Forty Times a Killer (21 page)

Since I talked about John Wesley's new interest in the Bible, it's somehow appropriate that terrible news reached our camp carried by a rider on a pale horse . . .
and his name was death and hell followed close behind him.

The rancher Long Tom Lee swung off his lathered gray and walked directly to Wes. “John Wesley”—he breathed hard like a man in pain—“I don't have the words.”

Wes's face took on a stricken, blotched look. “Jane? Is it Jane?”

Long Tom held his battered Stetson in his hands. “Jane is fine and so is your daughter.”

“Then find the words, Tom,” Wes said. “And find them damn quick.”

“They're harsh, John.”

“Damn it, say them,” Wes said.

Long Tom, a veteran of Stonewall's brigade, was a tall beanpole of a man with a bloodhound's face and the tired, seen-it-all eyes of an Inquisition executioner. “Your brother Joe is dead, John Wesley, and with him Bud Dixon and his brother Tom.”

“How?”

“Hung.”

That was a punch in the guts.

Wes rose to his feet, his face drained of color. He loved his brother Joe, the quiet one of the family, and the news of his death devastated him. “Tell it, Long Tom. Every last word of it.”

“Hung is hung, John,” the rancher said. “There ain't no more to tell. Let it go. Pick at it, and you make the wound worse.”

Wes's jaw muscles bunched and his teeth gritted. “Tell it all, Long Tom.”

“All right, I'll say what I know.” His hat crushing in his twisting hands, Long Tom told how it had been. “Twenty nightriders, all of them masked, rode into Comanche about the one o'clock hour. There was a full moon and the town looked like it was lit by silver lanterns.” Long Tom flushed. “I mean, that's how I saw it.”

“Go on,” Wes said.

“The vigilantes rode to the rock building where your wife and family were held, and overcame the guards.”

“Name them,” Wes said.

“Does it matter?”

“Name them.”

“John James and the county clerk, a man called Bonner,” Long Tom said. “They're not lawmen, John.”

“Names to remember,” Wes said. “But I know Bonner. He and Joe were brother Masons.”

“Well, the way it was told to me, Bonner did nothing to save Joe,” Long Tom said. “And he should've. Joe was a mighty shady lawyer all right, everybody knew that, but he did nothing that deserved getting hung.”

“Joe did nothing that other lawyers don't do,” I said. “He was hung only because he was John Wesley's brother.”

“That's a natural fact,” Long Tom said. “I can't argue with that.”

“The vigilantes overcame the guards, or so they say. Then what happened?” Wes said.

“John . . .”

“What happened?”

“Joe and the Dixons were drug to a tree and hung,” Long Tom said.

Wes lifted his head and for long moments stared at the clear blue bowl of the sky where a few crows wheeled like charred pieces of paper. Finally, without looking at Long Tom, he said, “Did . . . did Joe . . . was it quick?”

The rancher's face was grim. “I'm not a lie-telling man, John.”

“Then say it.”

“Joe died hard. He pleaded for his life as he strangled to death and he kicked for a long time. An awful long time.”

At first Wes showed no reaction and stood as still as a statue. Then he drove his fists into his belly and doubled over, screaming. His mouth agape, he fell to his knees, but the screaming did not stop.

I feared it never would.

Long Tom replaced his hat then looked at me. “Is there anything I can do?”

I shook my head.

“Then I'll leave.” He cast a final look at Wes in a paroxysm of grief, swung into the saddle, and galloped away.

Jim Taylor stepped beside Wes, put his hand on his shoulder, and whispered, “Wes, don't go to that dark place. Come back, now.”

The screaming stopped, and Wes kneeled with his head on his knees and made no sound, no movement. He stayed in that position until night fell.

 

 

None of the vigilantes were ever identified or brought to trial.

The Texas Rangers wrote the murders off as a necessary evil, unworthy of their notice.

As their captain said, “Why all the fuss? Often violence is the only way to get rid of undesirables.”

Now begins what I call the “wandering time,” when John Wesley was cast out and forced to flee Texas, his ancestral home.

