The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

rail. As they swung up into the saddles, somebody shouted, “Here! Over here, goddamnit!” They galloped off as a barrage of gunfire cut loose behind them. Gunfire and curses.

As the front doors banged open I ducked behind the bar and hunkered down—I don’t know why, I was no outlaw. “Don’t shoot, you dumb shits!” Jack Wright cried out.

Boot heels pounded the floor. A terrible apparition in a red beard suddenly loomed above the bar, glaring down at me from the far end of the twin barrels of a shotgun. The muzzle was bare inches from my face and looked like death’s own portals. My fear was paralytic—I could not speak.

The barrels abruptly flew upward and discharged and blew a hole in Jack Wright’s ceiling the size of a frying pan. Sheriff John had snatched up the gun an instant before the redbeard pulled the triggers.

He shoved the man away and peered over the counter at me. “Holden,” he said, “are you all right?” As dust and splinters and flakes of paint descended gently on my head, I felt the content of my bladder spreading warmly over my lap.

The next two weeks were the most violent in Comanche’s young history—a fortnight of marauding and murder and vigilante justice, if justice it can be called. The events that followed did not, of course, possess the orderly coherence with which I now present them. It was a time of furious confusion, erratic report, wild and frightening rumor. Not until after the terrible culmination of those events was I able to reconstruct them in proper sequence and perspective.

Within minutes of Wesley’s escape, the town square was swarming with Brown County deputies. No, not deputies—vigilantes. Vigilan tes is what they were. They were joined by a number of armed Comanche residents who held grudges against the Hardins. The streets were in full clamor to hunt down Charlie Webb’s killers. Less than an hour later, posses were in pursuit.

That evening a contingent of Frontier Battalion Rangers arrived in town. They were under the command of Captain A. E. Waller, who went by the name Bill and who swiftly took charge of the manhunt. His orders from Austin were to capture or kill the outlaw John Wesley Hardin and every member of his gang who was with him when they did, and he duly authorized all vigilante possemen to carry out those orders.

Wesley and his friends rode directly from Comanche to Preacher Hardin’s house, about two miles northwest of town. They were met there by Joe, the Preacher, and Sheriff John. While Jane tended Wesley’s wound, the men discussed the possibilities. They all agreed Wesley had acted in self-defense and should therefore be acquitted in a fair trial, but Sheriff John said if the mob got to him it was likely he’d never be allowed to stand trial at all, never mind get a fair one. It was a blood-smelling mob they were dealing with, he said, and he wouldn’t be able to protect any of them against it. But the Rangers were coming, and Preacher Hardin wondered if they could be trusted to be fair with Wesley. Sheriff John said maybe. But when he got back to town and met Captain Waller, he knew there was no chance of that, either.

As soon as Wesley’s wound was bound, they fled to Round Mountain, some eight miles west of town. They really did believe the town’s fury would slacken, and that once the Brown County posse went back home they would be able to return to Comanche and justify themselves. However, when Joe and the Preacher saw the continuing hubbub in the streets, and when guards were posted at their homes, and when they learned of Captain Waller’s devout intention to see Wesley dead or jailed, they began to comprehend the full gravity of the situation.

The next morning Joe and the Dixons rode out of town before sunup, trailing a brace of racehorses on lead ropes. They were followed by a Ranger posse, but the Dixons were masters of the brush country and they managed to lose the Rangers in the mesquite thickets several miles outside of town. While the posse beat the bushes in search of their trail, Joe and the Dixons made their roundabout way to Wesley and informed him of the town’s deadly mood. Joe advised him to remain in hiding awhile longer. In addition to the fresh mounts, they’d brought plenty of food and ammunition, and Joe promised to return the next day with the latest news.

But as soon as they got back to Comanche, Joe and the Dixons were arrested and clapped shut in the courthouse jail. Captain Waller charged them all with giving aid to the fugitives, though they denied having done so. Captain Bill wasn’t the only one angered with them. There was mean muttering all over town about “those damned Hardins and all their kin.”

Then Preacher Hardin and his family—as well as Jane and young Molly—were taken to Joe’s house and there kept under arrest, together with Joe’s wife and children. Alec Barrickman’s family was also put under heavy guard and not permitted to leave the premises or receive visitors.

