That was the truth. Smolley was about the meanest I ever met of the bad lot of bullies and thieves to be found in the State Police. A good many of them was mean-ass Nigras. I never thought I’d see the day when a Nigra’d be wearing a badge, but there they were. That’s how fast and strange the world was changing. All the fellers on the force were hard cases, naturally, and ain’t no question some of them were on the run from the law their ownselfs. But most were like me—ex-soldiers down on their luck who’d joined up because it was the only choice other than being a robber and it seemed wiser to be among the sons of bitches who put people in jail than be among them who got put in jail. Just the same, I don’t recall a single time I got the full sixty dollars pay I had coming to me every month. They was always deducting money from our pay for one damn thing or another, so it’s no wonder so many on the force was prone to helping theirselves out with their badge. There was a good bit of “confiscation” from the men we arrested—money, horses, guns, whatever might be of personal use or could be sold off easy. I never did such confiscations myself. I could of been a robber, but I never was no bully nor no thief.
Jim Smolley was the worst of both. They said he’d been one of Sherman’s bummers in the march across Georgia, and before that had rode with a band of Comancheros. He was part white, part Mex, and a big part Nigra, which he looked more than anything else. Stokes was near as much a bully as Smolley and an even bigger thief, and he often picked me to work with the two of them—I think because he figured I was so young and new to the force I wouldn’t never make any trouble for him about the way he did things. I hate to admit it, but he was right. I never could bring myself to snitch on them, even though I saw them shoot more than one prisoner for no more reason than back-sassing or. cussing them, then write in their report that the prisoner had tried to escape. Like I said, there was plenty other State Policemen just like them. But I want it known that not all of us used our badge for a license to steal and commit meanness. Some of us were on the force because it was steady pay for legal work at a time when such was hard to come by. No other reason why.
Anyhow, when Stokes said we’d shoot him dead if he tried to run, Hardin said yessir, yessir, he understood, and we didn’t have to worry none about him being so foolish as trying to escape. He was a completely innocent man and all he wanted was the chance to prove it in court. “I ain’t worried,” he said, “because I trust in the Lord and in the justice of our courts. As soon as you fellas get me in front of a judge is how soon I’ll be a free man again, or my name ain’t Frank Josephson.”
The Sabine was swollen bad and running fast under a thick haze. It was a hard crossing. Stokes threw a lariat over Hardin’s mule and gave his end of the rope a few turns around his saddle horn, then nudged his horse into the river and led Hardin across. Me and Smolley went directly behind them—Smolley with his gun in his hand, ready to shoot Hardin if he somehow got loose and tried to swim away. We made it all right, but soaked as we were the cold wind really cut into us. As soon as we reached higher ground we made camp and got a big fire going to warm the chill out of our bones and dry our clothes and boots. We took turns guarding Hardin through the night. On my shift he didn’t do nothing but sleep like a baby.
When we got to the Trinity it was way up over its banks and booming even harder than the Sabine had been. We followed it south a few miles to where there was a ferry. The ferryman said it was too rough to cross, but Stokes persuaded him that things would be a lot rougher if he didn’t take us over. It was a wild crossing that had us hanging tight to the rail and nearly pitched Stokes’s horse in the river. Smolley held a shotgun on Hardin the whole time. I don’t know if Hardin was more scared of falling in the river and drowning or of Smolley accidentally pulling the trigger from all the tossing about.
It was mighty wet going for a while after that, and it stayed cold as the dickens. The bottoms were a foot under icy water, and the sloughs nothing but frosty mud. Hardin kept asking us to untie him from the mule. He was scared he’d drown for sure if the animal lost its footing and fell down in the water. Stokes told him to shut up or Smolley would pull him off the mule and drown him himself.
We were on higher land by nightfall and made camp. Stokes was in a short temper. He cuffed Hardin a good one for not moving fast enough when he ordered him to round up some firewood. There was a town called Fairfield a few miles off and Stokes said he was going there to get fodder for the animals. I happened to know there was a saloon and a couple of whores there, so I guess I knew what he was really going for.
After Stokes left, Smolley followed Hardin around while he searched out wood with his hands still cuffed. Smolley kept taking out his pistol and cocking it and pointing it at him. Kept saying what a pleasure it’d be to blow his brains out. He must of drawed that pistol and said that to him upward of a dozen times. I didn’t much care for it, but I knew better than to butt into Smolley’s fun, so I busied myself cleaning my pistol on a blanket.
Hardin looked about to cry from being so scared. He said, “Please be careful with that gun, Sergeant. I ain’t no badman, sir, believe me. I just want to get to a courtroom and prove it.” Smolley’d uncock the pistol and twirl it a few times, then cock it again and aim at him and say “Pow!”—and laugh to see him cringe.
While he built a fireguard of rocks and set the wood in it, Hardin kept glancing scared over his shoulder at Smolley. He put a match to the kindling, then knelt over it with his back to us to shield it against the breeze. He struck a half-dozen matches trying to get it going. All of a sudden he started sobbing hard and rocking back and forth in that big coat. Smolley gave a big horse laugh and started over to him—to give him a good kick, prob’ly. He said, “What’s the matter, boy? You want your momma?”
Hardin spun around on his knees with a big pistol in his hands and shot Smolley in the face. Smolley staggered back and his legs gave out and he fell on his ass and sat there with his arms hanging limp at his sides. He had a hole under his left eye and looked awful surprised. Hardin scooted over to him and snatched away his gun.
I never moved. I just sat there with my pistol in pieces in front of me and felt my guts go soft when Hardin aimed the pistol at me and cocked it.
“Hands on your head, boy!” I did it quick.
Smolley was watching him with his mouth open, like maybe he was trying to think of something to say. Hardin grinned down at him and put the pistol in his face. “Hit me now, nigger,” he said. And he shot him in the eye.
He worked the key out of Smolley’s pocket and undid the cuffs, then came over and put them on me and told me to get my hands back on my head. He kicked the pieces of my gun into the bushes, then searched all through Smolley’s saddlebags—looking for his own guns, I reckoned—and cussed when he didn’t find them. Stokes had took them with him. While he saddled Smolley’s horse, I sat there with my cuffed hands on my head and didn’t say a word. I kept expecting him to put a ball in me any second.
When he was mounted and ready to ride, he reined the snorting pony around me in tight prancing circles. “Listen here,” he said, “I am John Wesley Hardin, and whatever reason you got for being a State Police, it ain’t a good one.” Well, I figured I was dead for sure—but then he said, “I’m obliged to you for not letting on about the gun, and whyever you did that, it’s a damn good reason. But you’re a State Police and I ain’t shot you dead, so we’re even.” He tossed me the cuffs key and told me to take them off and fling them way into the brush. Then he said, “I ever see you again and you still wearing that badge, I’ll do you like that nigger, you hear?” And he touched spurs to the horse and rode off into the dark.