Day of Independence (27 page)

I saw John Wesley Hardin being born, I was with him when he died, and in between I was proud to call him my friend. He was everything I wanted to be and couldn't.

Wes was tall and slim and straight and moved with the elegance of a panther. He'd a fine singing voice and the very sight of him when he stepped into a room set the ladies' hearts aflutter. Many men admired him, others hated him, but all feared him and the wondrous things he could do with revolvers.

Like England's hunchbacked king, I was delivered misshapen from my mother's womb. My frail body did not grow as a man's should, and even in the full bloom of my youth, if you'd be pleased to call it that, I never weighed more than eighty pounds or reached a height of five feet.

Do you wonder then that I admired Wes so, and badly wanted to be like him? He was my noble knight errant who sallied forth to right wrongs, and I his lowly squire.

I think I know the answer to that question.

And why I pledged to stay at his side to the death.

 

 

As I told you earlier, we were headed for Longview to visit with Wes's kin for a spell, but he wanted to linger where we were for a day longer.

“This is a pleasant spot and we can talk about my idea some more. Sometimes it's good to just set back and relax.”

I had no objections. I felt ill and my leg continued to give me trouble.

The day passed pleasantly enough. I sat under a tree and read my book and Wes caught a bright yellow butterfly at the base of a live oak. He said it meant good luck.

But when he opened his hands to let the butterfly go, it could no longer fly and fluttered to earth, a broken thing.

Wes said not to worry, that it was still good luck. But he seemed upset about the crippled butterfly and didn't try to catch another one.

 

 

The long day finally lifted its ragged skirts and tiptoed away, leaving us to darkness and the Texas stars.

Wes built up the fire and put the coffee on to boil. Using his Barlow knife, he shaved slices of salt pork into the pan and said there would be enough cornpone for supper with some left over for tomorrow's breakfast.

I was pleased about that. It was good cornpone, made with buttermilk and eggs, and I was right partial to it back in those days.

After supper we talked about the Wild West Show, then, as young men do, about women. After a while, I said I was tired and it was about time I sought my blankets.

I stretched out and tried to ignore the pain gnawing at my leg.

Night birds fluttered in and out of the pines making a rustling noise, and a puzzled owl asked its question of the night. A pair of hunting coyotes yipped back and forth in the distance and then fell silent.

I closed my eyes and entered that gray, misty realm between wakefulness and sleep... then jolted back to consciousness when a shout rang through the hallowed quiet.

“Hello the camp!”

I sat upright and saw that Wes was already on his feet. He wasn't wearing his guns, but stood tense and alert, his eyes reaching into the darkness.

Even as a teenager, John Wesley's voice was a soft baritone, but to my surprise he pitched it near an octave higher and broke it a little as he called out, “Come on in. There's coffee on the bile.”

I wondered at that, but didn't dwell on it because the darkness parted and two men rode into the clearing.

Men made a living any way they could in Texas when Wes and I were young, and those two strangers looked as though they were no exception. They were hardfaced men, lean as wolves. I'd seen enough of their kind to figure that they were on the scout.

Astride mouse-colored mustangs that couldn't have gone more than eight hundred pounds, they wore belted revolvers and carried Springfield rifles across their saddle horns. As for clothing, their duds were any kind of rags they could patch together. The effect, coupled with their dirty, bare feet, was neither pleasant nor reassuring.

But the Springfields were clean and gleamed with a sheen of oil.

Whoever those men were, they were not pilgrims.

One of the riders, bearded and grim, was a man who'd long since lost the habit of smiling. “You got grub?”

“No, sir,” Wes said, using that strange, boy's voice. “Sorry, but we're all out.”

The man's eyes moved to our horses. “Where did you get them mounts?”

Wes didn't hesitate. “We stole them, sir. But we're taking them back to Longview to square ourselves with the law.”

The man turned to his companion, “Lem, how much you figure the paint is worth?”

“Two hundred in any man's money,” the man called Lem said. He looked at Wes. “You stole a lot of horse there, boy”

Wes nodded. “I know, sir. And that's why we're taking him back to his rightful owner.”

