The Fall of Abilene Read online

“My Pa knows the Bible pretty good,” I said. “Not as good as Ma, though, and she can’t read or write more than her name.”

  Hardin remained quiet for a while. Then, though he wasn’t looking at me, just staring into the night, he said: “You know, I went home after that last fracas I got into … with two state policemen. Had to kill them, but it was them or me. I told my pa that they would’ve killed me, same as that law dog in Waco. Same as always. You want to know what my Scripture-quoting, God-fearing daddy said? He said … ‘Son, I do not believe you.’” Hardin’s laugh carried no mirth. “‘I do not believe you.’ Like I’d lie to the Reverend Gip Hardin. Or any Methodist preacher. Oh, he said he’d ride partway to Mexico with me. Partway. I figure that your pa would ride all the way with you. Yep, I bet he would, if he wasn’t stove up.” He spit. “I thanked Pa for his hospitality but told him I’d make my own way. Like I hadn’t been making my own way since I can remember.”

  * * * * *

  I relate this story just the way it happened. All these years later, I remember it as though it were yesterday. Still, most folks will call this a big windy, something worthy of a penny dreadful but with not enough blood and thunder. Everyone these days likes to think of John Wesley Hardin as a son of Satan, the most ruthless killer ever to come out of Texas. Maybe he was.

  Yet this young man, with the law ready to put a rope around his neck, nurse-maided a bunch of sick cowboys for ten days when anyone with a sound mind and a longing to live would have lit out for the Indian Nations.

  Hardin stayed. He brought us back to health.

  I had seen this man club a freedman with his revolver, and I had seen him wound and perhaps even kill some Mexicans over a card game. He had chilled my blood. He had scared the daylights out of me—and would again. Yet he had cared for his comrades who were sicker than dogs.

  Wes Hardin had a heart. He had a soul. Somewhere, there was some good in that young man, and I happened to see it.

  You do not believe me. I know this. Truth be told, I have trouble believing this really happened. Sometimes, I’ve thought that this was nothing more than a dream. Sick as I’d been, hallucinations wouldn’t have been far-fetched. What I’ve told you, though, is gospel.

  So is this.

  When the owner of that ornery white steer arrived in our camp, Hardin clubbed him with his pistol, tied his unconscious body onto his saddle, and sent the horse and its bleeding rider heading back to its farm.

  That’s a story you will believe.

  Maybe an hour after the steer’s owner disappeared, we started pushing the longhorns north.

  Chapter Six

  Hardin kept us moving hard, fast, getting out of that county and as far away from the owner of that cantankerous steer and the law.

  Erastus warned him that we might suffer a relapse, but Hardin did not listen. Somehow, we forgot we had been sick.

  Our trail boss pointed the herd away from the towns—Salado, Belton, places like that—and even swung wide to the west of Waco, forcing us to ford the Brazos River instead of paying the toll and crossing Waco’s new suspension bridge—not to save money but to keep his head out of a noose. A warrant charged him for shooting down a man in a barbershop. That’s why the two state policemen had arrested Hardin, and that’s why he had shot those two men dead. This Hardin did not deny, but he had an excuse for killing one of the lawmen.

  “Fool didn’t have sense enough to throw up his hands whilst he was staring into a pistol barrel.”

  * * * * *

  I still rode drag, following one long line of beef that stretched for miles. A drummer in Goliad once told me that if I ever got to ride a train, to make sure I got in the last coach. “That way, your ride will be the longest. You’ll get the most for your money.”

  I figured such logic did not apply on a cattle drive. I would have greatly preferred to ride flank or swing or even tumbling around in Erastus’ Studebaker. Still, I was heading for Abilene.

  One night when we had camped along the Trinity River near Fort Worth, Brit, my brother, and Box Head began talking about the law in that Kansas Gomorrah. Sipping coffee, I listened with rapt attention.

  “Irishman in charge,” Brit said. “Name of Tom Smith. Not six-foot tall in his boots. Solid-built, red hair, not much to look at. But he will leave a presence on your face, your ribs, and your backside if you test his patience.”

  “Calls himself Bear River,” my brother added.

  “How come?” Clements asked.

