Forty Times a Killer (12 page)

Early that evening, Columbus Carroll offered John Wesley a hundred and forty dollars a month to look after his herd until the buyers shipped them out. “But first tell me how are you with Wild Bill. I want no trouble on that score.”

“I stand square with Bill,” Wes said. “We have no problems.”

“Then the job is yours,” Carroll said.

Wes readily agreed to stay on since two of his gambler friends, Ben Thompson and Phil Coe, were in town. Both men were good with a gun, but neither had the status, nor the shooting skills, of Wes and Wild Bill.

That brings me to the undercurrent of gossip that had swept Abilene since Wes arrived—if there was a showdown between Hardin and Hickok who would prevail?

To my certain knowledge, bets were already being placed. Even Wes's erstwhile friends, Coe and Thompson, had a wager going.

Ben bet a thousand dollars on Wes and Coe put the same amount on Bill. Both confidently expected to be the winner.

That evening as Wes and I left the Alamo, matters almost came to a head. As was my rapidly growing habit, I was half drunk, Wes less so, when Wild Bill met us on the boardwalk.

He carried two ivory-handled Navy Colts at his waist, butt forward in black leather holsters and was dressed in his gambler's finery, a massive silver ring on the little finger of his left hand. He smelled like . . . well, you know when a man opens the door of a bawdyhouse and gets his first whiff of that wonderful odor of perfume, soap, bonded bourbon, and just a hint of sweat? That's what Bill smelled like.

No wonder I thought him a truly magnificent specimen. I'd always longed to be Wes, now Wild Bill was also a source of my adoration.

Ha! Pale, puny, prattling pygmy that I was, I still dreamed big in those days.

As we approached Wild Bill, Wes smiled and touched his hat.

Maybe there was something in that smile that Bill didn't like. A touch of, “I know-what-you-ain't-got” perhaps.

Bill's shaggy eyebrows drew together and he growled at Wes, “Here, why are you wearing those guns in town? Take them off and give them to me or face arrest and a seventy-five dollar fine.”

A huge moon hung over Abilene that night and its light turned Wes and Bill into silvered statues. Neither man moved a muscle, for just the twitch of an eye could open the ball.

“My friend and I are just enjoying a promenade before bed, Marshal,” Wes said. “We're taking in the sights, like.”

“I don't give a damn what you're taking in, get those guns off.” Bill didn't seem to be in much of a mood for compromise. However, he did seem to be in the mood for a killing.

Wes smiled. “I always comply with the law.”

Whiskey made me speak out of turn. “Man is the noblest of all animals, but separated from law and justice, he is the worst.” I smiled at Bill. “Aristotle said that.”

Without looking at me, Wild Bill said, “Did he though? Tell me where he is and I'll put a bullet in him. He's lying .” Then to Wes, “Give me those guns, boy. I won't tell you again.”

You all remember what came next. God knows, it's been repeated a thousand times in print.

Wes drew his guns and offered them to Bill butt-forward, then spun them in his hands so the muzzles were pointed at the marshal's head.

In my novels, I christened this, “the road agent's spin,” and the name seems to have stuck.

The story goes that Bill looked at the Colts, hammer-back and ready, and said, “John Wesley, you're the gamest and quickest boy I ever saw. Let us go and have a drink and I'll be your friend.”

Except it didn't happen like that.

Wes did the trick with his revolvers all right and then said, “Still want to take my guns, Marshal?”

“I reckon,” Bill said. “Try to use them Colts, boy, and I'll gut you like a hog.”

Only then did I see moonlight gleam on the blade of the wicked knife in Wild Bill's hand, the point sticking into Wes's belly. Where it came from I'll never know.

Bill was that fast.

Wes was a revolver fighter. Knives were an anathema to him, a barbaric weapon used only by Mexicans and red savages. The pig sticker pricking the skin of his belly gave him pause. He swallowed hard. “I was joshing, Marshal.”

“I wasn't,” Bill said.

Man, he was pushing on that blade pretty good.

Wes had sand, but he wasn't up for a cutting. He let go of the Colts and let them hang from his trigger fingers.

Bill turned to me. “You with the plug hat, come take his guns. And do it slow.”

I did as I was told, then Bill stepped back and the blade disappeared again. “You can pick up your guns when you leave town.”

Wes knew Wild Bill had put the crawl on him, but he put a brave face on things.

“Would you really have used that blade on me?” He smiled, or at least tried to. “Answer me that.”

