“I have this very day, with this very hand”—he slapped his left hand with his right—“paid one hundred dollars to the Texas Rangers for yonder rope. Yes, the very rope that will choke the life out of Wild Bill Longley, the most notorious, the deadliest, the lowest down killer who ever walked the west.”
This drew wild cheers, as Sullivan knew it would.
The huckster, whose slicked-down hair didn’t move in the gale, held up his hands for silence. “Now, here’s bounty for you,” he yelled. “For this day only, every man, woman, or child who buys a bottle of Dr. Drub’s Miracle Liver Tonic will receive for free, not one inch! Not two inches! But three full inches of the rope that hung Wild Bill Longley!”
There were more cheers and folks seemed eager to buy. Sullivan reckoned the medicine man had already cut up a few hemp ropes into three inches as a reserve.
He found Sergeant Page at the blacksmith’s shop.
“You back, Sullivan?” the Ranger said with no particular friendliness.
Sullivan got right to the point. “The drop is too short. It won’t kill him.”
It took Page a moment to figure out what the big bounty hunter was telling him. “It looks fine to me.”
“Page, when the trap’s sprung, Longley will hit the ground feet first. Like the last time, he’ll only be half hung.”
“Then we’ll have to hang him twice.” Page noted the horrified look on Sullivan’s face and his own features hardened. “I’ve got a crowd of maybe a thousand people to manage. I have to be on guard against a rescue attempt and I’m hanging a man who’s a raving lunatic. Sullivan, I’ve got more to worry about than the length of the gallows drop. You see how it is with me?”
“I see how it is with you.”
“Good, now get the hell away from here and let me get on with my job.”
“One last thing,” Sullivan said. “Did the priest really chase a demon out of Bill Longley?”
The Ranger’s eyes were guarded, uncertain. “The priest called it an exorcism, or a word like that. But I don’t know anything about spooks and ha’nts and such.”
“Did you see the . . . whatever it was?”
Page was silent for a long while, so long that Sullivan thought he’d say nothing more. But then, “There was something inside him. I saw it leave.”
“A demon? Did it call itself Clotilde?”
“Whatever it was, it drove Longley crazy.” Page held up a hand. “All right, Sullivan, enough. We go on talking like this, my boys will drag us both to the booby hatch.” He turned his back, then said over his shoulder, “I’ll look into the drop.”
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
A Dreadful Hanging
Gone was the raving lunatic. The Bill Longley the Rangers led through the jeering crowd, at least half of them black, was a man of quiet dignity and he displayed considerable courage. He carried a small, pink rosary in his shackled hands and his lips moved constantly around a slight smile.
The town marshal and his three deputies kept the onlookers away from the gallows but allowed Sullivan closer since he seemed to be a friend of the Ranger sergeant.
The wind howled, scattering spots of rain, and the surrounding pines performed a frenzied dervish dance. The pig on the spit turned and fat sizzled.
Despite the chains on his legs, Longley took the eight steps to the gallows platform unaided then stood on the trapdoor as Page directed.
Sullivan searched the gunman’s face, looking for fear, remorse, anything. He saw only a beatific expression.
In his mind, Bill Longley was determined to die a martyr.
The drop under the gallows was still the same. No effort had been made to dig out the ground and make it lower.
Page, the marshal, and the other Rangers crowded around the condemned man. Father Muldrow stood to one side, reading aloud from his Bible. Longley took no notice, his eyes on the torn sky where a flock of crows wheeled in the wind like pieces of charred paper.
“William Preston Longley, do you have anything to say before sentence is carried out?” Page asked.
At first, it seemed that the man would keep his mouth shut. Then, shouting against the wind, Longley spoke. “Good people!” he yelled. “Answer me this. How come John Wesley Hardin got jail time after killing forty men and I killed but a score and I’m getting hung?”
The crowd jeered and there were cries of, “String the rascal up!”
