by H. H. Knibbs
The Abilene which Coe and Thompson found when they arrived had come into existence less than four years before. True, there had been a village of Abilene before, but it was hardly more than a wide space on the Kansas Pacific Railroad route, a likely point for development in the remote future because of the abundance of water and the extensive growth of fine grass. These assets attracted Joseph G. McCoy, who came down from the Chicago area to get in on the ground floor of the cattle trade bound to develop wherever the railroad met the trails.
Joe McCoy figured Abilene as the logical spot for diversion of the cattle drives that had been going around to Missouri, close to the terminal of the railroads at Kansas City. Abilene, about a hundred and fifty miles from Kansas City, soon hummed with busy carpentry as McCoy put up a shipping yard, corrals, chutes, and other appurtenances of stock-loading. He also built a hotel that became The Drovers’ Cottage, famed in trail history. By early September of 1867, the first shipment, about twenty carloads of cattle, clanked along the KP tracks bound for Chicago, then making a bid to become the great butcher for the world.
The Kansas Pacific pushed its promotion of the cattle traffic, and McCoy as well as other agents scouted the Texas cow country drumming up trade for the new loading station. The railroad employed men to make the drive to Abilene easier than to any other trail town. Signs and markers were put up along the trail routes, water-holes indicated, and the trail itself was cleared and widened and diverted by way of shortcuts that would put the trail-driver into Abilene days sooner.
With the lure of the new market, the original Chisholm Trail of two hundred miles soon expanded into Texas to cover the entire route starting at San Antonio, across the Colorado, past Austin and Fort Worth, and over the Red and the Little Washita, due north to Abilene town. The Chisholm, once it was charted and marked, became the main line toward which all other previous trails flowed like tributaries to a mighty river. Originally, the trails pointed toward St. Louis. Then came the Baxter Springs Trail, the Shawnee Trail, and the Abilene Trail—all central avenues intersected by scores of local Texas trails, the side-streets and alleys, as it were, of the boulevard of beef. Later, as railheads crept toward the Pacific, there were new trails—the Jones and Plummer Trail, the Panhandle Trail, the Pecos Trail and others—but none to measure up to the Chisholm, the trail.
In the suburb of North Cottonwood, concentration point for cattle to be sold and loaded in Abilene, Ben Thompson had pawned a couple of pistols for something like thirty-six dollars. During a phenomenal streak at stud poker, he ran his stake up to more than three thousand dollars. With that, and a thousand dollars put into the kitty by Phil Coe, the two Austin men, in June of 1871, had opened the doors of The Bull’s Head.
The place was an instant success. As such, it drew the resentment of competitors who lacked some of the advantages, such as geographical kinship, which appealed to the cowmen far from the prairies of the Lone Star State. Since some of the owners of competing establishments were also city officials, they were in a position to put pressure on the newcomers. Coe and Thompson were not considered a part of the community life of Abilene, as were some of the proprietors of the other places. The Texans had a reputation as floaters, men who followed the boom towns to reap quick harvests and then moved on to the next. In that sense, it was felt, they could not be counted as permanent assets. Hence, any obstacle that could be put in their way might well be regarded as a contribution to civic virtue.
The conflict and tension were there from the start. The city officials and owners of the other saloons, gambling dives, and whorehouses were friendly on the surface. Some even gathered with their colleagues in the same lines of business to while away an hour or two at The Bull’s Head.
But it is likely that a man less dangerous than Ben Thompson would have been put out of business, and undoubtedly out of personal existence. As it was, the informal chamber of illicit commerce that had arisen among the vice lords of Abilene carried on its control by hiring as front man one of the most famous dead-shots of the West—Wild Bill Hickok.
CHAPTER 27
The phallic emphasis of The Bull’s Head Tavern sign brought about some of the first harsh words between the Thompson-Coe partnership and the new marshal, Wild Bill Hickok. The artist who painted the full figure of a stalwart longhorn had done nobly by the animal in endowing it with a procreative member of heroic proportions. In technique, the sign maker was of the realistic school, and the details he provided might easily have led to the conclusion that the tavern was named for the underside of the animal rather than for the area that bore the spreading horns.
