Forty Times a Killer Read online

  It seems the vaquero then charged Wes and the two fell into the dust and began to grapple, bite, and eye-gouge.

  When guns were drawn on both sides and it looked like the shooting was about to become general, Jim Clements stepped into the fray and separated the warring parties, including the principal combatants who were rolling around on the ground.

  “Here,” Clements yelled, “this won’t do! All hostilities must end. We were all drunk and didn’t know what we were doing.”

  It wasn’t much by way of a peace talk, but Wes, always canny, agreed to a truce, knowing he couldn’t open the ball again with a useless gun. But back at camp, nursing a shiny, black bruise under his right eye and a chawed ear, he was a powder keg, vowing revenge on the Mexican who had so roughly handled him.

  The fuse was lit when a hand rode in and said, “Boss, the Mexicans are pushing their herd up again, comin’ on fast.”

  Enraged, Wes threw away the beefsteak that he’d been holding to his black eye and armed himself with his own Colts, stuck into shoulder holsters. He and Jim Clements then rode out of camp, two men well skilled in the use of arms and on fire with a blazing rage and the urge to kill.

  Once again my narrative must resort to hearsay, but since Jim Clements himself relayed the details of the gunfight that followed, you can depend on my accuracy.

  “When the Mexicans saw us coming, six vaqueros, including the one they called Jose, circled around toward us, their weapons drawn,” Clements said. “After a merry quip, Wes put the reins in his teeth, drew both Colts and charged. Never, since the late war ended, had a Southern cavalier advanced on a superior enemy so gallantly.

  “Firing at the gallop, Wes shot Jose through the heart and the wretch tumbled off his horse with a terrible cry and died. Then a vaquero, cursing in the vilest fashion, rode directly at John Wesley, his gun blazing. Cool as ever, Wes would not be stampeded. He turned in the saddle and, working his Colts with great rapidity, shot the Mexican cur in the head. The man was dead when he hit the ground, and good riddance.”

  Clements said that he and Wes then captured four of the Mexicans.

  “Two of the vaqueros, both very young, said they’d had nothing to do with the affray, and, out of the goodness of his heart, Wes let them go. But the other two, after agreeing to surrender, were filled with typical Mexican deceit and treachery. They pulled their murderous pistols and fired point-blank at John Wesley.”

  Clements said that both vaqueros missed, but Wes didn’t.

  As Wes told it to me later, “The first I shot through the heart and he dropped dead in a moment. The second I shot through the lungs and Jim shot him, too. The man begged me not to shoot him again, and put up my guns. Hell, I knew the greaser was a goner anyway.”

  The shooting of the traitorous Mexican assassins made John Wesley a hero, and I, as his best friend, bathed in his reflected glory.

  Cowboys from other herds dropped into camp just to catch sight of the famous kid shootist. Cowmen—I’m talking of great cattle barons, not one-loop nesters—shook his hand and told him what a fine fellow he was.

  Wes took the opportunity to speak to these powerful and wealthy men about his Wild West show and introduced me as his, “partner and business manager.” My narrow little chest swelled with pride.

  A few expressed interest, but again, due to circumstances, in the end it all came to nothing.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  Abilene, Queen of the West

  Our herd reached the bedding grounds of the Chisholm in late May 1871 and joined another hundred thousand Texas cows waiting to be sold and shipped. Just thirty miles south of Abilene, the resting cattle spread out along the North Fork of the Cottonwood River.

  On June 1, Columbus Carroll sent word that John Wesley and his drovers should join him in town to be paid off. Of course, I went along with them. My jaw dropped when I first beheld Abilene. Its teeming populace and majestic buildings overwhelmed my reeling senses.

  Why, the Drovers Cottage hotel where we went to draw our wages had a hundred rooms! And the Alamo Saloon, a shining palace dedicated to gambling and the god Bacchus, had a forty-foot frontage on Cedar Street, two engraved glass doors, and a full orchestra that performed morning, noon, and night!

  Abilene was a booming, bustling, bespangled city to rival ancient Athens, Rome, and Babylon and even the modern capitols of London, Paris, and Berlin.

  I’d never seen the like before.

