The Woman Who Loved Jesse James (18 page)

Archie died before dawn and as the sun rose I clutched Zerelda’s left hand as Dr. Allen from Liberty, Missouri amputated her right arm just below the elbow. Zerelda held me in an iron grip, but made no sound as the doctor sawed off her arm, nor would she accept the whisky offered as the only anesthesia. When the Justice of the Peace convened a coroner’s jury in the front room that evening to determine the events of the night before, Zerelda was able to give a clear, dignified testimony despite what must have been terrible pain, both mentally and physically.

My respect for her grew tenfold that night, and I wished for even a fraction of her strength to deal with the ordeal ahead.

A sheriff’s posse arrived the next day, as Ambrose and Reuben worked to replace the burnt siding on the house and repair the broken window. Archie was to be buried the following morning; I helped Charlotte prepare his body, combing his hair and dressing him in the little suit of Confederate gray that had so delighted him two nights before.

I thought the posse had set out in pursuit of the fiends who had murdered a little boy and maimed his mother, but as I listened at the door while they addressed Reuben, I realized to my horror that they were intent on tracking Jesse and Frank. I bit my finger to keep from crying out as they informed Reuben that they had posted guards all around the farm, so that no one could leave or arrive without their notice. They demanded the right to search the house, then, not waiting for permission, pushed past the men and came inside.

The sight of the little body stretched out on the kitchen table stopped them momentarily. Avoiding our eyes, the three who had been designated to search quickly removed their caps and bowed their heads. “What do you mean, intruding like this on a house of grief?” I demanded.

“Who are you?” one of the men asked.

I drew myself up to my full height. “I am Mrs. Jesse James,” I said.

“Then I am very sorry for you, ma’am.” He replaced the hat on his head and moved past me, into the front room.

Even after the posse left us, we could have no peace. Strangers and inquisitive neighbors gathered in the yard and along the road. Annie took the train from Kansas City the morning of the funeral. She hired a driver to bring her from the station and threatened those who blocked her way with an iron-tipped parasol if they didn’t let her pass.

“Have you heard from Frank?” a tearful Zerelda asked when Annie stopped beside her bed to offer her sympathies.

Annie shook her head. “I don’t expect he or Jesse will risk communicating with us as long as they know we’re being watched.”

Somehow, we got through the funeral, watched over by the government’s guards and the curious crowd. Afterwards, I took to my bed, sick with grief and worry over Jesse. Every hour a new rumor reached our ears, along with sensational newspaper stories. Some reported that Jesse, Frank, and Zerelda James had all been killed in the raid. Others said the house had been burned to the ground. I began to see the unreliability of the press to ever get at the real story.

Gradually, however, more of the truth came to light. In the middle of the night, a group of Pinkerton agents had surrounded the Samuels’ house and set fire to the siding, then launched the little bomb through the window. One agent claimed they had only intended to illuminate the interior of the house so they could see who was inside, but others argued their intention from the first had been to maim and kill, to exact revenge for the death of one of their colleagues at the hands of the James brothers the previous year.

While the governor and the Pinkertons and their posses might have hoped to arouse public sentiment against the notorious outlaws, the brutality of their actions only garnered more support for the James family. Papers as far away as New York wrote about the affair, calling it shocking, and a great tragedy.

The attackers were quickly identified as Pinkerton detectives from Chicago. That men in the employ of the government had committed such atrocities particularly upset the public, and newspapers around the country talked of the persecution of the James brothers. People chose up sides on the issue, largely along Union and Southern lines, and some people talked as if this one horrible act would be enough to start the Civil War all over again.

I devoted my days to nursing Zerelda. She and I were united in our fears for her sons. Every morning as I changed the dressing on her arm, she asked me, “Have we any word from Frank and Jesse?”

“No.” I shook my head and avoided looking into her eyes, fearful of giving way to tears in front of this woman who never wept.

“If anything had happened to them, we would have heard by now,” she said.

“Yes. I imagine you’re right.”

“They’re too clever to ever be caught,” she continued. “No one can outsmart the James boys.”

I wish I had her confidence in Jesse and Frank’s invincibility. To the rest of the world—and to Zerelda, too—they were larger-than-life figures. But I had nursed Jesse’s wounds and knew the narrowness of some of their escapes. I knew how vulnerable they could be, and that knowledge weighed heavy on me during those long, empty days.

We had no word at all until John Newman Edwards visited the second week in February. “I’m sorry we must meet again under such dire circumstances,” he said as he bowed low over my hand.

“Have you seen Jesse recently?” I asked. “Have you talked to him?”

“I have not seen him, but we have been in communication. I promised him I would personally visit to assure that you and the rest of his family are all right.”

“I’ll never be all right again,” Zerelda moaned. “Not without my dear Archie, never mind my arm.”

“A great loss indeed,” Edwards said gravely. “Jesse is quite upset about it, and if it were in his power to seek revenge on those who have caused you such pain, he would do so, as Odysseus avenged the suitors’ depredations on Penelope.”

I stared at him, uncertain whether to be awed or amused by this man who spoke as floridly as he wrote.

