Manhunter / Deadwood

by Matt Braun

  Tilford made a small nod of acknowledgement. “Over the last seventeen years James and his gang have robbed dozens of banks and trains—”

  “So I’ve heard.”

  “—and killed at least a score of innocent people.”

  “I wouldn’t argue the figure.”

  “And yet,” Tilford said in an aggrieved tone, “they are free to come and go as they please throughout Missouri.”

  “I understood,” Starbuck observed neutrally, “that the Pinkertons had been brought in on the case.”

  “Quite true.” Tilford’s eyelids drooped scornfully. “Some eight years ago the Pinkerton Agency was retained for the express purpose of putting a halt to these depredations.”

  “That long?” Starbuck blew a plume of smoke into the air. “Guess they’ve had a run of bad luck.”

  “You’re too charitable,” Tilford said, not without bitterness. “To put it bluntly, Allan Pinkerton has accomplished nothing—absolutely nothing!—and he has been paid very handsomely for doing it.”

  “Nobody’s perfect,” Starbuck commented dryly. “Maybe it’s time for the worm to turn.”

  “I seriously doubt it.” Tilford shook his head in exasperation. “A coalition of banks and railroads still has Pinkerton under retainer. In my view, however, it’s a waste of money. Given another eight years, he would be no closer than he is today.”

  “Sounds like you hold the Pinkertons in pretty low opinion.”

  “Unless I’m mistaken”—Tilford watched him carefully—“that is an opinion we share, Mr. Starbuck.”

  Starbuck flipped a hand back and forth. “Let’s just say I think they’re a little bit overrated.”

  “How would you like an opportunity to prove your point?”

  “Try me and see.”

  “Very well.” Tilford’s voice dropped. “We wish to retain your services, Mr. Starbuck. Within reasonable limits, you can name your own price.”

  “Exactly what services did you have in mind?”

  Tilford’s face took on a sudden hard cast. “We want Jesse James killed.”

  Starbuck’s gaze was direct now, his ice-blue eyes alert. “Who is ‘we?’”

  “Why, the International Bankers Association. I thought you understood—”

  “Try another tune.” Starbuck fixed him with that same disquieting stare. “The lettering on your door looks like the paint’s hardly had time to dry. Every stick of furniture in your office is brand new, and unless I miss my guess, so’s your association.” He paused, his eyes cold and questioning. “I’ll ask you again, and this time I want some straight talk. Who is ‘we?’”

  A shadow of irritation crossed Tilford’s features. “You are a very discerning man, Mr. Starbuck. I commend you on your powers of observation. However, I am not in the habit of being interrogated. Nor do I appreciate your rather cavalier manner.”

  “That’s your problem,” Starbuck said woodenly. “Either I get an explanation or we don’t do business. Take your pick.”

  Tilford reflected a moment. “Very well,” he answered at length. “A number of bankers around the Midwest deplore Pinkerton’s lack of results. We have severed our ties with the railroad and banking coalition, and formed our own organisation. Our purpose is legitimate and quite straightforward. We intend to eradicate Jesse James and those of a similar persuasion.”

  “How do you fit into the picture?”

  “I am president and chief stockholder of the Merchants & Farmers Bank. In short, I own the bank downstairs and the building in which we are seated.”

  Starbuck played a hunch. “From what I’ve heard, James normally concentrates on small-town banks. So that lets you out, unless you’ve got some personal score to settle. Suppose you tell me about it?”

  “Are you a mind reader as well as a detective, Mr. Starbuck?”

  “Tricks of the trade,” Starbuck said flatly. “I’m waiting for an answer.”

  Tilford regarded him somberly. “Last July the evening train out of Kansas City was robbed. The conductor and a passenger by the name of McMillan were murdered in cold blood. Jesse James, and his brother Frank, were positively identified as the killers. Frank McMillan was my son-in-law.”

  “Tough break.” Starbuck stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “Any special reason you took it so personal?”

  “I sent Frank to Kansas City on business. He was an officer of this bank, the husband of my only daughter, and the father of my grandchildren. As should be obvious, I feel responsible for his death.”

