The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

They met at a Christmas party and were married two weeks later—and they saw each other for the last time just a few hours after that. Merciful Jesus! I have heard of whirlwind romance, but that of my little sister Callie and Mr. John Wesley Hardin was a fools’ tornado! It was an astonishing episode from first to last, and I’m sorry to say they deserve the ridicule they received for it.

He was forty-one years old, for goodness’ sake. Callie was seventeen. He had a daughter her age. I was twenty-four and felt like a child beside him. They said he killed forty men before being sent to prison. The wickedest boy Callie knew at the time was Marcus Framm, who once shot a farmer’s prize hen with a squirrel rifle. You see my point: the differences between them were far greater than their years.

The Christmas party was given by the Dennisons, neighbors of ours in London, and was partly in honor of Mr. Hardin, who had very recently moved to Kimble County from Gonzales and opened a law office. He had not yet been out of prison a year. The Dennisons were related to the Hardins and quite close to Jefferson Davis Hardin, Mr. Hardin’s younger brother, who lived in Junction, about fifteen miles south of London. But, until the party, they had never met Mr. Hardin himself.

It is important to know that Callie had always been a willful and rebellious girl with a taste for stories of adventurous outlaws. She was an avid reader of dime novelettes. I used to chide her for her silly interest in such lurid literature, but my disapproval—as well as Mother’s—only seemed to increase her enjoyment of it. Willful—she was simply willful. Father, who is said to have been a bit of a rapscallion in his youth, did not seriously object to Callie’s reading such trash—but then Father never objected in any way to Callie. She was his favorite. Mother always said they were cut from the same rebellious cloth.

Not that Callie lacked for feminine wiles—she was an incorrigible coquette. The truth will out and I must be honest. But although I admit to a grudging covetousness of her perfect face and figure, I most adamantly deny, as some have suggested, that I was envious of her to the point of rejoicing in her humiliation with Mr. Hardin. Nonsense! She is my sister and I love her dearly. There were, however, occasions when she played the coquette to such extreme that I secretly wished to grab her and shake some sense into her. The occasion of our initial meeting with Mr. Hardin was just such a time.

On being introduced to him at the party, Callie fairly gushed. “Why, Mr. Hardin,” she said, trilling like an addled songbird, “I am ever so delighted to make your acquaintance. I feel as though I’m meeting a legend in the flesh. Father has often praised your great courage in opposing the hateful State Police.” Lord.

And him, forty-one years old and dressed impeccably in a handsome black suit and silk tie—and you’d have thought he had never been flattered by a pretty young thing before to see the silly grin he gave her. We all knew he’d been married for only a short time before going to prison and that he was a widower by the time he got out. And though one might suppose that fifteen years in the penitentiary would blunt a man’s social grace, it obviously did not completely dull his. “Miss Callie,” he said, “I would fight the entire State Police force all over again—and the Texas Rangers to the last man—if that’s what it took to have the honor of the next dance with you.”

He was handsome—in a weathered sort of way. He was tall and ruggedly distinguished and his dark hair was only lightly seasoned with gray. His brows were thick, his jaw strong, and he wore a heavy mustache. But his chief feature was his eyes, which were at once alluring and yet fearsome—if that makes sense. They were as darkly gray as storm clouds and exuded a confusing mixture of independence, cruelty, and loneliness. Little wonder that Callie, with her penchant for renegade spirits, would be entranced by eyes as those—the eyes of the lonesome outlaw and all that.

She did not leave his side the entire evening. When they were not dancing to the fiddles, they sat together in a corner, sipping punch and conversing with goodly animation, so utterly indifferent to everyone else it was rude.

As Father’s hired man Johnston drove us home at the end of the evening, she told me their chief topic of conversation had been the book he had begun to write, the story of his life. She was thrilled that he’d deigned to discuss such a personal undertaking with her, and of course she thought that his autobiography was the most wonderful idea. She would certainly rush to purchase a copy of the book, she assured him, and she was absolutely certain many other readers would too. As they’d bid each other good night, she invited him to come visit her at home. “He has always loved the name Callie,” she informed me. “His younger daughter was named Callie at birth. The only reason he later changed it to Jane was to honor his wife. Isn’t that wonderful?” I wasn’t at all sure what she thought was wonderful, but she did not really expect an answer.

