The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

contained his clothes, his gunbelt and empty holster, his boots, and an envelope with thirteen dollars. By then I’d moved in with Wes in the Herndon House, and everybody knew I was his woman.

One night we fucked on a sandbar in the river under a bright half-moon. We were well away from town and both banks were covered with heavy brush. “You think somebody’s peeking at us?” I whispered. The idea of it was exciting. He chuckled and said, “Sure do.” I sat up and looked all around. The moonlight blazed on my tits and belly. “Who? Where?” I said. “God,” he said, “everywhere.” Now I had to laugh. I hugged him tight and rolled on top of him. “I heard you were a preacher’s son!” I said. “Tell me, what’s Lord Jesus think about us carrying on like this?” He nuzzled his face between my tits and said, “He thinks it’s real nice we follow the Golden Rule with each other, you and me.”

A couple of times a week we’d check into a fancy Juarez hotel room with a bathtub large enough to hold the both of us. We’d soap each other to a thick creamy lather and just run our hands over our slippery flesh till we couldn’t stand it anymore. We found all sorts of ways to do it in tubs, on tables, in hacks, on chairs—standing with him behind me at our wide-open window with all our clothes on and the back of my dress hiked up to accommodate our humping while the lights of the city blazed down below.

We did everything we took a mind to. I’d tickle his balls with my tongue. I’d wrap his cock in my hair and caress him through it like a glove. I’d roll ice chips in my mouth and then lick him like a stick of candy. He’d pour wine on my cunny and press his face to it and slurp it up. He’d look up at me from between my thighs and grin and tell me the little man in the boat was standing practically on tiptoe. “I know,” I’d say through my teeth, furious for him to get back at it. He’d tease my nipples to stones with a flamingo feather off my hat, then turn me over and play the feather along the crease of my ass and twirl it lightly in the tiny hairs down there. For every trick I taught him, he taught me two.

And we drank. Sweet Christ, did we drink! Through all of July we were naked and half drunk more often than not. About a year later I would discover the wonders of an opium pipe, and the hazy, floating, unreal sense it gave me was very much like the feeling I had when I was naked and drunk with Wes.

Whenever we did put on our clothes and venture into the streets to get something to eat or just take a walk through the park, we drew stares. I could hear the whispers in those eyes: John Wesley Hardin and his woman. The killer and his whore. Those eyes glared at me—but they cut away damn fast when Wes turned toward them. I’d pull Wes’s arm tighter against my breast and give all those sons of bitches my best go-to- hell smile. We were like a tiny independent country of two surrounded by the alien nation of El Paso. And it felt perfectly natural.

One night when we were in bed, the light from the window facing the street made my private hair glow like a coal fire. Wes pretended to warm his hands at it, then laughed and buried his face in it.

“I can’t get enough of this,” he said, “I just can’t.” After all those years in prison without his share of hair pie, he was doing his damnedest to try and catch up.

Sometimes when he went out for cigars and the newspapers I’d leaf through his manuscript. He usually worked on it an hour or so in the morning and sometimes a little more in the evening while I took my bath.

Christ, what a story. I suppose a good deal of it was true, but I couldn’t imagine anybody’s life being that full of blood. What I remember most about it, however, was the total lack of self- pity—and I loved him for that.

Every day, drunk or sober, he practiced with his pistols, and I never got bored with watching. He’d stand in front of the mirror, one gun on his hip, one in a vest holster, and he’d practice for a solid half hour. He’d never say a word the whole time. He’d draw and click, draw and click, changing positions, drawing and clicking from every which way, shooting himself in the glass over and over, looking himself dead in the eyes. I have posed in my skin for painters, and the look on his face was the look I saw on theirs. I know it sounds silly, but I always got the feeling he was disappointed when he was done—like the only thing that would have satisfied him would have been to beat the fellow in the mirror to the draw.

But God damn men anyway! They all talk like they can never get enough of sex, but that’s only because they don’t get enough chance at it. But you let them have all they want of it and they get their fill damn quick.