“Who is his rightful owner?” Lem asked.

“We don't rightly know,” I said. “But we aim to find out, like.”

“Well, you don't have to worry about that, sonny,” Lem said. “We'll take the paint off your hands, and the buckskin as well. Ain't that so, Dave?”

The bearded man nodded. “Sure thing. Pleased to do it. And, being decent folks, we'll set things right with the law for you.”

“We'll do it ourselves,” Wes said... in his normal voice.

And those two white trash idiots didn't notice the change! They sat their ponies and heard what they wanted to hear, saw what they wanted to see.

What they heard was the scared voice of a half-grown boy, and what they saw was a pair of raw kids, one of them a crippled, sickly-looking runt.

Beyond that they saw nothing... an oversight that would prove their downfall.

It was a lethal mistake, and they made it.

They'd underestimated John Wesley Hardin, and as I said earlier, you couldn't make mistakes around Wes. Not if you wanted to go on living, you couldn't.

“Lem, go git them horses and saddles,” Dave said. “Now, you boys just set and take it easy while Uncle Lem does what I told him.”

“Leave the horses the hell alone,” Wes said.

Lem was halfway out of the saddle, but something in Wes's tone froze him in place. He looked at Dave.

“Go do what I told you, Lem,” the bearded man said. Then to Wes, “Boy, I had it in my head to let you live, since you're a good-looking kid and could come with us, make yourself useful, like. But my mind's pretty close to a-changing, so don't push me.”

Lem dismounted and then, rifle in hand, he grinned at Wes and walked toward the horses.

“I told you, leave the horses be.” Wes stood very still, his face like stone.

I swallowed hard, my brain racing.
Wes, where the hell are your guns?

“Boy, step aside,” Dave said. “Or I'll drop you right where you stand.”

“And you go to hell,” Wes said.

Dave nodded as though he'd expected that kind of reaction. “You lose, boy.” He smiled. “Sorry and all that.”

He brought up his rifle, and John Wesley shot him.

Drawing from the waistband behind his back, Wes's ball hit the Springfield's trigger guard, clipped off Dave's shooting finger, then ranged upward and crashed into the bearded man's chin.

His eyes wide and frantic, Dave reeled in the saddle, spitting blood, bone, and teeth.

Wes ignored him. The man was done.

Wes and Lem fired at the same instant.

Unnerved by the unexpected turn of events, Lem, shooting from the hip, was too slow, too wide and too low. Wes's bullet hit him between the eyes and he fell all in a heap like a puppet that just had its strings cut.

Never one to waste powder and ball, Wes didn't fire again.

But something happened that shocked me to the core.

Despite his horrific wound, his face a nightmare of blood and bone, the man called Dave swung his horse around and kicked it into the darkness.

Wes let out a triumphant yell and ran after him, holding his Colt high.

They vanished into the murk and I was left alone in silence.

In the moonlight, gun smoke laced around the clearing like a woman's wispy dress wafting in a breeze. The man on the ground lay still in death and made no sound.

A slow minute passed... then another....

A shot! Somewhere out there in the dark.

Uneasy, I picked up a heavy stick that lay by the fire and hefted it in my hand. Small and weak as I was, there was little enough I could do to defend myself, but the gesture made me feel better.

“Hello the camp!” It was John Wesley's voice, followed by a shout of triumphant glee.

The black shades of the night parted and he walked into the clearing, leading the dead man's mustang.

I say dead man, because even without asking I knew that must have been Dave's fate.

“You should've seen it, Little Bit,” Wes said, his face alight. “Twenty yards in darkness through trees! One shot! I blew the man's brains out.” He laughed and clapped his hands. “If he had any.”

Without waiting for my response, he said, “Now we got a couple more ponies to sell and two Springfield rifles. Their Colts are shot out and one has a loose cylinder, so I'll hold on to those.” His face split in a wide grin. “What do you reckon, Little Bit, am I destined for great things or ain't I?”

