The Woman Who Loved Jesse James (13 page)

I wanted to believe that the danger
to Jesse would soon pass and it would finally be safe for us to marry. But Jesse himself dashed these hopes, as his every action seemed designed to increase his peril. June 3, 1871, Jesse and Frank, Cole Younger and Clel Miller robbed the bank in Corydon, Iowa. Or at least, this is what the papers claimed.

I cut out the articles about the robberies and added them to the scrapbook I had begun keeping shortly after the end of the war. I no longer asked Jesse about the accusations against him. I doubted he would admit to anything, and living with uncertainty was better than having him admit to things I knew were wrong. If he denied them, I would have to wrestle with the question of whether or not he lied to me. I didn’t want to believe he’d do so, but I knew he had a glib tongue, and plenty of reason not to admit the truth about such serious crimes.

In April of 1872, a bank in Columbia, Kentucky was robbed. The same group of bandits was suspected of holding up the ticket office of the Industrial Exposition in Kansas City in September of that same year. The newspapers viewed these crimes with varying degrees of admiration. Even the harshest spoke of the daring of the robberies, and the coolness with which they were executed. Others cited these exploits as blows for the common man against the big businessmen who controlled the banks.

In May of 1873, Jesse, Frank, and others were accused of robbing the
Ste.
Genevieve, Missouri Savings Association. In July of that year, they turned their attention to railroads; more specifically, the express company cars which carried the payrolls for factories, mines, stockyards and other businesses. Six men, supposedly including Jesse and Frank, boarded the Rock Island train outside of Council Bluffs, Iowa, emptied the safe, and escaped.

In January 1874, Jesse, Frank, Arthur McCoy and Cole and Bob Younger were implicated in the hold-up of a stagecoach near Hot Springs, Arkansas. In February, they were the prime suspects in the robbery of a train at Gad’s Hill, Missouri.

Once more the press was captivated by the daring of such an action, while I could only clip the newspaper reports and marvel at the contrast between the sometimes brash, sometimes brooding young man who was my lover and the larger-than-life vigilante celebrated in print.

Each time the robbers struck they left behind empty safes and cash drawers. On the Gad’s Hill train, there was a new touch—a press release describing the robbery in glowing detail. The robbers were clearly thumbing their noses at the authorities, and more than one small shopkeeper or struggling farmer cheered them on.

I think it was at this point that I began to accept that Jesse was involved in these robberies. The press release was exactly the sort of eloquent, flamboyant gesture he loved. I tried not to think too much about the nature of his crimes—the people who had died, and those who had lost valuables. I turned my mind instead to what little good I could see in these exploits. The banks, express companies and railroads held a lot of power in the new economy that rose after the Civil War—power Jesse and his friends seemed determined to take back. I told myself this was a good thing, and shoved aside all dark thoughts to the contrary.

As the charges against Jesse and Frank
mounted and rumors about them persisted, my family and friends pressured me to break our engagement. My mother and Esme tried to interest me in eligible men in our neighborhood. When I’d protested that I was already promised, my mother shook her head. “Jesse isn’t the kind of man a respectable woman should associate with,” she said.

But maybe I’m tired of being respectable
, I thought.
Is it so wrong that Jesse excites me as much for the danger and excitement he brings to my life as for the love he’s promised me?

I had lived a life of virtuous self-denial. I didn’t dance because my parents didn’t approve—though I longed to twirl across the dance floor in time to beautiful music. I surrendered the last piece of cake when my older brother wanted it, even though the cake was my favorite—because I had been taught that men were to be given precedence in all things. I patched old dresses instead of making new ones because the money was needed to buy shoes for my younger siblings, or a coat for my father—though I dampened the pages of fashion magazines with my tears, mourning my lack of finery.

But I would not deny myself Jesse. In my own household, I was just another child in a family of too many, not even addressed by my own name. But when Jesse looked at me, I felt like the most important woman in the world. No other person had ever made me feel that way, and it wasn’t something I could afford to give up.

“There’s no sense you wasting your best years waiting for him,” Esme chided. She was pregnant again; the knowledge making me feel emptier still. She and I had been bosom friends since girlhood, and I wanted her, of all people, to understand how I felt.

