“That sonbitch shoot me down like a dog!” he said in a thick voice. “Come right up and shoot me. He murder me! He murder a unarmed man!”
John said, “You attacked me and wouldn’t take warning to leave off. You gave me no choice.”
“Liar!” Mage shouted hoarsely. “White trash murdering liar, you!” His fury prompted him to cough up a gout of bright blood, and my stomach twisted sickly.
John dismounted and drew his pistol and stepped closer to Mage. He aimed it squarely at his face and cocked the hammer.
“Do it,” Paul urged him. “Do it, boy.”
“Sure,” Mage said, looking up at John with blood dripping off his chin. “Go ahead on and murder me some more.”
I do not like to think that he would have pulled the trigger on Mage in cold blood. I prefer to believe he was simply gesturing. And yet I couldn’t keep from calling out sharply, “No, John!”
He looked at me without expression. “Do you want to swing on a Yankee rope for killing such a worthless creature?” I said. “Put up your pistol.”
And he did. I heard Paul swear softly in disappointment, and I instructed him to go back to the farm and get a wagon and two field hands to load Mage onto it. They would then take him to the Negro settlement near Moscow and leave him to his people to tend him the best they could.
As Paul rode away, I told John I believed Mage was going to die. “The Union troops will come looking for you,” I said. I advised him to go directly to his father and tell him what had happened. I gave him a twenty-dollar gold piece in case he got cut off by the Yankees and was forced to take refuge in strange towns.
For a moment he once again looked like the fifteen-year-old boy he was. Then his aspect assumed an air of resolve. He mounted up, tugged his hat low on his brow, reached down to shake my hand, and spurred off toward Trinity County.
Two days later Mage was dead, and John Wesley Hardin was a wanted man.
I was chopping stove wood early one morning when the weather had already turned chilly enough to show your breath, and I looked out across the meadow and saw a rider come out of the heavy pine. The farmhouse was on good high ground and you could see a ways over the trees along the creek that cut through the meadow. Wasn’t often we had visitors, set so far off the trace as we were. What’s more, this fella was acting cautious as a cat. He stepped his paint pony out of the trees and reined up to take a look all around, staring specially hard off to the east. I couldn’t see a thing out that way but the sun just starting to blaze through the trees. I figured the only thing he could be considering so hard was that anybody wanting to have the advantage on him would likely come from that direction so as to catch him with the sun in his eyes. But I am a cautious man myself, and in those days the countryside was just crawling with all sorts of bad actors left mean and rootless by the War, so I eased over to the door and called low to my old woman to pass me out my shotgun. I checked the loads and set it against the chopping block where I could snatch it up right quick if the need came.
Turned out to be none other than John Wesley, the Reverend’s second boy. I didn’t recognize him till he got up close enough to halloo me. I’d see the elder boy, Joe, fairly often because he was the schoolteacher in Logallis Prairie and lived just a few miles the other side of the big hollow from us, but I hadn’t seen John Wesley in a couple of years, and he’d growed some in that time. He looked to be getting close to six feet high now, and though he was still a rangy thing he’d put on some thickness through the shoulders and had him a good-sized pair of hands. Biggest change, though, was in his face. It wasn’t no boy’s face anymore. One look in his eyes and I knew he was bringing hard news.
He said he had a letter for me from his daddy, but he didn’t hand it over till he’d taken his paint around back to the stable and got it out of sight, which he seemed mighty eager to do. I was raised up to believe it ain’t polite to ask a man his business right out, but if a feller’s putting his horse in your stable and has got a double-barreled shotgun at the ready and keeps taking looks over his shoulder, well, I reckon that gives you some right to be a little forward. So I say to him, “Is it somebody else likely to be coming this way, John Wesley?” And he says, “Could be, Mr. Morgan. I reckon you best read my daddy’s letter now.” And he hands it over.
