by Tony Masero
‘Jesse James!’ barked Bennerheim in confusion. ‘Who is he? I have no knowledge of the sinner. We of the elite do not concern ourselves….’
A shot rang out and the bullet hummed its way clean through the mounted riders missing every one before sideswiping Belle in the forehead. She stumbled back and slumped stunned against the office wall behind, dropping her rifle as she fell.
All eyes spun around to see a second wave of riders whooping and tearing down the hillside towards the town, firing as they came.
‘Goddamn it!’ cried Frank James, ‘It’s Delaware Ringo and his boys. He must have got wind of the payroll as well.’
Chaos ensued.
The outlaw riders on Main Street began firing wildly at the advancing gang and any gun on the rooftops that they could see. The Pinkertons answered with rifle fire of their own as the Ringo gang milled around trying to pass the wagons now blocking off the western end of town.
The street was filled with raised dust and gun smoke. Gunfire roared from every angle and windows were broken and storefronts smashed under the fusillade. Some of the James gang were dropped in the street and Pinkerton men tumbled from the rooftops as they were picked off by the combined fire of both gangs.
Kirby and Lomas began shooting in every direction. There were eight riders from the Ringo gang down at the blocking wagons near the livery stable and what was left of Jesse’s original band of ten circled wildly in the street. Each party was in plain view and outnumbered by the Pinkerton agents, they fell like ninepins.
In the road below, Kirby watched the Bennerheim family stumbling around confused and disorientated by the mayhem around them. Bennerheim was shaking his fist and calling down every curse that heaven could offer on the whirling riders about him. His wife stood hugging her limping son, who stood wide-eyed and terrified.
Lomas meanwhile, snap-aimed at the riders by the stables and watched the target fling his arms wide and fly from the saddle. In a practiced calculated style, Lomas swung left and brought another target into view.
‘As birds at a duck shoot,’ he mumbled to himself, hauling back on the trigger and bringing down another of the Ringo gang.
More like starlings going to roost Jesse’s gang swirled as one and headed for the eastern end of the street only to be met by the firing from the Pinkerton agents hiding there. They turned back and ran the length of the street searching for an escape but the blocked alleys made it impossible and more of them fell.
Kirby was trying to get a bead on Jesse, but he could not see him below the porch roof. He was somewhere below and Kirby could make out the occasional view of a shoulder and then a hat brim as the bandit twisted and turned in the saddle.
The outlaw was busy with Carl. He had ridden up onto the sidewalk and was pistol-whipping the sheriff who had leaned down to help the wounded Belle. With a series of lashing blows, Jesse was downing Carl, who dropped to one knee and them fell headlong to the boards underfoot.
Bennerheim, wild eyed and his face a picture of fury under the fluttering strips of newspaper bandage stepped up and grasped the rider’s harness.
‘Desist, hell-beast!’ he called. ‘Thou art one of the unclean and it shall end in fire and brimstone for thee.’
‘I’ll see you there first,’ growled Jesse.
Casually, he turned aside from the fallen sheriff and with a dismissive sneer he fired his pistol point blank into Bennerheim’s open mouth. The farmer staggered back, gagging over mouthfuls of blood as his crutch dropped away and he tumbled into the street. His wife screamed and ran forward arms spread wide to encompass her husband. As she did so, one of the charging ponies ran into her and she fell under the pounding hooves. The crazed pony lashed out, splitting her head open under its shod hooves.
Abner gave a strangled cry as both of his parents dropped into the dust clouds, then hop-skipping on his wounded leg he barreled into the frantic rider who was trying to control his panicked pony. With a display of enraged strength Abner caught hold of the pony’s belly in both hands and with muscles bulging he lifted, tilting the beast on its side and throwing the rider from the saddle. With a roar of anguish, Abner lashed out at those around him, his fists punching into both horse and man-flesh at random.
Under cover of the porch roof, Jesse leaned from the saddle and swept up Belle into his arms.
‘Come on, honey,’ he growled. ‘You’ll give me some cover whilst I get out of here.’
Swiftly he seated her limp form before him on the saddle and with a dig of the spur leapt off the sidewalk and onto the street.
