Forty Times a Killer (14 page)

We rode into Abilene through a blue dawn and the town was sound asleep. All the dust and drama of the night before had been laid to rest with the rising of the sun. Like Mr. Stoker's vampires, Wild Bill and the rest of the sporting crowd were abed behind shades and would not rise again until the sun began its scarlet descent to the horizon.

When we reached the doctor's house, Wes lifted me from the saddle and carried me inside without effort, as though his arms cradled a child.

Doctor John Henderson, a young man with black hair and earnest brown eyes, directed Wes to sit me on the edge of the examination table.

Wes handed the physician my leg brace. “This is his. It gave him a sore”—he pointed to the top of his thigh—“right there.”

Doc Henderson's nurse was middle-aged and not pretty. She had one of those tight, prim mouths you see on women who exist on a diet of prune juice and scripture. Her eyes were small, blue, and intolerant. She snatched the brace out of Wes's hand. “Please be seated in the waiting room.”

Then it was lecture time. “The carrying of firearms is not permitted in Abilene.”

“So I've been told,” Wes said. “Doc, holler when you need me.”

After Wes stepped out of the room, the doctor examined me. “How long have you had this?”

I nodded at the brace. “Off and on, as long as I've been wearing that.”

“For the time being, we'll keep the wound wet and make sure it doesn't get infected,” Henderson said. “Don't wear the brace until I get this healed.” He smiled at me. “Can you do that? Will your friends find you a place to stay and help you get around?”

“Oh sure, Doc.” Of course, that was a boldfaced lie.

Without the brace, I'd have to lie in bed. Where? And who would look after me? Wes might push me around in a wheelchair for a while, but then he'd get bored, ride out of town, and leave me to my own devices.

Abilene was not a place for an impoverished, helpless cripple. Without the brace, all I'd be able to do was die of neglect and starvation.

“Just do what you can, Doc,” I said.

Doctor Henderson put various salves on the wound, one of them that smelled suspiciously of honey, and then he bandaged the wound.

Wes was called back to the surgery and the doc said, “Your friend will need plenty of bed rest and help getting around.”

“What about his brace?” Wes asked.

“He can't wear it until his wound heals,” Henderson said.

“Can he ride?”

“No. I'm afraid not.”

“Just as far as Texas,” Wes said.

The doctor smiled. “Not as far as the edge of town.”

To say that Wes looked unhappy is an understatement. It was obvious that taking care of an invalid didn't enter into his thinking.

“He's not even kin,” he said.

That comment raked across my heart like a knife blade. It hurt a sight worse than my leg.

“I'm sure you will help,” the doctor said.

“It's Christian charity after all,” the nurse said.

“Then you take care of him, lady,” Wes said.

“Wes, I'll be no trouble,” I said. “I promise.” God help me, I even winked at him, trying to allay his fears.

It didn't work.

“How long will it take his leg to heal, Doc?” Wes asked.

Henderson shrugged. “It's too early to tell. Weeks, maybe a couple months.”

Wes looked at me with an odd mix of pity and irritation.

“The patient is not strong. He's suffering from malnutrition and, I suspect, alcohol abuse. The prognosis is far from good.”

“But with God's grace and abstinence, he can recover,” the nurse said.

“Yes. Yes indeed,” the doc said. “But he'll need first rate care.”

That was not what John Wesley wanted to hear. “Hell, we could be snowed in here come winter.”

Henderson smiled. “Come fall, you mean.” He glanced at the door. “Well, I have other patients waiting.” To me he said, “Keep the dressing clean and come back and see me at the end of the week. Nurse Meadows will let you out.”

“Your bill for today will be two dollars.” The woman gave me a hard look that said
And don't even think of telling me you can't pay it.

Desperate, Wes clutched at a straw. “Doc, can he stay here with you? That way you can treat him real good. He's quiet and doesn't eat much.” Then, as an afterthought, “And he has some money.”

