DEADWOOD DICK: BEFORE ZORRO AND BEFORE THE LONE RANGER

Only a few more days until the Frontierado Holiday on Friday August 2nd. Here’s another seasonal post from Balladeer’s Blog.

DEADWOOD DICK – In general, the Dime Novel period of westerns, detective, science fiction and horror tales lasted from 1860 to around 1919 or the early 1920s. Pulp magazines took over from there. Many Dime Novels were very loosely based on real-life figures like Buffalo Bill, Calamity Jane and others. Many more were purely fictional, like Deadwood Dick. 

This character, whose name is practically synonymous with Dime Novels, was created in 1877 by prolific writer Edward L. Wheeler, who also created various FEMALE Dime Novel figures that I’ve reviewed in the past, like Hurricane Nell, the Denver Doll, Baltimore Bess and Cinnamon Chip.

As his name implies, Deadwood Dick operated in and around Deadwood and the Black Hills region. He was a notorious outlaw/ road agent who led a band of masked followers in assorted robberies. The character proved to be extremely popular and in the dozens of Dime Novels ahead he morphed from his roguish “pirate of the prairie” depiction in his first story into a champion of the oppressed. 

Let’s be clear here – the black-garbed, masked Zorro did not debut until 1919 and the heroic masked man called the Lone Ranger did not debut until the 1930s, so Deadwood Dick was embedded in the American consciousness decades before those other two characters.

DEADWOOD DICK, THE PRINCE OF THE ROAD or THE BLACK RIDER OF THE BLACK HILLS (October 15th, 1877) – This was the very first Deadwood Dick story, but his tales were republished over and over again into the early 20th Century, so readers will encounter references to this book supposedly being published years later than this.

As this debut story begins, it is late 1877 and for nearly two years our title character has been making a name for himself as a masked bandit whose gang plunders gold shipments and mine payrolls throughout the busy Black Hills goldfields. Thousands are flocking to take part in the Gold Rush, and a few villainous figures from Deadwood Dick’s past are among the latest arrivals. 

Our characters:

DEADWOOD DICK – The swashbuckling outlaw leader described above. He and his band strike swiftly and then seemingly fade into the landscape, frustrating all law enforcement and military efforts to catch them.

Our hero is so bold he openly laughs at the new Wanted posters offering a $500.00 reward for him. He defiantly rides to visit the lawman who posted the offer and kills him in a fair gunfight.  

NED HARRIS – The secret identity of Deadwood Dick. By day, Ned blends in with the countless other prospectors in the Black Hills, working his claim and hoping to strike gold. Unlike the later trope of a masked hero’s alter ego pretending to be wimpy and easily intimidated, Ned recognizes that he would get killed pretty swiftly in dangerous Deadwood if he showed weakness. He is respected by his fellows as a capable man with his guns and fists, but no more so than many other residents of this city where life is cheap.

ANITA HARRIS – Ned’s sister. To protect Anita, who like him is fleeing a tragic past, he resides with her in a cabin in a box canyon accessible only via a door-wide cave through a mountain. Ned keeps his sister’s presence a secret and is very careful about his comings and goings to their hidden valley, which Anita calls the Flower Pocket. She does not know her brother is really the infamous Deadwood Dick.   

ALEXANDER FILMORE – The chief villain of the story. He is a powerful banker who cruelly abuses everyone who crosses his path. He and his son engineered the death of Ned and Anita’s parents back east by causing them to plunge through the surface ice on a frozen lake. They were children at the time and he raised them amid beatings and worse but kept them alive as their legal guardian so he could continue running their late parents’ fortune.

In their late teens, Ned and Anita fled west with paperwork that Filmore needs. He has spent several months sending paid killers and bounty hunters to find and kill Ned and Anita. As Deadwood Dick, our hero has dispatched all of them, at last forcing Alexander and his son to come west in person.

CLARENCE FILMORE – Typical greedy son of a greedy tycoon. He tries to act tough but his spoiled upbringing means he is actually weak and unimpressive. As evil as his father but with nowhere near that man’s intellect or personal force, which his father is fond of pointing out.

Alexander once wanted Clarence to forcibly marry Anita Harris to neutralize the threat posed by her and her brother, but that was years ago. Clarence distrusts women and refused. 

FEARLESS FRANK – Real name Justin McKenzie. Another mysterious figure from our hero’s past. In contrast to the aging Alexander and the weaselly Clarence, Fearless Frank is every bit a match for Deadwood Dick physically and at gunplay. Frank’s/ Justin’s motives and allegiance remain unclear until the finale of the story.

