The Pistoleer: A Novel of John Wesley Hardin

Early that summer, my husband made a deal with some people in El Paso to move a herd of cattle down from New Mexico. Two of those people, he said, were George Scarborough and John Selman. He didn’t mention Jeff Milton—maybe because Jeff wasn’t in it, maybe because Martin didn’t know he was. Anyhow, they told Martin they had a buyer out at Van Horn all ready to take the cows off their hands at a real nice profit. They were stealing the herd, of course—that’s why they contracted Martin to move it for them. He had a reputation for expertise in that regard. I once heard him describe his profession as the low-overhead approach to the beef business.

I married Martin because I was young and bored and didn’t know much except that I wanted some excitement in my life. My brothers taught me to ride and shoot when I was still in pigtails, and I always envied them their freedom to roam and take their pleasure where they found it. I won’t be stupidly coy and deny that I’d known men before Martin, but they were mostly dullards of the sort to be found by the bushels in small towns—clerks and druggists and drummers. Men with stiff collars and soft hands and eyes as oily as their hair. Now and then I’d fool with a farmboy. Their muscles were hard, but I wanted no part of their sweat-and-dirt futures. I’d never known a truly exciting man until I met Martin. He took me away to the bright lights and loud music and fast smoky pleasures of Galveston and San Antone. He taught me the mean comforts of whiskey, and many of men’s secret sexual delights. Before long, however, I found out he was not the man I thought he was. I began to suspect that he was afraid of losing me, and one dark night, when he whispered that I was the only one he’d ever trusted, I knew I was right. I realized how much stronger than him I was, and I couldn’t help but hate him a little for disappointing me so bad.

Scarborough gave Martin half his fee before he left for New Mexico and promised to pay the rest on delivery of the herd to a small ranch just east of El Paso. Martin took Vic Queen, Hector O’Keefe, and Tom Finnessy with him and went up to Little Texas to get the cows. Two weeks later he got back to our rented house in town and woke me in the middle of the night, still smelling of dust and horse sweat. He said they’d run into some hard luck on the way back with the herd. They were attacked by rustlers just a few miles north of the Texas border and had the cows stolen from them. “We were lucky to get out of it alive,” he said, and I heard the lie in his voice. That’s the trouble with a liar: he even lies to the people he doesn’t have to. He undressed in the dark, saying he was worried because he didn’t think Scarborough and the others would believe the herd had been rustled. “Guys like them,” he said as he got in bed and ran his hand over my breasts and down my belly, “think the whole world’s as crooked as they are.” Both of us laughed, only he didn’t know we were laughing at different things.

The next day he telephoned Scarborough and set up a meeting with him and Selman in Juárez across the river. Before leaving he gave me an envelope full of money for safekeeping. I saw him put another thick envelope in the inside pocket of his coat. Then he kissed me and left. As soon as he was gone I counted the money. It was more than four thousand dollars. I knew he was in over his head trying to cheat men like them.

That evening Hector O’Keefe came to me from Juárez with a message from Martin. He was one of Martin’s best friends. He’d had most of his nose bitten off in a fight when he was a boy, and I could never look on him without a little shudder of repugnance. The damn fool would actually make eyes at me. He told me Scarborough and Selman hadn’t bought the story about cattle rustlers. They accused Martin of selling the herd himself and pocketing the money, and they had demanded their share of the take. Martin swore to them he was telling the truth and said the best he could do was return what was left of the advance payment they had given him, though he’d had to use most of it to pay his hands and buy supplies. The meeting broke up in a flare of bad tempers. Scarborough said he’d arrest Martin on any one of several rustling warrants if he crossed back into El Paso before giving them their money. Selman said he’d shoot him on sight and charge him with resisting arrest afterward. Martin wanted me to see a lawyer first thing in the morning and find out what legal protection he could count on if he came back to town. If nothing could be done, I was to pack our bags and join him in Mexico.

I’d read all about him in the newspapers, of course—from all the early editorial hoorah about what a fine model of upstanding citizenship he’d made of himself during all those years in prison, to the recent story accusing him of holding up a card game in the Gem Saloon. And I’d heard the talk going around—that he hadn’t done much business as a lawyer in the two months he’d been in town; that he was drinking like a drowning man every night; that he sometimes didn’t stagger home till dawn, mumbling to himself. And that damn near every man in town was scared to death of him.

I told myself that if any lawyer could understand Martin’s situation it had to be him. But that was only what I told myself. The truth was, I wanted to see him up-close. I wanted to know if he’d ever really been what they said he’d been. I was curious about him, what else can I say? Oh, hell—I guess I had the yens for him before I ever met him, it’s simple as that.

