by J. T. Edson
Hearing the sound of an approaching horse, a few of the crowd turned. Then a low mutter of surprised comment rose as they saw Wes Hardin halt his horse at the graveyard’s fence. Swinging from the saddle he tossed the reins over the fence and walked forward. Although none of the people believed that Wes had killed Sheriff Waggets, most felt he was acting unwisely in coming back to town.
For a moment Parson Hardin’s voice wavered in its resonant delivery of the burial service, then picked up as if nothing had happened. He followed a sturdy, practical religion of the kind which advocated ‘Give praise unto the Lord, but keep the powder dry.’ The story was told that he had once held a service for a company of Texas Rangers while hunting Indian raiders. During the reading of the lesson, a bunch of Kiowa bucks appeared on a distant rim and launched an attack. For all that Parson Hardin continued to thunder out his lesson, keeping one eye on the charging enemy, and timed its end so his congregation could turn to deliver a devastating volley at the enemy.
Despite his concern at Wes’ return, he refused to hold up in what he regarded as doing his duty. Not until he had completed the ceremony and dirt began to thud on to the coffins did the old man draw back with his son.
‘Why’d you come back here, boy?’ he demanded, taking Wes’ arm and steering him towards the fence.
‘A couple of Caxton’s boys brought word about what happened to the house—’
‘That could be rebuilt.’
‘Flip was my pard,’ Wes went on.
‘You’ve got to ride, boy,’ Hardin answered, guessing his servants had told Wes of the killings. ‘There’re State Police in town right now and they want you. Sure their captain talks about only wanting to hold a hearing to learn what happened, but he’s lying in his teeth.’
By that time they had reached the gate and came to a halt. The graveyard was situated in a grove of trees to the north of town and out of sight of the buildings. However any hope Hardin nursed of his son not being seen from Bonham ended. Flanked by Wally and another Negro, Skench walked from among the trees. Although the white man did not hold a gun, his companions carried their carbines gripped in both hands.
‘State Police!’ Wes hissed. ‘That Negro with the Winchester was with the feller who killed Bill Waggets.’
‘It’s no use running,’ Hardin replied. ‘Just stand alongside me and leave me do all the talking.’
‘Sure, paw.’
With around twenty feet separating them, Skench came to a halt and looked at the Hardins. If he had expected the youngster to return for the funeral, Skench would have demanded more support when ordered to keep watch on the graveyard. However, seeing Wes ride up, he had told his companions what to do and led the way to make the arrest.
‘This’s my son,’ Hardin announced.
‘So Wally here tells me,’ Skench replied.
‘He’s come in for a hearing, like that captain of your’n wanted.’
‘That’s what he wanted. So if the boy hands over his guns—’
‘Give me your gunbelt, John Wes,’ ordered Hardin.
For a moment Wes hesitated. Then he brought his hands towards the belt buckle, ready to obey his father. Immediately Wally started to swivel around the Winchester and the other Negro brought up his Springfield carbine. Ready for treachery, both the Hardins reacted with some speed. Yelling a warning, the old man thrust his son one way and threw his body the other. Even so the push would not have been needed for Wes already started to move and sent his hands crossing to the butts of his Colts.
While the State Police armed its members—at their own expense—it offered them neither facilities nor inducements to achieve proficiency in using the weapons. So the Negroes lacked the ability to react swiftly under such conditions. Both carbines cracked, but their bullets did no more than pass through the space where Wes had stood. No faster, Skench drove his right hand downwards at the gun holstered on his hip.
In falling, Wes drew his Colts and landed holding a cocked weapon in both hands. At the same time his brain analyzed the situation and formed its conclusions. Of the two Negroes, Wally posed the more immediate threat in that he held a repeater as opposed to his companion’s single-shot Springfield. Already both of them had begun the process of unloading, but doing so would be far faster in Wally’s case. So the right hand Colt roared as Wes landed on the ground, driving its load between Wally’s eyes to tumble him backwards before he could complete working the Winchester’s lever. An instant later the left hand Colt spewed its conical ball into Skench, catching him in the belly and doubling him over with his gun still not clear of leather.
