Shot in the Back

by William W. Johnstone

  “It says, ‘No new lead on the bold robbery of the Texas and Pacific train near San Angelo, Texas, two months ago. The robbers, two men, believed possibly to be father and son, accosted the engineer and fireman when the train stopped for water. The robbery must have been well planned, for they forced the fireman to divest the engine of all steam pressure, then extinguish the fire before they left. That put the train more than an hour behind schedule, and it was only by sheer luck that no head-on collision ensued with the next east-bound train on the same line. A spokesman for the railroad said that not even Jesse James could have pulled off a more clever train robbery.

  “‘Within a few days after the bold robbery, two men robbed the bank in Culpepper, Texas, and as the description generally matched that of the train robbers, it is believed it may have been the same father and son team.’

  “Ha! What do you think of that? Not even Jesse James could have done better,” Billy said with a big smile.

  “How could they have possibly known that we were father and son?” Jesse asked.

  “Uh, Pa, that might have been my fault,” Billy said. “I sort of let it slip to the engineer.”

  “Damn it, boy, you have to be careful about such things,” Jesse said.

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Well, what’s done is done, and mistakes aren’t all that bad if you learn from them. But think, next time.”

  “I will, Pa. I promise.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  When they reached the fairground entrance, a policeman was standing at the gate, holding up his hand.

  “Pa!” Billy gasped. “What do you think he wants?”

  “Relax,” Jesse said. “He’s not holding a gun in his hand, so he damn sure isn’t planning on arresting us.”

  Jesse approached the gate, then put his foot on the clutch to disengage the transmission. The engine continued to pop and growl.

  “There’s a special lot for parking the automobiles,” the policeman said, pointing. “It’s down at the south end of the park. Don’t go into the same lot as the horses, because these infernal machines frighten them.”

  “All right,” Jesse said, following the policeman’s instructions.

  After parking the car, they walked toward the Hall of Festivals, which was the largest and most iconic symbol of the entire fair. The dome, a pamphlet said, was larger than that of St. Peter’s in Rome. A flow of water, fifty feet wide, gushed from the north side of the hall and splashed down ninety-five feet through a series of cascades, bottoming out at the grand basin, then splitting into three waterways. These waterways were filled with graceful gondolas, which carried hundreds of visitors to lagoons in various parts of the fairgrounds. Punctuating the system of lagoons, and placed for dramatic effect, were a series of gushing fountains.

  ICE CREAM CONES a sign nearby read.

  “Hey, Pa, what do you think an ‘ice cream cone’ is?” Billy asked.

  “I don’t know. Why don’t we find out?”

  A few minutes later Jesse and Billy were walking down ‘The Pike’ eating a scoop of ice cream in a rolled-up waffle.5 The Pike was a solid stream of humanity, moving from one part of the fairgrounds to another. The newspaper article Jesse had read said that, already, three million visitors had passed through the fair, and they expected at least two million more.

  “Look at that!” Billy said, pointing to a giant wheel. He read from the pamphlet they had picked up earlier. “‘The giant wheel is two hundred fifty feet high, and each of the cars can hold sixty people. It takes twenty minutes for the Ferris Wheel to make one revolution.’” 6

  The first place they visited was the Palace of Machinery.

  “Damn, Pa, look at this,” Billy said, pointing to one of the displays. “It says here that this gasoline engine has the power of three thousand horses. Ha! What if we had that engine in our auto? I’ll bet we could go one hundred miles per hour.”

  “I don’t know, it’s so big it seems to me like it would weigh so much it would hold the auto back,” Jesse said.

  From the Palace of Machinery they went to Transportation Hall, which boasted a network of railroad tracks carrying an array of full-scale models of the earliest engines to the latest and most powerful locomotives. They also had luxurious passenger cars, one of which had been the private car of President Abraham Lincoln. There was even a refrigerated freight car in which a sign proudly proclaimed PERISHABLE PRODUCTS MAY BE SENT WITHOUT RISK OF SPOILAGE.

