Forty Times a Killer (22 page)

John Wesley would not hear a bad word about Brown Bowen. “He's kin. And in Texas, kin don't betray each other.”

“Wes, he's vermin and the only reason you put up with him is because he's your brother-in-law,” I said.

Wes's temper was always an uncertain thing, and it flared. “And you? What about you? Why the hell do I put up with you?”

“I don't know.”

“Neither do I. All you're good for is stinking up the place and sticking it to that Flood gal whose face would scare a cur off a gut wagon.”

“Wes, don't say things like that about Alice,” I said, my own anger rising.

“Then take back what you said about Brown. I won't have the likes of you ragging on my kinfolk.”

I shook my head. “Wes, he's a yellow-belly and sly as a fox. He'll sell you down the river to save his own worthless neck.”

“The hell with you, Little Bit.” Wes's lip curled. “Go back to your two-dollar whore.”

I hit him then.

I mean, I hit him on the chin with all the power of my eighty pounds and little bony fist.

Wes wore his guns and he'd killed men for less. But for a moment he looked shocked, and then mildly amused, the red welt on his chin no bigger than a mosquito bite.

“Don't ever talk about Alice like that again.” I was breathing hard, angry as hell, and more than a little scared.

To my surprise—and considerable relief—Wes didn't utter another word. He just turned on his heel and walked away.

He never again mentioned Alice's name in my presence, even when we got married while he was in jail.

He could have killed me that day, but didn't.

That says something about him that's all to the good, doesn't it?

 

 

For the next few days, the relationship between Wes and me was frosty and we exchanged few words.

But he made no objection when I asked if I could join him on his gambling trip to Pensacola, saying only, “You're on your own, so just don't ask me for money.”

Later, I branded the date of our trip into my memory. August 24, 1877.

The day that John Wesley Hardin's long martyrdom began.

 

 

In addition to myself, Wes travelled with fellow gamblers Shep Hardy, Neal Campbell, and Jim Mann, a nice young fellow who'd just celebrated his twenty-first birthday. Notably absent was Brown Bowen who was supposed to make the journey with us.

When the train pulled into the Pensacola depot, Wes decided to linger in the smoking car to finish his pipe and sprawled on a seat alongside the aisle. Mann and I stayed with him, while Hardy and Campbell got off to stretch their legs.

We'd shared a bottle on the trip from Alabama and I was tipsy. I'd say Wes was relaxed and young Mann, who wasn't a drinker, coughed around the black cheroot between his teeth.

No sooner had the locomotive clanked and steamed to a halt, than a man who walked with a limp sat in the aisle seat opposite Wes.

I later learned this was the famous John B. Armstrong, who'd accidentally shot himself in the crotch a few weeks earlier. Unfortunately, he'd missed his balls.

Something about the man made me uneasy, especially when he moved in his seat and I saw the handle of a Colt sticking out of his waistband.

A few moments later, two big, muscular men barged down the aisle, throwing off drunks and laggards, and I knew that the law was about to open the ball.

“Wes! Look out!” I yelled.

John Wesley moved with the reaction of a panther. “Texas, by God!” he yelled as he rose halfway out of his seat.

You're too late, Wes!

The pair of lawmen jumped on top of him, even as Wes tried to draw his Colt from his waistband. But the hammer stuck in his suspenders and one of the lawmen wrenched it from his hand.

Then it became a free for all.

Wes punched and bit, but the big lawmen pounded him into his seat. His face was soon covered with blood and saliva.

Armstrong sprang to his feet, a long-barreled Colt in his hand.

Young Jim Mann didn't recognize Wes's assailants as lawmen. “Assassins!” he yelled, drawing his gun.

Armstrong fired and Mann slammed back into his seat, his chest pumping blood from a dead-center bullet wound. He died within seconds.

I rushed at Armstrong, my puny fists flying, but he pushed me away and I fell on my back on the carriage floor.

The Ranger ignored me and joined his fellow lawmen. He didn't take part in the struggle, but waited his opportunity with his clubbed pistol raised.

He didn't have to tarry long.

As soon as he got a clear shot at Wes, he crashed the barrel of his Colt into Wes's skull.

Wes didn't cry out. He just went limp. Within seconds, they shackled him hand and foot. His hair was matted with blood, his face a vivid, scarlet mask. His head lolled on his shoulders when they dragged him to his feet, no fight left in him.

My God, my knight had fallen!

Enraged, I scrambled to a standing position and was greeted by the muzzle of Armstrong's revolver ramming into my forehead.

