The Woman Who Loved Jesse James

by Cindi Myers

  One morning in early November, we were all at breakfast when a telegram arrived. Annie accepted it from the delivery boy and brought it to Frank, a worried frown on her face.

  We all watched as he unfolded the page. “It’s from Mother,” he said, then read, “George Shepherd says he killed Jesse near Short Creek. Marshall Liggett says it’s true. What do you say?”

  I stared at Jesse. “Do you know anything about this?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I haven’t seen George in ten years or more.” George Shepherd, a former bushwhacker, had ridden with Jesse and Frank in 1868 and ’69. He was arrested and convicted of the robbery of a bank in Russellville, Kentucky, and spent time in jail.

  Frank struck a match and lit one edge of the telegram and watched the flames consume the paper. “Prison must have done something to George’s mind, to make him lie like that,” he said.

  “But why would Sheriff Liggett say it was true?” Annie asked.

  “Maybe he wanted part of the reward money,” Frank said.

  A chill shuddered through me, and I hugged my arms across my chest. I hated being reminded of the bounty on Jesse’s head.

  Jesse didn’t look very happy with this latest news, either, but he wasn’t thinking of the reward money. “George and I used to be good friends,” he said. “Even if you didn’t like a man, if you served with him you would never betray him. What’s the world coming to, when an old friend will betray a man, all for the sake of some cash and his name in the paper?” He stood and tossed his napkin on the table, then walked out of the room and out of the house.

  I stared after him, my heart in my throat. Jesse had always been invincible—the man who could not be tamed, the robber who couldn’t be caught. Even a rumor that he could be killed made my blood run cold.

  Jesse and Frank decided they should visit Zerelda, both to calm her fears and to get a better feel for the climate in Missouri. Annie protested vehemently, but Frank ignored her, calmly packing his bags and then kissing her goodbye, as if she’d never said a word.

  I kept my fears to myself and didn’t waste my breath trying to change Jesse’s mind, but I helped him comb black dye through his hair and beard and told myself that no one he knew back home would recognize him. He’d slip in and out of the state as he always did, invincible. Untouchable.

  Safe.

  While Annie paced and fretted and scoured the house from top to bottom, I coped with my worries by keeping busy away from the farm. I volunteered with my church to take meals and donated clothing to needy families. Visiting with these people took my mind off my own troubles.

  One afternoon, Tim and Mary accompanied me to deliver soup and bread to a young woman in a poorer part of town whose husband has recently died, leaving her with three young children. While our children played, the woman and I sipped weak tea and discussed the recent cold weather and the best way to remove stains from a carpet. I thought of the long, cold winter ahead for this little family and wondered what would become of them. What would I do in a similar situation, left with two children to care for and no means to do so?

  Distracted by such thoughts, I failed to watch where I was going when I left the woman’s house. As I emerged from the narrow side street where the woman and her children lodged, I collided with a tall figure in an imposing feathered hat.

  “Oh, pardon me.” I backed away, red-faced and flustered. Staring down at the woman’s feet, I saw the scuffed toes of boots peeking out from beneath a once-fancy but now faded and patched gown.

  “It’s quite all right, dear,” came the answer in a soft, Southern accent. “I wasn’t watching where I was going.”

  The voice took me back to summer afternoons sitting on a jasmine-shaded porch, sipping cool sassafras tea. A glance at the woman’s face confirmed the accuracy of my memory. “Mrs. Peabody!” I gasped.

  She blinked, then studied my face, frowning slightly. “My heavens, is that you, Zee?”

  Even the surprise of seeing her didn’t make me forget the need to protect my identity, “Everyone calls me Josie now,” I said. “Josie Howard.”

  She nodded. “You’re married then, and these are your children?”

  “Yes. This is Tim and Mary.” The children stared up at her, wide-eyed and silent. On closer inspection, I could see that her bonnet, though elaborate, was several years out of fashion. The face beneath it had aged as well, in ways even the skillful application of powder and paint could not completely hide. The blue eyes that met mine were faded and shadowed with weariness. She quickly looked away.

