The Woman Who Loved Jesse James Read online

  “These men don’t strike me as intelligent enough for that,” Endicott said dismissively. “Most of them are a bunch of ex-bushwhackers—country boys and farmers who don’t have the education and skills to do anything else. No bank is going to hire someone like that.”

  “I suppose you’re right,” Jesse said, his expression as solemn as a deacon’s.

  “What kind of work do you do, Mr. Howard?” Francis asked. Perhaps she was also eager to steer the conversation away from criminal activity.

  “I’m a commodities buyer. Wheat and corn mostly.”

  “I thought you might be a sporting man,” Endicott said, using the polite euphemism for a professional gambler. “I understand you and your brother-in-law are good customers of the local faro and pinochle parlors.”

  My heart hammered wildly and I put my hands in my lap to hide their shaking, but Jesse only laughed. “You’ve been checking up on me,” he said.

  “I hope you’re not offended. It’s part of my job.”

  “I’m sure Waymon investigated my background before he started courting me,” Francis said. “He has an insatiable curiosity about people.”

  I pushed the fish around on my plate, unable to eat another bite. What else had Sheriff Endicott learned about Jesse and Frank? Had inviting us to dinner been a ruse to lead us on—a plan to trap Jesse so that Endicott could arrest him and claim the reward?

  “Do you trade horses, too, or just grain?” Endicott asked. “That was a fine looking mare you were riding the other day.”

  This seemingly innocent query did nothing to calm my nerves. It was well known that Jesse and Frank always rode the finest mounts.

  “I like a good horse,” Jesse said. “I’ve been thinking of investing in some racing stock—Kentucky thoroughbreds.”

  “My father trained race horses for a time when I was small,” Endicott said. “I had aspirations to be a jockey, until I grew too tall.”

  “I saw some quarter horses down in Texas who ran a fine race, but I like a longer contest myself,” Jesse said.

  Then they were off, talking pedigrees and handicaps, long and short odds, two-year-olds and studs and half a dozen other terms I couldn’t understand. I began to feel a bit easier, though I could never completely relax, one ear always tuned for any hint of danger.

  Despite my best efforts to hide my uneasiness, Francis noticed. She took me aside after supper. “Are you anxious about your baby?” she asked. “I promise you, he’s all right with Mrs. Boston. My girls adore her.”

  “I am a little uneasy,” I admitted, relieved to find this excuse to explain behavior that might have struck anyone as odd. “This is the first time I’ve been parted from him for even a few hours.”

  “Why don’t we go up and check on him?” She took my arm in hers. “I’d love for you to meet my girls.”

  Tim slept peacefully in a bassinet while the twins played on a rug under the watchful eye of Mrs. Boston. The girls, both blondes like their mother, toddled to us, clamoring for Francis’s attention. For a little while I let myself forget the tension downstairs as we played with the children and talked about teething and diapers and the concerns of young motherhood.

  “I don’t know what I’d do without Mrs. Boston to help me,” Mrs. Francis said, turning the girls back over to the housekeeper’s care. “Waymon’s work demands such long hours, he’s not often able to help, though he delights in spending time with them when he can.”

  “I imagine a lawman’s schedule is unpredictable,” I said.

  “The irregular hours would be easier to accept if not for the danger inherent in the position,” she said. “I’m proud of him, of course, but I worry. You can’t know what it’s like to watch the man you love leave the house every morning with a loaded gun strapped to his hip, not knowing if he’ll come home alive in the evening.”

  “I can’t imagine,” I lied, though wasn’t that my reality as well? Every time Jesse left on one of his ‘business trips,’ I never knew if I would see him alive again. And even a simple errand to the store was fraught with the danger of discovery. I felt empathy for Francis Endicott, even though, in different circumstances, our husbands might have faced off, each intent on killing the other.

  Downstairs, we found the men standing on either side of the fireplace, smoking cigars. “I couldn’t help but notice the injury to your finger,” Endicott said, nodding to Jesse’s left hand. “How did that come about?”

