderous villains or abusers of women, all weapons checked at the desk or door) provided they have some bona fides, a letter of introduction, or adequate coin. The network is known as “Hookers’ Trail” because all the safe havens are brothels, bordellos and the like, a consortium as it were, owned, operated, and started by Mme Chantelle and partners – “Société les Prostituées et Cie”. No one

knows exactly how she got the money to start her empire but legend tells that a famous bank robber temporarily left behind a bag of gold for safekeeping, but soon thereafter was killed in a shootout. She waited for a time and, when no one ever returned looking for it, Chantelle decided to keep it and, as a working girls occupation was age-limited, to look for some venture in which to invest it. It so happened at that time in her “employ” was a smart, trustworthy working girl named Anna Steiber, with an eye for business and Mme Chantelle was inspired to front the lass enough to open her own Establishment, the first branch office as it were.

Mme. Evaline had given me a token of my bona fides, a silver medallion that Mme Chantelle had privately minted for just that purpose , as well as a letter of introduction and arranged to have me transported to “Mrs. Anna Steiber’s House of Pleasure” in Grosse Téte. Which turned out to be conveniently located in the upper stories of a tavern and inn set along a popular stagecoach route, insuring a continual flow of clients.

Mme. Steiber herself, a chipper, surprisingly youngish woman in her midtwenties, who was more a blond-haired Fraulein than a brunette Mme, welcomed me personally into her establishment where, once ensconced, I again enjoyed the run of the house as well as the company of the ladies – including Mme. Steiber herself on at least one occasion – therein for a nearly a fortnight.

Until, one afternoon, seated in the outdoor privy, tending to nature’s call, I reached beside the chamber pot and picked up what turned out to be a ragged copy of a two-week-old edition of “The New Orleans Tattler” , which, I assumed, one passing patron or another had left there for purposes other than an update on current events. As I tore off a piece to clean myself, I happened to see a paid notice on the torn page which read:

HIRING NOW ! ! $10,00 REWARD !!

Gunslingers, Hustlers, Men of High or Low Character . T o

Pursue and Bring Back To New Orleans To Face Justice The Half - breed Rapist “DEADEYE DICK” alias RICARDÉ RUBINÉ Cash Upfront & Daily Ration of Victuals & Spirits. Contact McSweeney at the Old Blacksmith Shop.

Shortly afterwards, Mrs. Steiber warned me that wanted posters had suddenly began appearing throughout the area, illustrated with a crude artist’s rendering, purporting to be my likeness. The poster read:

WANTED ALIVE ! $10,000 REWARD DEADEYE DICK

aka Ricardé Rubiné HALF - BREED HIYALLER. REWARD paid UPON HIS RETURN to NEW ORLEANS to FACE JUSTICE

I said my “auf weidersehens” and hightailed it out of “Mme. Steiber’s House of Pleasure” in Grosse Téte that very next night. After that, as it soon went, I found myself becoming used to sudden middle-of-the-night escapes. Leaping out of second-story windows half naked. Climbing down moss-draped trees. Once wading through a snake-infested swamp. Once tearing my flesh scrambling through brambles.

Until it was safe for me to travel onward, surreptitiously hidden beneath the hay in another farmer’s wagon. Once in a barrel of slops. Clinging for dear life to straps beneath a carriage. To safety, to a whorehouse in the next town. On the route to another in the next town. And so forth. Where there would be safety, respite, food, drink, and yes, “alors qu'elle dure.” Evenings pleasuring and being pleasured by the ladies of the establishment, while I stayed one whorehouse ahead of “The Frenchman’s” band of thugs.

While still on the lam in

Louisiana I fondly remember bedding Salome at “Lady Philomena’s Palace of Delight” in Bunkie, Dahlia of “Madame Clair’s Salone de Pleasure” in Dry Prong and Mme. Paulette at “Simone’s Hostelry” in Cut Off.

Eventually, I ran out of “safe havens” in Louisiana to hide, and was forced to turn westward and travel into Texas. First to “Soo Ming’s Temple of Amour” in Ding Dong, where I had the pleasure of relations with the twins Cassie and Bella. Next on to “Isabelle’s Saloon” in Cut and Shoot – ah, Chandra. To “Violletta’s Traveller’s Nook” in Uncertain, and there mon cher petite Musette There certainly must have been others but if so their names are lost in the mist of an absinthe-, or whiskey-, or opium-, or fear-addled memory.

At some point along the way – I don’t remember exactly when or where it happened – I became aware that there was ANOTHER “half-breed outlaw” roaming the Southwest at the same time as I, also just one step in front of the law as ANOTHER wanted poster began to appear in each town along my route, posted alongside mine, containing a crude artist’s rendering of a “half-breed hiyaller”: a woodblock image of the wanted man’s face virtually indistinguishable from the crude woodblock image depicting me on mine…

And, so too, as I correctly surmised, it must follow, that as well as two wanted men, there must also be two posses roaming the range each hunting a different “half-breed hiyaller”.

One posse, apparently legally authorized, led by Texas Rangers and Duly Deputized Bounty-hunters, who were seeking to bring the villain Deadwood Dick to justice for his various felonious crimes.

The other, a mob of vigilantes, cutthroats and villains financed by “The Frenchman” who were planning to drag me, Deadeye Dick, back to Nouvelle Orleans.

Was this when the seeds of an awareness of what might come to be the “Hobson’s Choice” for me, my dilemma, first germinated in my mind? I cannot say for sure. But certainly, as an inhabitant of the South, I was aware that the punishments which would await each of the “Two Dicks” upon their capture, would be quite different:

The crimes which Deadwood Dick “allegedly” committed, warranted the standard public drama. The opening act being the usual carnival accoutrements –the one-legged race, wheels of fortune, hawkers of elixirs, geeks, strongman, bearded ladies, dwarves, etcetera – to keep the rustics amused and distracted as they awaited the main attraction, the final act! That to be performed with panache by the able, practical and practiced assistance of one traveling executioner or another – perhaps the notoriously indelicate Dunbar Slather himself? – accomplished atop a freshly built stage, a whitewashed pine-board gallows – with the assistance of a twenty-five-foot-length of one-inch pure virgin hemp rope, brought in especially for the occasion, courtesy of P. Palmer & Company, lately of Chicago, “City in a Garden.”

