The Hundredth Meridianrnby Chilton Williamson, Jr.rnEpic AmericarnUp in Oregon a woman was bathing in arnriver. The transistor radio she had set onrnthe bank played as she swam. She wasrnstill swimming when a movement fartherrnalong the bank caught her eye. Shernturned and saw Elvis disappearing intornthe woods on her side of the river. At thernsame moment “Heartbreak Hotel” camernon the radio.rnWe tend to regard Elvis sightings asrnexamples of a peculiarly contemporaryrnform of zaniness, yet the phenomenon ofrnautosuggestion induced by heroes orrncelebrities is probably as old as humanrnhistory itself People have been seeingrnMary the Mother of God for nearly twornmillennia, and the folk history of Europernis enriched by apparitions of figuresrnbeloved by the populace from their ownrntime, or earlier ones. The author of thernWobbly ballad claimed he saw Joe Hillrnlast night, and Lew Rockwell, in an adaptationrnof the Hill lyrics, saw MurrayrnRothbard. Popular icons, like left-wingrncauses, never die. So with Butch Cassidy,rnthe Sundance Kid. And so with thernother Kid, Billy—alias William Bonney,rnWilliam Antrim, and Kid Antrim —rnwhose actual name was Billy McCartyrnand who was born, probably, in Missourirnaround 1855 and grew up in Silver City,rnNew Mexico Territory. This worthyrnyouth was dispatched to bliss eternal byrnSheriff Pat Garrett at Fort Sumner, NewrnMexico, at midnight, July 14, 1881 —rnand almost immediately, as one of his biographersrnsays, the Billy the Kid of legendrncame alive. Since that night he hasrnbeen spotted many times throughout thernWest, and in Old Mexico. Not only forrnNew Mexico but the entire Southwest,rnBilly, who achieved fame and notorietyrnin the Lincoln County War, had beenrnadopted well before his death by muchrnof the Mexican population of the region,rnand also by many small cattlemen of thernAnglo-Saxon persuasion, as their championrnagainst the cattle interest. Pat Garrett’srnshot in the dark in Pete Maxwell’srnadobe house in Fort Sumner made himrna hero in certain circles only; beyondrnthem he was instantly branded as a cowardrnand a murderer, a hired gun of privilege.rnMany of the Kid’s fans to survivernthe following 27 years must have beenrngratified to learn of Garrett’s own murderrnfive miles east of Las Cruces on the Mail-rnScott Road (now Highway 70), where hernhad descended from Carl Adamson’srnbuggy to urinate and was shot twice inrnthe back of the head while assuming arnhighly indefensible position.rnThe literature, print and celluloid, ofrnviolence in the Old American West—rnthe Southwest especially—is vastrnenough to fill the Grand Canyon, whichrnfor the majority of Americans perhaps isrna less awesome phenomenon than thernbloody frontier saga evoked by namesrnlike Wyatt Earp, George Scarborough,rnand John Wesley Hardin, and eventsrnsuch as the shootout at the OK Corralrnand Jesse James laid in his grave by BobrnFord. Individually these are mythicrntales; collectively they amount to nothingrnless than the Great American Epicrnwith which we must be content, thernGreat American Novel having failed tornmake its advent among us. People whorndare to doubt that other American mythrncalled Progress are certainly entitled tornfind validation for their heresy in the culturalrndescent implied by the replacementrnof the quick-draw artist by thernpelvically oriented guitar-picker packingrna slower type of gun as the model ofrnAmerican manhood. Still, how is it thatrna commercial civilization dedicatedrnfrom the beginning to making Americarnsafe for making money and for keeping itrncan find not just enjoyment but inspirationrnin the spectacle of violent outlawryrnat the margin and beyond of orderedrnmiddle-class life and the rule of law?rnOne answer is the American tiadition ofrna comfortable and complacent gnosticismrnwhich understands American historyrnas a battle between good men and badrnones, a pitched fight between almostequalsrnin which the bad men, however,rnslowly lose ground and are conclusivelyrndefeated in the end. But on the frontierrnand in the wilderness conditions wererntoo fluid, the circumstances of existencerntoo uncertain, for romantic gnosticism tornenjoy more than superficial plausibility.rnScarborough, Garrett, Hardin, John Selmanrn—men like these constantly crossedrnand recrossed the boundary betweenrnlegal and illegal behavior, while the ambiguitiesrncharacteristic of a half-formedrnsociety made it often difficult for anyonern—themselves and others—to knowrnon which side of the line they actuallyrnstood. The position of the best men ofrnthis place and time was that of a Godfearingrnperson compelled to apply familiarrnmoral and theological axioms to hithertornunforeseen and unimaginablernsituations, in a totally ad hoc manner.rnWas Scarborough, in his pursuit ofrnrustlers in the southern territories of Arizonarnand New Mexico, acting as a casuallyrndeputized arm of the law or as thernpaid hitman of the cattle growers’ association?rnProbably he was both, unablernhimself to have said which.rnThe frontier ended about the samerntime Scarborough did, and today thernwilderness is a place where backpackersrngo to fornicate in the bosom of MotherrnGaia. The violence, though, has comerncreeping back into American life,rnspreading itself indiscriminately andrnwith democratic partiality around the nation:rnbig cities and small ones, suburbs,rnsmall towns, and the hinterland. Arnstrange time, you say, for the AmericanrnEpic to find favor, and of course thernusurper elite that operates America whilernattempting to dictate the tastes, interests,rnand enthusiasms of the people has beenrnworking very hard to discredit andrnexplode the epic for more than a generation.rnSo far its efforts have had onlyrnmixed success at the popular level,rnwhere audiences seem innocently tornmiss the heavy-handed revisionism ofrnmovies like Dances With Wolves (whichrnMARCH 1998/49rnrnrn