The Pistoleer (53 page)

Of the eight or nine men at the bar of The Show saloon, four claimed to have witnessed John Selman’s killing of Bass Outlaw in a local whorehouse just the year before. The other men at the bar all snorted derisively and said they’d bet none of the four had been anywhere near the place. “You’d have to build another six floors on that cathouse just to hold everybody who’s sworn he saw the shooting with his own eyes,” one man said, and everybody but the four avowed witnesses had a good guffaw.

Bass Outlaw was a notorious bad actor who had been a Texas Ranger until he was fired for drunkenness. He then became a deputy U.S. marshal. On the night in question, he was drunk and in a fury because the girl he wanted to sport with was engaged with another customer. He loudly proclaimed his intention to go upstairs and kick open the door of every room until he found his favorite whore. Old John was sitting near him and said, “Hey now, Bass, you don’t want to be busting up everybody’s pleasure up there. Just wait your turn.” At that moment, Texas Ranger Joe McKidrict turned to Outlaw and said, “Bass, you’re too drunk to fuck anyhow.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Outlaw drew his pistol and blasted a hole through his heart. As Selman went for his gun, Outlaw shot him twice in the leg—then Old John put a round through Outlaw’s eye and blew out the side of his head and the fight was done.

“Old John’s had a hobble ever since,” someone said. “The man can’t walk ten feet without his cane.”

“That’s true,” said another, “but his damn gunhand don’t need no cane. That’s what Hardin best keep in mind.”

*    *    *

T
he noisy streets were deep in twilight when I came out of The Show and made my way up Utah Street, heading for the Acme Saloon. The sky along the mountain rim was the color of fresh blood. As I reached the corner, I glanced to my left—and there on the sidewalk, not ten paces from me, stood John Henry Selman and John Wesley Hardin, looking quite ready to kill one another.

They were standing face-to-face with three feet between them. I’d heard them described so thoroughly that I recognized them both instantly. A few other pedestrians had also taken notice of them and were hastening across the street or retreating down the sidewalk. Most people in the vicinity, however, remained wholly unaware of the confrontation from first to last.

Selman gripped his cane in his left hand and his right was ready to go for the gun on his hip. Hardin stood with his hands on his coat lapels. I could not see if he was armed. I could see their faces distinctly, however. Both men were rigid with anger. They spoke sharply but not loudly, and the din of the street muffled much of what they said. If I’d been two feet farther from them, I’d have heard none of the conversation at all.

“… know damn well … the goods off him. I know … cheated me!” Selman was saying through his teeth, his gray mustache twitching with anger. “I won’t be cheated, you hear me? I won’t … or anybody else.”

“The hell …,” Hardin said. “… between you and George.
He’s
your partner, not …”

“What … George … damn business,” Selman said. “I know … cheat me, you … I’m warning … square with me, and I mean soon!”

“Warning
me?
” Hardin said. “Nobody … a bucket of shit with a badge stuck on it … bastard son … nothing but picking on women.”

Selman’s face darkened with fury. He looked about to have a fit. A streetcar clattered down the street, its bell clanging loudly, and I couldn’t make out any of what he next said to Hardin, nor what Hardin said in response. What Hardin
did
next, however, is still vivid in my mind. He held out his hands as though showing Selman he held nothing in them. Then he closed the lower fingers of both hands, keeping the thumbs upright and the index fingers pointing at Selman like pistol barrels. He flicked his thumbs down and mouthed the word, “Pow!” Selman stepped backward as though he’d been shoved. He looked astonished. Hardin grinned and slowly raised each index finger in turn to his mouth and softly blew on their tips, as though clearing them of gunsmoke. He then strolled across the street and went into the Acme Saloon.

Selman watched him every step of the way, his face inflamed with fury, then turned and saw me staring at him.

“Ah … Constable Selman,” I said, “my name is Peckinpah. Of
The Police Gazette.
I wonder if—”

“
Kiss my ass!
” he said, and stalked away.

W
hen I told Hardin I was with the
Gazette
and offered to buy the next round, the first thing he wanted to know was whether I’d covered the Sullivan-Kilrain bare knuckle championship fight six years earlier. “We heard about it in the pen,” he said, “but I’ve never met anybody who saw it with his own eyes.”

