Wes was already acquainted with the city and eager to show it to the rest of us. It was warm and the air was heavy, but a sweet breeze came off the river. None of us had seen the Mississippi before. “My Lord,” Jenny said, gazing on it, “the Big Muddy is right.” Wes laughed and said, “It ain’t Sandy Crick, is it?” He had to keep reminding Jane to call him John instead of Wes.
We took long walks through the Quarter, admiring the iron lacework of the balconies and the tap dancing of the Nigra boys on the street corners and the fine jumpy music coming out of every other doorway. Wes was careful not to say anything about the fancy houses we passed on nearly every street, and naturally Jane and Jenny were too well brought up to even show they’d noticed them. But every now and then when we’d pass one and the girls weren’t looking our way, Wes would nod at it and give me a big wink so I couldn’t keep from grinning. He has some rascal in him, all right.
The smells from all the wonderful bakeries and restaurants kept us in a constant hunger, and it seemed like we spent half our time in New Orleans just eating. We spooned up bowls of gumbo and cleaned off platters of crayfish and iced raw oysters and trays of fancy desserts. The coffee was sweet as candy and the wines so fine it was no wonder we all drank ourselves silly at the table every night. Jenny’s first sip of Bourdeaux lit her eyes up like a sudden understanding, and she said, “Oh, my.” She looked so soft-eyed and beautiful, I couldn’t help but lean over and kiss her on the one shoulder her pretty new dress left bare. New Orleans is the kind of place that’ll make a man do a thing like that. “Harry!” she said, all big-eyed with happy surprise. Wes clapped me on the back and said, “Damn, Harry, if you ain’t a natural-born Frenchman—pardon my French, ladies.” And Jane—who swore her lips had never touched spirits until she took her first taste of wine with us—just smiled and smiled. She raised her glass and said, “To us all,” and we drank to that.
But the girls’ favorite places were the ice cream salons. Wes called them saloons just to make Jane blush. “Oh … John,” she’d say, “behave!” The city was full of them, and I swear I never tasted nothing better than the praline-and-caramel ice cream I ate in a salon on Royal Street. The first spoonful of it I put in my mouth made me think my tongue had died and gone to heaven. And for all the fun he made of the places, Wes loved them too, and it wasn’t unusual for him to eat two bowls to my one.
There finally came the morning we checked out of the hotel and went with Wes and Jane and Molly down to the wharf to see them off. Wes and me shook hands and Jane and Jenny hugged and kissed and cried all over each other. Then they went aboard the steamboat and waved to us from the railing while the whistle blew and blew. Then the boat pulled away from the dock and headed on downriver for the Gulf of Mexico and steamed away to Florida.
It was their first time at sea and it showed. As soon as we reached open Gulf and the steamer started its easy pitching on the low swells, they got a little green around the gills. By the next day, however, they had their proper color again and were back at the railing like a pair of old salts, smiling at the sea and each other, telling their little girl not to be scared of the sea gulls fluttering and screeching over the deck.
Even as he talked and laughed with his family, his eyes didn’t miss a thing going on around him. He was a man with no use for surprises. His coat was open, the top two buttons of his vest were undone, and the left side of it bulged with a pistol. He was just starting a mustache. I had him figured for a Texan. We had plenty of them in Florida at the time. There were cattle wars going on from the upper St. John’s all the way to the southwest coast, and some of the big ranchers were importing pistoleros to protect their interests. The prisoner I’d just turned over to a Texas Ranger in New Orleans was such a man. We’d had a DeSoto County rustling warrant on him, and one evening I spotted him coming out of a Beaver Street whorehouse, so I slipped up behind him and gave him the butt of my shotgun in the head. A little later we received the Texas warrant on him for murder and I delivered him on the steamship. But this one had his family with him, so I figured he was likely more interested in staying out of trouble than looking for it.
