Forty Times a Killer

by William W. Johnstone

  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.”

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  Death in the Meadow

  “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?

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  The Killing of Charlie Webb

  In late January 1874, John Wesley joined his wife in Comanche and I was reacquainted with his brother Joe, a man I’d always liked. He was a slim young lawyer with a lovely wife and a thriving legal practice. He was well respected in Comanche and owned a large amount of property in the town. Jane was not happy to see me.

  Much later, she didn’t object when I celebrated the last weekend in May with the Hardin family.

  The town fathers had declared the date a festival, and Comanche was going full blast. The saloons, splitting at the seams, roared and throngs of people patronized the racetrack.

  Wes entered his American stud, Rondo, in several races and the big horse won easily, earning him three thousand dollars, fifty head of cattle, fifteen saddle horses and a Studebaker wagon. Naturally, a celebration followed and the rum punches flowed freely.

  The day shaded into night and the lamps were lit around the town square. Jane and most of the other friends and family called it a day, but Wes, Jim Taylor, and myself decided to celebrate further. Drunk, we staggered into Jack Wright’s saloon where Wes tossed a double eagle onto the counter and ordered drinks all round. We were noisy and boisterous certainly, but not belligerent.

  Wes was friendly to everyone and even pressed a second gold coin into the hand of a saloon girl who had a birthday that night.

  But trouble soon appeared in the form of Comanche deputy sheriff Frank Wilson, a decent sort, who’d also been drinking. He stepped beside Wes and put his hand on his arm “John, the people of this town have treated you well, have they not?”

  Wes, grinning, admitted that they had and said he had his racetrack winnings to prove it.

  “Then don’t drink anymore. Go home to your wife and avoid trouble,” Wilson said. His eyes narrowing a little, he added, “You know it is a violation of the law to carry a pistol.”

  For some reason, in my drunken state, I took exception to this statement and pushed between Wilson and Wes. “Leave us the hell alone. We’re not bothering anyone.”

  Wilson stared at me for a moment as though trying to figure out what species I was, then his balled fist came down like a sledgehammer on the top of my bowler, ramming it down over my eyes.

  I staggered around, trying to push the damned thing off my head.

  This brought cheers, jeers, and laughter from the crowd and more than a few empty bottles were thrown in my direction.

  Finally, I grabbed the brim in both hands and shoved upward with all my strength. My head popped free of the bowler like a cork out of a bottle and I could see again. I caught Wes’s look of utter disdain.

  He focused on the deputy again. “Frank, my pistols are behind the bar. Out of sight, out of mind, as my ma says.” Wes didn’t mention that hideout gun he carried under his vest.


  “Leave the weapons right here, John,” Wilson said. “Pick them up in the morning and stay for breakfast.”

  Jim Taylor, drunk as a skunk himself, pleaded with Wes to go home. In the end, he agreed, saying that the evening had lost its snap anyhow.

  “Remember to let the guns stay behind the bar, John,” Wilson said. “Pick them up in the morning and then have breakfast. You haven’t lived until you’ve tasted Jack’s biscuits and gravy.”

  Things might have ended amicably . . . but outside a predator stalked the night, a man with an overinflated ego and a yearning to be known as a pistola rapida.

  Brown County Deputy Sheriff Charlie Webb was a two-gun man. He carried his newfangled Single Action Army Colts in crossed gun belts, the holsters finely carved in a flowered pattern. He was said to have killed four white men and a Negro, and his fine mustache and dashing good looks impressed the ladies when he cut a dash.

  I believe that Webb was looking for trouble that night and had selected John Wesley as his target. Killing Wes was a way to enhance his reputation and establish himself as a dangerous man with a gun.

  How it come up, Webb had been pacing up and down outside the saloon and walked within a few feet of Wes who stood on the boardwalk with me, Jim Taylor, and Bud Dixon, Wes’s cousin.

  For some reason the sight of Webb irritated Wes. “Have you any papers for my arrest?”

  “Easy, Wes,” Dixon said. Then to Webb, “That man has friends in this town and won’t be arrested.”

  “Hell, man, I don’t know you,” Webb said to Wes.

  “My name is John Wesley Hardin and I come from good Texas stock.”

  “Well, now we’ve been introduced, I remember the name,” Webb said. “But I still don’t have an arrest warrant.”

  “You’re holding something behind your back.” Wes was on edge and sobering rapidly.

  “Only a ten-cent stogie.” Webb produced the cigar, its tip glowing red in the gloom.

  I saw Wes relax. Now he was prepared to be friendly. “Come, join us for a drink, Deputy Webb. A hot gin punch is warming on such a chilly evening.”