The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“How old are you, kid?”

“Twenty,” he said, and then corrected himself. “Except I won’t really be twenty until January.” He scratched his sleeve apologetically and answered again, “I’m nineteen.”

“You feel older than that though, don’t you?”

Bob acknowledged that he did. A pigeon stirred on a rafter and cocked its head at a man flinging wooden objects into the air.

“You enjoy yourself this evening?” Jesse asked.

“I was strung too high for much pleasure.”

Jesse seemed to think that was an appropriate remark and something in the boy’s manner of speaking inspired Jesse to ask, “Do you like tea?” And when Bob said he did (though he didn’t), Jesse invited him up to the bungalow without saying goodbye to the others. They were then gathering around a clove cake on which orange gumdrops spelled Grampa, part of the loot that Clarence Hite had pilfered on the coach. The younger men sat on the ground around Frank, and Clarence recapitulated some of the robbery’s disputes and amusements, emphasizing his valor, fabricating badly, boring both Charley and Frank in such a thoroughgoing way that they beguiled themselves by eating the gumdrops and cake, Frank ripping out large segments that he carefully squeezed into his palm until they were roundly packed, only then popping them into his mouth.

Charley listened to Hite with impatience, almost petulance, a smile tucked like licorice in his mouth, his eyes glazed. When his ear at last learned of a stillness, he awoke and lurched into long and wearying stories about the Fords. He talked about their childhood in Fairfax County, Virginia, in rented rooms in George Washington’s Mount Vernon estate. He talked about sailing paper boats on the Potomac River, clambakes on the Atlantic coast, or playing doctor with the late president’s great-granddaughters while guests from foreign countries walked the grounds. He talked about the Moore School near Excelsior Springs and about Seybold’s Tavern and its sleeping rooms, in which the roughneck and frightening Younger gang retired on more than one occasion while the owner and his nephews, Bob and Charley Ford, looked on with reverence.

He said Bob once shot a milk cow because it kicked him in the shin during chores, that as kids they chased cats with meat cleavers and chopped off their ears and tails, that ten children once swarmed over Bob and almost choked him to death with a grapevine because he so often bullied them, that he and Bob were horse thieves in high school, rustling colts and fillies for Dutch Henry Born, who was arrested in Trinidad, Colorado, by none other than Sheriff Bat Masterson.

Frank James paid attention to the stories but didn’t pretend much fascination. Charley said, “It sounds like maybe it’s made up, but it’s history, top to bottom.”

Clarence said, “Funny things happen in Colorado. I once saw a cat eat a pickle.”

Frank and Charley regarded him dully and then Frank got together two horse blankets and haggardly walked to an empty stall. “If you two are going to stay up all night, I guess I don’t have to stand guard.”

Clarence asked, “Do you think the sheriff’s out already?”

“Generally is.”

Charley worried that he might have thoughtlessly wronged Frank James or done his own cause some damage, so he slunk over to the stall and gawked as the grim man hung his coat and scraped straw into the shape of a pallet. He said, “I wasn’t just flapping my lips when I spun out those yarns about my kid brother and me. What I figured was if you and Jesse could gauge our courage and daring, why, you just might make us your regular sidekicks.”

Frank jerked a look of umbrage toward Charley and then spread out a wool blanket with his stockinged foot. “You’re beginning to sound like Bob.”

“I’ll be square with you: it was Bob who put me up to it. He’s sharper than I am; he’s smart as a whip. And he’s got plans for the James boys that I can’t even get the hang of, they’re that complicated.”

As he settled achingly into repose, Frank wrapped a horse blanket over his cardigan sweater and supported his head with his right forearm. He said, “You might as well forget everything about that because there’ll be no more monkey business after tonight. You can jot it down in your diary: September seventh, eighteen eighty-one; the James gang robbed one last train at Blue Cut and gave up their nightriding for good.”

Charley hung his biceps over the topmost stall board, disappointed and skeptical. “How will you make your living?”

Frank was smoking a cigarette with his eyes shut. “Maybe I’ll sell shoes.”

JESSE AND BOB were by then at the round dining room table, letting Zee read the green tea leaves in their mugs. A big candle was the only light and the men’s rapt faces were vaguely orange in the glow as Zee made the prescribed suggestions. They each up-ended their mugs and clocked them around three times as Zee, with a slight giggle, recited, “Tell me faithful, tell me well, the secrets that the leaves foretell.” She then requested that Bob give her his mug and gazed at the green dregs still clinging to the murky bottom. “It looks like a snake.”

Bob got up from his chair and gaped with puzzlement as she obligingly tilted the mug. “You mean that squiggle there?”

“They call it a snake. It’s a sign of antagonism.”

Jesse grinned and slid his own mug across to his wife. “She gets all the fancy talk straight out of Lorna Doone.”

Zee peered at her husband’s cup and said, “Yours is no happier, Dave.”

Bob looked interrogatively at a man who was massaging his gums with a finger. “Dave?”

He said, “You know your Good Book? David is the begotten of Jesse.” He winked for reasons that Bob couldn’t intuit. “You might call it my alias. Give me my sorry prophecy, sweetheart.”

Zee gave back the mug. “It looks like an M. It means someone has evil intentions toward you.”

Jesse squinted inside and tipped the candle, pattering wax on the oakwood. “That’s not exactly today’s news, is it.”

Zee sighed. “They’re lacking in gaiety tonight, aren’t they. Maybe I steeped the tea too long.” She then arose from the dining room table with fatigue and announced that she’d be knitting in the bedroom if she could keep her eyes uncrossed. Jesse walked to the pantry and picked two Havana cigars from a corked soapstone jar and bade his guest follow him with the candle to the front porch, where they could rock and smoke and raise their voices.