The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

Catfoot said he was ready to back it up anytime. “Just you name the bet,” he said, tossing off a drink.

Bill affected to think about it, stroking his mustaches while he poured the Catfoot another. Then he dug four fifty-dollar gold pieces out of his pocket and slapped them on the desktop. “I’ll put these against that fine new Mexican saddle of yours,” he said, “that you can’t take a crop off Hardin’s head tonight.”

Tom Carson told me later he was fairly sure Bill was just funning with the Catfoot, trying to get him to admit he wasn’t the sneakup he used to be, but I don’t know. If that was so, why didn’t he stop the Catfoot from going through with it when he saw he was really going to try? Tom’s answer was that Bill must of thought Hardin would treat it as a joke if he caught Catfoot in the act. Yeah, sure. Shows how damn blind Tom could make himself when it came to Bill’s mean side, that’s what I think.

Anyhow, later that night, there we were, me and Tom and the Catfoot, standing in the shadows across the street from the American House, watching Hardin and his cousin Gip Clements going in after a night on the town. There was a moon out and the Catfoot’s eyes were shining with excitement as much as from all the whiskey he’d put down. His breath could’ve killed bugs. He was carrying a straight razor he’d honed for an hour. “I guess old Longhair will sure enough have to admit who’s the best sneakup in the world after tonight, hey?” He gave us a grin and vanished into the shadows.

We passed the time watching the hotel and listening to the music from the saloons and parlor houses on the next block, the lowing of the cattle at the rail yard, the shouts and yahoos in the distance, the now-and-then sound of breaking glass followed by high female laughter. The damn town did know how to have a good time.

And then bam-bam-bam!—gunshots from the American House. There were three more as we raced across the street and charged into the lobby. “Upstairs!” the desk clerk yelled, peeking around from behind the counter.

The hallway reeked of gunsmoke. The Catfoot was curled up on the floor in a mess of blood, wide-eyed dead. He was hugging something tight against his chest, which turned out to be Hardin’s pants—the cousin’s too. Damn fool must of thought it’d be funny to take them back to Bill along with the lock of hair that he had gripped in one hand. There was no sign of the razor.

The Catfoot’s blood trailed back to a shut door a few feet down the hall. For a moment I couldn’t hear a thing but my own hard breathing—and then I heard a soft scuffling coming from inside the room. Tom heard it too, and signaled to me to cover him, then ran up beside the door with his pistol cocked. Behind us the stairs were suddenly full of stomping boots and loud voices. “Give it up, Hardin!” Tom hollered at the door.

Then Bill and Mike were in the hallway, both carrying shotguns. They had to have been damn close by to get up there as quick as they did. Bill hardly glanced at the Catfoot. He cocked the shotgun and nodded at Tom and Tom gave the door a hell of a kick, busting it open wide. Bill thrust the shotgun in the doorway and fired both barrels. Christ! In that little hallway the blasts were loud as dynamite.

I followed Tom and Bill through the door, ready to shoot anything that moved, but the room was empty. I couldn’t hear anything for the ringing in my ears. Bill rushed to the window to take a look out on the portico and down in the alley. I peeked over his shoulder and saw Steve looking up at us, waving his arms and yelling something. I saw Bill’s lips say “Shit!” He shoved me aside and hustled out of the room with the rest of us on his tail.

There was a crowd of drunks and curious citizens already gathered on the street. Bill pulled Steve back into the alley to question him out of their hearing. Steve looked ready to cry—and Bill looked ready to hit him. Steve said Hardin and Clements had dropped down off the portico and got the jump on him. Hardin held a razor to his throat while Clements relieved him of his shotgun and pistol. They’d grabbed the nearest two horses off the front hitching post and rode off together to the end of town. Then one kept going on the south road and the other broke off to the east. He didn’t know which was Hardin. Except for their hats and boots, they’d both been in their underclothes.