As the spokesman for allegedly outraged modesty, Wild Bill paid a formal call on the partners and suggested certain modifications in the sign. The interview was hilarious, opening the way for a comprehensive discussion of sex, ranging from the biological to the ribald. The salty talk of the cowboy found an outlet in a context of more or less respectability, since The Bull’s Head sign soon became a community issue. The pro and con discussions boomeranged against the city fathers who had conceived the protest as part of a campaign of harassment. Fortunately, hardly anybody, and least of all Ben Thompson, took the dispute seriously. When Hickok, after repeated conferences, insisted that certain areas of the sign be done over, Ben finally told him:
“If you want it changed, do it yourself.”
That looked like some kind of solution, so Hickok hired a man to paint out the offending parts, thus hoping to save face for everybody concerned. This action, of course, gave rise to a whole new wave of talk and jokes, including the earnest recommendation that the tavern change its name to The Steer’s Head. One rumor had it that the flanked-out section of the sign’s animal would be covered by an udder painted to fit, and that this graphic sex transformation would be followed by a change in the sign’s lettering, to read “The Cow’s Head.”
The whole incident was in itself of slight consequence, but it did serve to point up the brewing conflict between Thompson and Hickok. It certainly made clear to one and all that Ben was not afraid of Wild Bill, but also that he would not go out of his way to make gun play with the Kansas City exhibition marksman, man-killer, and buffalo hunter.
Hickok’s feelings about Ben were more or less the same, and clearly on the side of professional pistol-shooting respect. For under other circumstance, the painted bull would have been altered not by a new coat of paint, but by pistol bullet holes that Wild Bill could make in that restricted area at a distance of a hundred paces. The matter ended with apparent satisfaction for all concerned. But Wild Bill, noted for his prolonged harboring of grudges, put it down as a score to be settled.
Strutting Wild Bill Hickok, the six-foot Greek god of the western gunmen, had no professional sense about law enforcement. The demonstration of personal power seemed more important to him. His prowess with the pistol was directed more at keeping the vice business in line rather than in removing it as a doctor might a festering sore. At Hays City he had kept his hold on the marshal’s star by shooting down anybody and everybody who opposed him. He departed from Hays City on suggestion of the army command at Fort Hays,’ after having slain three soldiers.
In Abilene, with the concentration of Texans under the unofficial leadership and protection of Ben Thompson’s pistol, Wild Bill found a different situation, and learned the practical politician’s methods of “adapting.” His predecessor in the marshal’s office in Abilene, now prematurely occupying a grave in the-town’s Boot Hill, had been a man of entirely different stripe. He was Thomas J. (Bear River Tom) Smith, who had toned down the wildness of Kit Carson, Colorado, and who in six months did much the same for Abilene. What was more, he had achieved the impossible without using firearms.
Tall, lean, soft-spoken Bear River Tom had knocked out Big Hank and Wyoming Frank, two roughneck’ desperadoes heavily armed, and from these feats grew a new respect for the law. Bear River Tom was shot dead from the window of a house toward
which he headed to make an arrest. With this tragic close of Smith’s tenure on November 2, 1870, Abilene saw the end of the first semblance of order that wild-and-woolly community had known. When Wild Bill took over, the sporting world held the reins. The law-abiding citizens took a back seat. For chaos was tall-in-the-saddle again.
As marshal, Wild Bill functioned primarily in the role of Abilene’s number one fixer. He was a go-between, bridging the ostensible gap between the practitioners of vice and those empowered by law to control them: the magistrates, lawmakers, and others in public office. If an honest man happened to get elected or appointed in this era, he found himself either politically impotent or marked down as a fool for not getting his share of the loot. Law and order boiled down to plain and simple “protection” in the sense that word came to be used by the underworld. Those who played ball with the powers found themselves unmolested, and their adversaries always at the short end of a judicial decision.
Control of Abilene in those rip-roaring days would have been complete for this clique had it not been for the enterprising spirit of Ben Thompson. The Bull’s Head became the center of the opposition, but not in the sense of interfering with the law’s partnership with vice and the guidance of the underworld. All that Thompson’s pistol spoke for at first was the rejection of either such a partnership or guidance in his business.
