Forty Times a Killer (19 page)

“One day, in a playful mood, John Wesley Hardin gave Sheriff Jack Helm a broadside . . . and sunk him.”

That's how a Texas Ranger summed up the killing of Helm to his superiors.

He was only half right.

The way John Wesley told it later, him and Jim Taylor rode into Albuquerque and found Helm in the blacksmith's shop, toiling at the anvil. He was part owner of the forge and enjoyed working with iron. He was hammering a glowing knife blade into shape when Wes and Taylor saw him.

Wes said, “Then suddenly I heard Helm scream at Jim, ‘Hold up there because I mean to arrest you!'”

Now, since Helm had never met Jim Taylor I don't see how that was possible.

But John Wesley may have misspoken himself. In reality, the vile threat was hurled at him since he'd so steadfastly refused to join the traitorous Suttonite faction.

I do know this. Helm plunged the red hot knife into a barrel of water, and no sooner had it stopped steaming and sizzling than he advanced on Taylor, the
brutish blade
held low for a gutting.

Alarmed, Wes said he watched Helm close on Taylor. “I carried a shotgun because Jack Helm was known to be a dangerous man with a gun and had put many lively Taylor lads into the grave.”

To save Taylor's life, Wes cut loose with one barrel of the shotgun. Helm, hit hard, staggered, and Jim Taylor opened up with his revolver.

“Helm fell with twelve buckshot in his chest and several six-shooter balls in his head,” Wes recalled in his autobiography. “Thus did the leader of the vigilante committee, the terror of the county whose name was a horror to all law-abiding citizens, meet his death.”

So you see why I say the Ranger was only half right.

Wes and Taylor shared the kill, though Wes would later claim it as his thirty-ninth.

Jack Helm was bleeding all over the ground, gasping his last when Wes and Taylor rode out of town.

Nobody tried to stop them.

 

 

When Wes returned to Gonzales County the word quickly spread that he'd killed the hated Jack Helm. Letters of thanks poured into Wes's ranch from the wives, widows, and mothers of Helm's many victims, and men patted him on the back and said, “John, killing Helm was the finest thing you ever did in your life.”

And me, miserable little weasel that I was, once again bathed in the reflected light of John Wesley's glory and convinced myself that I was indeed a man and counted myself lucky to have such a friend.

I believe that John Wesley wanted to separate himself from the Sutton-Taylor feud and he'd even talked of trying to broker a peace treaty between the two factions. Despite his best intentions, the fighting still raged, and
hooded nightriders
spread terror across south and central Texas, killing, maiming, and burning by the light of the moon.

Others took advantage of the chaos and rode moonlit trails for their own personal gain. The worst of them were the murderous Roche brothers, a trio of killers so fiendish that Wes refused to take any credit for his part in their ultimate destruction.

Now, for all the doubters who say John Wesley was a common killer, the story I'm about to narrate reveals Wes at his best. As I saw him, he was a noble knight in sable armor who sallied forth to right wrong wherever he found it.

My dire predictions about the consequences of Jack Helm's murder had not yet come true, but Wes, wary of the Suttons and their nightriders, had sent his wife and baby daughter to Comanche in Central Texas to live with his younger brother Joe, a successful young lawyer.

It was the midnight hour, a couple days before the eve of Christ's birth. Outside the night was cool and the bright moonlight covered the ground like a frost.

Wes and I sat before a blazing log in his parlor, sharing a bottle of fine port wine. Despite suffering from a severe attack of bronchitis, I felt happy and privileged.

Jane would never allow me to remain long in the house. She said she could smell me and my diseased leg from two rooms away.

Wes, who was drowsing in his chair, woke with a start as hoof beats sounded outside, then a horse whinnied as it was reined to a violent stop. “Nightriders.”

He leapt from his chair, grabbed his pistols and stepped to the window. As he pushed the curtain aside to take a look into the darkness, fists pounded on the front door.