He damn sure got some yens of his own when I showed up at his office next day and he took a good look at me. But he knew how to play the gentleman. He showed me to a chair facing his desk and prepared cups of coffee for us from a tray he’d had brought up from the cafe next door. He wore an impeccable black suit and smelled freshly barbered. It was fascinating to watch those large scarred hands stirring a teaspoon, jotting an occasional note with a fountain pen, or stroking his mustaches as I told him about Martin’s predicament. All the while I was talking, his gray eyes drifted over me like smoke. I never wore a corset. I knew how interesting a man could find the contours of my shirtwaist and the way my skirt clung to my lap. I’d been getting yearning looks from men from the time I was twelve. But there was something more than that in his eyes, something beyond just wanting to touch me. At first I thought it might be loneliness, but I came to find out it wasn’t that, not exactly, not in the way most people mean it, anyhow. I can’t say what it was, only that it was always there, right from the start of—what shall I call it? our liaison—from the start of our liaison till the time I last saw him, less than two months later.

He listened to me tell about Martin’s problem without once interrupting me. I hadn’t meant to tell him everything—not about the money Martin left with me, for instance, or the envelope he’d put in his coat—but I did. Every time I stopped talking, he’d stare at me like he could see right into me, and I’d start right up again, until finally I’d told him all of it.

He said he could likely get a judge to write up some kind of protective order, but added that such legal restraint would really be useless. “Legalities don’t mean much to the men he’s dealing with,” he said. “They are the law. If they believe he has money which belongs to them, they’ll get it from him or know the reason why.”

I asked him what should I do. That depends, he said. On what, I said. On how much you love your husband, he said. For a minute we just stared at each other. I swear I could smell the smoke in his eyes. “Well,” I finally said, “sometimes I’m just not sure. “He smiled and said, “I admire your candor, Mrs. McRose.” I smiled back and said, “Yes, and that’s not the only thing about me you’ve been admiring, Mr. Hardin.”

My heart jumped in my throat as he came around the desk, took me by the wrists, and pulled me to the couch. He pushed me on my back and yanked up my skirt. Up went my legs, off went my underclothes, down went his trousers. His hardness slipped into me so smooth and deep and fine I didn’t even know I was howling with pleasure till his hand went over my mouth. “Damn, woman,” he said between grunts, “they’ll think it’s murder going on up here!” I laughed and came at the same time—which was a first for me.

A few minutes later—our breathing still ragged, our faces hot, our bodies cramped and sweaty and crushed together on that narrow couch—we grinned at each other and kissed for the first time.

* * *

The problem, Wesley said, was that Scarborough and Selman might find out I was holding some of the money.

“Would they harm me?” I asked—as if I didn’t know. He looked up at me and said, “Only as much as they have to in order to get their money.”

It was the afternoon of the same day, and we were naked in his bed in the Herndon Lodging House. He was lying on his back, his head and shoulders propped up by a pillow, and I was astraddle him, slowly working my hips and feeling him deep inside me. An empty bourbon bottle glinted on the floor in the sunlight slanting through the window, and a half-full bottle stood beside the bed. On the little writing table by the window was the stacked manuscript of his book, his life story. He’d been writing on it every day, he told me, and was close to finishing.

We’d been at it all day—both the humping and the drinking—and neither of us had had nearly enough. “What should we do,” I asked him, and rolled my hips wickedly. He growled with pleasure and plucked at my nipples. “That depends,” he said, “on how much you love your husband.” We both laughed out loud. And at the same thing.

The next morning Vic Queen showed up on my front porch and said Martin wanted me to go to Juárez right away. I thanked him for the message and started to close the door, but he blocked it with his boot. “He means right now,” he said.

I had a hangover like a railroad spike in my skull and was in no mood for an argument. I excused myself for a moment and left him standing in the foyer while I went to the bedroom and got the loaded Remington revolver I kept under my pillow. I went back to the front room with the gun behind me, then brought it around and aimed it with both hands squarely in Vic Queen’s face. “Get out of my house, you son of a bitch!” I said. “And I mean right now!”

He raised his hands to his shoulders and backed out onto the porch. He said, “Marty’s gonna be damn mad, Beulah.” I slammed the door shut and watched him through the window as he stomped off down the street toward the river.

