The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

by James Carlos Blake

  Well, Sam says, he’d been sitting in on the game at Quinn’s table when Hardin walked up and asked if there was room for one more. Didn’t none of them know it was Hardin, though, till a few minutes later when Sheriff Rollo comes up, weaving drunk, and says to the new man that he liked to know the names of any strangers in his town and would he mind telling his. “John Wesley Hardin,” he said, “and I do admire the lively nature of your town, Sheriff.” He pulled a pint bottle of rye out of his coat pocket and asked the sheriff if he might care for a taste. Rollo gave a big lopsided grin and decided to join the game too. He was so drunk he was holding some of his cards backward. Sam stayed in for a coupla more hands just to be polite, then dropped out and hurried straight on over to the Den to let Bill know about Hardin.

  When Sam’s all done talking, Bill looks at him a minute, then says, “How you know it’s him?”

  It was a damn good question to repeat, for two reasons—the first being that none of us knew what Hardin looked like, and the second being that anybody could say he was somebody else. Bill knew that better than most, there’d been so many liars claiming to be him. The first time he heard of it, I think he was sort of proud to know his reputation was so fearsome that other men would use it to scare people and have their way with them. But after he heard of somebody else pretending to be him over in Waco, and then somebody else up in Bryan, and in Livingston and a bunch of other towns, it started to grate on him that any son of a bitch who took a mind to it could benefit himself by saying he was Bill Longley. “Look here, Cal,” he once said to me, “it’s took me some doing to earn my reputation, and I don’t much care for these shitheads making such free use of it instead of going out and earning one of their own.” By the time he heard about some hard case who was calling himself Bill Longley over in Walker County, he’d had enough of it. He saddled up and rode on over there and tracked the fella down. Found him in a saloon just a few miles south of Huntsville, talking loud and bulldozing everybody in the place, making Bill Longley seem like some kind of bigmouthed bully. Bill kicked a spittoon across the floor at him to get his attention, then said: “You are too dogshit ugly and too coarse in your ways to even dream of being Bill Longley, you son of a bitch.” The hard case tried to pull, but never cleared his holster before Bill fanned three rounds right through his wishbone. He fell face-first with so much blood pouring out of him he hit with a splash. “Take a good look at my face,” Bill told everybody, “so you won’t be played for such fools by the next fake who says he’s me.” He shot up the bar mirror for good measure, then mounted up and rode home. And still, every now and then, we’d hear of Bill Longley killing somebody in some town Bill had never been to in his life.

  Anyhow, that’s why Bill’s question was a good one, and why Sam Ott’s answer wasn’t. All Sam could say was, “Well, hell, Bill, that’s who he told us he was.”

  So Bill tells Ben Hinds to go over to Quinn’s and check the fella out, and me and Jody Pinto and Blacknose Bob decided to go along. Ben Hinds was a good one for Bill to send. He was big as a mule and near as strong—and about the same-looking, some of us thought. He’d shot men dead and gouged out eyes and bitten off at least one man’s nose that I knew of. He wasn’t afraid of a thing in this world except for a gypsy-woman fortune-teller named Madam Zodiac who lived a few miles outside of town.

  Ben and Jody went down one side of the street and me and Blacknose Bob went down the other, the idea being to come up on Hardin from different angles and spread our positions as much as we could. But by the time we got there, Rollo had passed out and was curled up under a wagon, and Hardin had taken his seat, which put the livery wall at his back and gave him a clear view of the street. I figure he saw us coming before we even knew which one at the table was him.

  One of the players quick gave up his chair to Ben, and Ben tossed in his dollar ante and told Quinn to deal him in. Quinn didn’t look glad to see him—or the rest of us, either, as we spread out around the table. Hardin was smiling, but he wasn’t missing a thing, and he took notice of where each of us was standing among the spectators.

  On his first hand, Ben opened with a big bet and everybody but Hardin folded. Hardin raised big and Ben raised big right back and Hardin called and took the hand with three tens. Ben wasn’t holding but a pair of treys. He wasn’t wasting time trying to get things to a head. But Hardin suddenly stood up and started sticking his money in his pockets. “Thank you, gents,” he says. “Been a pleasure. Believe I’ll go buck the tiger for a while.”