On the other hand, as gentile Southern tradition would have it, the “crime” of which I, Deadeye Dick, “allegedly” committed would, upon my return to New Orleans, certainly involve a lengthy and excruciating Grand Guignol, perhaps one in a more private, torch-lit Arcadian setting (Invitation only! Please R.S.V.P.) involving “all sortes of nastie thinges”, as that gruesome tradition might include, the separation of limbs from the body, flaying, hanging, burning alive, etc. until further desecrations were rendered pointless. That is, until I was Morte! R.I.P! Adios Amigo. Adieu!

And thus, my passage from one place of safety to another became doubly dangerous, fraught with a sense of the increasing inevitability of my capture by one posse or the other. But which one? I began to have nightmares about my capture by “The Frenchman’s” posse and facing the Grand Guignol. And I would awake in a cold sweat.

Until, of course, at last, my luck ran out. Upon one burning hot and unbearably humid August night, as I was trying to ford Onion Creek after hiding in a stand of big Prickly Ash trees, on the road just outside of Yellow Gulch, Texas, on my way to safety in another brothel on “Hookers’ Trail,” I found myself cornered midstream, sniffed out by two howling, snarling

packs of bloodhounds, at the same time, one from each posse, on opposite sides of the creek, their pistols and rifles drawn, cocked and aimed at me. Now fortunately, having some passing knowledge of the notorious Deadwood Dick from reading articles in The Picayune, The Bee, Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper as well as some “Penny Dreadfuls” I had come upon, I was not totally unprepared. So on the spot, automatically, without thinking, I raised my arms and declared aloud in what I remembered the scriveners wrote down in the language they imagined an illiterate villain like Deadwood Dick might use and how he might sound:

“

doan shoot i gives up ya gots me! me, dedwud dik! you lukky fekkin a’holes you gots dedwud dik!”

Apparently it worked. At least for the moment.

But, like most good “law-abiding” citizens, unable under any circumstances to tell the difference between one half-breed and another, and my fitting the vague description and crude portraits on both wanted posters spread throughout the area, and, also unwilling perhaps, to so quickly relinquish their rights to a $10,000 reward, they did not accept my declaration there and then. They both claimed me. One as Deadwood Dick and the other as Deadeye Dick and aimed their weapons on each other.

The two posses, after much back-and-forth threats and challenges, unable to reach an understanding, but deterred by the rifles, shotguns and pistols that had been quickly drawn, on-the-ready and pointed at each other, called a truce and were for the moment assuaged by jugs of moonshine passed around – as well as a good whipping I received from members of both parties. And they agreed that on the morrow, they would hogtie me to a donkey, and with me in tow, ride into Yellow Gulch to present me to the local sheriff to settle the matter as to which Dick I was and thus which posse had the stronger claim to my person and the $10,000 reward.

Arriving midday, they gathered en masse, quite boisterously, armed to the hilt, growing in size and volume, outside the sheriff’s office.

The sheriff, Tobias Tooberson, stormed out of his office, with his Deputy, Randolf Q. Smits, close behind, both also armed, and apparently stirred to action

by the screaming and yelling mob perched outside the jail, who were shooting pistolés into the air and waving overhead what appeared to be large sheets of paper with something printed on them. The Sheriff cocked his shotgun and fired two shots over the heads of the crowd, and they immediately quieted down. After a few minutes of explaining the situation and their predicament, The sheriff asked to examine the papers which, of course were the two wanted posters in question. One for Deadwood Dick. One for Deadeye Dick. He was handed both. Looked at both over and over. Looked at me. Back to them. Back to me. Back to them. Back to me. And, then visibly perplexed and perhaps a bit fearful of the gathered mob, finally, desperately, laughingly said, “Dang nabbit, ya just can’t tell one half-breed from another! Can ya?”

He went on to state that, since he was simply unable to make a decision as to which Dick I was, he would remove himself as arbiter – that is, pass the buck? –and would lock me up and call for a properly authorized traveling magistrate to arrive and make a considered ruling. Such proposal was reluctantly accepted by the posses, encouraged in that decision by the lawmen’s weaponry and the appearance of some five or six additional armed townsfolk standing beside Tooberson, and I was led inside and locked up to await the arrival of a judge.

Now, while the town fathers and good citizens of Yellow Gulch , Texas, may not have cared whether they captured a half-breed thief and conman with a limp pecker or a half-breed rapist and despoiler of white women – either one was going to be good for local businesses – it was also of some pecuniary interest to the posses.

And of some particular concern to me as I explained.

Death by hanging, if the Honorable Judge decided I was Deadwood Dick.

Or death by some of the most the gruesome methods devised by mankind in its cruelest moments, if he deemed me to be Deadeye Dick.

Faced with the inevitability of my death, I did my damndest to face the least torturous option, the former and not the latter,.

And so at every opportunity I insisted I was Deadwood Dick, acted how I thought Deadwood Dick would act, walked like Deadwood Dick might walk, cuss like Deadwood Dick might cuss and adopted the illiterate language and voice that I imagined a backwoods hick like Deadwood Dick might have.

After a few days passed, word came over the telegraph wire that, financial arrangements having been resolved, the “Honorable Freelance-TravelingHanging-Judge-For-Hire Hollister McElroy,” lately conducting the trial and subsequent summary hanging of 32 “murderous renegade” Sioux warriors from Indian Territory, was contracted to lead the trial and would be dispatched and would arrive shortly. I found that news disheartening as Judge Hollister McElroy was well-known throughout the region as a cruel and vindictive jurist and human being with particular venom reserved for “injuns, greasers, and halfbreeds”. I thought, “I might have my work cut out for me!”