“And he will be a wild man; and his hand will be against every man and every man's hand against him; he shall live to the east of all his brethren.” Thus the Bible speaks of Ishmael the Wanderer, and I use those same words to speak of John Wesley, since he too was an outcast condemned to wander the earth.

Jim Taylor was dead, murdered by Suttonite vigilantes, and I was the only one to join Wes in his bitter exile.

After a brief reunion with his wife and daughter in New Orleans in the late summer of 1874, Wes fled to Gainesville in Florida, a rough and tumble settlement in the middle of the state.

Wes was appalled at the number of blacks in the town, brought in to harvest the cotton crop. He soon joined the local branch of the Young Men's Democratic Club, a Ku Klux Klan organization, and pledged to uphold white supremacy and the American way.

Wes bought a saloon that just about wiped out all of his money, and he lived in a room at the back. I worked as swamper and slept on the billiard table at night.

He'd become John H. Swain by then, adopting the last name of Jane's kin. His intention was to earn enough money from the saloon to establish his Wild West show in Great Britain where he could live in peace, unmolested by Yankee law.

“I bet old Queen Vic will come and watch,” I said one night as we sat at a table sharing a bottle after closing. “She's real interested in wild Injuns and such.”

“How do you know that?” Wes asked.

“Read it in a book. This one,” I said, pulling the book out of my pocket. “It's called
The Visitors Guide to Great Britain
, and tells us everything we need to know about living over there.”

“We'll need a special box for the queen and her court,” Wes said. “She can sit beside Jane.”

“And me,” I said.

Wes shook his head. “Queen Vic won't want to sit beside you, Little Bit. You're low class and you smell.”

I took exception to that. “I'll have a bath before I sit with Jane and the queen.”

“You'll still be low class.”

“Maybe she'll surprise you and make me a knight like Quentin Durward,” I said.

Wes nodded. “Maybe, if she likes the show enough.”

I was about to say more, but Wes raised a silencing hand.

“An argument going on out there. It sounds like them uppity blacks from around here.” He rose to his feet and got a long-barreled revolver from behind the bar, one of those new cartridge Colts that were becoming all the rage.

The saloon door slammed open and a young man wearing a star on his vest stepped inside. “Mr. Swain, I need help. Luke Wilson, remember me?”

Wes recognized the sheriff as a fellow member of the Democratic Club. “The blacks rioting?”

“Arguing with me,” Wilson said. “They want to come inside and drink more alcohol and I said no.”

“Don't they know better than to give a white man sass and backtalk?”

“Not the blacks around here,” Wilson said. “The Yankees got them uppity, telling them that they rule the roost.”

“Not in my saloon, they don't,” Wes said. “And not in my town.”

“Good,” Wilson said. “I now appoint you as my deputy.”

I followed Wes and the sheriff outside into the humid, tropical heat of the Florida night. Cicadas and frogs carried on an endless, chattering, croaking argument and out in the swamps alligators bellowed their opinion.

Five black men stood outside the saloon, illuminated by the lanterns that hung on each side of the saloon door. They looked angry and one of them wore an old Union army blue jacket with a sergeant's chevrons on the sleeves.

“You men go about your business,” Wes said. “The saloon is closed.”

“The hell it is,” the man in the coat said. “The door is open and we're going inside.”

“Eli, go home,” Sheriff Wilson said. “You're drunk enough already.”

“I'll tell you when I'm drunk enough.” The black strode straight at Wes who stood still and let him come.

At the last second, Wes sidestepped and swung the Colt. The barrel crashed into the side of the Negro's head and the man dropped like a felled ox.

Another tall, thin man uttered a vile curse, born of the savage heart of darkest Africa, and drew a wicked knife of the largest size. He charged and then fell stone dead a moment after Wes's bullet tore his heart apart.

The three remaining Negros decided that they wanted no part of Mr. Swain that night. In the most abject fashion, they threw themselves on their knees, raised their hands in prayerful supplication, and begged for mercy.

“Lock them up, Sheriff.” Wes glanced at the dead man. “Then throw that to the alligators.”