That shut us all up a moment. We were all thinking the same thing. Mike was the first to chuckle about it. Then Tom gave a little snort like he was fighting to hold it back, and I felt myself grinning hard. I mean, I could just see it—Hardin the mankiller hightailing it out of Abilene in his underwear. Then all three of us busted out laughing, and then Steve couldn’t help but join in. Bill tried not to. He looked up at the stars and stroked his mustaches like he was trying to think of something else, but he couldn’t pull it off, and in another minute all five of us were laughing like loonies. We just stood there in the alley, laughing and laughing, with a crowd of citizens gawking at us from the street. “They looked like plucked chickens!” Steve said—and we all doubled up again. It was a good minute before we got ourselves under control and dried our eyes.

Bill cleared his throat and then said in a loud professional voice, so all the citizens could hear, “This one ain’t no self-defense, not when the dead man’s got no gun nor any other weapon on him.” I thought of the razor and gave him a look, but he stared me down quick. “You deputies,” he said, still in that loud politician’s voice, “you get the chance, you shoot him on sight.”

He sent Mike and Steve to hunt for the fugitive who took the east trail, and told me and Tom to search for the one who went south. If we hadn’t picked up a trail by midmorning we were to turn back for home. We saddled up and rode out hard, thinking we might gain some ground on our quarry if he thought he was safely distant and had slowed down.

Just after sunup me and Tom came across one of Jake Johnson’s cattle camps. The ramrod was a fella named Coran, who said they hadn’t seen any sign of Wes Hardin or Gip Clements, but invited us to have some biscuit and molasses and a cup of coffee. We were much obliged—and mighty hungry after riding all night. I was just started on my second biscuit when a voice directly behind us said, “Hands up, sonbitches, or I’ll turn you into dogmeat.” He’d got some clothes from somebody, and it was Steve’s shotgun he was holding on us.

The bastard made us take off all our clothes. I mean every single damn stitch, right down to our bare feet. He had the saddles taken off our horses and thrown in the river, together with our guns and boots. Then he told us to mount up bareback—but he had to tell us twice because we couldn’t hardly hear him for all the laughing them cowhands were doing at the sight of our white buck-nekkid asses and our peters and balls all a-dangle in the bright sunshine. Hardin told us not to bother trying to circle around to another outfit to ask for clothes. He’d already sent the word out for none of the outfits to help us. “Only thing any Texas outfit’ll give you skinned rabbits is a bullet in the ass,” he said. We rode off with their laughter ringing in our red ears.

As soon as we went over a distant rise and out of their sight, I reined up and told Tom I wasn’t going back to Abilene. We’d never be able to live down the shame, I told him. He said it was shameful all right, but there wasn’t anything to do but face the music. No, sir, I said, not me. The music we’d face would be humiliating laughter, and we’d hear it every time we stepped out in the public streets for the rest of our days in Abilene. Tom was hangdog as ever I’d seen, but he said there wasn’t no choice, not for him, he had to go back. I called him a fool for it, but he just shrugged and rode off.

I angled off to the west before turning south, and rode for most of the day without seeing another living soul until I came on a team of buffalo wagons just before sunset. I smelled them before I caught sight of them. The wagons were heaped high with the stiff flat-cured hides they’d taken on the high plains. Naturally the skinners all had a good laugh at the sight of me. I was bright red with sunburn, and was already peeling where the blistered skin had bust open. Even my peter was burned. It was pure pain to put on the shirt and pants and moccasins they spared me, especially since the clothes were so stiff with dried blood and gore. I near choked on the stink of them, but I counted myself lucky to have something to wear, and I thanked the skinners kindly. Their generosity extended to a bundle of buffalo jerky, a canteen of water, and a rank old blanket to use for a saddle. Then they went their way and I went mine.

Later on I heard tell that Tom Carson had met his humiliation like a man. And after they’d had their laughs and their fill of jokes at his expense, the town showed Tom even more respect than ever before, and I mean Wild Bill too. Damn.

BLOOD, LETTINGS

The El Paso Daily Herald,

20 AUGUST 1895