  “In other words,” Starbuck ventured, “you want an eye for an eye. You formed the association—and gave it a high-sounding name—in order to put a legitimate front on personal vengeance.”

  “Not altogether,” Tilford countered. “By ridding society of Jesse James, I am also performing a public service. I see those as compatible goals—a worthy endeavour!”

  “Why kill him?” Starbuck inquired. “Why not bring him to trial and let him hang? That way the state executes him … instead of you.”

  “He must be killed!” Tilford’s voice was heated and vindictive. “No jury in this state would convict Jesse James. Nor would any court dare impose the death penalty.”

  “What makes you so sure?”

  Tilford rose and moved to the wall directly behind him. With some effort, he lifted a large leather satchel off the floor and dropped it on his desk. Then, his expression grim, he resumed his chair.

  “Inside that satchel you will find the Pinkerton file—eight years of investigation and surveillance—on the James-Younger gang. I obtained a duplicate of the file in the hope it would speed your own investigation. Aside from that, it will also convince you that Jesse James can never be convicted in the state of Missouri.”

  “Out of curiosity”—Starbuck gave him a quizzical look—“how did you come by it?”

  “A friend,” Tilford explained. “One who owns a railroad and contributes large sums to the settlement of Allan Pinkerton’s fee.”

  Starbuck studied the satchel, thoughtful. For most of his professional career he had lived in the shadow of the world’s most famous detective agency. The idea of going head to head with the Pinkertons—and beating them—was a challenge he found too tempting to resist. At last, with an overdrawn gesture, he looked up at Tilford.

  “I don’t work cheap.”

  “Ten thousand now,” Tilford said gravely, “and ten thousand more when the job is completed. With one added proviso.”

  “Which is?”

  “You are to kill Frank James as well.”

  “Want your pound of flesh, don’t you?”

  “I want them dead, Mr. Starbuck! Dead and buried—and forgotten.”

  “Hell, why not?” Starbuck shrugged. “I reckon one deserves it as much as the other.”

  “Then we have an agreement?”

  “You ante up and we’re in business. Two for the price of one, delivery guaranteed.”

  “Where will you start?”

  Starbuck smiled cryptically. “Where Pinkerton should have started.”

  “Oh?” Tilford appeared bemused. “Where might that be?”

  “Let’s just say it won’t be out in the open.”

  CHAPTER 4

  The Pinkerton file was compelling stuff. Starbuck found himself fascinated almost from the first field report, which was dated January 23, 1874. He also found confirmation of what he’d suspected all along.

  Jesse James was no garden-variety outlaw.

  For three days and nights, Starbuck holed up in his hotel room. The file, he determined early on, could not be let out of his sight. One look by a snooper would jeopardise the need for secrecy, and pose the even greater threat of a leak to the press. Accordingly, he refused to allow the maids inside, and he himself never set foot outside. All his meals were ordered from room service, and on the first night he sent a bellman to fetch a quart of whiskey. Like a monk sequestered in a cell, he was alone with himself. And the file.

  His firs
t chore was to devise some system of organisation. The file was voluminous, and from the outset it was apparent that Allan Pinkerton had a fondness for long, rambling memos. The agency’s founder exhorted everyone in his employ—from division chiefs to field operatives—with page after page of detailed instructions regarding the investigation. The flow of paperwork was compounded by the sheer number of personnel involved in the case. Apart from Pinkerton’s two sons, who were responsible for field operations, there were a dozen or more investigators active at all times. The avalanche of reports and memos, generated from different parts of the country, was stupefying to contemplate. A method was needed to separate the chaff from the wheat.

  Starbuck broke the material down into categories. Allan Pinkerton’s directives, which contained little of value, were consigned to an ever-growing pile. Speculative reports were next in line, and armchair analyses by division chiefs formed still another stack. On-the-scene reports, written by field operatives, were divided into those dealing with conjecture and those that dealt in hard intelligence. The latter category, scarcely to Starbuck’s surprise, made up the smallest pile. Nevertheless, taken as a whole, the file provided an absorbing overview. Chronicled there was the violent history of the James-Younger gang.

