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It’s no doubt little
different today, with disheartened prisoners released back into
society owning little more than a demolished reputation, the
government issued clothes on their back and the out-of-style shoes on
their feet. Few bosses are likely to hire an ex-con for anything
but the most menial and underpaid jobs, and soon desperation couples
with resentment in propelling over eighty percent of ex-offenders back
into the “joint.” That is, if they don’t do something that gets
them blown out of their saddles first.
It didn’t help
Hardin's chances any that El Paso authorities anticipated his
arrival with both concern and trepidation. Most lawmen feared
him, a few envied his nerve, skill and reputation.... and all expected
that sooner or later there would be trouble. The respected Chief
of Police
Jeff Milton secreted a number of Burgess folding shotguns in
strategic location around town, and sometime deputies
John Selman and
George Scarborough were probably already making plans for how to
deal with him if the time ever came. And
John Wesley didn’t help ease the authorities’ apprehension by
showing off his gun handling abilities and impressive marksmanship
almost from the day of his arrival.
Hardin was always game to tweak the noses of the powers-that-be,
but his having spent close to half his life in the penitentiary had
taught him a degree of judgment and temperance, if not reserve. In August of ‘95 he prudently acquiesced to an outraged
Milton, when confronted with accusations he’d supposedly made.
Hardin was “so much faster,” the courageous officer admitted,
“that if he had gone for a gun, I wouldn’t have had a chance.” And the previous July he made no objections when asked to come in and
appear on charges of gambling, carrying a firearm, and robbery.
Whether he felt cheated or merely pissed
off at being called a “jail rat,” on May 2nd J.W. an inebriated J.W.
pointed a pearl handled Colt .41 caliber double action revolver at the
offending party and retook the $95 he’d just lost at craps.... all the
while humming a happy tune. Then to the newspapers that had
questioned the necessity and severity of his response, he wrote a
number of lines of explanation and defense including: “I admire pluck,
virtue and push wherever found. Yet I contempt and despise a
coward and assassin of character, whether he be a reporter, a
journalist, or a gambler.”
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 From
the time he was kid he loved to stalk “among the big pines and oaks with a
gun,” but soon enough his primary use for a firearm was armed combat
rather than boyhood fun. While he may have killed one hapless fellow
in 1876 with a Winchester rifle, he preferred the kinds of up close
confrontations in which purpose shotguns and handguns so excel. He
dropped his first man with what was likely a Colt Dragoon .44, and used
Colt and Remington percussion revolvers for most of his other many kills. We can be sure that by 1874 he’d converted from carrying percussion models
to the latest in American made cartridge revolvers– as it was on
Hardin's birthday in May of that year that he used an ivory handled
“Russian” model Smith & Wesson .44 (serial number #25274) to take Sheriff
Charley Webb’s life. And Colt Single Action .45’s may have been the
instruments of destruction for pursuing Pinkerton agents in 1876, and
possible two Mobile, Alabama police.
Upon his release he seems
to have preferred the rapidity of fire offered by double action revolvers. As most readers are aware, single-action designs require that the hammer
be cocked with the thumb for every shot, whereas with so called
double-action arms the shooter not only spins the cylinder but cocks and
releases the hammer with a single long pull of the trigger. The SA
is nearly as fast for the first shot, but subsequent aimed fire is
considerably improved in the double mode. Besides the .41 Colt 1877
used to dominate the crowd at the Gem, he also owned at least one ‘77
“Lightning” in .38 LC (Serial number #84304– gifted by friend Jim Miller),
and the larger framed double-action Colt 1878 in .44 WCF (serial number
#352) removed from his body at the time of his death.
