The Woman Who Loved Jesse James (42 page)

I don’t remember running into the front room, don’t remember kneeling on the floor or cradling Jesse’s head in my lap. Blood blossomed on my apron as I frantically stroked his cheeks. He stared up at me with sightless eyes, their brilliant blue already clouded. “Jesse!” I screamed, but even then I knew he was beyond hearing.

“It was an accident, Zee, I swear it was.”

I looked up to see Charley standing over me, his face contorted with grief. “The gun went off by accident,” he said.

“An accident!” I shrieked. “I guess it went off on purpose.”

Bob had already fled the room and now Charley ran after him.

I stared at Jesse, so still and silent, his blood soaking into my apron and skirt. A high, keening wail filled the room, and it took some time to realize it came from my own throat.

A small hand on my shoulder pulled me back to my senses. Tim stared at me with frightened eyes. “Mama, what’s wrong with Papa?” he asked. “Why are you crying?”

“Run across the street and fetch Mrs. Turrell,” I said. “Take Mary with you and don’t either of you come back into this house until I tell you.”

He hesitated, his gaze shifting to his father’s body. “Go!” I ordered, and turned him toward the door.

When I was sure the children were gone, I looked once more at Jesse. His blue eyes had lost their brilliance in death, and the blood seeping from his wound had slowed to a trickle now that his heart had ceased to beat.

“Oh, Jesse,” I moaned. I smoothed the hair from his forehead and bent to kiss him. His skin was waxen beneath my lips. My tears splashed onto his cheeks, and ran down into his beard. Sobs shook me and pain buffeted me. I clung to Jesse, afraid to let go. For so many years he had been my anchor in stormy seas. Now I was cast adrift, the prospect of the future too bleak to bear.

I don’t know how much time passed before I felt a hand at my elbow, and strong arms lifting me to my feet. I blinked, and looked around at a crowd of men that filled the small parlor of my home. Through the open windows I saw more people, pressed close about the house, everyone trying to see in.

“Madam, what is your name?” asked the man who still held my arm. He wore a dark blue suit and a grave expression.

“Mrs. Howard,” I answered automatically.

“Madam, I have two men who swear the man who lies dead here is none other than Jesse James.”

I looked over the man’s shoulder and saw Charley and Bob standing with two other men, one of whom carried a rifle and had a badge pinned to his chest. Charley looked as if he might pass out at any moment, but Bob grinned in triumph.

”You killed him!” I shouted, and lunged for Bob. “You killed the man who was your
friend
!”

The sheriff and the man who had spoken to me had to hold me back. I don’t know what I thought I could do to Bob, but more than anything, I wanted to erase that grin from his face.

The two men refused to let me go or to stop questioning me until I admitted that the man at our feet was indeed Jesse James. A murmur swept through the crowd at this news. “Mr. Howard?” someone exclaimed. “Mr. Howard was the outlaw Jesse James?”

They took away Jesse’s body and his guns, his clothes and my jewelry and all of his horses. Already, the crowd outside had begun to tear pieces of siding from the house, taking the bits of wood as souvenirs. They might have picked the place as clean as a swarm of locusts if the sheriff hadn’t posted guards to protect the building.

Lydia Turrell proved a true friend and helper, looking after the children and forcing me to drink cups of hot tea. She asked no questions and demanded no stories, only offered comfort and her silent support.

The Ford brothers were arrested for murder, but were soon released with a full pardon. It was some time before I realized they had both been in the pay of the governor, as had Dick Liddil. Jesse had been friend and mentor to them. He had welcomed them into his house and fed them at his table. He had made a gift to Bob of the very gun with which he was killed.

In the end, none of these kindnesses had mattered. He’d been shot in the back and left to die, assassinated for money.

Jesse had once suggested all Bob needed was to do something to make himself famous. Bob had followed that advice. Overnight, his name was trumpeted in newspapers around the world. He had his picture taken wearing a fine suit, the revolver Jesse had given him resting across his knee. In the picture, Bob held the gun with his left hand, even though he was right-handed. When a reporter asked him about it, he said Jesse was left-handed, so it seemed only fitting he should pose that way. The boy who had idolized Jesse James couldn’t let go of that fascination, even after he’d murdered his hero.

If Bob thought the murder of a friend would bring him wealth and respect, he was wrong. Even people who had called for Jesse’s death hated the way it had been accomplished. It wasn’t long before people knew Bob Ford as ‘the dirty little coward who shot Mr. Howard, and laid Jesse James in his grave.’

Word was sent to Zerelda
and she came up on the next train, dressed in yards of black bombazine and surrounded by reporters. She moved like a great battleship through their midst, grief adding dignity to her six-foot frame, righteous anger lending weight to every word she spoke, all of which were dutifully reported in the newspapers.

She and I both testified at the inquest, but it was Zerelda who drew the most attention. When she shouted that Bob Ford was a murderer, and lunged for him, the room erupted with excitement. Bob cowered before her, and two strong men held Zerelda back.

I bowed my head and watched tears make damp stains on the black silk of my dress. No amount of hysterics would restore Jesse to me. No possible revenge would make up for his death. No publicity or public outcry could bring me comfort. I was utterly bereft, every breath an effort.