I hadn’t been at the fight either, but I knew several of the reporters who had, which made me the nearest thing to an eyewitness he’d yet met. So I was obliged to recapitulate for him everything I could recall about the progress of that epic battle as it had been told to me. I admitted I’d been astonished by the outcome, that I’d never expected Sullivan, sodden drunkard that he was, to withstand the assault of the younger and quicker Kilrain under the roasting Mississippi sun. When Kilrain drew first blood and Sullivan paused to vomit in the early going, I told him that the reporters all figured Sully was done for. Hardin seemed enrapt. “But he wasn’t done, was he,” he said, “that old warhorse?” He certainly was not, I agreed. After seventy-five rounds spanning two hours and sixteen minutes, Kilrain’s seconds threw in the sponge. Hardin smiled widely. “Never bet against the warhorse,” he said.

We were standing at the end of the bar nearest the front door, and I signaled Frank the bartender for another round for us. Hardin’s interest took another turn when I told him the
Gazette’s
chief correspondent for the Sullivan-Kilrain fight had been none other than Steve Brodie, the famous bridge-jumper, who was a good friend of mine. I then had to expound at length about the various jumps I’d seen Steve Brodie make. I told of more than once having seen him pulled unconscious from a river, blood running from his nose and mouth and ears, sometimes his ribs broken and his shoes knocked from his feet. Dozens of men and boys were killed every year in their attempts to emulate Steve Brodie.

“Damn, but that man’s got daring!” Hardin said. “And he can surely take a beating, can’t he?” John Wesley Hardin is the only man I ever spoke to about Steve Brodie who never said he wondered why a man would risk his life and take such beatings jumping off high bridges.

He said he’d be pleased to grant me an interview for the
Gazette
on one condition—that I didn’t call him a “pistolero.” I had suggested that my lead-in would refer to him as the most famous pistolero in the West. “I never did much care for that word,” he said. “Sounds too damn Mexican.” Well then, I asked, what term would he prefer? Gunfighter? Shootist? Pistolman? Mankiller? “They called Wild Bill the Prince of the Pistoleers,” he said. “‘Pistoleer’ always did sound properly American to me.” All right, I said, “pistoleer” it was. I’d call him the K
in
g of the Pistoleers. He smiled and said, “Sounds about right.”

W
e never did get to the interview. He was far too persistent in interrogating
me
—particularly about the writing craft. He told me he’d been writing the story of his life for the past several months and was very near to completing the book. He asked me question after question about techniques of narration, exposition, and description—though he did not know the proper terminology for many of these things. I said I’d be happy to read his work and offer whatever helpful criticism I might. He smiled almost shyly and said he’d be grateful.

I kept trying to shift the conversation to the subject of himself, but he much preferred to hear about the stories I’d covered for the
Gazette—about
the execution of William Kemmler, the first condemned man to die in the electric chair, a process that took more than eight minutes and left the carcass half cooked; about the white slavery rings I’d investigated in New York’s lower depths; about the sex scandals and the opium dens and the labor riots; about crimes of passion. When I at last managed to ask him about his beginnings as a desperado, he was perfunctory. “Just say I was drove to it by murdering Yankee occupation troops and carpetbaggers. Anybody who wants to can read about it in my book. But tell me, what’s the strangest thing you’ve ever seen?”

*    *    *

A
few minutes later a friend of his named Henry Brown came in and informed him that Old John Selman was sitting on a keg on the sidewalk in front of the saloon.

“His son Young John and Captain Carr came along just now and I heard him tell them to stay close by and be ready for trouble with you,” Henry Brown said.

“Just like the old coward to ask for help,” Hardin said. “How’s he look?”

“Hard to say,” Henry Brown said. “But he ain’t smiling.”

“Bastard’s scared,” Hardin said. “No bushwhacker likes the idea of going up against a man face-to-face. Reckon I’ll let him stew in his own sweat a while longer. Let him think some more on the way things stand.”

“And then what?” I asked. “Will you go out and face him down?” I tried to mask my excitement with a tone of nonchalance—but, in truth, I was heady with the prospect of witnessing a dime-novel shootout between two famous gunmen.

“Well now,” he said with a smile, “let’s just wait and see what happens.” I think he knew how I was feeling and was amused by it.