  “Hold on there, hightime,” Ben says. “A man don’t up and walk off winners without giving a feller a chance to win his money back. Sit your ass back down.”

  Hardin says, “Well, maybe if you’d of sat in a little sooner, you’d of cleaned me out by now. But we ain’t never going to know because that ain’t what happened.”

  Ben thumps his fist on the table and hollers, “Damn you, boy, don’t smart-mouth me!” He shoves back his chair and stands up—and zip-click!—Hardin’s got the Colt in his hand and cocked and pointed square at Ben’s face. Talk about quick. Ben freezes, naturally—and Hardin pulls his left-hand gun and hops back so his back’s against the livery wall and he’s got me and Blacknose Bob covered too. Jody put his hands half up—but Bob looked about to pull, and Hardin said, “Try it, you ugly-nosed bastard, and I’ll kill you quick.” Without looking directly at me he says, “You too, snake-head.” I wore a snakeskin band around my hat in those days, so there was no question who he meant. Hell, I wasn’t even thinking about pulling, not after seeing the way that pistola jumped into his hand. I didn’t get to be as old as I am by being rash in my youth. Bill didn’t make it past age twenty-eight.

  “Listen here, damnit,” Hardin says, talking to the whole crowd that’s gathering around, everybody curious but skittish about those Colts in his hands. “I came to make the acquaintance of Bill Longley and pay my respects. I have been told he is a true son of the Confederacy and a sworn enemy of every carpetbagging Yankee sonbitch in Texas. But I was not told the people of this town are so lowdown as to gang up on a friendly stranger.”

  Just then the crowd opened up and there was Bill, standing in the street and facing Hardin from twenty feet off in shirtsleeves and no hat on and his hand down loose by his tied-down Dance.

  “I’m Longley,” he says, “and I don’t know that I much care to make the acquaintance of somebody who comes looking for me with his hands full of Colts.”

  Everybody, including Ben and Jody and Bob, quick got out of their line of fire—and I admit I didn’t tarry in taking cover behind a wagon.

  “And I don’t much respect a man who has to have all these back-shooters to watch over him,” Hardin says.

  Bill gives a laugh and said, “Boys, any of you throw down on this desperado, I’ll shoot you myself.” Then he turns up his palms, like he’s saying, “You satisfied?” Hardin gives his Colts a spin and drops them in his hip holsters, then stands there holding easy to his vest flaps in the manner of some rich cotton grower. We all knew why he had his hands up there. We’d heard about that vest.

  “Something else I don’t much care for,” Bill says, “is a fucken spy. And I heard you’re spying for McNelly.”

  McNelly was a captain of the State Police, and I knew damn well nobody’d told Bill any such thing about Hardin.

  “Horseshit,” Hardin says. “If you’re looking for a fight, bubba, you don’t need to tell no lie to get one.” His fingers twitched on his vest. I mean, he was ready.

  Later on, Bill admitted to me he’d been cussing himself for saying what he did. An accusation like that was nothing but fighting words, and Bill never was one to pick a fight for no good reason. He was just irritated by all the talk he’d heard about what a hero Hardin was for killing Yank soldiers—and a little jealous too, I figured, though I never said so—and his irritation had got the better of his mouth. Not that he was scared of Hardin, you understand; Bill Longley was never scared of any man alive. But there was no good
reason to get to it with the boy and he knew it. Still, he had insulted Hardin, and Hardin couldn’t let it pass, and so the moment was feeling mighty tight.

  So Bill says, “Whooooee! You just itching to hunt bear with a switch, ain’t you, boy? Pointing guns at everybody, talking nothing but fight. I don’t call that friendly nor respectful.”

  “You’re the one called me a police spy!” Hardin says.

  “So I did,” Bill says. “But I see you have too much sand to be a state bootlick, and I am enough man to admit when I am wrong. But if what you want is a fight …” And he gives a big hang-it-all shrug and stands ready.