The weather that afternoon was nice—bright sunshine and a gentle salt breeze. I was standing only a few feet from them at the railing when the woman suddenly pointed and cried out, “Oh, look—what are those?” A school of porpoises had surfaced and was rolling and blowing alongside the ship. I tipped my hat and told them what they were looking at. “They’re warm-blooded as you and me,” I told them. “See those blowholes on their heads they breathe through? Some say they’re smart and can talk to each other, though I can’t guess what about. Maybe what kind of fish make the best eating, or whether the water feels any cooler today than yesterday, or which boy porpoise has been chasing after which lady porpoise—beg pardon, ma’am.”
The man laughed and the woman blushed pretty. I introduced myself and put my hand out. “John Swain,” he said as we shook—“my wife Jane and daughter Molly.” Jane said she didn’t know how smart porpoises were, but they sure did look like the happiest things. “Just look at those great big smiles!” she said. The man said he’d smile all the time too if all he had to do was play and eat and chase after the ladies all day long. “Now, Wes, behave!” she said, blushing again—and then quick put her hand up to her mouth. And just like that, I knew who he was.
Jane gaped at him like she’d spilled coffee in his lap. He patted her hand and looked around to make sure we weren’t being overheard, then smiled at me and said, “Mr. Kennedy, you look like you might have something on your mind.”
Of course I was a little wary. I mean, John Wesley Hardin, the Texas mankiller! “Well, sir,” I said, “I’d say Miz Swain might be one to get names a little confused when she gets excited.”
He smiled and said, “That’s a fact. Just last week she called me Winston in the excitement of a horse race in Houston. Winston! I about died of shame.” Then his smile closed up. “What I’m wondering is what some lawman might do if he was to mistake a peaceable citizen like myself for a man on the dodge, a man who ain’t wanted in the lawman’s own state and for sure ain’t wanted on this boat.” I said before that his eyes didn’t miss much, but I was surprised he’d spotted me for a policeman. “I’m asking you man-to-man, Mr. Kennedy—what you aim to do now?”
“Mr. Swain,” I said, “I aim to enjoy this boat ride like I always do, and let sleeping dogs lie like I always do. I figure a policeman’s job is to protect a citizen’s person and property from them that’s trying to harm the one or steal the other. Beyond that, I got no use for a policeman myself.” It was the truth. I’d become a law officer by chance after getting my fill of the cow-hunter’s life on the prairie. Turned out I was a good one—I was big and probably a bit less fearful than most, and I had a sharp eye for what was going on around me. But I never used my badge to bully nor went looking for trouble.
He studied my face close for a minute, making up his mind, then gave me his hand with a grin. “Proud to know you, Gus.” And I said, “Proud to make your acquaintance … Winston.” And even Jane laughed.
I accepted their invitation to join them for supper that evening, and we took most our meals together every day after that for the rest of the voyage. Jane couldn’t get enough of talking about New Orleans, and John and I always accommodated her choice of topic at the table. In the afternoons, however, when she retired to their cabin to put the baby down for a nap, John and I went to the upper deck railing to smoke a cigar and talk about our adventures in the cow trade—and about horseflesh and gambling houses and parlor palaces where we’d taken our pleasure. We had many similar opinions and both loved games of chance. I told him that if he ever got up to Jacksonville, I’d take him to some poker houses where the stakes ran rich as mother lodes.
He said Jane had kin in the Alabama boot heel, and he thought he might go in the lumber business up there. But first he wanted to see an old friend of his from the trail-driving days, a fella named Bama Bill, wh
o was running a saloon in Gainesville. He fancied the idea of running his own saloon and wanted to see if Bill could use a partner. He didn’t talk about his trouble with the Texas law but to say he wasn’t guilty of a thing except defending himself and his own. I said no honest man could fault him for that. By the time the steamer bumped up against the dock at Cedar Key, it felt like we’d been friends for years.
They about smothered in the humidity. “Good Lord,” Jane said, “we’ve got heat in Texas, but this!” Mosquitoes whined in our ears and horseflies stabbed the backs of our necks as our hack made its slow way around all the timber wagons delivering loads to the dock for shipment. After trading profanities with every teamster impeding our progress, our driver finally got us to the train station. But not till the train pulled out and gained enough speed to bring a breeze through the windows did we get some relief from the heat and the insects. Gazing out the coach window at the passing country of pine and cypress, John smiled and said it reminded him of the East Texas piny woods, which he loved. “Me too,” Jane said, only she looked sad and far from home. We said good-bye at the Gainesville station. As the train pulled out again, heading for Jacksonville, they stood on the platform and waved so long.