It was some letter, all right, full of the bad news I’d felt coming on from the minute I got a close-up look at John Wesley’s face. Turns out he’d shot some Nigra dead in Polk County and now the Yankees were after him. The Reverend said he believed it was a clear case of self-defense, just as John Wesley had told him, but he could not believe his boy would get a fair trial, not with the Union army setting the law in Texas. He had no doubt that if the Yankees didn’t shoot John Wesley on sight, the trial they’d give him would be a mockery. He’d likely be hanged, or at the very least packed off to prison for a lot of years. “Not until the courts of Texas are again halls of true and impartial justice,” the Reverend wrote, “will I encourage my son to stand himself before their judgment.”
I knew John Wesley’s trouble must of been paining Reverend Hardin a good deal. From the time John Wesley was born, the Reverend had hoped he would grow up to be a preacher like himself. I heard him say so more than once. He thought the world of his eldest boy, but it was John Wesley who he saw spreading the Gospel. It’s why he named him after the Great Methodist. Now here the boy was, on the run from the law for killing a man.
What the Reverend wanted of me was to put the boy up for a time, till he could arrange for him to live with kin in Navarro County. As out of the way as my place was, he thought there wasn’t much chance the soldiers would come looking for him there. He said Joe would come over every few days to keep us up on things and let us know if any Yankee soldiers had been spotted in our neck of the woods. I got my two boys, Will and Harold, who weren’t but eleven and nine then, to clear out the lean-to I’d added to the back of our dog-run cabin and help John Wesley get himself settled in there. When they heard the Yankees were after him, they looked at him like he was Jeb Stuart himself.
The next day Joe Hardin showed up and said there was a line of families between Sumpter and Logallis Prairie keeping a lookout for Yankee patrols. He stayed to supper with us that night, and afterward my boy Will took down the fiddle his granddaddy had passed on to him, and Harold joined in with his mouth organ, and we had us a time. I mean, we shook the walls with our foot-stomping—we really made the lantern lights jump! My old woman was always kind of shy about dancing in front of people she didn’t know too good, but pretty soon she let her hair down and couldn’t stop smiling and blushing with all the swinging around we gave her. My three girls were youngsters yet, but we took turns dancing with them too, even little Sarah, who wasn’t but six years old. Brenda and Lorrie—the one ten and the other eight—were laughing and bright in the face and just couldn’t get enough of the dancing. Joe and John Wesley would bow to them when asking for a dance and kiss their hand afterward. Those two girls weren’t much use at all for the next two days, they were so moony from all the gentlemanly attention they got that night.
After Joe told us about all those folks keeping an eye out for Yankees and being ready to warn us if any were to head our way, John Wesley took to riding out every day to look for cows. There was wild cattle around there in those days and you didn’t need to be no cowboy to lasso one and tug it on home. You just had to have the time to do it and be willing to get yourself and your pony all scratched up rassling a longhorn through the rough brush on the end of a rope. I’d take the animal to town and trade it for goods. John Wesley helped us out plenty that way. And every evening after supper my children couldn’t hear their fill of his stories about hunts he’d been on with his brother or his cousin Barnett. Those who have anything bad to say about him best never say it around me or my children—and I mean my girls too—if they don’t want a fight on their hands.
* * *
One afternoon, Jules Halas, who had a small spread east of L
ogallis Prairie, came by in his buckboard with a message from Joe. A half-dozen Yankee soldiers had shown up on the other side of the hollow during the night. Two were keeping watch on Joe’s house, one was watching the schoolhouse, and three were riding around asking folks questions about John W. Hardin. They had to know he wasn’t at Joe’s or they likely would of busted in on the place, but it sure looked like they knew he was somewhere around. Jules had seen the two bluebellies watching the schoolhouse when he went to retrieve his young ones. Joe had asked him to bring the news to John Wesley but to be careful about not being followed. “Joe says you best keep a sharp eye out,” Jules told us. “He says it’s some people around here not above giving the Yanks information in exchange for a piece of silver.”
The morning after we got word of the soldiers closing in, John Wesley stayed in the house rather than go out to hunt cows and run the risk of being spotted. And then, sometime around midmorning, here they came. I was out in the hog pen and caught sight of them as they came in from the far end of the meadow, about a half mile off, three of them. From the careless way they was coming—riding all abreast and slow and easy, right out in the open instead of staying close to the trees on either side—it was clear they wasn’t expecting to find him here. Likely they were just nosing around, trying to find out if anybody had seen him.
