The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

BLOOD, LETTINGS

The El Paso Daily Herald,

20 AUGUST 1895

Mr. R. B. Stevens, the proprietor of the Acme Saloon, said:

“I was on the street and someone told me there was likely to be trouble at my saloon between Wes Hardin and John Selman, Sr. I came down to the saloon and walked in. Selman was sitting outside the door. Hardin was standing just inside the door at the bar, shaking dice with Henry Brown. I walked on back into the reading room and sat down where I could see the bar. Soon Selman and Shackleford came in and took a drink. Then I understood Shackleford to say to Selman: ‘Come out, now; you are drinking, and I don’t want you to have any trouble.’ They went out together. I then supposed Selman had gone away and there would be no trouble. I leaned back against a post and was talking to Shorty Anderson, and could not see the front door, and do not know who came in. When Selman and Shackleford came in they took a drink at the inside of the bar. Hardin and Brown were standing at the end of the bar next the door. I did not see Selman when the shooting took place. When I went into the barroom Hardin was lying on the floor near the door and was dead. I walked to the door and looked out. Selman was standing in front with several others, Capt. Carr among them. When Capt. Carr came into the saloon I asked him to take charge of Hardin’s body and keep the crowd out. He said he could not move the body until the crowd viewed it. I saw Carr take two pistols off Hardin’s body. One was a white-handled pistol and the other a black-handled one. They were both .41 caliber Colts. The bullet that passed through Hardin’s head struck a mirror frame and glanced off and fell in front of the bar at the lower end. In the floor where Hardin fell are three bullet holes in triangular shape about a span across. They range straight through the floor.”

The Life of John Wesley Hardin as Written by Himself

“When I married Jane Bowen, we were expecting the police to come anytime.…”

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“Mob law had become supreme in Texas, as the hangings of my relatives and friends amply proved.”

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“Right there over my brother’s grave I swore to avenge my brother’s death and could I but tell you what I have done in that way without laying myself liable, you would think I have kept my pledge well. While I write this, I say from the deepest depths of my heart that my desire for revenge is not satisfied, and if I live another year … be the consequences what they may, I propose to take life.”

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“I took an oath … never to surrender at the muzzle of a gun. I have never done so, either, although I have been forced through main strength to give up several times.”

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“It was war to the knife with me.”