Henderson shook his head. “I'm afraid that's impossible. I don't run a hospital here.” He smiled. “Now, if you'll excuse me?”

It was obvious from Wes's hangdog expression that he knew he'd run out of space on the dance floor. He picked me up and stepped to the door.

Nurse Meadows let us out and handed Wes my brace. “Two dollars, please,” she said when the door of the surgery closed behind us.

“Pay the lady, Little Bit.”

 

 

Outside, Wes lifted me into the saddle, then led my horse and his in the direction of the Alamo. The day had brightened and a few women in morning dresses were out and about, shopping baskets over their arms, faces set and determined as they hunted only the best bargains.

A brewer's dray trundled past, the barrels creaking against their retaining ropes. The team of four magnificent Percherons in the traces had hooves as big as soup plates, and I fancied one of those would be the ideal knightly mount for Quentin Durward.

Wes had been fuming silently since we left the doctor's office, but as we passed an alley on our left, I intruded into his quiet. “Wes, lead my horse into the alley there.”

“Hell, piss at the Alamo,” Wes said.

“I want to put my brace back on.”

“The doc told you not to do that.”

“Yeah, well I'm doing it. The doctor told me not to drink, and I'm doing that, too.”

“Your funeral,” Wes said, frowning.

Secretly, I think he was relieved.

Once in the alley I sat down, dropped my pants, and buckled on the steel cage. The doc had wrapped a fat bandage around the top of my thigh and when I stood I discovered that it padded the wound pretty good.

“How does it feel?” Wes asked.

“All right.”

He stared at me and wrinkled his nose. “You sat in dog crap.”

John Wesley decided against the Alamo where we'd be likely to run into Wild Bill and instead we headed for the American Hotel, less grand but safer.

Not that Wes was afraid of Bill, but he knew he'd get used up in a gunfight, even if he proved the victor. Wild Bill was no bargain. He had sand. He'd take his hits and put lead into a man as long as he'd strength to pull the trigger.

As Wes told me, “Let sleeping dogs lie.”

Gip Clements was in town and he joined us at the bar of the hotel saloon where we proceeded to get pretty drunk.

Wes had taken the wise precaution of keeping our horses close and under saddle. I believe his carefulness saved his life later that night.

A friend of Gip's, a man named Charlie Cougar, joined us at the bar. I didn't know the fellow, but he seemed a good sort and stood his round. So I have nothing bad to say about him . . .

Except that he snored with a racket like a freight train in a tunnel.

Now, people often ask me, “Is it true that John Wesley Hardin killed a man for snoring?”

And my answer is, “Well, he did, but it was an accident.”

As Wes said later, “Hell, it was all Cougar's fault. How was I to know he'd sit up in bed the very moment I fired a warning shot across his bow?”

Some of you may have a different opinion on that killing, but in my heart of hearts, I can't blame Wes. By one in the morning all four of us were roaring drunk, talking nonsense and seeing double.

Wes said, “I don't want to meet Wild Bill in this state so we should go to bed and sleep off the whiskey.”

Gip and Charlie agreed that it sounded like an excellent plan and so did I, though nobody much cared about my opinion.

Wes booked a room for all of us, but Charlie insisted on sleeping alone, so he got the one adjoining.

Staggering, Wes and Gip threw off their clothes and, wearing only their long johns, threw themselves on the bed and were asleep within seconds.

Me, I found myself a corner and tried to make myself as comfortable as I could. My hurting leg was numbed by whiskey, but the rough pine floor was hard and I couldn't drop off.

Ten, fifteen minutes passed . . . and then the snoring erupted.

Remember, the partition walls in frontier hotels were paper-thin and the noise of Cougar's snoring was horrific, a racketing ripsaw roar that reverberated around the room and rattled the portrait of Robert E. Lee on the wall.

Gip shot up in bed like a man waking from a nightmare. “What the hell is that?”

“Charlie Cougar is snoring,” I said. “Seems like.”

