The Passing of Black Eagle
Description
A beggar from New York gets discovered in Texas by someone trying to help him quit drinking. Thinking he's the famous bandit Black Eagle, he takes on a new name and rides away, but real outlaws and police start hunting him down as it becomes hard to tell what's real and what's just a story.
New York City's foremost panhandler—whom everyone calls Chicken, because he looks like one—is a meek fellow when drunk, but when sober has delusions of grandeur. Forced to sober up while wintering in the sunny southwest, Chicken is mistaken by people in Texas for legendary outlaw Black Eagle and is feared by everyone—until the leader of a band of outlaws decides to challenge him.
A New York panhandler found in Texas by a reformer is forced into sobriety. Believing himself the legendary outlaw Black Eagle, he rides out with a new identity, while outlaws and lawmen close in on him, and the line between man and myth begins to blur.
CBS Radio Mystery Theater is a radio drama series created by Himan Brown that was broadcast on CBS Radio Network affiliates from 1974 to 1982, and later in the early 2000s was repeated by the NPR satellite feed. In New York City it was not aired by the then all-news WCBS but by its originating station, WOR, which produced and announced it as simply Radio Mystery Theater.
Wikipedia. CC BY-SA 4.0. Updated Jul 16, 2026.