  Jesse’s face reddened and he immediately shoved his hand into his pocket. I held my breath, frozen halfway across the floor. Silence stretched taut, broken only by the over-loud ticking of the mantel clock. I stared at the pocket into which Jesse had shoved his hand. I knew it contained a derringer, as he never went anywhere unarmed. Would he mistake Endicott’s question for accusation, and draw the weapon?

  Then Jesse’s shoulder’s relaxed, and a rueful smile stretched his lips. “Youthful stupidity,” he said. “I spent some time with a cousin down in Texas, thought I might become a cowboy. Decided to try roping steers, the way the vaqueros do. I managed to get a loop on one, but when I went to dally the rope around the saddle horn, I got my finger hung up in it. The steer gave a yank and it pulled the end of the finger clean off.”

  He told the story with such conviction, I almost believed it. I made my way to a chair and sank into it, my eyes still fixed on him.

  “I’m kind of self-conscious about it,” he continued. “I try to hide it from people’s notice.”

  “That’s certainly understandable,” Francis said. She gave her husband a scolding look.

  We made small talk a while longer, until I stifled a yawn. Once more, Francis came to my rescue. “Josie looks worn out,” she said. “We shouldn’t have kept you so late.”

  I was exhausted from the tension of the evening, but I managed a sincere smile. “Not at all,” I said. “I’ve enjoyed your company. Dinner was delicious. Thank you so much for your hospitality.” In another time, under other circumstances, Francis and I might have become good friends.

  We collected a sleeping Tim, then walked home, Jesse cradling the baby, my arm tucked in the crook of his.

  I waited until we were safely in the house and Tim was tucked into his crib before I turned on Jesse. “Did you know Mr. Endicott was a Sheriff when you accepted his invitation?” I asked.

  “I had no idea.” He crossed to the dresser and began removing his cufflinks.

  “Then why did you insist on baiting him that way?”

  He loosened his collar and began to unknot his tie. “Baiting him? What do you mean?”

  “Deliberately turning the conversation to talk of bandits and bank robbery. Were you trying to raise his suspicions?”

  “He wasn’t the least suspicious. You heard him—he thinks bandits are dumb yokels. I’m just a gambler posing as a grain merchant.”

  “But he’s not a dumb yokel, either. How long do you think it will be before he notices that you ride fine horses, the way the outlaw Jesse James does? And you’re missing part of a finger, the way Jesse James is said to? He doesn’t strike me as the type who’ll stop asking questions.”

  “Don’t worry, sweetheart.” He kissed my cheek and patted my shoulder. “I’ll take care of it.”

  I slept poorly that night, but the next day Jesse did indeed ‘take care of it.’ He left the house before dawn and returned a few hours later with a hired wagon and news that we were relocating to the other side of the county.

  “Don’t you think that will make Sheriff Endicott even more suspicious?” I asked, alarmed.

  “What’s to be suspicious about? People move all the time. We’ll put the word out among our neighbors that we found a house we like much better.”

  “Then Endicott will simply track us to the new house. You heard what his wife said—he has an insatiable curiosity.”

  “I’ll tell everyone we went back to Kentucky to be near family. Your mother was ill, so we had to leave suddenly.”

  “I think we sho
uld stay here.” Too often in the past few years we’d relocated. Each place held the illusion of safety, yet each time that peace had been short-lived. Rashly packing up and fleeing each time we began to feel wary seemed pointless to me. And I hated the thought of moving again after only a few weeks in our little house.

  “I won’t take the chance of Endicott finding out who I really am,” Jesse said. “I can’t very well go straight if people like him keep trying to drag me back into my old life.”

  “You’re really serious about staying honest this time, aren’t you?” I searched his face, trying to gauge the depth of his conviction. I’d wanted to believe him before, but Jesse had talked of going straight as far back as our honeymoon.

  “I’m serious,” he said, his expression determined. “I’ll do whatever I have to, to stay out of trouble, including packing up and moving out of harm’s way.”