“Hey, Charlie!” Gip yelled. “Turn over for God's sake. You're waking up the whole damned town.”

Cougar's bed creaked, the snoring stopped and Gip's head, that seemed to be as heavy as an anvil, hit the pillow again.

A slow count to ten . . . and the stentorian serenade of the ear-shattering slumberer started again.

Wes sat up and groped for the Colt on his bedside table. “I'll scare them snores the hell out of him.” He thumbed three fast shots through the partition wall . . . and the snoring abruptly stopped, followed by the sound of a body hitting the wood floor.

For a few moments, Wes listened into the cold, echoing silence, then he whispered, “Hell, Gip, I think I shot too low.”

Gip nodded. “I think you did. I reckon you done for ol' Charlie an' no mistake.”

This verdict was confirmed when voices were raised in the hallway and on the stairwell.

“Get the marshal!” a man yelled.

I heard the door to Cougar's room open and then a woman shrieked, “Murder! Murder!”

Gip Clements jumped out of bed, put on his hat, and pulled on his boots. “Wes, I'm heading back to Texas. Wild Bill will gun us fer sure.”

“I'm with you,” Wes said.

I crossed to the window and looked out, just as a hack pulled up and disgorged four deputies. “The law!” I yelled.

Gip ran to the window, saw that the lawmen were already inside the hotel, and jumped.

Like Gip, wearing only his underwear, boots, gun belt, and hat, Wes was ready to follow when I yelled, “What about me?”

Without a word, he picked me up and threw me through the open window. I fell two floors and hit the sandy ground with a thump.

A moment later, Wes landed feet first beside me. “Let's go!” he hollered.

I thanked my lucky stars that I fell on my butt. If I' d landed on the steel brace it would have split me open like a ripe watermelon.

Wes hauled me to my feet and we made a dash for the horses, still saddled in the hotel corral. Well, I didn't dash, but Gip and Wes did.

The moon was up and Texas Street was bathed in a soft, mother-of-pearl light that was soon streaked by gunfire. Balls thudded around me as Wes and Gip rode out of the corral, Gip leading my horse.

Fear helped me climb into the saddle and we rode out of Abilene at a gallop, followed by searching gunfire and a cloud of yellow dust.

Wes pulled his horse beside mine, laughing, and yelled, “Damn, Little Bit, I never shot a man for snoring before.” He shook his head. “I guess there's a first time for everything.”

That reminds me to hammer home the point I made before. I'm sick and tired of some rooster coming up to me and asking, “Is it true that Hardin shot three men for snoring?”

Sometimes it's three men, sometimes four, and even five.

Let me put the record straight yet again. Wes shot only one man for snoring and it was an accidental killing. Nobody can pin a murder charge on him. Hell, if you want to blame somebody, blame Charlie Cougar for sitting up in bed at the wrong time.

We rode into Texas in August.

To my surprise, Wes talked about hanging up his guns and going straight. “It's time to get the Wild West show organized, Little Bit. I reckon we could be up and running in a year, maybe less.”

“Gip, you reckon the Clements boys will help us?” I asked.

“Sure they will. And Wes has kinfolk all over Texas who'll pitch in money. You can lay to that.”

I was pleased that John Wesley was finally considering a settled, peaceful way of life. “We have cowboys aplenty, Wes. Now all we need is some tame Indians.”

“A lot of them around,” he said.

“Where?”

“Oh, up Montana way and places. Blanket Indians they call them, since they got whipped by the army and depend on government beef. They're a raggedy-assed bunch, but with some paint and feathers, they'll work just fine.”

I smiled. “Wes, you know, I think we can do it.”

“Damn right we can. And we can round up buffalo by the hundreds. The Plains are covered with them.” He drew rein then stood in the stirrups, a young man, eyes alight dreaming his dream. “Think of it, boys”—he made a sweeping, circular motion with his hand, building a stadium in the air—“an Injun buffalo hunt right there in the arena . . . the buffalo stampeding around and around, the savages whooping and hollering and shooting arrows, the dust, the noise . . . the crowd cheering.”