The Judge arrived unannounced a week later by the overnight stagecoach. McElroy turned out to be a tall and wiry man who was the epitome – or parody? – of a puffed-up, self-important personage. Upon his head he wore a black silk English riding hat. His face was adorned with a salt and pepper French fork beard. A knee length buckskin jacket hung loosely over an eight-button serge waistcoat. He sported a diamond stick pin stuck in a cravat wrapped round his neck. And he carried a silver handled horse whip which he lightly slapped against his knee-high pale grey suede boots adorned with silver spurs causing them to jangle as he stepped down from the stagecoach. He stood in the dust-blown street. Ignored by passersby. Until, he finally must have realized his expectations of being met by an “official greeting committee” was not happening, eventually, loudly, snatched a passing local yokel by the collar and demanded the dumbstruck nitwit carry his bags to the hotel. Which the fellow did with submissive alacrity “Yassir. Yas indeed, Sar. Right away, Sar!”

The Judge checked into the Hotel. Announced himself loudly to the clerk. And after being shown his accommodations, declared simply, “Unsatisfactory!” He insisted on a suite rather than the single room the town had reserved for him. After settling into new larger quarters, he ordered a hot bath and a bottle of whiskey, and, after what I heard was his elaborate toilette, dusted off a sumptuous repast he ordered brought to his suite, he went out to introduce himself to the welcoming committee” – the Sheriff and town notables – and to inspect the courtroom. Which to his dismay turned out not to be a respectable venue with a raised carved walnut judge’s bench where one could look down upon the ordinary folk, but merely a small storefront adjacent to the jail with a plain table and chairs set among various boxes and sacks. This facility was meet with his grunting and snorting disapproval.

He immediately made it clear to all present, which included the town’s mayor and bank president, that this cramped “courtroom” was not a suitable arena for the administration of justice, that is, for him to put his oratorical skills on display, as it could not accommodate the necessary plaintiffs in this case – the members of both posses – as well as the expected number of important local officials and townsfolk that he expected would camp out in front, scriveners from the big cities and a growing numbers of curious visitors who would be streaming into town, on horseback, by wagon, by stagecoach, by foot, to gawk at the spectacle. And to watch the famous Judge Hollister McElroy in action. So the Judge insisted that they find a suitable alternative, and much haggling they eventually agreed to construct a outdoor courtroom in front of the sheriff’s office. The “welcoming committee” found a elaborate carved table and chair in the Mayor’s office, which they commandeered to serve as the judge’s bench (with his approval) and set it out in front of the jail upon the wide, boarded, walkway covered by an overhanging balcony. The judge studied the scene and simply declared “Unimpressive!”

And again, after much head-scratching and haggling they agreed to have the entire building embellished with flags of Texas, some red, white and blue bunting and ribbons and anything else that they could appropriate from the general store

The judge surveyed the scene the following day and nodded his approval. Then, looking around, he randomly Shanghaied an unsuspecting passing local to serve as town crier, ordering him to go through the streets every hour on the hour from noon to sunset to announce that the official proceedings would begin in front of the jail at noon the next day.

At that ordained time, a large crowd gathered. The two posses pressed together in front of the bench under the overhanging balcony. The rest of those assembled were relegated to standing cramped together shoulder to shoulder in the horse-manure-filled dusty street. I was shortly ushered out of the jail in chains by Sheriff Tooberson and Deputy Smits, and shackled to a hitching post, accompanied by hoots and hollers emitting from the crowd.

Finally the judge emerged, dramatically placed his hat and walking stick on the table, drank a swig from a silver flask he pulled out of a his waistcoat pocket, took his seat, ordered “Silence in the court”, and gaveled the session to begin.

He began by asking, “Would the plaintiffs present their claims to this person?”

Whereupon the members of both posses began simultaneously shouting and waving the wanted posters in the air, demanding to be heard first. The din was ear shattering. The judge turned and said something to the Sheriff who let loose a few shotgun blasts over the heads of the crowd which immediately quieted down and again slammed down his gavel and called the assembled to order.

The Judge said, “I will not tolerate such disrespectful hooliganism in my courtroom. Each of the plaintiffs may choose just one representative to orderly present their case.”

He reiterated, “One. Just one!”

There was much internal haggling and back and forth but finally each posse chose a spokesperson. The Judge had them draw straws to determine who would be first to go. And the proceedings finally began in earnest.

The gist of their arguments was straightforward.

The spokesmen for both “The Frenchman’s” vigilantes and the Rangers and Bounty Hunters posse based their claim to my person on one simple assertion: that the crude, almost identical, drawings that represented the “wanted man” on their particular wanted posters, looked exactly like… Me!

The judge rolled his eyes and shook his head. He asked for a copy of both wanted posters to be handed to him for his examination. He perused them each many times. Holding them side-by-side and upside down so as to compare them. Finally, after he muttered something to himself, he ordered me unshackled and to be brought before him at his makeshift dais.

He held one poster after another in front of my face. Back-and-forth. Back-andforth and finally said, “I am truly flummoxed, my friends, for so far as I can determine, the depictions of the criminal’s visage contained in the two posters are for all intents and purposes identical. So based on that alone, this criminal here before me could be either one of the two Dicks!” He added, echoing the prevailing prejudice of the time, “Besides, all high-yellow half-breeds look alike to me, do they not to you?”

The crowd, muttered their agreement of this common sentiment.

Judge McElroy turned to me, “What do you have to say for yourself, half-breed?”

“fek ewe ya old crakker muver fekker!” I responded.

At which point McElroy nodded to Sheriff Tooberson who nodded back and gave me a swift slap to my head.

“Don’t sass me boy. I’ll ask the question again half-breed. What’s your name?” McElroy went on.

“ ya nose ize dedwud dik ya stooopid old coot!”

The judge nodded to Tooberson again who gave me a stinging kidney punch.

“You want some more? Show some respect or I’ll have your hide tanned good, boy!”

He nodded again to Tooberson who nodded back knowingly and approached me carrying and snapping a bull whip!

“I’ll ask again” the judge said. “What is your name?”

