Shot in the Back

by William W. Johnstone

  “Cummings, or Cummins, somethin’ like that. His first name is Jim.”

  “I thought ever’one that ever rode with Jesse James was either dead or in jail,” Crabtree said.

  “Apparently not. That is, if this feller really did ride with Jesse James like folks is sayin’ he did. I heard ’em talkin’ about it last time we put in at Osceola.”

  “This fella you’re talkin’ about,” Jesse said, “he lives in Osceola, does he?”

  “No, from what they was talkin’ there, he actually lives in Blytheville. Leastwise they say he has a farm just north of Blytheville.”

  “You wouldn’t know where that farm is, would you?” Jesse asked.

  Crabtree laughed. “What are you wantin’ to know for, Frank? Are you thinkin’ maybe he’s still wanted ’n you can go down there like a bounty hunter ’n get a reward?”

  Jesse laughed as well. “Is he?” he asked. “I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “I can see Frank doin’ that. I can see him takin’ that hog leg he has under the bar here and goin’ down to Blytheville to take that Cummings fella in,” Wyatt said.

  “You still got that hog leg, ain’t you, Frank?” Crabtree asked.

  Jesse reached under the bar and pulled out a Colt .44. “Right here,” he said. “Just in case someone wants to come in and rob the place.”

  “Hell, Frank, ever’one on the river knows you’ve got that piece, and there’s enough folks who have seen you shoot that it ain’t likely anyone’s goin’ to try you.”

  The reason they knew that Jesse could shoot well was because shortly after Jesse and Billy arrived in Commerce there was a shooting contest, and Jesse won the first prize of one hundred dollars.

  “I’m not a bounty hunter,” Jesse said. “But I’ve read a lot about Jesse and Frank James, so I’m just curious is all. I saw Frank James up at the World’s Fair in Saint Louis last fall.”

  “Yeah, I heard he was up there, showing himself at the fair, along with the fat lady, the man who swallowed swords, and those little Igorots from the Philippines who ate all the dogs that fella from over in Dexter rounded up for ’em,” Crabtree said.

  “I tell you what, if that son of a bitch had rounded up my dog, I would have shot his ass,” Wyatt said.

  “What dog? Hell, Dago, you ain’t got no damn dog.”

  “Well, if I had one I would’a shot him if he took it. Frank, are you really wonderin’ about this Cummings feller?”

  “I was just curious about him, is all.”

  “Well they say he’s got him a farm just off the road about halfway between the state line and Blytheville. I’m told there’s a red and green barn that’s right next to each other, and those two barns are just before you get to his farm.”

  “If I bring him in and I get a reward for him, I’ll split it with you,” Jesse teased.

  Jesse had a supper of chicken and dumplings when Billy got home from work that night.

  “Wow,” Billy said. “You haven’t made this in a long time.”

  “This is sort of a celebration,” Jesse said.

  “What are we celebratin’?”

  “I told my boss today that I quit,” Jesse said. “You can tell your boss tomorrow.”

  “You’ve got something in mind, haven’t you?” Billy asked excitedly.

  “Yes, but it’s going to take more than just the two of us.”

  “Oh? Where are we going to get someone else?”

  “In Blytheville.”

  “Blytheville? Where’s that?”

  “It’s in Arkansas, just across the state line, about eighty miles south of here. And, I’m told that Kings Highway is a good, smooth road all the way there. We can drive it in half a day.”

  “Do you know someone in Blytheville?”

  “It turns out that I do,” Jesse replied without being specific.

  Blytheville, Arkansas

  Jesse was correct in his assessment of the time it would take to make the drive down. Four hours after leaving Commerce, they stopped on the side of the road, just south of the Missouri state line, and just beyond two barns, one of which was red, and the other green. A ditch ran parallel with the road, and on the other side of the ditch was a fence. On the other side of the fence was a field, half plowed. In the middle of the field, and coming toward them, was a man, sitting on a riding plow that was being pulled by a team of mules. Jesse and Billy stood at the fence until the plow reached their end of the field.

