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.