Hardin's First Visit to Comanche

Elliott D.

Wes who could now travel without fear of the state police took Jane and Little Molly to Comanche to visit the relatives, lots of them. Preacher and Mrs. Hardin had moved them there where their son Joe was a lawyer, real estate agent ,and postmaster. A flock of other Hardin kinsman had also come to this community. Alec Barrickman, who Wes knew from a circus camp,was also there; so were some Dixons. The Hardin clan in Comanche were on the natural increase,too. Mrs. Hardin was expecting her seventh child.

While going about the town with Joe,Wes bought himself a fine racehorse named Rondo. Joe had a good racehorse he called Shiloah, and the two brothers worked them out together. It was a happy reunion, and a hopeful one for Preacher Hardin and his wife. The conditions and issues that had made Wes a killer at fifteen were no more. For the parents, this looked like the day they had prayed for so often.

Wes soon went back to the sandies. He knew that a man-- at least one more-- had to be killed.

I used information from the book "John Wesley Hardin, Texas Gunman" written by Lewis Nordyke published by William Narrow & Co. , New York,1957.