Early in our tale, Frank is accompanying a mule train of new prospectors to Deadwood. At one point he interacts with the real-life figure Sitting Bull and we readers learn he once saved the life of this Sioux Chief. Fearless Frank has Sitting Bull pay back that debt by releasing to him his just-taken female captive.

ALICE TERRY – The beautiful captive released to Frank/ Justin. She was being tortured by several Lakota Sioux who wiped out her wagon train of pioneers headed west. Alice is so tough and so good with firearms that she shot dead over a dozen of the Sioux before they could subdue her, hence why they lashed her and were preparing for fire torture.     

Alice is traveling to Deadwood to find her father, who last wrote her from the goldfields. She winds up falling in love with Fearless Frank, who is actually in love with Anita Harris, whom he knew from the past back east.

HARRY REDBURN – A young gambler and prospector in Deadwood. Ned Harris saves his life when cheating card players want to kill him. He lets Redburn stay with him at his hidden cabin and has him guard Anita when he is not home.  Harry is a master with a guitar and sings splendidly. This man winds up as Alice Terry’s romantic partner.

CALAMITY JANE – The author’s VERY fictional version of the real-life figure. Wheeler would write several Dime Novels about her, as well. In this story she is beautiful, tough, skilled with a gun and as stealthy as a Native American. She and Deadwood Dick will have a love-hate relationship in the later Dime Novels. Jane considers Ned Harris just an okay guy but is very impressed with his outlaw alter ego. 

“GENERAL” NIX – A grizzled, hunched over old man who is virtually a template for the later western sidekick Gabby Hayes. He is VERY eccentric and claims to have held several lofty positions in the past. Seemingly crazy, but has a nose for finding rich gold veins and is Alice’s father. Think of the incomprehensible old coot in Blazing Saddles for this guy.

CATAMOUNT CASS DIAMOND – A steady customer in Deadwood saloons. He is a crooked card player and leads the gang that tries to kill Harry Redburn after losing to him at poker. 

CHET DIAMOND – Catamount Cass’ brother. Like Cass, he’s a second-tier, part comic relief villain. Another Deadwood saloon regular, Chet puts on airs of being well-versed in the Bible but is comically wrong with all his references.

DEADWOOD DICK’S GANG – Between 12 and 20 masked bandits who serve their leader with military precision. Unfortunately, they are opportunists first and foremost, and at one point Alexander Filmore bribes two of them to help him and his son escape after our hero captures them during a stagecoach robbery. 

UTE INDIANS – Nearly 50 Native Americans who are employed in the elaborate gold mining operation that Redburn, Anita Harris and Alice Terry’s father establish in their isolated valley. This is after one of General Nix’s dreams leads him to a huge gold strike there. 

U.S. CAVALRY – Comic relief, bumbling authority figures foiled by Deadwood Dick and his gang whenever they try to corral them.

SPOILERS AHEAD!

After multiple fistfights and gunfights, one of them between Deadwood Dick & Fearless Frank and another one an all-out slaughter in a Deadwood saloon, all storylines end in an eventful few hours in our hero’s hidden valley.

Being scumbags, the Filmore father and son try to illegally seize the gold claim from the good guys as well as kill Ned Harris and his sister. Through treachery, Alexander and Clarence get the advantage of Deadwood Dick, but Calamity Jane saves him and helps him against the villains.

Fearless Frank/ Justin McKenzie winds up being a good guy in the end. It is revealed that through a misunderstanding it seemed he had “ruined” Anita Harris a few years back, but we learn they were secretly married at the time. Ned/ Deadwood Dick is shown proof of this and reconciles with McKenzie.

During the climactic confrontations, our hero was forced to unmask and reveal his true identity to one and all. He and his gang execute the Filmores for their many crimes. We are told that the Harris affairs back east can get resolved by the paperwork in Anita’s possession, so she and Justin move back east to live off the family fortune.

Ned gives up his claim to any share of the mine OR to the Harris fortune, and the others agree to keep his identity a secret.

Harry Redburn and Alice Terry are married, and they stay in the Black Hills with her father to help run the goldmine.

Moved by all the reunions and marriages among our main characters, Deadwood Dick proposes marriage to Calamity Jane. She turns him down and retains her freedom and life of adventure (but they go through back and forth “will they or won’t they” bits in future stories in the series).

Deadwood Dick and his gang return to their lives as outlaws.

*** It is always fascinating to me to read these 1870s tales in the words of people who actually lived back then. (For one bit of trivia, they were already using the word “splurge” in 1877!)

Yes, they were known to be fictional stories, but there’s always a lot to be learned from how heroes, heroines and villains are depicted during a given time period.

BY THE WAY, THIS DEADWOOD DICK IS NO TRUE RELATION TO THE MEN WHO SUBSEQUENTLY ADOPTED THAT NICKNAME.