After a month of going at it with me day and night, he started pining for an evening in the saloons with the boys. The card tables, the dicing at the bar, the beer and the happy bullshit. I’d made him fat on sex and now he was feeling skinny for the saloons. He didn’t say it, but I could tell. One night he said he was going for a newspaper and then didn’t come home till nearly three in the morning, smelling like a bar rag. I was so mad I didn’t say a word to him all the next day. That afternoon he said he was going to the office and I said something smart-ass about his office having swinging doors. He said I’d best not talk like I was his mother or his wife because I sure as hell wasn’t either one. He slammed the door so hard behind him some of the plaster flaked off the wall. That remark about not being his wife hurt a lot more than I care to admit even now.

He came reeling in at four A.M. and flopped into bed with all his clothes on and started snoring up a storm the second his head hit the pillow. I’d been hefting the bottle pretty good myself and was ready for a fight, but I passed out right after he did.

The next morning I was still sore about that “wife” remark, but that’s not the main reason I was so mad at him. Mainly, it was because I was afraid. I’d been having such bad dreams. I was afraid somebody was going to shoot him dead while he was running around out there drunk. And I hated being afraid, I’d always hated it more than anything. I was furious that he’d made me be so frightened for him. And then he gets all closemouthed and sulky with me, like he was the one who’d been wronged and I was the one who should apologize. So there I was, scared for him and angry that I was. Naturally anger got the upper hand.

“The great John Wesley Hardin,” I said, “staggering around drunk in the streets like some rumpot. Real impressive. I always heard you were such a fearsome fellow, and now I know why. People are afraid you might breathe on them.”

“You’d know a lot about the smell of rumpots,” he said. “I guess that’s a fact.”

“Those saloon tramps aren’t your friends. You’re nothing but a sideshow to them, don’t you know that.”

“You don’t know a goddamned thing.”

“I know when I’m making a fool of myself, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Nobody calls me a fool.”

“Fool, fool, fool!”

He backhanded me into the wall and I felt the blood run hot out of my nose. I went at him with both fists swinging. He caught my wrists, so I tried to knee him in the balls, but I lost my balance and fell down. He gave my hair such a yank he nearly broke my neck. I bit his wrist and he yelped and smacked me on the side of the head hard enough to make me see stars. Next thing I knew, we were wrestling around on the floor and one of my tits came free of my dress and he caught hold of it. I felt my nipples turn hard as bullets. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled his face down to me and bit his lips so hard the blood popped into my mouth. He growled deep in his throat and pinched my nipple hard and his stiff cock jabbed against my belly. As he shoved my skirt up and yanked off my drawers, I undid his belt and caught hold of him—and then we were humping hard and loud on the floor until we both came like we’d been dropped from the ceiling.

It was exciting, all right—but I wouldn’t want to do it that way every night of the week.

Anyhow, that knockdown session on the floor didn’t really settle anything. At supper the next night he said he had a case to try in Van Horn and would be gone a couple of days. I wanted to go with him but he said no, he’d be too busy with the case and didn’t want any distractions. I didn’t believe he had a damn case, but I kept it to myself. The truth was, he hadn’t opened a law book more than a couple of times since the day I first walked into his office. Later on, when it sure as hell didn’t matter anymore, I found out my suspicions had been right—the case he’d had in Van Horn was a redhead named Lil.

I was miserable about him being gone—and mad at him, and afraid of every bad possibility prowling through my imagination. A few hours after his train pulled out that afternoon, I was whirly-eyed drunk. I’d lately been drinking like a catfish anyway, and the minute he was gone I started pouring myself the drinks even faster than usual.

I don’t know why I did what I did next. Hell, I was so drunk I couldn’t remember much about it the next day. I recall sitting at the window, drinking and looking down at the people in the street, talking and smiling at each other like they didn’t have a care in the world. I remember feeling like I was going to bust wide open if I didn’t do