“John Wesley!” a man yelled. “It's me, Andy Conlan.”

Wes threw me a quick glance. “He's one of ours.”

“Or somebody impersonating his voice,” I said.

Made wary by my warning, Wes left the parlor and a moment later I heard the door open.

This was followed by a man's squeal of fright. “Wes, don't shoot for God's sake! It's me, old Andy Conlan as ever was.”

Wes said something I couldn't hear. The door closed and Conlan stepped into the parlor.

He was a man of late middle years, short and stocky, and he sported a beard that spread over the chest of his wool mackinaw like a gray fan and at some time or other a bullet had clipped an arc out of the top of his left ear. He looked like a man who'd just seen the devil himself and he shivered, from cold or fear I did not know.

Wes put his guns back on the table, then poured whiskey for Conlan. “Drink this. Then tell me why you're disturbing a man's peace in the middle of the night.”

Conlan gulped the whiskey. “Wes, a terrible thing has happened. A horrible thing.”

Wes waited for a moment, then said, “So horrible you're not going to tell me about it?”

As though he was indeed reluctant to relive the frightening memories that lingered in his mind's eye, Conlan said, “Wes, you know me. I was a mountain man, then an army scout. I fit Injuns and I seen what the Comanche and the Apache can do to a man.” He drained his glass. “This was worse, a sight worse than anything I seen.”

“Tell it, Andy.” Wes glanced at the china clock on the mantle. “It's gone midnight.”

Conlan held out his glass. “Fill this first, Wes. Me pipe is dry as a stick, like, and I'm nervous as a whore in church.”

Wes poured more whiskey, waited until Conlan drank, then said again, “Tell it, Andy.”

“Late this afternoon I rode to the Goodson place—”

“On Dead Deer Creek?” Wes said.

“The very same, though now it's more dry wash than creek.”

Wes waited and Conlan said, “When I got there it was already dark, but I figured I could stay the night, the Goodsons being such nice folks.”

“What was your business there?” Wes asked.

“Sam Goodson had a Mulefoot sow for sale, and I figured I would buy it if'n the price was right.”

“So what happened?”

“You know Sam is ages with me, and he wed that pretty young Walker gal from the Trinity River country,” Conlan said. “How old was she . . . fourteen . . . fifteen?” The old mountain man laid down his glass and rubbed the back of his hand across his eyes, banishing images.

Once more, I must implore the ladies, especially those of a nervous disposition, to pass over the next few paragraphs with closed eyes.

“The girl was heavy with child.” Conlan hesitated a heartbeat, then said, “Ask me how I know that.”

Wes didn't ask, nor did I.

But Conlan told it anyway. “Because the living child was torn out of her belly and thrown in the fire. That's how come I know.”

The crackle of the log in the fireplace and the timid tick of the china clock were the only sounds in the room.

“The girl?” It was a silly question, but I needed to break the deafening silence.

“Dead,” Conlan said. “Strung by her long hair from a crossbeam. Sam was hanging by his heels since both his hands had been burned to the bone. He was tortured because the three killers wanted something. I would guess his money and the few valuables he possessed.”

Ladies, my compliments. You may reenter the story from here.

Wes frowned. “How do you know there were three of them?”

“I was a scout, remember?”

“Damned Suttons. They'll pay for this, by God.”

Conlan shook his head, almost sadly. “It wasn't the Suttons, Wes. Trash they may be, but they wouldn't treat a white woman like that. No man with even a shred of decency would.”

“Then who?” I said.

“Wolves in the guise of men,” Conlan said. “That's my guess.”

“I'm going after them,” Wes said. “I'll kill them all for Sam, who was a Taylor man through and through.”

“Be careful, Wes, and remember what they say,” Conlan said. “Never trust a wolf until it's skun.”

“You can remind me of that on the trail, Andy,” Wes said. “On account of you're going with me.”

Conlan was horrified. “Wes, it will be close work in darkness. I'm not a revolver fighter like you.”