It goes without saying
that the drop-loop “quick draw” or “buscadero” holster featured in movies
through 1970’s never existed in the historic West, nor would it have been
desirable to have a gun positioned so low whether planting fence posts or
snaking through the crowds of a smoke filled
saloon. Most common were the tight fitting “Slim Jim,” skirted designs, and
surplus military models with their protective rain flaps removed. None of these had tie-downs, requiring the wearer to grab them with one
hand while drawing their weapon with the other– hence the expression
“slapping leather.” It’s suggested that at least towards the end,
Hardin
preferred to carry his arms in shoulder holsters or tucked conveniently
into his waistband. However they were housed, his proficiency in
getting them out and hitting what he was aiming at was nothing less than
amazing– a skill that he demonstrated first through a growing body count,
and later by blasting poker cards held up by his admirers. Unlike
many gunmen and
shootists,
Hardin
really was fast on the go. Sometime after his capture he put on a
display of quick draw, border shifts and rolls for the entertainment of
his guards. Ranger Jim Gillette described his “slight of hand” gun
handling as having been executed with nothing less than “magical
precision.”
A fast gun and heart full
of “pluck and push,” however, could guarantee neither freedom nor
life. And now he was finding out the hard way: that a willingness to
stand up to insult and injury was no longer considered a manly virtue by
civilizing residents. Millions of dollars were being made by bankers and
speculators through systemic manipulation and deception– while the woman
and men who candidly spoke their mind, who leveraged power face to face
and gladly met each test.... often found themselves pariahs in the rapidly
urbanizing West. It’s hard to imagine their alienation, their
grieving over lost values and lost ways, or the existential loneliness
that must have haunted their sleepless nights. The damage, and the
despair.
Hardin's gambling increased proportionally, and he was seen making
more and more flamboyant bets whenever in the presence of an audience. Winning gave him the feelings of mastery and brilliance, of risk taking
and excitement that his post-prison existence otherwise lacked. It
was, like the carry and use of weapons, an effort to exercise some degree
of control over his life in an environment of bitter disempowerment and
rapid transition.
 On
the afternoon of August 18, 1895,
John
Wesley Hardin was in the midst of rolling dice at the Acme
saloon bar – standing uncharacteristically with his back exposed to anyone stepping
through its louvered swinging doors. An agitated
Constable Selman had barely entered the room before blasting the
preeminent
shootist
of all time in the back of the head. He then pumped two more rounds
into his target’s chest and arm, as he lay motionless on his back in a
spreading puddle of blood and gore.
It could be said that
Hardin
was weary, but that’s not the same as either indifferent nor oblivious. Our man was well aware of the many dangers he faced, and had only a short
time before had a major row with
Old Man Selman and his son John Jr. It was something more than alcohol
induced laxness that predetermined his attitude and posture on that
fateful day.
Hardly a month goes by
that we don’t read in some newspaper or hear on the radio about another
case of what is now called “suicide by cop:” someone at the end of their
emotional rope ignoring the repeated calls by the police to drop their
weapon, orchestrating the situation so that the police have no option but
to shoot. They no doubt prefer this to putting a gun to their own
head– but there may also be the added satisfaction of being killed while
facing a real or imaginary oppressor, with an enabling gun in hand.
But as much as he must
have suffered at that point,
Hardin's death was no form of suicide, nor was it
Hardin's wish to die. More than anything else he was gambling
that fateful afternoon– with not only his money, but with his life. He was upping the ante, increasing the severity of the test, and calling
the opposition’s bluff! He was ready to rake in the winner’s chips,
to break the bank with the next throw of dice.... as well as to pay what
has always been the highest price. The last sounds he likely heard
were the shuffling of the constable’s feet some six or eight feet behind
where he stood, and the rattle of dancing ivories on the bar’s polished
wood.
And it’s not hard to see
why the wizened
Selman carried out his ignoble plan with such stealth and haste. A split second before the two-hundred and fifty grain slug roared in his
direction,
Hardin
began instinctively reaching for the gun long at home at his waist.
Indeed, even as his world was collapsing
around him, firearms were something he felt he could count on– and thus he
never went anywhere without them. They were more than a means for
defense, more than a strategy for the attainment of deference and respect. Guns became the buddies that would never let him down, the girlfriend that
would never leave, the wife that would never be taken away from him by
disaster or disease. They came to represent for the aging
shootist
the possibility of a love, of a code, a way of being, thinking and acting
that might never die. At home not so much beneath the oil or gas
lamps of a raucous
saloon as on
the open range.... making the passage from birth to death beneath an
unfenced Western sky.
© Jesse L. "Wolf" Hardin, 2006
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