Rolling right over and away from his father, so as to draw any fire in his own direction, Wes cocked the Colts. By then the second Negro had the Springfield’s trap-door breech raised ready for the insertion of a cartridge. Wes did not wait to see what followed. Once more his right hand Colt cracked, its bullet ripping into the Negro and spinning him around, the Springfield falling from his hands.
Although the crowd in the graveyard had witnessed the arrival of the State Police, everything had happened so quickly after it that none could tell for certain what exactly had happened. All they knew for sure was that three men were sprawled on the ground and Wes Hardin was starting to rise, smoking Colts in his hands.
‘Why, paw?’ he groaned. ‘Why’d they do it? I was taking the belt off.’
‘They wanted you dead, boy!’ Hardin replied. ‘And that’s how they’ll want you even more after this. Get a’fork your hoss and ride.’
‘Where to?’
‘Anywhere as long as it’s clear of this neck of the woods.’
‘Shall I head for the Rio Hondo?’
‘It may be best,’ Hardin admitted. ‘Even if Devil can’t do anything for you, the Rio Grande’s close to hand and you’ll be safe from the State Police across in Mexico.’
‘How about you?’ Wes asked.
‘I’ll be safe enough. Get going. If you’re still here when the rest of them come, this whole place could be flowing with blood.’
Listening to the low rumble of talk behind him, Wes guessed what his father meant. Already public feeling ran high over the killing of Doctor James, for the story Robbins put out had been privately discounted. If the State Police came, at least a portion of the crowd would side with Wes. Even if they defeated Robbins’ posse, more of the Police would come and be backed by the Army.
So Wes once again accepted that flight was the only answer. And there could be no turning back, no staying at Caxton’s place until he saw how things went. Already the State Police wanted him for killing one of their officers. They would never rest now that four had fallen to his gun.
Going to his horse, Wes mounted and looked at his father. ‘I’m sorry, paw.’
‘So am I, boy,’ Hardin replied. ‘These are sorrowing times. Now take to riding and this time don’t come back.’
At about the time Wes rode up to the graveyard, Robbins greeted General Smethurst’s representative at the sheriff’s office. In addition to the bulky, bearded Major Hopkins, a tall, slim young man stood in the room. He wore a black town suit, plain white shirt, black tie and carried a Stetson of the same color. Although dressed for mourning, his face showed no signs of grief. A pearl-handled Smith & Wesson No. 2 Army revolver’s butt showed from a silk sash he wore around his waist.
Outside the office, an escort of twenty soldiers mingled with the State police, an Osage Indian scout and a pair of hard cases who wore low-hanging guns but no badge of office.
‘You know Noah Spargo?’ Hopkins asked Robbins.
‘We’ve not met,’ Robbins answered. ‘Howdy, Spargo. I’m sorry about your brother.’
‘Noah’s been appointed sheriff by the General,’ Hopkins continued when Spargo did not reply. ‘He’s brought Baker and Sturgis along to act as his deputies.’
‘There’s been some lies spread about Adam’s death, so I hear,’ Spargo put in. ‘One thing we’re here for is to put a stop to them.’
‘How about this young Hardin?’ Hopkins asked, after Robbins told how he had handled the situation. ‘How’re the chances of his coming in?’
‘I don’t know,’ Robbins admitted. ‘His old man’s a wily bastard who doesn’t show anything except what he wants you to see.’
‘If he comes in, I’ll handle him,’ promised Spargo.
At that moment one of the men stepped in from the street. ‘There’s shooting out at the graveyard. Colts and carbines I’d say.’
‘Come on!’ Robbins snapped. ‘I had some of my men watching in case young Hardin showed for the funeral. Let’s see how they’ve done.’
Robbins’ party saw and did not like the sight. On arrival they found Skench and Wally dead, with Parson Hardin doing what he could for the dying second Negro. All the rest of the mourners, following Hardin’s advice, had left the graveyard, but several hovered in the background. Enough to make Hopkins and Robbins think twice before deciding to restrict themselves to vocal questions about the affair. Hardin told the truth of the affair, refusing to say which way his son had gone.