“okee okee ize sorry yer honner bees sorry ize mint no disserspek i bees the vilin deadwood dick skeemer trane robber hores theef also noan as dik the kid irvin mctwain doc dooley en profeser helth and me pecker bees limp as a wet glove bla bla bla!”

He stared at me for a long time with beady threatening eyes. And then, finally, ordered me returned and reshackled onto the hitching post. He sat quietly, staring at the sky for what seemed an eternity, and then finally turned his head down, stood and spoke to the crowd –rather, he declaimed:

“Now my friends, had this been in the time when the Kings of the Old Testament walked upon thee earth, I might have suggested the Solomonic option, that this criminal half-breed – whichever Dead Dick he is, Wood or Eye – shall be cut into two equal pieces. Either down the middle left-to-right. Or crossways top-and-bottom. Prehaps even sliced into a front-side and a back-side like two sides of beef. And then one-half given to each party.”

Immediately, mutterings of disapproval came from both contending posses as well as the assembled crowd.

“We need the whole Dick to collect the reward!” Shouted one of “The Frenchman’s” vigilantes.

“We can take half a Dick and still get the reward!” Argued the spokesman for the Bounty Hunters.

“I see, I most certainly do see. Quite the dilemma!” said the judge. He paused for a moment or two, took another swig from his flask, and then continued, “So, being that one of the parties cares not if the prisoner be returned ‘dead or alive’ in order to receive the reward money, and the other insists he be returned ‘alive’ to receive same, that ‘Solomonic Option’ would certainly seem to be unsatisfactory to one party or another. And, while, so far as I can determine there’s no way to tell for certain from the depictions on the wanted posters if the prisoner is ‘Deadeye Dick’or ‘Deadwood Dick,’ there surely be a manner to determine for certain if he be ‘Deadwood Dick.’ That would be, namely, to discover if his Dick indeed be deadwood or not. I could order a hands-on medical examination of this man’s pecker by the local sawbones , and that could certainly be done, but,” he joked, “But I could not in good conscience order the good doctor to play the pantywaist and jiggle another man’s private parts.”

“That being the case, this is my considered decision. I rule that the prisoner be put to a test – rather the prisoner’s Johnson shall be put to a test. An undisputable test. What test might that be, you ask, and how shall that be carried out? Namely, I have decided that the prisoner shall be tied down and stripped naked and shall be subjected to all the temptations of the flesh that the good ladies from Madam Clara’s Saloon and Pleasure Palace , and any other willing Harlots from hereabouts, can provide; that is, to see if they might stimulate his manhood to some degree of throbbing turgidity. If they should succeed to even cause a jiggle in his jimmy, I shall rule he is not Deadwood Dick but Deadeye Dick, thus to be taken to New Orleans alive to receive his due punishment. But if they cannot raise the dead, as The Good Lord rose Lazarus, I shall declare him to be Deadwood Dick and he shall swing on the gallows on a day and time to be determined. To ensure all parties there will be no chicanery, representatives from each party shall be allowed to observe the proceedings – discretely, from behind a curtain. I shall also put a call out to all Harlots, Whores, Trollops, Tarts and Bawds from towns within traveling distance.

“I shall give them a week’s time to arrive, and thence to be ‘interviewed’ and chosen by a selection committee I shall appoint, composed of representatives from both parties, including as well, certain respectable citizens of Yellow Gulch, such as Mayor Tidewell and Bank President Stollen, and, thereupon their selection being completed, I shall announce upon the day and time the test shall proceed. Court is adjourned until further notice.”

At that the leader of “The Frenchman’s” vigilantes called out: “A $50 gold piece to the hoo’er who can prove his pecker AIN’T deadwood!” Which became the catchphrase of the night and which echoed throughout the streets until the last drunken wahoo passed out. “A $50 gold piece to the hoo’er who can prove his pecker AIN’T deadwood!”

And so, indeed, the very next day, as the judge had declared, a telegram was dispatched to all towns within a week’s travel, reading…

TO ALL WHORES, HARLO TS, BAWDS, TARTS AND TROLLOPS. EXCLAMATI ON POINT. STOP. CAN YOU RAISE A LIMP DIC K FROM THE DEAD. QUE STION MARK. STOP. IF YOU THINK YOU CAN A $50 GOLD PIECE AWAI TS YOU. STOP. COME T O YELLOW GULCH WITHI N THE WEEK TO MEET S ELECTION COMMITT EE. STOP. READ LATEST YELLOW GULCH BEACON ARRIVING BY STAGE W ITHIN THE WEEK FOR DETAILS. END.

Word quickly spread throughout the region and beyond of the impending public extravaganza. The paid notices appearing in the papers throughout the region reading:

And by the time the end of that week had arrived, Yellow Gulch was swamped with “Ladies-of-the-Night” of every shape and stripe seeking the reward. They had arrived by train, buggy, wagon and coaches – along with the usual carnies, geeks, confidence men, swindlers, gunslingers, cardsharps and snatch-purses that are attracted to such events Every room in the town’s hotel and boarding houses filled up rapidly, requiring a “hell on wheels” tent city to be erected behind the train station to fill the demand for accommodations, food, supplies, liquor, gambling, and of course… Harlots, Whores, Trollops, Tarts and Bawds.

Some good Christian townsfolk even stopped their preaching against the temptations of Satan for the week to take in some desperate “Ladies of the Night.” For a inflated fee of course. Ten-percent of which to be tithed to the local church to support Preacher Hornary Pettarest’s “Yellow Gulch Boys Choir.” I presume. And some just slept on the streets.

Signs were posted throughout the town:

If You Think Y ou Can Raise Lazarus’ Johnson from the Dead? THEN ASSEMBLE IN A LINE

For The Next Three Days OUTSIDE THE YELLOW G ULCH HOTEL

From Dusk Until Midnight !

