The Woman Who Loved Jesse James Read online

  “Where out West?” I asked.

  “Nebraska. Or maybe California. I hear there’s lots of good country there. Places a man could live and not be bothered. The kind of place we could really start over.”

  “I’d like that,” I said. “I hear there are places in California where you can pick an orange right off a tree. Wouldn’t that be something?”

  “I could raise horses and race them. Buck could go in with me and we’d train them. He’s always had a good way with animals.”

  I began to picture this dream of our own family compound—a ranch somewhere green and open, with neatly-fenced pastures inhabited by handsome horses. The brothers would each have their own home, but they’d be close enough for frequent visiting. Our children would all grow up together.

  And no one there would know or even suspect, that Mr. Howard and Mr. Woodson were anything but what they said they were—ranchers with a talent for turning out fast horses. After a while, people back East might even truly forget the James brothers, and they’d be able to stop looking over their shoulders.

  To live a life as ordinary people do.

  This last thought pulled me from my sleepy daze. Jesse might live a different life one day, but it would never be an ordinary one.

  “Whatever you decide to do, you know I’ll be there with you,” I said. I yawned, my eyes drooping. “Will you take the baby back to her cradle now? She’s asleep and I almost am.”

  He took Mary from me and I slid down under the covers. I was asleep before he returned to me, and I dreamt that night of wild horses racing across the open prairie. Horses that would never be caught or tamed.

  But Jesse’s contentment with domestic life was short-lived. By the end of July he had returned to his old habit of going for long rides in the countryside, sometimes staying out past dark, saying upon his return only that he had been thinking, and his thoughts came easier on horseback.

  One night in August, I woke very late to the sounds of him fumbling around in the kitchen. He had set out earlier that night, intending to ride to the river and back “for some fresh air.” Hours had passed since then. I’d finally given up waiting for him and retired to my bed. I didn’t allow myself to worry about him; he had stayed out much longer than this before, and always returned eventually. Though he was reckless in some things, he never took chances that might lead to his discovery, and he would stay away for days if he even suspected someone he didn’t trust might trail him back to the house.

  So I was relieved when he finally returned this night. I thought the rain we’d had earlier had driven him home, and I lay back on the pillows, intending to scold him for going out in such uncertain weather. But he delayed so long coming to bed that I finally rose and went to greet him. I found him standing at the table with a bottle of morphine granules, trying to measure a spoonful into a glass, but his hands shook so badly he spilled more than he caught. “Darling, what is it? What’s wrong?” I rushed to his side.

  “Got c . . . caught in a storm over n . . . near the river.” His teeth chattered like castanets and his face had a sickly pallor that showed even in the lamplight.

  I took the morphine from him and measured a dose into the glass of water. He only took the drug when the pain from the old wounds in his chest plagued him. “Is it only your chest hurting, or is there more?” I asked.

  “I’m just a little feverish.” He took the glass in both hands and drank the contents in one long gulp, screwing up his face at the bitter taste. “I’ll be better in the morning.”

  I put a hand to his forehead. “You’re burning up!” I began tugging at his heavy overcoat. “Let’s get you to bed right away.”

  Without protest, he let me lead him into our bedroom, where I helped him out of his sodden clothes and into clean underthings. He fell asleep before I even crawled in beside him, though he slept restlessly.

  The next morning, he was not improved. Tim cried when I wouldn’t let him in to see his father. “I want Daddy!” he wailed.

  “Daddy is sick,” I said. “He needs to rest.”

  As the day progressed, I grew more and more worried. Jesse drifted in and out of delirium. In one of his more lucid moments, I shared my fears. “I really think you need to see the doctor,” I said.

  He nodded. “Send for one.”

  His easy compliance frightened me even more than the fever and delirium. I flagged down a neighbor boy and paid him a nickel to fetch a physician, and quickly.

  Dr. Hamilton arrived within the hour. A distinguished man with a neatly trimmed black beard, he listened while I described Jesse’s symptoms. “Has he had spells like this before?” he asked.