“I’ll tell you why,” Longley yelled. “It’s because I’m a Roman Catholic and I’m dying for my faith.”
That brought a cascade of boos, but a couple of roosters who’d already gotten into the beer held each other up and yelled, “Huzzah!”
A moment occurred that Tam Sullivan remembered for the rest of his life—the instant when Longley’s eyes locked on his . . . piercing blue eyes . . . too bright, too glittering, too filled with hate to be human.
“Sullivan!” the condemned man screamed. “You killed her. She told me. She came unto me, entered into me, and told me. She spoke in tongues with the voice of a snake.”
Not only was Sullivan struck dumb, but the whole crowd was silenced. For a few moments, the only sound along the thronged rise was the lament of the wind.
The medicine man broke the spell.
Apparently worried that he’d lose the crowd and his profit, he yelled at the top of his lungs, “Get on with it, for God’s sake!”
As the crowd cheered him on, Sergeant Page stirred like a man wakening from sleep. He settled the noose around Longley’s neck, stood with the black hood dangling from his hand and stared at the man as though seeing him for the first time.
“Dave, get it done,” a Ranger said.
The crowd was restless. Impatient voices raised, and a few thrown rocks thudded against the gallows.
“Dave!” the Ranger said again, more urgently.
Longley turned and snapped, “Damn your eyes, hang me!” He smiled. “If you dare.”
Page stood immobile, his face working as sweat beaded on his forehead.
Sullivan stepped closer to the platform and yelled, “Page! Fight back!”
The big Ranger said nothing, frozen in a moment of time he could not comprehend.
“Don’t let it get inside you!” Sullivan roared.
“Clotilde!’ Page cried. He staggered a step and crashed on his back.
As the town marshal and an alarmed Father Muldrow kneeled beside the unconscious man, the young Ranger named Luke grabbed the hood from Page’s hand.
“Damn you, Longley!” He yanked the hood over the gunman’s head and buckled a leather strap around his neck. The Ranger stepped off the trapdoor and yelled to the deputy at the lever, “Do it!”
The crowd yelled their approval as the man sprang the trap and Bill Longley plummeted through, plunging straight down like a coin dropping into a slot.
It happened as Sullivan knew it would.
The drop wasn’t high enough and Longley hit the ground feet first. With a terrible, strangled cry, he fell forward onto his knees. The rope vibrated like a fiddle string, but the noose did not break his neck.
He struggled against the noose, slowly choking to death as the crowd reeled in horror. Longley’s swollen face turned purple and saliva dripped from his mouth as he fought for air.
The Ranger, a tough young man in a hard line of work, recovered quickly from his shock and yelled, “Pull him up!”
Willing hands untied the rope from the gallows crossbeam and Longley was hauled back onto the platform by the neck.
The hanging had been bungled and the crowd was incensed. The cries were to let Longley go.
“He’s been punished enough!” yelled a red-faced woman near Sullivan.
The very mob who’d been baying for Bill Longley’s blood demanded that Longley walk free.
Sullivan watched history repeat itself. Longley was half hung yet again, and again he’d beat the noose.
But Sullivan hadn’t counted on the determination and sense of duty of the young Ranger.
“Yank him higher and tie him off!” he yelled. “Close the trap!”
As the trapdoor thudded shut again, Longley was hoisted high until he was up on his toes, his neck stretched, head lolling to one side.
The angry crowd cursed and yelled, but a deputy stepped to the front of the platform, a scattergun in his hands. His voice breaking from strain, he vowed to blow the guts out of anyone who attempted to thwart the course of justice.
From under the hood, Longley let out a low moaning sound. Women in the hushed crowd had tears in their eyes.
The young Ranger stepped over, put his arms around the groaning man’s neck, and clenched them behind Longley’s head. He looked at the deputy at the drop handle and yelled, “Let ’er rip!’
The lawman didn’t hesitate. He yanked the handle and Longley and the Ranger hurtled through the trap.