  “Jim!” Jesse called.

  “Whoa, there,” the man riding on the plow called to the mules.

  “Jim, I’d like to talk to you for a moment.”

  The farmer looped the reins around the plow-lift handle, then climbed down and walked back to the fence.

  “Do you know me?” he asked, his face registering curiosity.

  “Yeah, I know you,” Jesse said with a smile. “You are James Robert Cummins; you rode with Quantrill during the war. And you took part in a train robbery at Blue Cut, Missouri.”7

  “Mister, I don’t know who you are, but you got the wrong man. I never done none o’ them things.”

  “Yes you did, Windy Jim.”

  “Who are you? Do I know you?”

  Jesse smiled. “Yeah, you know me. Look close, Jim. I know I’ve changed, but then we all have. After all, it’s been more than twenty years since we last saw each other.”

  Cummins studied Jesse, then he gasped, took a step back, and held out his hand.

  “You’re a ghost!” he said. “Get away! Get away!”

  Jesse chuckled. “That’s funny, that’s exactly what Frank said when he saw me. Tell me, Jim, have you ever seen a ghost drive an automobile?”

  “You . . . you have to be a ghost!”

  “Come over here and shake hands with me,” Jesse said. “You’ve never heard of a ghost who could shake hands, have you? If I’m a ghost, you won’t be able to feel me.”

  Cummins, with his anxiety showing, approached the fence slowly and cautiously. He held out his hand but waited for a long moment.”

  “Oh, for heaven’s sake, Jim, grab my hand,” Jesse said.

  With one last surge of courage, Cummins reached out his hand. When he felt that the flesh was real, he smiled.

  “Jesse James,” he said. “It’s good to see you aga—” He paused in the middle of the word and cocked his head. “Wait a minute. How is this possible? You’re supposed to be dead!”

  “Let’s just say it was a case of mistaken identity,” Jesse said. “And I took advantage of it. I’m calling myself Frank Alexander these days.”

  “Yeah, well, who can blame you? Does anyone else know you’re still alive?”

  “Just you, and my boy here. And now, Frank. Billy, meet Jim Cummins. Jim and I rode together with Quantrill, and afterwards he was part of my outfit.”

  Cummins chuckled. “That’s how you knew I took part in the Blue Cut train robbery. Tell me, Jesse, what brings you to Arkansas?”

  “You.”

  “You mean you came here just to look me up?”

  “Yes.”

  Cummins, with an anxious look on his face, took a step back. “Why for are you looking me up? Bob Ford was my brother-in-law that’s true. But it was him that kilt you. I didn’t have nothin’ to do with it, I swear!”

  Jesse laughed. “I know you didn’t, Jim, and as you can see, Bob Ford didn’t kill me. By the way, my name isn’t Jesse anymore. Now my name is Frank. J. Frank Alexander. I swear, you’re actin’ as skittish as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. All I want to do is ask you a question. And whatever you answer will be up to you. Do you like being a farmer, working an entire year for . . . well, how much do you make in a year?”

  “About five hundred dollars,” Cummins answered.

  “How would you like to make ten times that in one day?”

  “You’re puttin’ your gang together again?”

  “Yes. Are you in?”

  Cummins smiled. “You’re damn right, I am.
”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  “Jim, do you have a wife or kids to worry about?” Jesse asked after Cummins agreed to be a part of Jesse’s new gang.

  “No, I ain’t got nobody dependin’ on me but this team of mules. But I can sell them and buy a horse.”

  “You don’t need a horse,” Jesse said. He pointed to the Oldsmobile. “We’ve got ten horses,” he said with a smile.

  “How many men do you have?” Cummins asked.

  “For now, just the three of us.”

  “Do you want anyone else?”

  “Only if it’s someone dependable. Why, do you have a suggestion?”

  “I do. He rode with Billy the Kid for a while, but he’s a Missouri boy, like us. Right now he lives in Texarkana.”

  “What’s his name?”

  Cummins chuckled. “You’ll like this. His name is Jesse. Jesse Evans.”

