by Matt Braun
Starbuck nodded diffidently and returned to his seat. The inquest concluded with the testimony of Charley Ford. His story was a reprise of his brother’s statement, and added nothing to the record. Late that afternoon the coroner’s jury returned a verdict of justifiable homicide. Horace Heddens, in his closing remarks, laid the onus on Governor Thomas Crittenden. The Fords, however despicable their deed, were sanctioned by the highest authority of the state. The murder of Jesse James, he noted, was therefore a legal act. The verdict returned was the only verdict possible.
Then, ordering the Ford brothers released from custody, he adjourned the hearing. He refused all comment to reporters, and walked stiffly from the room.
The train bearing Jesse James’ body departed St. Joseph that evening. The destination was Kearney, the slain outlaw’s hometown. A short time later, Starbuck boarded a train bound for Kansas City. Upon arriving there, he immediately went through his chameleon routine. Joshua Thayer, Bible salesman, was quickly transformed into Floyd Hunnewell, horse thief. By midnight, he was mounted and riding hard towards Clay County.
The following day he drifted into Kearney. The funeral was scheduled for late that afternoon, and by mid-morning the town was swamped with several thousand people. Some were friends and neighbours, and many were heard to proclaim they had ridden with Jesse James during the war. But the majority were strangers, travelling great distances by wagon and horseback. They were brought there by some macabre compulsion, eager to look upon the casket of a man who had titillated them in life, and now in death. To the casual observer, there was something ghoulish in their manner. They had come not to mourn but rather to stare.
Starbuck, lost in the crowd, was there on business. With no great expectation, he was playing a long shot. He thought Frank James would be a fool to come anywhere near Kearney. Yet stranger things had happened. Grief was a powerful emotion, and it sometimes got the better of a man’s judgement. He waited to see how it. would affect the last of the James brothers.
A funeral service was held in the Baptist church. Afterwards, the casket was loaded onto a wagon, with the immediate family trailing behind in buggies. The cortege then proceeded to the family farm, some four miles outside town. Not all the crowd tagged along, but hundreds of spectators went to witness the burial. Beneath a large tree in the yard, the outlaw was laid to rest. Gathered around the grave were his wife and children, his mother and sister, and several close relatives. A last word was said by the preacher, then some of the men went to work with shovels. The women retreated to the house.
Frank James was not among the mourners.
The crowd slowly dispersed. Starbuck was among the first to leave, and he passed through Kearney without stopping. All along, he’d somehow known Frank wouldn’t show. As he rode south out of Kearney, he finally admitted what his instinct had told him in St. Joseph. Bob Ford, both at the police station and the inquest, had never mentioned the eldest James brother. And the obvious reason was at once the simplest explanation. Frank James was long gone to Texas.
By sundown, Starbuck arrived at Ma Ferguson’s. The moment he walked through the door Alvina sensed something was wrong. He bought her a drink, and they sat for a while making small talk. She asked no questions, and he offered no explanation for his curious disappearance over the past four days. She appeared somewhat resigned, almost as though she had prepared herself for the inevitable. At last, with a look of genuine regret, Starbuck took her hand.
“Wish it wasn’t so,” he said quietly, “but it’s time for me to move on.”
“I know.” She squeezed his hand. “You never was much of an actor, honeybunch. It’s written all over your face.”
Starbuck permitted himself a single ironic glance. “Guess some things are harder to hide than others.”
Alvina gave him a fetching smile. “You’re a sport, Floyd Hunnewell. I won’t forget you—not anytime soon.”
“That goes both ways.”
Starbuck kissed her lightly on the mouth. Then, with an offhand salute, he rose and walked towards the door. Outside he stepped into the saddle and reined his horse out of the yard.
His thoughts turned to tomorrow, and St. Louis. And beyond that … Texas.
CHAPTER 19
“Good afternoon, Luke!”
“Mr. Tilford.”
Otis Tilford rose from behind his desk. He was beaming like a mischievous leprechaun. His handshake was warm and cordial, and he appeared genuinely delighted to see Starbuck. He motioned to a chair.
“You made good time.”
“Not too bad,” Starbuck allowed, seating himself. “Caught the morning train out of Kansas City.”