Sullivan, standing close, heard the snap of Longley’s breaking neck, like the sound a dry twig makes when it’s snapped in half.
The Ranger, seemingly unhurt, crawled out from under the gallows . . . to a dreadful, wailing shriek that rang through the crowd with the awful clarity of a tolling bell.
Heads turned in every direction as people tried to pin down the source of the woman’s scream. But it had come from the very air, high up where the pine trees danced, and it’s origin could not be found.
Sullivan looked at Bill Longley’s body ticking back and forth on the hangman’s rope like a clock pendulum and knew full well who had emitted the fearful cry.
“You all right, Page?” Sullivan asked. “Let me buy you a drink.”
The Ranger bellied up to the bar, his face ashen. “Brandy.”
“Make that a large one, bartender,” Sullivan said.
Page sampled his drink “I had a bad turn up there on the gallows. Like I felt sick all over.”
Sullivan nodded. “Something you ate, I’m sure.”
“Yeah, that’s it. Or too much coffee.”
“That will do it.”
Page built a cigarette with hands that were not still.
Sullivan lit it for him, and then the Ranger said, “Hell of a death for any man, wasn’t it?”
“I’d say,” Sullivan agreed. “The young Ranger did well.”
“He ended it.”
“It needed ending.” Sullivan s moved away from the bar. “Well, so long and good luck, Ranger.”
“You too, Sullivan. See you around.”
“Yeah. See you around.”
EPILOGUE
Bright morning sunlight streamed through the tall dining room windows of Denver’s Excelsior Hotel as Tam Sullivan refilled his coffee cup and lit his first cigar of the day. Gone, at least temporarily, were his rough trail clothes, replaced by the finery of the broadcloth and frilled linen of the prosperous sporting gent.
“I say, sir,” the man at the next table said, nodding to the newspaper in his hands. “Did you read the good news?”
“No, sir. I haven’t yet read the paper this morning,” Sullivan said. “Something interesting?”
“I’ll say it’s interesting. Here, it’s short. I’ll read it to you. ‘We are delighted to inform the male citizens of Denver, to the chagrin of the female order we’re sure, that Miss Montana Maine will once again grace the luxurious Rochester Hotel with her presence, beginning this Friday evening.
“‘Miss Maine returns from a winter sojourn in the New Mexico Territory where she spent her time studying the works of the philosopher René Descartes and dabbling in local folklore about the raising of the dead.
“‘We believe we must add our own two cents’ worth to this wonderful occasion by raising our glasses to the glorious Miss Maine as we observe that there’s a hell of an excitement in this town.’” The man stared at Sullivan, bright eyes reflecting his question. “Well, sir, what do you think of that?”
Sullivan smiled and pinkied ash from his cigar into the silver ashtray in front of him. “I was planning to leave for Texas on business tomorrow, but I think I’ve changed my mind.”
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THE GREATEST WESTERN WRITERS OF
THE 21ST CENTURY
William Johnstone and J. A. Johnstone are the acclaimed masters of the American frontier and national bestsellers. Now, they take on the deadliest and most feared outlaw to ever walk the Old West—John Wesley Hardin.
First he became a killer . . .
Then he became a legend.
He was fifteen when he killed his first man.
Before his murderous ways ended, Hardin had killed forty-four men in cold blood—one, the legend goes, because he snored too loudly.
From then on John Wesley Hardin stayed true to his calling, killing man after man after man, spending most of his life being pursued by local lawmen and federal troops.
Hardin lived a fever dream of lightning fast draws and flying lead. By the age of seventeen, he had earned a deadly reputation for cold-blooded killing that drew traitors, backstabbers, and wannabe gunslingers—all for a chance to gun down the man who had turned killing into an all-American legend . . .
FORTY TIMES A KILLER!
A Novel of John Wesley Hardin
by WILLIAM W. JOHNSTONE
with J. A. Johnstone
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CHAPTER ONE
Death in the Street
“John Wesley Hardin! I’m calling you out, John Wesley!”
