The Fall of Abilene

By Johnny D. Boggs

Noah Benton, a teenager with a great memory, a head for arithmetic, and dreams of excitement, is hired along with his older brother to help drive a herd of Texas longhorns to Abilene, Kansas. But Noah’s trail boss happens to be John Wesley Hardin, a notorious killer who thinks Texas lawmen won’t look for a fugitive in a crew of hardworking cowboys. After Hardin sees a profit in Noah’s ability to count and memorize cards in gambling dens, Noah’s dreams of excitement quickly turn into nightmares—for Hardin will kill with little provocation.

Earning the nicknames “Counting Boy,” “The Abilene Kid,” and “Abilene,” Noah survives the bloody journey to Kansas, only to learn that Abilene rightfully deserves its nickname as a Sodom or Gomorrah. In a town where anything goes, the marshal, legendary gunfighter Wild Bill Hickok, reluctantly forms a truce with Hardin—leaving Noah caught in the middle. As summer stretches into fall, Noah finds another friend, a special deputy named Mike Williams, who tries to keep Noah from stumbling on his way to manhood.

In this well-researched historical novel, eight-time Spur Award–winning author Johnny D. Boggs chronicles Abilene’s last year as a cattle town, 1871, while humanizing Hardin and Hickok and painting sobering portraits of a city undergoing rapid change, and the never-changing challenges teenagers face on their path to adulthood.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Blackstone Publishing
• Release date: Jun 4, 2019
• ISBN: 9781982595210

Johnny D. Boggs

Johnny D. Boggs has worked cattle, been bucked off horses, shot rapids in a canoe, hiked across mountains and deserts, traipsed around ghost towns, and spent hours poring over microfilm in library archives—all in the name of finding a good story. He has won nine Spur Awards, making him the all-time leader in Western Writers of America’s history.

Book preview

Prologue

I never saw a dead man till my sixteenth year.

Well, Ma made me kiss Grandpa Darius in his coffin after he was called to glory when I was nine, and I had watched, sobbing, while Pa and my big brother Sam buried sister Sally two years earlier. Yet Grandpa Darius must have been pushing eighty, and we all knew Sally wouldn’t be long for this world. Weak as she was, Pa started making the coffin shortly after she came to us, and we laid her to eternal rest six days later. But those deaths had been peaceful, blessings really, and Grandpa Darius and baby Sally weren’t cut down in their prime by violent acts.

That’s what I mean when I say I’d never seen a dead man. Hard to believe, growing up in as woolly a place as South Texas in those years of Comanches, Yankees, and carpetbaggers, yet I had been spared such mawkish sights till 1871, when I got more than my fill.

Dead men tend to be hard to avoid when you’re pals with John Wesley Hardin and Wild Bill Hickok.

Hardin

Chapter One

Home lay in Goliad County, spitting distance from where Mexicans caught Colonel Fannin with his britches down during Texas’ war for independence. My brother and I used to ride over to the mission just outside of town to see where they planted those brave Texans butchered on Palm Sunday, 1835. A couple of times, we found bullets and trinkets around the battlefield where Fannin had surrendered after a scrape by Coleto Creek. Once, in the woods a quarter mile from the mission, Sam dug up a human thighbone that was partially sticking out of the mud. Anyway, Sam said it was human. Young as I was, I believed him.

This had been a violent place.

Though a Tennessean by birth, Pa moved west to Texas, had been at Gonzales in October of ’35 and helped turn back the Mexicans who wanted to take the village cannon. He also did his share of killing at San Jacinto when Texas won her independence, shouting with all the others, Remember Goliad! Remember the Alamo! and not listening to the petrified Mexicans when they pleaded: Me no Alamo. Me no Goliad. Years later, when war broke out against the Yanks, Pa and my brother wore the gray, seeing the elephant countless times with Hood’s Brigade and coming away with a passel of stories and, hard to fathom, nary a scratch. Sam returned with a taste of wanderlust, and I didn’t see hide nor hair of him till late February of ’71, after he got the letter that Ma dictated to me.

As much fighting as Pa had done against Mexicans, Yanks, and some Indians, it seems downright ironic that he practically got done in, not by bullet, arrow, or Mexican lance, but by a horse. He was fifty-seven years old the fall of ’70 when he mounted a bandy-legged broomtail, all black except for a blaze down its face. That afternoon, that worthless gelding—we didn’t even have a name for him—loped up to the corral with an empty saddle. Soon as Ma saw that, she sent me out to find our neighbor, Mr. Purgason, who ran cattle on the San Antonio River. I didn’t find Mr. Purgason, but I did find Pa.