“That’s all well and good, but is there anything you or other members of the press can do to make the Pinkertons and sheriffs and other lawmen leave us alone?” Annie asked. “I can’t go into town to shop for a yard of ribbon without being followed by some armed man on horseback.”

“That is another reason for my visit, dear lady,” Edwards said. “Shall we sit and converse?”

We sat, and Charlotte served coffee and cake while Edwards shared his news. “Certain sympathetic lawmakers, sensitive to the public outcry against the persecution of your family, intend to propose legislation granting amnesty to Jesse and Frank for all previous trespasses,” he said.

“Amnesty?” Zerelda asked. “Does that mean they’ll be declared innocent?”

“It means it will be as if the events never took place,” Edwards explained. “They will be wiped from the record.”

“And they’d be allowed to return home, unmolested?” Annie asked.

“On the contrary, they would be welcomed home as heroes,” Edwards declared. “They could resume life as law-abiding citizens, with the full voting rights that have been denied to them thus far.”

“Praise be to God!” Zerelda declared. “My boys have been persecuted too long.”

I bowed my head, hiding my expression from the others. The promise of amnesty was an exciting one, but after so many years of taking what he wanted from those he considered his enemies, would Jesse be content to live as a farmer again?

For the next month and a half, the debate raged in the Missouri legislature. Were the James brothers persecuted heroes or ruthless outlaws? Did they steal because the draconian laws of the time gave them no other choice, or because they lacked consideration for their fellow man?

In the end, the bill was defeated, by the narrowest of margins. Lawmen continued to haunt the road in front of the Samuels’ farm, though they knew better than to venture down the driveway. Ambrose and others had been posted along the property line, with orders to shoot to kill any trespassers.

Jesse did manage to slip through the woods to see us a few times, arriving in the dark of night and leaving well before morning. His brother’s death and mother’s maiming hit him hard, etching new lines of pain on his face. Not even joy over the growth of the baby within me could wipe out the sadness that was now always present in his eyes.

If Frank and Jesse felt any guilt for not having been at the farmhouse to protect their loved ones that night, or for having drawn their enemies to the house in the first place, they never indicated such to me. But they wasted no time exacting revenge on any they thought had aided the attackers. When neighboring farmer Daniel Askew, who was known to have provided a base of operations for the Pinkertons, was gunned down at his home, there was little doubt who was responsible for the slaying. Samuel Hardwick, another neighbor who had helped the Pinkertons, had sense enough to leave town before the James brothers came to call.

Eventually, things calmed down. More pressing matters drew the lawmen away. Zerelda recovered her strength and Jesse was able to return home once more. Life began to seem more normal—or as normal as it can ever be for a man with a price on his head and the people who love him.

“I’ve been thinking,”
Jesse said at breakfast one morning late that spring, when we had returned to our home in St. Louis. “We should move.”

“This house is a little small,” I said. “Especially with a baby on the way.”

“Yes. We need a bigger place.” He stirred sugar into his coffee. “What would you think about moving to Tennessee?”

“Tennessee? You want to leave Missouri?” Jesse was a Missouri man born and bred.

“I think it’d be good to get away for a while,” he said.

“I agree.” The spoon rattled against the cup as I stirred my tea. Too many people here knew what Jesse looked like and where he lived. As hard as it might be to live among strangers, I believed it would be safer.

And after so many months at his mother’s farm, I was weary of the constant press of other people around us. I longed to have Jesse to myself for a while, as lover and husband and confidant—the two of us, safe in our own little world.

“Then we’ll do it.” He smiled at me across the table. “I’ll find us the perfect place.”

In June, we moved to a house in Edgefield, near Nashville. “You’ll have to get used to hearing me addressed as Mr. Howard,” he told me. “John Davis Howard. Whatever you do, don’t call me Jesse.”

This decision startled me, and made my stomach clench. The danger must be greater than I’d feared, if Jesse felt compelled to take an alias. “All right. What if I call you Dave?” John was his brother’s name, as well as my brother’s and my brother-in-law’s.

“Dave.” He tried the name out. “All right. What should I call you?”

I giggled at the idea of being anything but ‘Zee’ or ‘Sister.’

“Come on,” he chided. “If I’m to have another name, so must you.”

“When I was a little girl, I always wished my name was Josie,” I said.

“Josie.” He tried the name out on his tongue. “I think I could grow to like it. Then Josie you’ll be.”

Jesse—Dave—told our new neighbors that he was a wheat speculator, which explained both his long periods of inactivity, and his travels, as he still spent time away from home, visiting his mother and old friends.

For the first time in my life, I was free to spend as much money as I wanted. Though I was careful not to be too extravagant, I bought some fine furnishings for our new home, including a lovely cradle for our soon-to-be-born baby. Not having any faith in the safety of banks, Jesse kept cash hidden around the house, along with jewelry worth thousands of dollars. No mention was ever made of where the money came from. I knew, but chose not to dwell on it. In those moments when guilt over our sins plagued me, I told myself the money had been taken from those who deserved to lose it. And I reveled in the knowledge that because of Jesse, I would never want for anything again.