Forty-one years has steadied the impetuous cowboy down to a quiet, dignified peaceable man of business. Mr. Hardin is a modest gentleman of pleasant address, but underneath the modest dignity is a firmness that never yields except to reason and the law. He is a man who makes friends of all who come in close contact with him. He is here as associate attorney for the prosecution in the case of the State vs. Bud Frazer, charged with assault with intent to kill.
Mr. Hardin is known all over Texas. He was born and raised in this state.
El Paso was the last wild town in Texas. With Mexico just across the Rio Grande, and the New Mexico Territory a stone throw north, the town was placed real well for anybody on the dodge from the law. It’s no wonder it attracted all the desperadoes it did. The only way to keep a rein on so many bad actors was with some of the toughest lawmen in the country. Jeff Milton, who’d been a Ranger and a U.S. marshal and was absolutely nobody to fool with, was the chief of police. “Any man I kill had it coming”—that was Jeff Milton’s motto and everybody knew it. Deputy U.S. Marshal George Scarborough was another quick ass-kicker you didn’t want to cross. Old John Selman, who some said had been more of a bandit and mankiller than any of the men he ever arrested, was constable of the first precinct. His son, John Junior, was a city policeman. Like I said—the law in El Paso was every bit as hardcase as the outlaws. And some said it was every bit as crooked.
I’d come to El Paso that winter, and by spring I’d had enough of the place. It was too damn dangerous for a man of my profession. I was a dealer—poker mostly, sometimes blackjack, now and then faro. I worked at the Gem Saloon and did fairly well for myself. But it was a rare night that somebody at the table didn’t accuse me of pulling stunts with the deal, and things sometimes got fairly tense before cooler heads persuaded the hothead to accept his loss with a little more grace. But cooler heads didn’t always prevail: one night a dealer was shot dead just two tables away from me. The killer was arrested and eventually convicted and hanged, but that didn’t bring the dealer back to life even a little bit. Sore losers are a constant hazard of the trade, of course—it’s one of the first things a gambler learns. But El Paso sure seemed to have way more than its share of men who took personal offense at losing.
It was Hardin who finally convinced me it was time to shake El Paso’s dust and head for California. He came to town in April—but even before he arrived, the word was out that he was coming. Somebody telephoned the news from Pecos, where Hardin had been pressing a suit for a cousin-in-law named Killing Jim Miller, and the saloon district buzzed about it for days. I recall a newspaper story saying Hardin should be welcomed in town because he was an inspirational example of how a man could rehabilitate himself in prison and triumph over his sordid past. But the saloon rats weren’t interested in any model of reform—they wanted to get a good look at John Wesley Hardin, the famous pistoleer. Some of them had been children when he was packed off to Huntsville Penitentiary, but even among most of the older roughs he was something of a living legend—the quickest, deadliest pistoleer in Texas, the man who made war against the State Police, the man who’d had to replace the grips on his pistols more than once because he’d cut so many notches in them.
The local lawmen weren’t nearly so glad as the saloon rats to have him in town. I heard that Jeff Milton and George Scarborough met him at the station with shotguns. They warned him against carrying a gun inside the city limits and told him to watch his step. It must’ve been an interesting conversation. Hardin supposedly told them he had no intention of making trouble and hoped nobody would give him any. He said he wanted only to be a good lawyer, and it’s a fact he opened a law office on the second floor of the professional building across the street from the Gem.
The first night he was in town he came into the Gem and was greeted like some kind of hero. At one point he had a dozen fresh drinks on the bar in front of him, each one bought by a different man. Everybody wanted to be able to say he’d bought a drink for the one and only John Wesley Hardin. Everybody wanted to be his friend. Everybody wanted to hear him tell about facing down Bill Hickok and about the way he gunned down Charlie Webb in Comanche. They gathered round him like some kind of one-man freak show, which I guess in a way he was. The first few times he came in, he accepted the drinks but only threw back a couple of them, and he politely declined to tell stories about his past. He said those days were long gone and he didn’t really care to relive them, thank you. But it just wasn’t in him to ignore all that admiring attention, I guess. It was pretty obvious he liked it, and I don’t guess he got too many free drinks all the time he was in prison. By the time he’d been in town two weeks he was knocking back most of the drinks the boys bought him and grinning bright-eyed at the crowd gathered round as he demonstrated the “road agent’s spin” he’d used on Hickok. No question he could twirl those pistolas. I heard he was putting on the same show in saloons all over El Paso.
He started sitting in on some of the card games in the Gem, and I know a few of the boys sometimes lost hands to him on purpose, just to make him happy and to stay on his good side. But the fact is, he was a reckless card player, and sometimes the boys couldn’t lose a hand to him even when they tried. I’d always heard he was a hell of a gambler, but you never would’ve known it from the way he played in the Gem. To make things worse, he was one of those bad losers I mentioned before, especially when he’d been drinking.
One night he got into a stud game at my table and by midnight was just about cleaned out. He was red-eyed and surly and in no mood for the general joshing and chuckling at the table. When Buck Elliot laid down four nines to take the biggest pot of the night—which Hardin had been sure he was going to take with his full house of aces over fives—well, it was too much for him. He said, “Shit!” and sent Buck’s cards flying off the table with a quick backhand sweep of his arm.
Everybody said, “Hey now!” and “No need for that!” and so on. They’d all got pretty familiar with him in the couple of weeks he’d been in town, and the familiarity had eased them off their tiptoes around him. Maybe that was part of what was bothering him, I don’t know. All I know for sure is what happened. He jumps up and says, “I’ve had enough of your card tricks, boy!” He was talking to me. I was stunned. “
“Save the bullshit for your gardens, you sonbitches,” Hardin says, and pushes back his coat flaps so we can get a good look at the one pistol on his hip and the other hung in a vest holster. He never did pull them—Buck and the others lied about that. He just let us see them, and that was enough. “The whole bunch of you been playing me for the fish all night long,” he says, “but that damn game’s over. This pot’s mine and I’m taking it. Anybody’s got objections, all he’s got to do is stand up and make them.”
None of us stood up or said anything more, and he raked up the pot and stuffed it in his pockets. I had a derringer in the waist pocket of my vest, but it might as well have been a frog for all the use I was about to make of it. That was the moment I made up my mind to move on to California.
As soon as Hardin left, Buck went out in search of a lawman, and a few minutes later was back with Old John at his side. John listened to everybody’s story, then him and Buck set out for the Herndon House, where Hardin lived. But as they were walking past the Wigwam Saloon they spotted him at the bar.
The way Buck told the story, he was right at Old John’s side as John stepped up to Hardin and told him he was under arrest. But Mack Tracey, who was working the bar that night, told me Buck hung back by the doors, ready as a rabbit to run for it. Buck claimed Old John backed Hardin down, but Mack told it different. He said when Old John told Hardin he was under arrest for robbing a card game, Hardin said he didn’t do any such thing, he’d only taken what was rightfully his. Old John said he could tell it to the judge, and Hardin said, “I’m telling it to
Chief Milton heard one side of the story from Hardin, then the other from Buck, then said to Hardin, “If you can prove they were cheating you, I’ll do something about it—but if you can’t, then you’re in the wrong, and you know you are. Now you told me yourself when you first got to town you didn’t want any trouble. I’m holding you to your word.”
Hardin said he knew he’d been cheated but couldn’t prove it. “Then I’ll have to arrest you for robbery, Wes,” Chief Milton told him.
“I’ll have that pistol,” Old John said, and started to reach for the pistol on Hardin’s hip. But Hardin stepped back from him and squared off. “No you won’t,” he said. “Jeff can arrest me, but