Texans who got into trouble, who protested being gypped or clipped or rolled, found the law against them invariably. They got into the habit of turning to Ben Thompson, the independent operator. Over and over again, Ben intervened on behalf of his fellow Texans. Each instance was a goad in the flesh of the town bosses—but underscored Ben’s defiance, built his prestige.
It now looked as if “The Battle of the Tavern Sign” was being fought all over again, but with wider implications. The painted bull had been emasculated. But what about the power of Ben Thompson?
CHAPTER 28
Ben Thompson’s position was bolstered by the presence in Abilene of “The Fastest Gun in Texas.” There was no formal alliance between its proprietor, John Wesley Hardin, and Ben. But the eighteen-year-old desperado, with fifteen kills on his record, hung out at The Bull’s Head. He was a special friend of Phil Coe’s, and there was little doubt about which way his pistol barrel would point in a “fuss.” Besides, Wes had already come through a run-in with Wild Bill. And Hickok wasn’t forgetting.
Nor was Ben Thompson about to let Hardin forget Hickok’s ways of dealing with men. Wild Bill permitted no open grudge to exist or to develop into a feud. He was quick to advocate a truce and then awaited his opportunity. They said he slapped a man on the back merely to find a soft spot for the knife. And when he spoke of burying the hatchet, he really meant driving it into his enemy’s skull. Furthermore, Ben had pointed out to Hardin, it was known that Hickok disliked southerners. After all, he was a Yankee. And of all the former rebels, the Texans were his pet hates.
However, Hardin was not out looking for trouble with Hickok. No more than he would deliberately seek a set-to with Ben Thompson. Wes was lightning on the draw, swifter than any man alive. He was a hip-shooter, a master of the side step. But the split-second that made a difference of life and death against most masters of the pistol might not be enough to balance the accuracy of Thompson and Hickok. Both were dead-shots. Hardin had been known to miss on the first shot, but he usually had fired a second time before his adversary pressed the trigger the first time.
John Wesley Hardin came up the trail to Abilene in the spring of 1871. He and his cousin, Jim Clements, had driven a herd of more than a thousand cattle from Texas, and had decided to stay around Abilene for a while. The arrival of another Texan, especially one as dangerous as Hardin, was not particularly welcome news for Hickok. But he was not reluctant to let Hardin know that he had a certain power over him.
At their first meeting, Wild Bill showed Hardin a poster. It told of a reward for the capture of the young Texan on a murder charge warrant sworn out in Texas. Hardin had his two pistols out and had covered Hickok before an attempt at an arrest was made. The next instant, Hardin was offering his pistols, grip first, to the marshal, as if in surrender. Hickok reached for them, but Hardin stepped back one pace and the pistol in each hand whirled over the trigger finger and they were back in fighting position. To many in Abilene this was the first display of the famous “Mexican border roll” of the pistol, known also as “the road agent’s spin” and “the Texas twirl.”
“I’m not arresting you, Little Arkansas,” Bill Hickok said, “and what you done in Texas is no worry of mine, but don’t go around trying to hurrah me.”
“I’m not hurrahing you, Bill,” Wesley replied, “but I’m not going to be run out of Abilene, neither.”
There were more words between them on that occasion. The consensus in Abilene was that Hardin had called Hickok’s bluff, and that Hickok had talked the killer from Fanning County, Texas, out of an imminent homicide in which Wild Bill would have been the corpus delicti.
Ben Thompson and Phil Coe made no secret of their pleasure at the tension that persisted between Hardin and Hickok. And there seems to be no doubt that the young man was under something of a spell cast by the partners, particularly Phil Coe, who had given him the nickname of “Little Seven-Up.” Hardin spent many hours playing poker at The Bull’s Head, and the subtle influence of constant association with Coe strengthened his defiance of Hickok. “Little Arkansas” may have been aware of his strategic position as a kind of balance of power. At any rate, he carried pistols in places forbidden by the marshal’s edict. Also he killed a couple of men who made slurring remarks about Texas and Texans. But, despite his warnings to Hardin, Hickok never permitted the situation to reach a showdown.