Father was rich. He’d gone to the War a penniless young man and risen to the rank of captain by the time he came home after Appomattox. He became a cowboy and quickly learned the cattle business. Before long he was a drover, and eventually became one of the most successful stockmen in our part of the state. Furthermore, he had bought more and more land over the years and was now the largest property owner in Kimble County. But his fondest memories, he always said, were of his days as a young cowboy driving the herds to Kansas. Mr. Hardin, it so happened, had also been a cowboy in his youth, and within five minutes of making each other’s acquaintance when he came to visit—a mere week after the Christmas party—they were deep in loud reminiscence about those glorious old days on the Chisholm Trail.

“Excuse us,” Father said to the rest of us—including Callie, who had put on her best dress in honor of Mr. Hardin’s visit—“while I get to know this old rascal a little better.” They retired to Father’s study to continue their talk about the old days on the trail. The moment the door closed, Callie stamped her foot and said, “He came to see me, not to talk to Father about stupid old cows!” I believe she would have stormed into the study after them and created a scene if Mother hadn’t prevailed upon her to mind her manners—as well as conspired to retrieve the men from the study by having supper served earlier than usual.

They’d had a few drinks of whiskey in the study—Mr. Hardin claimed they were the first he’d tasted since “my period of employment with the state,” as he amusingly phrased it—and their effects were quite obvious on him. His eyes were mischievously bright, his voice louder, his gestures broader. He smiled at Callie constantly and even winked at her across the table a time or two. Callie was delighted by his indiscreet attentions and beamed upon him as radiantly as the full moon framed in the window. Mother was somewhat nonplussed, but Father was a bit fired with whiskey too, and unmindful of all the flagrant flirting. When we’d done with dessert and coffee, Mr. Hardin asked Father (“Captain Len,” he called him, quite aware of the way he was addressed by everyone in the county) for permission to take Callie for a short ride in the buggy. Father said of course, wholly ignoring Mother’s deep frown.

When they returned, less than an hour later, Callie was smiling as mysteriously as a cat. Mr. Hardin took another drink with Father, then shook his hand and bid us all good evening. That night, as we lay in our beds in the darkened bedroom, Callie told me Mr. Hardin had asked her to be his wife. “Good Lord, Callie!” I said.

“I haven’t said yes or no,” she said. “I really didn’t expect that. I told him I’d have to think it over.” She pushed up on an elbow and stared at me in the dark, looking like a pale shadow in her cotton shimmy. “Are you shocked, Annie Lee? Just think—you’d be sister-in-law to John Wesley Hardin, the most famous desperado in all Texas.” She giggled like a devilish child.

“But he’s old enough to be your father!” I said. “And he hasn’t a handful of dirt to his name.”

“Oh, you!” she said. “Nobody else would say a mean thing like that. You’re just jealous!”

Mother was shocked when Callie broke the news. I know she thought Mr. Hardin too old for Callie—and far too familiar with the world’s harsher truths. But she simply said that marriage was a serious decision and perhaps Callie and Mr. Hardin ought give themselves a little more time to discuss it. Father, of course, thought the marriage was a splendid idea and would brook no talk against it. Callie had to remind him that she had not yet accepted the proposal. “But I know you will,” Father said with a sly grin. Callie just smiled at him and kept mute.

The following day she received a letter from Mr. Hardin, asking for her answer to his “proposition.” He also told her that on his way home the previous evening, he’d been thrown hard from the buggy when a coyote spooked the horse. His face had been bruised and his ribs cracked, he wrote, but he was sure he’d be fine in a few days.

When Callie showed the letter to Father that evening, he smiled widely. “And what is your answer to his proposition to be, daughter?” he asked. Callie’s face was difficult to read just then. She studied Mother’s sad look for a moment, then met my own stare directly. I suppose my disapproval must have been visible, because Callie twisted her mouth at me in disdain, and then said to Father, “My answer will be yes.” Father beamed and told her he wished to meet with Mr. Hardin about the matter as soon as possible. “I’ll write to him today,” Callie said.

There is another story about the way he acquired the broken ribs and the bruises on his face. Rita Maria, wife of one of Father’s ranch foremen, was my prized confidante, my informant about life in the rougher reaches. Her source was her husband Francisco. He told her that on his way home to Junction after his visit Mr. Hardin had stopped at an isolated roadside inn to have a drink or two. It was said he was already a little drunk when he arrived, and in a short time he was drunker yet. He began to brag to the bartender that he would soon be a force to reckon with in Kimble County. But his loud bragging soon wore thin on some of the other patrons, most of whom were rough cedar choppers. Hard words ensued and Mr. Hardin challenged one of the choppers to a fistfight. They went outside and fought under the moon in a wide gully behind the building. And that, Francisco told Rita Maria, was how Mr. Hardin had received his injuries—or so he had heard.