‘Get after him, Robbins!’ Hopkins ordered. ‘Take that Osage, he stinks like a dead skunk, but he can sure read sign. You’ve got to get young Hardin.’
‘That’s for sure,’ Robbins admitted, darting a glance at the old man who was walking away. ‘Reckon he knows where the boy went?’
‘I don’t know, likely he does, but you’d never get it out of him—and I wouldn’t advise you to try.’
‘If we try it, there’ll be some of us not leave here alive,’ Robbins agreed. ‘I’ll get going.’
Both Robbins and Hopkins understood the urgency. A force like the State Police ruled by fear, not through cooperation with the majority of the public. Let one man defy them, kill some of its members, and not be captured, then others would start to fight back. Only by showing themselves relentless in hunting down the man who had killed four of their officers—that he had shot in self-defense and to avoid being murdered by them made no difference—could the Police hope to avoid wholesale trouble. With that thought in mind, the word went out to every officer of the force—
‘Get Hardin, preferably dead.’
Six – Hole Up Across the River
For over four months the State Police had been hunting Wes Hardin, showing a surprising strength of purpose in view of their normal indolence when enforcing the law. Robbins, granted every facility by the Governor, demonstrated his organizing ability in the hunt which ensued after losing Wes’ trail when he left Bonham. Using the spreading network of the telegraph, or sending the word by fast-riding couriers, Robbins alerted State Police and sheriffs’ offices to the south of Fannin County in an attempt to prevent Wes reaching Ole Devil Hardin at the Rio Hondo. Other officers, backed by Army patrols, visited every trail drive headed north and checked its crew.
Sheer luck saved Wes during the early days, along with a skill at riding which few of his pursuers could equal. Although he lost his original hunters, the search continued. Time after time he thought himself forgotten, or that the hunt might be dying down, only to be located by members of the State Police and made to run again. On two occasions he was forced to shoot himself out of danger and by a coincidence each time cut down a man who had been in the original posse. While he did not know them as such, and harbored only thoughts of self-preservation, a rumor started that he intended to wipe out every man who had ridden with Robbins on the night Flip and James died.
Cut off from possible safety in the south, warned of the danger should he try to go north with a trail herd, Wes showed good sense by sticking to the mid-Texas counties. Finding that he had shaken off his pursuers for a time, he hired as a cowhand to a small spread on the Trinity below Denton. There he worked for almost three weeks before a peddler, who also sold information to profitable markets, recognized him while passing. The Davis administration had placed a bounty of a thousand dollars on Wes’ head, all the inducement the peddler needed to become aware of his civic duty.
Three Negro State Police officers visited the ranch, forcing their way into the house and abusing the owner’s wife. Her screams brought Wes on the run from where he had been working in the barn. When the smoke cleared, one of the officers lay dead, the second seriously wounded and the third fled for help as fast as his sorry horse would go.
Much would be said in later years of the fact that Wes killed several Negroes in his early days on the run. It was conveniently forgotten that every one of them had deliberately sought him out with the intention of shooting him. Picked from the worst of the colored element, the State Police officers were encouraged by their superiors to be truculent, overbearing and deliberately provocative when dealing with the white people to whom they might be supposed to give protection. Nor did those who received appointment to the Police restrict their tyranny to white people, but were arrogant and despotical when dealing with their own kind.
Hearing that Wes had once more killed Negro officers, the most heinous crime possible in the eyes of the ‘If he’s black, he’s right’ bigots who ran Texas, a further massive hunt was mounted. Conscious of his previous failure, Rocket Robbins gathered men and rode out in the hope that he might finish off the work begun at the Hardin cabin.
Once again Wes tried to go south in the hope that Ole Devil might be able to help him in some way. Pursued by a posse from Denton, he found himself pushed to the northeast instead of in his desired direction. Kept on the move by more State Police out of Fort Worth, he avoided other officers from Greenville. Then a posse of Sulphur Springs officers turned him westwards. Delta offered no shelter, only more men on his trail.