Wild Bill was doing too well in Abilene to take unnecessary chances. He had learned, too, from his mistakes in Hays City. His success in Abilene was not only financial, but in prestige and power. This gave him more satisfaction than his reputation as a top-notch buffalo hunter; more than the applause and rewards for his public exhibitions of marksmanship in Kansas City. There, at fifty feet, he had driven a cork into a bottle with a pistol bullet, and at the same distance had notched a bullet on the edge of a coin.
Hickok’s flair for the theatrical found full play in Abilene. If his shoulder-length golden brown tresses and his towering six-foot-plus height and his baby-blue eyes were not enough, his high-crowned hat and long black broadcloth coat, his occasional satin-lined cape and his beaded moccasins certainly completed the setting. Needless to say, with his physical attraction, his position in town, and the aura of adventure about him, he had drawn many a pair of feminine eyes gazing wistfully in his direction.
To tangle with Ben Thompson might bring a sudden close to this fancy living, even if he took Ben with him to Boot Hill. Nor was Ben too eager for any rupture of his current good fortune. The man from Austin was riding the crest of the Abilene boom. It looked awfully good to him, now, and for years to come. It might even be his big chance of settling down, of making his pile. Then he would be fixed for life. He would really be an important man.
The forces surging within Ben were a reflection of his day and age, of course. Lush boom days had brought floods of money. But the disorder and uncertainty were becoming intolerable. Men who wanted to build homes and raise families had begun to assert themselves. They felt the need of law and order. There was no reason why a properly run saloon and gambling hall could not fit in with other businesses. Ben felt so strongly about the future of Abilene that he decided to make his home there. He made plans for a trip to Kansas City, where he would meet his wife and young son and bring them to Abilene.
These considerations undoubtedly prompted Ben Thompson to exercise a restraining influence on his partner, Phil Coe. Abilene was just another trail town to Phil, who had hoped to rake in enough cash quickly so he could go back and open up another place in Austin. He didn’t care particularly if he made his money
in Abilene or elsewhere along the trail. This was all a gold-hunting adventure, and he had no intention of facing the taunts of his fellow Texans, who were aching to even up things with Hickok. They were accumulating a long string of grievances that could bring concerted action any day.
Such jibes would never worry Ben, even if anyone dared to make them to his face. He was confident of what he could do with his pistol if the need arose. So he stuck to his rule of employing his weapon defensively only, although there were times when the interpretation of defensive gun-play might be a bit on the flexible side.
But Ben didn’t give a hoot about how much Wild Bill strutted around town, just so Hickok didn’t strut on him. The cock-of-the-walk role of Hickok’s did not sit too well, however, with a lot of people; especially when the marshal assumed a possessive attitude about all the show girls in town, regarded generally as anybody’s game. He had a way, as the saying goes, with most of them—the singers and the dancers of the saloons and vaudeville theaters, as well as with those whose talents functioned best in more secluded places.
One of the show girls in Abilene in 1871 who put up an open and steady resistance to Wild Bill’s charms was flaxen-haired, green-eyed Jessie Hazel, a variety entertainer of diverse accomplishments, who was the star attraction that summer. Jessie spurned the marshal’s attentions, and it became public talk. That was bad enough from his point of view. To make matters worse, Jessie had given her heart to tall, dark, and handsome Phil Coe. She was madly in love with the Texan, and she didn’t care who knew it.
CHAPTER 29
The showdown between Wild Bill Hickok and the Texas “Opposition” in Abilene came while Ben Thompson was in Kansas City, getting ready to bring his family back with him. Ben had no direct part in this showdown, but the series of events had a positive bearing on his present welfare and future progress.
Ben Thompson was still around to join in the celebration on June 30, 1871, at which the town of Abilene feted John Wesley Hardin for his feat in tracking down and killing Juan Bideno. The entire incident was a sparkling illustration of the thin line that separated the law man and the outlaw, and how simple it was to cross that line, given speed and accuracy with a pistol.