The Woman Who Loved Jesse James (20 page)

Looking forward to your visit today. Will meet the 8 o’clock train.

—Fannie

I puzzled over this strange message. The only Fannie I knew was Jesse’s younger half-sister, but she had never written to me before, much less sent a cable, and had no reason to do so now. And I had made no plans to visit anyone today, much less by train.

Something in my brain clicked as I read the missive yet again. I felt weak, and groped for a chair, lowering myself into it. I did know another Fannie. Fannie Woodson was the name Annie James used when she and Frank traveled. She must have sent this cable. And she wasn’t referring to a planned journey, but one that I must make. She had something to tell me and couldn’t risk traveling here to do so. I must go to her to receive the news.

I clutched my stomach, ill. Had something happened to Jesse? I struggled to breathe, unable to imagine living without Jesse in my world.

Then the baby began to cry, and the blackness around me receded. I mustn’t panic yet. I had a child to care for, and travel plans to make. I hurried to Tim’s crib and gathered him close, soothing him, then rushed to the desk in the front room and found a train time table. A train left in two hours that would deliver me to Kearney by eight o’clock.

I hastily packed a carpetbag with a change of clothes for myself and supplies for the baby. The bag contained a false bottom Jesse had fashioned for it and into this I secreted several hundred dollars in cash and as much gold and diamond jewelry as would fit. Then I tied on my bonnet, settled the baby on my shoulder, and walked next door to our neighbors, Dr. and Mrs. Vertrees. “My sister has taken ill and I must go to her at once,” I said. “Mr. Howard is away on business and isn’t expected back for several days. Would you mind watching the house for us and seeing to the horses?” As usual, Jesse had two very fine horses in the barn behind the house, mounts easily worth $150 each.

“I’m so sorry about your sister,” Mrs. Vertrees said, her kind face creased with concern. “I do hope it’s not serious.”

“I hope so, too,” I said, not bothering to hide my distress. “The telegram didn’t say, only that I must come at once.” I was sure they would have seen the boy deliver the telegram to my door earlier, so nothing I said would arouse their suspicion.

“Don’t worry about the house or the horses,” Dr. Vertrees said. “We’ll look after them until you return.”

“Thank you,” I said. “Thank you so much.” I turned to begin the walk to the station, but Mrs. Vertrees called after me. “Mrs. Howard, let Dr. Vertrees take you the station in our buggy. It’s much too far for you to walk, carrying your bag and your baby.”

I gratefully accepted his offer and fifteen minutes later he handed me down in front of the train station. “Would you like me to wait with you?” he asked solicitously.

“No, thank you. You’ve already been so kind. I’ll be fine.” I picked up my bag and hurried away before he could protest. I didn’t want him to know my destination. When I bought my ticket, I purposely paid the fare all the way to Omaha, though I would be getting off in Kearney.

The baby was fussy, and I spent much of the journey trying to quiet him. The constant rumble of the wheels on the track made my head ache. The first class coach being full, I was forced to ride second class, and smoke and cinders blew in almost constantly through the open windows, leaving me coated with grit.

Between Nashville and Centralia, I shared seats with a woman slightly younger than myself who was traveling to her parents’ home with a boy of about eight and a girl who was about three. “My husband’s in the bar car,” she said as she settled herself and the children in the seat. “He says the only way he can cope with my family is to drink heavily.”

“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that,” I said, uncertain how to respond to such a frank confession.

She laughed. “To tell you the truth, I don’t blame him. They can be a trial. But my sister’s getting married this weekend, and I won’t miss that. She and her husband-to-be, at least, are sane enough.”

Her son, who had the seat beside me, knelt to look out the window. “Pull your head back in the car this instance,” his mother ordered. “You’ll get all covered with ash.”

“I’m watching for bandits,” he said.

“For bandits?” his mother asked. “Why would you be watching for them?”

“I want to meet Jesse James,” the boy said, his face glowing with excitement. “I think it would beat all if he was to rob this train.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” his mother said. “A man like that would as soon shoot you as look at you. If you ever did meet him, you’d do best to stay out of his way. Now sit properly in your seat.”

I bit my lip, fighting the urge to defend Jesse. The ruthless killer sometimes portrayed in the papers had no relation to the man I knew. My Jesse was kind and fond of a good joke. He wasn’t perfect by any stretch of the imagination—he was vain about his looks, stubborn and inclined to impatience. But those were faults shared by many; they certainly didn’t make him evil.

“I read in the paper that Jesse James held up a train and when he found out a widow woman who was on the train didn’t have any money to give him, he took a five dollar gold piece from a banker on the train and give it to the widow,” the boy said. “Do you think if I told Jesse I didn’t have any money to give him, he’d give
me
a five dollar gold piece?”

“He might if you told him your parents had abandoned you,” his mother said. “Which might very well happen if you don’t settle down and behave yourself.”

“I’ll sit down.” The boy sat properly in the seat, but he seemed to think he’d found an interested audience in me. “Did you know that Jesse James is missing a finger?” he asked me. “Got shot off by Pinkerton agents in a gun battle.” He aimed an imaginary pistol and fired. “It was just Jesse and Frank, against a whole passel of Pinkertons, but they got away, leaving a bunch of the Pinkertons dead.”

I didn’t know whether to be amused or horrified by this tale. “How do you know so much about Jesse James?” I asked.