  Like many men brutalised by the Civil War, Jesse and Frank James found it difficult to adjust to peacetime. During the hostilities they had ridden with Quantrill’s guerrillas, and those savage years had instilled in them a taste for action. Bored and restless, they avoided the family farm and made no effort to earn an honest livelihood. Quickly enough, they developed a reputation as the chief troublemakers of Clay County.

  To make matters worse, the Federal occupation forces sought retribution against their defeated enemies. Yet the James brothers were in no greater danger of reprisals than the balance of Quantrill’s ex-guerrillas. The vast majority of former Confederates settled down and went to work, determined to put the war behind them. Other men, however, felt society had turned on them, and that a life of robbery and murder was justified. Such was the backdrop against which Jesse and Frank James took the outlaw trail.

  At the time, Jesse James was eighteen years of age. Still, for all his youth, he was a blooded veteran and an experienced leader of men. Headstrong, with magnetic force of character, he dominated Frank, who was three years his senior. The Younger brothers, who were boyhood friends and former comrades under Quantrill, were recruited into the gang. Cole Younger, the eldest of the four brothers, was the same age as Frank James. Yet, like Frank, he submitted to the will of a fiery young hothead. By late winter of 1865, the gang was formed, all of them ex-guerrillas and stone-cold killers. Their leader was Jesse James.

  Only ten months after the Civil War ended, the long string of depredations committed by the James-Younger gang began. On the morning of February 3, 1866, they rode into Liberty, Missouri, and robbed the Clay County Savings Association of $70,000. It was the first daylight bank robbery in American history, and created a furor in the nation’s press. It also served as the template by which the gang would operate over the years ahead. In the course of the holdup, the bank teller and an innocent bystander were callously murdered. The only shots fired were those fired by the gang, and they escaped unharmed. The scene would be repeated time and time again.

  For the next eight years the gang roamed the Midwest, robbing trains and looting banks. Their raids were conducted with military precision, and ranged over an area encompassing Missouri, Kansas, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Iowa. The dead littering their backtrail grew in number with each holdup, yet pursuit was rare. Even though the law knew their names, no concerted effort was made to track them to their homeground in Missouri. Like will-o’-the-wisps they appeared from nowhere—hitting fast and hard—then vanished without a trace. And the bloodletting went on unabated.

  Early in 1874 the Pinkerton agency entered the case. Their failure was monumental, and resulted in an immediate loss of prestige. One of their agents, operating undercover, was captured in Clay County. With his hands tied behind his back, he was executed personally by Jesse James. As an added humiliation—and a warning to all lawmen—his body was left to be savaged by wild hogs. The incident kindled in Allan Pinkerton an unyielding hatred for the outlaws. His memos thereafter took on the fervour and tone of a holy war.

  A few months later Pinkerton suffered yet another loss of face. On a brisk March day, two operatives, accompanied by a deputy sheriff, were surprised by Jim and John Younger. The encounter occurred on a back-country road, and in the ensuing shootout both Youngers were wounded. One of the detectives and the deputy sheriff were killed on the spot. The second Pinkerton escaped during the confusion, and thus lived to tell the tale. While John Younger ultimately died of his wounds, the message quickly made the rounds among peace officers. Any outsider who ventured into Clay County—whether Pinkerton or lawman—would be made to pay the price. And then left to the wild hogs.

  In the end a combination of partisan politics and the terror inspired by the gang defeated the Pinkertons. If a group of former Quantrill raiders held up a bank or robbed a train, the common wisdom was that no great harm had been done. Bankers and railroad barons, who were considered thieves themselves, could easily afford the loss.

  Friends and relatives, moreover, were always willing to hide the outlaws. Of no less significance, they also provided the gang with an efficient and highly reliable intelligence network. No stranger entered the backwoods of Clay County without arousing comment, and word swiftly found its way to those who supported the robbers. Those who were unsympathetic simply tended their own business and made every effort to remain neutral. Forced to choose, few would have taken sides with Yankee detectives in any event. A veil of silence hung like a wintry cloud over all of Clay County.