Tilford tapped a newspaper on his desk. “I’ve been. reading about the funeral. I presume you were there?”
“You might say that.”
“Of course!” Tilford chortled slyly. “Incognito, as it were! Hmmm?”
Starbuck shrugged. “Just a face in the crowd. Nothing worth talking about.”
“The newspapers estimated the crowd at several thousand. Is that true?”
“Close enough.” Starbuck took out the makings and began rolling a smoke. “It was sort of a cross between an anthill and a circus.”
“Indeed!” Tilford snorted. “I must say I find it a rather disgusting spectacle. All those people congregating to pay homage to a murderous killer! One wonders what the world is coming to.”
“Folks need heroes.” Starbuck lit his cigarette, exhaled slowly. “Jesse got canonised long before he died. Course, the way he died turned him into a regular martyr. I understand there’s already a ballad out about how Bob Ford backshot him.”
“Utter nonsense!” Tilford said angrily. “In my opinion, Ford richly deserves a medal.”
“I got the impression he preferred the money.”
“I was right, then.” Tilford eyed him with a shrewd look. “You attended the inquest, didn’t you?”
“What gave you that idea?”
“I read about a Bible salesman who testified. The news stories placed him on the scene immediately after the Ford brothers fled. I gather he was the first one inside the house … following the killing.”
“You couldn’t prove it by me.”
“No?” Tilford searched his face. “Wouldn’t you agree that it strains the laws of coincidence? A Johnny-on-the-spot Bible salesman—working that particular neighbourhood—on that particular morning?”
Starbuck took a long drag on his cigarette. “I wouldn’t hazard a guess one way or the other.”
“Good grief!” Tilford laughed. “I’m not asking you to compromise professional secrets. I simply wanted a firsthand account of what happened.” He paused, watching Starbuck closely. “You were there—when Jesse James died—weren’t you?”
“The Bible peddler was,” Starbuck said evasively. “For the sake of argument, let’s suppose I could tell you what he saw. Anything special you wanted to know?”
“I read an account of Ford’s testimony at the inquest. Several newspapers, however, still claim he shot James in the back. Which version is true?”
“Half and half,” Starbuck commented. “James turned his head just as Ford fired. So he got it straight on—clean through the eye.”
“How can you be certain?”
“A gunshot wound pretty much tells its own story. In this case the eye was punched inward, like somebody had jabbed him with a sharp stick. The exit wound was bigger, and messier. Tore out the back of his skull and splattered brains all over the wall. No other way it could’ve happened.”
“Then he died quickly?”
“Instantaneous,” Starbuck explained. “Lights out before he knew what hit him.”
“A pity.” Tilford’s mouth zigzagged in a cruel grimace. “He deserved to die harder.”
Starbuck regarded him impassively. “Dead’s dead.”
“Perhaps,” Tilford said without conviction. “On the other hand, a quick and painless death is no great punishment. A man with so many sins o
n his head should be made to suffer in this life.”
“Nail him to the cross and let him die slow. That the general idea?”
“Precisely!” Tilford said with a clenched smile. “The Romans employed crucifixion to great effect. I daresay it was one of history’s more lasting object lessons.”
“I hear they also fed people to lions.”
“Even better!” Tilford’s eyes blazed. “I would have taken a front-row seat to watch Jesse James being devoured by a lion.”
Starbuck examined the notion. “Some folks got stronger stomachs than others.”
“Come now!” Tilford insisted. “Compassion hardly seems your strong suit. Not after all of those men you’ve … sent to the grave.”
“You ever kill a man?”
“I—no, I haven’t.”
“Thought not.” Starbuck fixed him with a pale stare. “The killing’s no problem. After the first couple of times, you get used to it. But once you’ve shot a man and watched him suffer, you sort of lose your taste for slow death.” His expression was stoic, and cold. “You learn to kill them fast, muy goddamn pronto! Otherwise you don’t sleep so good at night.”
Tilford looked at him, unable to guess what might lie beneath the words. He sensed he’d somehow offended Starbuck, yet the reason eluded him. He couldn’t imagine that a manhunter would harbour ethics about killing. Still, by reading between the lines, a rather primeval code had been expressed. A code common to all the great predators. Kill swiftly and cleanly, and do it well. Sudden death.