  “No. Nothing like this.”

  He went into the bedroom with Jesse, shutting the door and leaving me to fret on the other side. When he emerged a half hour later, he said, “Your husband tells me he’s had malaria before, but it’s been several years since his last attack.”

  “Malaria? Is that very serious?”

  “It can be serious, but fortunately, your husband is strong and relatively healthy. I’ll leave you some quinine to dose him with. In a few days he should recover his strength, but it’s important for him to avoid chills.”

  “Of course. Will he be well then?”

  “There is no cure for malaria. Once stricken, sufferers are always subject to further attacks. The best we can hope for is to ward off its return as long as possible, and to lessen the severity of each subsequent attack.” He opened his bag and took out a blue glass bottle and began writing on the label. “While I was examining Mr. Howard, I noticed two old gunshot wounds in his chest,” he said.

  My heart stopped beating for a breath, then began to pound, but I did my best to hide my terror from the doctor. “He was injured in the war,” I said.

  The doctor nodded. “He probably picked up the malaria then, as well. Most of the sufferers I see spent time bivouacked in the swamps.” He handed me the bottle and explained the dosing. “If he takes a turn for the worse, don’t hesitate to send for me.”

  “Thank you, Doctor. Thank you so much.” I escorted him to the door and watched him drive away, then went back inside and leaned against the wall, my head pressed to the cool plaster. I’d been sure for a moment that the doctor had recognized his patient as the famous outlaw, Jesse James. But the bullet wounds apparently had not overly alarmed him. What would he have thought if he’d realized the half-delirious man he treated had a loaded gun beneath his pillow?

  The quinine did its job and within a week, Jesse was on his feet again. As was his custom, he spent large parts of the day among his many friends in town. He debated politics with his acquaintances at the local saloon and traded stories with Mr. Addleson, the druggist where he bought his cigars. “Addleson says he’s going to find me a job,” he reported one evening at supper, his eyes dancing with glee.

  “A job?” I asked. “Does Mr. Addleson need help at his drugstore?”

  “He asked what kind of work I did before coming here and I told him I was a railroad man.” He laughed and speared another slice of ham onto his plate. “He said his brother-in-law works for the Rock Island line and he’d ask if they could get me on. Wouldn’t that be grand? Me, working for the railroad?”

  I shook my head at the joke. I doubted Jesse would ever get close enough to a real railroad man to let him get a look, but it was good to see him healthy and laughing again.

  “Why didn’t you tell me you had malaria?” I asked.

  “I was hoping I was through with it. I hadn’t had an attack in years.”

  “The doctor told me there is no cure.”

  Jesse shrugged. “I don’t see any point in cataloguing one’s weaknesses or flaws, or in borrowing trouble by talking about something that might never happen again. If I thought about it at all, I assumed we’d deal with it when and if we needed to.”

  I didn’t like the idea that Jesse had kept something like this from me. In many ways we were so close, but perhaps that was only my illus
ion. I wondered what other secrets he held back from me.

  We each choose how much of ourselves we expose to another. For every confidence we share, there may be a hundred held back. This mystery spices a relationship with the ever-present possibility of surprise. No matter how long Jesse and I knew each other, we would constantly be on a journey of discovery. A relationship so blessed would never grow stale. What we didn’t know would keep our love alive as much as what we did know, and our lives together would always offer the promise of adventure.

  Chapter Fourteen

  In September, Jesse turned thirty-two years old. To celebrate, I cooked a special dinner and invited Frank and Annie to eat with us. I presented Jesse with a stickpin in the shape of a horse’s head, which pleased him. Tim gave him a new blue bandana, and Jesse immediately fastened it around his neck, outlaw style. Tim crowed and clapped his hands at the sight.