  “What fine children they are,” she said, with an overly-bright smile on her rouged lips. “Who is your husband? I don’t remember a Howard family in our old neighborhood.”

  “No, um, I met him later. At a wedding.” Not entirely a lie, for it was at my sister Lucy’s wedding that I’d first fallen in love with Jesse. “How are you doing? I had no idea you were in Nashville. How long have you been here?”

  “A little while.” She fidgeted with her beaded reticule. “I’ve lived several places since leaving Missouri.”

  The horror of the day she had left—or rather, been forced to leave—had stayed with me all these years. “I was so sorry to hear about that,” I said. “It must have been so awful for you.”

  “It was.” She lifted her chin, her mouth set in a determined line. “But I hardly ever think of it.”

  “It’s so good to see you,” I said. “I’d love to catch up. We should go somewhere for coffee or tea. Is there a place nearby?”

  She was already backing away, shaking her head. “Oh no, that really wouldn’t be wise. Besides, I have company coming soon. I really must go.”

  She seemed anxious to leave, so I didn’t try to stop her. “All right,” I said. “But I hope I’ll see you again some time. I’m in the City Directory. My husband is J.T. Howard.”

  She gave a half-hearted wave, then turned into the side street I’d just exited. Seeing her now, older and dressed so shabbily, made my heart ache, and I turned away, blinking back tears. I picked up Mary, and took Tim’s hand and started across the street.

  “Mama, what’s wrong with that man?” Tim tugged on my hand.

  I looked back and saw an obviously drunken man accosting Mrs. Peabody. He leered at her and pinched her bottom. Outraged, I turned to come to my friend’s aid, but something in Mrs. Peabody’s attitude made me hesitate.

  Instead of taking offense at the brute’s effrontery, she merely gave a weary smile and took hold of his hand in hers. Together, they made their way to one in a row of narrow shacks that fronted the side street. The man’s voice rose, his words slurred but audible. “I won’t pay more than four bits,” he said loudly. “Not for someone as old as you. Not more than four bits.”

  Mrs. Peabody shut the door of the shack behind them and I heard no more.

  “What was wrong with that man?” Tim asked again.

  “He’d had too much to drink,” I said. “Come on, now. We need to get back to the house. Aunt Fannie won’t like it if we’re late for supper.”

  I walked automatically, finding my way by instinct, my thoughts awhirl, fighting physical illness over what I’d just witnessed. How had things come to this—Mrs. Peabody selling herself to drunks and worse for fifty cents? After losing Sheriff Henry had she given up on respectable men altogether?

  Or had she been selling herself in one way or another all along and I had been too naïve to see it?

  The meeting saddened me for days. As a girl I’d cherished my friendship with Mrs. Peabody, even looked up to her as a role model of a strong, independent woman. I’d been inspired by her talk of true love and I’d sworn to find a man for whom I could feel such devotion.

  But love hadn’t saved Mrs. Peabody. If anything, her devotion to Sheriff Henry had led to her downfall. He had repaid her faith in him with desertion.

  Mrs. Peabody had been wrong about Sheriff Henry’s feelings for her, and that misjudgment had cost her everything. If only she had
put her faith in a better man. A true love would have stood by her and cared for her forever. A true love would never have left her so alone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Jesse and Frank returned from Missouri before Christmas, unharmed and in good spirits. We celebrated the holidays together, but I missed having my own home. “Can’t we have our own place again?” I asked one evening as we prepared to retire for the night. “It doesn’t have to be big or fancy, but I miss having my own kitchen, and my own rooms to decorate as I see fit.” Though Annie was gracious and had urged me to make myself at home, she was so particular about everything that I was afraid to so much as move a picture, much less rearrange anything in her kitchen.

  “You’re right, we need our own place.” Jesse stretched out in the bed beside me, hands behind his head. “Living here, Buck expects me to help him plow the fields and scythe the corn. The disapproving looks he gives me when I won’t are downright depressing.”

  I laughed. “Heaven forbid you actually labor for a living!”