His face was caked with dried blood, and he just lay in the center of the road, unmoving. I figured he was dead, and my heart sank, but when I got closer, I made out his chest rising softly. Soon as I stood over him, his eyes fluttered open, and he started talking, though nary a word made sense.

I didn’t know what to do, but about that time Mr. Purgason rode up. He sent me back home to bring a rig and my ma, and we loaded Pa into the back of the wagon and carted him to Victoria, trusting that sawbones more than we did the barber in Goliad.

Although Pa lived, he couldn’t do much. Half the time he didn’t know where he was, who he was, or what we were doing in his house, which he thought was in Tennessee. I told Ma I’d be the man of the house, but she had me write my brother anyway. It took several months for her post to catch up with Sam Houston Benton.

Like most men in our family, Sam Benton looked like he would blow away in a norther, but you could find nothing soft or weak about him. He might have been skinny, narrow-hipped, with stringy hair, but Benton brawn and heads proved thicker than a mesquite thicket and near as impenetrable. The boots he wore made him look a good two, three inches taller, and a drooping mustache hid practically his entire mouth. I scarcely recognized him when he rode up to the corral on a warm afternoon. February is still winter in most parts of this country, and sometimes even in South Texas. But not that year.

You’ve growed a mite, he said.

For the longest spell, my mouth just hung open. Figuring him for some out-of-work cowhand riding the grub line, I announced that while he could water himself and his horse and that we might have a biscuit to spare, but that was about all to be found on this spread.

Ma, though, recognized him right away from the winter kitchen and come out running, lifting the hem of her skirt, crying out his name, and bawling like Pa did every so often.

It turned out to be a right pleasant homecoming, even if Pa kept asking Ma: Who is that youngster, Virginia?

Ma’s name was Gwen. We never knew a Virginia.

After supper, once Ma had put Pa to bed, we enjoyed the sunset from our porch, Sam smoking a cigar like a man and telling Ma what he suspected needed to happen for us to keep our two sections from carpetbaggers. First, he pulled a rawhide pouch from his saddlebags and placed it, ever so gently, in her open hands. When she worked the drawstring and took a peek in the fading light, she almost cried.

I can’t . . . It’s yours.

No, ma’am, it’s not. Your letter got to me at Pleasanton. I was on my way home anyway, coming back after driving some cattle to Abilene and wintering in the Nations till I grew homesick.

You’ve been to Abilene? I blurted out.

Been to just about any town where there’s a railhead and stockyards. But Abilene’s the grandest, by far. You’ll see, soon enough. Now don’t interrupt me. Anyway, he addressed Ma, Cal Masters picked up that letter for me, and I guess everyone in church must have heard him, because they passed the hat. I won’t hear no argument from you.

Cal Masters is a God-fearing man, Ma said, tightening the purse and holding it fiercely with both hands, as if she feared it would blow away in the wind.

Yes, ma’am, he surely is. But that won’t pay nowhere near all Pa owed, and you ain’t one to be living on tick. Pa never could abide such, and your noggin’s thicker than his. He grinned, which Ma tried to match. That’s why I went to see Mr. Carroll before I rode over here. By your count, how many head of cattle do we have, Noah?

Delighted at being included in the conversation, I thought for a moment, before answering: Seventy-eight, last count.

Well, Mr. Carroll, that’s Columbus Carroll, partners a lot with Jake Johnson. Anyway, Carroll and Johnson are planning two drives to Abilene this year. Said he’d be glad to have us throw in with him. He’ll take thirty of our top two-year-old steers. Top dollar at Abilene last year hit forty dollars a head. That’s twelve hundred dollars. Mr. Carroll says he’ll take twenty-five percent off the price the herd fetches. Now, I don’t know what that’ll leave us . . .

Nine hundred dollars, I shot out.

Sam stared at me like I had just quoted scripture. Smiling, I admitted that Mr. Wiley, our schoolmaster when he wasn’t down with the grippe, said I had a head for ciphering.

I told him I’d have to talk it over with you, Sam said, but I think it’s a good plan, Ma. That’s a right smart of money.

It is, she agreed.

