The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“You didn’t just happen by,” Miller said.

“Why not?” Jesse glanced at the gun and Miller put it on the grimy table. Jesse said, “Clell kept himself so untidy you could rub his neck and make dirt worms.” He sat down on a ringed rug and nodded toward a sagging couch. “Go ahead and take the load off your feet.”

Miller did as instructed and looked out the window, twisting his unclean hair with his fingers. His clothes were as wrinkled as crumpled paper, his fingernails were outlined with filth, a corner of his mouth was stained brown with gravy or tobacco juice.

“You ought to get yourself a wife.”

Miller glared briefly at Jesse and then shrugged. “I was going to ask Martha—Charley’s sister? I was going to ask her if she could imagine it, but I guess Wood has plans of his own, and there’s always Dick Liddil getting in the way. I’ve give it some thought.” He picked something out of his hair and wiped it on a pillow. He couldn’t seem to put his eyes on Jesse; his right foot rapidly tapped the floor.

“Your crops in?”

“Don’t got much,” Miller said. “A garden patch and pasture. I was sick at planting time.”

“How you feeling now?”

He glanced fleetingly at Jesse and asked, “Why?”

“You’re acting queer.”

“You and me, we haven’t been just real good friends lately. It’s not your fault, you understand. You hear talk though.”

“Talk.”

Miller explained, “People tell you things.”

“Give me an example.”

Miller sighed. “Jim Cummins come by. Oh and Jim says—you know those boys got caught for the Blue Cut deal?—Jim says he got word—don’t ask me where—that you’re planning to kill them.”

“Why would I do that?”

Miller shot a glance at Jesse’s gun hand and then reestablished his gaze on the yard. “It’s just talk probably.”

“To shut ’em up?”

“Just talk.”

“Cummins say anything else?”

“Nope. That was it basically.”

“It don’t explain why you’re scared.”

Miller looked at Jesse with watery eyes and spit on his mouth, light glinting off the oils on his skin. “I’m in the same position, you see? I was petrified when I saw you ride up!”

“I just happened by, Ed.”

“Suppose you heard gossip though. Suppose you heard. Jim Cummins come by here. You might’ve put two and two together and thought we were planning to capture you or Frank and get that reward. Isn’t true, but you might’ve suspected it.”

Jesse got up, leaving coins from his pockets on the rug, and jiggled a pants leg over his boot. “Haven’t heard a lick of gossip lately.” He looked out at the road and at a sky that was pink with sunset. He grinned at Miller and said, “I’m glad I happened by.”

Miller worked at a smile and said, “Me too.”

“I want to put your mind at rest.”

“I’ve got six hundred dollars stashed away; I don’t need any governor’s reward.”

“It’s the principle of the thing too.”