“Would your guts be all over the boardwalk if you hadn't surrendered your guns? Answer me that.” Bill didn't smile. He grabbed the Colts from my hands and said to Wes, “Next time I see you carrying guns in Abilene, I'll kill you.”

“There won't be a next time, Marshal,” I said. “This was all just a misunderstanding.”

“I don't like misunderstandings. Bad things happen when I misunderstand people.” Bill turned away and his boots clumped along the boardwalk until he melted into the darkness.

Wes stood where he was for a long time, then he said, “Next time, I'll make sure there's six feet of ground between us.”

“Wes, let's go back to the herd and then blow this town.”

John Wesley didn't answer right away. Then he said, “What do you think? Can I beat him, Little Bit?”

“I think it would be a draw. And that means two men dead on the ground.”

“Unless I shoot him in the back.”

“They'd hang you for sure.”

Wes nodded. “All right, let's go get a drink, and we'll talk about plans for my Wild West show.” He spat. “Hickok isn't going to be in it.”

Looking back, I consider that Saturday evening when John Wesley and Wild Bill almost got into a shooting scrape as the night that never ended. We drank some more . . . well, a lot more . . . at the Alamo bar and then repaired to the dining room to get a bite to eat.

Wes was quiet, almost sullen. Every time I mentioned his show, he cut me off with a curt, “Not now. We'll talk about it later.”

He brightened up a little when Eddie Pain, the one-armed Mississippi gambler, joined us at our table and ordered the waiter to burn him a steak.

As Wes and Pain ate, they discussed the gambling scene on the riverboats and in Denver, and how pretty the ladies were in New Orleans. Wes talked about his Wild West show. Pain declared it a capital idea then sang a few verses of “Goodbye, Eliza Jane,” a popular song that was sweeping the nation, and told Wes that he should put it in his show.

Pain showed Wes a beautiful Alsop .36 caliber revolver that he kept in a shoulder holster, away from the prying eyes of Wild Bill.

“A fine weapon indeed,” Wes said, turning the Alsop over in his hands.

Thus the final hours before the clocks tolled midnight might have passed pleasantly enough due to Pain's convivial company, had not the Yankees spoiled it as they do everything.

Two big-bellied bullies, with the look of carpetbaggers about them, barged into the room and loudly demanded the best table, the prettiest waitress, and the oldest bourbon in the house. Both wore broadcloth, and the watch chains across their bellies, cunningly wrought from gold coins, must have weighed two pounds apiece.

Florid, forceful and, in the event, foolish, the older and bigger of the two pounded his fist on the table and yelled, “If there are any damned Texans in here, I advise them to leave now.” He drew a Colt and placed it on the table in front of him. “I'll shoot any Texas scum who doesn't leave because I can't abide their rebel stink. The Texan hasn't been born yet that can corral me.”

The two carpetbaggers thought this a good joke and laughed so uproariously they didn't notice Wes slowly rise from his chair.

But the other diners did.

A dead silence fell over the room as Wes said, “Eddie, let me have your pistol.”

The gambler slipped the Alsop into Wes's hands.

Talking softly across a quiet drawn as tight as a bowstring, John Wesley said, “I'm a Texan.”

Standing there in his new suit, I thought Wes a brave sight. He was not as flamboyantly picaresque as Wild Bill, but he still cut a dashing figure.

How could I have been so stupid as to think there would be no gunplay? Why did I believe that both parties would call it all a misunderstanding and settle their differences over a drink?

I should have known better.

The big man, used to lesser mortals stepping out of his way, picked up his Colt. “Why, you insolent young pup. I'll teach you some civilized manners.”

The fool, for that's what he was, adopted the traditional duelist's stance. The right side of his body turned to Wes, the arch of his left foot behind his right heel, revolver straight out in front of him at eye level.

He and Wes fired.

And missed.

The carpetbagger's ball hit Pain's good arm, shattering bone.

The big man, sobering quickly, decided he wanted out before Wild Bill heard the shots and got there. He ran for the door to the street and Wes fired again.

The .36 ball hit the fool just as he cleared the doorway. Struck behind the left ear, the ball exited the carpetbagger's mouth and scattered teeth, bone, and brain matter all over the street.

Wes spared a quick glance at Pain, who groaned pitifully in his chair, and ran for the door.

I went after him and saw him jump over the dead Yankee then crash into a man toting a deputy's star. He pushed the deputy away and then slugged him over the head with his revolver.

Before the lawman dropped, Wes vaulted onto the unconscious man's horse and headed at a gallop for the bedding grounds on the Cottonwood.