When I saw Wes in his room later in the day and told him what had happened, he said not to worry, that he’d had a talk with George Scarborough that morning and Martin wouldn’t be a problem much longer. He poured two drinks and handed me one. “Hair of the mangy mutt,” he said, and we touched glasses and drank.

I had a pretty good idea what he meant about Martin, but I figured it was best not to ask too many questions. What you don’t know can’t implicate you as an accomplice. The whiskey sparked in my brain and bloomed in my belly like a little fire flower. Wes pulled me to him, ran his hands over me from neck to hipbone, and bit my lower lip. Then our clothes were sailing through the room and we were laughing and grabbing at each other and falling into bed in a naked tangle of arms and legs and tongues.

They shot Martin dead on our side of the Mexican Central railroad bridge. Milton and Scarborough and a Ranger named Frank McMahon. Milton told the newspapers Martin was wanted for cattle rustling and had been hiding out in Mexico. He said he’d gotten a tip that Martin and some of his “gang” would be crossing into El Paso on the night of June 19 to commit a robbery, and he had set a trap for him.

“The fugitive resisted our attempts to arrest him peaceably,” Milton said. “We were forced to defend ourselves when he drew his weapon and opened fire.”

Yeah sure. Wes looked at the newspaper over my shoulder and said, “Damn shame. Like the man says, crime does not pay.” I looked up and said, “Not if you’re dead, it doesn’t.”

We were the only two at Martin’s funeral. A few days later I received a package with Martin’s effects. It contained his clothes, his gunbelt and empty holster, his boots, and an envelope with thirteen dollars. By then I’d moved in with Wes in the Herndon House, and everybody knew I was his woman.

One night we fucked on a sandbar in the river under a bright half-moon. We were well away from town and both banks were covered with heavy brush. “You think somebody’s peeking at us?” I whispered. The idea of it was exciting. He chuckled and said, “Sure do.” I sat up and looked all around. The moonlight blazed on my tits and belly. “Who? Where?” I said. “God,” he said, “everywhere.” Now I had to laugh. I hugged him tight and rolled on top of him. “I heard you were a preacher’s son!” I said. “Tell me, what’s Lord Jesus think about us carrying on like this?” He nuzzled his face between my tits and said, “He thinks it’s real nice we follow the Golden Rule with each other, you and me.”

A couple of times a week we’d check into a fancy Juárez hotel room with a bathtub large enough to hold the both of us. We’d soap each other to a thick creamy lather and just run our hands over our slippery flesh till we couldn’t stand it anymore. We found all sorts of ways to do it in tubs, on tables, in hacks, on chairs—standing with him behind me at our wide-open window with all our clothes on and the back of my dress hiked up to accommodate our humping while the lights of the city blazed down below.

We did everything we took a mind to. I’d tickle his balls with my tongue. I’d wrap his cock in my hair and caress him through it like a glove. I’d roll ice chips in my mouth and then lick him like a stick of candy. He’d pour wine on my cunny and press his face to it and slurp it up. He’d look up at me from between my thighs and grin and tell me the little man in the boat was standing practically on tiptoe. “I know,” I’d say through my teeth, furious for him to get back at it. He’d tease my nipples to stones with a flamingo feather off my hat, then turn me over and play the feather along the crease of my ass and twirl it lightly in the tiny hairs down there. For every trick I taught him, he taught me two.

And we drank. Sweet Christ, did we drink! Through all of July we were naked and half drunk more often than not. About a year later I would discover the wonders of an opium pipe, and the hazy, floating, unreal sense it gave me was very much like the feeling I had when I was naked and drunk with Wes.

Whenever we did put on our clothes and venture into the streets to get something to eat or just take a walk through the park, we drew stares. I could hear the whispers in those eyes: John Wesley Hardin and his woman. The killer and his whore. Those eyes glared at me—but they cut away damn fast when Wes turned toward them. I’d pull Wes’s arm tighter against my breast and give all those sons of bitches my best go-to-hell smile. We were like a tiny independent country of two surrounded by the alien nation of El Paso. And it felt perfectly natural.

One night when we were in bed, the light from the window facing the street made my private hair glow like a coal fire. Wes pretended to warm his hands at it, then laughed and buried his face in it.

“I can’t get enough of this,” he said, “I just can’t.” After all those years in prison without his share of hair pie, he was doing his damnedest to try and catch up.

Sometimes when he went out for cigars and the newspapers I’d leaf through his manuscript. He usually worked on it an hour or so in the morning and sometimes a little more in the evening while I took my bath.

Christ, what a story. I suppose a good deal of it was true, but I couldn’t imagine anybody’s life being that full of blood. What I remember most about it, however, was the total lack of self-pity—and I loved him for that.