“To be absolutely truthful,” Tilford said at length, “I haven’t the stomach for it in any form or fashion. But then, I suspect you knew that all along.”
“I never gave it much thought.”
“Well, now,” Tilford said tactfully, “on to other things. Where do we go from here?”
Starbuck stubbed out his cigarette in an ashtray. “I just stopped off to say goodbye.”
“Goodbye!” Surprise washed over Tilford’s face. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”
“Simple enough,” Starbuck remarked. “You hired me to do a job, and I flubbed it up six ways to Sunday. So I’m—”
“On the contrary,” Tilford interrupted. “You’ve performed brilliantly, Luke! Without you, I daresay Jesse James would not have been buried yesterday—or any other day!”
“No thanks to me,” Starbuck reminded him. “Bob Ford’s the one that got him. I was strictly a spectator.”
“Nonsense!” Tilford scoffed. “You routed the gang! If it weren’t for that, Ford would never have gotten anywhere near Jesse James. Perhaps you didn’t fire the shot, but that’s immaterial. Only the end result counts!”
“The fact remains, it was Ford who pulled the trigger. I don’t take pay when somebody else does my job.”
“That’s absurd!” Tilford protested. “I’m the judge of what you did or did not do, and I say you earned the money. I won’t hear of your returning one red cent!”
Starbuck gave him a tight, mirthless smile. “I never said anything about returning it.”
“I fail to see the distinction.”
“I’m trying to tell you I won’t take any pay for Jesse.”
“Then you’re not quitting?”
“No.” Starbuck grinned crookedly. “Not till the job’s done.”
“I see.” Tilford looked relieved. “I take it you’re referring to Frank James?”
“Only if you still want him.”
“Indeed I do! He’s no less guilty than his brother.”
“Then I’ll leave tonight. But I want it understood—you don’t owe me another dime. I’ll get Frank and then we’re even steven. All accounts squared.”
“Come now, Luke,” Tilford admonished him. “That’s carrying integrity a bit far, don’t you think?”
“Take it or leave it,” Starbuck countered. “I won’t have it any other way.”
“Very well,” Tilford conceded. “Where will your search begin?”
“No search to it,” Starbuck told him. “I know where he’s hiding, and I’ll be there by the end of the week. So you just go ahead and consider him dead.”
“Luke, why do I get the impression I won’t see you again?”
“No reason you should. Where I’m headed, I’ll be closer to Denver than here. Once it’s over, I reckon I’ll head on home.”
“Quite understandable,” Tilford said, troubled. “But how will I know for certain Frank James is dead?”
“When it’s done, I’ll send you a wire.”
“Oh?” Tilford pondered a moment. “I wouldn’t have thought you’d put it in writing.”
“Nothing fancy.” Starbuck flipped a palm back and forth. “I’ll just say ‘assignment completed’ and let it go at that.”
“How will I know the wire was sent by you?”
“I’ll sign it Floyd Hunnewell.”
“Does that name have some special significance?”
Starbuck smiled. “Only to horse thieves and whores.”
The trip south was long and boring. The train passed through Kansas and Indian Territory, and finally crossed into Texas. With nothing to do but stare out the window, Starbuck found that time weighed heavily. His thoughts, oddly enough, turned inward.
By nature, Starbuck was not given to introspection. He was at peace with himself, and he seldom examined his own motives. Sometimes too cynical, he tended to view the world through a prism of cold reality. Any illusions about other men—and their motives—were long since shattered. Saints and sinners, in his experience, all walked the same tightrope. None were perfect, and he often thought that blind luck, rather than circumstance, dictated which ones lost their balance. In the end, only a hairline’s difference separated the upright from the downfallen. There was nothing charitable in his outlook, for he’d discovered that rose-tinted glasses merely distorted the truth. His cynicism was simply a by-product of unclouded observation.
Yet, with time to reflect, he was struck by a queer sentiment. The more he examined it, the more he realised it was wholly out of character. He survived at his trade by virtue of the fact that he gave no man the benefit of the doubt. Still, however sardonic his attitude, a worm of doubt had begun gnawing at his certainty. He was having second thoughts about Frank James.
