Shot in the Back

by William W. Johnstone

  “Not yet.”

  “When are we going back?”

  “I’ll be going back this afternoon. Whenever you get back depends on you.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve got more schooling to do.”

  It was almost two hours later when Jesse dismounted. He had been leading Billy’s horse. Billy was mounted, but his hands were tied to the saddle horn and there was a blindfold around his eyes.

  Walking back to his horse, Jesse untied Billy’s hands. “All right, you can take off the blindfold.”

  “You didn’t have to tie my hands to the saddle, Pa. All you had to do was tell me not to take off the blindfold.”

  “I was just keeping you away from temptation is all.” Jesse slipped Billy’s rifle from its scabbard. “Climb down,” he said.

  “Now what?” Billy asked as he rubbed his wrists.

  “You can go back to the hotel now.”

  “Good.” Billy started to remount.

  “No. I’ll ride, and I’ll take your horse. You’re going to walk back.”

  “Walk back? How ’m I goin’ to do that? I don’t know how far it is. I don’t know where it is. I don’t even know in which direction I’d need to start out in.”

  “You’ll figure it out.”

  “What if I don’t figure it out?”

  “If you haven’t shown up at the hotel in three days, I’ll come find you.”

  “What if you can’t find me?”

  “Then you’ll be on your own,” Jesse said.

  “Pa, that ain’t right. I could die out here.”

  “You’re right. Get mounted, and we’ll go back.”

  “Good. They’re havin’ roast beef at the hotel tonight.”

  “Oh, we aren’t goin’ to the hotel. We’re goin’ back to Chandler, and the farm. Only thing is, the farm isn’t ours anymore, so I reckon that means we’ll both be working for Frank.”

  “Pa, no! You know I won’t do that! I can’t do that!”

  “Yeah, to tell the truth, boy, I don’t want to do that, either,” Jesse said. “But it’s either that, or you let me continue to teach you.”

  “Teach me what?” Frank said. “I mean, I know, you’ve taught me how to shoot, ’n how to make a fire, but what’s all this leadin’ to, Pa?”

  “Billy, you’re the one that chose the owl hoot trail.”

  “The owl hoot trail?”

  “You’re wantin’ to be an outlaw, aren’t you?”

  Billy grunted what might have been a laugh. “Yeah,” he said. “I guess I do.”

  “If you were to ask me, I’d tell you don’t go down that trail. But you’re a man now, full grown, and my telling you isn’t going to make that much difference. So, if you’re bound and determined to do this thing, the least I can do is teach you enough to keep alive. Now, are you going to listen to me, or not?”

  “All right, I’ll go along with it,” Billy agreed reluctantly. “But, don’t you even have any instructions for me? Are you just going to cut me loose like this?”

  “You’ll need water,” Jesse said. “First thing you need to do is find a stream.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “Animals need water, and they’ll always go toward it. Use them as a guide, and listen for it. Most water in the wild makes a noise that you can hear. And if it is a fast-flowing creek or river, why, you can sometimes hear it from a mile away. You can smell it, too.”

  “How do you smell water? Water don’t have no smell.”

  “You can smell fish, and you can smell wet wood, and grass.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said with a grin. “Yeah, you can, can’t you?”

  “All right, I’m going to leave you now. Billy, if you survive this on your own, you’ll be ready for just about anything. If you don’t survive it”—Jesse smiled—“well, if you don’t survive it, it won’t make much difference, will it?”

  Despite himself, Billy chuckled.

  “I guess you’re right, Pa.”

  “I’ll see you in three days.”

  Jesse put Billy’s rifle back in the saddle scabbard.

  “Ain’t you goin’ to leave me my rifle?”

  “Nope. It’ll just get in your way,” Jesse said as he swung into his saddle. “Remember, boy. Find the water.”

  Billy watched Jesse ride away.

  “Find the water,” Billy repeated aloud.

  “Water. My canteen!” Billy realized then that his canteen was hanging from his saddle.

  “Pa!” he called. “Pa! My canteen!”

  His pa didn’t answer.

  For a moment, Billy felt panic, then he closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He wasn’t going to do himself any good scaring himself to death.

  He took a deep breath, let it out slowly, then decided to take stock of the situation. The first thing he needed to figure out was which way it was to the hotel.

  Which way was north?

  Looking around, Billy saw nothing but trees and low-rising hills. Climbing up to the top of one of the hills, he saw that the sun was directly overhead. That didn’t help a whole lot, but at least he knew that he didn’t have to wait too long before the sun would show him which way was west. And if he could find west, he could find the other directions.

  Not that that would do him any good. What difference did it make if he knew which way was north if he didn’t know which way it was to town?

  The overhead sun was blistering hot, and the land was radiating the heat back up from the ground. Billy was getting very thirsty, and he believed most of it was because he was just thinking about it.

  The vegetation was dry and brown, and as he looked around, waiting for the sun to start its afternoon slide, he saw a little strip of green snaking its way through the brown. For just a moment the sight puzzled him; then he realized what it was.

  “Water!” he said aloud. “Glory be! I’ve found water! And I didn’t have to follow any animals or smell it!” He started toward the strip of green.