  Jesse’s eyes met mine across the table, and he grinned the same charming smile that had swept me off my feet so many years before. I could picture so clearly how he must have looked, climbing onto a railroad car and striding down the aisle as all around him people cowered in fear. He’d been described as ‘gracious,’ ‘fearless,’ and ‘congenial.’ A man happy to be where he was. A man who enjoyed his work.

  It was in those descriptions that I’d seen the Jesse I knew—the playful father and loving husband, and even the mischievous boy who had once hurled dirt clods at my skirt in order to command my attention. I’d seen less of that Jesse lately. Though he was still charming, it was a more calculated charm, measured out for the effect he desired. He still played with Tim, but often broke the play off suddenly, as if suddenly recollecting some weighty manner that demanded his attention.

  And now a simple bandana had transformed him before my eyes, from staid citizen to daring rebel. I loved both men, but it was the rebel I’d fallen for first. It was good to see him again, however briefly.

  That evening at dinner, Jesse wore a new suit—dark green pinstriped trousers with a green brocade vest and a jacket of the latest cut. He was always particular about his dress, and paid as much attention to fashion as any woman. Recently, he had begun dying his hair to cover the gray at the temples and combing it differently to disguise the thinning at the crown. In addition, he spent an hour almost every morning in the barn, working out with weighted dumbbells and performing various exercises. While other men his age grew flabby or fat, he retained the body of a young man. As I sat across from him in the dining room of our little house I felt a surge of pride and desire. My husband was a very handsome man indeed.

  Frank, on the other hand, looked fifteen years older than Jesse, rather than four. The disappearance of most of the hair on top of his head had the unfortunate effect of making his large ears and nose even more prominent. Deep lines furrowed his face on either side of his mouth and across his forehead, and blue shadows smudged the skin beneath his eyes.

  “You look downright sickly, Buck,” Jesse said. “Are you all right?”

  “Just a little tired from work.” Frank helped himself to another slice of bread. In addition to raising corn and oats on his farm, he hired out as a wagon driver for a local lumber company. The two jobs made for long work days, a fact Jesse had complained about before, when his brother wasn’t available to ride out into the county with him or to visit the racetrack or a local gambling parlor.

  “There’s easier ways to make a living,” Jesse observed as he poured gravy over his roast beef.

  “That’s true.” Frank’s lips clamped shut and he said no more.

  After dinner, Annie and I retreated to the kitchen to wash the dishes. Annie snapped open a dishtowel and glanced toward the front of the house, where the men had retired to smoke cigars on the porch. “If Frank ever goes back to being an outlaw, I’ll leave him,” she said.

  “You don’t mean that,” I protested.

  “I won’t live like that anymore,” she said, her jaw set. “And I won’t have my children living that way, either.”

  This revelation startled me. “What would you do if you left him? Where would you go?”

  “My father would take us in. And even if he didn’t, I’d find some way to support us.”

  “You never left him before,” I said, turning my attention to the dishes in the sink. “You married him knowing what he was. Why do you say you’d leave him now?”

  “I have Rob to think about now. And times have changed. Robbing a bank or a train isn’t a novelty anymore. People are on the lookout for robbers, and are more willing to fight back. You can’t have forgotten what happened at Northfield.” Her voice shook, and she paused and took a deep breath. “They’ve been lucky for so long, but I can’t help thinking that can’t last, and I don’t want to be around to see it happen.”

  “I’d think being apart from him, not knowing, would be worse than being with him,” I said. “At least if you were there, there might be something you could do.”

  “There won’t be anything anyone can do if Jesse or Frank are caught,” she said. “The men who are after the James Gang want them dead. Jesse and Frank have made an awful lot of lawmen and government officials look like fools. Those men’s pride won’t allow them to let Jesse and Frank live.”

  I braced myself against the sink, stomach roiling. “Don’t say such things,” I whispered.

  “It’s the truth and you know it.” She picked up a fork and began polishing it.

  I struggled to pull myself together. “Why did you even bring this up?” I asked. “Has Frank said anything about going back to that kind of life?”