  “He’s a bear of a man.” Box Head laughed at his own joke.

  Shaking his head, Brit continued: “Nah. Well, no, I take that back. He’s a man, certain sure. I don’t recollect all of the particulars, but it seems that he was working in some railroad hell on wheels over in … Utah?”

  “Wyoming Territory,” Sam corrected.

  “They say he’d been a copper in New York City,” Box Head said.

  “He sure made his mark in Abilene,” Sam said.

  Brit nodded. “In just one year.”

  Since the cattle trade had opened in Abilene a few years back, the town had proved hard on lawmen. Sam related that two men from St. Louis had been hired last year, but they had hopped aboard the eastbound train before they had finished one day on the job.

  “How good is this Bear River with a gun?” Hardin asked.

  Brit shrugged. “Wouldn’t know. Never seen him use one.”

  Hardin snorted.

  “His hands are enough,” Sam said.

  “Biggest hands I’ve ever seen,” Box Head commented. “And like Brit said, he’s maybe five-foot-eleven. Good size. But not as big as some men I’ve knowed.”

  “A man who doesn’t carry a gun is a coward,” Hardin said.

  Maybe, I thought, I should pull Pa’s Spiller & Burr .36 from the saddlebag and start carrying it in my waistband.

  “You don’t carry any gun in Abilene,” Brit said.

  “What?” Hardin and Clements asked at the same time.

  “They don’t allow it,” Sam said, reciting: “All firearms must be deposited with the proprietor.”

  “What’s a proprietor?” Erastus asked from the back of the wagon where he was mixing batter with a wooden spoon.

  “Owner of some business,” Hardin said.

  “That’s right,” Brit said. “So you get to town, you visit the barber or the bathhouse or the saloon …”

  “Or some pretty gal’s crib,” Box Head interrupted. The cowhands chuckled.

  “You leave your pistol in that establishment,” Brit continued once the laughter faded. “Pick it up on your way out of town.”

  “Or you just don’t even bother bringing it into town,” Sam added. “It galls me. But that’s how most of the trail bosses were handling things last year.”

  Hardin shook his head, spit between his teeth into the fire, and swore. “You mean to tell me that this law dog goes around and arrests anybody who won’t follow that stupid law?”

  “I guess Big Hank might have called that an arrest,” Brit chuckled.

  “And maybe Wyoming Frank,” my brother added. “Once the swelling went down.”

  The story Brit then told went that Big Hank Hawkins, a tough Texas cowhand, borrowed a friend’s gun belt and buckled it on so that he wore two pistols. Then he strode out of the Alamo Saloon, “strutting like a gamecock,” followed by maybe a dozen or more other cowboys, and went looking for Abilene’s new marshal. The jail wasn’t far away, so they found Bear River fairly quickly.

  The lawman told Big Hank: “Look, mister, I’m paid to enforce the law here, to keep the peace. So why don’t you just be sensible about this and not make any trouble.” Which got nothing but snickers from Hawkins and his entourage.

  “What,” Big Hank then demanded, “is your intention?”

  “See that the law is obeyed,” Bear River responded n
ot so mildly. “I must trouble you for your guns. Both of them.”

  Big Hank answered with a few vile oaths, insulted the marshal’s parentage, and reached for one of his revolvers.

  “Next thing we observed,” Brit recounted, “is Big Hank on his knees, hunched over, gasping for breath that just won’t come. The Navy he had pulled is lying in the dirt, and not long after that … one punch later … Big Hank is faceup, spread-eagled, and his eyes don’t open till Charley Scott emptied the last of his beer from the stein he’d taken with him out of the Alamo on Big Hank’s face. By then, Bear River had picked up the Navy dropped by Hawkins, as well as the borrowed Forty-Four from his pard’s holster.

  “When Big Hank can sit up in the dirt, which some of the boys helped him do, the marshal told him that he will be leaving town and won’t be showing his face in Abilene for the rest of the season. Then the lawman produced a gunny sack and told us to deposit our weapons in it. Said we could pick them up on our way out of town.”

  “And you did it?” Hardin shook his head. “Without a fight.”