As he lunged out, Kirby above him on the roof saw his opportunity and raised his rifle. He was about to fire when he recognized the golden hair flying back over Jesse’s shoulder. In the nick of time he lifted the rifle away.
‘Hold your fire!’ Kirby bellowed. ‘He has my wife.’
Jesse streamed off down the street, heading for the works at the eastern end.
No one heard Kirby’s call over the shooting but they saw that Jesse held Belle before him and pulled back allowing the outlaw to course his way unharmed through their midst.
Kirby was over the wooden dividing wall and onto the porch roof, preparing to leap down and give chase, when he saw three riders setting about Abner below him. They were crushing the simple minded giant between the pack of their horses.
Kirby ran a few steps across the roof and launched himself into the air, dropping onto the outlaws with arms spread wide to encompass them all. It was a bone juddering connection as he crashed into them and two of the riders fell with him as Kirby tumbled to the ground. The third escaped the fall and pulling away, he callously grabbed hold of Abner by his turnip head growth of hair and dragged the simpleton after him as he rode off. Abner wailed frantically as he bumped and bounced along after the bandit until the man relented and tossed him aside and Abner rolled away to collide heavily with a zinc horse trough set up on the roadside. The sound of his impact was that of a deep gong-like sound that rang out over the noise of gunfire. Abner rolled over and lay still, the crown of his turnip head split open from back to front.
Kirby meanwhile was busy with two opponents, the first he lifted from the ground by the neckerchief and punched twice hard and fast in the face. The second was on his neck as he did so, arms wrapped around his throat. Kirby lifted himself back and turned within the grasp, snapping his head forward and connecting with the bridge of the outlaw’s nose. The nose gave way and the outlaw’s face crumbled under the harsh blow.
Kirby did not hesitate; he delivered an uppercut that swept up from low by his waist and thumped in under the bandits jaw. Choking the man fell away as Kirby swung around and grabbed at the reins of one of the nearby riderless ponies. In a moment he swung up into the saddle and made off fast after Jesse and the escaping gang.
‘Kirby!’ called Lomas after him. ‘Where you going?’
Without answer, Kirby hanging low in the saddle pounded after the runaways.
A bullet chewing wood at Lomas’ feet called his attention away and he turned again to the gunfight which was slowing down now as those of the bandits still alive retreated, leaving their dead lying in the street.
Ribbons of dust spun out in every direction across the surrounding hillsides as the escaping survivors made it away. Lomas fired one last shot after them, and then standing erect he called out to the Pinkerton’s. ‘Don’t just stand there, go get after them,’ he bellowed.
Whilst the Pinkerton agents scurried to obey, Lomas eased himself down through the roof hatch and found Carl crawling crab-like across the floor. A thick stream of blood ran down from his brow filling one eye, whilst the other was glazed and only semi-aware.
‘Steady, son,’ said Lomas, kneeling down beside him. ‘Take it easy now. Where’s Belle?’
‘She took one in the head,’ mumbled Carl. ‘I was getting to her when Jesse set about me.’
‘Belle, hit?’ gasped Lomas. ‘She’s alive, right? Don’t tell me she’s dead.’
; ‘She’s stunned but he’s got her. Jesse took her.’
Lomas got slowly to his feet. So that was where Kirby had headed. He was out there alone going to rescue his wife. Lomas was torn between his wounded young protégé and going after Kirby and Belle. It was a hell of a choice.
Chapter Eight
Three of them, Bob Younger, Jesse and Frank, were able to join up again amongst the hills above Roosterville. It had been a scattered and desperate escape with each and every survivor fending for himself as they fled, but by luck the three had run into each other amongst the surrounding hills and winding valleys.
‘How many’d we lose?’ asked Frank.
‘Three or four, I reckon. Maybe five,’ said Bob. ‘Although I reckon Ringo went down harder. He was right under their guns down by those wagons. Damn fool, crashing our party like that.’
At twenty-one years old, Bob Younger was the youngest of the Younger brothers. He was one of a large brood of fourteen children with Cole and Jim being the elder of the boys and the first to take up arms with the Confederacy during the war.
‘They caught us napping again,’ Jesse was rueful. ‘Old man Pinkerton sure has it in for us.’