“Hell, Wes, folks will pay big money to see that,” Gip said, catching Wes's enthusiasm.

“Damn right they will,”

“But don't you go shooting them Redskins,” Gip said. “You'll need them alive.”

“Nah, I'm done with all that. From now on, John Wesley Hardin is a respectable businessman, an entre . . . ontre . . .”

“Entrepreneur,” I supplied.

“Yeah, that's what I am,” Wes said.

You'd be right in saying that Wes was really happy . . . and so was I.

As usual, I should have known better.

John Wesley was born under a dark star. Its light was black . . . black as midnight. Sometimes a man can't get out from under that somber glow, no matter how hard he tries.

I didn't know it then, but I know it now. Wes was doomed from the moment he was born . . . and, God help me, I hastened his inevitable end.

 

 

A month later, we rode up on the Clements homestead in Gonzales County. It was more fortress than home, a frame cabin with a shingle roof, the windows backed by heavy oak shutters. The walls were covered with gun ports and pockmarked by bullets.

At that time the saying was, “If you're a fugitive from Yankee justice and on the scout, there's a welcome waiting for you at the Clements' house.” Wes and I relaxed for a time, enjoying the peace and quiet. Indeed, his guns hung on a nail in the wall the whole time we were there.

He had once been sweet on a girl whose pa owned a general store in Nopal, a small town up in De Witt County close to the Gonzales County line. Along about October, he decided to ride up there and get reacquainted.

Of course, I decided to go with him.

“To keep me out of trouble, Little Bit?” he asked.

“To keep that Bowen girl out of trouble.”

Wes laughed.

 

 

Neill Bowen welcomed us to his store with a smile, and then told us to help ourselves to cheese and crackers while he dealt with another customer.

Nopal was a dusty, ramshackle little burg, scorched by sun and scourged by wind. It didn't have a single redeeming feature, no place to go where you shouldn't be, not even a saloon. I think a hundred people existed there, maybe less.

John Wesley would soon put that miserable, humble little hamlet on the map.

The trouble began a few minutes after we arrived when a black state policeman, wearing brown canvas pants and a faded blue shirt stepped into the store. He was a tall, lean, muscular man who wore a Colt cavalry style on his right hip. His name was Green Paramore and he'd killed his man in the past, but I didn't learn that until later.

The Negro and Wes saw each other at the same time, but Wes was trying to live up to his peaceful ways. “There's crackers and cheese, but eat them outside.”

The lawman wasn't much of a one for conversation. He skinned his Colt and said, “Hardin, throw up your hands or I'll drop you right where you stand. You're under arrest for murder.”

Wes, always a consummate actor, pretended to be nervous. “Look out, old fellow. That iron is likely to go off, and I don't want to be shot by accident.”

“Then unlimber those pistols and hand them over,” Paramore said. “I see a fancy move and I'll kill you.”

“Very well then. You've got the drop on me fair and square.” Wes slowly and carefully drew his Colts from the holsters and extended them to the lawman, butts forward.

I knew what was about to happen next and the breath bunched in my throat.

Suddenly those pistols cartwheeled and flamed lead.

Paramore, his eyes bugging out in his black face like boiled eggs, took two balls in the forehead and dropped as though his legs had been swept from under him, dead before he hit the floor.

“John Wesley,” Neill Bowen yelled. “Outside!”

Wes stepped over the body of the dead man and hurried to the door.

John Lackey, a mulatto policeman from Tennessee, sat astride a fractious mule, but he snapped off a shot at Wes and missed.

Wes fired and the man toppled out of the saddle. Squealing like a strangled piglet, he quickly climbed on board again and lit a shuck, flapping his chaps.

Wes thought this so comical he didn't fire again, contenting himself to double up with laughter.

I didn't laugh. I knew that after this shooting, hard times would come down fast.

And they did.