Abandoned, all I could do was step back inside and check on Eddie Pain.

“Murder! Murder!” The Yankee's companion ran through the dining room, hands fluttering in the air, his eyes wild.

“Get the marshal!” somebody yelled.

“Get me a damned doctor.” Pain groaned. “Damn, getting shot in my only good arm is hard to take.”

The carpetbagger, his large nose covered in warts, stopped and pointed an accusing finger at Pain. “He and the assassin were in cahoots,” he yelled. His stabbing finger jabbed for my heart. “And so was he!”

“You go to hell,” I said.

“Damn you. Now I'll do for you!” The Yankee reached into his coat, but ere he could draw, Wild Bill strode into the room and quickly disarmed him.

“Do we have a dead 'un?” Bill looked around.

The warty man cursed and attempted to wrench his revolver from Wild Bill's hand.

In one swift, elegant movement, Bill skinned one of his Navy Colts and slammed the barrel over the carpetbagger's head.

The man groaned horribly, dropped to his knees then stretched his length on the floor.

Bill was as drunk as a hoedown fiddler and all the more dangerous for that.

“Over there, Marshal,” a respectable-looking citizen said. “By the side door.”

Bill crossed the floor in a couple long strides and got down on one knee beside the dead man.

After a while he rose to his feet, staggered a little, then told everyone what we already knew. “He's as dead as mutton.” Wild Bill burped then politely excused himself. “The ball entered the back of his head and came out his mouth. Took most of his teeth with it.” His eyebrows knitted together and asked if anyone knew the dead man.

“He came into the dining room with the gentleman who's currently unconscious on the floor,” the respectable gent said.

“Who done for him?” Bill asked.

“It was that young Hardin boy,” a pretty woman said. She wore green eye shadow and had pink rouge on her cheeks.

“Damn,” Bill said. “That boy is causing me no end of trouble. And he buffaloed Mike Williams, my deputy.”

“Bill,” Pain said, “I'm bleeding to death here.”

“I see you, Eddie. You'll keep. You've been shot before.”

Pain grimaced. “The dead man, whoever he is, shot first. Wes was defending himself.”

“Defending himself? Even when the victim was making a run for it?”

“He could have come back, Marshal,” I said.

“Maybe so.” Bill looked at me for a moment, then said, “You know where Hardin is?”

I shook my head.

“No matter. By now, he's probably with Columbus Carroll's herd down on the Cottonwood and it's out of my jurisdiction.”

Bill's deputy staggered into the room. He held his hat in one hand and rubbed a bump on his head with the other.

“How are you, Mike?” Bill asked.

“I got a headache.”

Bill kicked the unconscious man who was drooling from the mouth and didn't look good at all. “Take this down to the jail and lock him up, Mike.”

“What's the charge?” the deputy asked.

“Carrying a firearm contrary to the town ordinance. If he pays his seventy-five dollar fine, I'll let him go later.”

“Bill, for God's sake, he put a bullet in me,” Pain said.

Wild Bill nodded. “I know, Eddie, but you can't charge a man for shooting somebody by mistake. I've studied on the law books and there's nothing that says it's a crime.”

Since Bill later killed Mike Williams, his deputy, by mistake, maybe it's just as well that the law took a lenient attitude toward the odd, accidental shooting in those days.

As Williams hauled the eye-rolling, weak-kneed Yankee to his feet, Bill said, “Somebody go get the undertaker.”

“Bill,” Pain cried, “for God's sake!”

“Oh yeah, and bring Doc Henderson. We have a wounded man here.” Bill laid a hand on Pain's shoulder. “Eddie, a man with only one wing should stay away from the likes of John Wesley Hardin. You lose t'other one, hoss, you might as well blow your brains out.” He smiled. “Though how you'd hold the gun, I do not know.”

Through clenched teeth as his wound throbbed, Pain said, “Bill, you're all heart.”

Wild Bill smiled. “That's what folks say about me.” He turned his attention to me, his gray eyes searching into mine. “Come here, little mouse,” he said, curling his finger.

When I stood in front of him, my eyes were level with the middle button of his frockcoat.

The crowd in the dining room grew noisy again as they talked about the killing, but Wild Bill leaned over and whispered into my ear. “Tell your friend to stay out of Abilene. I'm writing off this killing as self-defense, but if John Wesley kills another man in my town, I'll gun him.” He straightened. “Tell him that.”

“I sure will. I reckon once the buyers pick up the herd, we'll head for Texas.”

Bill nodded. “Live longer that way.”