‘Pinkertons!’ spat Bob. ‘We should have guessed, it all looked too good to be true. Eighty thousand sitting out there waiting to be plucked in the middle of nowhere.’
Jesse eased the flopping, unconscious body of Belle in his arms, ‘They played us for suckers alright but it’s done now,’ he said. ‘Best we can do this minute is find us a safe place.’
‘You aiming to keep hold of that female?’ asked Frank.
‘This here is Belle Slaughter, one of the party who ruined our train holdup a-ways back.’
Bob was dismissive, ‘So what? She’s a Pinkerton and I ain’t got no love for any of them. Best we finish her and drop her off here.’
‘Pretty little thing, ain’t she? A rare beauty indeed,’ Jesse observed, stroking Belle’s golden hair away from the livid bruise on her brow where the bullet had grazed her. ‘Looks too good to be an agent.’
‘Now, now,’ frowned his brother Frank. ‘You’re a newly married man, Dingus, don’t go getting any notions.’
Jesse turned on him indignantly, ‘I ain’t about to. I love my Zee; don’t go getting any fanciful notions on my part. It was just an observation, is all.’
Jesse had married his first cousin, Zelda Mimms earlier in the year and to all intents and purposes it was a fine and loving match and above reproach. Zelda was nowhere near as beautiful as Belle; in fact she was downright plain by comparison. Frank often wondered how she had won the attentions of his daring and charismatic brother. But then, as he had rationalized it, who can understand the ways of the human heart? Truly, it is an entity that sees with a different set of eyes.
‘Well,’ shrugged Frank, glancing at Belle indifferently. ‘She’s a looker alright, I’ll agree with you there. What you aiming to do with her? Keep her around for ornamental purposes.’
‘We’ll hold on to her a while, I’d like to find out more about her and her agent husband. Be also nice to know what old man Pinkerton’s got in store for us.’
‘Can we cut the cackle,’ interrupted Bob. ‘It ain’t safe here, we have to find us a hidey hole.’
‘You got any suggestions?’ asked Jesse.
‘Sure, me and the brothers know a place, I reckon they’ll be waiting on us there. We can make it by nightfall.’
During the ride Belle came to her senses again, she had enough of her wits about her not to show it and listened carefully to the outlaw’s discussion as they talked about the failed raid. It was during their talk that she discovered Kirby’s part and the subsequent disaster due to the arrival of Bennerheim and Delaware Ringo’s gang.
‘You with us again, lady?’ asked Jesse, recognizing the tautness in her body and the fact that her breathing had evened out.
‘Just about,’ sighed Belle, playing the part of a limp captive. ‘Where are you taking me?’
‘A safe place. Rest easy, that was a nasty knock you had.’
Belle had to agree, her head was aching fit to bust and it was a steady and persistent buzz that filled her ears. ‘It sure feels like it,’ she allowed. ‘What are you aiming to do with me?’
‘I ain’t exactly sure just yet awhile. You being a Pink, won’t make you particularly popular amongst my friends.’
Belle sighed again and pulled herself more upright in Jesse’s grasp. ‘You broke the law, Mister James. It’s my job to bring you in.’
Jesse smiled thinly, ‘We all got our mission in life, I guess.’
‘But it doesn’t come down to killing and robbing for most other folk.’
‘Listen, miss,’ Jesse’s tone was harder now. ‘I’m a Southerner. We fought hard for our rights and some people gave up on that fight. Me and my brother ain’t about to do that just yet awhile.’
‘It’s over,’ Belle said with finality. ‘Give it up and turn yourselves in, the South lost and that’s how it is. Slavery is over once and for all. We’re a Union of United States now, why not settle for that?’
‘Why not?’ cut in Bob Younger, who had been listening. ‘Well, I guess we don’t know no other way than this. That’s ‘why not’.’
Belle realized it was not only a cultural ideology that made these boys so committed to the Confederate cause, even after all these years, but it was also a firm part of their early development. They had grown up in the war, and it had been a comprehensive part of their education on the path to adulthood. It was a school they had trained in and as a result it was firmly embedded in all their attitudes. Dealing out death and stealing at will was a conscienceless act on their part, permitted and enhanced by all the cruel works freely committed in the name of justified liberty during that appalling war.