  Next, they visited something called the Magic Whirlpool. The water, according to the pamphlet, was drawn from the Mississippi River, and the effect of a giant whirlpool was created by using centrifugal pumps the draw forty-nine thousand gallons of water a minute.

  “Now, I’ve got someplace that I want to go,” Jesse said.

  “Where?”

  “Over there,” Jesse said, pointing to a low, flat-roofed, white building. “When we passed by it awhile ago, I heard the barker out front announcing that some of the most feared and celebrated outlaws of the Old West are inside.”

  “Pa, are you serious? I mean who could possibly be there? The real ones are either dead or are old men still in prison. You know there won’t be anyone worth seeing in there.”

  “Let’s take a look anyway,” Jesse said.

  “Who’s in there?” Billy asked.

  “I’ll read what it says,” Jesse replied.

  “‘John Wilson Vermillion, alias “Texas Jack” and “Shoot Your Eyes Out” Vermillion, was a famous shootist of the Old West who rode with Wyatt Earp during his vendetta ride.’”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” Billy said. “Who else is there?”

  “‘David Anderson, better known under the alias Billy Wilson. He rode with Billy the Kid,’” Jesse read.

  “I’ve never heard of him, either, but I have heard of Billy the Kid. Hey, Pa, what do you think? I believe I’ll start calling myself Billy the Kid,” Billy said with a chuckle.

  “Not while you’re with me, you won’t,” Jesse replied.

  “John Vermillion and David Anderson. I have no idea why you want to see them, but if that’s what you want, I’ll go along with you.”

  “Come with me or not, it makes no difference. I’m going to go see them,” Jesse said. What he didn’t say was that there was one more outlaw listed in the pamphlet, and though he didn’t read that name aloud, that was the person he really had come to see. It was the same name he had seen in the paper back in Kearney when he agreed with Billy to come to the World’s Fair in St. Louis. It was, in fact, the only reason he had agreed to come.

  “Let’s go in here and have a look around,” Jesse suggested.

  “All right,” Billy agreed. “But I tell you the truth, if it wasn’t for you wantin’ to come in here, I don’t think I’d walk across the street to see ’em.”

  Jesse led a reluctant Billy into the building and looked onto the raised platform where there were three Old West characters sitting in chairs by the signs that identified them. There were the two that Jesse had read about, and the one that he didn’t mention. All three were wearing jeans, boots, denim shirts, and a holster and pistol.

  “Ha! What do you bet that there isn’t a bullet in a one of them guns?” Billy said.

  “I’m sure you’re right,” Jesse said.

  “Folks,” a barker said to those who were gathered in the hall. “This desperate character is Texas Jack Vermillion. While in Dodge City, Kansas, he became very good friends with such people as Wyatt and Virgil Earp, and Doc Holliday. When those men went to Tombstone, Texas Jack went with them, working there as a special deputy. After the shootout at the O.K. Corral, and the murder of Morgan Earp, Texas Jack rode with Deputy U.S. Marshal Wyatt Earp on the famous Vendetta ride where both Frank Stilwell and Curly Bill Brocius were killed. Texas Jack was one of the deadliest gunfighters in the Old West, and he picked up the sobriquet, ‘Shoot Your Eye Out’ Vermillion because in one of his gunfights, he did shoot out the eye of his adversary.”

  “H
ow come he isn’t in prison now?” someone asked from the crowd.

  “He isn’t in prison because every gunfight in which he participated was a fair fight and, in every case, he was also representing the law.”

  “Our second desperado,” the barker said to the crowd, is David Anderson who, during his time as a gunfighter in the Old West, was known as Billy Wilson. Mr. Wilson, if you would, give the crowd a greeting.”

  Wilson stood up and, drawing his gun quickly, fired it at the crowd; the muzzle flash was bright, and the sound of the shot ear-splitting.

  Many in the crowd screamed and some started to run, until they realized he had fired a blank round. Then the crowd laughed, and, feeling a twinge of excitement over having been so frightened, they came back to the raised platform where Wilson twirled the pistol around his trigger finger before putting the gun back in its holster.