Not at all comfortable with the feeling, he found it growing more acute as the train rattled towards Fort Worth. He ruminated on their one meeting, a brief exchange of words at Ma Ferguson’s whorehouse. He’d sensed that Frank James was a man of some decency. Even then, under the strained circumstances, the eldest James brother had seemed curiously unlike the other members of the gang. Some intangible quality—a mix of honour and conscience—had shown through the hard exterior. None of which fitted with the known facts. The man was an outlaw and a killer, one who lived by the gun. Quoting Shakespeare scarcely absolved him of his crimes.
All the same, Starbuck had found him eminently likable. And that was perhaps the most troubling aspect of the whole affair. His instincts told him Frank James hadn’t slipped off the tightrope. Instead, he’d been pulled down by Jesse and the Youngers. Viewed from that perspective, he was a victim of blood relations and bad luck. Still, no man was victimised without his cooperation. Weakness of character was hardly an excuse for murder. Nor was it sufficient reason to grant the murderer a reprieve. And Frank James was known to have killed at least three men.
Stewing on it, Starbuck played the devil’s advocate. He argued both sides, and in the end he worked himself into a dicey position. On the one hand, the last survivor of the James-Younger gang most assuredly deserved killing. On the other, Starbuck was no longer certain he wanted to kill Frank James. His sense of duty was in sharp conflict with his personal feelings. Which was a pretty pickle for someone in the detective business. A manhunter with sentiment!
He finally laughed himself out of the notion. On the Pecos, there would be no time for such damn-fool nonsense. Otherwise the damn fool—not Frank James—would get himself killed
. And that, indeed, was a personal sentiment.
With brief layovers in Fort Worth and San Angelo, Starbuck slowly worked his way westward. By the fifth day, he’d switched to horseback, and that evening he rode into Fort Stockton. There, posing as a saddletramp looking for work, he drifted into the local watering hole. His questions aroused no suspicions, and within the hour he struck pay dirt. Tom Ruston’s ranch lay in the shadow of Table Top Mountain, along a winding stretch of the Pecos. He estimated it was less than a day’s ride away.
By dusk the next evening, he had located the spread. Ruston used a Running R brand, and the cows on his range were easily spotted. The land was dotted with cholla cactus and prickly pear, and beyond the river a range of mountains jutted skyward like white-capped sentinels. Far to the northeast lay the Staked Plains, and some seventy miles south was the Rio Grande and the Mexican border. It was remote and isolated, literally out in the middle of nowhere. A perfect hideout for an outlaw from Missouri.
Starbuck camped that night within sight of the ranch compound. When dawn peeled back the darkness, he was squatted in an arroyo not thirty yards from the main
Starbuck nonetheless saw it through a prism of his own attitude. In his experience, those who tended the vineyards of government were by nature the worst of all bloodsuckers. He marked again that venal men in a political marketplace were corrupted by a system that thrived on skullduggery. Some men were corrupted by ambition and a thirst for power, and others were merely creatures of their own avarice. Almost all of them, however, were some strain of parasite. The few who weren’t inevitably suffered a fate similar to that of the original reformer. The mob spiked them to a cross.
All of which served to infuriate Starbuck even further. There seemed little likelihood he would preside over the crucifixion of James Horn. Without hard evidence, his investigation was scotched and his odyssey of nearly two months was at a standstill. He had the sensation of a man sinking ever deeper into quicksand. He was going nowhere but down.
By late afternoon, he’d muddled the impasse from every angle. No workable plan presented itself, and a sort of sluggish pessimism crept over him. Then, ever so slowly, the germ of an idea took shape. The thought occurred that Horn would never entrust his well-being into the hands of other men. Nor would he hazard his fate to the vicissitudes of the political arena. Power brokers were forever jockeying for position, and today’s alliances were as ephemeral as a zephyr. When crooks parted ways, only a fine line separated the oxes from the foxes. Someone was always thrown to the mob, a sacrificial offering. And James Horn was not a man to get caught with his pants down.