Every day, drunk or sober, he practiced with his pistols, and I never got bored with watching. He’d stand in front of the mirror, one gun on his hip, one in a vest holster, and he’d practice for a solid half hour. He’d never say a word the whole time. He’d draw and click, draw and click, changing positions, drawing and clicking from every which way, shooting himself in the glass over and over, looking himself dead in the eyes. I have posed in my skin for painters, and the look on his face was the look I saw on theirs. I know it sounds silly, but I always got the feeling he was disappointed when he was done—like the only thing that would have satisfied him would have been to beat the fellow in the mirror to the draw.

But God damn men anyway! They all talk like they can never get enough of sex, but that’s only because they don’t get enough chance at it. But you let them have all they want of it and they get their fill damn quick.

After a month of going at it with me day and night, he started pining for an evening in the saloons with the boys. The card tables, the dicing at the bar, the beer and the happy bullshit. I’d made him fat on sex and now he was feeling skinny for the saloons. He didn’t say it, but I could tell. One night he said he was going for a newspaper and then didn’t come home till nearly three in the morning, smelling like a bar rag. I was so mad I didn’t say a word to him all the next day. That afternoon he said he was going to the office and I said something smart-ass about his office having swinging doors. He said I’d best not talk like I was his mother or his wife because I sure as hell wasn’t either one. He slammed the door so hard behind him some of the plaster flaked off the wall. That remark about not being his wife hurt a lot more than I care to admit even now.

He came reeling in at four A.M. and flopped into bed with all his clothes on and started snoring up a storm the second his head hit the pillow. I’d been hefting the bottle pretty good myself and was ready for a fight, but I passed out right after he did.

The next morning I was still sore about that “wife” remark, but that’s not the main reason I was so mad at him. Mainly, it was because I was afraid. I’d been having such bad dreams. I was afraid somebody was going to shoot him dead while he was running around out there drunk. And I hated being afraid, I’d always hated it more than anything. I was furious that he’d made me be so frightened for him. And then he gets all closemouthed and sulky with me, like he was the one who’d been wronged and I was the one who should apologize. So there I was, scared for him and angry that I was. Naturally anger got the upper hand.

“The great John Wesley Hardin,” I said, “staggering around drunk in the streets like some rumpot. Real impressive. I always heard you were such a fearsome fellow, and now I know why. People are afraid you might breathe on them.”

“You’d know a lot about the smell of rumpots,” he said. “I guess that’s a fact.”

“Those saloon tramps aren’t your friends. You’re nothing but a sideshow to them, don’t you know that.”

“You don’t know a goddamned thing.”

“I know when I’m making a fool of myself, which is more than I can say for you.”

“Nobody calls me a fool.”

“Fool, fool, fool!”

He backhanded me into the wall and I felt the blood run hot out of my nose. I went at him with both fists swinging. He caught my wrists, so I tried to knee him in the balls, but I lost my balance and fell down. He gave my hair such a yank he nearly broke my neck. I bit his wrist and he yelped and smacked me on the side of the head hard enough to make me see stars. Next thing I knew, we were wrestling around on the floor and one of my tits came free of my dress and he caught hold of it. I felt my nipples turn hard as bullets. I grabbed him by the hair and pulled his face down to me and bit his lips so hard the blood popped into my mouth. He growled deep in his throat and pinched my nipple hard and his stiff cock jabbed against my belly. As he shoved my skirt up and yanked off my drawers, I undid his belt and caught hold of him—and then we were humping hard and loud on the floor until we both came like we’d been dropped from the ceiling.

It was exciting, all right—but I wouldn’t want to do it that way every night of the week.

Anyhow, that knockdown session on the floor didn’t really settle anything. At supper the next night he said he had a case to try in Van Horn and would be gone a couple of days. I wanted to go with him but he said no, he’d be too busy with the case and didn’t want any distractions. I didn’t believe he had a damn case, but I kept it to myself. The truth was, he hadn’t opened a law book more than a couple of times since the day I first walked into his office. Later on, when it sure as hell didn’t matter anymore, I found out my suspicions had been right—the case he’d had in Van Horn was a redhead named Lil.

I was miserable about him being gone—and mad at him, and afraid of every bad possibility prowling through my imagination. A few hours after his train pulled out that afternoon, I was whirly-eyed drunk. I’d lately been drinking like a catfish anyway, and the minute he was gone I started pouring myself the drinks even faster than usual.