“I know, and I'm not a scout like you,” Wes said. “Find me those three men, Andy. That's all I ask. I'll do the rest.”

“Maybe we should round up a few more men and pick up their trail in the morning,” Conlan said.

“How far ahead of us are they?” Wes said.

“Three, maybe four hours.”

“Then we go now. It's cold, and they'll probably hole up somewhere for the night.”

Conlan thought that through then said, “I'll find them, Wes. But I'll leave the gun fighting to you.”

“Of course you will,” Wes said, smiling. “That's my game.”

“Damn it, Little Bit, quit that coughing,” John Wesley snapped at me. “I don't know why the hell you insisted on coming along.”

I stifled a cough. “Sorry.”

“Sorry don't cut it,” Andy Conlan said, his voice stressed. “You'll get us all killed.”

The three of us rode under a full moon through shallow hills and among pines. The light was cold and white, as though we travelled through an ice cave. The old scout led us to the dry wash that had ceased to be a creek maybe a score of years before, and there were pale skeletons of dead trees on both banks.

Conlan followed the wash's looping course that took us to within twenty yards of the Goodson cabin. The place was dark, ghostly, and achingly lonely now that the people who'd lived there were gone.

“You want to see in there, Wes?” Conlan asked, his face shadowed by his hat.

“No, we'll come back and bury them.”

Conlan spoke to himself. “Ground's like iron.”

“Pick up their trail, Andy,” Wes said.

This time Conlan said it aloud. “Ground's like iron.”

“You've tracked men across iron before,” Wes said.

The old man nodded. “I'd say I have. Let's go.”

For the next two hours, across dark country, we rode in silence, except for my strangled, gurgling coughs.

Andy Conlan broke the quiet twice to tell us he'd seen bad omens. Once a crow that shouldn't have been there flapped over his head and his horse shied at a dead coyote.

He turned to me in the saddle. “The crow is death's scout and the dead coyote means that the grim reaper passed this way and touched the animal.”

Wes grinned and his teeth gleamed. “Stand behind me when the shooting starts, Andy. I'll gun ol' death before he lays a bony finger on you.”

“Death can't be stilled and he can't be killed.” Conlan held a red, coral rosary in his fingers.

Wes laughed. “Hell, man. There ain't nothin' a Colt can't kill.”

 

 

The sinking moon had spiked itself on a nearby pine when Conlan drew rein, tilted back his head, and tested the wind. “Smoke,” he whispered.

“How close?” Wes said, his own voice quiet.

“Close.”

The old mountain man made a motion with his hand. “Climb down. We go the rest of the way on foot.”

Wes was the greatest pistol fighter who ever lived, but he'd taken the precaution of jamming a shotgun into the rifle boot. He slid the gun free then said, “Let's get it done.”

Conlan shook his head. “This is as far as I go, Wes.” He indicated with his bladed right hand. “They're camped in that direction, maybe a hundred yards, maybe less.”

“Three. You're sure?” Wes asked again.

“Three men riding shod ponies,” Conlan said. “Yeah, I'm sure.”

Wes pointed a finger at me. “Little Bit, you stay here with Andy. This will be hot work and dangerous.”

Without another word, Wes turned and silently vanished into the darkness.

Of course, I girded up my old army greatcoat and followed.

I kept my distance from Wes, knowing that if he saw me he'd send me back. My iron leg ensured that I was no Dan'l Boone in the woods, but I stepped as quietly as I could.

The smell of smoke grew stronger and somewhere ahead of me in the gloom I heard men yell and laugh, the whiskey-fueled, false merriment I knew so well from the saloons.

Around me the pines thinned and I walked into a clearing about as big as a hotel room. Moonlight dappled the grass and silvered a boulder to my left. A wind whispered in the trees and a thin mist hovered at the limit of my vision.

I walked on, stepped around the boulder, and froze as a gun muzzle shoved into my left temple, just under my bowler hat.

