Jesse leapt from the saddle and landed in a slight crouch, pulling his other custom pistol and scanning the surrounding buildings for targets. Most of the outlaws were quick to follow him, but two brought their mounts around to cover the approaches down either side of the street with Gatling guns still glowing from recent use.
“Okay, boys, just like we planned it!” Jesse did not even try to hide his wild grin. The rest of the gang, especially young Ty, were smirking and wild-eyed themselves. Jesse knew the feeling well, and he welcomed it. “Harding, you and Chase watch the street, any sign of one of them metal men, you give the signal and the rest of us’ll come runnin’. Any sign of the sheriff, you start shootin’, and we’ll finish up our business right quick an’ join you.”
He turned to look at Ty, standing nearby and eagerly shifting his weight from foot to foot. “Ty, you come with me, the rest of you, follow behind and back my play. Ain’t no need to end any of these folks today less’n they get ornery, but I’m in no mood to back down neither, so if you see me light one up, you consider it open season on dirty rat mudsills, and we’ll start keepin’ score.”
The men nodded eagerly and Jesse turned back towards the building. He could just make out some movement from within, the windows now coated in the dust from the Iron Horses still rumbling in the street. He leapt up onto the raised walkway, his heels cracking against the fresh wood, and moved towards the doors. His duster flared behind him with the speed of his excitement.
The doors to the bank yielded immediately to the first savage kick, the wood crashing inward as the hinges gave way. Both doors fell off to the side with a clatter that caused the people within to cry out. The sight of the men in the door, brandishing RJ-1027 weapons and faces snarling beneath the dust of the road, set the entire crowd surging away. The mob did not stop until they were pressed to the wall, hands in the air. Some glared in anger, but most were terrified, emitting a low moaning sound heavy with fear and despair.
Jesse walked straight into the bank, noting quickly the folks huddled along the walls to either side, and lifted an unlit quirley to his grinning lips.
“Howdy, folks! This ain’t gonna take but a second, and I’d be right obliged if you’d just do as I ask, no one playin’ hero ‘r nothin’.” He lifted one heat gun to the end of his cheroot and lit it with a blast that cracked into the ceiling, leaving a scorched ring of shattered plaster and wood.
Jesse and his boys crowded into the room. Jesse lowered his pistols casually, grinning widely at the terrified clerks behind their barred windows. The rest of his men took up positions behind him, covering the small group of customers cowering against the side walls.
“Okay, boys and girls, let me explain real quick how this is goin’ to play out. Ya’ll know me,” Jesse spun his two pistols in quick spirals around his articulated metal hands with smooth, deceptively slow movements. Silvered elements beneath the dull armor glinted in the bright bulbs overhead. Jesse smiled even wider, teeth clenched around the cigarillo.
“Ya’ll know you’re dealin’ with Jesse James, and ya’ll know this ain’t my first visit to your little burg.” He gestured with one hyper-velocity weapon at a grizzled old man crouched in the corner. “Hell, grandpa here probably remembers it his own self, don’cha, grandpa!”
The old man cringed, his head lowered.
“So,” Jesse holstered one of his pistols and gestured vaguely towards the clerks. ‘Less’n ya’ll are plannin’ on hidin’ behind those bars all day long, I’m thinkin’ we need to start passin’ yer cash on through, so’s my boys here can help themselves and we can be on our way before any of these nice folks out here start crampin’ up.”
The clerks stared, only the tops of their heads visible through the barred windows. They did not so much as blink, and Jesse’s smile slipped with annoyance as they failed to move.
“Maybe you din’t hear me, Billy Yank.” He walked quickly towards the window and tapped heavily on the bar with the barrel of a gun. “Less’n you want me to decorate that back wall there with what you spent your life holdin’ yer ears apart with, I wanna start seein’ greenbacks flyin’ through this window.”
“Get down, ya little coot!” One of Jesse’s boys rushed forward, a modified rifle gripped tightly in both hands, barrel jabbing towards a man staring up from the floor. Jesse’s eyes never left the clerk’s as his free hand flew to his holster, drew his second pistol, and brought it unerringly up at the face of the man on the floor.