  He could hear the water before he reached it.

  “Pa was right,” he said. “You can hear the water.”

  Then he was there, and nothing had ever looked more beautiful to him. Lying down on his stomach, Billy lowered his lips into the water, then sucked it up in big gulps.

  “Ha! No wonder he said find water,” he said aloud. This, he decided, was McKamy Creek. All he had to do was follow it to where he and his pa had been earlier in the day, then it wouldn’t be that much of a walk back to the hotel.

  One hour later, he realized he had made a mistake. This creek had run into another creek. Had he gone the wrong way? Was this new creek McKamy? Or was it another creek altogether?

  He ate nothing the first day and, because he didn’t want to lose the water, spent the first night on the bank of the creek. He thought about making a fire but decided to wait until he had something to cook.

  The next afternoon, he managed to snatch a fish up from the water. For a moment or two, he was puzzled as how to cook it. He had no skillet with him. Then he decided to lay it open into two halves, skewer them from head to tail, then put them close to the fire. Soon the air was permeated with a most enticing aroma.

  About four hundred yards away from where Billy was cooking his fish, Jesse was watching him through a pair of field glasses. He had kept Billy under observation from the moment he rode off the day before. He put the glasses down.

  “Well, I’ll tell you this, Billy,” Jesse said quietly, “you’re eating better than I am.”

  Jesse took out a piece of jerky and began to eat. In anticipation of this very exercise, he had packed enough in his saddlebags to sustain him for the three days he had allowed.

  It didn’t take three days. Billy followed the new creek east for a while, then he saw something that gave him a big smile. It was the rusted-out tin can he had shot the first day he and his pa had come out. He knew exactly where he was, and he started south, toward Dallas.

  CHAPTER TWEL
VE

  The cabin on the Brazos—February 24, 1942

  “Did he ever find out that you had been keeping an eye on him?” Faust asked.

  “No, I thought it best not to let him know that,” Jesse replied. “At least not then. There was a time, some later, when I let him know what I had done.”

  “How did he take it?”

  Jesse chuckled. “It was long enough later that he laughed about it.”

  The two men had been sitting at a table in a kitchen that was filled with the aroma of Jesse’s cooking. “I’d say it smells like it’s about done.”

  Jesse walked over to the stove and stirred something in the pot. “Oh, yeah,” he said. “It’s done.”

  “I’m just here to do your story,” Faust said. “You don’t have to feed me.”

  “I learned how to make chicken and dumplin’s from my ma,” Jesse said as he began spooning them onto Faust’s plate. “Zee could make them, too, but Molly never got the hang of it.”

  Not until both plates were piled high did Jesse take his seat across the table from Faust. He put so much pepper on the dumplings that they were covered with little black specks.

  “You told your son you were going to take him to school, and I see now what you meant by that,” Faust said. “You were conducting the school yourself. Did you say you were teaching him how to be an outlaw?”

  “Yeah, that’s what I was doing, all right,” Jesse replied. “Want some pepper?”

  “No, thanks. You’re serious, aren’t you? You really were teaching him how to be an outlaw.”

  “Remember, the boy had already robbed a grocery store. Who robs a grocery store, anyway? You take a chance on somebody shooting you, all for thirty-six dollars? That made absolutely no sense at all.”

  “Jesse, excuse me for bringing this up. But didn’t you get your men all shot up in Northfield for ten dollars less than your son got from robbing the grocery store?”

  “I reckon you got me on that one, Fred,” Jesse replied. “But the difference is, thirty-six dollars is all there was in that grocery store. The bank in Northfield had a lot more money than that; we just didn’t get it is all.”

  “Yes, I can see the difference. I suppose you do have a point there.”

  “Anyway, I decided to teach Billy everything that I knew, from shooting, to how to live out in the woods when you’re on the run, to how to plan a holdup. And, when you do plan one, plan one that is going to be worthwhile. I mean, why steal thirty-six dollars, when for the same amount of risk, you could steal thirty-six thousand dollars?”

  “That makes sense. In a rather bizarre way,” Faust agreed.

  “You’ve been listening to all this. Don’t you think I could teach the army something?”

  “Yes, I could see that,” Faust said. “Maybe you could design a course of escape and survival for soldiers who have been captured, or perhaps for airmen who have been shot down behind enemy lines.”3

  “Yes! Exactly!” Jesse replied enthusiastically. “That’s exactly what I could do. You’re a famous writer and all, Fred. Why don’t you talk to the army and tell them what I could do. I think they would listen to you.”

  Fred chuckled. “I’ll speak with them, but I think you are assigning far more effectiveness to my words than they are likely to have.”

  “You will at least try, won’t you?”

  “I’ll try,” Faust said. “Jesse, earlier you alluded to the idea that it made no sense to steal thirty-six dollars when, for the same risk, you could steal thirty-six thousand dollars.”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you explain that to your son? What I mean is, did you actually pick out a target for him?”

  “Not for him,” Jesse replied. “For us.”

  Cattleman’s Hotel, Dallas, Texas—June 1904

  Jesse spread out two pieces of paper on the bed in his room. One was a broad sheet and the other was a small pamphlet.