I overheard Mother and Father late that night in their room. “He has killed men, Leonard,” Mother said. “He has been in the penitentiary for most of Callie’s life! He is taking advantage of the poor child—yes, child—who doesn’t know her own mind. What he really wants is the property he’ll gain from the marriage. Surely you can see that. Why else would such a man want to marry one so young?”

And Father said: “Callie is a child no longer. She’s a grown woman and it’s time she married. One spinster daughter in the family is enough.” (The remark cut me, but not to the quick—I’d long since grown accustomed to such sidelong slashes of his displeasure with my maidenhood.) “Yes, the man committed crimes,” Father said, “and he has paid a dear price for them. Prison cost him the family he once had, and he is lonely for another. He needs a young woman to give it to him. He is a man of courage and fortitude, and we are honored—honored, do you hear?—to have such a man attach to our family. Now that’s the end of it.”

Within the week Mr. Hardin was at our house once again, this time to confer with Father about the details of the wedding. Callie was shocked by the sight of his face, which was still livid with purple and yellow bruises, and she was unusually subdued at the supper table that evening. When Mr. Hardin told Father that he’d been quite busy writing his memoirs, Callie gave him a stricken look, as though he’d revealed a secret that was theirs alone.

After supper, she and Mr. Hardin went for a long walk in the south meadow. When they returned she was in better spirits, and the smile she gave me was pure wickedness. Her eyes were dancing and her cheeks were flushed. A leaf of grass clung to her hair. Mother saw it too, and her lips went thin—but of course she said nothing. Mr. Hardin grinned stiffly and had a drink of whiskey with Father, whose celebratory mood had him drinking a good deal more than usual of late.

They were married on January 8, a chilly but brightly sunny day, in the county courthouse in Junction. Callie looked beautiful in her white dress, and Mr. Hardin, despite the lingering traces of bruise on his face, looked quite distinguished in his black suit and stiff collar. It was a small ceremony, attended only by our family and a few close friends—and of course by Mr. Hardin’s brother, Jefferson Davis, and his wife. A grand ball was scheduled for later that afternoon, and all the important families in the county would be there. While Father conveyed the bride and groom to the home of family friends to refresh themselves and await the hour of the ball, Mother and I and a number of helpful neighbors and kin began preparing the courthouse room where the ball would be held. The room had been cleared of furniture except for several long food tables along the wall and a stand at the front of the room where the string band would play.

A short time later the tables were laden with steaming platters and covered dishes, with pies and cakes, bowls of punch, and jugs of other potables. The band was tuned and ready, and the room resounded with the laughter and conversations of more than a hundred people. Father checked his pocket watch and said, “They’ll be here any minute now.”

The time of their scheduled arrival came and went. Father repeatedly consulted his watch and his face grew grim. The conversational din had assumed a quizzical tone, and the guests stirred restlessly. “Perhaps there’s been an accident of some sort,” Mother said in a strained voice. Father decided to go check on the matter, and Mother insisted on going with him. They instructed me to stay in place and placate the guests as best I could.

People do not believe me when I say I don’t know what happened. I can see their disbelief in their faces. They think I’m withholding the truth from them out of deference to Callie or simply for the perverse pleasure of keeping the knowledge to myself. But it is the truth: even today I do not know. Neither does Mother. And Father remains the most confused of us all—except perhaps for Mr. Hardin, who, if he were to be believed, had no explanation whatsoever for Callie’s perplexing conduct. I asked her about it again and again during the first few weeks, but she absolutely refused to discuss the matter with me. She finally told me that if I did not stop questioning her, she would cease speaking to me altogether. She put an end to Mother and Father’s interrogations in much the same way: she threatened to leave home and live with a cousin in Dallas.

I only know what everybody else knows. I know that the friends at whose home they awaited the start of the ball left for the courthouse an hour prior to the appointed time. They thought Callie and Mr. Hardin might appreciate a period of privacy together before the party. And so, for that hour, they were alone in the house. I also know that just as Mr. Hardin and Callie were walking from the house to the buggy to come to the ball, Jefferson Davis Hardin and his wife drove up in their own buggy to accompany them to the courthouse. According to Mr. Hardin, Jefferson Davis greeted them by saying, “Howdy there, Brother Wesley—and howdy to that sweet little child you robbed right out of the cradle.” His brother said it jokingly, Mr. Hardin told Mother and Father—but in an instant Callie was in tears and dashing back into the house.