One night about ten months later I arrested a bullying big drunk of a seaman named Davison in a bad saloon over by the river docks, but when I pulled him out on the sidewalk a mean crowd followed us, including three of his shipmates, and the situation got tight real fast. The sailors pulled knives and backed me and my prisoner against the wall, saying I either let their friend go or they’d cut me up for fish bait. The crowd was egging them on, wanting a show. I’d cuffed Davison’s hands behind him, but he was putting up a hell of a fuss and it took both hands to hold him. I knew if I was forced to pull my gun I’d have to shoot—and with that crowd, no telling what could happen.
Then one of the sailors gave a grunt and his eyes rolled up and down he went. And there John stood, grinning at me and holding a big army Colt that he’d clubbed the fella with. “Stand fast, boys,” he told the other two, and they froze in place.
I grabbed Davison by the hair and rammed his head into the brick wall, putting an end to his nuisance and freeing my hands of him. John backed up beside me, still holding his gun on the other two, and said, “Evening, Gus. They said at the station you’d been sent here to settle a row, but damn if it don’t look like it’s trying to settle you.”
“Evening yourself, John,” I said. “Real good to see you. Excuse me a minute.”
I took the knives off the two tars and gave each one a hard backhand across the mouth, drawing blood both times. I told them to pick up their trash and get out of my sight before I cut their noses off. They didn’t waste any time hoisting up the one John coldcocked and making off down the wharf. I told the crowd the show was over and to break it up, and they started milling back into the bar, grumbling that nobody’d been killed. I took a mug of beer from one fella and poured it in Davison’s face to bring him around.
“Mr. Swain,” I said, “let me check this gentleman into the Crossbars Hotel and we’ll go sit ourselves down with a bottle so you can tell me why it’s taken you so damn long to come to our fair city.”
A half hour later we were drinking rye at a back table in Feller’s Club and he was telling me he’d found the saloon his old trail friend had owned in Gainesville—but Bama Bill himself had been dead for two months. He’d got into a drunken fight with the high yella woman he lived with just outside of town and she’d broke his head open with an iron skillet. She’d covered up her crime by burning down the house and claiming the fire killed Bill. But she was a good Christian woman and her conscience bothered her too much to live with, so she went to the sheriff and confessed. Two nights later, while the sheriff was at supper, a bunch of Bama Bill’s friends broke her out of the jail and took her out in the swamp and a few of them had their way with her and then they drowned her.
John heard this story from Sam Burnette, who’d come to own the saloon after Bill’s death. But Sam was champing at the bit to go prospecting for silver in Colorado, and he was ready to sell. In just a couple of days they’d made the deal and John had himself a saloon.
Shack Wilson, the Gainesville sheriff, became one of his regulars, not only at the bar but in the poker room John set up in the back. They started going bass fishing together. Shack introduced him to a neighbor of his named Salter who raised a kind of hunting dog called a Texas leopard, which is the best wild-hog hunting dog there is. The three of them would go into the forest every now and then and come out with enough pig for all their families to feast on for days.
One day when he was tending bar, in walks a couple of Texans he knew from his trail-driving days. They recognized him too, mustache and all. But before they could say anything, John put out his hand and said, “Name’s John Swain! Always glad to see new faces in here.” He took them to a table at the rear of the room and they had a quiet talk. The Texans were in town on some cattle deal and were mighty glad to see him. They said they’d been hearing all sorts of tales about him back in Texas for the last ten months—that he’d robbed banks in Waco and Dallas, that he’d killed the sheriff in Livingston last Christmas and two Texas Rangers in San Antone just last month and four possemen near Austin the month before that. Every time somebody got shot dead in Texas and there weren’t any witnesses, you could bet the blame would fall on John Wesley Hardin. “I guess it’s a compliment,” John told them, “to be so often remembered by my fellow Texans.” The two trail partners swore they wouldn’t say a word back in Texas about having seen him, and Wes told them he knew he could trust them. The Texans were in town a week and spent every night in John’s saloon, drinking and gambling and having a high time. Three days after they left back for Texas, John had sold the saloon and set out with his family for Jacksonville without letting anyone know where he was going. “It’s not that I don’t trust them old boys,” he said, “I just thought it’d be wise to proceed as if I didn’t.”
