The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

retrieve his children but was able to find only his two youngest sons, Bud and Young John. He lived in Mexico for years, and his boys were practically raised as Mexicans. It was said he became best friends with a murderous local captain of rurales—the national police force created by the Mexican dictator Diaz—and that he sometimes helped track down fugitives for a portion of the reward. When his second wife died, he and his sons, now grown, moved back north of the river. To El Paso.

That was six years ago, and all my informants agreed the town was even wilder then than it was now. But even though he was starting to get along in years, Old John still had a lot of pepper in his blood. He quickly earned a reputation for drinking and gambling with the hardiest of them—and for being able to handle himself in a row. El Paso was always in need of tough lawmen, and in ’92 he was elected city constable.

The following year, at age fifty-seven, he married a sixteen-year-old Mexican girl. She was far younger than his sons, both of whom were so angrily embarrassed by the marriage they refused to speak to their father for months. Old John supposedly said, “I don’t know what they’re acting so put out about. Ought to be proud their pappy can still cut such a spicy mustard. I reckon they’re just jealous.” He eventually reconciled with his boys, and one of them, Young John, himself became a city policeman.

Of the eight or nine men at the bar of The Show saloon, four claimed to have witnessed John Selman’s killing of Bass Outlaw in a local whorehouse just the year before. The other men at the bar all snorted derisively and said they’d bet none of the four had been anywhere near the place. “You’d have to build another six floors on that cathouse just to hold everybody who’s sworn he saw the shooting with his own eyes,” one man said, and everybody but the four avowed witnesses had a good guffaw.

Bass Outlaw was a notorious bad actor who had been a Texas Ranger until he was fired for drunkenness. He then became a deputy U.S. marshal. On the night in question, he was drunk and in a fury because the girl he wanted to sport with was engaged with another customer. He loudly proclaimed his intention to go upstairs and kick open the door of every room until he found his favorite whore. Old John was sitting near him and said, “Hey now, Bass, you don’t want to be busting up everybody’s pleasure up there. Just wait your turn.” At that moment, Texas Ranger Joe McKidrict turned to Outlaw and said, “Bass, you’re too drunk to fuck anyhow.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Outlaw drew his pistol and blasted a hole through his heart. As Selman went for his gun, Outlaw shot him twice in the leg—then Old John put a round through Outlaw’s eye and blew out the side of his head and the fight was done.

“Old John’s had a hobble ever since,” someone said. “The man can’t walk ten feet without his cane.”

“That’s true,” said another, “but his damn gunhand don’t need no cane. That’s what Hardin best keep in mind.”

*    *    *

The noisy streets were deep in twilight when I came out of The Show and made my way up Utah Street, heading for the Acme Saloon. The sky along the mountain rim was the color of fresh blood. As I reached the corner, I glanced to my left—and there on the sidewalk, not ten paces from me, stood John Henry Selman and John Wesley Hardin, looking quite ready to kill one another.

They were standing face-to-face with three feet between them. I’d heard them described so thoroughly that I recognized them both instantly. A few other pedestrians had also taken notice of them and were hastening across the street or retreating down the sidewalk. Most people in the vicinity, however, remained wholly unaware of the confrontation from first to last.

Selman gripped his cane in his left hand and his right was ready to go for the gun on his hip. Hardin stood with his hands on his coat lapels. I could not see if he was armed. I could see their faces distinctly, however. Both men were rigid with anger. They spoke sharply but not loudly, and the din of the street muffled much of what they said. If I’d been two feet farther from them, I’d have heard none of the conversation at all.

“… know damn well … the goods off him. I know … cheated me!” Selman was saying through his teeth, his gray mustache twitching with anger. “I won’t be cheated, you hear me? I won’t … or anybody else.”

“The hell …,” Hardin said. “… between you and George. He’s your partner, not …”

“What … George … damn business,” Selman said. “I know … cheat me, you … I’m warning … square with me, and I mean soon!”