“Jesse needs me,” I said.

“Every man needs a good wife,” she said. “There are plenty of men here who would welcome your attentions.”

“Jesse doesn’t merely need a wife,” I said. “He needs
me
.” I was a refuge from the violence and danger with which he’d surrounded himself, the keeper of his secrets, the soother of his soul. I was sure no other person could comfort him as I could, and I knew no other man would ever see me as Jesse did.

But I would not sit and wait forever. I searched for a way to force Jesse’s hand, and end this impasse between us.

All of Jesse’s success, and both the acclaim and censure it had brought him, had made him famous. While a single man could afford to be reckless, a husband and father had to take more care. I reasoned that marrying me might induce Jesse to settle down and exercise more caution; it might even save his life.

So I sat down and wrote Jesse a letter. I told him he had to come see me, that I had news that couldn’t be delivered in a letter. I knew his first assumption would be that I was pregnant. How quickly he answered me—and if he answered me at all—would be the first test of his feelings toward me. If he’d only been leading me on all these years I’d know soon enough.

But Jesse didn’t disappoint me. Scarcely four days after I sent my letter to his mother’s house, he rode up on a chestnut mare. Another in Jesse’s growing collection of fine horseflesh, the mare had a black mane and tail, and warm brown eyes that watched him adoringly as he strode across the yard to meet me.

“You’re looking well, Zee,” he said, studying my face intently. “Your letter made me fear you were indisposed.”

I almost laughed at this choice of words, but decided to pity him and put him out of his misery. Out of one misery, that is, and perhaps into another. “Come sit with me on the porch,” I said, leading the way to the wooden swing that hung there.

He took a seat beside me, hat in hand. He wore a black wool frock coat and hat, with a paisley silk vest and a black silk cravat. He looked like a man on the way to an important meeting—or a funeral. His sandy hair was slicked back with pomade and his face was clean shaven. He was the kind of man any woman would have noticed, but the blue eyes and the sly curl of his lips made him a man they remembered. I often thought if women had clerked in the banks and express companies of the day the lawmen would have collected better descriptions of the bandits, and Jesse might not have run free so long.

“What did you want to talk to me about?” he asked, settling his hat on one knee, his eyes searching my face.

“We’ve been engaged nine years,” I said. “It’s past time we marry. Either you set the date today, or I won’t see you any more.”

I had my doubts whether I could keep this pledge, though if it took finding another man to wed, I would do it. I would not see thirty without a ring on my finger.

I was prepared to argue my case. To berate him for leading me on. But my carefully rehearsed words were unneeded.

To my amazement, Jesse gave in without a protest. “You’re right, Zee,” he said. “It’s high time we married.”

“Do you mean that?” I asked, still wary of his sincerity.

“I do.” He took my hand in his. “You’ve waited for me so patiently all these years. I’m tired of us being apart. I want us to be husband and wife, as soon as possible.”

“No more delays?”

“No more,” he said. “I know you think I’ve been purposely putting you off all this time, but I’ve lived a rough life, and I didn’t want to put you through that. Now I know I’ll never have real peace until you’re with me every day. I need you, Zee. “

With those few words, my torment ended, and my heart melted. Jesse was not a man who needed anyone. He chafed at any restraint or dependence, but now he had willingly surrendered to me. “I’ll be a good wife to you, Jesse,” I promised. “I’ll make us a good home.”

“I’ll make sure you never lack for anything with me,” he promised. “I’ll always take care of you.”

My mother was not happy with my announcement that Jesse and I were finally to wed, but she saw the futility of trying to change my mind. My brother Robert gave his blessing, perhaps happy to transfer the responsibility for me and my upkeep to another man.

Now came the challenge of finding someone to conduct the marriage ceremony and a place to hold the nuptials. I asked my uncle, Reverend William James, to perform the service, but he refused. “I won’t see you wed to a man with so much blood on his hands,” he told me, his face somber as a funeral.

“You’re wrong!” I protested. “Jesse hasn’t done half the things people say he has. He’s a good man. He’ll be good to me.”