I don’t know why I did what I did next. Hell, I was so drunk I couldn’t remember much about it the next day. I recall sitting at the window, drinking and looking down at the people in the street, talking and smiling at each other like they didn’t have a care in the world. I remember feeling like I was going to bust wide open if I didn’t do something. According to the arrest report—and to a lot of witnesses—what I did was go traipsing down Overland Street with my Remington in my hand, pointing it left and right at people, and laughing like hell when they scattered like scared chickens. They say I hollered, “I’m John Wesley Hardin, you sorry sons of bitches, and I can outshoot any swinging dick in town!” That’s not as hard to believe as the claim that I shot out a streetlight at eighty paces. I was a good shot, but I couldn’t have done it sober, I don’t think.

I have a fuzzy recollection of John Selman—the policeman son, not the murdering constable father—sweet-talking me on the street and asking me to hand over the pistola. I remember the gun slipping out of my hand and discharging when it hit the sidewalk and the bullet ricocheting off a wall. He said in the report that I dropped it when I tried to twirl it. He quick grabbed it up and put the arm on me.

That was it for the sweet-talk. He was real sarcastic about calling me “the grieving widow.” He said—and plenty of witnesses backed him on this too—I cursed him like a muleskinner all the way to the jail. He said I told him Wes would give him a new asshole right between the eyes for treating me so low.

He wanted to jail me till I sobered up, but Jeff Milton wouldn’t have me put in a cell. Jeff took me direct to Judge Howe, drunk as I was. I know the judge gave me a lecture—I have a vague picture of his face looking all serious and his big thick finger shaking at me. I had a terrible feeling the next day that I’d laughed and said something nasty about what his finger looked like, wagging up and down at me that way. Anyhow, to make a long drunk story short, I was fined fifty dollars and Jeff Milton took me home.

Wes must have heard about it the minute he got off the train. He came charging into the room and threw his valise against the wall. It knocked his manuscript off the table in a flutter of pages. He looked like he was ready to rip me to pieces. I could see how hard he was fighting to keep himself under control. He sat on the bed with his fists tight and white on his knees and made me sit in a chair across the room and tell him my side of what happened. I did the best I could, considering how little I could remember about the whole thing. I wasn’t lying when I finished up by telling him I was sorry, and I didn’t talk back when he said, “You sure are. You’re about the sorriest bitch in this whole sorry town.” I figured I had that coming.

He poured himself a glass of whiskey and sat there sipping from it and staring at me without saying anything for a long time. I kept my mouth shut and waited for him to make up his mind about what to do. I was sorry for what I’d done, but I wasn’t going to let myself get beat like a dog for it. I’d decided that if he tried it, I’d holler out the window like I was on fire.

But the whiskey seemed to soothe him. He put the empty glass aside and rubbed his face with both hands and made the most tired sound I’ve ever heard in my life. Then he got down on his hands and knees and carefully gathered up his manuscript and stacked it on the table. Then he took me by the hand and we got in bed with our clothes on and just lay there holding each other gently. I could feel his heart beating hard against my breast.

He had to do something about it, though, something loud and public. He couldn’t see it any other way. He was John Wesley Hardin and nobody, by God, could arrest his woman and speak to her like she was some common tramp. It was a point of pride with him. That’s why I still refuse to accept the blame for what happened afterward, no matter what people say. I knew my stunt in the streets was wrong, and I was sorry I did it, and I told Wes as much. But I could have apologized till Doomsday and it wouldn’t have done a thing to ease his injured pride—his “honor,” as he called it. He had to do something about the way Young Selman had treated me or it would look like he was admitting his woman wasn’t worth defending—and only a man without honor would ever attach to a worthless woman.

“For God’s sake, Wes,” I said, “it’s almost the twentieth century. Nobody gives a damn about such silliness. Why don’t we just leave this awful place? Let’s go to Santa Fe. Let’s go to Denver.” The look he gave me was more pitiful than angry.

The next morning he went out and found Young Selman walking his beat and gave him loud hell for arresting me. I heard all about it from Patsy Webster, one of the dozen witnesses. She said Wes called Young Selman a bully and a coward for arresting a woman. “You wouldn’t have dared done it if I’d been in town,” Wes told him. They say Young Selman looked scared but held his ground and took the bullyragging with his mouth shut. Wes almost always wore a gun or two in defiance of the town ordinance against doing so, but he usually kept them out of sight under his coat or vest. This time, however, he opened his coat wide so Young Selman could clearly see the pistols. “I’m giving you fair warning,” Wes told him. “You come near her again and you’ll answer to me.”

