Forty Times a Killer Read Free

show for a cut of the profits.”
    Wes smiled at me. “Hell, we got three hundred dollars for the horses and traps of them dead men back at Honest Deal, so we already got seed money.” He read the doubt in my face and said, “It can’t fail. Nobody’s ever had an idea like mine and nobody else is going to think of it. Man, I’ll make a killing and a fortune.”
    He again made a banner of his hands and grinned. “John Wesley Hardin’s Wild West Show! Damn, I like the sound o’ that.” He let out a rebel yell that echoed like the howl of a wolf in the silence. “Little Bit, it’s gonna be great!”
    Around me, the pines were black, and they leaned into one another as though they were exchanging ominous secrets. I felt uneasy, like a flock of geese had just flown over my grave. “What do I do, Wes?”
    â€œDo? Do where?”
    â€œIn the show, Wes. What do I do in your Wild West Show?”
    Wes’s eyes roamed over me and I was well aware of what he saw . . . a tiny, stunted runt with a thin, white face, boot-button brown eyes, and a steel brace on his twisted twig of a left leg.
    I wasn’t formed by nature to play any kind of western hero.
    John Wesley was never one to get stumped by a question, but he scowled, his thick black brows drawn together in thought. Then his face cleared and he smiled. “You read books, Little Bit, don’t you?”
    I nodded and held up my copy of Mr. Dickens.
    â€œThen there’s your answer.” Wes clapped his hands. “You’ll be my bookkeeper! And”—he beamed as he delivered what he obviously believed was the snapper—“a full partner in the business!”
    I said nothing.
    â€œWhat’s wrong? I thought you’d be happy with that proposition.”
    â€œI am, I really am.”
    â€œThen why do you look so down in the mouth you could eat oats out of a churn?”
    â€œBecause the thought just came to me that before you can do anything, Wes, you’ll have to square yourself with the law.”
    John Wesley sighed, a dramatic intake of breath coupled with a frustrated yelp that he did often. “Little Bit, are you talking about Mage again?”
    â€œWell, Mage for starters, but there are others.”
    â€œMage was your friend, wasn’t he?”
    â€œNot really. We were together a lot because he wanted to learn how to read and do his ciphers.”
    â€œNegroes are too stupid to learn to read,” Wes said. “Hell, everybody knows that.”
    â€œHe was doing all right. He liked Sir Walter Scott.”
    â€œHe wasn’t doing all right in my book,” Wes said, his face tight. “Mage was an uppity black man who needed killing.”
    I smiled to take the sting out of a conversation that was veering into dangerous territory. When Wes got angry bad things happened.
    â€œAh, you were just sore because he beat you at rasslin’,” I said.
    â€œYeah, but I bloodied his nose, didn’t I?”
    I nodded. “You done good, Wes. Mage was twice as big as you.”
    â€œAnd ugly with it.”
    Wes was silent for a while. A breeze spoke in the pines and a lace of mist frosted by moonlight drifted between their slender trunks. I fancied that the ghosts of dead Comanches were wandering the woods.
    â€œYou know what he said, don’t you?” Wes asked.
    â€œLet’s drop it. It isn’t that important.”
    â€œYou know what he said?”
    I shook my head. I didn’t feel good that night. My leg hurt and the salt pork and cornpone we’d eaten for dinner wasn’t sitting right with me.
    â€œHe said that no white boy could draw his blood and live. Then he said that no bird ever flew so high that could not be brought to the ground. He was talking about a shooting, Little Bit. He planned to put a ball in my back.”
    â€œMage shouldn’t have said that.”
    â€œDamn right he