So Wes found himself riding along the banks of the Sulphur River, going upstream. A posse followed, although he did not know how far behind they might be. Under him, the bay was lathered and so leg-weary that he kept following the comparatively even river trail instead of striking off across country. For several miles the Sulphur wound its way through a wide valley, sticking to its left side. Across the river, the valley’s side rose in sheer bluffs which at some points came down to the water’s edge, then fell back to leave pockets of land, varying in size, between the water and the walls. To the other side, the valley bottom spread green, pleasant and fairly level, then its side rose in a gentle bush, tree and rock dotted slope.
Ahead the trail followed a bend in the river and disappeared from Wes’ view. Bringing the bay around the curve, he found himself faced by a trio of riders, each leading three horses. Even as Wes hauled his mount to a halt, left hand tugging back at the reins and right fanning across to the nearside Colt, certain facts sprang to mind.
First to strike him was that none of the trio looked like members of the State Police. Unless he missed his guess, they were Texas cowhands. Two, in fact, looked to be superlative specimens of that reckless, hard-working breed. Wes conceded one of them to be the finest specimen of manhood he had ever seen.
At the right of the trio, sitting a huge blood-bay stallion with easy grace despite his giant size, the man who so attracted Wes’ attention fully justified the conclusion. Six foot three, if an inch, in height, golden blond hair and an almost classically handsome face topped an enormous spread of shoulders. The excellently tailored shirt he wore could not conceal the full bulge of his biceps and he trimmed down at the middle in a manner which hinted at a giant’s strength. Like his blue shirt, the levis pants had been made to his measure; such a perfect fit could never come off the shelves of a general store. Something of a dandy dresser, his costly white Stetson hat carried, a silver-concha decorated band and his boots the star motif most Texans selected as decoration for their leatherwork. Around his waist hung a gunbelt, hand-tooled to a degree of excellence rarely seen, with matched ivory-handled Army Colts in the contoured holsters. While of the finest Best Citizens’ Finish, the guns hung just right and gave the impression of being functional fighting weapons.
The man on the left of the trio also caught the eye, although in a different way. Lacking three i
nches of the blond giant’s height, he had a lean, wiry build that denoted whipcord power and whang-leather toughness. That despite an Indian-dark face of almost babyishly innocent handsome features. With the exception of the walnut handled Dragoon Colt riding butt forward at his right side and the ivory hilt of the James Black bowie knife sheathed at the left of his belt, he wore all black. From hat to boots, including his gunbelt, his clothing stuck to that sober hue. It added to the wild, almost alien appearance, being aided by the relaxed yet ready as a compressed steel spring manner in which he sat the great, magnificent white stallion between his legs.
By comparison with his companions the third man faded almost into insignificance. At most he would be no more than five foot six inches tall, and while good looking was not so in the eye-catching way of the other two. Curly dusty blond hair showed from under a black Texas-style Stetson hat. While he dressed in clothes as expensive and well made as his companions, he contrived to make them look like poor quality hand-downs. Nor did the finely tooled gunbelt he wore and twin bone handled Army Colts, butt forward in their holsters, seem to make him the more noticeable. Astride a seventeen-hand paint stallion of beauty and breeding, he looked like a nobody. A closer study would have shown that his small frame possessed a muscular development as good as the blond giant’s, in proportion to their sizes, and his face carried lines of strength, intelligence, power far beyond what one would expect at the first glance.
It was at the small man in the center that Wes looked the hardest. All three of them reacted to his appearance and actions with some speed, showing themselves capable of rapid movement in an emergency. From cradled across a black shirtsleeve, the dark youngster’s Winchester swung around and, although held at waist-level, lined at Wes. Down dropped the blond giant’s big right hand, sliding the offside Colt from its holster in the incredibly swift, yet deceptively smooth motion of a master at the fast draw arts.
Fast though the first two moved, their small, insignificant companion bettered them. Moving so fast that the eye could barely follow it, his left hand flipped over and drew the right side Colt. He had the Colt out and lined before Wes’ gun cleared leather, but did not shoot.