“Warning me?” Hardin said. “Nobody … a bucket of shit with a badge stuck on it … bastard son … nothing but picking on women.”

Selman’s face darkened with fury. He looked about to have a fit. A streetcar clattered down the street, its bell clanging loudly, and I couldn’t make out any of what he next said to Hardin, nor what Hardin said in response. What Hardin did next, however, is still vivid in my mind. He held out his hands as though showing Selman he held nothing in them. Then he closed the lower fingers of both hands, keeping the thumbs upright and the index fingers pointing at Selman like pistol barrels. He flicked his thumbs down and mouthed the word, “Pow!” Selman stepped backward as though he’d been shoved. He looked astonished. Hardin grinned and slowly raised each index finger in turn to his mouth and softly blew on their tips, as though clearing them of gunsmoke. He then strolled across the street and went into the Acme Saloon.

Selman watched him every step of the way, his face inflamed with fury, then turned and saw me staring at him.

“Ah … Constable Selman,” I said, “my name is Peckinpah. Of The Police Gazette. I wonder if—”

“Kiss my ass!” he said, and stalked away.

When I told Hardin I was with the Gazette and offered to buy the next round, the first thing he wanted to know was whether I’d covered the Sullivan-Kilrain bare knuckle championship fight six years earlier. “We heard about it in the pen,” he said, “but I’ve never met anybody who saw it with his own eyes.”

I hadn’t been at the fight either, but I knew several of the reporters who had, which made me the nearest thing to an eyewitness he’d yet met. So I was obliged to recapitulate for him everything I could recall about the progress of that epic battle as it had been told to me. I admitted I’d been astonished by the outcome, that I’d never expected Sullivan, sodden drunkard that he was, to withstand the assault of the younger and quicker Kilrain under the roasting Mississippi sun. When Kilrain drew first blood and Sullivan paused to vomit in the early going, I told him that the reporters all figured Sully was done for. Hardin seemed enrapt. “But he wasn’t done, was he,” he said, “that old warhorse?” He certainly was not, I agreed. After seventy-five rounds spanning two hours and sixteen minutes, Kilrain’s seconds threw in the sponge. Hardin smiled widely. “Never bet against the warhorse,” he said.

We were standing at the end of the bar nearest the front door, and I signaled Frank the bartender for another round for us. Hardin’s interest took another turn when I told him the Gazette’s chief correspondent for the Sullivan-Kilrain fight had been none other than Steve Brodie, the famous bridge-jumper, who was a good friend of mine. I then had to expound at length about the various jumps I’d seen Steve Brodie make. I told of more than once having seen him pulled unconscious from a river, blood running from his nose and mouth and ears, sometimes his ribs broken and his shoes knocked from his feet. Dozens of men and boys were killed every year in their attempts to emulate Steve Brodie.

“Damn, but that man’s got daring!” Hardin said. “And he can surely take a beating, can’t he?” John Wesley Hardin is the only man I ever spoke to about Steve Brodie who never said he wondered why a man would risk his life and take such beatings jumping off high bridges.

He said he’d be pleased to grant me an interview for the Gazette on one condition—that I didn’t call him a “pistolero.” I had suggested that my lead-in would refer to him as the most famous pistolero in the West. “I never did much care for that word,” he said. “Sounds too damn Mexican.” Well then, I asked, what term would he prefer? Gunfighter? Shootist? Pistolman? Mankiller? “They called Wild Bill the Prince of the Pistoleers,” he said. “‘Pistoleer’ always did sound properly American to me.” All right, I said, “pistoleer” it was. I’d call him the King of the Pistoleers. He smiled and said, “Sounds about right.”

We never did get to the interview. He was far too persistent in interrogating me— particularly about the writing craft. He told me he’d been writing the story of his life for the past several months and was very near to completing the book. He asked me question after question about techniques of narration, exposition, and description—though he did not know the proper terminology for many of these things. I said I’d be