Wilson, young and impressionable, raised an eyebrow. “Quick to shoot, aren't you, Mr. Swain?”

“And so should you be, Sheriff, if you hope to live long.”

 

 

But we were not yet finished with the Negro who wore the blue coat. His name was Eli Brown and he had dreams of one day standing for public office. The blow to his head from Wes's gun enraged him and inflamed his already ferocious hatred of the white race.

What better way to express his loathing than to rape a white woman, a Southern belle of good breeding and fine family who resided in Gainesville town?

Thankfully, the girl's cries were heard before she was cruelly undone, and the cursing, struggling Brown was thrust into jail.

That night there was a gathering of brave and resolute men in John Wesley's saloon, Sheriff Wilson among them. Each man, including Wes, wore a dazzling white robe like a holy Crusader knight ready to do battle with the Infidel.

I was not one of them, but my heart swelled with pride as I beheld such a glorious scene and I felt honored that I was of their race.

“I've got a rope,” one stalwart said. “I say we string him up from the nearest telegraph pole.”

But Wes would have none of it. “The jail is old and the wood is as dry as tinder. Set fire to the place and we can watch the black demon roast in hell.”

This brought a round of applause and cheers for Mr. Swain.

“Drink up, boys,” Sheriff Wilson said. “It's almost midnight and time to get it done. I don't want that damn black breathing the same air as us for a moment longer.”

This brought another round of huzzahs, then the white knights drained their glasses, donned snowy hoods, and sallied forth into the darkness.

Eli Brown died horribly. He burned to death even as he stood at a window, his sizzling arms reaching through the bars, pathetically begging for his life.

It was a fate the Negro richly deserved.

Later, we all repaired to the saloon and enjoyed champagne cocktails. Mr. Swain, who had a fine voice, sang “When This Cruel War Is Over
,
” to much applause and many a manly tear.

It was a happy time.

Four thousand dollars. That was the sum the vindictive Texas legislature placed on John Wesley's noble head . . .
dead or alive
.

The happy times had been short and they were about to end.

Wes had long since sold his saloon, kept one step ahead of the law and trusted no one.

The reward was enough to interest the Texas Rangers, especially that redheaded scoundrel J. Lee Hall and his able lieutenant John Barclay Armstrong.

You remember Armstrong. As a Ranger sergeant he arrested, shot, and hung a score of the survivors of the Sutton-Taylor war, and he's the man who took King Fisher into custody.

According to the Yankee authorities, Fisher, a friend of Wes's, was the second worst man in Texas.

We all know who was first.

What worried Wes most was Governor Hubbard's appointment of Jack Duncan, the famous detective, to help in the hunt. “Look at that,” Wes said, tossing a newspaper on the table in front of me. “This time they mean business.”

The front-page headlines said it all.

We were residing in Pollard, Alabama, with the Bowen family, relatives of John Wesley's wife, but the news about Duncan had Wes on edge. “Damn it, I've heard of the man. He's a bloodhound and once he's got the scent, he never gives up the trail.”

Wes had taken to wearing his guns in the house, something he'd never done before, and his eyes had a hollow, hunted look, as though he felt the very walls were closing in on him. He sat at the breakfast table and crumbled a piece of dry toast in his fingers, lost in thought.

Then his nose wrinkled. “Little Bit, hell, you're stinking up the place.”

“My leg is bad, Wes. It's so rotten it hardly supports me any longer.” I managed a weak smile. “And the brace is rusting.”

“Seen you walking with a limp recent.” Wes nodded to himself. “I sure enough have.”

“It has to be amputated,” I said.

“Pensacola,” Wes said, sitting up straight as he snapped his fingers.

“Huh?”

“That's the place for me.” Wes lifted his eyes to mine. He had cold eyes and I swear they'd gotten colder with every killing.

“Hell, it's just across the Alabama border and Chance Rawlins—you know him?”

“The gambler.”

“Yeah, him. Chance says Pensacola is a gambling town because of the fortunes being made in cotton and lumber. Hell, I could make a big score there.”

“Seems like.”

“If the Florida law gets too close, all I have to do is skip back across the border into Alabama again.”

