The Return of Little Big Man presents a large array of historical figures, recreated from the available historical accounts and memoirs of observers and participants in the saga of the settling of the West. Among the characters who make appearances are Wild Bill Hickok, Bat Masterson, Wyatt Earp, Buffalo Bill Cody, Calamity Jane, Sitting Bull, Rain-in-the-Face, Annie Oakley, her husband Frank Butler, Doc Holliday and his companion "Big Nose" Kate Elder, Allie Earp (Virgil Earp's wife and Wyatt's enemy), and Libby Custer. Some of these figures have only cameo roles without much bearing on Crabb's own odyssey. Others play a more significant role in the narrative, as a few brief illustrations will show.

For instance, Wild Bill Hickok is still the egotistical career gunman of the earlier novel, but he is now seen as aging and filled with intimations of his own mortality. In various ways, he is...