He shook the bar dice with Henry Brown to decide who would buy the next round. I told him I’d witnessed the exchange he’d had with Selman across the street, but that I hadn’t overheard enough of it to know exactly what was going on. “I know you rattled him with those two-gun fingers,” I said, and we both chuckled. “You see how he flinched when I shot him with these .44 caliber fingers?” Hardin said. “Old jasper damn near had a heart attack.”

Hardin had been leaning on one elbow on the bar as we conversed, frequently glancing into the back-bar mirror to check the front doors. Quite abruptly he tensed and slipped his right hand up inside his coat. I looked toward the doors and saw Old Selman standing there, his eyes locked on Hardin’s in the mirror, his left hand braced on his cane, his right hanging loosely by his holstered .45 Colt.

He wasn’t alone. But the man with him—who I later found out was one E. L. Shackleford—was no fighter. Indeed, he looked extremely nervous to be standing so near to Old John Selman at the moment. To be truthful, I was not entirely at ease standing so close to Hardin as I was.

Shackleford bolted toward the rear of the barroom, saying loudly, “Back here, John. We’ll have a drink with R.B. and Shorty.” R. B. Stevens, the proprietor of the Acme, and a fellow called Shorty Anderson were taking a drink together just inside the open door of the private room at the rear of the saloon. There were only a handful of patrons in the Acme at the moment.

Selman stood rooted for a few seconds, holding Hardin’s stare in the glass. I looked at Hardin just as he slowly and silently mouthed the words “
Do … it,
” at Selman.

Selman’s face seemed to turn to wet clay. Hardin smiled and withdrew his hand from his coat. He aimed his index finger at Selman’s image in the mirror and softly said, “Bang.” Then laughed aloud.

Selman broke his gaze, flushing furiously, and hobbled after Shackleford into the back room.

Hardin grinned at me and said, “Only took
one
finger to shake him up this time.” He smiled broadly all about the room. “Sammy,” he said, clapping me on the shoulder, “I’ll roll you for the round.”

He suddenly seemed twenty years younger—barely more than a boy—a happy, confident, carefree boy. His eyes danced brightly and his smile was a fierce contagious thing. He snatched up the dice cup and said, “I cant lose, boys, not me. But I don’t want to make street beggars of you, so let’s play for quarters.” And he didn’t lose, not once in the next ten rolls against me and then six in a row against Henry Brown.

W
hen Selman and Shackleford came out of the back room, Selman’s face looked as rigid as his cane, but his eyes were red-hot and whiskey-bright. I could feel the heat of his anger as he went past us. He didn’t even glance our way as he headed for the front door. In the back-bar mirror, Hardin watched him go out, and I heard the low chuckle in his throat. He picked up the dice cup, shook it, and rolled the dice. He laughed once more and said to Henry Brown, “You got four sixes to beat.”

As Henry reached for the dice cup, I put a match to my pipe and turned to Hardin. He was smiling happily at himself in the mirror, his hands laced together on the bar. He was utterly and completely a picture of self-satisfaction.

Then his eyes shifted and his smile vanished and I followed his gaze in the mirror and saw Selman standing inside the doors, aiming his Peacemaker at the back of Hardin’s head. Selman shouted, “
I will!
” And fired.

Even in the roar of the gunshot, I heard the bullet crunch wetly through his skull and clank against the frame of the back-bar mirror. A second gunshot thundered and the bullet smacked against the wall as Hardin slumped to the floor on his back. Selman rushed up and shot him twice more at point-blank range. Then another copper—Young Selman—was clutching Old John by the arm and shouting, “Stop! Stop now! You’ve killed him!”

Old Selman looked crazed. Young Selman took his gun and ushered him away from the body, talking to him rapidly and earnestly. A bright puddle of blood was spreading from under Hardin’s head and a red rivulet ran down his face from a hole over his half-closed and shattered left eye. The other eye was open wide and dead as glass.

My ears rang with the pistol shots and my eyes smarted from the gunsmoke. I saw Shackleford and Henry Brown hurrying out the rear door. I wanted to leave too, but was afraid that if I released my grip on the bar my legs would fail me.

In an instant the saloon was in full tumult, jammed with babbling gawkers shoving against one another for a better look at the corpse of John Wesley Hardin. Each new arrival had to be told by the man who had arrived just before him what had happened. There was argument and angry gesticulation.