“Call it.” The Ranger thumbed back the hammer of the Colt and its triple click sounded like my death knell.

“Call it.” he said again. His eyes were bloodshot and wild. Flecks of saliva foamed on his lips.

I am not cut from heroic cloth. “I'm out of it.”

“Then get the hell away of here,” Armstrong said.

After one last glimpse at the unconscious John Wesley, blinded by salt tears, I stampeded from the car.

Behind me I heard Armstrong yell, “And take a bath!”

Men laughed as I stumbled onto the platform and into . . . I knew not what.

That evening I got drunk on somebody else's money. I had to since I had no funds of my own. I rolled a drunk in an alley. I'm not proud of what I did, but desperate times required desperate measures.

The man was taking a piss against the wall of the Penitent Pelican saloon and I crept up behind him and hit him over the head with a bottle. After he dropped, I went through his pockets and found twenty-three dollars, a nickel railroad watch, and a small Roman Catholic medal with an image of the Virgin Mary that, never being inclined to popery, I stuffed back into his vest.

The man started to groan and attempted to rise, and I scampered.

I bought a bottle of Old Crow, and, since the stores were still open, a necklace for Alice—a small, enameled bluebird on a silver chain.

I thought the necklace was pretty, but before I could give it to my sweetheart, I lost it.

I drank myself into oblivion and spent the night on a park bench. No one troubled me because in those days Pensacola was full of homeless vagrants like me.

Come first light, I breakfasted on the last inch of whiskey in the bottle, then went in search of Wes.

I didn't get far. After but a few steps, I collapsed in the street, overtaken by the stress of my friend's capture and the liquor I'd drunk.

I recall the disgusted faces of women looking down at me, then, after I returned from unconsciousness again, the jolting misery of a wagon and a clear blue sky passing above me.

After that, I knew nothing until I woke in darkness. For a few minutes, I lay still and listened to the chatter of insects and the rustles and gibbering cries of forest animals.

Where the hell was I?

I rose to a sitting position and my head reeled. It took a while before the darkness ceased to cartwheel around me. Then came the slow, terrible dawning that I was alone in a vast wilderness. Dusky moonlight revealed a forest of scrub pine, live oak, and tangles of bushes with wide, leathery leaves. It also shone on the sheet of white paper pinned to the front of my coat.

I tore the paper free, then, after much squinting, read

It was easy to put together what had happened. I'd been loaded into a wagon and dumped outside the city limits—well outside, if the backcountry where I found myself was any indication.

Had they gotten rid of me because of vagrancy, or was it that I'd been identified as a friend of John Wesley?

I decided on the former. I wasn't significant enough to be taken seriously as a Hardin associate. I'd just been dumped like so much garbage littering the street.

A goblin gets used to that.

I still had fifteen dollars and change in my pocket—enough, I hoped, to see me across the border into Alabama and my darling Alice. She would have news of Wes.

I'd ridden the cushions to Pensacola, but I'd have to walk at least part of the way. I figured some long miles across rough country on a bad leg until I found another town with a railroad depot. I may have well thought about walking to the moon.

I had no option but to try.

Come morning, I padded my leg with the big green leaves of the plant that grew everywhere, then set out, pointing my nose to the east.

I was a hundred and fifty miles from Alice . . . and my long journey had begun.

 

 

The fine readers of this narrative are interested in the life and times of my friend and hero John Wesley Hardin, not Little Bit. So let me just say that my odyssey was a long and painful one, but after two weeks (Yes, that long. Such was my hobbling gait and occasional drunks until my money wore out) I arrived at the Bowen farm.

Alice welcomed me with a glad smile and open arms, but the Bowens did not. Brown had been arrested and was facing the hangman's noose. That cast a pall over the family.

I was once again relegated to the barn, told I could stay only a few days, and would have to work for my keep, helping Alice with her chores mostly. Again, this is all beside the point, because I did learn that Wes had been taken to Austin to stand trial for the murder of Charlie Webb.

My worst fear had finally caught up to me.

The night I arrived, Alice joined me in the barn, and she was worried. “You'll go to Austin, won't you?”

“I reckon Wes needs me more than ever now.”

“He won't be imprisoned, the public would never stand for it.”

I shook my head. “Alice, Wes has friends, but he's got some mighty powerful enemies who'd like to see him hang.”

Her eyes took on a dazed look, as though trying to understand the implications of what I'd just told her. Finally she said, “If you go to Austin, I'm going with you.”

“I'll have to walk, unless I can hitch the freight cars.” I remembered the railroad bull. “It's dangerous and I don't think you'd like that.”