He did real well in Jacksonville—got into cattle shipping and bought himself a butcher shop, and both businesses prospered. Their little rented house on the bank of the St. Johns was shaded by palms and cooled by the river breezes. Jane loved living in the midst of all that lush greenery. They often took the wagon out to the beach with a picnic lunch and played in the breakers. Jane was rosy with sun and the glow of pregnancy, and Molly was dark as an Indian. In August “J. H. Swain, Jr.” was born, and for the next two weeks John handed a cigar to every man he met. I got into the habit of taking supper at their house two or three evenings a week. I taught John the fun of fishing in the surf, and we’d go hunting in the swamps for deer and pig. He shot a couple of good-size alligators one day and we dragged them out on ropes and had them skinned by an old Creek from the St. John backwater. John hung the skin of the sixteen-footer on the front porch of his house and had the fourteen-footer made into belts and hat bands and two fine pairs of boots, one for me and one for himself. We got to be damn fine friends and got to talking about going partners in the timber business up in the Panhandle.
Of course we did a little gambling every so often. We sat in on Bobby Chiles’s poker game on Tuesday nights in the back of his saloon, and in Fred Johnson’s game every Thursday. I always did all right, but John most always came out the big winner. The fellas used to cuss me half joking and half not for introducing him to our games. “Don’t seem we can do much about your luck, Swain,” Bobby Chiles said to him one time, “but we ought to take a damn horsewhip to Kennedy for bringing you around here in the first place.”
One night—he’d been in Jacksonville about a year, I guess—we came out of Bobby Chiles’s with a nice bourbon glow and bumped into a pair of strangers coming through the doors. They were big rascals and wore tight black suits and derby hats. One had a black handlebar and the other’s face was full of orange freckles. “Pardon me, friend,” I said to the handlebar, then saw the look he gave John and I knew they’d come for him. Freckles s
tood aside to let us pass and John nodded thanks.
We paused under the streetlight in front of the saloon to fire up cigars, and John whispered, “Looks like they’re on to me.” I glanced real casual up at the saloon window behind him and saw Handlebar peeking out. “Best go your own way, Gus,” he said. “It ain’t your fight.” Hell it ain’t, I told him. In my best copper’s voice I said I was an authorized agent of the law, sworn to protect the honest citizens of Jacksonville from those who would interfere with the exercise of their civil liberties. John smiled and said, “Well hell then,” and we headed off toward the deserted section of town by the old port on the river.
They followed us down the lighted streets, keeping half a block back. Music twanged from the swinging doors of every saloon. We went around a corner and onto a dark street of empty warehouses facing a line of rotted piers that hadn’t been used by the river steamers in years. The lots between the empty warehouses were littered with shipping debris. “Fill your hand,” John whispered—but I’d drawn my revolver as soon as we’d turned the corner, and I held it cocked under my coat. “I’ll take the street-side one,” he said, “you the inside.” The saloon music was fainter now, and I thought I heard their footsteps crunching up behind us in the broken glass. My back muscles quivered. Then one of them called out, “Mr. Swain! Hold on, sir!”
We stopped and turned. They were thirty feet away and closing, silhouetted against the glow of a street lamp just off the corner. They had their hands in their coats too. As they closed in, the Handlebar said, “Mr. John Swain of Texas?” He started to take his hand out and John shot him square in the forehead. Freckles and I fired at the same time and I felt his bullet tug through the loose flap of my coat. He dropped his gun and fell forward and I knew he was dead by the way he hit the ground. It was over just that quick.
The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin Page 26