“You gettin’ some unhealthy ideas, Lincolnite?” The words were soft, all vestiges of Jesse’s smile worn completely away.
The man raised his hands over his head, stammered out an apology, and scuttled backward through the crowd until his back was pressed up against a wall.
“My patience is peter’n out, folks. Now, if you don’t get a wiggle on and start pushin’ some coin our way, I’m about to kick up a row the likes o’ which this bug hill ain’t never seen before.” Jesse’s voice was low and even, his eyes flat as he stared through the bars.
“Sure thing, sir!” The blonde clerk nodded suddenly. “Sorry, sir.” The top of the man’s head began to bob as he reached beneath the counter, coming up with sheaves of cash that he pushed through the bars. He jerked his head, eyes wild, at the other clerk, but the man merely stood dumbfounded, unable to move.
“Alrighty, lads,” Jesse tossed over his shoulder, eyes and pistol still on the moving clerk. “Why don’t you all see what sort of financial support the kind folks of Missouri City would like to donate to the cause while our friend here empties the drawers?”
The gang started to move towards the crowd, stabbing barrels at folks moving too slow for their tastes. Watches, wads of cash, and jewelry were handed over and the outlaws grinned wider and wider as their pockets filled. The clerk, working under Jesse’s calm direction, had begun to shove the cash into a bag he had grabbed from behind the counter. Several bags lay nearby, already bulging with money.
“Ty, any sign of the law dog out in the street?”
The young man was standing by one of the doors, a pistol clenched in one hand. He peeked out the small window and shook his head. “Can’t see no one, Jesse.”
Jesse’s smile was slowly coming back and he began to toss stuffed bags at the men who had returned to the door. He spit the soggy cigarette onto the floor and gestured with his chin at a pin on the collar of a sullen man crouching nearby.
“Ty, scoop me that little broach on yonder Zu-Zu, will ya? I seen one o’ them before, an’ I been meanin’ to pick one up.”
The young man moved quickly while the man’s face went through several painful contortions, blurring from terrified to indignant and back again faster than the naked eye could follow. In the end he merely sat completely still as the young outlaw reached down and yanked the pin out, tearing the cloth.
Ty looked at the little object quizzically then shrugged. “Some old guy’s head?”
Jesse nodded, tossed the last bag of cash to one of the waiting men, and crossed the room, one of his mechanical hands outstretched. “You said it, Ty. Some old guy’s head.” He took the small token and held it up the light. “Howdy, Abe!”
If Jesse had been paying closer attention to the men and women on the floor he would have noticed the dark looks and shifting glances. His men were no more attentive, laughing as the legendary outlaw made an ironic leg as if bowing to a great man.
“Gentlemen, I give you the original big bug himself, Abraham Lincoln! Of course, in this partic’lar rendition, he’s got a bit more head than the esteemed man himself currently sports… “ With a chuckle Jesse moved to slip the pin into a watch pocket. As he looked down to the small opening the pin’s original owner made his move.
“You southron knuck!” The man was rising from the pile of cowering civilians, a small enhanced pistol appearing in his hand. “Get your freak hands off that pin! You’re not fit to lay a finger on—“
Jesse’s face hardened as time slowed around him. The pin fe
ll from his hand, tumbling end over end towards the hard wooden floor as the leather duster flared out with the outlaw’s spin. The hyper-velocity pistol, already skinned, came up in a smooth arc as its twin seemed to leap out of its holster into his other hand. Across the small room eyes widened in horror, mouths dropped down to scream. The man with the holdout shooting iron tried desperately to bring his weapon up, but there was a look in his eye that Jesse had seen many times before; he knew he was dead, but the day just had not caught up to him yet.
As Jesse’s muzzles settled on the man’s head he snarled, “tell ‘im I said ‘hi’.” With slow deliberation he pulled the triggers.
The crimson flashes from the two pistols snapped out as if reaching for the man’s face. For a split second Jesse’s world narrowed to focus solely on the man’s eyes. Did they flash red for a brief moment? Was that just a reflection of the muzzle flashes in his terror-wide eyes? Was the man actually smiling?
The dual shots crashed into the man’s head simultaneously. His entire upper body splashed backwards, showering the cowering townsfolk with gore. The murmurings and cries rose to a fevered pitch.
