The Pistoleer (54 page)

Authors: James Carlos Blake

Tags: #Fiction, #Westerns, #Historical

BOOK: The Pistoleer

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I heard a man explaining loudly to another that Selman had beaten Hardin to the draw and shot him squarely through the eye.

A gaggle of whores from the house around the corner entered in a perfumed rush of swirling skirts and a jabbering frenzy. There was gasping and cursing and an outbreak of weeping. Some of them stooped and dipped handkerchiefs or the hems of their underskirts into the blood on the floor. I saw one gently touch Hardin’s face. I saw one stare at her bloody fingertip a moment, and then lick it.

Stevens, the proprietor, and a lawman named Carr tried futilely to drive everyone back and stood arguing over the body. Stevens wanted the dead man removed from the premises at once, but Carr said adamantly that he would not do any such thing until the police chief showed up and took charge. He sat on his heels beside the body and searched it—and withdrew a pair of pistols.

A man later identified to me as Jeff Milton pushed his way through the crowd, the Selmans close behind him. He said, “All you, get the hell back, goddamnit!”—and back they fell.

He and the Selmans stared down at the dead man on the floor. Old John was grinning like a lunatic. He poked at Hardin’s shoulder with the tip of his cane. “See, Jeff?” he said. “You see? Like I said! He went for his gun and I killed him. I did it!” He put his hand out to Milton. “Shake the hand of the man who killed John Wesley Hardin.”

Milton glanced at Selmans hand as though he might spit into it. “This man,” he said, pointing at the body, “was shot
in the back!
” He stared at Selman with hugely profound contempt, then stomped away.

I saw Stevens crouch beside the bar and pick something up between thumb and finger. Smiling like a prizewinner, he showed me the bullet that had passed through Hardin’s head. He dropped it in a whiskey glass and set it on a shelf behind the bar for display.

The undertaker’s assistants arrived and took the body away to the parlor, where it was examined by a team of physicians for their official report. Within hours, photographs of Hardin’s naked corpse, his several wounds starkly evident, were being hawked on the streets.

T
his report appeared in
The El Paso Daily Herald
of 20 August 1895:

The following evidence was given Justice Howe this afternoon by the three physicians whose names are signed thereto:

“We, the undersigned, practicing physicians, hereby certify that we have examined the gunshot wounds on the person of the deceased, John Wesley Hardin, and it is our opinion that the wound causing death was caused by a bullet; that the bullet entered near the base of the skull posteriorly and came out at the upper comer of the left eye.
”

(Signed)

S. G. Sherard
,

W. N. Vilas
,

Alward White
.

The wounds on Hardin’s body were on the back of the head, coming out just over the left eye. Another shot in the right breast, just missing the nipple, and another through the right arm. The body was embalmed by Undertaker Powell and will be interred at Concordia at 4 P.M
.

John Wesley Hardin was buried in the Concordia Cemetery in El Paso. Inscribed on a small plate fixed to his coffin was the phrase, “At Peace. “ None of his kin were in attendance at the funeral, only myself and a handful of curious onlookers—and a veiled woman dressed in black. She left immediately upon the casket’s lowering in the ground.

J
ohn Henry Selman was indicted for murder and stood trial in El Paso. His attorney was Albert Bacon Falls, who later became Secretary of the Interior and went to prison for his part in the Teapot Dome scandal. Falls argued that Selman acted in self-defense. The jury could not reach a verdict, so the judge ordered a new trial and released Selman on bond. The night before I departed El Paso I saw him ensconced in a dark corner of the Wigwam Saloon, half drunk but looking sharply at every man who entered the premises, his mind likely occupied with visions of young pistoleers seeking their portion of fame by way of the man who killed John Wesley Hardin.

The El Paso Times

5
APRIL
1896

John Selman, the victor of not less than twenty shooting affrays in Texas, the exterminator of “bad men,” and the slayer of John Wesley Hardin, is dying tonight with a bullet hole through his body. About three months ago Selman and United States Deputy Marshal Geo. Scarborough had a quarrel over a game of cards, since which occurrence the relations between them have not been cordial. This morning at 4 o’clock they met in the Wigwam Saloon and both were drinking. Scarborough says that Selman said, “Come, I want to see you,” and that the two men walked into an alley beside the saloon, and Selman, whose son is in Juárez, Mexico, in jail on a charge of abducting a young lady from there to this side, said to Scarborough: “I want you to come over the river with me this morning. We must get that boy out of jail.”

Scarborough expressed his willingness to go with Selman, but stated that no bad breaks must be made in Juàrez. Scarborough says that Selman then reached for his pistol, with the remark, “I believe I will kill you.” Scarborough pulled his gun and began shooting. At the second shot Selman fell, and Scarborough fired two more shots as Selman attempted to rise. When Selman was searched no pistol could be found on him or anywhere around him. He says he had a pistol, but that it was taken from him after he fell and before the police reached him. Scarborough’s first shot hit Selman in the neck. The next two shots also took effect, one through the left leg just above the knee and the other entering the right side just under the lower rib. A fourth wound in the right hip is supposed to have been caused by Selman’s pistol going off prematurely, as the ball ranged downward. Scarborough is about 38 years old. He was born in Louisiana and was raised in Texas, and for several years was sheriff of Jones County. Selman was raised on the Colorado River in Texas. He was about 58 years old and has lived a stormy life. When not drinking he was as gentle as a child, but he did not know what fear was, and has killed not less than twenty outlaws. He was a dead shot and quick with his gun. He was an old officer in the service. Some years ago he fought a band of cattle thieves in Donna Anna County, New Mexico, killing two and capturing the others, four in all. He killed Bass Outlaw, a deputy United States marshal, in El Paso a few years ago.

EPILOGUE

“
True, it is almost as bad to kill as to be killed. It drove my father to an early grave; it almost distracted my mother; it killed my brother Joe and my cousins Tom and William; it left my brother’s widow with two helpless babes … to say nothing of the grief of countless others. I do say, however, that the man who does not exercise the first law of nature—that of self-preservation—is not worthy of living and breathing the breath of life.
”

From The Life of John Wesley Hardin as Written by Himself

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This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

cover design by Mumtaz Mustafa

This edition published in 2011 by
MysteriousPress.com
/Open Road Integrated Media

180 Varick Street

New York, NY 10014

www.openroadmedia.com