Forty Times a Killer Read Free Page A

shouldn’t. And he shouldn’t have tried to pull me off my horse, either.”
    I made no comment on that last and Wes said, “All I did was shoot him the hell off’n me.”
    I felt his angry blue eyes burn into my face.
    â€œYou would’ve done the same.”
    â€œI guess so. If I could shoot a revolver, I might have done the same.”
    â€œEverybody in Texas knew it was a justified killing. Everybody except the damned Yankees.”
    â€œThat’s why you should make it right with them, Wes,” I said.
    â€œDamned if I will. Since when did the killing of an uppity black man become a crime?”
    â€œSince the Yankees won the war.”
    Wes spat into the fire. “Damn Yankees. I hate their guts.”
    â€œA lot of Texas folks think like you, Wes.”
    â€œAnd how do you feel, Little Bit? Until real recent, I never pegged you as a Yankee-lover.”
    â€œWes, my pa died at Gettysburg, remember. How do you think I feel?”
    â€œYeah, you’re right. I forgot about that. You got no reason to cotton to Yankees, either.” Wes grinned at me, his good humor restored. “I’ll pour us some coffee, and before we turn in, we’ll get back to talking about my Wild West Show for a spell.” He frowned. “Damn it. We’ll have no Yankees in it, unless we need folks to shovel hoss shit. Agreed?”
    â€œAnything you say, Wes. Anything you say.”

CHAPTER THREE
“I Don’t Enjoy Killing”
    I saw John Wesley Hardin being born, I was with him when he died, and in between I was proud to call him my friend. He was everything I wanted to be and couldn’t.
    Wes was tall and slim and straight and moved with the elegance of a panther. He’d a fine singing voice and the very sight of him when he stepped into a room set the ladies’ hearts aflutter. Many men admired him, others hated him, but all feared him and the wondrous things he could do with revolvers.
    Like England’s hunchbacked king, I was delivered misshapen from my mother’s womb. My frail body did not grow as a man’s should, and even in the full bloom of my youth, if you’d be pleased to call it that, I never weighed more than eighty pounds or reached a height of five feet.
    Do you wonder then that I admired Wes so, and badly wanted to be like him? He was my noble knight errant who sallied forth to right wrongs, and I his lowly squire.
    I think I know the answer to that question.
    And why I pledged to stay at his side to the death.
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    As I told you earlier, we were headed for Longview to visit with Wes’s kin for a spell, but he wanted to linger where we were for a day longer.
    â€œThis is a pleasant spot and we can talk about my idea some more. Sometimes it’s good to just set back and relax.”
    I had no objections. I felt ill and my leg continued to give me trouble.
    The day passed pleasantly enough. I sat under a tree and read my book and Wes caught a bright yellow butterfly at the base of a live oak. He said it meant good luck.
    But when he opened his hands to let the butterfly go, it could no longer fly and fluttered to earth, a broken thing.
    Wes said not to worry, that it was still good luck. But he seemed upset about the crippled butterfly and didn’t try to catch another one.
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    The long day finally lifted its ragged skirts and tiptoed away, leaving us to darkness and the Texas stars.
    Wes built up the fire and put the coffee on to boil. Using his Barlow knife, he shaved slices of salt pork into the pan and said there would be enough cornpone for supper with some leftover for tomorrow’s breakfast.
    I was pleased about that. It was good cornpone, made with buttermilk and eggs, and I was right partial to it back in those days.
    After supper we talked about the Wild West Show, then, as young men do, about women. After a while, I said I was tired and it was about time I sought my blankets.
    I stretched out