  As Wes and I rode along Texas Street I turned in the saddle and said, “I never knew there was this many folks in the whole country.”

  “In the whole world.” Wes was trying his best to avoid looking like a rube, but his eyes were big as silver dollars, as were mine, and his head was on a swivel as it turned this way and that.

  The street was a sea of people in town for the summer season, speculators, commission men, cowboys, gamblers, outlaws on the scout from mysterious places, and careful-eyed gunmen who looked at nothing but saw everything.

  Solid, red-faced businessmen in broadcloth planted themselves in the middle of the street and made deals with cattle buyers wearing uncomfortable celluloid collars and cattlemen in high-heeled boots and wide-brimmed hats. The crowd broke around them like a sea around rocks.

  Here and there ladies, many of them pretty, passed by.

  Staid matrons, in collar-and-cuffed brown cotton, rubbed shoulders with saloon girls whose scarlet mouths, bold eyes, and candy cane dresses marked their calling.

  I even saw a parson who walked among the throng, brandished a Bible like the sword of Gideon and railed against the evils of strong drink, fallen women, gambling, and mortal sin in general. Nobody listened to him of course, but the old boy had sand. His stovepipe hat was punctured with holes where inebriated punchers had taken pots at it.

  It was mighty dangerous to wear a top hat in Abilene in those days.

  Wes and I looped our horses to the hitching rail then stepped onto the broad veranda in front of the Drovers Cottage. An old timer sat in a rocker smoking a pipe. He smiled and nodded as we walked to the door. Wes’s jingle-bob spurs rang with every step.

  “You boys just get in?” the old man said.

  “Seems like,” Wes said.

  “Well, don’t fergit Wild Bill’s bath at four sharp. It’s a sight to see. I tell that to all the young fellers come up the trail.”

  I would’ve questioned the old timer further, but Wes said, “Yeah, we’ll be sure to do that, pops,” and opened the door.

  Away from the burning heat of the day, the hotel lobby was a cool, dark oasis of polished wood, red velvet, and shining brass. Dirty and trail worn, the smell of horses on us, we stood for a moment, a bit awed and uncertain of what to do next.

  The desk clerk solved that problem. “What can I do for you gentlemen?” Better dressed than anyone I knew in Texas at that time, he didn’t raise an eyebrow at our dusty, sweat-stained trail clothes and three-months-without-a-bath odor.

  Too many rich cowmen, who I bet sometimes looked and smelled worse than we did, walked through the door of the Drovers Cottage.

  “Mr. Hardin to see Mr. Columbus Carroll,” Wes said with stiff formality.

  “Ah yes, gentlemen, he’s expecting you,” the clerk beamed, as though we were the most honorable of honorable guests. “Mr. Carroll is in the salon, first door to your left.”

  Note that he said salon, not saloon. The Drovers Cottage was a classy place and catered only to the best.

  The salon was a large room shaded by leafy potted plants and beautifully appointed with heavy leather chairs, mahogany side tables, and Persian rugs on the floor. A discreet bar with three barkeeps stood against the far wall and a massive stone fireplace promised plentiful heat when the winter blizzards struck. A three-piece orchestra played “Oh Wed Me Not to Grandpa” as we walked inside.

  The room was crowded with cigar-smoking men and a few sleek women, but Carroll spotted us through the blue fog as soon as we entered. “John Wesley! Over here!”
r />   Every head turned in Wes’s direction and I realized that his fame had already spread far and wide, even to the hallowed halls of Abilene. And he was only eighteen years old.

  He wore his Colts and basked in the admiration of the awed crowd as he walked tall and vital to Carroll’s table . . . the deadly young shootist come to collect his gun wages.

  And I, like a moth following a flame, stepped after him, doing my best to reflect just a gleam of his vibrant light.

  Columbus Carroll sat alone at a table that bore a decanter of whiskey and crystal glasses on a silver tray, a cedar humidor of cigars, and a large tin box.

  With every eye on John Wesley, the conversation died away to a murmur as Carroll complimented him on bringing the herd in on time with minimal losses. He then announced, louder than was necessary, I thought, that he was paying Wes a hundred dollar bonus for a job well done.

  Such largess was greeted with gasps from the assembled patrons and not a few shouts of, “Hear, hear!” and “Stout fellow!”

