The boys at the bar knew as much about John Henry Selman as they did about Wes Hardin, and they regarded him with nearly equal awe—and equal fear. Selman, I learned, had fought for the Confederacy before moving to Texas. The way they’d heard the tale, he got married, fathered a daughter and three sons, and made his daily bread as a dirt farmer for a few years before settling near Fort Griffin and getting into the cattle business with a partner named John Larn. His first turn as a lawman came when Larn was elected sheriff of Shackelford County and appointed Selman as his chief deputy.
One day a band of Comancheros stole a ten-year-old white girl and her six-year-old brother from a farm a few miles west of Fort Griffin, intending to trade them to the Comanches. Selman and two army scouts tracked them for weeks, all the way across West Texas, before finally catching up with them in the Davis Mountains. They returned with the two children alive and seven Comanchero scalps dangling from their saddle horns.
Not a man at the bar doubted the truth of that story, not even those who were no admirers of Selman. “Old John’s done lots of things over the years, I expect,” said a man in a white skimmer, glancing about cautiously to see who might be overhearing, “some of them not altogether legal, if you know what I mean.” Another man chuckled and added, “Hell, some of them not altogether Christian!”
Not long afterward, Selman killed a bad actor called Shorty Collins who was trying to gun down Sheriff Larn. There was a good deal of dispute—then and now—about the cause of the shooting. Some said Collins was in a heat because Larn and Selman had double-crossed him in a cattle rustling scheme. Whatever the case, the story holds that after killing Collins, Selman went hard outlaw for the next few years, that he went to New Mexico and formed a band of rustlers and robbers called the Seven Rivers Gang.
When he next returned to Texas, he was arrested and charged with rustling, but the case never went to court and eventually the charges were dropped. Then his wife became ill and died. He was broke and feeling aimless, so he parceled out his young children among various families and wandered off in search of better fortune. A few months later he showed up in Fort Stockton, debilitated with the smallpox. The fearful citizens wouldn’t have him among them. He was taken to a spot about two miles from town, laid under a canvas cover to protect him from the sun, supplied with a cask of water, and left to his fate. “Old John’s told this story himself more than once, in more than one saloon,” one of my informants told me. “I guess it’s true. He sure enough has the pox scars on his face to prove it.”
According to the story, Selman was saved by a Mexican cattle dealer who was passing by in a wagon on his way back to his ranch. The Mexican’s young daughter was with him, and they put Selman in the wagon and took him along. The daughter tended to Selman every mile of the way. Each evening, when they made camp for the night, she bathed him with lye soap and then fed him a steaming bowl of menudo, a fiery dish of tripe cooked in chile peppers. By the time they crossed the river into Mexico, Selman was fairly well recovered. “John always has said it was the menudo saved his life,” a man at the bar remarked. “He still eats a bowl of it a day.” Several heads nodded sagely. “That stuff’ll cure you or kill you, one,” someone else said.
When they reached her father’s ranch in Chihuahua, Selman and the girl got married. John went to Texas to retrieve his children but was able to find only his two youngest sons, Bud and Young John. He lived in Mexico for years, and his boys were practically raised as Mexicans. It was said he became best friends with a murderous local captain of rurales—the national police force created by the Mexican dictator Díaz—and that he sometimes helped track down fugitives for a portion of the reward. When his second wife died, he and his sons, now grown, moved back north of the river. To El Paso.
That was six years ago, and all my informants agreed the town was even wilder then than it was now. But even though he was starting to get along in years, Old John still had a lot of pepper in his blood. He quickly earned a reputation for drinking and gambling with the hardiest of them—and for being able to handle himself in a row. El Paso was always in need of tough lawmen, and in ’92 he was elected city constable.
The following year, at age fifty-seven, he married a sixteen-year-old Mexican girl. She was far younger than his sons, both of whom were so angrily embarrassed by the marriage they refused to speak to their father for months. Old John supposedly said, “I don’t know what they’re acting so put out about. Ought to be proud their pappy can still cut such a spicy mustard. I reckon they’re just jealous.” He eventually reconciled with his boys, and one of them, Young John, himself became a city policeman.
Of the eight or nine men at the bar of The Show saloon, four claimed to have witnessed John Selman’s killing of Bass Outlaw in a local whorehouse just the year before. The other men at the bar all snorted derisively and said they’d bet none of the four had been anywhere near the place. “You’d have to build another six floors on that cathouse just to hold everybody who’s sworn he saw the shooting with his own eyes,” one man said, and everybody but the four avowed witnesses had a good guffaw.
Bass Outlaw was a notorious bad actor who had been a Texas Ranger until he was fired for drunkenness. He then became a deputy U.S. marshal. On the night in question, he was drunk and in a fury because the girl he wanted to sport with was engaged with another customer. He loudly proclaimed his intention to go upstairs and kick open the door of every room until he found his favorite whore. Old John was sitting near him and said, “Hey now, Bass, you don’t want to be busting up everybody’s pleasure up there. Just wait your turn.” At that moment, Texas Ranger Joe McKidrict turned to Outlaw and said, “Bass, you’re too drunk to fuck anyhow.”
The words were barely out of his mouth before Outlaw drew his pistol and blasted a hole through his heart. As Selman went for his gun, Outlaw shot him twice in the leg—then Old John put a round through Outlaw’s eye and blew out the side of his head and the fight was done.
“Old John’s had a hobble ever since,” someone said. “The man can’t walk ten feet without his cane.”
“That’s true,” said another, “but his damn gunhand don’t need no cane. That’s what Hardin best keep in mind.”
* * *
The noisy streets were deep in twilight when I came out of The Show and made my way up Utah Street, heading for the Acme Saloon. The sky along the mountain rim was the color of fresh blood. As I reached the corner, I glanced to my left—and there on the sidewalk, not ten paces from me, stood John Henry Selman and John Wesley Hardin, looking quite ready to kill one another.
They were standing face-to-face with three feet between them. I’d heard them described so thoroughly that I recognized them both instantly. A few other pedestrians had also taken notice of them and were hastening across the street or retreating down the sidewalk. Most people in the vicinity, however, remained wholly unaware of the confrontation from first to last.