  “All right,” Jesse said. “You’ve been a pretty good student; it’s time we put it to a test.”

  “You’re goin’ to give me a test?” Billy complained. “I never was very good at tests when I was in school.”

  “I’m not talking about that kind of a test,” Jesse said. “This is a real test. We’re going to put to real use what you’ve been learning.”

  The frown left Billy’s face to be replaced by a smile.

  “All right!” he said. “What have you got in mind?”

  “A train robbery.”

  “Pa, I don’t know. Robbin’ a train? I mean, I’ve read about people robbin’ trains, only it was people like Jesse James that done it. But that was a long time ago, and we sure ain’t Jesse James. I mean, people don’t actually rob trains anymore, do they?”

  “I don’t know,” Jesse replied. “Maybe not. But if they don’t, that just means they probably won’t be expecting it.”

  “All right, if you say so. What are these things?” He took in the items on the bed with a wave of his hand.

  “One is a map, and one is railroad timetable.”

  Jesse spread out the map.

  “Now, the best place for us to do this thing is as far from a town as you can get. That way, by the time the train gets into town where they can send telegrams out, or make telephone calls to tell that they have been robbed, we’ll have a good lead on them.”

  “So, that’s what the map is for?”

  “Yes. Also, the locomotives have to go take on water every forty miles. So what we are looking for is a place that is about forty miles from its last stop, and some distance before the next stop,” Jesse said, studying the sheet that was spread out before him. After a few minutes of rather intense scrutiny, he pointed to a place on the map.

  “Here,” he said. “This is on the Texas and Pacific. It’s about forty miles west of San Angelo, which means there will be a water tank here, or very close by. And it is at least another twenty miles before they reach San Martin, so that means it’ll give us almost two hours to get away after we hold up the train.”

  “Pa, it’s not goin’ to take that train two hours to go twenty miles. It can do that in an hour, easy.”

  Jesse smiled. “I know. But it is going to take the fireman at least an hour to get the pressure back up after we have the fireman put out the fire in the firebox, then bleed off all his steam.”

  “Ha! I hadn’t thought of that. That’s a good idea, Pa. I’ll bet not even Jesse James ever thought of doin’ something like that.”

  Jesse examined the schedule for several minutes.

  “What are you lookin’ for, Pa?” Billy asked.

  “I just want to see how many trains come through, and what times they’ll come by the water tank. Here’s one, for example. It’s a westbound, due to arrive at San Martin at eleven in the morning. That means it would be at the tank at about ten in the morning.”

  “Wow,” Billy said. “I can’t believe you know how to figure all this out. I mean, I’ve never known you as anything but a gunsmith and a farmer. But here, you’ve got this all planned out like as if it is a battle or something.”

  “In a way it is a battle, us against the people we are going to rob, and us against the law. Only, in this battle, if we do everything right, nobody gets killed. Especially us,” he added with a little chuckle.

  Billy looked up quickly.

  “Yeah, I reckon that is possible, isn’t it? I mean, us getting killed.”

  “It’s always possible,” Jesse said. “Do you want to back out?”

  “No.”

  “All right, once we decide which train we want to hit, we’ll also figure out what time we need to be there.”

  Billy examined the distance on the map between Dallas and the spot pointed out by his father.

  “That’s going to be a long ride,” he said.

  “We’ll make arrangements for our horses and go as far as San Angelo by train,” Jesse said. “I want to get to San Angelo a couple of days early because we need to decide which train we are going to
hit.”

  “How much money do you think we’ll get?”

  “That depends on how much money there is in the express car.”

  “Pa, we’re doin’ all this, what if—”

  “What if what?”

  “What if we hold up a train and it’s not carrying any money?”

  “Then we won’t get anything.”

  “If that’s the case, then I think we should rob the passengers.”

  “There are only two of us. Too many things can go wrong when you start through the cars, and we probably wouldn’t get that much money anyway. It isn’t worth the risk.”

  “How is that more of a risk?”

  “The engineer and the fireman aren’t carrying guns. The express agent probably has one, but there’s just one of him, and we can handle him. On a passenger car, any one of half a dozen men could be armed, maybe even more. And if one of them tries to be a hero, we may have to kill him.”

  “Would you?” Billy asked.

  “Would I what?”

  “Kill him. Would you kill him?”

  Jesse sighed, then put his hand on Billy’s shoulder. “Son, you’ve got to get something straight, right now. Understand this, and understand it good. Anytime you pull your pistol from its holster, and you point that gun at someone, you have to be one hundred percent committed to killing that person if it comes to it. Do you understand that?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “There is no ‘guess so’ about it. Listen to me. When you pull a gun, you have to have it in your mind that you are ready to kill someone. You can’t shoot someone just to wound them, and you can’t stop and think about it. If it comes to that point, and believe me, we are going down a road now where it may very well come to that point, you have to be willing to kill. Are you ready for that?”

  Billy hesitated.

  “Don’t hesitate, boy. It’s yes or no, there is no in between. And if it is no, we need to stop this, right now, before we go any further. Now, what will it be?”

  “Pa, do you remember during the land rush, when that man tried to run me off the blanket where I was waitin’ for you?”