Wesley must’ve thought his family was still at his daddy’s, however, because he tried sneaking up to the house one evening. He was spotted by one of the dozen guards posted around the property and all hell broke loose. In the poor twilight visibility, the excited and confused guards mistook each other for members of the Hardin Gang and shot it out for several furious minutes. Wesley escaped—and without having fired a shot, he left two dead and five wounded possemen behind him. Captain Bill’s rage was apoplectic.

Now Doc Brosius showed up. He had arrived at Hamilton with the herd as planned, and then, wholly oblivious to the situation in Comanche, he had come to town to find Wesley. When he said he was looking for his boss, Wes Hardin, he was promptly arrested. He was interrogated for hours, then put behind bars. In the meantime, Waller sent a posse to Hamilton to apprehend the rest of the crew and take possession of the herd. Three of the cowhands eluded capture, but three others were brought back in handcuffs and locked up with Dr. Brosius.

Then even the weather turned mean. Daily thunderstorms flashed and blasted. Water tumbled down the gullies and the Leon River overflowed. Creeks swamped their banks. The bottoms flooded. The sky turned to iron and the rooftops clattered all night long under the relentless rain. The world was sopping and made of mud. Posses rode in and out of town around the clock. Sightings of the Hardin Gang came from every corner of the county.

A posse headed by Waller himself ran up on Wesley and Jim Taylor in the south prairie and gave them chase in a ferocious rainstorm. “I still don’t know how in the hell they got away,” a Ranger told me that night over a bottle of bourbon in Jack Wright’s. “We must of fired a hundred rounds at them while they was gutting it up the slippery side of a gully we’d boxed them in. We hit everything but Hardin and Taylor theirselfs. I saw Hardin’s horse hit three times and that damn animal didn’t hardly flinch. I know I hit Hardin’s saddlebags, and I saw him get a damn boot heel shot off. One shot knocked Taylor’s hat over his eyes—and the sonbitch laughed, I swear. You could hear him laughing like some kind of damn demon over the gunfire and the thunder. They had a hundred-yard lead on us by the time we made the top of the gully, and in another minute they were flat out of sight. I don’t know what they paid for them racers they was riding, but they damn sure got every last nickel’s worth, tell you that.”

In town the mob grew restless. Its mood worsened in the sudden cessation of news of Wesley. For three days after the Rangers lost them on the south prairie, not one reliable sighting of the Hardin Gang was reported. Hunting parties continued to comb the stormy countryside, but there was no sign of Wesley anywhere. The possibility that he might have fled Comanche County for parts unknown added to the possemen’s black rage. When they were not in the saddle, the vigilantes kept to the saloons, drinking resolutely and cursing the killers of that good man Charlie Webb—whose memory grew more venerable by the day. They drank and glared through the rain at the courthouse across the square and growled more and more murderously.

Shortly before midnight on the evening of June fifth, I was awakened by a clamor in the square. I stumbled to the window of my quarters directly above the Chief’s office and saw a mob surging at the courthouse door. The clouds had broken, and the scene was illuminated by a bright moon and a host of flaming torches. Shadows leapt and quivered on the courthouse wall.

The crowd roared as Bud and Tom Dixon were hauled outside by several men holding them fast by the arms. The brothers were spat upon and struck with clubs, and their hands were swiftly bound behind them. Another knot of men brought out a struggling Joe Hardin and shoved him into the clutches of the mob. His hands too were bound, and someone punched him full in the face. Then the three prisoners were swept into the square as if on a river current. My heart thumped in my throat. I could not spot Sheriff John or any of his deputies in the swirling crowd.

I hastily pulled on my trousers and boots and, still in my nightshirt, plunged headlong down the stairs and out into the street. I ran toward the mob, shouting I know not what. A pair of grinning men with clubs came toward me as the mob crossed the square and headed into the oak grove at the edge of town. “This is murder!” I yelled. I was clubbed on the neck and knocked to my knees. I recognized the man who hit me as a Brown County deputy. As I started to get up I was kicked in the stomach. I sagged on all fours and vomited while my assailants hurried away to rejoin the mob. Gasping, I got to my feet and staggered after them.