  So that afternoon, we loaded a hired wagon and moved to the other side of the county. Sheriff Endicott would find our little house empty the next time he rode by. If he questioned our neighbors or clerks in the stores we had frequented, they would all share that we were headed back to Kentucky, to help care for an ill relative. The Sheriff would never see Dave Howard in the pinochle parlors or saloons of this neighborhood again.

  Their narrow escape from Northfield had done what the pursuit of lawmen like Sheriff Endicott had not, and transformed the James brothers into law-abiding citizens—solid members of the community who took their civic duties seriously. As J.T. Howard and B.J. Woodson, Jesse and Frank registered to vote and cast their ballots for the popular Democratic candidate, Samuel J. Tilden. Tilden won the popular vote but the Republicans and their candidate, Rutherford B. Hayes, refused to concede the election.

  Allegations flew about misprinted ballots and illegal votes. There were even disputes about who had the authority to count the votes. Weeks after the election the matter of our future president was still undecided.

  Perhaps it was frustration with this outcome that led Jesse to seek diversion. One afternoon in mid November, he strode into the kitchen, where I was rolling out noodles. “Pack your best dresses, sweetheart,” he said. “I’ve just bought two tickets to Philadelphia.”

  “Philadelphia?” I wiped my hands on my apron. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Centennial Exhibition,” he said. “It’s almost over and I don’t think we should miss the chance to go.”

  The hundredth anniversary of America’s independence from England was being celebrated that year at Fairmont Park in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. The papers regularly carried reports from the Exhibition and Jesse and I read them with interest, but I had never dreamed we would be able to attend. In truth, Mr. and Mrs. Jesse James could never have attended—but Mr. and Mrs. Howard could. “Are you serious?” I asked. “We’re really going?”

  “Yes, and we leave tomorrow morning, so you’d better get busy deciding what to wear. Pack a bag for Tim, too. Fanny and Buck are going to look after him while we’re gone.”

  I faltered a little at this announcement. I had never been parted from my son for more than a few hours since he’d been born. Jesse rightly interpreted the stricken look on my face. “He’ll be much happier here with his aunt and uncle than traveling with us,” he said. “He’s too young to enjoy the exhibits and you’d wear yourself out looking after him.” He took me by the elbows and pulled me close. “Besides, don’t you think it would be nice to go away for a while, just the two of us?” He nuzzled my cheek and my last bit of reluctance drained away.

  “That would be wonderful, dear,” I said. With Jesse’s travels, moving and caring for the baby, we hadn’t spent very much time alone. I missed the closeness we’d once enjoyed.

  Living so quietly and apart for so long, I was unprepared for the bustle and energy and sheer busyness of the Exhibition. The official title was the “International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures and Products of the Soil and Mine.” Even that lofty name couldn’t convey the scope and beauty of the place. I’m sure from the first day I went about with my mouth gaping open at all the sights and sounds. Jesse laughed at my astonishment, but I knew he was amazed, too, though more circumspect in showing it.

  We secured a suite of rooms at the Trans-Continental Hotel, at the very gates of Fairmont Park. The entry lobby stole my breath, with its gilt chandeliers and thick carpet that muffled the sound of even Jesse’s booted feet as he strode to the registration desk. I sat in a plush armchair and waited while he checked us in, observing him as one might observe a stranger: here was a tall, broad-shouldered man in a finely cut suit, polished boots and an obviously expensive beaver hat. He spoke in a soft Southern accent, assiduously polite, but with the attitude of a man who is used to giving orders and being obeyed. As he crossed the lobby, more than one head—both male and female—turned to watch him pass. He touched the tips of his fingers to his hat brim and nodded to one matron who crossed his path and she blushed like a school girl and almost collided with a potted palm tree. I smiled to myself, knowing the effect those dazzling blue eyes could have on a woman. The desk clerk hurried to greet him, all smiles. “We’re delighted to have you with us, Mr. Howard,” he said as Jesse signed the register.

  We rode to our rooms on the second floor in a hydraulic elevator paneled in dark wood and lit with a gas jet. “Have you visited the Centennial Exhibition?” Jesse asked the elevator attendant, a middle-aged man who walked with a limp.

