Forty Times a Killer (16 page)

The town of Trinity Station harbored a nest of traitors.

John Wesley was still recovering from his terrible wounds when a grand jury convened and indicted him for the attempted murder of that vile hound Phil Sublett!

There was no appeal against this grave injustice and Wes, wounded though he was, had to flee the town by dark of night, like a common criminal.

He became a hunted animal, relentlessly pursued by posses. I'm proud to say that, weak and sick as I was, I rode with him through those trying times. On the scout, we slipped from one hideout to another, and finally found refuge in Angelina County at the home of Dave Harrel, a Hardin family friend.

But the state police would not leave us alone. Three or four times packs of hunters rode close to the house.

Sitting in the Harrel parlor, Wes said to me, “Little Bit, the wound in my belly is festering and I need medical help. I think I've no option but to surrender.”

I was not in good shape myself. The wound on my thigh had grown to twice its size and it smelled. We'd had little to eat since leaving Trinity Station and I'd lost weight. The calf muscle of my bad leg was about as big around as a walnut.

“A jury will clear you of all charges, Wes,” I said. “Sublett shot at you first.”

“Damn right he did.” After some thought, Wes said, “Yeah . . . maybe I should take my chances with the law.”

“You're a respectable businessman, Wes. And you'll soon have your own Wild West show. There isn't a jury in Texas that will convict you.”

But Wes suddenly seemed a little hesitant. “Dave Harrel's wife is making up a salve for my wound. She says her ma used it on her pa after he came back from the war all shot up and it worked wonders.” He began to reassemble the Colt he'd been cleaning “Now I study on it, I guess I'll wait a spell, see how the salve works.”

All at once, I was exasperated. “Wes, you must see a doctor. A gut shot man needs more than hog fat and aloe.”

“That means surrendering,” Wes said.

“Yes, that's what it means.”

“Well, I—”

A fist pounded on the front door of the house and a man's voice yelled, “Open up in the name of the law!”

A few moments later Dave Harrel stepped into the parlor, his face pale. He held a shotgun in his hand. “State police,” he said, dropping his voice to a whisper.

“At first I thought it was road agents.”

“How many?” Wes asked.

“Two. That I can see anyway.”

Wes rose, wincing, from his chair, the unhealed belly wound punishing him. “Dave, keep them talking. And give me the scattergun.”

“I don't want no trouble.” Harrel's thin, brown hair was plastered to his head in damp strands.

A fist pounded on the door again. Louder.

“That's up to them, isn't it?” Wes grabbed the shotgun from Harrel's unresisting hand and slipped through the back door.

“Let's go talk to them, Dave,” I said.

Two men stood outside, one with a revolver in his fist.

“What can I do for you worthy gentlemen?” Harrel said, his face beaming with pretended good humor.

So far, so good, I thought.

“We have reason to believe that a murderer by the name of John Wesley Hardin is hiding in this residence,” the lawman with the Colt said.

Unfortunately, Harrel froze. His throat bobbed, but no words came out.

“He's not here,” I said.

The lawman was a big fellow with hair as a black as a Sioux Indian's and a dragoon mustache of the some shade. He was huge, like a force of nature is huge, as though he could lower his head and butt his way through the house from front to back. “We were told Hardin is riding with a lame little runt, Is that you?”

“It sure is,” I said. “And it's a great honor.”

Well, that was honest enough.

The roar of a shotgun immediately followed my declaration and the big lawman took a barrelful of double-aught buck right in the face.

No matter how big he is, how tough and mean he is, a man can't suffer a blow like that and live.

As he fell, the officer's face reminded me of a smashed raspberry pie I once saw on a baker's floor. It was a sight I'll never forget.

Yet as he went down, the lawman's dead finger twitched convulsively on the trigger and his ball slammed into Wes's thigh.

The other policeman, much younger, wide-eyed and nervous, glanced down at his brother officer and promptly bent over and threw up so violently I could tell what he'd had for his last three meals.

After the man straightened, saliva trailing from his mouth, Wes pushed the muzzle of the shotgun into his belly. “I can make it two real easy. You want to go for a deuce?”

The youngster tried to speak, but couldn't. He retched a couple of times, then said, “I've never seen anything like that before. His . . . his face . . .”