  “Dave Anderson, or Billy Wilson, began his outlaw career by riding with a gang of rustlers, led by Billy the Kid,” the barker continued. “There he met up with an old friend, Dave Rudabaugh, with whom he had outlawed a bit back in Las Vegas. The gang raised havoc throughout New Mexico. Soon after, Mr. Wilson was involved, with Billy the Kid and Rudabaugh, in the killing of Deputy James Carlyle at the ranch of Jim Greathouse. Then, on the nineteenth of December, 1880, six members of the gang were riding into Fort Sumner, when Pat Garrett and his posse opened fire on them from ambush. One of the rustlers, Tom O’Folliard, was killed, but the rest escaped. But just a few days later, on the twenty-third of December, that same year, at a rock house at Stinking Springs, Wilson, Billy the Kid, Dave Rudabaugh, and Tom Pickett of the Rustlers were captured by Garrett’s posse. Rustler Charlie Bowdre was killed in that fight. Wilson went to trial, was convicted, and sentenced to serve seven years in prison. However, he managed to escape in September 1882.

  “Ten years ago he turned himself in, and at that time was given a full and complete pardon.”

  The third man on the podium was almost totally bald, and with a full mustache. He was sitting by a sign that identified him as Frank James.

  “It seems to me like that barker is tryin’ to make these outlaw fellas more famous than they really are, ’cause I haven’t heard of anyone in this—” Billy paused in midsentence, and pointed.

  “Pa, look,” he said in an awe-struck voice. “Look over there! There’s somebody I have heard of. That sign says he is Frank James.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  “I know why you wanted to come in here now. You seen his name in that pamphlet, didn’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, why didn’t you tell me that Frank James was here? You know I would have come to see him.”

  “You’re here now.”

  “Let’s go over there to him.”

  “Not yet,” Jesse replied.

  “Not yet? Why not yet?”

  “Just wait,” Jesse said somewhat cryptically.

  Jesse waited until after the barker had given his spiel about Frank James, connecting him frequently with his even more famous brother. Then, when the barker’s little talk was over, and the crowd drifted away, there was no one remaining around the man identified as Frank James.

  That was when Jesse and Billy walked up to him. Jesse stood there for a while, just staring. Frank had changed so much that at first he didn’t believe it was him, but upon closer scrutiny, he saw that it really was.

  “Pa, what are we doin’ just standin’ here like this?” Billy asked.

  “Son. I want you to say hello to your uncle Frank,” Jesse said.

  “What?”

  Frank James was so used to people gazing at him that he had learned how to not pay any attention to someone, no matter how intensely they might be staring. Because of that he had taken no more notice of the two who had just approached him than he had of any of the other hundreds of thousands of gawkers who had come through while he was on display.

  Then he heard Jesse speak. And it wasn’t the words that got his attention as much as it was the familiar voice. He looked down first in surprise, then in absolute shock, unable to believe what he was seeing.

  “Dingus?” he said, the word barely audible. “My God! Are you a ghost? No, you can’t be! Ghosts don’t get any older, do they?”

  “Hello, Lexy,” Jesse replied. Those were the private names the two brothers had used with each other for their entire lives. Lexy from Frank James’s first name, Alexander. Jesse never swore when he was a young man, and he had made up the word “dingus” as a substitute curse word. As a way of teasing him, Frank had pinned that on him as a nickname.

  “I’m not a ghost.”

  “But . . . I don’t understand,” Frank said. “How can this be?” He shook his head. “No.” He held his hand out toward Jesse. “No, this isn’t real. Get away! Get away from me.”

  “It’s real, Lexy. I swear to you, I’m really here, talking to you.”

  “But, how? How?”

  “I guess you and I have some talking to do, don’t we?” Jesse asked.

  “Talking? You’ve been dead for twenty-two years, then you suddenly show up and say we’ve got talking to do?” Now Frank’s voice was more agitated than shocked.

  “Please, Frank,” Jesse said.

  Frank reached over and turned his sign around so that, instead of reading FRANK JAMES, it read WILL BE BACK SOON.