Time stopped. Jesse felt as if he had eternity to study the scene before him. The cringing men and women now dripping blood and viscera, the tellers diving behind their wall, the outlaws arrayed behind him, weapons half-raised to threaten the room. Blood drops glistened in the artificial light, hanging in the air like tiny balloons. Through it all, Jesse could not shake the memory of red eyes smiling at him before the face disappeared forever.
When time resumed, it did so with the deafening crack of gunfire erupting all around. Bolts of red energy slashed into the wall as the bank’s unlucky customers flattened themselves on the floor. The blonde teller rose up behind his window holding a massive hand cannon, its muzzle gaping darkly.
“Die, you bastard!” Jesse’s eyes widened as a cloud of crimson-edged smoke billowed out of the giant weapon, reaching out for him like a creature out of a nightmare.
With a grunt, Jesse hit the hard floor, the ravening blast roaring over him. He reached out with both of his pistols, blasting holes in the wall at knee height. A scream rose over the ringing in his ears and a confused jumble of movement flashed from the window as the gun-slinging teller went down.
Jesse leapt up, his anger high, and stalked towards the window, his right arm outstretched, his pistol slapping bolt after bolt through the bars. The far room was a chaotic confusion of debris and smoke, flames spreading out over the wall and across the floor.
“Jesse, we gotta go!” Someone shouted from the door. Jesse glanced back and was shocked to see three of his men down, bodies torn and lying in a spreading pool of blood.
“Damnit.” Jesse looked up at the iron frame holding the bars. Teeth flashing in a snarl, he raised both pistols, mechanical thumbs flicking a small switch on each pistol grip. Both weapons flared crimson for a moment and then launched a beam of solid, furious heat through the bars. The metal kissed directly by the light simply ceased to exist, while the remaining bars and the frame itself sagged in place, the molten ends burning with eerie blue flames. The entire metal structure collapsed backwards into the teller’s room.
Jesse stepped up to the window and leaned inside, one armored limb rising to shield his face from the heat. The two tellers were cowering in a corner, the blonde whimpering as he held a shredded leg with red-stained hands.
“Looks like it ain’t my day to die, chiseler.” He put one shot into the blond man’s head without warning, then swept the pistol over to point at the other man. Just as the targeting blade settled on his forehead, however, the gun bucked beneath his hand and blasted a hole in the wall behind him. Jesse growled, looking down at his hand and the weapon, and shook his head.
“Well, if that don’t take the rag off.” He shook his head. “Someone up there shinin’ on you, Jonah.” He looked around at the building, its walls now fully engulfed in red-tinged flames. “You might wanna light a shuck before whoever it is loses interest.”
He spit a heavy wad into the furnace heat and turned back towards the door. One of his pistols slid quickly into its holster as he bent down to grab a bag of cash.
“Get the rest of it.” Jesse growled under his breath as he swept out the door.
The outlaw jumped onto his rumbling Iron Horse, his face set in grim lines of discontent. The excitement and the joy were gone, drained from him as if someone had burst a water skin. He turned to Ty as he and another man stumbled from the burning building loaded down with heavy bags.
“Ty, you get on Lyndon’s machine, he ain’t gonna be needin’ it no more.” Jesse drew one of his custom pistols and riddled the engine on Ty’s borrowed mount before the young man could answer. “Chase, take care of the others before we skedaddle. We ain’t leavin’ nothin’ behind these mudsills could get a lick o’ use out of.”
Jesse gunned his ‘Horse in a tight circle, throwing out a wave of dirt and dust that rattled off surrounding walls and windows. He headed back towards the river without looking back, leaving his surviving men standing in the street watching his retreating back. As he leaned into a tight turn and disappeared from view, Chase turned to Ty with a shrug.
“He don’t take kind to folks shootin’ at him, ‘specially in a loser burg like this.” The big man cupped one hand around his mouth and yelled into the burning bank. “You folks know what’s good for you, you’ll sit pretty ‘till you can’t hear us no more! Believe you me, that fire’s a lot less scary than you come out and meet up with an ornery Jesse James!”