Plus he’ll pay us twenty a month on the drive. We’ll send some of that home, too, once we get a bath and shave . . . well, once I get a shave, at least . . . He winked at me—but I didn’t think he was so damned funny.  . . . in Abilene.

That’s . . . A frown hardened across Ma’s face. You’ll go on the drive with Mr. Carroll? Before Sam could answer, she blurted out: Wait a minute. You mean . . .? Her face transformed into a mask of fright.

Sam nodded solemnly. Noah’s fourteen years old.

Sixteen, I corrected. Come March.

Sixteen, he said. High time he earned his keep. Don’t fret, Ma. I’ve been on many a drive and never saw anyone hurt other than a few bruises. Besides, forty dollars a month for the two of us is better than twenty.

But I don’t . . . I’d need help with your father and . . .

No, ma’am. I’ve talked to Mr. Purgason, and we’ve got that all figured out, too. His son will come over to help out.

Ted Purgason was about my age, but he had lost his right arm up to his elbow from snakebite, otherwise he might have signed on for Mr. Carroll’s drive. To my reckoning, that’s why Mr. Carroll needed me. It sure didn’t hold with my upbringing, but I felt mighty glad that rattler had fastened its fangs on Ted last summer and not me.

We’ll work out some payment for Ted, Sam went on, but, well, I know this is the best for the family. That poke in your hands, that’ll tide you over till we get back.

I’ll have to think it over, she said.

She did. After kissing the prodigal son good night, she retired to her bedchambers, and Sam nudged my arm and headed toward the barn, me following, filled with hundreds of questions about cattle drives, Kansas, and Indians. Once inside, he reached into his other saddlebag, withdrawing a whiskey bottle. After taking a pull, he offered me a sip. I pretended to swallow a big mouthful, but the forty-rod burned my lips at the mere touch, and I only managed to down a taste, which scalded my tongue, left welts inside my throat, erupted in my stomach, and sent me coughing.

Just between me and you, Sam told me, if you hire on with Carroll, it won’t be no picnic. It’s hard work, backbreaking. Forget sleep and everything I told Ma. I’ve helped bury nigh a dozen men who drowned, got trampled in a stampede, struck by lightning, took bad water or bad whiskey, or got their heads stove in by some chuckleheaded horse like Pa.

All right, I said, once I stopped hacking up whiskey. My eyes brightened. How about wild Indians and desperadoes?

No, he said emphatically. Only Injuns I ever seen were a bunch of digger ones at Fort Sill, and the only person I ever saw get shot was Lucky Jim Ryan who practically blowed his foot off with his own pistol.

He took another nip, corked the bottle, then returned it to the saddlebags, replacing it with a deck of paste-cards. You learned how to play draw poker? he asked me.

No.

"Faro? Vingt-et-un? "

Ma had less tolerance for cards than she had for John Barleycorn. I had never seen a deck of cards except on the cover of a half-dime novel.

High time you did. Don’t tell Ma, but that money didn’t come from Cal Masters. Well, some of it did, but no hat got passed around. And the Rebel Saloon ain’t exactly no church. I won it playing faro. Figured the way Ma sees cards as instruments of Satan, I’d have an easier time getting her to take it if she thought it came from Christian charity.

I wholeheartedly agreed and settled into the hay for my first lesson in the sins of paste-cards.

The following morning, Ma, saying she had prayed mightily on the subject, agreed that I could join Mr. Carroll and Sam on the cattle drive, providing I said my prayers nightly, obeyed my brother and the other cowhands, and washed my hands before supper. I agreed but forgot that promise until I took pencil in hand to write down this story. A few weeks later, Sam and I cut out thirty steers and drove them to where Columbus Carroll was gathering beeves for the drive north. My head remained filled with dreams of daring, of Indians and outlaws, no matter what my brother said.

Dark was closing in when we arrived, too late for supper. We left our cattle grazing, to be road-branded in the morning, and found Mr. Carroll.

After Sam made the introductions, Carroll sized me over, looked skeptical, and sighed. I figured he was about to send me home and tears welled in my eyes as his mouth opened, closed, before he called out: Hey, Wes. What do you think of this tadpole?

Chapter Two

You have heard, no doubt, about John Wesley Hardin. I knew of him long before the gather, but this was the first time I laid eyes on him. He had been squatting with a tin cup of coffee, his back to the fire, playing cards with other cowhands, but when Mr. Carroll called him over, he rose, tossed his cards to the pile in the circle, dumped the coffee dregs, and tossed his tin cup into the wreck pan. A tad annoyed, he strode over to us.