  After losing two operatives, Allan Pinkerton waited almost a year before he again challenged the James boys on homeground. On the night of January 25, 1875, a squad of Pinkerton agents surrounded the home at the family farm. Jesse and Frank, with several members of the gang, had ridden away only hours before. Inside the house were Jesse’s mother, his stepfather, Dr. Reuben Samuel, and his young half brother, Archie Samuel. A servant, awakened when the operatives pried open a window shutter, sounded the alarm.

  The Pinkertons, determined to capture or kill the James boys, immediately tossed a large iron bomb through the window. While the family stumbled about in the dark, the bomb exploded. A piece of shrapnel struck Jesse’s mother and tore off her right arm below the elbow. Across the room, young Archie was hit in the chest by another jagged shard and died instantly. Only the quick thinking of Dr. Samuel, who hastily applied a tourniquet to his wife’s arm, saved her from bleeding to death.

  With the house ablaze, and no sign of the James boys, the detectives panicked and fled. Later the Pinkerton agency denied that the object hurled through the window was a bomb. By then, however, the damage was done. Censure from the community and several prominent politicians forced Allan Pinkerton to withdraw his operatives from Clay County. Thereafter the Pinkertons were vilified as assassins and child killers. And the legend of Jesse James took on a whole new dimension.

  Oddly enough, that aspect of the case stirred Starbuck’s admiration. The Pinkerton file documented beyond question that Jesse James was a social misfit with a deep-rooted persecution complex. Nor was there any doubt that he was a mad-dog killer—lacking mercy or remorse—who dispatched his victims with cold ferocity. Yet he was also a master of propaganda. With cunning and calculation, he had captured the public’s imagination and transformed himself into a heroic figure. In a very real sense, he was his own best press agent, and one with a certain flair for words. However grudgingly, Starbuck had to admit he’d done a slam-bang job of whitewashing himself and his murderous deeds.

  Throughout the years, James had written articulate and persuasive letters to the editors of influential mid-western newspapers. The letters were duly reprinted, and accounted, in large measure, for the myth that “he robbed th
e rich and gave to the poor.” Comparisons were drawn between Jesse James and Robin Hood, the legendary outlaw of Sherwood Forest. Not entirely in jest, newspaper editorials made reference to “Jesse and his merry band of robbers.”

  Apocryphal tales were widely circulated with regard to his charitable nature and his compassion for the poor. One story, typical of many, credited Jesse with donating a bag of gold to help establish a school for Negro children in Missouri. The gold, naturally, was reported to have been liberated from the coffers of a money-grabbing banker. In time, with such tales multiplying, Jesse became known as a champion of the oppressed and downtrodden. To backwoods Missourians and gullible Easterners alike he came to represent a larger-than-life figure. A Robin Hood reborn—who wore a sixgun and puckishly thumbed his nose at the law.

  In Starbuck’s view, the fault could be traced directly to the Pinkertons. Had they done their job, Jesse James would have been tried and hanged, and long forgotten. Instead they had botched the assignment from beginning to end. By hounding James for eight years they had turned themselves into the villains of the piece and transformed him into the underdog. Their abortive raid on the family farm had merely capped an already miserable performance. A child’s death, and the horror of an innocent woman losing her arm, had been perceived by the public as unconscionable. That one act had stamped the Pinkertons as skulking cowards, somehow more outside the law than the man they hunted. And Jesse James, mindful of public reaction, had quickly seized on the opportunity. Without the Pinkertons, he would have been just another outlaw, foxier than most but nothing to rate front-page headlines. With the Pinkertons, he had become a mythical creature and a national sensation. A legend.

  On the evening of the third day Starbuck finally put the file aside. His eyes were bloodshot from reading and his head felt like an oversoaked sponge. He poured himself a stiff shot of whiskey and slugged it back in a single motion. Then he stretched out on the bed, hands locked behind his head, and stared at the ceiling. Slowly, with infinite care, he examined what he’d gleaned from the file.