The Sad Saga of Hootie Hannigan

THE SAD SAGA OF HOOTIE HANNIGAN

By Greg Gannaway

The year was 1876, the same year Jack McCall, better known as Crooked Nose Jack, shot Wild Bill Hickok in the back of the head and killed him.

Hootie Hannigan was sitting in a saloon in a little starved-out south Texas town, dressed in his usual odd assortment of patched clothes, having a plate of rewarmed beans with hog belly and drinking whiskey. He had arrived in the hottest part of the day, the sun high overhead, arched a little past noon. Inside the saloon the air was dim and still, slanted with light from the side windows. It was mostly during these times that Hootie liked to have private conferences with himself and, in general, try to keep things from popping into his head that shouldn’t be there. It was a losing effort.

Hootie had a real name, Alexander Xavier Hannigan, but everyone had forgotten it long ago. He owned a brown horse past his prime, an old saddle, and maybe two dollars in his pocket. Oh, he’d made a lot of tracks and seen a lot of country, but the worldly goods he possessed consisted of no more than what was tied to his horse. No anchor held him in place; he drifted with the first restless wind. His view of life was simple: dance to the fiddle, curse and fight, drink raw whiskey, and take the women as suited his whim.

 Now, this particular saloon was unlike most of the dirt-floor saloons Hootie frequented; this one was more civilized, with a wood-plank floor. Hootie thought he had discovered saloon heaven, but it gave him a misguided view of his social status, making him feel like he was more than he was.

He’d been there a couple of hours, when out of the corner of his eye he saw the figure of a man ease through the saloon door. He looked again, and what he saw brought on a cold chill. His mouth formed the words “Oh, no,” but there was no sound---and he began to feel that old saw-edge guilt that had been with him for the best part of a year.     

The man stopped just inside the doorway. Hootie noticed that, although solidly built, he wasn’t a big man, but he wasn’t too little either. He looked over at Hootie for only a second, then walked to the bar.

The bartender took a couple of steps toward him, “What’ll it be?”         

“That fella sittin over there,” he said, nodding at Hootie, “…he got a name?”

The bartender paused for a moment, “Yeah, that’s Joe Puddy…anything wrong, Mr.?”

The man turned away without a word, his eyes narrowed as he examined a crinkled-stiff wanted poster he had pulled from his pocket, looked over at Hootie and swung himself around. The light flickering off a silver badge he wore on his black vest told Hootie that the majestic hand of the law was coming right at him. It was the sheriff from Laredo, Texas.

Now, it was said at that time there were just two kinds of lawmen to ever come out of Laredo, Texas; either they were hard, mean, and fast with a gun, or they were dead, and Hootie could pretty well see this sheriff wasn’t dead. It made his left eye start twitching, and he knew when his left eye started twitching, things were about to come unraveled. He took a Texas-size drink and wiped his wrinkled sleeve across his mouth, hoping the warmth of the whiskey would settle his nerves…it didn’t. He raised the bottle again and took another long swallow, watching the Sheriff walk towards him as if waiting for the roof to cave in.

The Sheriff stopped in front of Hootie’s table and stared down hard-faced at him. “What’s your name, boy?”

His voice cut through the air like rusty barbed wire. Hootie had heard that tone of voice a right smart during his short stay in the Confederate Army. It was one of the reasons he deserted. “Why, my name’s Joe Pu-Pu-Puddy.”

The Sheriff looked at the wanted poster, at Hootie, back at the poster. He noticed the man in the wanted poster had one distinguishing feature---the same as Hootie---a wide, lumpy nose. He later learned that a big cowboy had caught Hootie cheating in a poker game and spread his nose across his face with a gun barrel. The Sheriff raised his head, studying Hootie with keen eyes, “Your name’s not Joe Puddy, your Hootie Hannigan. You’re the fella who shot that woman down San Antonio way last year.”

Hootie’s left eye was twitching bad now. His first thought was to break and run, but after weighing his chances, he knew he didn’t have no selection there because that sheriff from Laredo, Texas was standing directly between him and the door.

He looked down at his whiskey glass, lifted it partway, then set it back down on the table. “It weren’t no way like you think, Sheriff. You see…well, me and her, we’d been hitched up together for a month or so, and I thought I was the only one, but I come to find out she’d been doing some side tricking with three or four other fellas, so I just shot her down good.”

The Sheriff rubbed his jaw, framing his words with care. “Now, Hootie, I’m real sorry about that, but you can’t go around shootin people. You’re under arrest…you gotta come with me.”

The room grew suddenly quiet. Hootie sat there for a moment, letting everything soak in. The sound of the words was like the muffled stroke of an axe striking wood, as if the beginning of the end was upon him. He glanced up at the Sheriff, looking for some sign of relief. All he got was a stare, neither hostile nor warm.

Hootie shook his head, his left eye twitching bad. “Now, Sheriff,” he said, “you just as soon ask the sun to rise in the west, cause you mapping out a trail I don’t aim to follow---I ain’t goin' nowhere with you.”

Now it was known around the territory that Hootie Hannigan knew how to handle a gun and if he got himself in a tight spot, he’d most likely lose his cool and start shooting. The Sheriff knew this and instinctively took a couple of steps back away from the table. It was none too soon. Abruptly, Hootie pushed to his feet and went for his gun. The move was swift and simple, a single streak of motion, but it was the biggest mistake of Hootie’s life because before he could clear leather, the thundering blast from the Sheriff’s Colt 44 tore his right ear off right down to the nub, blood spurting in all directions. The bullet spun Hootie around, and he staggered backward, still clawing for the gun in his holster.

“I wouldn’t try it again, Hootie.” The Sheriff’s voice held him for an instant, but it seemed the words floated into empty air. Hootie didn’t listen.

There was no effort, no strain in the posture of the Sheriff, only the closed-fingered deadliness of his aim. His next shot tore through Hootie’s chest; he staggered backward, face twisted, clutching at his body, and fell to the floor, his gun clattering against the hard pine planks.

The Sheriff stood for a moment, letting the smoke clear, then moved closer and nudged Hootie with his boot. “Looks like your eye-twitching days are over, Hootie.”

The Sheriff had spoken the words clearly, but Hootie never heard them---his time had come---Hootie was dead where he lay.

And that’s the sad saga of Hootie Hannigan.