I didn't answer that, at least not directly. “John Wesley, the killing has to stop.”

He was genuinely puzzled and toed the dead man with his boot. “You talking about these two?”

“No, I guess not. I mean, the killing in general. You have to think about the Wild West show.”

“These men needed killing, right?”

I nodded. “Yeah, I guess it was them or us.” I was still holding onto the stick and tossed it away. “Maybe you could've let the other one die in his own time and at a place of his choosing. I say
maybe
you could. I'm not pointing fingers, Wes.”

“Name one man I killed who didn't need killing, Little Bit. Damn it, name just one. And don't say Mage. He was a black man and don't count.”

He waited maybe a full second, then said, “See, you can't name a one.”

“Wes, there are some who say you pushed the fight with Ben Bradley.”

“He cheated me at cards and then called me a coward. A man who deals from the bottom of the deck and calls another man yellow needs killing. At least in Texas he does.”

“I was there, Wes. You kept right on pumping balls into him after he said, ‘Oh Lordy, don't shoot me anymore. ' I remember that. Why did you do it?”

“Because in a gunfight you keep shooting till the other man falls. And because only a man who's low-down asks for mercy in the middle of a shooting scrape, especially after he's gotten his work in.”

I was silent.

Wes said, “Well, did Ben Bradley need killing?”

I sighed. “Yeah, Wes. I guess he did at that.”

“Then what's your problem?” Wes's face was dark with anger. “Come on, cripple boy, spit it out.”

“Don't enjoy it, Wes. That's all. Just... just don't enjoy it.”

Wes was taken aback and it was a while before he spoke again. “You really think I like killing men?” he finally asked.

“I don't know, Wes.”

“Come on, answer me. Do you?”

“Maybe you do.”

“And maybe I was born under a dark star. You ever think of that?”

Above the tree canopy the stars looked like diamonds strewn across black velvet. I pointed to the sky. “Which star?”

“It doesn't matter, Little Bit. Whichever one you choose will be dark. There ain't no shining star up there for John Wesley Hardin.”

Depression was a black dog that stalked Wes all his life, and I recognized the signs. The flat, toneless voice and the way his head hung as though it had suddenly become too heavy for his neck.

In later years, depression, coming on sudden, would drive him to alcohol and sometimes to kill.

It was late and I was exhausted, but I tried to lift his mood. “Your Wild West show is a bright star, Wes.”

I thought his silence meant that he was considering that, but this was not the case.

“I don't kill men because I enjoy it. I kill other men because they want to kill me.” He stared at me with lusterless eyes. “I just happen to be real good at it.”

“Get some sleep, Wes,” I said.

He nodded to the body. “I'll drag that away first.”

“Somewhere far. You ever hear wild hogs eating a man? It isn't pleasant.”

Wes was startled. “How would you know that?”

Tired as I was, I didn't feel like telling a story, but I figured it might haul the black dog off Wes, so I bit the bullet, as they say. “Remember back to Trinity County when we were younkers?”

“Yeah?” Wes said it slow, making the word a question.

“Remember Miles Simpson, lived out by McCurry's sawmill?”

“Half-scalped Simpson? Had a wife that would have dressed out at around four hundred pounds and the three simple sons?”

“Yes, that's him. He always claimed that the Kiowa half-scalped him, but it was a band saw that done it.”

“And he got et by a hog?”

“Let me tell the story. Well one summer, I was about eight years old, going on nine, and you had just learned to toddle around—”

“I was a baby,” Wes said.

“Right. That's what you were, just a baby.” I hoped he wouldn't interrupt again otherwise the story would take all night to tell.

“Well, anyhoo, Ma sent me over to the Simpson place for the summer. She figured roughhousing with the boys might strengthen me and help my leg. Mrs. Simpson was a good cook and Ma said her grub would put weight on me.”

“What did she cook?” With the resilience of youth, Wes was climbing out from under the black dog, and that pleased me.

“Oh, pies and beef stew, stuff like that. And sausage. She made that herself and fried it in hog fat.”