“I read everything I can find about him, and I hear stories folks tell. I think he’s just about the most interesting person I ever heard of.”

“Yes, he does sound interesting.”

“He’s left-handed, just like me.” The boy fired the imaginary gun again. “He lives in a big cave up in the mountains that he’s outfitted with all kinds of fancy furniture and rugs and stuff—like a real house. Only it’s back where nobody can ever find it. And when he brings people to visit, he blindfolds them first so they can’t tell anybody else where it is.”

Thank goodness the real Jesse didn’t live in a cave. I’d never liked dark, small places.

“As you can see, George has a very vivid imagination,” the young woman said. “I’m hoping he’ll put it to good use and become a writer someday.”

“A writer?” George looked horrified. “I’m going to be a desperado, just like Jesse James.”

George and his family got off the train at Centralia, so I didn’t get to hear anymore of his fantastical stories about Jesse James. Without this distraction, my mind fixed once more on all the possible bad news Annie might have for me. I tried to convince myself it had nothing to do with Jesse, but unlike George, my imagination wasn’t fertile enough to think of any other reason Annie might have summoned me.

By the time I arrived in Kearney, I was trembling with fatigue, worn out from hours spent staring out the train window, imagining every possible terrible scenario. When I saw Annie waiting on the platform, I hurried to her and collapsed into her arms, choking back sobs. “Shhh, Shhhh. It’s all right.” She patted my shoulder and set me upright once more, then handed me her handkerchief and took the baby from me. “Where’s your bag? Ambrose is waiting with the wagon.”

We retrieved my bag and rode in silence to the Samuels’s farm. I followed Annie’s example and assumed a pleasant expression, nodding to those who greeted us as we passed. I tried to read some clue as to her news on her face, but her expression was as serene as ever, though I detected an extra tightness around her mouth and tension in her shoulders.

Zerelda rose to meet us when we stepped into the front room of her home. Though she had been scarcely recovered from her accident when I saw her last, I was shocked by the change in her. She had aged beyond her years, heavy lines from her mouth to her chin and creasing her forehead, her once-dark hair turned the powdery gray of galvanized nails. The right sleeve of her dress was pinned up, a grim reminder of the tragedy that had taken place in this very room.

Yet these changes did not diminish her. If anything, she was more forbidding than ever, a woman who had no reason to compromise.

“It’s a grim business, Zee,” were her first words to me as I untied my bonnet.

I froze and sent a questioning look to Annie. “I haven’t told her anything yet, Mother,” Annie said. She spread a blanket on the floor and put the baby on it. He giggled, happy to crawl about at our feet, free of his bundling after the long train ride.

“What is there to tell?” I sat beside her and looked at Zerelda expectantly, my hands clenched in my lap, fingernails digging into my palms.

“There’s been a robbery, of a bank in Minnesota.” She fitted a pair of wire-rimmed spectacles to her face and picked up a newspaper from a stack on a table at her elbow.

“As far as we know, Frank and Jesse are alive and free,” Annie hastened to reassure me. “But we don’t know where they are, and whether or not they are injured.”

“I’ll tell her.” Zerelda silenced Annie, then began to read from the paper: “The brave citizens of Northfield, Minnesota faced down the worst of banditry today, as a group of armed men attempted to rob the Northfield National Bank . . .”

The words began to run together as I listened. The details were too frightening to fully absorb, but I was able to put together the story:

A group of armed men had converged upon the town of Northfield, Minnesota on the afternoon of September 7. They rode fine horses and were dressed in long, linen dusters and battered hats. Three of the men entered the Northfield National Bank. They demanded the cashier, a man named Joseph Heywood, open the safe. When he refused, one of the robbers shot him. But in the scuffle, one of the bank employees escaped and sounded the alarm.

The citizens of Northfield responded quickly, descending upon the bank and firing at the bandits who waited outside. The robbers returned their fire and soon the street was a chaos of burnt-powder smoke and dust, men shouting, horses whinnying, and the constant ping and whine of bullets flying. The bandits—who later proved to be Cole, Jim and Bob Younger and Bill Chadwell, raced their horses up and down the street, shouting and shooting, driving people back inside.

Clel Miller was the first of the band to die, shot from his horse in front of a hotel. I thought of the sweet-faced man who had entertained me with funny stories and couldn’t believe he was gone.

Cole was shot, but managed to stay on his horse. Bill Chadwell was the next to fall. The Younger brothers continued to try to hold off the crowd, waiting for their three compatriots to exit the bank. But the crowd of citizens massed against them was growing larger and bolder. Cornered, Cole dismounted and made his way to the door of the bank. “The game is up!” he shouted. “We are beaten!”

The papers did not identify the men inside the bank, but we women knew well enough that two of them must be Frank and Jesse. The third man would later be identified as Charlie Pitts.

The robbers fled Northfield, leaving behind the bodies of Miller and Chadwell. In addition to Mr. Heywood the cashier, at least one other townsperson also lay dead. Every able man had ridden out in a hunt for the bandits, and in the week since the robbery hundreds of volunteers had converged on the area to search house to house and field to field for the James and Younger boys.

I sat in stunned silence for a long moment after Zerelda had finished reading the accounts. Annie took my hand in hers and squeezed it. “I didn’t think you should be alone when you heard the news,” she said.

I nodded. What torture it would have been to read the news accounts alone in Baltimore and not be able to share my fears with anyone.