  It took them two days to reach Texarkana.

  “Stop here,” Cummins said, leaning over the seat to point to a building that had a large mug of beer painted on one of the front windows. “Jesse works here, only there don’t nobody know him by that name. Here, he is called John Tucker.”

  “How is it that you know him?” Jesse asked.

  “Me ’n him done a few things together,” Cummins replied without being more specific.

  “You think you can get him to come talk to us? Without telling him who I am, I mean.”

  “Well if we are goin’ to work together, don’t you think he ought to at least know who you are? I mean, I done told you who he is.”

  “If you tell him who I am, I’ll have to kill both of you,” Jesse said, and the almost nonchalant way he spoke the words had a more chilling effect than if he had said them more menacingly.

  “I won’t say a word,” Cummins promised.

  “Frank, this here is John Tucker,” Cummins said. “He’s workin’ as a bartender down at the Arktex Saloon.”

  Jesse extended his hand. “It’s good to meet you, John. This is my boy, Billy.” Jesse glanced over at Cummins. “Does John know why I wanted to talk to him?”

  “He knows. When I asked him if he might be interested in something a bit more excitin’, and something that might pay a little more, he said he was ready to listen.”

  “This is more than just talk, ain’t it?” Evans asked. “I mean, I got me a job now, so I’m not interested in just talk.”

  “How much do you make a week?”

  “Fifteen dollars.”

  Jesse reached into a sack and drew out two hundred dollars. “Here’s a hundred dollars for each of you,” he said. “If you throw in with me, there will be a lot more where that came from. Are you in?”

  The two men smiled as they took the money.

  “Yeah,” Evans said. “You can count me in.”

  “This is our plan,” Jesse said. He showed them a newspaper, tapping an ad.

  HATHAWAY RANCH

  Linden, Texas

  Angus Cattle for Sale

  Cattle Dealers Welcome

  “We’re goin’ to steal cattle?” Evans asked. “I’ve done that, and to tell the truth, stealin’ cattle is almost like workin’. You got to drive the critters somewhere to sell after you get ’em stoled. Then you don’t hardly get nothin’ for ’em, ’cause most of the time whoever you’re sellin’ ’em to knows they was stoled.”

  “We’re not going to steal cattle. That is just our excuse for being there,” Jesse said. “What we’re going to do is rob a bank.”

  “All right!” Evans said with a big smile. “Now, that’s more like it.”

  “When are we goin’ to do it?” Cummins asked.

  “Not until the end of the month,” Jesse said. “The bank will have more money then because all the ranchers and businesses will be paying their workers.”

  “What do we do until then?”

  Jesse indicated the money he had just given them. “Well, you’ve got enough money not to have to do anything if you don’t want to.”

  “Where will you be?” Jim asked.

  “Billy and I will stay here in the hotel until the time comes. We’ll meet here for breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth, then we’ll take the automobile down to Daingerfield.”

  “Daingerfield? I thought we was goin’ to Linden.”

  “We are. We just aren’t going to go all the way in the auto.”

  “Hey, Pa,” Billy said later that afternoon. “What are we goin’ to do while we’re waitin’ here?”

  “I hadn’t thought much beyond just waiting,” Jesse said. “Why do you ask?”

  “I want to go to a moving picture show.”

  “What? Why would you want to do something like that?”

  “Listen to this,” he said, reading from the newspaper.

  “‘The Great Train Robbery is a moving picture show that is a faithful duplication of the genuine holdups made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West. This motion picture is based upon a true event, that being the robbery that occurred on August twenty-nine, 1900, when four members of Butch Cassidy’s Hole in the Wall gang halted the Number three train on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks toward Table Rock, Wyoming. The bandits forced the conductor to uncouple the passenger cars from the rest of the train and then blew up the safe in the mail car to escape with about five thousand dollars in cash.’”

  “You actually want to see that?” Jesse asked.

  “Yeah, Pa.” Billy chuckled. “You could call it professional curiosity. If we watch how other people do it, we might learn a thing or two.”