Yeah?

Like most cowboys, he wasn’t much to look at. Dust and dung covered well-worn boots, his spurs far from fancy, leather chaps stained, shirt plain and fraying, his vest missing two buttons, his bandanna faded to almost white, and his hat beaten into oblivion.

Yet his cold, almost dead, blue eyes proved hypnotic. It took practically every power I had to make myself look down, and that’s when I saw his guns. Most folks in these parts carried a short gun—Sam had a slender Navy .36—in a belt, but Hardin owned two big .44 Colts, with no belt at all around his middle. Somebody had sewn scabbards onto the bottom of his woolen vest, and the revolvers’ butts faced in toward his chest. I’d never seen a rig like that.

What do you think of the kid? Mr. Carroll asked. Can he ride drag? Don’t reckon I’d trust him with the remuda.

Hardin brushed his nose with his finger. What about it, kid? His voice was higher than you’d figure.

Sam started to speak, but Hardin silenced him with a look that meant: I want to hear it from the kid.

Kid? In two weeks, I’d turn sixteen. Hardin might have been a couple years older, but he was no taller than me—and I figured he only weighed more than I did because of the two revolvers around his middle. Somehow I found my voice and managed to speak a few words: We got thirty head here from this side of Goliad. Just my brother and me.

Hey, Wes, you want in on this hand? one of the cowboys yelled.

Yeah, Hardin answered, without looking away from me. And keep me in.

Though my eyes remained locked on him, the silence felt crushing.

I reckon we can give him a try, Hardin said.

I dared not smile.

You’re bossing this herd, Mr. Carroll said. Jake and I’ll be taking ours out in the morning. You finish the gather and leave in a week or so. See you in Kansas. He shook hands with my brother, reminding him of the twenty-five percent to be deducted from the selling price, and strode away.

Find a place for your sugans, put your horses in the string, Hardin said. He did not bother to shake our hands. Twenty a month. Pay day’s in Abilene. Coffee and breakfast at five.

He turned away, but Sam, his eyes gleaming, stopped him by asking: Is there an opening in that game?

Bet’s two dollars, Wes, a cowboy in the game called out. You’ve got a nine showing. Howie bet on his jack.

I told you I’m in, Hardin said. He had not taken his eyes off Sam. Table stakes. Nickel ante. No bets higher than ten bucks. Three raises.

Noah, Sam said, take care of my horse. And yours. Find us a soft piece of ground to roll out our sugans.

Sam had been away for so long, I’d forgotten how he had always saddled me with his chores. Yet I had been hired, I was going to Abilene, and memories of all the blood and thunders told by older cowboys, who had seen that Sodom, left me light in my boots. Horses unsaddled, rubbed down, grained, watered, and turned loose in the remuda, I found a place for our bedrolls and wandered back to the fire where Hardin, my brother, and other bronze-faced, cigarette-smoking fellows, thin and dirty, focused on their cards.

Maybe the cook heard my stomach growling because he spit tobacco juice between my boots, and when I looked up, he grinned and led me to chuck wagon, where he handed me a cold biscuit split in half and filled with slices of bacon.

Of course, he charged a price for this meal. A sack got placed before me, with instructions to fill it with firewood or dried dung or anything that would burn. Since that meant breakfast next morning, I obeyed, and when I returned and showed the cook my plunder, he nodded, tossed the sack underneath the old Studebaker, and said: Name’s Erastus McDougal. He wiped his hand on the filthy apron around his middle before sticking it out toward me.

Noah Benton. We shook, and I turned toward the card players.

Here.

I turned back to find Erastus extending another biscuit to me, though this one lacked bacon.

Thank you.

Then he even handed me a cup of coffee. Fetch me some more wood before you pick your hoss in the morn’, he said. That’ll get you a noon meal. And don’t play cards. Not with ’em fellows.

Erastus left, and, eating my second biscuit and drinking what passed for coffee, I moved to the fire to watch the game.

I’m a quick learner, and five-card stud’s pretty easy to figure out, although it would take till we reached the Red River for me to learn all the particulars, like a straight being better than three of a kind, but a flush—five cards of the same suit—being higher than a straight.

Six, including Sam, played. I