The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

by James Carlos Blake

  Neither one put his hand out. They just nodded and said they were proud to make each other’s acquaintance. Bill offered to buy him a whiskey, but Hardin insisted the drinks were on him and ordered a bottle. They clinked glasses and drank to each other’s health. While they had a couple of drinks more, Bill told him he’d heard about the fight with the Mexicans on the Newton Prairie and was impressed by the shooting they said he’d done. “You did the republic a service, getting rid of so many troublemakers all at one time,” he said.

  Hardin smiled big as the moon. “Glad you feel that way,” he said. “I’d been wondering how I stood with the law hereabouts.” For all their pleasantries, they were both doing everything left-handed. Hardin kept his right hand hooked by a thumb in his gunbelt, and Bill had his on his hip, from where he could snatch the navy just quick as a blink.

  “Got something to show you, Little Arkansas,” Bill said. I don’t know anybody who knows why in hell Bill called him by that name, but that’s what he always called him from then on—and for some damn reason Hardin seemed pleased by it. Bill took the Texas reward poster out of his coat with his left hand and shook it open for Hardin to see. Hardin gave it a glance and his smile got tight. Bill crumpled it up and said, “It don’t mean jackshit. Nor any other papers they send on you. The way I see it, Little Arkansas, I got enough to do just keeping all these wild hairs from tearing up the town—and you got enough troubles back home without adding to them here. Now you impress me as a bright fella who’s his own man. I don’t believe you’re likely to be influenced by any bitter souls in town who try to use you for their own low purposes.”

  “Like Ben Thompson, you mean?” Hardin said with a smile. “Phil Coe’s an old friend of mine. Soon as I come into town he invited me to the Bull’s Head and introduced me to Ben. Friendly fella, Ben. Kept pushing free whiskey at me and telling me how us Texans got to stick together here in Bloody Kansas. He had a lot to say about you.”

  Bill nodded and said, “I’ll wager he did.”

  Hardin poured another left-handed round of drinks and said, “He said you are a Texan-hating Yankee sonbitch and the world would be a better place without you. I’m using his words, you understand. No offense.” Bill shook his head to say none taken. But George Johnson’s eyes had gone wide at the sudden bluntness of the conversation, and he eased back into the crowd and vanished. I knew how he felt. Up on the bar my shotgun looked a mile away. “Ben also says,” Hardin went on, “that you prefer killing Texans to even Mexicans and niggers.”

  Even if most the men crowded around us hadn’t been as drunk and distracted as they were, they couldn’t have overheard much of the conversation between Bill and Hardin, not in all the loudness. “Folks will believe what they want to believe,” Bill said.

  “That’s a true fact,” Hardin said. “And one of the things I’ve always believed is that a man ought to do his own fighting. I told Ben so. I said, ‘Ben, if what you’re saying is Wild Bill needs killing, why don’t you just go on over there and do it?’”

  Bill let out a belly laugh and said he bet that raised Ben’s eyebrows some. “Damn sure did,” Hardin said, “but he stayed friendly and didn’t press me anymore on the subject.” Bill said Ben wasn’t one to press things except with them he knew he could bully. “In that case,” Hardin said, “I guess it’s two honkers in this town he won’t be pressing things with.” You should’ve seen them—grinning at each other like mules at their feed.

  Bill tossed off his drink and said, “It’s a pleasure, Little Arkansas, but I got rounds to make.” They were both fairly bright in the eyes from all the quick whiskey they’d put down. I knew Bill was drunk because of the careful way he wiped his mustaches. “If I can do you a favor while you’re in town,” he said, “say the word.”

  “Thanks, Bill,” Hardin said. “I’ll remember that.”

  Bill leaned in closer to him and said in a voice so low I barely caught it: “You can do me a favor too, if you’re of a mind to.”

  “What might that be, Bill?” Hardin asked.

  “You might make it a point,” Bill said, “not to wear them pistols the rest of the time you’re in town.”

  Hardin’s eyes went thin but he kept smiling and didn’t say anything. Bill smiled back and nodded so long, and we shouldered our way out through the crowd.

  Back on the street, I asked Bill if he thought Hardin would go on wearing his guns. He looked up at the night sky and heaved an enormous sigh. “Only till all them stars come falling down,” he said.