  “Yeah,” Brit said. “Hell, it makes sense, Wes. You carry a gun to town, some whore’ll just steal it from you whilst you’re sleeping off a drunk.”

  “He was just lucky,” Clements said. “Bluffed you boys good.”

  “That’s not what Wyoming Frank said the next day,” my brother told us.

  Which happened, Sam said, to be a Sunday.

  This time, the cowhand, wearing a belted Remington, waited in front of the Pearl Saloon for Marshal Smith to show up and just dare to try to take away his .44. Both sides of the streets filled with eager cowboys, chirpies, gamblers, and barkeeps. Before long, the lawman rode up on his dapple.

  “Great horse,” Box Head commented.

  “Worth a couple hundred bucks, no doubt,” Brit confirmed.

  My brother’s head bobbed. “And some kind of man, too. He steps out of the saddle, nods at that bruising brute, and says … ‘I’ll take that weapon, sir.’ And I think practically everyone on both sides of the street let out a gasp when the color drained from Wyoming Frank’s face and he started backing his way into the Pearl. Bear River followed him right in. By then, we’re crowding the door, the windows, getting practically squashed by all those folks who have rushed across the street to see what’s happening. And what was happening inside the Pearl Saloon was that Wyoming Frank had stopped backing away, the color had returned to his face, and he started laying every choice curse word he could come up with on Marshal Smith.

  “I heard that Bear River was a prize fighter in New York City,” Box Head said.

  “He punched like one,” my brother said before going on. “And a series of vicious right and left punches sent Wyoming Frank staggering back until he was braced up against the bar. When the lawman lowered his hands and asked again for the Remington, the cowboy began cursing again. But this time he only got out one or two oaths, because by then Bear River had laid the Remington’s barrel atop Wyoming Frank’s head. As he slid to the floor, the lawman asked the bartender to draw him a beer, which was dumped onto Wyoming Frank’s face.

  “‘Get out of town,’ Bear River told him. ‘If I ever set eyes upon you again, I’ll finish this fight, and I’ll finish you.’”

  Shaking his head, Hardin frowned. “How many of you women plan to ride into Abilene, once we’ve got coin and script, with your pistols?”

  Brit answered with a chuckle.

  “I swan.” Hardin shook his head with bitter contempt. “If I knew I was hiring a bunch of petticoats, I’d have asked those Mexicans to join this outfit instead of shooting them all down. Which is what I’ll do to this Marshal Bear River Smith, or whatever his name is, if he asks me to give him my revolvers.”

  “Criminy, Wes!” Erastus called out from the wagon. “The only reason you’re riding to Abilene is so you don’t get locked up. You keep raising Cain in every town you visit, you’re going to be … I don’t know … in Canada somewheres.”

  “Or Hell,” Clements said, and punched Hardin’s arm.

  Chapter Seven

  Of course, we still had a long way to go before we’d lay eyes on Abilene, and those days seemed never-ending. Fort Worth. Saint Jo. When we finally reached the Red River, we waited, waited, waited.

  You’d never dream Texas could hold so many longhorns, but here waited fifteen herds—Hardin’s count—numbering between eight hundred and twenty-five hundred head in each outfit.

  “That’s what’s ahead of us,” commented Marv Hatley, hooking his thumb toward the rising dust to the south.

  “We’ll never get to Abilene,” I said with a heavy sigh.

  Erastus chuckled. “Sure we will. Safer this way. All those trail crews before us. All those behind us.” He nodded as though he agreed with himself. “No Injuns will be trying to swipe our beeves or charge us some toll. There’s safety in numbers.”

  There’s also, I soon learned, a whole lot of cow shit.

  Riding drag, whenever I could see through the dust, I gaped at an endless, waving line of Texas cattle. I smelled them, too. The stink becomes permanently part of your clothes, your skin, your life—it’s a wonder I ever ate beef again.

  Yet I saw other things, too. For the first time, buffalo—those giant, shaggy beasts grazing off to the west. Antelope bounding about the plains and low hills. Wolves, too—although these I mostly heard at night, and those haunting wails kept me up till Hardin, in one of his moments, rode his roan horse out to try to shoot or rope one. Hardin, being Hardin, did both. He shot the big critter through its hips, then roped it and began pulling it into our camp.