  “No. But I know he thinks about it. He’s never had to work this hard before, and it’s a constant struggle for money now, when it never was before.”

  I nodded. Jesse often complained of not having enough money. Whatever he’d made from the previous robberies had all been spent on expensive suits, presents for friends and family and wagering on cards and horses.

  “I think he misses the excitement and danger,” Annie continued. “He used to come home from his trips out of town so . . . exhilarated.”

  She was talking about Frank, but it could have been Jesse she described. My heart ached for him when I remembered the youthful enthusiasm with which he’d come to me in those years before we wed. He had aged in the last few years, grown somber and serious, as if a great weight pressed upon him.

  “Even if everything you say is true, I still don’t believe you’d leave him,” I said. “I can’t imagine ever leaving Jesse. It would be like cutting off my arm—or cutting out part of my heart.”

  She gave me a pitying look. “Loving someone doesn’t mean you aren’t a whole person apart from them.”

  “I know that.” But I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t imagine myself apart from Jesse.

  I was sweeping the carpet in the front parlor mid-morning a few days later when a knock on the door startled me. I hid behind the curtains and peeked out at a thin-faced older man with a luxuriant moustache, and breathed a sigh of relief as I recognized our landlord, Mr. Twitchell. He knocked a second time and I whipped off my apron, smoothed my hair, and went to answer the door.

  “Mr. Twitchell, please come in.” I held the door open wide. “It’s so nice to see you.” My manner was all politeness, though my curiosity was aroused. Mr. Twitchell had never called on us since the day we moved into the house.

  “Is Mr. Howard in?” he asked. His eyes scanned the front parlor, as if he expected to find Jesse hiding behind the sewing machine or the sofa.

  “I’m afraid he’s out. Won’t you sit down? I could fix some tea or coffee . . .”

  “This isn’t a social call, Mrs. Howard. I’m here because your husband has not paid rent in almost two months.”

  I blinked, and felt the blood drain from my face. “I’m sure there must be some mistake . . .”

  “There is no mistake. I’m owed thirty dollars for this month and last month.” The curled-up tips of his moustache quivered with indignation. “
If you’ll give it to me now, you’ll save us all a lot of trouble.”

  Except for a few stray coins squirreled away in my sewing box, there was no other money in the house. Certainly not thirty dollars. “Mr. Howard handles all our finances,” I said stiffly. “I’ll speak to him as soon as he comes home and I’m sure he’ll get this straightened out.”

  “If he’d get a steady job, instead of spending his days in the gambling halls and saloons, I’m sure he’d have less trouble paying his rent.”

  My anger rose at this criticism of Jesse. “I’ll tell my husband you called and I’m sure he’ll get this taken care of,” I said stiffly.

  “He’d better. Tell him if I don’t have the money by the end of next week, I’ll begin legal proceedings.” Mr. Twitchell set his hat squarely on his head and let himself out the front door.

  He had been gone several minutes before I recovered from my shock enough to think of a reply. I wanted to defend Jesse. To assure Mr. Twitchell that my husband was a good provider and that the nonpayment of rent had been a mere oversight. Perhaps Mr. Twitchell was wrong. Jesse had paid the rent and the landlord had misplaced it, or recorded the transaction in the wrong column in some ledger.

  But in my heart of hearts, I knew the rent had not been paid. Money had been scarce lately. Jesse never talked about it, but when I had asked him for money to buy new shoes for Tim, he had told me I must wait until a business deal he was involved in was completed. And the last time I’d visited the general store, the clerk had encouraged me to make a payment on the account ‘as soon as possible’ or more credit would not be extended. That episode had prompted me to hide the few pennies I could scrounge in the button jar in my sewing box.

  When Jesse returned shortly before supper, I told him of Mr. Twitchell’s visit. “Is it true you haven’t paid the rent?” I asked.

  “I’ve had more important things to see to,” he said. “He’ll have his money soon enough.”