Wild Bill and the Dinosaur Hunters

What if the West’s greatest hero was a fraud? Wild Bill Hickok, the “Prince of Pistoleers,” is a genial drunk, who just wants to be left alone to chase women and play cards. He has never done any of the things for which he was famous. Those deeds were the products of his imagination and the gullible journalists to whom he told the stories.

He’s also going blind.

In 1874, Bill agrees (reluctantly) to lead a party of new-fangled scientists called paleontologists into the Black Hills of Dakota in search of dinosaur fossils. The Black Hills are forbidden territory, and in saner moments Bill would have no parts of such a lunatic undertaking. He’s broke, though, and has no choice. Besides, the expedition’s leader is a beautiful woman named Lucy Templeton, and Bill’s got his eyes set on her.

In the Black Hills the party encounters Sitting Bull, George Custer and the 7th Cavalry, rival paleontologists, and a love-starved Calamity Jane (whom Bill mistakes for a Newfoundland water dog). There is also buried treasure and the remains of the largest dinosaur that ever lived. If that isn’t enough, Bill — when he’s not drinking hair tonic — must turn detective to solve a murder within the expedition’s ranks. It is a task that would be difficult for the fictional Wild Bill. For the real one, it’s going to be a whole lot harder . . .