The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

Bob was forced to walk past Jesse to reach the main room and Jesse kicked his left leg out across Bob’s path, clouting the floorboards with his boot. Bob glanced down at the bogus grin of a playground bully, and at the suggestion of menace that was beneath Jesse’s antics. Jesse said, “I don’t want you to skip off to your room and pout without knowing why I dropped by for this visit.”

“I suppose you’re going to tell us how sorry you are that you had to slap my cousin Albert around.”

Such great heat seemed to come then from Jesse’s eyes that Bob nearly glanced away as from sunlight, but in a second the man cooled and said, “I come to ask one of you two Fords to ride with me on a journey or two. I guess we’ve agreed it ought to be Charley; you’ve been acting sort of testy.”

Bob was pale and silent. He stepped around Jesse’s obstructing boot, calmly climbed the stairs to the upper room, and carefully shut the door. Dick shoved open the closet door with his toe and stared at Bob from among the women’s things. “I’d say that was really stupid.”

Bob covered his mouth and slid his back down the newspapered wall to a sit.

JESSE AND CHARLEY rode west at nine and after twenty miles in the cold chose to risk a Pinkerton investigation by staying over at the Samuelses’ long, ramshackle house.

A dog slept by the fireplace in the kitchen, an alphabet sampler was on one wall, the ceilings were only seven feet high; snores came from the sleeping rooms and Mrs. Zerelda Samuels sat in a motionless rocking chair as Jesse sipped the cocoa she’d cooked. She was a huge, mannish, careworn woman with a mercurial temper and the look of a witch. A robe sleeve was limp where her right hand and wrist had been blown off, her white hair scattered wide when let down, and she sucked her lips over violet gums that contained no more than twenty teeth. She said, “You’re Charley Ford.”

“Yes, ma’am. You seen me once or twice with Johnny.”

“But you’re not my son’s age.”

“No; that’s my brother Bob.”

“You got the consumption or don’t you eat right?”

Charley shrugged and grinned at Jesse with shame. “I guess what it is is that I’m just skinny.”

She massaged her right forearm and said to her boy, “I got a letter from George Hite. Hasn’t seen hide nor hair of him.”

Jesse squinted at Charley. “And you say you haven’t seen Wood?”

“Can’t imagine where he could be.”

Zerelda rose from the rocking chair and said, “I best get some shut-eye. I’ve gotta be up and at ’em by six.”

After his mother left, Jesse settled down on a cot that was under a window the size of a man. Charley tucked his wool bedroll into a pink davenport and was out as soon as he completed his prayers. But he awoke at four and saw Jesse seated on an abused Queen Anne chair, absently scratching the sole of a foot through his sock. “You finished with your sleeping?”

Charley switched cheeks on his bedroll. “I could use one or two more hours if it’s no trouble. I can’t operate on less than five. I run into walls and fenceposts.”

Jesse said, “I’ve been holding a discussion with myself over if I ought to tell you this or no. My good side won out and now, well, I’d like to make a clean breast of things.”

“My mind is cobwebby yet, is the only drawback.”

Jesse crossed to the davenport and sat so close his right knee encroached and Charley retracted his leg. Jesse smelled of onions and camphor. He asked, “Can you hear me when I whisper this low?”

“Just barely,” Charley said.

“You knew I went into Kentucky?”

“Yes.”

“I’m talking about October now. I come back through Saline County and thought to myself, ‘Why not stop by and see Ed Miller?’ So I do and things aren’t to my satisfaction at all. Ed’s got himself worked up over something and I can tell he’s lying like a rug and I say to myself, ‘Enough’s enough!’ and I say to Ed, ‘Come on, Ed; let’s go for a ride.’ Do you understand what I’m saying?”

“Going for a ride is like giving him what-for.”

“Exactly. Ed and Jesse, they argued on the road and when push come to shove, Jesse shot and killed him.”

“Jesse did.”

“You’ve got it.”

“You.”