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.
El Paso was the last wild town in Texas. With Mexico just across the Rio Grande, and the New Mexico Territory a stone throw north, the town was placed real well for anybody on the dodge from the law. It’s no wonder it attracted all the desperadoes it did. The only way to keep a rein on so many bad actors was with some of the toughest lawmen in the country. Jeff Milton, who’d been a Ranger and a U.S. marshal and was absolutely nobody to fool with, was the chief of police. “Any man I kill had it coming”—that was Jeff Milton’s motto and everybody knew it. Deputy U.S. Marshal George Scarborough was another quick ass-kicker you didn’t want to cross. Old John Selman, who some said had been more of a bandit and mankiller than any of the men he ever arrested, was constable of the first precinct. His son, John Junior, was a city policeman. Like I said—the law in El Paso was every bit as hardcase as the outlaws. And some said it was every bit as crooked.
I’d come to El Paso that winter, and by spring I’d had enough of the place. It was too damn dangerous for a man of my profession. I was a dealer—poker mostly, sometimes blackjack, now and then faro. I worked at the Gem Saloon and did fairly well for myself. But it was a rare night that somebody at the table didn’t accuse me of pulling stunts with the deal, and things sometimes got fairly tense before cooler heads persuaded the hothead to accept his loss with a little more grace. But cooler heads didn’t always prevaiclass="underline" one night a dealer was shot dead just two tables away from me. The killer was arrested and eventually convicted and hanged, but that didn’t bring the dealer back to life even a little bit. Sore losers are a constant hazard of the trade, of course—it’s one of the first things a gambler learns. But El Paso sure seemed to have way more than its share of men who took personal offense at losing.
It was Hardin who finally convinced me it was time to shake El Paso’s dust and head for California. He came to town in April—but even before he arrived, the word was out that he was coming. Somebody telephoned the news from Pecos, where Hardin had been pressing a suit for a cousin-in-law named Killing Jim Miller, and the saloon district buzzed about it for days. I recall a newspaper story saying Hardin should be welcomed in town because he was an inspirational example of how a man could rehabilitate himself in prison and triumph over his sordid past. But the saloon rats weren’t interested in any model of reform—they wanted to get a good look at John Wesley Hardin, the famous pistoleer. Some of them had been children when he was packed off to Huntsville Penitentiary, but even among most of the older roughs he was something of a living legend—the quickest, deadliest pistoleer in Texas, the man who made war against the State Police, the man who’d had to replace the grips on his pistols more than once because he’d cut so many notches in them.
The local lawmen weren’t nearly so glad as the saloon rats to have him in town. I heard that Jeff Milton and George Scarborough met him at the station with shotguns. They warned him against carrying a gun inside the city limits and told him to watch his step. It must’ve been an interesting conversation. Hardin supposedly told them he had no intention of making trouble and hoped nobody would give him any. He said he wanted only to be a good lawyer, and it’s a fact he opened a law office on the second floor of the professional building across the street from the Gem.
The first night he was in town he came into the Gem and was greeted like some kind of hero. At one point he had a dozen fresh drinks on the bar in front of him, each one bought by a different man. Everybody wanted to be able to say he’d bought a drink for the one and only John Wesley Hardin. Everybody wanted to be his friend. Everybody wanted to hear him tell about facing down Bill Hickok and about the way he gunned down Charlie Webb in Comanche. They gathered round him like some kind of one-man freak show, which I guess in a way he was. The first few times he came in, he accepted the drinks but only threw back a couple of them, and he politely declined to tell stories about his past. He said those days were long gone and he didn’t really care to relive them, thank you. But it just wasn’t in him to ignore all that admiring attention, I guess. It was pretty obvious he liked it, and I don’t guess he got too many free drinks all the time he was in prison. By the time he’d been in town two weeks he was knocking back most of the drinks the boys bought him and grinning bright-eyed at the crowd gathered round as he demonstrated the “road agent’s spin” he’d used on Hickok. No question he could twirl those pistolas. I heard he was putting on the same show in saloons all over El Paso.