  That was the only time I ever heard Bill Longley even come close to apologizing to anybody about anything—and it was smooth as owl shit the way he was doing it without backing down. He was leaving it up to Hardin to call the play or not. For the next two or three long seconds you didn’t hear a thing but the birds in the trees and horses blowing. Then Hardin says: “I am man enough to admit my mistakes too. I did come to make your acquaintance, and I shouldn’t of let an ignorant jackass goad me into forgetting my own good manners.” Everybody turned to give Ben Hinds a look, but he was staring up at the treetops like there was something of uncommon interest to see up there. Then Hardin and Bill were both grinning, and Bill says, “I hear you like card games,” and Hardin says, “About as much as I hear you do,” and we knew the thing was done with.

  A whole lot of breath got let out—but people being the way they are, I’d say more of it was in disappointment than in relief. It wasn’t every day you got to see two pistol fighters of high reputations pull on each other.

  Ten minutes later Bill and Hardin were drinking beer and playing poker together in a crib at the far end of the street where they could have at least a little privacy from the crowds that kept following them around. Me and Jim Brown sat in with them, and I can tell you for a fact that they took a true liking to each other.

  The last hand of the night is proof of it. They’d been playing pretty even till then, but on the last go-round, after the pot fattens up, Bill raises two hundred and everybody drops out but Hardin. He studies his hand like he’s expecting it to talk to him, then asks Bill how much he’s got left. Bill says about another hundred or so, and Hardin raises him all of it. Bill laughs and says, “Thank you.” Hardin says, “I hope you’re as sure of going to heaven as you are that you got me beat.”

  “Beat this,” Bill says, and lays out a full house of aces over tens. He laughs and starts to pull in the pot, but Hardin says, “Hold on. I got two pair.”

  “Two pair!” Bill says. “Two pair don’t beat shit!”

  “I reckon it does,” Hardin says, “if it’s two pair of jacks.” And he lays them down soft as eggs, the whole jack family.

  Bill stares at him a second and says, “You son of a bitch.” Hardin’s face tightened and he watched Bill without blinking. Then Bill grins and’ says, “You smart-ass son of a bitch!”—and leans back in his chair and laughs his head off. And Hardin busts out laughing right along with him. Two of a kind, them two.

  They ate steaks at the Den that night and did some drinking and took a few turns at bucking the tiger. The place was so packed you couldn’t of fell to the floor if you’d been shot dead. You had to holler your conversations and the tobacco smoke was thick as a grass fire. Everybody was still hoping they’d go at it and wanted to be there if they did. Bill leaned in close to Hardin and I heard him yell, “Look at ’em! Sorry bastards just hoping we’ll give them something to talk about besides their saddle sores and dripping dicks. I tell you, amigo, sometimes I feel like a fucken circus freak!”

  Hardin gave him a funny look and said, “Hell, Bill, it ain’t that bad.” He loved the attention. He wasn’t yet used to having so many strangers smile at him and holler “How doing, Wes!” and buy him drinks—being so friendly because they were afraid of him. It was still new to him, and exciting, and you could see him eating it up with a spoon. Bill gave him a look back and shook his head. He was about as used to it as he cared to be.

  Bill invited him to join us at the races the next day, and Hardin said he’d be proud to. He met us at the track next morning, and I’ll be damned for a liar if he didn’t win on just about every race he bet. That sonbitch couldn’t lose at anything he laid his money on. By the time he rode out that afternoon he must of had half of Evergreen’s money in his saddlebags. Most of us weren’t sorry to see him go.

  And that’s how it was, the only time Bill Longley and Wes Hardin ever got together. If you’ve heard different, you’ve heard bullshit.

  They hung Bill eight years later, in Giddings, over in Lee County, on the eleventh of October, 1878. He’d killed a lot more fellas by then, but the one they got him for was Wilson Anderson, who had killed his cousin Cale. Bill ran Anderson down and killed him with a shotgun, then went off to Louisiana to hide out. He called himself Jim Black and took up farming. After a time he fell in love with some Cajun girl. Sheriff Milt Mast of Nacogdoches tracked him down and got the drop on him and offered to blow his head off or bring him back to Texas in chains to stand trial for murder; Bill went with choice number two. Mast never would of caught him without the help of that coonass bitch. I never did find out why Bill told her who he really was, nor ever knew the reason she betrayed him. I guess a man in love is bound to do foolish things, and to a naturally treacherous woman one reason to betray a man is as good as another.