My friend turned to me and his left eyebrow arched the way it always did when his face asked a question.
“All right. I’ll take a look,” I said, laying aside my copy of Mr. Dickens’ The Life and Adventures of Martin Chuzzlewit, partially set, as you know, on our very own western frontier.
I rose from the table and limped to the saloon’s batwing doors, more a tangle of broken and missing slats than door. I guess so many heads were rammed through those batwings that nobody took the trouble to repair them any longer.
Three men wearing slickers and big Texas mustaches stood in the dusty street. All were armed with heavy Colt revolvers carried high on the waist, horseman-style. They glanced at me, dismissed me as something beneath their notice, and continued their wait.
I told John Wesley what I saw and he said, “Ask them what the hell they want.”
“They’re calling you out, Wes. That’s what they want.”
“I know it, Little Bit. But ask them anyhow.” Wes stood at the bar, playing with a little calico kitten, the warm schooner of beer at his elbow growing warmer in the east Texas heat.
The railroad clock on the wall ticked slow seconds into the quiet and the bartender cleared his throat and whispered to the saloon’s only other customer, “James, this won’t do.”
The gray-haired man nodded. “A bad business.” He stared through the window. “Those men are pistol fighters.”
He was not ragged, as most of us Texans were that late summer of 1870. His clothes were well worn, but clean, and spoke of a good wife at home. He might have been a one-loop rancher or a farmer, but he could have been anything.
I stepped outside into the street, if you could call it that.
The settlement of Honest Deal was a collection of a few raw timber buildings sprawled hit or miss along the bank of the west fork of the San Jacinto River, a sun-scorched, wind-blown scrub town waiting desperately for a railroad spur or even a stage line to give it purpose and a future.
I blinked in the sudden bright light, then took the measure of the three men. They were big, hard-eyed fellows. The oldest of them had an arrogant look to him, as though he hailed from a place where he was the cock o’ the walk.
That one would take a heap of killing, I figured. They all would.
I swallowed hard. “Mr. Hardin’s compliments, and he wishes to know what business you have with him.”
“Unfinished business,” the oldest man said.
Another, tall and blond and close enough in looks and arrogance to be his son, said, “Gi
mp, get back in there and tell Hardin to come out. If he ain’t in the street in one minute, we’ll come in after him.”
The man’s use of the word gimp surprised me. I thought the steel brace on my left leg covered by my wool pants was unnoticeable. Unless I walked, of course. I’d only taken a step into the street, so I could only assume that the tall man was very observant.
Wes was like that, observant. All revolver fighters were back in those days. They had to be.
Measuring him, it seemed to me that the younger man was also one to step around, unless you were mighty gun slick.
“I’ll tell Mr. Hardin what you said.” I smiled at the three men. I had good teeth when I was younger, the only part of my crooked, stunted body that was good, so I smiled a lot. Showing them off, you understand.
I figured I knew why those three men didn’t want to come into the saloon after Wes unless they had to. The place was small, little bigger than a railroad boxcar, and gloomy, lit by smoking, smelly, kerosene lamps. Only Yankee carpetbaggers could afford the whale oil that burned brighter without smoke or stink. If shooting started inside, the concussion of the guns would extinguish the lamps and four men would have to get to their work in semidarkness and at point-blank range.
Against a deadly pistol fighter like Wes, those three fellows were well aware that no one would walk out of the saloon alive. They wanted badly to kill Wes, but outside where they would have room to maneuver and take cover if necessary.
I can’t say as I blamed them. A demon with ol’ Sammy’s revolver was Wes, fast and accurate on the draw and shoot.
That’s one of the reasons I idolized him. I’d never met his like before . . . or since.
Well, I turned to go back into the saloon and tell him what the three gentlemen outside wanted, but I’d taken only one clumping step when Wes stepped around the corner of the saloon, a smile on his face and a .44 1860 Army model Colt in each hand.
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