“Lead in the face can make a mess of a man,” Wes said. “Now state your intentions and be quick.”

The lawman shook his head. He had brown eyes as pretty as a woman's. “I'm out of it.”

“Only if I say you're out of it,” Wes said.

The youngster made no answer. I doubt if he could.

“All right, you're out of it. I'm in a good mood today.” Wes nodded in the direction of the dead man. “Load what's left of that onto his horse and get the hell away from here.”

Harrel, leaning against the wall of his house, looked sick to his stomach, as though a yellow, porcelain mask covered his blunt features, but he helped get the dead lawman across his saddle. He stepped back and stared at his hands, holding them up in front of him, a horrified light in his eyes. His hands and forearms were streaked with scarlet runnels of blood, mixed with gray fragments of bone and brain. “Ahhhh . . . ahhhh . . .” he hollered, somewhere between a groan and a shriek.

“Damn you, wash them off!” Wes yelled. “Wash your damned hands!” Harrel's wails had unnerved him and he turned on the young lawman. “Get him the hell out of here!” he roared. “Now!”

The officer mounted, gathered the reins of the other horse and led it away, the pulped head of the dead man swaying with every motion.

Harrel, stripped to the waist, frantically worked the handle of the pump. The water cascaded over his hands and turned red.

Mrs. Harrel, a handsome woman with heavy breasts and hips, rushed outside with a bar of yellow lye soap and a towel, and helped her husband wash.

“Martha, did you see?” Saliva gathered at the corners of Harrel's mouth. “Did you see his head?”

“I saw it.” She turned to Wes. “Go away. Leave us alone and never come back.”

“Bang, Martha,” Harrel said, wonder in his voice. “Bang, and he'd no face left.”

“I know, Dave. I know how it was.”

Wes stepped beside me, the shotgun still in his hand. Blood oozed from his wounded thigh. “Little Bit, I've killed 37, but now they're starting to get lead into me. I think my luck is changing for the worse and hard times are coming down fast.”

“Wes, we should head back to Gonzalez County where you have kin,” I said. “They'll find a doctor to take care of you.”

“The Yankee law will hunt me down no matter where I go,” Wes said. “They'll never forgive me for taking a stand against tyranny.”

Harrel was drying his hands on his towel. He'd calmed some, but looked at Wes as though he was some kind of dangerous, uncaged beast.

“Where is the nearest law?” Wes said to him.

“That would be Richard Reagan, the sheriff of Cherokee County,” Harrel said.

“Where's he live?” Wes asked.

“He has a farm a couple of miles south of here,” Harrel said.

“Bring him. Tell him I want to surrender.”

“Canada, Wes,” I said. “We could go to Canada.”

John Wesley looked at me as though I'd just crawled out from under a rock. He looked back at Harrel. “Bring him, Dave. Tell him I'm shot through and through and damned tired of running.”

Sheriff Richard Reagan was a tall, slender man with a kindly face. He was a careless dresser, but everything he wore was much washed and clean. Men of such appearance have dutiful wives and that is to their credit. He carried a holstered Colt that looked ill at ease on him, as though he considered it more badge of office than weapon.

Reagan arrived with four, hard-eyed deputies, but they remained outside while he and Wes repaired to the Harrel parlor.

Since nobody objected, or even seemed to notice me, I joined them.

Reagan got right to the point. “Dave Harrel led me to believe that you wish to surrender.”

“He led you along the right path,” Wes said. Covered by a cloth, his holstered guns were on the parlor table, as was the bulldog revolver.

In his memoirs, Wes says Reagan agreed to all kinds of conditions before he surrendered. He said the sheriff treated him like a superior kind of person, a God-fearing patriot who'd been persecuted by greedy carpetbaggers and vindictive Yankee lawmen.

The first part of that is not true, of course.

Wes made only one condition. Seriously wounded and fearing that he was dying, he begged Reagan to take him to a doctor who could save his life. “I don't want to leave my wife a grieving widow at so tender an age.”

Reagan took Wes at face value. The face in question looked as contrite as a sinner's at a tent revival and was strained from pain.

“I will see what I can do,” Reagan said. “But first you must surrender your firearms.”

“Willingly. They have caused me nothing but trouble.” Wes stepped to the table, pulled aside the cloth and picked up his guns.

Then tragedy struck.