** BE PREPARED TO DEMONSTRATE Your Special Talents !

As I understand it, from overhearing conversations between Sheriff Tooberson and Deputy Smits, as well as some whispered words from Buckoo, a secret ally – more on him later! – Judge Hollister McElroy had a delicate, as well as a

BA WDS, TARTS,

profitable task weighing the various offers of “palm grease” and other pecuniary enticements being proffered by citizens seeking to be chosen to be part of the selection committee. Choosing the committee was so intense (as was reported to me) due to the “rumors” being bandied about that members would be entitled to certain perquisites, such as the opportunity to view the test up-close, very upclose

which would be an attraction to any towns’ claque of secret voyeurs

and, perhaps as well, to sample such wares that were to be on display.

And so for those three days, from dusk to midnight, a line of “Ladies-of-theNight” stretched from the hotel entrance down the street to the livery stable, while a crowd of gawkers in the street buzzed about, teasing and hurling insults, and, occasionally, cow-pies, at them. The two saloons were filled to the brim night and day with raucous patrons which kept the sheriff and his deputy busy throughout the week – so much so that Tooberson had to deputize a number of willing locals to help handle the fisticuffs, gunfights and other folderol that went on round the clock. And of course there was the round-the-clock squawking sound of the usual hell-and-damnation preachers and temperance women who arrive in towns on such occasions to march through the streets singing hymns and banging drums and clashing cymbals and loudly condemning the Sodom and Gomorrah that whichever town they were in had become. Which orations I could hear in my cell throughout many sleepless nights

And also, for those three days, from dusk to midnight, one Bawd after another was ushered into the hotel and then ushered out, usually in a state of dishevelment, some after a few minutes, others dallying longer. I do not know for certain what transpired behind those doors but from what happened later on the night of my testing, I can easily imagine. Their exit from the hotel was usually accompanied by hoots and hollers from the yahoos gathered to watch and jeer.

“Show us yer titties darling!”

“Give us a peek of your cunnies, bitchs!”

As well as some vigorous pecker waving from a group of soused cowpokes.

“Taste this weiner ya fat hooer!”

Finally, after the three days allotted to the selection committee’s work had passed, the judge called for a town meeting and announced to the assembled crowd:

“Citizens of Yellow Gulch and visitors to this fair town, the selection committee has completed their appointed task. They have chosen a diverse selection of femmes of all shapes and sizes and erotic specialties that ought cover the complete spectrum of any man’s desires, from the mundane to the truly bizarre. The temptresses so duly chosen, the test shall be carried out on the night of the third morrow next Adjourned until then,” Judge Hollister McElroy declared.

Though I had been troubled for a while about how to escape my dilemma, the night before my ordeal I was particularly disturbed. I tossed and turned repeatedly asking myself how I could convince them I was in fact Deadwood Dick. To be flippant, I already knew the answer: only by keeping a limp pecker of course, which I would somehow have to manage in the midst of such temptations that might await me. To keep my “bite inutile”, useless? But how?

In the middle of that sleepless night the solution occurred to me in a flash of inspiration, that perhaps the same mental self-control I developed in my misspent youth to maintain my erection might save my miserable arse from that end: I thought if I could make Mon Bité stand at attention whenever I wanted him to, perhaps the opposite could also be possible… by vividly imaging the horrors and torture that would await me if I failed.

Too soon, the night of the “Trial by Quim” – as it came to be known thanks to some local wag – arrived and, as I quickly discovered, apparently the scene had been well thought-out and well-staged: Sheriff Tooberson and Deputy Smits led me, blindfolded, out of my cell and walked me a short distance down a hall. I heard a door clang open and close (a converted cell, I wondered?) and the swish of drapery being pulled back. When my blindfold was removed I found myself in a smallish, candlelit, comfortably warm space, three of whose walls were covered with some type of black drapery or bunting, and the fourth with a screen or scrim through which I could make out a number of dimly lit figures. In the center of the otherwise empty room was a comfortable upholstered wingchair. I was told to remove my boots, pull down my pants and Long Johns, which I reluctantly did, and make myself “comfortable” in the easy chair. They tied my legs, not roughly, but sturdily, to the ball and claw legs of the chair, and my arms in a similar manner to the armrests. I was thus immobilized. Half-naked,

“gently” hogtied. “Mon bite” hanging for all to see. Easy prey? I realized that was their plan. And then I made a final, silent, half-mocking, but nonetheless solemn farewell to my old friend “M. Bité” who had served me well and vowed that whatever happened we should remain inseparable.

“Don’t try anything stupid, boy. We’ll all be watching you,” the Sheriff said, interrupting my reverie, immediately followed by snorts and guffaws from behind the scrim. Then the lawmen left the arena through an opening in the drapes. I heard some voices whispering back and forth from behind the scrim, and then, finally, a voice I recognized as Judge Hollister McElroy’s boom out:

“Doncha worry Miss Clarita. Just go in and do your best! Remember there’s a $50 gold piece waiting for you if you can plump his Jonny!”

“Act One. Scene One Enter stage left! Let the games begin.” I thought.

I waited for the drapery to open to introduce the first temptress. I was prepared for the worst.

But then, instead, when the curtain was slid back, through it entered not the temptress direct from one of my recent nightmares but one of the least attractive women I had ever gazed upon. Plump as a fattened calf. Her fleshy body somehow stuffed into a corset. Her enormous breasts flopping out of a bustiere. Even in the dim light I could tell she was heavily made-up to appear much younger. The rouge on her cheeks were two perfectly round red circles. She reeked of the odor of some pungent cheap perfume mixed with the acrid smell of what I could only be the “afterglow” of a recent engagement.

Clarita sashayed towards me in a manner she must have somehow imagined was seductive, her flesh quivering like loose pudding. She knelt in front of me and said “Now you all just relax honeypie and let Lady Clarita make ya happy!”

She grabbed my testes in one hand, my Jonny into her other, inserted it into her mouth and began the crudest knob-gobbling I’ve ever experienced. Had much not depended on my staying cool I probably would have burst out laughing. From behind the scrim I heard muttered encouragements to Clarita to arouse me.

“Get his pecker up you fat whore.”

“Suck harder trollop!”

I also swear heard moans of masculine pleasure emanating from the observers behind the scrim, grunting, groaning and screaming under their breath.

“Ooo! “

“That’s it. That’s it!”