  Wes had the good grace to blush, and this endeared him even more to the crowd, especially the ladies. I felt a thrill that I was friend to such a great and famous man.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  Wild Bill’s Bath

  My wages amounted to twenty-three dollars, but Columbus Carroll deducted a dollar for four cups I’d broken on the drive. Still, twenty-two dollars was more money than I’d ever had in my life.

  John Wesley bought a bottle of Old Crow and shared it as we sat in tubs in a Chinese bathhouse on Texas Street. A couple young Oriental girls with soap and washcloths helped us bathe after pointing to a sign on the wall that read LOOKEE NO FEELEE.

  Wes thought this a good joke. Helped along by the bourbon, we were in high spirits when the owner, a small, slender man wearing some kind of heathen robes, approached us and gave a low bow.

  “Gentlemens, you leave pretty damn soon. Wild Bill come for bath four o’clock, very prompt. He like bathhouse to himself.”

  It was only a little after noon, so Wes said, “Hell, we got plenty of time.”

  The Chinaman bowed again. “Maybe so, but Wild Bill always on time and get angry if anyone else in tub.” He shook his head. “Bill a bad man when angry. Go bang! Bang!”

  “How come he likes to bathe alone?” I asked.

  The two girls giggled behind cupped hands and the owner said something sharp in the Chinese tongue that hushed them instantly.

  Then to us, he said, “Bill bathe every day. Very strange thing. That why many peoples come to watch.”

  There may have been some twisted, Oriental logic there, but I failed to grasp it.

  “But you told us he likes to bathe alone,” I said, accepting the bottle from Wes’s soapy hand.

  Again the girls giggled and the owner, I later heard that his name was Willie Chang, silenced them with a glance.

  “Peoples arrive after Bill in tub. Peoples leave before Bill get out of tub. This always the way.”

  “So he’s shy,” Wes said, grinning.

  “No shy,” Chang said. “Bill never shy.”

  “Then what is he?” Wes asked.

  Chang looked over his shoulder then leaned closer to us and his voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “Wild Bill have xiao niao.”

  “What the hell does that mean?” I said.

  The girls giggled again, but Chang, his wrinkled face solemn, didn’t stop them.

  “In Chinese, xiao niao has very bad meaning. It mean, little birdie.”

  Wes looked at me, then exploded into raucous laughter. “You mean Wild Bill Hickok has a tiny dick?” he yelled.

  Chang was alarmed. He waved his hands at us and made a hushing sound. “No! No say! Wild Bill kill you for sure, by God!”

  Wes laughed so hard he slipped backward into the tub and bubbles rose to the surface from his open mouth. He surfaced, choking from soapy water and laughter. It was a good two or three minutes, the girls slapping his naked back, before he could talk again.

  Finally he could. “Well, don’t that beat all. Wild Bill keeps a little birdie in his pants.” Thinking about Wild Bill’s shortcomings sent Wes into convulsions again, to the wretched Willie Chang’s babbling distress.

  He flapped around us like a beheaded chicken and yelled, “You go now. Now nice and clean mens. Two-bits each. Go, go, go!”

  Well, I reckon Wes had gotten his money’s worth because he made no objection and was still laughing as we left the bathhouse and crossed the street. He headed directly for a store with a sign in the window that proclaimed

  SOLOMON LEVY, MEN’S CLOTHIER

  BESPOKE TAILORING A SPECIALTY

  All Boots and Shoes Sold At Cost

  Wes bought a dark suit off the rack and a new shirt and hat. He tried the celluloid collar that came with the shirt but tossed it aside, telling Levy that it could choke a man.

  At first I couldn’t understand why he removed his guns and spurs and didn’t put his flashy silver hatband on the new John B. Then it dawned on me that he didn’t want to look like a lowly, working cowboy but a businessman of some standing.

  You’ve all seen the tintype likeness he had made after we left the tailor’s store. I’m sure you’ll agree with me that, standing tall, Texan and handsome, he succeeded very well . . . but for those cold, Hardin eyes that not even a new hat and fancy suit could soften.