  “The wife and I have been there three times,” the man boasted. “I’m going to be sad to see it go.” The Exhibition was scheduled to close at the end of the month, after reigning over the city since May. “It’s one of the marvels of our age.”

  More gas jets illuminated our rooms, which looked out over Elm Avenue and the Centennial Grounds. The apartment was a wonder of high ceilings, gold damask draperies and red and gold carpets. Taps dispensed hot and cold running water into a porcelain tub in the bathroom and there was a separate water closet. French doors opened onto a balcony above Elm Street, and tall windows let in light and air.

  “What should we do first?” I asked, turning from the window when the bellman had collected his tip and departed.

  Jesse grinned. “I can think of something.” He locked the door, then unfastened his gun belts and laid them on the dresser.

  “You can’t wear those guns to the Exhibition,” I said, pretending to ignore his advance toward me. “They’ll attract attention from the Centennial Guards.” The St. Louis paper had published a picture of the Guards—ranks of blue-suited policeman charged with keeping order at the Exhibition.

  “I won’t wear the gun belts,” he said. “But I won’t go unarmed, either.”

  “Of course not.” I had never known him to be without a weapon close at hand. Even at church on Sundays, he kept a pistol tucked into his boot and another under his coat, at the small of his back.

  “We don’t have to talk about that now,” he said, slipping his hands beneath my elbows and gently urging my crossed arms apart. “It’s so good to finally get you alone.”

  I pretended to resist, but not for long. He planted kisses all along my jaw and down the column of my neck, sending little sparks of sensation through me.

  “What if I said I was tired from the trip, and wanted to rest?” I teased him.

  “I’d say I think lying down on the bed is a good idea.” He bent and scooped me into his arms.

  I squealed as he carried me to the bed, and beat on his shoulders, laughing as he dropped me onto the feather mattress. He fell down beside me and nudged me onto my side, my back to him. “You can’t take a nap all trussed up like this,” he said. “Let me undo these buttons and loosen your corset.”

  With deft fingers, he undid the row of pearl buttons down the back of the dress, untied the sash and pushed the cloth back over my shoulders. Then he reached around to my front, unhooked my corset and worked it from around me.

  Cool air flooded across my thin lawn camisole, and I breathed
deeply for the first time in hours. Jesse dropped the corset beside the bed and caressed my sides, his hands running over the wrinkled cloth of the camisole, around and up to cup my breasts. “How you stand to wear that thing I’ll never know,” he said, and dragged his thumbs across nipples that had risen to meet his touch.

  I rolled back toward him and tugged at his tie. “If you’re going to take a nap with me, you ought to get more comfortable, too,” I said.

  He sat up and began working at the knot of the tie. “So you still think we’re going to take a nap?”

  “Eventually,” I said with a coy look.

  While he stripped off tie and vest, boots and braces, I unfastened the buttons of my boots and kicked them off, then untied and stepped out of the caged crinoline and bustle and the dress itself, leaving me in stockings, garters, drawers and camisole. I propped one foot on a chair by the bed and started to unroll one stocking, when Jesse’s voice stopped me. “Don’t,” he said. He came around the bed to me. “I want to do it. It’s just like unwrapping a pretty package.”

  So I stood and let him undress me, only a little self-conscious about breasts that weren’t as firm and round as they’d once been, skin no longer as smooth and unmarked by the signs of child-birth. If Jesse noticed any of these flaws, he never said, instead lavishing attention on me with eyes and hands and mouth. “Sometimes I think I’m the luckiest man on earth, to have you as my wife,” he said.

  I swallowed a knot in my throat and looked away, blinking hard, struck by the understanding that he really meant the words.

  Naked at last, I crawled backwards into the bed. Jesse stripped off his trousers, shirt, wool vest and underpants and joined me beneath the sheets. Sun streamed across the room from a window beside the bed, and the rattle of carriage wheels and the shouts of drivers drifted up from the street below. “It feels odd, being in bed in the middle of the day,” I said.