An overzealous deputy who stood near the window saw what Wes was doing and opened fire. The ball hit Wes in the knee and he cried out in pain and dropped to the ground.

“Murder!” I yelled, angry that my friend now had four bullet holes in his body, two of them inflicted by so-called peace officers.

Reagan crossed the floor to the window and severely reprimanded the sullen deputy who made no attempt to apologize. He then kneeled beside Wes. “I'm sorry, old fellow. That was an honest mistake.”

A mistake, yes, but not an honest one. The law had it in for John Wesley and seemed determined to kill him one way or the other.

I know they preferred a rope, but a bullet would do.

Wes was taken to the nearby town of Rusk to be held in a hotel owned by Sheriff Reagan where his wounds were treated and he was allowed to greet the many admirers who called on him.

I saw an immediate improvement in his attitude.

Wes liked people and they in turn liked him. He treated each visitor as though he or she was the most important, interesting person in the world. In those days, before prison ground him to dust, Wes was outgoing and charming. His love of life and inner glow cast a flattering light on all who came in contact with him.

But these were just a few of the attributes that made him a great man. Had the vengeful law left him alone, Wes would have found fame and fortune and a statue of him would stand in every town square in Texas.

 

 

On September 22, 1872, John Wesley was taken to Austin to stand trial. I did not join him right away because I felt too sick to travel.

Wes didn't appear to be troubled by my desertion, saying only that I should take care, say my prayers, and stay away from strong drink and fancy women.

I was sleeping rough and took a job as a saloon swamper to pay for my whiskey and the doctor who treated my leg.

The doc managed to help the recurring wound on my thigh, but warned that my bad leg should be amputated as soon as possible since it was withering away, possibly cancerous, and undermining my health.

I told him I never had any health to undermine, and he agreed that seemed to be the case.

“But,” the doc said, “that doesn't alter the fact that the leg must be amputated, sooner rather than later.”

The swamper job soon proved to be too much for me, but I felt well enough to take the trail to Austin, then a boomtown thanks to the arrival of the Houston and Central Texas Railroad.

The saloon owner, who'd either taken a liking to me or pitied me, gave me an old army greatcoat, cut to fit a much bigger man than me, and a paper sack with salt pork, a chunk of smelly cheese with blue stuff in it, and half a loaf of sourdough bread.

I was grateful for the coat. The early morning I reached the city it was pouring rain and a cold fall wind blew from the north.

After making some enquiries from a prim matron in the street, I discovered that Wes had been incarcerated in a broken down jail on the Colorado River.

The place was a hell on earth, the woman told me, and she warned that I should stay well clear because the jailors would think I looked like a desperate character, inclined to all sorts of mischief.

I didn't need further instruction on how to find the jail. Its stench could be detected from a mile away. The hellhole was jammed with such a reeking, heaving, mass of humanity that in the summer the prisoners stripped naked to survive the intolerable, humid heat.

I was allowed to speak to Wes through a grill in an iron-studded door that wafted a stink like bad morning breath.

After an exchange of pleasantries, Wes whispered, “Little Bit, bring me a hacksaw blade. I'm going to cut my way out of here.”

I felt a jolt of alarm. “Wes, if you're caught, they'll gun you for sure.”

Wes's teeth flashed white in the gloom of that place. “The guards are all kin, or friends of kin. They'll turn the other way.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“Hell, this is Gonzales County, my home range. Of course I'm sure.” He crooked his finger and I put my face closer to the grill. “Manny Clements is in town. Tell him to have a horse ready for me on the south side of the jail.”

I never liked Manny Clements much, a big, overbearing bully of a man, but I had to bite the bullet, as they say. “When?”

“Bring the saw later today and I'll be ready by midnight tomorrow.”

“I'll be with Clements when you break out.”

“Yeah, you do that, Little Bit. Now go get me the saw blade.”

 

 

I had no money to buy the hacksaw blade and when I stepped into a dry goods store with the intention of stealing one, the suspicious owner kept his eyes on me the whole time I was there. Finally I was forced to leave empty handed.

My only option was to find Manny Clements.

Since Clements usually hung with a town's sporting crowd, I doubted he'd be up and about much before noon, and it was still not yet ten.

