Today, I've been on the road for most of the day - in fact, it's probably been one of the longest drives I'm likely to have for the rest of the trip, so I guess it's lucky that my only stop of the day was at somewhere as historically significant as the tiny wild west town of Deadwood, South Dakota. It was here, on the 2nd of August 1876, that James Butler Hickock - better known as Wild Bill - famously cashed in his chips.

A sometime lawman and notorious gunslinger, Wild Bill spent his days fighting in the American Civil War, making his way as a famous gambler across the west, and generally engaging in shootouts with anyone who looked at him funny. In 1861, while working as a stable boy in Nebraska, he entered the folklore of the old west by starting a fatal gunfight with four members of the McCandless Gang who called at the ranch claiming to be the tenants and demanding payment. The McCandless Gang were known as notorious train and bank robbers, cattle rustlers and thieves, and although Wild Bill and the other residents of the ranch were tried for murder they were later judged to have acted in self defence. During the war, Hickock fought for the Union army and served as a scout before going on to become a United States Marshall a few years later. Over the coming years, he made as much of a name for himself as possible, becoming firm friends with "Buffalo Bill" Cody and touring the country with him as he began to put on his his new Wild West show. One day in 1865, while staying in Springfield, Missouri, Hickock invented what would become one of the Wild West's most famous images - the quick draw.

So the story goes, Hickock and local cowboy Davis-Tutt had been friends and gambling partners for a long time and Tutt had even bankrolled a number of Hickock's sessions at the gambling table. By 1865, however, the two men had become enemies and Wild Bill was getting more and more irritated by the fact that his old friend was now openly trying to bankrupt him by training other poker players in methods of beating him.

One night in Springfield, at the Old Southern Hotel, Hickock was playing poker with a number of other men while Tutt stood to one side bankrolling his opponents and advising them on the tactics they should use to win. Nevertheless, Hickock was well up on the game and his old friend chose to vent his frustrations at his losses by suddenly reminding him that he owed him substantial gambling debts from an earlier game. Wild Bill handed over a large wad of cash but said that he didn't agree with the whole amount demanded and would only pay what he owed. Tutt then grabbed Hickock's gold pocket watch from the table and said that he would hold onto it until the debt was paid in full. Taken aback, Hickock apparently didn't want to cause a scene and asked merely that Tutt didn't show the watch off in public for fear that it would appear that he had been forced to hand over a valuable item to cover his debts and this would damage his reputation.

Tutt merely sneered and told him that he would be wearing it prominently on his coat the next morning for all to see. Hickock told him, in no uncertain terms, that if he did that he would be shot. Of course, Tutt probably had no intention of parading around the town square wearing Hickock's watch - but reputation was everything in the old west and he had made the boast in front of a saloon full of people and now realised that to go back on it would show cowardice and mean that nobody would take him seriously again. So, at 10.00 the next morning, he was strutting around Springfield like a peacock with Hickock's watch dangling very noticeably from his top pocket. Hickock was alerted and turned up in the town square, to all accounts quite calm, and again warned Tutt not to walk across the square wearing his watch. Tutt went for his gun, Hickock reacted instantly, and both men fired at once. While Tutt's bullet missed, Hickock's struck home and the quick-draw entered the folklore of the old west - even though it was rarely actually seen in reality. A couple of weeks later, seeing an opportunity, a newspaper reporter from up north travelled to Springfield and conducted a number of interviews with Wild Bill, catapulting the previously little-known gunman into the history books and telling the world about the hundreds of people he had shot over the years. Most of it was probably totally made up. At his trial, Hickock was found not guilty of murder on the basis that Tutt had gone for his gun first and, in the eyes of the jury, Hickock had not only acted in self defence but had shown considerable honour in giving his opponent several warnings before actually shooting him. Not, of course, a defence which would stand up to much scrutiny today.

Anyway, back to Deadwood. On the 2nd of August 1876, Wild Bill Hickock was playing poker in town. By this time, he had many enemies and was in the habit of sitting at a corner table where he could keep an eye out for anyone suspicious. On this occasion, however, there were no such tables available and the saloon was unwilling to move anyone around to accommodate him - so Hickock was forced to sit with his back to the door as the cards were dealt. Unfortunately, a drifter by the name of Jack McCall was staying in the town at the time and had misunderstood an attempt by Hickock the previous night to give him some money for a meal after he had lost all of his cash in a poker game. McCall had interpreted this act of generosity by Hickock as an attempt to rub salt into the wound and suggest that he was in need of charity, and on the fateful night of August 2nd he entered the Nuttal & Mann's #10 Saloon in deadwood in a drunken state seeking retribution. Shooting Hickock at point blank range in the back of the head as he sat playing poker, McCall is reported to have simply said "Take that" before turning and staggering out again, earning himself the nickname "Cowardly Jack McCall". At his trial, he claimed to have shot Hickock in revenge for the earlier shooting of his brother, which was a curious thing to claim as he had never had a brother. Nevertheless, as deadwood didn't really have a formal justice system at the time, a makeshift court was thrown together from a collection of local miners and shop owners and they took less than two hours to find McCall not guilty without bothering to do any background checks on his story. McCall then moved to Wyoming where he bragged about having killed the famous Wild Bill Hickock in a fair fight - unfortunately for him, he didn't reckon on the fact that the Wyoming authorities didn't recognise the decision of the deadwood court because it had not been a legal court of law formed by the government of the time. McCall was re-arrested, re-tried, and hanged for murder.

