“My God, have you no respect for private property?”
Bob patted his face dry and lamely said, “I’m the one who’s cut.”
Craig walked t
o the corridor, saying in a peremptory way, “The governor’s in his suite.”
The corridor was carpeted in purple and ceilinged in white fleur-de-lis. Gas lamps whispered as they passed. Dick yawned loudly, like a dog, and Bob inquired about salutary topics of conversation. Craig ignored him. Craig was no longer intoxicated and the aftereffects were making him grouchy.
The governor met them in a red silk robe that was sealed like an envelope around his starched white shirt and tuxedo trousers. On his feet were calfskin slippers and on his cheeks he wore cologne. Craig made cursory introductions and Crittenden neglected to shake their available hands as he settled into a Chippendale settee and specified green wingback chairs for his guests. He said, “My wife is asleep in the next room, so let’s speak as quietly as we can.”
A gold tea service was on the oiled table at his shins; gold candelabra were stationed near the settee arms and the smoke from the candle flames rose straight up. A glint of light was on the governor’s nose and his brown eyes glittered as he regarded the two strangers. “You’re Dick Little.”
“Liddil.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“I spell it with two d’s.”
The governor accepted the correction and Craig said, “He’s given us a confession but so far the newspapers haven’t caught onto it. You’ve guaranteed him a conditional pardon and amnesty for his robberies.”
Crittenden arranged two pillows beneath his left elbow so that he could lean confidentially toward Bob. “You’re Robert Ford.”
Bob grinned but could think of nothing to say.
“How old are you, Bob?”
“Twenty.”
“Did you surrender to Sheriff Timberlake as well?”
Craig said, “It was his brother Charley who was in the James gang. We couldn’t find anything on Bob. He’s acting in the capacity of a private detective. He helped us make the pact with Liddil, and he was one of the party that captured Clarence Hite in Kentucky.”
“I see.” The governor poured green tea from the elegant gold kettle and said, “Jesse James sent me a telegram last month. It said he’d kill me if he had to wreck a train to do so and that once I was in his hands he would cut my heart into strips and eat it like bacon.” Crittenden sipped the tea and touched his mouth with a napkin. “I’m going to wreck his train first.”
Bob scoffed and the governor sent him a scalding look. Bob said, “I’m sorry, Your Excellency. I was laughing at something else.”
Crittenden lounged with a china saucer aslant on his stomach. His complexion was pale as his shirt. He said, “Jesse James is nothing more than a public outlaw who’s made his reputation by stealing whatever he could and by killing whoever got in his way. You’ll hear some fools say he’s getting back at Republicans and Union men for wrongs his family suffered during the war, but his victims have scarcely ever been selected with reference to their political views.” The governor set the teacup in its saucer with a click and slid both onto the gold tea tray. “A petty thief is generally despised and easily convicted; but one who steals millions becomes a sort of hero in the estimation of many. A man who commits one sneaking murder is regarded as the meanest of criminals and fit only for a speedy halter; but there is an illogical class of persons who cannot restrain a sort of admiration for one who has murdered many and shown no mercy, who has hesitated at no deed of darkness and inhumanity. Do you see what I’m saying?”
Bob made no acknowledgment.
The governor’s wife moaned in the other room. The governor tempered his voice. “I’m saying his sins will soon find him out. His cup of iniquity is full. I’m saying Jesse James is a desperate case and may require a desperate remedy.”
Dick expected a reply from Bob but realized that his companion was overpowered by assumptions and suppositions. He looked sleepy, pessimistic, depressed, and incapable of speech, so Dick responded for Bob by telling Governor Crittenden, “You’ve got the right man for the job.”
5
MARCH–APRIL 1882
The pitcher goes often to the fountain, but it is broken at last. The longest lane comes to an abrupt and unexpected turning. The wild career of the James Brothers had gone on unchecked so long, that there is no wonder that many regarded them as invincible if not invulnerable. They seemed to bear a charmed life. And though they were scarred and wounded, and bullet-laden, they lived on defiantly as if they dared fate to the uttermost. But fortune is a fickle jade. She turns her mystic wheel with a capricious hand. She smiles to-day with little cause for smiling and the next day frowns without any cause at all. The fabled Nemesis waits long and patiently by the wayside, but at last vengeance wakes, and doom comes swift as lightning and awful as death.
ANONYMOUS
Lives, Adventures and Exploits of Frank and Jesse James
ACCORDING TO LATER COURTROOM confessions, Charley Ford stayed with Jesse James from December 6th to April 3rd, either in St. Joseph or on the road in Missouri, Kansas, and Nebraska, assessing farmland and small-town banks. The Boder Brothers’ Bank in Troy, Kansas, was considered but when Jesse asked that a hundred-dollar bill be broken down into smaller denominations, as was his custom in bank robberies, Louis Boder got an inkling that something was amiss and lied that their currencies were already locked in the vault for the night. And Charley later recalled that Jesse “liked the way the bank in Forrest City was situated, and said he wanted to take that bank, but I told him I did not want to go into that, as I was sick then.” Robberies were conceived, but never carried out, in Humboldt, Nebraska, Maryville and Oregon, Missouri, Sebitha and Hiawatha, Kansas. And of course Jesse would later contemplate an April 4th assault on the Wells Banking Company in Platte City, but that too would never come to pass.
It was February when Jesse lumbered through snow that was high as hip waders in order to inspect a corn crib and silo near Pawnee City. Charley sat on a mare and smoked a cigarette. The Nebraska cold cut his feet off at the ankles and the wind on his cheek was like thistles, but Jesse was ecstatic. He sat down in the chair of a snowbank and shouted, “I could purchase maybe a dozen long yearlings and breed the heifers at twenty months or fatten them until they’re all twos and threes. I could put the calves to grass as soon as they learnt to chew it. You can wean them on skimmed milk. I’d feed the young ones shelled corn and oats, and I’d give hay to the dry cows; no grain. I’d sorta like to try beets and parsnips in cold weather. Your German scientists swear by it.”