Well, let me start my story by sayin’ that no one knows for certain where he come from. Some say that he was from the East, Virginia p’r’haps, a businessman who embezzled from his company and fled west. Others, that he originally come east out of San Francisco, a Forty-niner that never found his gold, taken to wandering the Arizona Territory for years. Yet others, that he was wanted for murder in Chicago or that he deserted from the Apache War. Ain’t no one knows for sure.

Everyone agrees that he lived at Fly’s for quite a spell, and that he darkened Allen and Fremont Streets, lookin’ for negotiable chow, hooch and affection, if you take my meanin’. There’s also no question that he was a miserable cuss.

He never had a good word for no one, but was quicker with his sharp tongue than an old sharpshooter on the draw. Friendless and with a voice full of venom, people thought he’d die at the business end of a gun.

No one ever asked him for his name so far as I know, and the Nameless Man never offered it.