  Over the next couple of days Bill kept to his usual routine. He made his daybreak round of town, then settled in at the Alamo for his morning whiskey and breakfast beefsteak and a few early hands with anybody interested. Hardin kept mainly to the Bull’s Head and the Applejack—whenever he wasn’t at one whorehouse or another. The day after Bill had his talk with him I saw him come out of a photography studio, all groomed and spit-shined in his black suit and plaid vest. He was still wearing his pistols.

  The next morning I saw him and a bunch of Texans go in the Bull’s Head, and from my chair out on the jail portico I listened to them get louder as the day went by. All their whooping and yeehawing kept drawing more and more wildhairs over there to join the fun. That afternoon Ben Thompson came staggering out the front doors and looked straight up at his sign—then fell over backward and laid on the sidewalk like a dead man. Some of his friends came out and laughed at him, then grabbed him by the heels and dragged him back inside.

  Finally, here came Bill back from the Alamo to make his afternoon check on the jail. He had his hat low on his eyes and walked smooth as a cat. A couple of fellas standing in the Bull’s Head doorway spotted him and slipped back inside and out of sight. A second later the doors swung open again and Wes Hardin stepped out with his hat pushed back on his head and his guns showing under his open black coat. A slew of faces filled the saloon window and the doorway behind him.

  I started across the street so I could cover Bill against anybody who might charge out the door or try coming around the corner of the building to flank him, but Bill waved me back toward the jail. I got back up on the sidewalk and stood there with the shotgun at port arms where all the wild boys could see it. Hardin stepped down into the street and said, “Howdy, Bill.”

  “Little Arkansas,” Bill said, “I thought you and me had an understanding about not wearing them guns till you were ready to leave town.”

  “Well, Bill,” Hardin said, “it so happens I’m about to go see some friends tending a herd south of town.”

  “That’s fine then,” Bill said. “Glad we understand each other.” But as he turned to head for the jail, somebody at the saloon door let out a rebel yell loud enough to wake the dead—and Bill spun back around and it was like the navy had been in his hand all along, he pulled it so quick. Nobody—nobody, never, take my word for it—could pull a pistol faster than Bill Hickok. The boys in the saloon couldn’t see Hardin’s face, but I could: he looked like he’d just seen Bill turn water into wine. If he hadn’t froze like he did, Bill would’ve shot his heart out. I wish to hell he had. The whole street was suddenly so quiet I would’ve thought I’d gone deaf except I heard Bill say, “Hand me the guns, Little Arkansas. Easy, and butt first.”

  What happened next is a fact. A hundred other witnesses saw it. Hardin eased the pistols from their holsters and held them out to Bill butt forward. But he’d kept a finger in each trigger guard, and when Bill reached for the guns with his left hand, Hardin flicked his wrists and reversed them just as quick and neat as a gambler can flip a card. Just flip! and they were cocked and pointed in Bill’s face. It’s called the road agent’s spin and is one of the oldest tricks there is—for show. Lots of pistolmen could do it for show. But to try it on somebody holding a gun on you, well, it’s a sure way to get your brains blowed out real quick. For Hardin to do it to Wild Bill, who knew more gun tricks than anybody alive, was more than unbelievable—it was flat crazy. He got away with it because Bill never
in a million years expected Hardin to be that crazy. Bill had expected a pistoleer of Hardin’s reputation to know it couldn’t be done. Bill, of all people, ought have known better than to expect a pistoleer to use common sense.

  Hardin looked more surprised than anybody that the spin had worked. I leveled the shotgun at him, but Bill said, “No, Tom,” without even looking my way. I kept it pointed at Hardin anyway, both hammers cocked.

  “Drop that navy!” Hardin hollered. He was about quivering with excitement. But Bill just shook his head real slow and said, “ ’Fraid not, hoss,” and kept the navy pointed at him.

  I barely heard Bill because of the clamor coming from the wildhairs in the saloon—them and the crowd forming fast up the street, looking for a show but at the same time trying to keep out of the line of fire. With Bill under Hardin’s guns, the Hickok haters were all of a sudden plenty loud and brave. “Kill him, Wes!” they were yelling. “Kill the son of a bitch!” But Hardin knew damn well he was in a Mexican standoff. The instant he shot Bill—whether in the head, heart, or wishbone—Bill would shoot him dead too, do it in a dying reflex. And I’d let him have both barrels—I reckon he knew that too.