“Yessss!!!!”

As well as a few words of displeasure.

“Ya shot yer wad on me boots, fucking shit-blossom!”

Such exclamations continued to accompany the night’s proceedings. And, also from time-to-time, as I heard other voices appearing, new voices, that I did not recognize from earlier, I began to suspect, that other than the agreed-upon observers, additional “gentlemen” were being allowed behind the scrim to watch the proceedings. Was the selection committee running a side business? I later learned they were indeed charging admission and allowing people to watch. My life was on the line and I was the entertainment in a “Diddling Your Skittle” carnival sideshow!

Finally after 15 or 20 minutes of Clarita’s useless knob-gobbling, the Judge called out:

“You are done Clarita. Next!”

“Perhaps,” I thought to myself, somewhat relieved, “I might live through this!

But I also thought, “They might be just softening me up for the kill.”

It was perhaps the case that the members of the selection committee had never had the pleasure of bedding a truly seductive woman and so, fortunately for me, most of those ladies of the night they had chosen to seduce me would have been

unattractive to me under any circumstances. Like sending some worn-out, some toothless, some scrawny, some used-up whores to arouse the god Priapus himself. Most likely give him a soggy bonny and send him directly to the realm of Hypnos! Did the selection committee actually believe Clarita’s charms would work on me?

Next to attempt my seduction entered. Her name was, appropriately, Midge Dimaglia. A sweet-faced, curly-haired, pocket-sized, short-legged “Lilliputian Gal,” shall I say, who could have just arrived in town direct from some traveling carnival sideshow. Midge stripped off her clothes and leapt up onto my lap clad only in her birthday suit and started rubbing her hairless cooze all over me. She wrapped her short little legs around my neck, grabbed my head, stuck her cooze in my face and wiggled it back and forth. I could barely breath! She could have just as well been The Bearded Lady!

Then, after Midge followed a trail of bawds, a few I cannot forget, a few I wished I could. One after another, each with a different appeal and approach than the preceding. And for those few that under other circumstances might have aroused me, if I even thought I suspected the beginnings of the slightest tremor down there I would speak to Mon Bité in my mind and remind him of the vow we made to remain inseparable and the pain his loss would literally cause me. And I could imagine, nay, even sense, could literally picture in my mind’s eye his shriveling and shrinking away into a shadow of himself.

I could never forget – but might hope to – masked Mistress X, a leather clad temptress whose sadistic skills the selection committee ignorantly thought might tickle my fancy. If they thought the pain of a few clamps upon my male nipples or a spiked gloved grasp and squeeze of my testes might arouse me, I can assure you it did quite the opposite. Thank you, but no thank you Mistress X!

And then there was Heavenly Valley, a black-long-haired, perfumed, petite Oriental woman-child who smothered my face with the most erotic nether parts I had ever seen. She had a slinky manner of walking that drew me towards her. There was also also something incredibly seductive about her jade-colored eyes. She turned my head and forced me to peer into them. It felt as if she could stare into my soul. She could have been a disciple of Mesmer. But I resisted.

Later came Circe Dawson, an Amazon of a woman. Built like a lumberjack and had a face like one. She could have crushed me between her thighs. But surprisingly, she had a voice that was high-pitched and delicately angelic like a golden songbird’s. Which, if I dared close my eyes, for some reason, I feared I would find irresistibly seductive, like a siren’s call, and would be uncontrollably drawn to her.

And on and on and on it went or so it seemed.

Until.

Enter what turned out to be the final test of the evening.

And it was the most tempting – which I suspect, if the selection committee had known what they were doing, which I doubt, was their plan all along: to wear me down.

And that last test was two blond-haired buxom, but svelte, freckle-faced young twin harlots from the Dakotas, Melissa and Merissa, farm girls, whose pert brown nipples and perfectly rounded buttocks almost caused me to falter. Their sweet fresh smell would have been irresistible under other circumstances. I almost had to bite my tongue off to calm myself as the pressed their bodies all over mine. Rubbing their open legs across both my thighs. It was sheer torture. But Mon Bité did not stir.

“That’s quite enough girls, That’s enough,” McElroy finally called out. Melissa and Merissa blew me a kiss and departed. And there I sat fearfully awaiting my next temptation.

But instead, eventually, I heard the Judge mutter, “No response from his Johnson! But there’s enough jizzum on the floor back here to take Buckoo a mop and three buckets of soapy water to clean it all up.”

Then loudly, “Send all the other whores home. We are done! Take him back to his cell” Which Tooberson and Smits did.

Thus, in that manner, after whore after whore failed, the Judge declared an end to the evening. I realized I had passed the test. My “Trial by Quim” was over. And I fell into a deep sleep filled with disturbing dreams.

And on the morrow, McElroy called a town meeting, assembling the posses and townsfolk and the usual curious gawkers in front of the jail, declared “Court is in session!” and loudly announced “I rule that the prisoners pecker is useless as a one-legged man at an arse kicking contest! The whores could not even extract a single drop of jizzum from the prisoner!”

And then a new chant immediately echoed in Yellow Gulch:

“No jizz from the prizz!”

“No jizz from the prizz!”

The Judge continued, “I formally rule that this man is indeed Deadwood Dick, and as such, shall meet his maker upon the gallows, after the arrival of the hangman, immediately following Sunday services in three weeks time. See y’all then!” (Of course no-one ever bothered to question whether Deadwood Dick was even guilty of the crimes with which he was charged.)

For the next three weeks a carnival atmosphere reigned throughout Yellow Gulch. The sounds of drunken louts hooting and hollering, the bursts of firecrackers and gunshots, kept me sleepless many nights. But, at least, I was not concerned about an angry mob breaking into the jail and dragging me away to be lynched, because I had overheard Sheriff Tooberson telling, whom I could only assume were Smits and his other deputized citizens, “Keep this boy safe! He’s worth money to everyone in the town while he’s still breathing!”