Shot in the back of the head, Wild Bill Hickock fell forward, his dead hand crashing onto the table in front of him still holding the cards he had been dealt. Both black aces, both black eights and a disputed fifth card - probably an ace. This is a hand which, to this day, sends terror through the hearts of poker players around the world if they are unlucky enough to have it dealt to them - Aces and Eights, the dead man's hand.

Deadwood is a pretty quiet town - it hasn't quite achieved ghost status, but I think it would be fair to call it "relaxed". The town first made it onto the map in the second half of the nineteenth century when gold was discovered in the area and people starting flocking to the region from all directions in the hope of becoming rich. At this stage in its history, the entire region was owned by the native American Lakota people who had been guaranteed ownership by the Treaty of Laramie in an unusually understanding move by the government of the time. When gold was discovered and the town set up, it was therefore outside of the government's jurisdiction and not subject to their law - this is why, when McCall decided to shoot Wild Bill Hickock in the back of the head on that day in 1876, the town was in a state of lawlessness and had to cobble together a court to try the murderer. Not being subject to strict anti-gambling laws in the rest of the country, Deadwood set up casinos virtually overnight so that people could lose all the money they had just made from the gold they'd dug up and the town quickly become something of a gambling Mecca. The casinos were followed quickly by saloons, and then enterprising businessmen began to ship in prostitutes on the backs of wagons to keep people coming - so to speak. Deadwood really was the epitome of the lawless Wild West town you see in the movies, and it drew in characters from across the country seeking to either get away from the law or to uphold their own. Both Wild Bill Hickock and Calamity Jane are buried beneath the soil of Deadwood.

Deadwood makes a fair bit from slot machines and craps games in its saloons, small gambling houses and drinking establishments - and this is a good opportunity to clear up a misconception, actually. It is widely believed that gambling is illegal across the United states except in Nevada (obviously, or Vegas wouldn't do quite so well) and on Native American Reservations. This isn't actually true. In fact, not only is gambling (or "Gaming" as they insist on calling it over here) legal across the entire country according to Federal law, but nearly every state actively encourages it in some form or another. The confusion is probably caused by the fact that the US government allows each state to decide for itself whether or not it will restrict or ban gambling within its borders, and most of them have in fact chosen to outlaw all but the tamest games of chance, or restrict them to special areas outside the city. Casinos, for example, are generally illegal in most states except, as previously noted, on reservations. Inviting friends around and having a private poker game for money, on the other hand, although generally either illegal or frowned upon, is obviously harder to enforce and often tends to be tolerated. Many states tend to come down hard on people playing an innocent game of bingo, but seem to find nothing at all hypocritical about running a state wide lottery for their own financial gain.

I had breakfast in a saloon, which was more of a large restaurant with locals in cowboy hats and carrying whips waiting the tables. The whole thing felt quite authentic, actually, and if it hadn't been for the cars passing up and down the street outside I could've believed I was in an old west town. The menu was gloriously over the top, and it took me about half an hour to pore through everything on offer, holding the large heavy cardboard list up with both hands so that my arms ached by the time it came to ordering. My favourite item, a glorious example of the reason why so many people over here are overweight, was the Triple-Seven special - seven pancakes, seven sausages and seven eggs for seven dollars and seventy-seven cents. Afterwards, I walked along the main road looking through the casino doors at local people with more money than sense pumping quarters into slot machines. The town, for the most part, was deserted - I only saw a handful of people walking along the street all the time I was there - but this wasn't a bad thing by any means. At the time, I was heavily involved in updating a website for unsigned musicians and had actually been using a laptop throughout my journey to send updates into cyberspace - in Deadwood, I stumbled upon a rather large saloon which had an area set up out the back for local songwriters and musicians to showcase their work, and the bartender was kind enough to take a whole bunch of fliers from me and put them out on the tables. The site got a bit of a boost as a result, although I hadn't really been expecting us to suddenly find ourselves as the next Google because of a few flyers handed out in small town America. For a moment, I thought about spending some time in each place I went just going around handing out flyers - but then I wondered about the legality of such an enterprise and came to the conclusion that I'd rather just carry on the trip and go home with some good memories rather than ending up rotting in a Stateside jail accused of leafleting without a license. I'm funny like that.

About Simon and Burfords Travels:

Simon Burford is a UK based travel writer. He will be re-publishing his travel blogs, chapters from his books and other miscellaneous rantings on these pages over the coming weeks and months, and the entry on this page may not necessarily reflect todays date.