My horse stood hipshot in the rattling rain outside the dry goods store. He needed a place to shelter and so did I. The Houston and Central Texas train station lay close by, so I gathered up the reins and walked my mount up the slanted loading ramp to the platform. We found shelter under the wooden awning. I sat on a bench then pulled the paper food sack from under my coat. I ate the piece of cheese and crust of bread that was left. It didn't satisfy my hunger, but it was better than nothing.

About two inches of whiskey were left in my bottle, so I drank that and began to feel a little better, though I was still cold, damp, and shivering. I coughed incessantly.

The sky was gray to the horizon, but black thunderheads piled one on top of the other to the north and promised more rain, more misery, and the perplexing problem as to where I'd sleep that night.

It seemed that I'd have to depend on the generosity of Manny Clements, a man not noted for his giving nature.

I was so lost in a tangle of thoughts, none of them pleasant, I didn't notice the ticket agent step onto the platform.

He spotted me, then turned his head and said, “Shamus, come out here.”

A tall, heavy man wearing a railroad hat with a shield-shaped badge on the front and an oilskin cape came from inside, a tin cup of coffee in his hand and a scowl on his face.

It was the first time I'd ever seen a railroad bull, those private, strong-arm thugs the rail companies were hiring to stop tramps, vagrants, and other riffraff riding free in the freight cars.

I later learned that the bulls had orders to shoot to kill. Some say they gunned at least a thousand white men in Texas alone. Add Negroes and Chinese and that number triples.

The bull laid his cup on a bench and slowly stepped toward me. The
thud, thud
of his boots on the wooden platform sounded like the drums of doom. He loomed over me. “Git that damn hoss off the platform.” He had a round, red, Irish face and small eyes that looked like hard blue marbles.

“I certainly will, sir,” I said, getting to my feet.

The bull toed the crumpled, greasy paper sack I'd dropped. “That yours?”

I nodded.

“Pick it up.”

I did as he said, then gathered the reins of my horse. “It was nice to meet you.”

But the bull wasn't done with me, not yet anyway. “Do you have a ticket?”

“No,” I said.

“Why are you here?”

I decided to tell the truth. “Just sheltering from the rain. I meant no harm.”

“Sheltering on railroad property?”

“I guess so.” I pointed upward. “It has a cover.”

Some things I remember vividly about that morning . . . the drip at the end of the bull's nose . . . the whiskey on his breath . . . the rumble of distant thunder and the snare drum rattle of the rain on the roof. I remember all that, but after the bull accused me of trespassing and followed up with a punch to the middle of my face, I recall very little.

I had an instant glance of a fist as big as a ham coming at me, and then my lights went out. I'd never been punched before and wasn't prepared for it.

As far as I can tell, since I was unaware, worse was to happen.

My horse spooked as I dropped, but my left hand was tangled in his reins and he swung around and dragged me down the ramp. At a frenzied gallop, he hauled me into the muddy street and finally shook me loose after I slammed into a boardwalk, then a hitching rail, and came to rest in a dung-covered puddle.

I mean, I guess all that happened. When I woke with a broken nose and bruised, swollen eyes, the puddle was where I found myself.

Hurting all over, I tried to get to my feet, but my bad leg slipped out from under me and I landed on my back, the furious rain lashing at me.

Two respectable ladies holding umbrellas looked down at me, then one whispered into the other's ear. That lady nodded, reached into her purse and held out her hand. She was holding something I thought was money and reached out to take it.

“Read it and take it to heart, young man,” she said.

Then she and the other woman walked away, their noses high and backs stiff.

I looked at the paper in my hand. It was some kind of leaflet. On the front was written D
RINK IS A MOCKER.
B
E NOT DECEIVED.
And under that,
Verily, there's a serpent in every bottle and he biteth like the viper!

Suddenly I was angry . . . angry at myself for being a cripple, angry at myself for being poor, and angry at the world for not giving a damn. I struggled to my feet and saw the two respectable ladies gesturing to one another as they stared into a store window.

“Hey!” I yelled. “Go to hell!” I held up the pamphlet and began to tear it into little pieces. “You hear me? Go to hell!”

The women turned their heads, stared at me for a moment, then hurried away, lifting their skirts so their white petticoats and button-up boots showed.

“Go to hell,” I said in a whisper, my hurting head bent. “Everybody go to hell.”