One morning, at the end of the third week, I heard the sounds of a large crowd gathering at the railroad depot a few hundred yards from the jail. Soon there came the repeated sound of steam whistles announcing the arrival of an approaching train. And then the screeching of its brakes. Shortly followed by Preacher Hornary Pettarest’s god-awful Yellow Gulch Boys Cornet Band, who played an ear-splitting version of “Camptown Races”!

Then, when they finished their discordant tooting, the stentorian voice of Judge McElroy rang out:

“Citizens of Yellow Gulch, the Hangman has arrived! Let us give a hearty Texas welcome to the noted Creegan Boness.” (Which was followed obediently by a few random but hearty hip hip hoorahs and other cheers and whoops from the crowd.)

He went on, “Now, for a salutation from the Honorable Mayor of Yellow Gulch, Everly T. Tidewell.”

“Fellow Citizens of Yellow Gulch, as your Mayor,” Tidewell spoke, “Elected to three consecutive terms to this important position, It is my great privilege and honor to welcome such great notables as Judge Hollister McElroy and Hangman Creegan Boness to our little hamlet. Though we may be small in size we are large in our spirit and as we grow and word of our fair city spreads throughout Texas and beyond it is my fervent wish that we become a magnet for all forward-minded people looking to invest their hopes, dreams and money into their future and ours. And now a short benediction by The Noted Traveling Preacher Doolen Dollards who has traversed our great state just for this occasion!”

“Hallelujah my brothers and sisters in Christ. As we stand here today,” Dollards intoned, “Let us humbly ask the good lord to shine his blessings upon Creegan Boness and these proceedings so that upon the appointed day of Deadwood Dick’s departure from this earth, the gates of hell shall open easily, with a mighty roar and a great belch of fiery brimstone, to welcome him into the torment of its everlasting flames. And, don’t forget to join your fellow congregants at Dollards Traveling Grand Revival Meeting which will be held inside Cavanaugh’s barn nightly after sundown to praise the Lord Jesus. Admission 25¢. Donations gracefully accepted. And there will be a special Bon Voyage service and celebration the night of the hanging. Amen.”

I discovered later that day, when he was ushered into my cell to “size me up” for the proceedings, Creegan Boness, as it turned out was not a hulking giant of a man like the notorious Dunbar Slather, but a odd, smallish, balding fellow. He was meticulously dressed in a striped suit with a florid silk vest, gold watch chain hanging from one pocket, white spats, and black patent shoes. H is affectations included a pencil mustache and a silver pince-nez with thick round lenses

He removed from a leather case he had carried in to my cell, a notebook, a pencil and a tape measure, which he then used with the skill of a fine tailor to quickly plumb the circumference of my neck, chest and waist, the length of my arms and legs, my height, my inseam, the length and width of my feet, all of which he wrote down in his notebook. Then he asked me to strip down to my waist and began to pinch my flesh with a pair of calipers, entering some additional

measurements, and then, without a fare-thee-well packed up his instruments, called for the sheriff who opened the cell door, and Boness abruptly exited. “Twelve feet tall”, I heard him say, “And twenty feet long.” I assumed he had calculated the necessary height of the gallows and the required length of rope.

The setting of the “stage” began immediately outside the jail that same day. I could not see it from my cell, yet the sounds of the gallow’s construction were omnipresent. Sawing. Hammering. Shouted instructions. And then later the testing of the equipment. I could hear the sound of the trap floor opening and the thud of something heavy falling through it. Over and over. Until finally someone saying “It’s all looking good boys!”

So then all that was left was the waiting. How did I pass my remaining time? Daytime passed easily enough. With little fear or misgivings of revealing my deception. But night was more problematic.

It was the dangers of entering the realm of Morpheus that concerned me as I was fearful of my dreams, what they “might cause to arise” – so to speak – in the morning, exposing my Johnson as not being dead wood at all but a fully grown live oak. I would have liked to spend my nights dreaming of the many loves of my life, Cecily, Feliceé and all the others, but I resisted. So instead I tried to dream nightly instead about anything else.

Such as food! Food! About my last meal. For which I would have liked to have ordered up a Creole feast: a lavish serving of Maman’s Shrimp Etoufeé, some crawfish bisque, a large bowl of Gumbo Z’Herbes with crab and prawns and filé, a few dozen fresh raw oysters, grillades and grits, bread pudding, and at the least a bottle or two of a fine Madeira.

But voicing a request for that bill of fare certainly might cause some pause. To do so might evidence some knowledge of the fine cuisine of the Crescent City. Which would seem an incongruous order for such a rough-and-tumble individual as Deadwood Dick. Someone might remember hearing something about Deadeye Dick’s – aka Richardé Rubiné – New Orleans connection. Arousing their curiousity. Thence their suspicions. Then putting deux et deux together. Ultimately, revealing my true identity.

Thus I thought it prudent to ask instead for what I thought a cloddish villain like Deadwood Dick would savor. To wit, I asked for a “big thik tendraloin stake wit a pile o fride taters servid up to me by one a dem sportin wimin from claras

bawdy house whilst she pores me glassis after glassis of some hundrid proof hooche. sows i kin grete me makir half-soused. ”

But, alas, I was already told that what I was going to get, of course, instead, if I was even half-lucky, was the standard prix-fixe “Yellow Gulch Half-Breed Farewell Feast,” a plate of cold beans, some stale bread and a jar of flat piss beer.

So all that remained to write down were my farewells. And the truth.

Which is this true last will and testament.

First, I must explain here how I managed to write down this tale of my life and the happenings in Yellow Gulch which took place outside my sight and hearing while locked in my cell. It was due to the courageous and secret assistance of my last friend Buckoo – whose name was mentioned earlier – last name unknown, even to him. (When I asked about his name he only said “s’fars i knows i be born buckoo, i be dies buckoo.”)

Buckoo, who slept and lived in an empty cell at one end of the jail, was an old ebony-skinned bondservant who, likely past his usefulness in the fields, was, he explained, rented out by his master to the town and to the Sheriff’s office, to clean the cells, throw out buckets of piss and night soil, run errands and such.