  He joined in my laughter. “Buck can sweat in the fields if he wants to, but I had my fill of that when I was a boy.” He reached out and pulled me on top of him. “I was made for better things.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed that holding up banks and railroads were better things, but I saw no profit in pointing that out. Besides, his kisses quickly distracted me from thoughts of anything but divesting us both of our clothes as quickly as possible.

  We moved a week or so later to a boarding house in Nashville, and then to a house in the nearby town of Edgefield—the same town we had lived in when we’d first come to Tennessee when Tim was a baby. Jesse continued to leave for a week or more at a time, ostensibly to visit his mother. Zerelda reportedly suffered from ill health and needed Jesse to assist her from time to time on the family farm. Though I still chafed at the hold Zerelda had over her sons, I kept my objections to myself, smart enough to know argument would only drive Jesse more toward her.

  Besides, I knew visiting Zerelda was not the main point of these trips. My scrapbooks filled with clippings during the summer of 1880, recounting the robbery of a tourist stagecoach at Mammoth Cave, Kentucky, and a store in Mercer, Kentucky.

  Jesse returned from these Kentucky holdups in high spirits, loaded down with cash and accompanied by a dapper, brown-haired man named Dick Liddil. Mr. Liddil was well-spoken, flirtatious and charming, but he made me uneasy. From the conversations he and Jesse shared over cigars in the evenings, I gathered Dick had ridden with Quantrill’s raiders. The two shared this history of guerrilla fighting for the South and a love of horse racing.

  Upon Skylark’s retirement from racing, Jesse had acquired part ownership, with his friend, Jonas Taylor, of a colt named Jim Malone, who was a frequent winner at the track.

  “Jim Malone is racing next week at Burns Island,” Jesse said one night at dinner. Burns Island was a track in Nashville. “I think we should all go and cheer him on. We’ll invite Frank and Annie, too.”

  “What about the children?” I asked.

  “That woman Annie hires to help her with housework sometimes keeps children, doesn’t she? We can ask her.”

  “All right.” I smiled at him. “We’ll make a fun day of it.”

  All the arrangements were made and as the day drew nearer, my excitement grew. Jesse and I had not been anywhere together without the children since the Centennial Exhibition. My only disappointment was that Dick Liddil would be part of our group. Much as I tried, I couldn’t shed my dislike of the man.

  But I wouldn’t let his presence spoil my fun. Annie and I had new dresses and bonnets, and Jesse hired a carriage to take us to the track. The weather was bright and crisp, the bunting draped across the grandstand fluttering in a soft breeze, sun sparkling on the little lake at the center of the track.

  We trooped to the paddock to admire Jim Malone and wish his jockey luck. Annie, who knew about horses and racing, remarked on the competition, while I preferred to admire the other ladies’ bonnets and dresses. The men escorted us to a box in the grandstand, then went to place their bets.

  We had been seated only a short time when Annie nudged me in the side. “Who’s that woman who is staring at us?” she asked, nodding toward the unshaded wooden bleachers to our left.

  I followed her gaze and to my dismay, recognized Mrs. Peabody. She was with a different man this time, an older, foreign looking sort, in a rough coat and trousers. She wore the same bonnet I had seen before, but a different dress, of bright purple silk, very low cut. “Her name is Mrs. Peabody,” I said. “I knew her when I was a girl back in Missouri.”

  “Is that man her husband?”

  “I don’t think so.” The man said something, then laughed, open-mouthed and braying. Mrs. Peabody’s expression grew more pinched about the mouth. “She’s fallen on hard times, I fear,” I said.

  “Try to ignore her,” Annie advised. “I don’t want them coming over here.”

  Ashamed as I was of the sentiment, I didn’t want Mrs. Peabody and her companion coming over to us, either. I looked away, some of the brightness of the day dimmed.

  Dick Liddil was the first of the men to return to our box. He carried a mug of beer and smelled as if he’d already had several. “Can I fetch you ladies some refreshment?” he asked.

  “No thank you.” Annie didn’t wrinkle her nose, but I could tell she wanted to. She didn’t like Dick any more than I did.