I looked over to the window where John Wesley had been sitting and keeping watch, but he wasn’t there anymore. I heard a low whinny from the stable and then his horse hoofing off into the woods behind the house, and I reckoned he was heading for the main trace to make his getaway.
The meadow creek was less than a quarter mile away, but you couldn’t see it from the house because of the heavy growth of hardwoods lining the steep banks and blending into the pine forest to the south. It took the troopers a while to reach the creek, they were coming so slow. There was a small break in the trees where they could cross fairly easy, but they had to come across single file.
As the first soldier eased his horse down the bank, I heard a shotgun blast and saw a puff of smoke from the clump of sweet gums to their left. The lead rider went backward like he’d been lassoed. I don’t think he hit the ground before John Wesley blew the second rider out of the saddle too. The third Yank jerked his horse around and gave it the spurs, heading back the way he’d come.
John Wesley came charging up out of the trees on his horse, whipping the paint up the bank with the reins, yelling something I couldn’t make out, and went straight after the third soldier. The Yank cut over toward the east treeline, trying to get to cover. As he rode he turned and fired two quick shots with his pistol—but John Wesley kept charging hard and gaining on him fast, and before the Yank could make the trees he closed to within ten feet of him and shot him in the back. The soldier’s arms went up in the air and he tumbled off his horse and John Wesley rode right over him at full gallop.
I tell you, it was something to see.
I took off running, hearing Will and Harold coming behind me, hearing their momma shrieking for them to get back to the house, sounding like she was near out of her mind. The boys passed me by and got to the creek a good ten yards ahead of me. I was plumb out of breath when I got to the bank and stood beside him, looking down at the two dead Yankees. One laid faceup, except he didn’t have a face anymore—it got blowed away along with half his head. The other was belly-down and the hole in his back where the charge had come out was big enough to throw a cat through. John Wesley had hid himself in the trees awful good to get such close shots at them—and they’d been careless, like I said. Their blood was flowing down the creek in lacy red swirls.
The boys were so excited they were just about dancing. Harold kept saying, “Did you see it, Daddy? Did you see it?” Then they were off and running again, splashing through the creek and up the opposite bank and off toward where John Wesley had reined up beside the other Yankee.
When I caught up to them, huffing hard again, John Wesley was down off the paint and holding his hand tight around his other arm. There was blood oozing through his fingers and he was grinning like a crazy man. The dead man at his feet was a Nigra. His eyes and mouth were open wide and one of his cheeks had been crushed by a hoof. The pistol ball had come out just under his collarbone and the thick patch of bright blood looked like a large red flower crushed on his jacket. “I been shot,” John Wesley said. “First damn time.” He said it like it was something he’d been waiting on, like a letter. He was trying hard to stay calm, but there was no hiding his excitement. I couldn’t hardly blame him, not really. I’d seen fellers killed before, but never seen three killed so quick by just one—and never in such a yeehaw way as John Wesley had just done.
“I think we best get these bluebellies out of sight quick as we can, don’t you, Mr. Morgan?” John Wesley said. I said I thought we damn sure should, and I sent Will off to the DuBois place, which was down the creek and into the woods a ways. Gerard DuBois and his boys were good people and I knew they’d be glad to lend us a hand.
The Nigra’s bullet hadn’t taken but a small bite out of John Wesley’s arm, but it was bleeding real free. I tore a strip off his shirtsleeve and used it to tie off the wound, then we got busy stripping down the Nigra. If anybody ever did find the bodies, we didn’t want anything on them to identify them as soldiers.
Just as we’d got back to the creek and started in on the other two dead Yanks, Gerard DuBois and his boys showed up. They’d been in the middle of stringing trotlines across the river, but when Will told them what happened, they hustled right on over to help us out. They about busted John Wesley’s shoulders, pounding them so much in congratulations.