  “Son, every train robbery there’s ever been was copied from me,” Jesse said. “But if you want to go see it, we will.”

  The cabin on the Brazos—March 5, 1942

  “So, did you go see the movie?” Faust asked.

  “Yes, we did.” Jesse chuckled. “It wasn’t like the movies today. I don’t mean just because it doesn’t have sound. It was only about ten minutes long.”

  “I know, but I owe much of my career to Mr. Porter.”

  “Who?”

  “Edwin Porter. He’s the one who wrote the story to The Great Train Robbery. It was not only the first Western movie; it was the first film that actually told a story. I’ve made a good living working on films, not only my own but others as well. And people like Gary Cooper, Tom Mix, John Wayne, Roy Rogers, all of us owe a debt of thanks, not only to Edwin Porter, but also to ‘Broncho Billy’ Anderson, who starred in that picture, at a time when the actors’ names were never even mentioned.”

  “Tyrone Power,” Jesse said.

  “Yes, him, too.”

  “Especially Tyrone Power. He played me in the movies.”

  “That’s right, he did, didn’t he?”

  “He’s not the only one who ever played me in a movie. I’ve got a story I’ll tell you about the movies when I come to it,” Jesse said. “But the only way I can tell a story is from the beginning to the end, so if you don’t mind, I’ll just keep on the way I’m going.”

  “I don’t mind at all,” Faust said. “I believe you said you were going to rob a bank.”

  “I said I was goin’ to, and that’s just what I did,” Jesse said, continuing with the story.

  Daingerfield, Texas

  The drive from Texarkana to Daingerfield took less than an hour. Although automobiles were not all that common, neither were they so rare as to cause a great deal of attention anymore. And some towns and cities even had special parking lots for them. Daingerfield was such a place.

  “You wait here with the auto,” Jesse said to Billy. “The rest of us will go into Linden and take care of business. When that’s done, we’ll come back here. That way nobody in Linden will be able to connect us to this machine.”

  “Pa, why does anyone have to stay with the car?” Billy asked. “Wouldn’t it be better if we all went to Linden together?”

  “There is no way I am going to leave this thing with nobody to watch over it,” Jesse said. “They draw too mu
ch curiosity. There’s no telling what might happen to it if we just left it here.”

  “I don’t like it that I don’t get to do anything,” Billy complained.

  “You are doing something. You are making sure that when we come back with the money, we have a way out of here.”

  “All right, all right, I’ll watch over the damn automobile.”

  “Good,” Jesse said. “John, Jim, we’ve got a stagecoach to catch.”

  When Jesse, Evans, and Cummins stepped down from the stagecoach in Linden, they walked from the coach depot to the livery stable. There was, about the stable, a familiar odor of horseflesh, hay, and, though it was kept relatively clean, even horse droppings. Jesse found something comfortable about the smell for it was an aroma that had been a part of his life for as long as he could remember.

  “Yes, sir, something I can do for you folks?” The question came from a boy of about fourteen.

  “Yes, my associates and I just arrived on the morning stagecoach,” Jesse said. “We are cattle buyers, and we need to go out to the Hathaway Ranch to look over his stock. We’ll need to rent some horses to ride out there.”

  “I’ll have to get Mr. Heckemeyer,” the boy said. “He owns the stable, ’n he’s the only one that can rent out horses.”

  Heckemeyer came out to greet Jesse a moment later. He was a big man, baldheaded, with a round face and full cheeks. “So, you’re goin’ out to Irv Hathaway’s place, are you?”

  “Yes. I’ve been told that he has fine cattle for sale. Is that true? Or will we just be wasting our time riding out there?”

  “No sir, you won’t be wasting your time at all, and you won’t be disappointed,” Heckemeyer said. “If you ask me, Irv has some of the best stock in the entire state of Texas. The boy said you wanted to rent some horses, but wouldn’t you rather rent a surrey? I think it would be a lot more comfortable for refined businessmen like you three.”

  “No, thank you. We’re all three quite comfortable in the saddle, and if we’re going to go out to look at the herd, I think it would be better to be mounted.”