The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford

with Deputy Marshal James Finley as he commenced his search for the slain man’s two cousins.

Charley was coughing from his exertions, so it was Bob who gathered his wind and made introductions, saying next, “I’m the man who killed the person in that house. He’s the notorious outlaw Jesse James, or I am mistaken.”

The confession was so cold and conceited, with nothing in it extenuated or softened by excuse, that Finley suspected it as a stupid prank or as a calculated interruption of his pursuit. And yet Bob persisted with his claims, specifying the articles in the cottage that would signify the owner’s name or initials, depicting physical scars and appearances that Bob incorrectly thought most people would recognize as characteristics of Jesse James.

Just then Marshal Enos Craig was climbing Lafayette Street with Dr. James W. Heddens, the Buchanan County coroner, and with John H. Leonard, a police reporter for the St. Joseph Gazette, so Bob Ford forsook the deputy marshal, running down to meet Craig. Bob asked him if they could talk privately and the city marshal lingered on the sidewalk as the coroner and reporter walked on to the cottage.

Rubberneckers, neighbors, and children were collected in twos and threes in the yard or were peering through the sitting room windows when Heddens and Leonard arrived. The two men went inside the cottage and saw the body on a green carpet, the left eyelid closed, the right blue eye asleep, the mouth slightly ajar. A coat and vest and two revolvers were on an oak bed; the room smelled of gunpowder. Dr. Heddens knelt to listen to the man’s chest and lifted his wrist to check for a pulse. He examined some mean lacerations on the man’s left brow and then removed the soaked swaddling and examined a nickel-sized hole in the skull. He asked, “Do you know who it is, John?”

The reporter was making notes about the contents of the sitting room. He said, “Haven’t the slightest idea,” and then saw a pretty girl of sixteen come out of a sideroom.

The girl said, “His wife’s in here.”

Zee was sitting on the wide bed and crying in her hands. Her calico dress was streaked with blood and was redly saturated in the middle and hem. A fat woman sat with a sweatered arm over the widow’s shoulders, and a girl of twelve was crouched with the children. Zee looked to John Leonard and realized he was recording whatever he saw. She pleaded, “Oh, please don’t put this in the paper,” and Leonard said, “I’m afraid that’s my job.”

The coroner came to the door and asked, “What’s your name, madame?”

“Mrs. Howard,” she said.

“Is the body that of your husband?”

She nodded.

The Gazette reporter turned to the sitting room to see Enos Craig and the two Fords come inside. The coroner asked Zee, “Do you know who killed him?” and Leonard could hear the widow answer, “Our two cousins, the Johnsons.”

City Marshal Craig stared at the strong, spiffily outfitted body on the floor and sidled over to Leonard. “Do you know who they say that man is?”

“Someone named Howard.”

Craig shook his head. “The boys claim it’s Jesse James.”

“Goon!”

The city marshal spied the widow in the sideroom and slipped off his broad white hat as he approached her. Enos Craig was a skinny and very stern man of fifty-three, with a crossed left eye and a vast gray mustache that he continually petted with a red handkerchief. He was not at all related to Henry Craig but was the younger brother of Brigadier General James Craig, a United States congressman, and he could exert in special circumstances the mellifluence that his brother made customary. He glared at the fat woman and the girl until they left the room, and then sat on the mattress with Zee. He remarked in an amenable, soothing voice, “Mrs. Howard? It is said that your name is not Howard but James and that you are the wife of the notorious Jesse James.”

Zee frowned at him. “I certainly can’t help what they say.”

“The boys who have killed your husband are here. It’s they who tell me your husband is Jesse James.”

She looked at him with consternation. “You don’t mean they’ve come back?”

Craig let the widow slump against his shoulder and weep rackingly as he stroked her fine blond hair. He crooned some comforting words and then said, “You know, it would be a lot more restful for your soul if you’d speak the truth. The public would think mighty highly of you; your children wouldn’t ever again want for anything.”

She nibbed her eyes with her sleeve, like a child. “I want to go see him.”

“How’s that?”

“I want to see my husband.”

“Just lean your weight on me,” Craig said, and the two walked into the sitting room.

Bob shrank back when he saw Zee and Charley moved to the screen door. She screamed, “You cowards! You snakes!” She surged at them but was restrained by the city marshal and, struggling, she cried, “How could you kill your friend?”

Charley slouched outside and Bob followed him, slapping the screen door shut. John Leonard scurried after them and went over to the sickly brother with the smudge of a mustache who was then squatting against the white picket fence, making a cigarette. Leonard asked, “You mean that really is Jesse James?”

“Isn’t that what we’ve been saying since we come?”

The crowd ogled them and a small boy ran down the street, shouting what he’d overheard about Jesse James to whomever he encountered. Bob strolled over, slapping his palm with a stick. He said, “Have someone twist off that gold ring on his finger. You’ll find a script with the name Jesse James inside.”