He was quiet and moody during the next two days. He cleaned his pistols and practiced his quick draws. He dealt himself hands of cards. Now and then he sat at the little writing table and wrote more of his book. In the evening he’d put on his guns and go down to one or another of the saloons, have a couple of drinks and play a few hands. My heart would lodge in my throat from the minute he walked out the door until the moment he came back. I couldn’t help feeling he was trying to prove something—though I can’t say what it was or who he thought he was proving it to. He drank steadily but only got drunk enough to stay loose. I believe his head was just full of snakes.

Sometimes, when he didn’t know I was watching, I’d see him staring at himself in the mirror with such intense concentration he looked like he was trying hard to place a face he hadn’t seen in a long time. He made love like he was dreaming about it instead of really doing it. His touch, his kiss, even his cock—they all felt like a stranger’s.

That Saturday he said he’d been thinking over what I’d said about moving to Santa Fe, and he now thought it wasn’t a bad idea. “The territory needs lawyers,” he said. “We can get a new start, breathe some mountain air that’s not full of desert dust.”

It was wonderful news—but when he said he wanted me to leave ahead of him while he took care of closing his office and paying off a few bills and such, I felt a shiver run through me. He wanted me to go up there right away and check into a hotel and start looking around town for a nice office for him. I said I wanted to wait so we could leave together, but he said no, we’d do it the way he said. We nearly got into an argument about it, but I caught myself in time to avoid it. All right, I said, we’d do it his way.

On Sunday morning I left El Paso on the train for Santa Fe. I’d had a sleepless night and was red-eyed and jumpy. The passing landscape glared so whitely it hurt to look out at it. The air lunging through the open windows was as hot as desperate breath and didn’t do a thing but swirl dust through the coach. Still, I was so tired the rocking car lulled me into a sweaty, fitful sleep.

Just before we reached Las Cruces I dreamt about Wesley. I saw him standing at a long brightly lighted bar in a dim saloon, tossing dice and laughing. Then a shadowy figure came up behind him and pointed a long accusing finger at the back of his head….

The loud bang of a coach window woke me with a start, my throat tight and pulsing wildly—and the train whistle shrieked like the devil in grief.

The El Paso Daily Herald,

20 AUGUST 1895

… This morning early a Herald reporter started after the facts and found John Selman, the man who fired the fatal shots, and his statement was as follows:

“I met Wes Hardin last evening close to the Acme Saloon. When we met, Hardin said, ‘You’ve got a son that is a bastardly, cowardly, s__ of a b__.’

“I said: ‘Which one?’

“Hardin said: ‘John, the one that is on the police force. He pulled my woman when I was absent and robbed her of $50, which they would not have done if I had been there.’

“I said: ‘Hardin, no man can talk about my children like that without fighting, you cowardly, s__ of a b__.’”

“Hardin said: ‘I am unarmed.’

“I said: ‘Go and get your gun. I am armed.’

“Then he said: ‘I’ll go and get a gun and when I meet you I’ll meet you smoking and make you pull like a wolf around the block.’

“Hardin then went into the saloon and began shaking dice with Henry Brown.… I sat down on a beer keg in front of the Acme Saloon and waited for Hardin to come out. I insisted on the police force keeping out of the trouble because it was a personal matter between Hardin and myself. Hardin had insulted me personally.

“About 11 o’clock Mr. E. L. Shackleford came along and said: ‘Come on and take a drink but don’t get drunk.’ Shackleford led me into the saloon by the arm. Hardin and Brown were shaking dice at the end of the bar next to the door. While we were drinking I noticed that Hardin watched me very closely as we went in. When he thought my eye was off him he made a break for his gun in his hip pocket and I immediately pulled my gun and began shooting. I shot him in the head first as I had been informed that he wore a steel breast plate. As I was about to shoot a second time someone ran against me and I think I missed him, but the other two shots were at his body and I think I hit him both times. My son then ran in and caught me by the arm and said: ‘He is dead. Don’t shoot anymore.’

“I was not drunk at the time, but was crazy mad at the way he had insulted me.

“My son and myself came out of the saloon together and when Justice Howe came I gave my statement to him. My wife was very weak and was prostrated when I got home. I was accompanied home by Deputy Sheriff J. C. Jones. I was not placed in jail, but considered myself under arrest. I am willing to stand any investigation over the matter. I am sorry I had to kill Hardin, but he had threatened mine and my son’s life several times and I felt it had come to that point where either I or he had to die.”

(Signed) John Selman