In August 1876, Jack Jones, a reporter for a Chicago newspaper, is assigned to write about the doings of Deadwood, Dakota Territory—an illegal gold camp that knows no law. The lure of gold in the Lakota's Black Hills draws prospectors and many colorful characters, such as Al Swearengen, Calamity Jane, Colorado Charlie Utter, Seth Bullock, Madame Mustache, and Sol Star, and it also lures crime. After the shocking murder of an acquaintance, Jack Jones begins investigating an entire string of...

Kevin Costner's award-winning film, Dances With Wolves was first released in 1990. Dakota Epic is a first-hand account of the filming from an extra's viewpoint. Bill Markley, a reenactor on the set, kept a journal during the filming. "When I was selected to be in Dances With Wolves, I had no movie or reenacting experience, so everything was new to me." From a rookie's viewpoint, Bill takes us into the world of movie-making and reenacting. Experience the filming o...

God bless the United States and God bless New York City proclaimed a sign as the bus rolled through a small Indiana town. In October 2001, author Bill Markley was traveling by public bus from Pierre, South Dakota, to Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, Virginia, for a Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity celebration. The day Markley left South Dakota began simply enough, but soon tragedy unfolded when a deranged man of Croatian descent slit the throat of a Greyhound bus driver causing an accident and t...

In August 1876, Jack Jones, a reporter for a Chicago newspaper, is assigned to write about the doings of Deadwood, Dakota Territory—an illegal gold camp that knows no law. The lure of gold in the Lakota’s Black Hills draws prospectors and many colorful characters, such as Al Swearengen, Calamity Jane, Colorado Charlie Utter, Seth Bullock, Madame Mustache, and Sol Star, and it also lures crime. After the shocking murder of an acquaintance, Jack Jones begins investigating an entire string of...

Lewis and Clark's Corps of Discovery expedition conjures up images of high adventure. Up the Missouri River with Lewis and Clark tells of the beginning stages of the United States' first overland expedition to the Pacific Ocean. The men had to contend with shifting sandbars, treacherous currents, submerged trees, mosquitoes, rattlesnakes, wicked weather, disease, and unpredictable new people. Meet the men of the expedition-deserters, drunks, sergeants, and hunters. See how the fir...