A muffled curse came as Wes holstered his Colt. He grabbed me by the front of my coat and his fierce, stiff face got close to mine. He didn't speak, but his eyes were burning. Finally, he pushed me violently away from him with so much force I stumbled back and fell on my butt.

Then Wes was gone, moving like a ghost through the pines.

Like a whipped puppy, I picked myself up and humbly followed . . . my master.

It was my ill luck on that star-crossed night that I should stumble over a tree root and lose my footing. I staggered forward and crashed into Wes who was standing at the edge of a small, wildflower meadow.

Off balance, he stumbled forward . . . into a gunfight . . . at a time not of his choosing.

My feeble, sputtering pen cannot do justice to what happened next.

It all came down too fast, one flickering image following rapidly after another, like a demented magic lantern show.

I saw two men sitting by the campfire, tussling over a plain gold ring, yelling and laughing as they pulled each other back and forth.

The third man, standing by the horses saw Wes, cried out and charged at a run, a gun in his hand.

Wes let him have both barrels of the scattergun. Screaming, exploding, blood haloing around him, the man fell.

Wes threw down the shotgun and drew his Colts. The man on his left, a towhead wearing a fur coat, got to his feet and scrabbled for his gun. Wes killed him.

The third man rolled, jumped to his feet, his gun in his hand. He emptied his Colt at Wes. Missed with all five.

Wes fired. The ball slammed into the corner of the man's left eye. He went down hard, then chewed up the ground with his kicking, booted feet. Another shot from Wes and the scoundrel lay still.

Three men dead . . . in the time it takes a grandfather clock to chime five.

Smoke drifted across the meadow as though the gray souls of the dead men were rising from their corpses.

As I stepped into the meadow, Wes glanced at the three bodies, then said, “White trash.” He turned his head slowly in my direction. “They didn't know how to fight.”

“Do you recognize any of them, Wes?” I asked.

He shook his head and walked over to one of the dead men.

I went after him.

“Look at that face,” he said.

Indeed the man looked strange, small piggy eyes, slack mouth, and lopsided forehead, the temples hollow.

“Know what that is?” Wes didn't wait for my answer. “That's inbreeding. His mother couldn't run fast enough to get away from her brothers.” He looked around him. “The other two are just as bad. Andy was right, they're not Suttons, just murdering scum.”

Given my stunted body and deformed leg, I figured my own ancestry was nothing to boast of, so I kept my mouth shut.

“Little Bit, keep this between us. I won't take credit for shooting down . . . shooting down—”

“Cretins,” I said.

Wes nodded. “Yeah, cretins.” He smiled. “I don't know what the hell it means, but it's a top shelf word.”

“I'll be silent, but will Andy Conlan keep his mouth shut?”

“If he knows what's good for him he will,” Wes said.

As it turned out I needn't have worried about it . . . Conlan's mouth was shut forever. Struck in the head by a stray bullet, we found him dead beside his grazing horse.

Death is a black dog that barks at every man's door and Conlan read the signs and knew it was coming. He could not have avoided the bullet that passed through ten acres of trees and killed him because death had his name marked down in his book.

And there's my explanation for it.

 

 

Conlan had a wife and kids, so Wes collected the ponies of the dead men, their guns, and the twenty-seven dollars he found in their pockets and later gave it all to the widow. He told her that Andy had been murdered by Sutton nightriders.

Before I close this chapter of my narrative and move on to other adventures in Wes's life, let me just say that I broke my word to him and told about the three cretins he killed only because John Wesley is dead and it doesn't matter any longer.

We didn't bury the bodies in the Goodson cabin.

Wes said, “Let somebody else do it. The ground is too hard to dig graves and they'll need dynamite.”

But he did keep Mrs. Goodson's wedding band, the ring the trash had been squabbling over, and gave it to his wife as a gift.

My hero knight deserved a trophy, did he not?