“I was there, Wes. You kept right on pumping balls into him after he said, ‘Oh Lordy, don’t shoot me anymore. ’ I remember that. Why did you do it?”
“Because in a gunfight you keep shooting till the other man falls. And because only a man who’s low-down asks for mercy in the middle of a shooting scrape, especially after he’s gotten his work in.”
I was silent.
Wes said, “Well, did Ben Bradley need killing?”
I sighed. “Yeah, Wes. I guess he did at that.”
“Then what’s your problem?” Wes’s face was dark with anger. “Come on, cripple boy, spit it out.”
“Don’t enjoy it, Wes. That’s all. Just... just don’t enjoy it.”
Wes was taken aback and it was a while before he spoke again. “You really think I like killing men?” he finally asked.
“I don’t know, Wes.”
“Come on, answer me. Do you?”
“Maybe you do.”
“And maybe I was born under a dark star. You ever think of that?”
Above the tree canopy the stars looked like diamonds strewn across black velvet. I pointed to the sky. “Which star?”
“It doesn’t matter, Little Bit. Whichever one you choose will be dark. There ain’t no shining star up there for John Wesley Hardin.”
Depression was a black dog that stalked Wes all his life, and I recognized the signs. The flat, toneless voice and the way his head hung as though it had suddenly become too heavy for his neck.
In later years, depression, coming on sudden, would drive him to alcohol and sometimes to kill.
It was late and I was exhausted, but I tried to lift his mood. “Your Wild West show is a bright star, Wes.”
I thought his silence meant that he was considering that, but this was not the case.
“I don’t kill men because I enjoy it. I kill other men because they want to kill me.” He stared at me with lusterless eyes. “I just happen to be real good at it.”
“Get some sleep, Wes,” I said.
He nodded to the body. “I’ll drag that away first.”
“Somewhere far. You ever hear wild hogs eating a man? It isn’t pleasant.”
Wes was startled. “How would you know that?”
Tired as I was, I didn’t feel like telling a story, but I figured it might haul the black dog off Wes, so I bit the bullet, as they say. “Remember back to Trinity County when we were younkers?”
“Yeah?” Wes said it slow, making the word a question.
“Remember Miles Simpson, lived out by McCurry’s sawmill?”
“Half-scalped Simpson? Had a wife that would have dressed out at around four hundred pounds and the three simple sons?”
“Yes, that’s him. He always claimed that the Kiowa half-scalped him, but it was a band saw that done it.”
“And he got et by a hog?”
“Let me tell the story. Well one summer, I was about eight years old, going on nine, and you had just learned to toddle around—”
“I was a baby,” Wes said.
“Right. That’s what you were, just a baby.” I hoped he wouldn’t interrupt again otherwise the story would take all night to tell.
“Well, anyhoo, Ma sent me over to the Simpson place for the summer. She figured roughhousing with the boys might strengthen me and help my leg. Mrs. Simpson was a good cook and Ma said her grub would put weight on me.”
“What did she cook?” With the resilience of youth, Wes was climbing out from under the black dog, and that pleased me.
“Oh, pies and beef stew, stuff like that. And sausage. She made that herself and fried it in hog fat.”
“I like peach pie,” Wes said. “And apple, if it’s got raisins in it.”
“Yeah, me, too.”
“And plenty of cinnamon.”
“She made pies like that.” Then quickly, before he could interrupt again, I went on. “I was there the whole month of June, then on the second of July, the day after my ninth birthday, the cabin got hit by a band of Lipan Apaches that had crossed the Rio Grande and come up from Mexico.”
“Damned murdering savages,” Wes said.
“The youngest of the Simpson boys fell dead in the first volley. His name was Reuben or maybe Rufus, I can’t recollect which. The others, myself included, made it back into the cabin, though Mrs. Simpson’s butt got burned by a musket ball as she was coming through the door.”
“Big target.”
“Yeah, I guess it was.”
“Hold on just a minute.” Wes grabbed the dead man by the ankles and dragged him into the brush. When he came back he said, “Then what happened?”
“Well, Mr. Simpson and his surviving sons held off the Apaches until dark when all went quiet. But they were afraid to go out for the dead boy’s body on account of how the savages might be lying in ambush.”
“Damned Apaches. I hate them.”
“Well, just as the moon came up, we heard this snorting and snuffling sound, then a strange ripping noise, like calico cloth being torn into little pieces.”
“What was it?” Wes asked.
“It was Reuben or maybe Rufus being torn into little pieces.”
“The big boars have sharp tusks on them. They can rip into a man.”
“They ripped into the dead boy all right. Come first light all that was left was a bloody skeleton. But the head was still intact. The hogs hadn’t touched it.” I stared at Wes. “Why would they do that?”
“I don’t know, Little Bit. There ain’t no accounting for what a hog will do.”
Wes stepped to the brush, then turned and said, “I’m taking this feller well away from camp. Your damned story about them hogs has me boogered.”
PINNACLE BOOKS are published by
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Copyright © 2014 J. A. Johnstone
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the publisher, excepting brief quotes used in reviews.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE
Following the death of William W. Johnstone, the Johnstone family is working with a carefully selected writer to organize and complete Mr. Johnstone’s outlines and many unfinished manuscripts to create additional novels in all of his series like The Last Gunfighter, Mountain Man, and Eagles, among others. This novel was inspired by Mr. Johnstone’s superb storytelling.
If you purchased this book without a cover, you should be aware that this book is stolen property. It was reported as “unsold and destroyed” to the publisher, and neither the author nor the publisher has received any payment for this “stripped book.”
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ISBN: 978-0-7860-3454-3
First electronic edition: June 2014
ISBN-13: 978-0-7860-3455-0
ISBN-10: 0-7860-3455-6
Notes
1 The reason why Mickey Pauleen shrieked in terror at the very instant of his death has never been explained. In her old age the Mexican woman said that he caught his first glimpse of hell, and to this day that remains as plausible an explanation as any.
Day of Independence Page 28