Mr. Hardin said he was so stunned that for a moment he stood there and watched her go. Jefferson Davis laughed loudly and hollered after her, “Good golly, little girl, you ain’t got to prove it to nobody!” Mr. Hardin said he chided his brother for his remarks and then hurried into the house. But Callie had locked herself in a room and refused to let him in or even to answer his pleas to tell him what was wrong. Mr. Hardin said he tried vainly to explain that his brother had merely been joking about her being a child, but still she would not come out of the room. He was finally forced to break the door open with his shoulder, he said, which unfortunately only added to her distress. She raced from the room and out to the gallery, where she sat in a chair and hugged herself and cried relentlessly and refused to look up into his face. He could not even touch her without prompting her to greater hysterics.

That is the way Father and Mother found them—Callie hunkered in a chair on the gallery, weeping uncontrollably and seemingly deaf to Mr. Hardin, who knelt beside her, speaking earnestly. When Mr. Hardin saw Father and Mother approaching, he said, “Look, Callie, here are your parents,” and touched her arm. “She shrieked like the devil himself had put a hand to her,” Mother told me. She shrieked and ran to Father and clutched tightly to him, sobbing and begging him to please, please take her home immediately.

Mr. Hardin followed along in his buggy and, on arrival at the house, continued to try to speak with her. But she shut herself in our room upstairs and absolutely would not see him or even answer his entreaties at the door. Father tried to serve as emissary to her from him, but to no avail. Mother then tried her best to secure some explanation from her, but Callie adamantly refused to discuss it, even with her. Finally, she screamed, “Tell him to go away! Go away and never never never come back! Never! I never want to see him again! I never want to hear from him! I never want to hear his name! Never!” They might have heard her all the way out on the main road.

And so Mr. Hardin took his leave of us, looking haggard and confused. Father promised him that he would continue to try to persuade Callie to “come around.” Even Mother, no champion of Mr. Hardin, was mortified by Callie’s horrendous behavior and assured him that Callie would soon calm down sufficiently to explain what was troubling her. “I’m sure everything will be fine,” she said. He thanked them both for their efforts on his behalf and said he too was certain that everything would soon be straightened out. But, quite frankly, he did not look as though he believed that in the least.

He did not return to London again. He moved to the home of friends in Kerrville, about thirty-five miles southeast of Junction. At first, he corresponded with Father almost daily, inquiring after Callie and reporting that he was working busily on his book. He invariably included a separately enclosed letter addressed to her. But she just as invariably refused to accept it, and Father was obliged to keep sending them back to Mr. Hardin with his regrets.

His correspondence slowly dwindled, and he ceased to enclose separate letters to Callie. His missives now came but once a week. They were notes more than letters, and they reflected an exhausted hope of ever being reconciled with his bride.

The whole pathetic episode has provided grist for the local gossips ever since, but I have steadfastly refused to blush before the fact of my sister’s embarrassment. Why should I? The gossips are absolutely right: those two had no business whatsoever getting married to each other. Their ridicule serves them right.

In early spring we heard from him for the last time. He wrote that he was going to Pecos to try a legal case. He did not mention Callie, which was just as well. By then Father had succumbed to her entreaties and retained a lawyer to initiate divorce proceedings. Mr. Hardin left for West Texas in April, and he never returned.

The El Paso Times

7 APRIL 1895

Among the many leading citizens of Pecos City now in El Paso is John Wesley Hardin, Esq., a leading member of the Pecos City bar.

In his young days, Mr. Hardin was as wild as the broad western plains upon which he was raised. But he was a generous, brave-hearted youth and got into no small amount of trouble for the sake of his friends, and soon gained a reputation for being quick-tempered and a dead shot. In those days when one man insulted another, one of the two died then and there. Young Hardin, having a reputation for being a man who never took water, was picked out by every bad man who wanted to make a reputation, and that is where the “bad men” made a mistake, for the young westerner still survives many warm and tragic encounters.

Forty-one years has steadied the impetuous cowboy down to a quiet, dignified peaceable man of business. Mr. Hardin is a modest gentleman of pleasant address, but underneath the modest dignity is a firmness that never yields except to reason and the law. He is a man who makes friends of all who come in close contact with him. He is here as associate attorney for the prosecution in the case of the State vs. Bud Frazer, charged with assault with intent to kill.

Mr. Hardin is known all over Texas. He was born and raised in this state.