As I waited outside the courthouse for a ride back to the hotel where the children and I were staying, a man approached. Taking in my widow’s weeds, he tipped his hat and asked. “Are you a member of the family?”

I nodded, mute. The stranger had the air of a reporter, and I’d had my fill of answering questions.

“May I ask who you are, ma’am?”

I stared at him with the detachment with which I viewed everyone and everything since Jesse had been shot. Who was I, now that Jesse was gone? I had spent my life as ‘Sister’ or ‘Mrs. Howard’ or ‘Josie’ or even as ‘Mrs. Jesse James.’ Only alone with Jesse had I been merely ‘Zee.’ “No one,” I answered, and turned away. In losing Jesse, I felt I’d lost myself as well.

I had spent weeks alone while Jesse traveled, competently caring for house and home. But now even the smallest task—buttoning my shoes or preparing breakfast—seemed impossibly hard. I could only conclude that before I had drawn strength from the knowledge that Jesse would soon return to me. Now that promise had vanished, and with it my will. Jesse had been everything to me and nothing would ever fill this emptiness inside me.

Jesse’s body was photographed and the photos sold for five dollars each as souvenirs. He was packed in ice, and displayed in the window of the local undertaker’s. I shuddered when I saw him, remembering the happy morning when he had lain in the snow in front of our house, making snow angels with the children.

Local officials arranged for Jesse’s body to be transported by special train to Kearney, where it was displayed at the local hotel so that people could pay their last respects. Many did so; I read later that almost as many people came to say goodbye to Jesse as did to see the body of President Garfield.

Zerelda and I rode in a special car on the train, escorted by a retinue of law officers who were properly deferential, many of whom seemed genuinely sorry for our loss. Tim and Mary stayed behind with Mrs. Turrell. I didn’t want to expose them to the circus I feared the funeral would become, and doubted my own ability to keep from breaking down in front of them.

They were having a bad enough time of it, coming to terms not only with the loss of their father, but with the knowledge that he had been, not Dave Howard the commodities dealer, as they had always been told, but Jesse James the famous outlaw, about whom they had heard stories all their lives.

Mary was too young to understand much, but Tim—whom people suddenly began addressing as Jesse Junior or Little Jesse—must have felt that his whole life until now had been a lie. His father wasn’t who he’d said he was and Tim’s name wasn’t even really Tim. The man he’d idolized simply for being his father was now a larger-than-life public figure—one revered and mourned by thousands of people, so that the boy’s grief was not even his own.

Jesse was buried in the front yard of the home where he had grown up, so that Zerelda could watch over his grave. In death, she had reclaimed him, drawing the attention of the press and the public to herself. I was too heart-sick and half-crazy with grief to care. If not for the knowledge that my children needed me, I might have laid down myself and died right there.

I lost the baby I was carrying, and had to sell almost everything we owned, including the puppy Jesse had brought from his mother’s for the children. Little Jesse and Mary and I went to live with my oldest brother, Robert, for a while, and then to my sister Sallie’s. All those years we shared that attic bedroom in my parents’ home in Kansas City, I’d never imagined she would have to take me in, but there was nothing else I could do. All the money Jesse was said to have taken in his career as an outlaw was gone. If not for John Edwards raising a subscription to support me and the children, I would have been destitute.

Not many months after Jesse was buried Frank surrendered, turning over his guns to Governor Crittenden. He was tried and acquitted, and moved into peaceful retirement. I wept at the news, thinking of what might have been.

I heard that Charley Ford took his own life two years after his brother shot Jesse. I blame Charley for not stopping Bob’s rash act, but I can’t help but believe Charley would have never been party to such a betrayal without Bob’s encouragement. As for Bob, I don’t know where he is now, though I like to think he suffers in hell, whether the one in the afterlife, or one in this life of his own making.

Zerelda guards Jesse’s legacy jealously. She charges visitors who want to tour her home, and subjects them to long lectures about her famous son, who grows more virtuous with each passing year. Before they leave, she sells them stones from Jesse’s grave, for twenty-five cents each. When the selection grows sparse, she replenishes it from the creek behind her house.

I care about none of this. My spirit is impoverished, if not my pocketbook. All of life is veiled in gray for me now, without Jesse to give it color. I kept the scrapbooks, and I look at them often, reliving those times when life held so many possibilities.

I never meant to fall in love with Jesse James. But I might as well have tried to stop a prairie fire or a raging tornado. He had that same wild power, both beautiful and terrible to behold, the same heat and intensity to illuminate and destroy everything in his path, both those he hated and those he loved.

Jesse had a wife

To mourn for his life

Two children—they were brave.

But that dirty little coward

Who shot Mr. Howard

Has laid Jesse James in his grave

—American folk ballad

Zee Mimms James died November 13, 1900. She had worn widow’s weeds and mourned Jesse for more than 18 years. She had raised her children, but had never recovered from the loss of Jesse. Though he had stolen hundreds of thousands of dollars in his career as an outlaw, she was left destitute. Despite her poverty, she refused numerous lucrative offers to sell her story, choosing instead to keep Jesse’s secrets to her grave. Those who knew her best said she died of a broken heart.

She was buried in Mount Olivet Cemetery in Kearney, Missouri. About eighteen months later, Jesse’s body was moved from the James’ family farm to rest beside hers. In death, Zee and Jesse were reunited at last.

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