  Somebody in the street crowd hollered, “Hell, I’ll shoot the Yankee fancy pants myself!” Hardin swung one of his pistols in the direction of the voice without taking his eyes off Bill and shouted, “I’ll kill any sonbitch who shoots!” I was the only one close enough to hear him tell Bill, “I’ll be damned if I’m gonna give you the chance to shoot me in the back. I been told what you’re up to.”

  “Oh, hell, son,” Bill said, “if I wanted to kill you I’d of done it in the same breath when I pulled the pistol. You’d of died looking me square in the eyes. Ben Thompson’s been pouring you lies with every drink, Little Arkansas. Listen, let’s go have a drink.” With Hardin’s guns still in his face, Bill uncocked the navy and stuck it back in his sash. It was about the most foolish thing I’d ever seen him do, but he reckoned he had a fix on Hardin’s true nature—and he always was a gambling man. “I’m buying,” Bill said.

  Every jackass in the Bull’s Head was bellowing for Hardin to shoot. But for all the Texas wildhair in him, Hardin was cut from cloth a lot like Bill’s. He twirled the pistols and dropped them back in their holsters.

  It wasn’t only the wild boys who let out cusses and groans of disappointment—damn near everybody watching had been hoping for a bloody entertainment. It’s how people are. Bill and Hardin didn’t pay them any more mind than they did the crows cawing along the storefronts.

  “I know a place,” Bill said, “might suit your fancy.”

  “Whatever pleases you,” Hardin said.

  They went over to Cedar Street and through the Alamo to the plank walkway out back that led down the alley to Miss Violet’s pleasure parlor. I trailed along behind. They stayed in there the rest of the afternoon.

  Bill came out shortly after dusk, walking in that well-oiled way a man does when he’s got just the proper amount of whiskey in him and has just been laid every which way to Sunday. I never much cared for whores myself, but that’s not saying I never made use of them. A man ain’t always got a lot of choice about how to scratch the itch in his pants. I was standing near the back door of the Alamo, and because he couldn’t see worth a damn in bad light, Bill didn’t recognize me. He pushed back the right flap of his Prince Albert as he approached—then he made out who I was and let the coat flap drop. He patted me on the shoulder as he went by in a cloud of whiskey breath and French perfume. “You fine boy, Tom,” he said, and went inside to while away the night in his poker chair.

  A couple of hours later, as I was making my rounds, I heard shots in the Daisy Restaurant halfway down the street. I ran over and saw a small crowd rushing out the door in a panic, the women shrieking and the men hunkering low, everybody moving fast to get out of the way of a man who came staggering out with the lower half of his face missing and blood gushing from his wound. I caught him as he fell and eased him down on the sidewalk just as Hardin stormed through the door with his Colt in his hand and fury in his eyes. He stuck the gun in my face and ordered me to toss my scattergun and pistol in the street, then backed up to the end of the sidewalk and ran off down the alley.

  Inside the restaurant a man named Tom Pain was sitting in a chair and cussing a blue streak about his rotten luck while a waiter used a towel to try to stop the bleeding from the bad wound in his arm. It was the only arm Tom Pain had, having lost the other in the War, and he was nearly crying, he was so mad. By the time Bill showed up, Pain had told me the whole story.

  He and Hardin had met in the parlor at Miss Violet’s and took a shine to each other, so they’d come to the Daisy for some supper and to talk about common acquaintances back home in Texas. Two jayhawkers sitting at the next table started talking loud about what a pesthole Texas was and how Kansas would be a far better place if every Texan in it was run out for good. Hardin turned around in his chair and said that back in Texas it was common knowledge there were three kinds of suns in Kansas—sunshine, sunflowers, and sons of bitches—and didn’t neither of them look like sunshine or flowers to him. One of the hawkers jumped up and grabbed him by the collar—and Hardin whipped out his Colt and hit the fella across the nose with it. Pain said it sounded like breaking a kindling stick. The fella dropped to his knees with blood pouring down his chin as the other hawker pulled a belly gun and fired—but he missed Hardin and hit Pain in the arm. Hardin shot twice—the first bullet nicked the jayhawker’s cheek and sprayed some feathers off the hat of a young woman behind him, and the second blew off the hawker’s lower jaw.