  “You won’t actually be back soon,” Jesse said. “Not if you let me tell you the whole story.”

  “I’m getting paid to do this,” Frank said. “I have to be here until six o’clock tonight.”

  “All right. We’ll come back at six.”

  Frank ran his hand over the top of his head, then sighed and shook his head.

  “No, hold on for a minute. There’s no way I can wait until six o’clock to find out what this is all about,” he said. “I’ll go see the display manager and tell him I’m not feeling well and I want to take the rest of the day off. If he wants to dock my pay, so be it.”

  “All right, we’ll meet you just outside the door,” Jesse said.

  “Pa?” Billy asked. His voice was as shocked as Frank’s voice had been. “Pa, what is this? Why did you tell me to say hello to my uncle Frank?”

  “I know you’ve got questions, son, but so does Frank. And he’s had questions for a lot longer than you have. Just wait, it’ll be easier for me to talk to both of you at the same time. I’ll answer all the questions either of you have then.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise,” Jesse said. “You have no idea how long I’ve been wanting to tell someone the truth.”

  A few minutes later, Frank came out of the building.

  “All right, let’s hear it,” Frank said.

  The building was just off the Pike, and the fair was alive with sound—thousands of voices, motorized machines, and music.

  “Not here,” Jesse said. “Isn’t there somewhere we can go where it will be quiet enough that a fella can hear himself think?”

  “I know a place down by the river. We can go get our supper there. It might be hard to hire a cab, though, what with all the people in town.”

  “I have an automobile,” Jesse said.

  Frank smiled, for the first time, and shook his head.

  “You would, Dingus. You would.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  The Riverboat Café sat on the west side of Broadway, which was the brick-paved road that separated the café from the cobblestone riverbank. At least half a dozen steamboats were tied up at the landing, the twin, fluted chimneys of the wedding cake craft rising high into the air. Jesse, Billy, and Frank were sitting in the single booth located at the rear of the café. They had chosen this location because it was far enough away from any of the other diners that it would allow them to speak without being overheard.

  “You can’t beat the fried catfish and hush puppies here,” Frank said.

  “I always have liked catfish,” Jesse said.

  Frank sighed. “Jesse,
I don’t know how it’s possible that I’m sittin’ across the table from you. But I know this is you. What are you doing here?”

  “I came back to Missouri, hoping to look up Zee and make amends with her. I didn’t know she had died.”

  “How could you know? You never bothered to check, did you?”

  “Ma is still alive, isn’t she?” Jesse asked without responding directly to Frank’s challenging comment. “I figure she is, because when I visited the cemetery, I didn’t see any tombstones with her name.”

  “She’s still alive.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “How could you have done this to Zee? How could you have done this to Ma? How could you have done this to me? All these years, you’ve been alive, when every one of us thought you were dead. Did you never give us a second thought, Jesse?”

  “Of course I did.”

  “Pa?” Billy asked, his face contorted by confusion. “Pa, why is Frank James callin’ you Jesse?”

  “You mean even the boy doesn’t know? He just called you Pa. I know this isn’t Jesse Junior. Who is he?”

  “Don’t talk about me like I’m not even here, mister,” Billy said. “My name is William Anderson Alexander. And this is my pa.”

  “Alexander? Is that what you’re callin’ yourself now?”

  “Yes. My name is James Frank Alexander,” Jesse replied.

  “Pa, what is goin’ on here? What are you all talkin’ about?”

  “Your pa is Jesse James,” Frank said.

  “What?” Billy gasped. “You’re . . . you’re Jesse James?” Billy was as shocked now as Frank James had been earlier.

  “Yes, son. My real name is Jesse James.”

  “Pa, I don’t understand. I thought Jesse James was dead. I thought he was killed. The whole world thought he was killed.”

  “That was the way I planned it,” Jesse said.

  “You mean that, through all these years, you’ve been lyin’? You’ve lied to me and Frank?”

  “He hasn’t been lying to me all these years, boy. I hadn’t laid eyes on him until this afternoon.”

  “When I said Frank, I wasn’t talking about you. I was talking about my brother.”