  As for me, I tried a broad-brimmed Stetson myself, but Solomon Levy, a man of some perception, told me I looked like a “damned toadstool.” I finally settled on a brown bowler, and Levy, much impressed, said folks would take me for a visiting English duke, or at least a lord.

  I didn’t believe him.

  The hat was dusty, as though it had lain on a shelf for a long time, there being no great demand for bowlers in Abilene until I came along.

  In the west at that time, people who took regular baths were as rare as tears at a Boot Hill burying, but a man who partook of the tub every single day, rain or shine, was agreed by all to be one of the frontier’s most extraordinary sights.

  Wes and I, tanked up on Old Crow and feeling no pain, got in line outside the bathhouse with two dozen other people of both sexes (Bill’s long hair and fine mustachios made feminine hearts flutter) and waited with growing impatience for the witching hour of four when the doors opened.

  “Wes, when we get inside, if you value our friendship, to say nothing of our lives, don’t mention”—I glanced around me then dropped my voice to a whisper—“you-know-what.”

  “Not a word,” Wes grinned.

  “Wes, listen to me. Wild Bill is quick to take offense and mighty sudden on the draw and shoot.”

  “So am I.”

  “Well, just don’t slight his manhood, is all.”

  “You know all about that, huh, Little Bit?”

  I don’t think he was going out of his way to be cruel, but surely he knew it hurt me. “Yeah. I know all about that.”

  “The door is opening,” Wes said, smiling in anticipation.

  Wild Bill Hickok was already relaxing in the tub when we spectators filed in to share a moment with the great man. Like his friend Custer, he was indeed a beautiful sight. His golden hair spilled over broad shoulders and his eyes were a clear, gun smoke gray.

  A result of his nocturnal lifestyle, his skin was pale and pink as a woman’s. Bill’s cheekbones were high and downy, and he had a habit of looking down at them under his long lashes, as though inspecting a speck of dust. The mannerism made him appear shy.

  Beside me a woman sighed and bobbed a little as her knees turned to jelly.

  Behind him, on either side of the tub, stood two hard-eyed women of the lowest sort, each cradling a shotgun across their breasts.

  When he spoke, Bill’s voice was pleasant to hear, somewhere between a tenor and a baritone, well modulated, with just a trace of the nasal Yankee accent I despised so much.

  “Good evening to all of you and welcome,” Bill said, steam rising from his tub. “Some of you already
know the ladies behind me. On my right is High Timber, currently a hostess at the Bull’s Head Saloon, and on my right, the one and only Little Nell, proprietor of the Naughty Kitty cathouse.”

  That last drew a cheer from the men and frowns from the ladies, especially when Nell dropped a little curtsy and batted her eyelashes.

  To my wondering gaze, the women were a sight to see. High Timber stood at least six-foot tall and was as skinny as a bed slat. On the other hand, I reckoned Little Nell would probably dress out at around three hundred pounds. Both had eyes that were as warm and friendly as tenpenny nail heads.

  Wild Bill shrugged apologetically, “If any ranny draws a gun in my presence this evening, High Timber and Nell will immediately fill him full of buckshot. They’ve both killed their man in the past, so be warned.” He smiled. “Now, enough unpleasantness. After my ablutions are complete, a hat will be passed among you. Please give generously.”

  High Timber cradled her scattergun under one arm, then leaned over and passed Bill a brown bottle with a white label.

  “One more word, ladies and gentlemen,” Wild Bill said. “As my bath progresses, you will see me partake of liberal doses from this here bottle. It’s . . . what the hell is it?”

  Bill turned the label to him. “Ah yes, Dr. Simms Trophy-Winning Tonic for Genteel Folk. It’s guaranteed to cure the rheumatisms, ague, toothache, cancer, consumption, running sores, and female miseries. It will also fill you with new pep and energy, improve sight and appetite, and soothe fussy babies.”

  Bill held the bottle high, revealing a muscular, if soapy arm. “Dr. Simms tonic can be purchased at Will Gardener’s general store for the cost of just one dollar a bottle. But if you say, ‘William sent me,’ you will receive a ten cent discount.”

  Before he returned the bottle to High Timber, he added, “Buy Dr. Simms Tonic for Genteel Folk today. Accept no substitute.”