Still, Uncle William refused to budge, until Jesse himself went to him and swore his innocence. Jesse’s charm and sincerity softened even the hard heart of our uncle, and he agreed to perform the ceremony.

My sister Lucy and her husband, Bowling Browder, had moved to Kearney by this time, and it was decided we should hold the wedding at their house. On April 24, 1874, I stood with Lucy and Esme in my sister’s bedroom and prepared to say my vows.

I stared at my unnaturally pale face in the mirror over my sister’s dresser and pinched my cheeks, hard, trying to bring some color to them. “Maybe I should use some rouge,” I ventured.

“Don’t be silly,” Esme said. “You look beautiful. That dress is very becoming.”

My wedding gown was made of pale blue silk, with a demi-train draped over a full bustle. I smoothed the skirts and the crinoline beneath rustled like dry leaves. “I’ve waited so long for this day, I can scarcely believe it’s here,” I said.

“You weren’t the only one who had doubts.” Lucy handed me a bouquet of jonquils from her garden that she’d tied up in white ribbon. “More than once I feared Jesse was leading you on.”

“Jesse never led me on.” My family and friends could think what they would about him, but I knew his intentions toward me had always been the best.

A knock on the door interrupted us. Thinking it was Uncle William, I hurried to answer it. But instead of my uncle, I came face to face with Aunt Zerelda.

Jesse’s mother regarded me with the air of someone observing a bug from great height. “Are you happy now that you’ve gotten your way?” she asked.

“I’m very happy to be marrying Jesse,” I said, refusing to let her cow me, though beneath my full skirts my knees shook. “Jesse’s very happy too.”

She blew the breath out her nose, like a bull snorting before a charge. “Jesse needs a wife like a bucket needs a hole. And he especially doesn’t need a penniless spinster like you.”

“I’m exactly the woman Jesse needs,” I said. “He doesn’t care about money, only that together we’ll be happy, whether you wish it or not.”

Her face reddened, only the muscles at her jaw showing white. “Don’t do this,” she said.

“Jesse and I are going to marry,” I said. “I’m going to bear his name and live with him as his wife. You can either welcome me to the family, or risk losing him altogether.”

“Jesse is my
son
. Marrying you doesn’t change that.”

“And he’s going to be my
husband
. Even the Bible says a man shall forsake his parents and cleave to his wife. If you make Jesse choose, do you want to take a chance on the choice he’ll make?”

Zerelda squared her shoulders. “I wouldn’t dream of not welcoming Jesse’s wife into our family,” she said stiffly. Then her eyes met mine, their blue as cold as steel. “But if you do anything to make him unhappy—ever—you’ll have me to answer to.”

I nodded, afraid my voice would shake if I tried to do more. Zerelda loved Jesse and I loved Jesse—but she and I would never love each other. We could only circle warily, two dogs in possession of the same bone.

Uncle William appeared in the hallway behind Zerelda. “Ladies, the guests are all here,” he said. “Are you almost ready?”

“We’re ready,” Lucy called.

The three of us made our way down the hall to the front parlor, where Jesse stood with Frank and Bowling Browder. Robert waited to give me away. My mother and younger sisters sat in chairs on one side of the room, while Zerelda and Doctor Samuel and Jesse’s younger siblings filled the chairs on the other side of the room.

I thought for a moment of Lucy’s grand wedding, and felt a pang of regret for the modesty of my own celebration. But a larger gathering had been out of the question. “It’s impossible to keep a large party like that a secret,” Jesse had pointed out. “The Pinkertons and their like would be sure to take advantage of the occasion to make a raid.”

The last thing I wanted on my wedding day was for the groom and his best man to be arrested, so I’d readily agreed to this smaller celebration with guests who could all be trusted to keep their mouths shut about what was happening here today.

Jesse looked as handsome as ever in a black wool morning coat and brocade vest, his face solemn, his blue eyes shining when he looked into mine.

Esme leaned close. “Is Jesse wearing a
gun
beneath his coat?” she whispered.

My gaze shifted to Jesse’s side, and the disconcerting bulge of a gun belt at his hip. Frank, who stood up with him, was also armed. “I imagine a number of the men in the room have weapons,” I said. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that Zerelda carried a gun somewhere on her ample person.