The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

“I can’t remember all this.”

“You’ve got to, Charley.”

“Do I get another name? I mean, I can’t be plain old Charley Ford, can I?”

Jesse considered options as they walked through a crust of snow to the cottage and stomped their boots on the porch. “Johnson,” he said at last. “Why don’t you call yourself Johnson?”

(It was not until much later that Charley learned Johnson was the name of a man in Tennessee whom Jesse had sued for “acting under false pretenses.”)

The front door sucked open and the storm door rattled in its frame. Zee was there in an orange gingham apron and Mary was riding the saddle of her broad hip, her face lowered as she cried. Zee looked sadly at Jesse and then pushed open the fogging storm door. “So. It’s Charley this time,” she said.

DICK LIDDIL RECOVERED from the gunshot slowly because of a maroon-colored infection that swelled from his thigh muscle like a split apple, but within a week of Jesse’s visit he had mended well enough to ride and it became common for Dick and Bob to eat lunch in Richmond and clerk or play checkers at Elias Ford’s grocery store. They claimed they were looking for income opportunities, but they also claimed prior commitments if work was offered. They made some vague inquiries about the James gang, the sheriff’s office, Allan Pinkerton’s detectives, and the manhunt for the perpetrators of the Winston and Blue Cut train robberies. And increasingly Bob noticed a man alone at a cafe table, jotting notes in a journal, leaning on a pool cue and staring at Dick over the foam on a beer, or riding on a chestnut horse on the street and swiveling in his vast gray soldier’s coat to see them stamp the snow from their boots and walk into an apothecary.

At last at lunch in Christmas week, Bob carried a plate of pigeon pie over to a round rear table and cut the meat with a spoon as he measured the stern man sitting there. Compared to Bob he was enormous, as tall as Frank James but more muscular, six feet two at a minimum and wide as a gate in his shoulders and chest. He was exceptionally handsome in a foreign, somewhat villainous way. He looked like a circus lion tamer or the leering remittance man in a melodrama; his skin was as chestnut brown as his horse was, his mustache covered his mouth like a crow’s wings, and his eyes evinced the black shimmer of coffee in a cup as they studied Bob with an arrogance that was close to animosity.

Bob said, “Sorry for the intrusion. I didn’t mean to interrupt your meal, but I’ve seen your face off and on around Richmond and I can’t place who you are.”

“I own a livery over to Liberty; maybe that’s where you seen me.”

“Of course. That must be it.”

The man looked around Bob to Dick. “Why don’t you call your friend over here and we’ll get acquainted.”

Bob considered it for a second, then motioned, and Dick slid off a stool and limped over with a mug that sloshed pennies of coffee on the floorboards. The man skidded two chairs out with an unseen boot and Bob and Dick warily sat down.

“I was constable of Liberty Township for two years; that could be where you seen me too.”

“No, it must’ve been the livery,” said Bob. Dick bent over his coffee in order to conceal as much as he could of himself.

The man continued, “And I’ve been sheriff of Clay County since eighteen seventy-eight, so I’m in the public eye a lot.”

Dick kept his face lowered but angrily kicked Bob in the shin. Bob restrained his ouch.

The man rose an inch from his seat and shook Bob’s limp hand. “My name is James R. Timberlake.”

“Very pleased to meet you,” said Bob and then sat back on his fingers.

“You’re?”

“Bob.”

The sheriff looked with interest at Dick and he responded without raising his eyes from his coffee. “Charles Siderwood. I’m just on a visit and…Well, there isn’t no and, I’m just visiting is all.” He drank from the mug as if he were suddenly parched.

Timberlake licked a thumb with his lower lip and flipped the pages of his journal, scanning each like a librarian until he located the correct description. “Robert Newton Ford. Born January thirty-first, eighteen sixty-two. Presently living on the old Harbison farm. Single, average height and weight, brown-haired, clean-shaven. Occupation unknown. No prior arrests.” He smiled very briefly and then looked at Dick and reviewed several pages before he ironed one flat with the heel of his hand. “You’re Charles Siderwood?”

Dick glanced at him from under his eyebrows. Timberlake wrote down the name. Bob said, “I’ve always wanted to be written about in a book.”

Timberlake inclined massively toward Bob, overwhelming the table. “Do you think I care about you two and who you are and who you aren’t? It’s the James brothers I want. I’ve been on the loop for Frank and Jesse since eighteen seventy-six and by God I’m going to get them.”

Timberlake withdrew a little and considered his thoughts; a round businessman made an entrance into the cafe, making noise about the cold, whacking snow off his trouser legs and calling, “Mollie, why don’t you cut me some of that good apple pie?”

Mollie said she’d sold the last of it and the businessman winked inclusively at Bob. “Well, give me some of that good chocolate cake so I don’t shrink away to nothing.”

Timberlake rolled a cigarette and licked it and struck a match off Dick’s coffee mug. He winced when the smoke broke against his eyes. He said, “Do you know about the governor’s proclamation?”

Dick gave Timberlake his rapt attention but Bob pushed away from the table and said, “This is all very interesting, but if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to order some of that good chocolate cake I’ve heard so much about.”

“Sit down.” The sheriff picked a shred of tobacco off his tongue, flicked it onto the floorboards between his boots, and dried his finger on the tablecloth. Then he unbuttoned a broadcloth shirt and retrieved from inside it a parchment that was torn at the corners and folded in quarters. He slid the parchment across to Dick, and Bob reached across the aisle to slide his cold dish of pigeon pie onto another table.