“I have a little money. Enough to get us to Austin.”

“I don't want to take your money, Alice.”

“You said that John needs you. I don't think you can refuse my offer. How could you live with yourself if you desert him now because of masculine pride?”

I smiled. “I don't have any pride, masculine or otherwise.”

“Then we'll go to Austin together. I'll take pride in you.”

“You're a wonderful girl, Alice.” Then, because I had nothing to offer her, I said, “I bought you a present in Pensacola, but I lost it somewhere. It was a necklace, a bluebird on a chain.”

Women are full of surprises . . . and Alice surprised me then.

She reached into the pocket of her dress and brought out a little paper package. She opened it carefully, almost lovingly, and held up what it contained . . . a plain gold wedding band. She smiled. “This was my mother's wedding ring.” She laid her hand on mine. “William, the only present I want from you is the right to wear this ring on my left hand.”

“You mean—”

“Marry me in Austin.”

My words got tangled up in my throat and the only sound I could make was a strangled croak, like a bullfrog with a hernia.

Alice took her hand from mine and wrapped up the ring before returning it to her pocket. “You don't want to marry me,” she said, her eyes bruised.

“Of course I do,” I said, my voice coming back.

“Then why are you so hesitant?”

“After I check on Wes, we'll get hitched, I promise.”

“Do you really mean that? Can I trust you?”

“Yes I mean it, and yes you can.” I held out my open hand. “Give me the ring.” I placed the slim band on her wedding finger. “We'll make it official in Austin. Right after I see Wes.” I smiled. “I'm dying to tell him about us.”

Alice kissed me. “He was very good to you, wasn't he?”

“The only friend I ever had.”

“Then he'll dance at our wedding, William. I just know he will.”

The Travis County Courthouse in Austin was a brand new, three-story limestone building of breathtaking size, built in what was then called the Second Empire style.

Alice and I stood outside for a while, at the corner of Eleventh Street and Congress Avenue, and stared up at its ornate ironwork, palatial dormers, and lofty Mansard roof. We looked exactly what we were, a pair of open-mouthed rubes fresh in from the country with dung on our shoes.

The monumental, elegant courthouse dwarfed us into puny insignificance. For the first time in my life, I realized just how colossal was the edifice of the law and how effortlessly it could crush even a giant of a man like John Wesley Hardin.

In a small, nervous voice, Alice asked, “William, are you sure we can we go in there?”

“Of course we can,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “It's a big place, but remember that it belongs to the people of Texas.”

“People like me and you?”

“Yup, just like us.”

The
us
that morning was a less than imposing sight.

Lacking a portmanteau, Alice had tied up her few belongings in a sheet that she slung over her back. I still wore the huge army greatcoat and battered bowler hat. Underneath were pants, shirt, and shoes much the worse for wear.

When we walked into the echoing, marble magnificence of the building and asked for the clerk of court, the uniformed doorman looked as though someone was holding a dead fish under his nose. “What do you people want? Court is not in session today.”

“We're here to see a friend.” I dropped the name. “Mr. John Wesley Hardin.”

“All sorts of scoundrels”—the man looked hard at me—“are dragged through those doors. I can't be expected to remember their names. Come back tomorrow and talk to the clerk of court.”

Alice said in a tremulous whisper, “William, we can come back tomorrow.”

“Indeed,” the doorman said, “when court is in session.”

A tall young man in a dark gray suit, some sort of lawman's shield on his vest, walked past with a sheaf of papers in his hand. He stopped when he saw Alice and me.

“Everything all right, Mr. Murdoch?” he said to the doorman.

Before the man could answer, I said, “Sir, we're here to visit with our friend John Wesley Hardin.”

“I told you court is not in session today,” Murdoch said. “Now be off with you.”

“It's all right, Mr. Murdoch.” Then the young man spoke directly to Alice, perhaps because she was so nervous. “Mr. Hardin has already been tried and convicted of murder in the second degree. I'm afraid he was sentenced to twenty-five years at hard labor.”

I felt as though I'd been stabbed in the heart and Alice's face was as pale as an oyster.

“I'm sorry I have no better news for you.” The young man gave a little bow. “Good day to you both.”

“All right you two, out you go.” The doorman surprised me. “Hardin has appealed his sentence. Try the county jail behind us at 11th and Brazos.”

He slammed the door on our heels and for a few minutes we stood, struck dumb, at the corner.

The young man's words kept spearing through my mind . . . twenty-five years at hard labor . . . twenty-five years at hard labor....

For a freedom-loving knight errant like Wes, it was a death sentence.