  While I was telling Bill what happened, we got word that Hardin had gone to the livery, saddled up, and rode off hell-for-leather to the south. “Just as well,” Bill said. “This looks like self-defense, plain and simple, but I’m damned if I ever met anybody forced to do so much self-defending as that boy.” He was one to talk.

  Over the next couple of days a half-dozen drovers, including Columbus Carol and Jake Johnson, came to Bill to put in a good word for Hardin. Bill told them he considered the jayhawker shooting a case of self-defense and Hardin was still squared with him. He made it seem like he was doing them a favor, but he was just doing what was best for himself. All those Texans in town were looking up to Hardin like some kind of hero, and it would have been hell to pay if Bill had come down hard on him.

  When Hardin paid his next visit to town, Bill invited him into the Applejack to palaver over a couple of drinks. He told him about a new Texas reward poster that was making the rounds: the price on Hardin’s head was up to one thousand dollars. He offered Hardin a deal. He’d let him wear his guns in town, and he’d make fast work of any bounty men who might come into Abilene looking for him—but in trade Hardin had to keep his Texas friends unarmed and not do anything to make Bill look bad.

  Hardin said that was fair enough and they touched glasses on it.

  On the afternoon they had their famous standoff, I was getting my hair trimmed by Wanda May up in my room. Violet kept coming by to see how much longer we’d be, telling us the parlor was full of horny galoots waiting to be serviced and the other girls couldn’t take care of them all. It was true. That summer in Abilene was the hardest-working I ever knew. The house was operating every hour of the day and night. But making all that money was hard on Violet’s nerves. The richer she got, the bitchier she got. She got to where she wouldn’t stand for anybody taking a break longer than to ease their bladder or eat a quick meal. “Time is money, ladies!” she’d say, clapping her hands like she was chop-chopping a bunch of coolies. She damn sure didn’t chop-chop me. She knew I wouldn’t have stood for it. I would’ve left there in a Kansas City minute and gone to work for Dapper Dan Foster or Louella Sweet. The both of them were always trying to get me to switch to their house. They wanted me for the same reason Violet didn’t get bossy with me—I was Bill’s special girl and everybody knew it.

  Bill liked me special because he knew I was a
fool for killers. I’ve never been able to explain it and I’m not about to try now. But the first time he was with me he must’ve smelled it under my perfume or felt it in my bones. There’s something about a killer that’s always set my blood humming and made my skin jump at their touch. And Bill, well, I’d go so hot under his hands I’d let steam. Even if Violet hadn’t allowed Bill the run of the house for free, I never would’ve charged him a nickel. He sometimes went to other houses, of course, men naturally craving variety like they do, and he sometimes went to some of the other girls in Violet’s. But mostly he came to me. It increased his pleasure to know how much I thrilled to the touch of his killer hands. Hell, we all of us got our ways.

  Violet didn’t charge Bill because he was so damn good for business. Other men wanted to take their pleasure wherever Bill took his. They wanted to sit at the same poker tables and drink from the same bottles and mount the same women. I brought Bill to Violet’s and a heap of business followed Bill. It’s why Violet Hayes wasn’t about to take a chance on losing me to Dapper Dan or Louella.

  Anyhow, just when Wanda May finished my hair, Violet came to the door again and said she had a special party waiting on us in the Meadow Room. It wasn’t unusual for some flush galoot to buy himself two girls at once—or even three, if his hankering was that much bigger than his pecker and his common sense—and that’s what the Meadow Room was for. It was called that because it’s about how big the bed in there was.

  So me and Wanda May followed Violet down the hall in our shimmies—and who do we find waiting in the Meadow but Wild Bill and another fella. They were sitting at the small table by the window with a near-empty bottle and two full ones, and they were grinning at us like wolves. I knew right off what they had in mind. Bill always was one for whorehouse adventure. I took a quick look at Wanda May and saw her staring at the stranger with her mouth open. “Here they are, boys,” Violet said. “The best in the house. Y’all have a real nice time, hear?” And she scooted on out and shut the door.