We toted the bare-ass bodies way on down the creek to a special place and buried them deep in the clay. There was lots of wash down at that spot and every rain from then on helped to bury them deeper. It was more than one dead man had been buried around there. We burned all their clothes to ashes. John Wesley didn’t want any of the dead men’s goods, so the DuBois boys rode off with the Yank horses, heading for the Thicket, where there was a fella always ready to pay top money for good horseflesh without a question of where it came from, not even if it carried the U.S. brand. Gerard DuBois took two of the Yankee carbines and I took the other. I couldn’t pass up that Spencer.
The sun was down in the treetops by the time we got back to the house. When my old woman saw the Yankee rifle, she didn’t say anything but she got awful tight in the face, knowing what it would mean if the wrong person ever caught a look at it. I kept it next to the bed but never did take it outside to shoot till long after the Yanks pulled out of Texas.
But even though she was too mad to say anything, she got right to work stripping the binding off John Wesley’s wound and then bandaging it up proper. John Wesley could see how upset she was, and I think he was more uncomfortable about that than about the pain in his arm. When she finished up with him, he said he reckoned he’d best go back home and let his daddy know what happened.
During supper he said he’d leave as soon as it got dark. My old woman wrapped up some corn bread for him. She started to leave the room, then quick came back to him and touched his face and said, “God bless you, boy.” Then she went into the other room and didn’t come out again. I never understood her and never will.
The boys offered their hands and he shook them as seriously as if they were grown men. He hugged the girls and kissed their cheeks. They started to cry, but I told them if they were going to do that they could leave the room, so they quit. We sat around till the last of the daylight faded, then went out to the stable. He saddled up, thanked me again for my hospitality, and rode off. It was a full moon out, but he cut over close to the trees and we lost sight of him in their deep shadow.
Next we heard, his daddy’d got him a schoolteacher job in Navarro County. They say he was a natural-born good teacher of reading and lettering and ciphering. For sure he’d of had a more peaceful life if he’d stayed at it rather than turn cowboy like he did.
The very first time he walked into the schoolroom and said, “Good morning. My name’s Wes Hardin and I’m your new teacher,” I thought to myself, Well now, Mr. Wes Hardin, I might could teach you something too. I knew just by looking at him he hadn’t ever done it, not yet.
I’d been teaching boys things they were mighty glad to learn since just before I turned thirteen—which was when my Uncle Andy introduced me to the original sin, as some call it, on a pile of hay at the back of his barn. I didn’t begrudge Uncle Andy for plucking my cherry—I wanted him to do it as much as he did. All these women who say they never have liked it, I don’t understand them. I loved it right from the first.
The first time Johnny and me did it back there in Pisga was on a blanket under a cottonwood by the lake with a big silver moon blazing through the branches over our heads. Like most boys on their first time with a girl he was quick as a gunshot about it. But then he was ready to go again—and again and again. Lord, there was no quit to that boy. I didn’t keep count, but I bet we did it more than a half-dozen times that night. Like a lot of the tall skinny ones, he was hung like a horse. I mean, he could of cracked pecans with that big thing of his. And talk about a fast learner! That boy wanted to know everything—how’s this feel to you here, how’s that feel to you there, how you like if it I do this, or this, or this? What if I do this here with my tongue? What if I do that there with my finger? He wanted to learn everything all at once. I know I taught him everything I knew at the time—and he damn near wore me out with all his learning and practicing.
He liked to talk too—I mean while we were at it. And laugh. And make me laugh. I remember how, right after one of the first few times we did it, he raised up on his hands and knees and looked at me like he was about to say something really serious, then said, “You know what, Miss Hannie? I believe a man could learn to enjoy this sort of thing.” He tickled me with silly jokes about bucking broncos and saddle sores and God-knows-what-all. He was fun. And he was really and truly nice. He talked so sweet and kissed so soft and stroked my hair so gentle. But best of all—the thing about him I’ll always remember, the thing that made me think I was in love with him at the time—was that he kept right on treating me with respect in public. He’d call me Miss Hannie whenever we met in front of other people. He always tipped his hat to me. The fact is, he was a gentleman. I guess his momma wouldn’t have approved of me in a million years, but I surely do approve of the way she raised him.
The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin Page 3