But Belle was having none of it, ‘That’s a damn poor response,’ she remarked bitterly. ‘A lot of men came out of that conflict and found no need to carry on the disorder. I reckon, you’re all just too willful or lazy to change.’
As she said it, she felt Jesse’s grip tighten around her. ‘It was wrong,’ he said between gritted teeth. ‘We tried our best to retain our rights but we was beaten by too many big guns and money. Why, I saw boys fighting barefoot with hardly a shirt to their backs for what they believed in. It wasn’t our spirit that lost us that war; it was a lack of hard cash. And that’s what we aim to do now, reacquaint ourselves with some of that coin the fat cats in the North are making off the backs of our people. They might call it the ‘Reconstruction’ but all it is in reality is a license for carpetbaggers to come into our homes and steal and rob at will.’
‘You were farmers and plantation keepers,’ argued Belle. ‘It was ill conceived from the start. The North had the industry. They had the ships to blockade your shores. The metal and steel to make their weapons. And, yes, its true, the cash to buy what they didn’t have. Once your cotton was kept from going for sale overseas it could only be a matter of time before your resources eventually dried up.’
‘None of that makes it right,’ interposed Frank solemnly. ‘We should be allowed our God-given right to behave as we so wish. It ain’t freedom to have a way imposed upon you, that’s a dictatorship.’
‘And having black people do what you want without anything but a whip on their backs, that isn’t a dictatorship, I suppose. So now you’re going to impose your way on the rest of the world, is that it?’
‘Nope,’ quipped Bob wryly. ‘But we’re sure going to have a damned good try.’
‘Well, you’ll have to forgive me, boys,’ Belle said tiredly. ‘My head feels like its about to fall off, it aches so much. This is all a bit too hard for my addled brain just now. Perhaps we can take this up at a later date.’
‘No need,’ said Bob, pointing ahead. ‘We’re here now.’
He indicated a group of cabins set the shadow of a range of hills before them. The sun was setting beyond the hilltops and lights were coming on in some of the distant
buildings before them.
‘What’s this place?’ Belle asked.
‘’Buy-Me-a-Drink’, they call it. Much favored by peoples of our calling,’ grinned Bob.
‘You mean renegades and road agents?’
‘Something like that, so best keep that wagging tongue still in your head just now. There’s some rough old boys staying here and they ain’t too keen on a liberal minded female. Their idea of a regular lady is one that lays flat on her back and spreads her legs between making supper and doing the dishes.’
‘That’s enough of that,’ snapped Jesse, irritated by the low common talk. ‘You’ll have to excuse young Bob, Mrs. Slaughter.’
‘Why should you excuse me, Jesse?’ cried Bob, suddenly angry. ‘This is a Pink we’re talking about here, didn’t they shoot my brother John? Though he was a bold fellow and went down fighting and killed the bastard that shot him before he died.’
‘Cool it off, Bob,’ Frank said calmly. ‘You see, ma’am. Bob here was a child of eight years old when his father was killed by Union troops and his home burned down. He ain’t got no liking for the North, nor those that serve them.’
‘Damn right,’ snarled Bob, his voice full of reproach.
‘You know why they call it ‘Buy-Me-a-Drink’?’ Jessie asked her, just to change the subject.
Belle shook her head.
‘Simple really,’ chuckled Jesse. ‘You can quote it in regular conversation without anybody who don’t know guessing what you really mean. One fellow says to another – ‘where you heading?’ or he’ll say – ‘what you want to do now?’ Then the other replies – ‘buy me a drink’. Seems innocent enough, don’t it? But really he’s telling his partner he’ll be making his way to this hideout.’
‘Bob’s right about one thing though, Dingus,’ interrupted Frank.
‘What’s that?’
‘We can’t take Miz Slaughter in there. It’ll only cause trouble.’
Jesse rubbed his chin thoughtfully, ‘True enough,’ he agreed. ‘They’ve got a point, Mrs. Slaughter. There are some pretty bad characters in there and it might be they’ll take affairs into their own hands they see a pretty lady like you. Tell you what; we’ll keep Mrs. Slaughter’s presence to ourselves. They’ve got a storehouse up there. It ain’t much, ma’am but you’ll be safe in there a while.’