  I searched for some safe topic of conversation. “I can’t remember if you said or not, Mr. Liddil,” I said. “Are you married?”

  “Not exactly.” He grinned, his teeth flashing white beneath his luxurious mustache.

  “What do you mean ‘not exactly’?” Annie asked. “You’re either married or you aren’t.”

  He scratched his head. “There’s a woman in Missouri who calls herself my wife, and I live with her when I’m in the area, but we’ve never made it official or anything.”

  Annie sniffed and looked away. Dick continued to grin at me until I began to feel even more uncomfortable. I was relieved when Jesse and Frank returned. Frank stepped into the box and handed Annie the ticket for the bet he’d placed for her, but Jesse remained with his hand on the open door, looking around.

  “Is something wrong?” Frank asked.

  “I thought I saw someone I recognized.” He squinted toward the bleachers.

  “Who is it?” I asked.

  He shook his head. “I thought it was a sheriff’s deputy from Clay County, but I must have been mistaken.”

  Frank rose and stood beside his brother, joining him in staring toward the bleachers. Each man had a hand poised to reach for the guns they always wore. I looked away, shivering despite the warm sun. I was reminded of my wedding day, when the ceremony had been interrupted by the approach of two strangers on the street outside. Back then, the possibility of gunplay had been exciting, even amusing. But the novelty had worn off long ago—after Northfield, when the terrible dangers of Jesse’s lifestyle had been driven home to me.

  “Hello, there!” A portly, red-faced man approached the box. Grinning, he seized Jesse’s hand. “I’ll be hornswoggled, if it isn’t Jesse. Jesse James.” He turned to Frank. “And Frank! Amazing to see you both here, in the flesh.”

  Jesse pulled his hand from the man’s grasp. “You are mistaken. My name is Howard. J.T. Howard. This is my brother-in-law, Mr. Woodson.”

  Frank scowled at the man, one hand tucked beneath his coat, I was sure resting on the butt of his pistol.

  “Aww sure. I get it.” The man winked. “Imagine, the famous James brothers, right here in Nashville.”

  “Do you live in Nashville now?” Frank asked.

  “Oh no. I’m just visiting. A day at the races, you know.”

  “So are we,” Frank said. “Just visiting.”

  The man turned to Jesse again. “You’re not going to hold the place up are you, Jesse? Could you at least wait until after the fifth race pays out? I’ve got a tidy sum w
agered on a horse in that race.”

  It was clear the man had had too much to drink. He spoke in the loud, overly enunciated tones of the inebriated, and his eyes held a glassy sheen.

  Jesse gripped the man’s shoulder. “I told you my name is Howard.” His fingers dug into the man’s shoulder, bunching his suit jacket, crumpling the man in pain.

  “Let go of me!” The man squawked. “What are you doing?” His skin was the color of paste, sweat beading on his forehead.

  “I’m teaching you a lesson.” Jesse’s face was impassive, but his eyes were icy with fury. The man sank to his knees, tears streaming down his cheeks.

  I stared at Jesse, stunned by such cold cruelty in a man from whom I and my children had known nothing but kindness. “Dave, please,” I protested.

  Jesse glanced at me, then released his hold on the man, who fell forward into our box, clutching his shoulder. “I’ll have you arrested!” the injured man wailed.

  “Not if you know what’s good for you.” Jesse nudged the man with his boot. “Get up.”

  The man struggled to his feet, his eyes never leaving Jesse’s face, fear sobering his expression.

  Jesse took a gold coin from his pocket and pressed it into the man’s hand. “Buy yourself a drink on Dave Howard,” he said, as pleasantly as if he’d been treating a friend.

  The man took the coin and backed away, out of the shadow of the grandstand. Then he turned and ran.

  I looked around, expecting a crowd to have gathered, sure I would see a phalanx of police making their way toward us. Yet no one even looked our way. The exchange had taken less than a minute, and I realized now that Frank and Dick had positioned themselves to shield the scene from the rest of the crowd.