“Seems like,” I said again.

“Then it's done. I'll see Jane settled, and head east.”

“Maybe you'll win enough to stake the Wild West show.”

Wes nodded. “Yeah, maybe so. Head for England like I planned.”

“I'd need to get a wooden leg first. I mean, before I met the queen.”

“Sure, a wooden leg would do the trick.” Wes grinned at me. “Then them royal folks won't call you the gimp with the limp, huh?”

“No, I guess not.”

 

 

My leg was indeed odorous and nobody knew that better than me.

The Bowens would not allow me to sleep in the house and I was banished to the barn, where I shared my quarters with the horses and mules, the occasional pig, and a nightly horde of mosquitoes.

I was not then very familiar with women of the respectable sort, though a few had treated me well, as they would a bird with a broken wing or a wounded puppy. Alice Flood, a distant Bowen cousin, fell into that category.

An orphan, Alice depended on Bowen charity. They provided her with food and board and in exchange, they demanded she act as a skivvy, cleaning out the fireplaces, scrubbing floors, washing clothes with the harsh lye soap that chafed her hands red, and whatever else they needed.

The Bowens called Alice a housemaid, but it was slavery under a different name.

I guess it was inevitable that we should be drawn together, two pathetic, miserable creatures who found solace in each other's company.

Alice was neither pretty nor smart, neither joyful nor sad. She had no past, no present and no future. She just existed from day to day . . . like me.

Ah, my self-pity is showing, is it not?

Alice lifted me out of that pit of despair. As fate would have it, I had her for only a few short years, but those were the best years of my life.

The evening after Wes made his decision about Pensacola, Alice visited me in the barn as she did every evening. As always, she brought me little treats from the kitchen, usually a piece of cake or some cookies.

As I recall, it was cookies with shredded coconut in them that evening, though I was fairly drunk and set them aside for breakfast.

Alice removed the brace and bathed my leg. She frowned. “It's getting much worse, William.” She refused to call me Little Bit, saying it was a disrespectful name for a man.

“Not much of it left, is there?”

“You're limping terribly.”

I smiled. “I can still ride a horse.”

“But not for much longer, I fear.” She had unremarkable brown eyes, brown hair and a brown skin, but I thought her beautiful that night.

“It has to come off,” I said. “Then I can get a wooden one.”

“I think modern artificial limbs are made of metal, and some can bend at the knee.”

“How do you know that?”

“I met Dr. Dinwiddie in town and asked him. He says great strides—”

“Ha-ha.” I laughed. “Great strides. I like that.”

Alice smiled. “Anyway, artificial limbs improved very quickly because of the war. So many boys lost arms or legs.”

“Well, that gives me hope.” Then as romantic as Quentin Durward, I said, “You give me hope, Alice.”

She took my hand and kissed it. “You and me are fated to be together.”

A moment later our bodies joined.

Shall I draw you a word picture of two singularly unattractive people making love on straw in a barn among farm animals to the music of yipping coyotes?

I think not.

But after it was over and I lay back exhausted, Alice seemed troubled.

“I'm sorry,” I said.

“For what?”

“I disappointed you.”

Alice smiled. “You didn't disappoint me, William. Nothing about you disappoints me.”

A silence stretched between us, then she said, “About your friend, John Wesley.”

“What about him?”

“He talks too much and too loudly.”

“I don't understand.”

“In front of Brown Bowen.”

I felt a stab of alarm. Bowen was Jane's brother, a truly vile creature without a trace of loyalty or manhood. He was a rapist, murderer, and robber.

Ultimately, he dangled from a noose. When he was cut down, no one shed a tear for him or claimed his carcass.

“Do you think Brown might betray Wes?” I asked.

“He's betrayed everyone else.” Alice smiled and picked a piece of straw out of my hair. “Maybe I worry unnecessarily.”

“You like Wes, don't you?”

“He's a fine man and a true patriot.”

“He's both of those things, and much more,” I said.

“Will you talk to him? About Brown Bowen, I mean?”

“Yes I will. First thing in the morning.” I took Alice in my arms. “But in the meantime . . .”