Ty smiled with a sharp edge. He hopped up onto his new machine as if he’d been born into its saddle. The Iron Horse slid smoothly beneath him as he pushed it backwards into the street, bringing its forward cowling into line with the bank. Behind him, he could hear Chase slapping several bolts into the dead men’s vehicles. Ty was not thinking about those rusty old hulks, however. He was bringing his new machine into line with the bank, where shadows were moving against the rising flames inside, the people trapped within gathering up the courage to emerge despite Chase’s warning.
When the massive Gatling cannons on Ty’s Iron Horse began to fire, Chase and the other outlaws ducked and skittered away, startled by the furious hammering after the fight had long gone out of the men and women trapped in the bank. Chase and Harding looked on in disbelief as the young man pumped bolt after bolt into the building, shattering the front wall, blasting the glass from the windows, and slaughtering the terrified, helpless men and women within.
“What in the name of Heaven are you doin’, boy?” Harding raced to Ty and pushed him hard back into his seat, forcing his hands from the weapon controls. “You gone loco?” His eyes were wild as he screamed, gesturing behind him at the devastated building with one clawing hand.
Ty’s face was twisted in a savage grin. “Well, somebody’s gotta watch out for the big man’s name, eh? Jesse’s obviously too tired to care, but he’s got a reputation, and we can’t let him sully that, am I right?” He was breathing heavily as if he had just run a long way.
The rest of the outlaws stared at the bank as the upper floor collapsed into the inferno below, the blasted first floor now unable to support its weight. There were no more screams emerging from within.
Chase looked back at the young man, the light of the blaze reflecting redly in the young man’s eyes.
“Damn, son, you are the very devil himself.”
Ty erupted in a moment of laughter as if Chase had just said something particularly funny, then gunned his ‘Horse around and roared after Jesse James.
Chase looked back to Harding and the other men, all scrambling now for their own mounts, knowing that they needed to escape before the townsfolk realized exactly what had been done. Chase shook his head in disbelief.
“The devil himself!”
Chapter 5
“Jesse, I swear to God.” The older man sitting across from him in the Arcadia Saloon looked disgusted, his face twisted with frustr
ation and contempt. “They’re sayin’ more’n twenty people died in that fire! You have any idea what kind of red flag that’ll wave in front of the law? They can’t ignore somethin’ like that! Even the tame ones round hereabouts can’t turn a blind eye to that kind of body count! An’ after all that gold went missin’?”
Jesse stared into his whiskey glass with a scowl. “Twenty little coots, Frank. World’s better off without ‘em. Asides—“
“Asides nothin’, Jesse!” Frank slapped the rough table with an open hand. His custom-scoped long rifle, Sophie, shifted slightly where it rested against his chair. At the tables around them men and women looked up quickly before turning back to their own business.
On either side of Frank sat Cole Younger and his brother Bob. Both men stared hard at Jesse, hands resting loosely on the table in front of them, empty glasses resting forgotten nearby. Cole’s jaw worked slowly as he shifted a large wad of chaw from one side to the other and back again.
“Don’t matter if they were the entire Lincoln family, Jesse! The law just can’t ignore somethin’ like that! What were you thinkin’? We got plenty of scratch, I told you we didn’t need another job so soon!” Frank leaned back in his chair, gesturing for his brother to speak as if inviting a child to expand on stellar navigation.
“I told you, Frank, I wasn’t there.” Jesse glared and leaned towards his older brother, mechanical arms folded before him. His voice was a menacing whisper as he continued. “An’ you don’t dare dress me down like this, Frank. Not in front of the Youngers, an’ not in front of nobody. I’m still leadin’ this gang o’ pie-eatin’ knucks, and I won’t stand for tryin’ to dry gulch me here in the middle o’ the day.”
Frank waved the threat off as if it were an annoying fly. “I don’t give half a rat’s ass what you are gonna or ain’t gonna stand for, Jesse. We all told you, that Missouri City job was a bad one. We had a good thing goin’ here! An’ we’re gonna have to leave sooner rather than later now, ‘less you were itchin’ to decorate that sweet set o’ gallows they got erected down by the waterfront?”
The Jessie James Archives Page 9