We did not exchange any words during the first few days of my incarceration. But I quietly observed him and sensed his quiet observation of me. And thought I felt a sense of mutual understanding of each others situation.

Then one day, after the Judge had proclaimed my “Trial by Quim”, while I was spending my time waiting for the whores to arrive and my dreaded “gentle inquisition” to begin, Buckoo who was sweeping the floor back and forth in front of my cell, paused momentarily and suddenly spoke to me, sotto vocé:

“nunna my bidness but who ever yalls bees ya be mutterin’ frenchy tawk in yalls sleep... ”

That set me on edge. Had anyone else heard my soporific ramblings? What else might I have said? Would Buckoo tell the Sheriff? I nervously awaited any further revelations.

But as Buckoo passed by my cell a few moments later he said:

“doncha worry brudder… i nots be telling them fekkin white crackers nuttin.”

And on the next pass-by:

“ …sides ah also knows sumptin alls else rounder bouts sept yall en me dont know.”

And when he passed by again he continued:

“i knows thet yahs not deadwood dick… wanna knows why?”

And on the next:

“ caus i ones sawr dedwood wiles he be robbin a bank in nasha-toe-cheese wen i be waitin in bossmans wagon… deadwood runs shootin outs de bank en lookid me strates in my eye… en gibs me a wink en rides off.. he be one ugly muvver… not like yous. ”

And on the next:

“ en also sides dem pictores on de posters don look like nider ub yalls… we nigras muss look all alike to dem crackers doan we?”

Thus began our strange clandestine relationship – two people world’s apart at our beginnings yet bound together at the end by circumstance and skin color. We would communicate, briefly, quietly, as he passed back and forth in front of my cell, taking out the bucket with my piss and night soil, sweeping the floor and so on. I always remained in character, voice and language as Deadwood Dick, as I explained to Buckoo, in fear of my real voice being overheard and my real identity discovered. He supplied me with tidbits of his life and told me about the

goings on in town. And, as I grew to trust him to keep his silence, I began to unravel the story of my life, explaining to him my predicament.

As I did, bit by bit, Buckoo would shake his head and roll his eyes in astonished understanding: “o lawd sho nuff buckoo unnerstans one nigra to anusser we bose inna da same perdikamint… to tell da troof, dere be many a time I smiled en lied to my bossman and pertend ta be ignorans so as I dint get a skin deep whupping or even worse… but buckoo neffer facin nuffin whatchall had ta go frew… me pekker jump up a mediately sum nekkid gal strut in fronta me… dangit!”

Then one day Buckoo asked, “anyting yalls needs want i kin gets for ya?”

Next time he passed I said:

“kin ya gits me sumpin to rites my tale on en sumpin ta rites wit?”

Buckoo secretively retrieved whatever usable scraps of paper from wherever he could find them: used wrapping paper from the General Store, trash bins about town, half-used or misprinted newsprint tossed out behind the office of “The Yellow Gulch Weekly Beacon.”

He would separate the blank pieces one could still write on, fold them into smallish squares that he could hide safely on his person, and slip them to me when he passed my cell or placed beneath the tin plate on my tray of food when he delivered it .

He also retrieved some charred branches left in the fireplace which I found I could use as a writing instruments. And, Mirabile Dictu, an almost whole pencil accidently discarded by some citizen. (Had they been discovered on his person it would have raised some eyebrows. They would think, “What need does this illiterate sumvabitch nigra have for paper and pencil?”) And when it was safe I would steal a minute or two here and there to set down my tale.

For his help, on the eve of my hanging, as a last thank you, I slipped Buckoo a map showing the prickly ash stand near Onion Creek where I buried the few coins I had on me – along with Madame Chantelle’s silver medallion – on the day I was captured, directions to the next safe bawdyhouse on “Hooker’s Trail,” and instructions on how he might make his way into Mexico to find Maman.

After that, at some great risk to himself,

I assured him if he found her she would embrace him and care for him as best she could, which would be a significant improvement over his current status. What remains to be done?

As I have no worldly goods left to bestow on anyone, thanks to “The Frenchman’s” machinations, this is what I can leave behind:

To Cecily and Feliceé: the fondest memories of our youthful love.

To all my other paramours: fondest memories of our mutual pleasures.

To Chantelle, Evaline, Mrs. Steiber and the other partners of “Société les Prostituées et Cie,” my eternal gratitude for their protection.

To Papa:

Gratefulness for your love, inspiration and derring-do.

To my beloved Maman:

A final adieu! What words could be left to say? I have loved you heart and soul and “pray” you are alive and well and have found solace and safety wherever you have placed your roots. Perhaps our beliefs will prove untrue and we shall meet in the afterlife after all. But I doubt it.

To “The Frenchman”: Whilst some poet once said “any man’s death diminishes me”, in your case I might greet such diminishment with glee, providing I were there to bear witness to your miserable suffering, and to hear your last agonizing, gasping breath as you slip away into an eternity void of any solace or respite.

And to the “real” Deadwood Dick?

I realize the predicament I might have placed you in. I can only hope that word of the contents of this true will and testament will reach the right ears, and be believed, so that when, and if, you are captured, you should receive the punishment which is your due and not the one that would have been meted out to me, if my true identity, Deadeye Dick, had been revealed – a punishment which no human being deserves.

Yet, having executed Me, Deadeye Dick, as You, Deadwood Dick, would the authorities then acknowledge their error, or touting their civil rectitude insist

they made no mistakes, that you, Deadwood Dick are indeed me, Deadeye Dick?

If the latter turn out to be the case, I should be truly remorseful of my choosing the “less torturous” demise at your expense.

Though I believe hanging is a cruelty in its own way I am told it is a quick death. Yet, if I dare say, from what I have heard, you are a particularly nasty fellow. A credit to no-one. And will not be missed. To say the least.

Anyway, by the time anyone reads this I will be six-feet-under.

Adieu, mon amis et mon amies!

Ricardé Delachais Rubiné

Bâtard métis

Also known as “Deadeye Dick”

© Max Singer 2023

176 East 81st Street NY, NY 10028

themaxyfactory@yahoo.com