  That drew the wrath of Clements and Hatley, both of whom walked out of our camp just below the Canadian River, waving their arms, sending out blasphemies, and screaming at Hardin, who happily loped along, the wolf bleeding, panting, and trying desperately to keep its legs working as it was pulled along behind his roan.

  “You damned fool,” Clements said.

  “Steers catch that wolf scent, they’ll stampede,” Hatley commented.

  Hardin kept riding.

  That’s when my brother came up with a Winchester carbine, dropped to his knee, worked the lever, and drew a bead. Clements grinned. Hatley didn’t notice and kept waving his arms and yelling at Hardin to stop.

  I drew a deep breath, fearing that my brother was about to shoot John Wesley Hardin out of the saddle.

  The rifle roared.

  Jim Clements laughed out loud. Hatley whirled, almost falling onto his buttocks.

  Hardin had to get the roan under control, and I watched in disbelief as the wolf took off, limping but still alive, dragging the rope that my brother had severed with one shot.

  “I’d drop that long gun, Sam,” Clements said as he wiped tears from his eyes, “and fold your hands behind your back. Wes don’t look overjoyed right now.”

  Grinning, my brother followed Clements’ instructions. A few moments later, Hardin pulled the roan to a sliding stop, leaped out of the saddle, and rammed a finger into Sam’s chest.

  “You think that was funny, bucko?” he snapped.

  “Stampede would have been less comical, Wes,” Clements said. “That’s what would’ve happened had you brought that damned wolf into camp.”

  Hardin spun to face his friend. “You ever think that a rifle shot might have sent the herd bolting?”

  Clements spit tobacco juice to the side. “Nah,” he said. “Tired as them beeves are, hot as it is, shot wasn’t about to send them running. And they didn’t. But the smell of a wolf …” Clements nodded at Sam. “Besides, that’s better’n fair shooting, Wes. Clipped your lariat real good.”

  “Anyone can shoot a rifle, Jim.”

  Clements’ grin stretched even wider. “You can’t, Wes.”

  But John Wesley Hardin could shoot a revolver. I knew that long before he kicked me awake one
morning on the South Canadian River.

  “It’s not my turn to ride night-herd,” I had stammered.

  “It’s not night,” he had told me. “Erastus is cooking breakfast. Come on, boy, up with you. Don’t you want to see a dead Injun?”

  * * * * *

  Everybody but Erastus, Brit, and our wrangler, Carlos, rode to the scrub along the riverbank, and I went only after Hardin and Clements shouted down Erastus’ objections. Now that I stood there, I wished the boys had listened to the cook. Or, at least, that I had.

  The Indian lay in the sand, and his eyes seemed to follow me, even though they never blinked or moved, just stared up at the pale sky. Black braids lay above his head, and an ugly hole showed purple and brownish red in the center of his forehead. His lips were parted slightly. He looked wretchedly thin, wearing breechcloth and moccasins. No war paint. No ferocity. He just looked … dead.

  Hardin motioned to a patch of growth downstream. “I was over yonder, trying to bag a turkey to give us something other than beans and bacon to eat … my horse tethered to that piece of driftwood on the banks. Barely light enough to see, but I can hear that gobbler. Then Ol’ Roanie starts snorting and prancing and tugging on the reins, and I’m thinking he’ll scare away that big tom. All of a sudden, I get this feeling that I’ve never had. Downright nervous. Like something’s about to happen. That there’s danger around.” Pausing and grinning, Hardin patted his revolver. “Sure enough, something happened, and it was dangerous. The Injun pops up out of this here timber while I’ve filled my hand and cut loose with one shot. Just one.” He looked at us, saying: “Surprised you boys didn’t hear it, but you’re all heavy sleepers. He was about to cut loose on me with a bow and arrow, but he didn’t get a chance. He dropped. Not a wheeze. Not a groan. Not a word. Just fell right here.” Hardin contemplated his kill in admiration.

  My stomach turned over, but I kept the bile down.

  “Never killed an Injun before. Darkies, greasers, Yanks, and law dogs, sure. But never an Injun.”

  “Where’s his bow and arrow, Wes?” Marv Hatley asked.