  Giddings made a regular jubilee out of Bill’s hanging. They built a brand-new gallows for the occasion, and people came from everywhere, from Houston, Austin, from far off as San Antone. Four thousand of them, the newspapers said. They were crowded in the streets and up on the roofs. Every window with a view of the gallows had at least one head sticking out of it. Even the trees were full of spectators—men in the low branches and children in the high. There was hawkers of every kind selling to the crowd, and families with picnic baskets, and firecrackers and string bands and dancing. A real jubilee. It wasn’t nothing I wanted to witness with sober eyes, so I spent the better part of that morning as a serious customer in the saloons.

  According to the newspapers Bill had said he was at peace, but I doubt that. He was too damn mad about being given the death sentence to be feeling peaceful. He’d wrote a letter to Governor Hubbard from his jail cell asking why was he being hung for killing a no-good son of a bitch like Anderson when John Wesley Hardin hadn’t got but twenty-five years for killing a damn sheriff? Not to mention that Hardin had anyway killed lots more men than he ever had. The governor never did write Bill back.

  When they brung Bill out, a brass band struck up playing “We Shall Gather at the River.” Some of the folk cheered and some hooted and made fun. You’d of thought he was a politician. He surely looked it, in his Sunday suit and with his hair all combed and his imperial nicely trimmed. I’d never seen him looking so spruce. I was on the porch of the Saddlehorn Saloon and waved to him when he got up on the scaffold, but I don’t believe he saw me.

  Some old yellow dog followed the hanging party up the steps and everybody laughed to see the sheriff and his deputy both nearly fall from the scaffold trying to run the mutt off. Finally Bill gave it a kick and sent it yipping off. “You’ll hang for that, Bill!” some drunk hollered, and the crowd laughed it up some more.

  The newspapers reported his last words as being, “I deserve this fate for my wild and reckless life! So long, everybody!” That’s more bullshit. I was there. Even if they’d wanted to print what he really said, they couldn’t of. What Bill said was: “I never killed nobody in blood as cold as you’re hanging me, you shit-face sons of bitches! Fuck you all!”

  They put the hood over his head and dropped him through the trap and he bounced hard at the end of the rope but couldn’t kick much because his legs had been strapped together so the frailer women and smaller children wouldn’t be upset by a lot of thrashing. He was hanging still as a bag of oats when a pair of doctors went up the underladder and listened to his hea
rt. They shook their heads at each other and whispered some and wouldn’t let anybody else go up near him yet. Every now and then they’d listen to his chest some more, and after about twenty minutes they finally pronounced him dead.

  Of course, there’s some who’ll tell you he wasn’t any more dead than you are. They’ll tell you he bribed the sheriff and the hangman and the two damn doctors and God knows who-all else—and that they rigged him with a special harness that only made it look like he was hanging by the neck but really wasn’t. I ain’t saying I believe them—I’m just telling what some say. They say he was buried in an oversize coffin that gave him enough air to breathe till his friends came out to the graveyard that night and dug him out, then reburied the empty box. They say he went down to Argentina and got himself a big cattle ranch and a beautiful wife with green eyes and tits like peaches and he lived a good long life. Go ask around Evergreen. There’s lots of folks who’ll tell you how Bill Longley outfoxed them all.

  But now here’s a true fact. Remember Jody Pinto? Well, me and him was Rough Riders in Cuba with Teddy. Jody got shot in the stomach on San Juan Hill and suffered from it ever after. His daughter and son-in-law took care of him all these years up in New Jersey till he died about five months ago. Last year he sent me a newspaper clipping he thought would interest me. It was from The New York Times. It has a list of names of people who went down on the Lusitania. He sent it to me just a few weeks after the Huns sunk her, Well, sir—and this is a true fact now—one of the names on that list is W. P. Longley. Got him listed as a cattleman from South America. What you think of that? Right in the damn New York Times. I still got that clipping around somewhere—but hell, if you don’t believe me, go look it up your own damn self.

  I have taught legions of students in my long career as a bona fide professor of Law and the Liberal Arts, and the most dramatic exemplum I’ve yet seen of the dictum that character is fate was John Wesley Hardin.