The Jessie James Archives

by Craig Gallant

  “Well, back in Georgia, it’s not everyone that shares your view, Mr. James.”

  He smiled wider. “Georgia! I thought you was a bit of a peach, miss. An’ I believe I asked you to call me Jesse?”

  Lucinda lowered her eyes demurely, trying to reestablish her equilibrium. “Of course, Jesse.”

  “So, Georgia. Well, you can’t feel none too charitable towards the Union either, then, can you? After what Grant and his pet pyromaniac did to Atlanta?”

  Lucinda shrugged. “That was a long time ago. If you want, we can trace every little grudge back to Cain and Abel, and just all kill each other and leave it to the birds and lizards. Does that sound about right?”

  Jesse stared at her without responded, then laughed. “Yeah, we could do that. But Cain and Abel, that was a powerful long time ago. Atlanta, that seems a tad closer. When you lost as many folks as I did—“

  “You’re not the only one who lost folks, Jesse.” The façade of easy grace and beauty slid from her face and she stared at him, anger and pain very real in her eyes. “We all lost people. And if there weren’t bigger problems in the world then I’d say sure, let’s keep fighting that war until we all felt satisfied. But you can’t do that, Jesse, not with all the problems we got nowadays. We all stand together eventually, or they’re going to hang us all alone in the end.”

  Jesse cocked his head to one side. “Who’s ‘they’, sweetheart? Who’s got you all scared?”

  Lucinda cursed herself for losing focus again. What was it about this man? “The natives are getting restless, Jesse, and they’re on the warpath. And everyone has been talking about nightmare creatures, and walking dead, and lights that set fire to the desert sky. What do you think is happening, while you sit here and nurse your cheap beer?”

  After she snapped she pulled back, not sure how he would react. When she saw his smile grow a little wider, it made her even more angry. His words, however, brought her back to the task at hand.

  “I don’t know about the Injun magic, Lucy, but you don’t have to worry about those walkin’ corpses. They smell to high heaven, and they ain’t much good for much as far as I can see, but there ain’t nothin’ biblical about ‘em, I can tell ya’.”

  Lucinda schooled her face to casual attention. “Really? You’ve seen them? I thought they were never far from that Doctor Carpathian?”

  Jesse gave a jerk of his head. “Yeah, they’re usually around the doc. But they’re all over, now, really.”

  She folded her hands on the table before her. “Why do you say they aren’t ‘Biblical’?”

  Jesse waved that question away with an annoying lack of concern. “I don’t know the specifics, but they’re just like those UR-30 law mechanicals, just made out of flesh and bone instead of metal an’ rubber. They aren’t like folks comin’ back from the dead ‘r nothin’. They don’t have any recollection of who they were or what they done before. They’re just like machines, runnin’ on Doc’s crimson gold, is all.”

  “But they don’t scare you?” It was a question a woman in her supposed position would have asked, so Lucinda forced herself to ask it even though she was fairly certain of the answer.

  Sure enough, Jesse laughed. “Scared? Nah. They ain’t so fast, an’ most of ‘em ain’t so big, and if I wouldn’t a been scared of ‘em when they were alive an’ fast an’ thinking fer themselves, what’d I be worryin’ about now that they’re all dead and rottin’ and slow?”

  He grinned at her broadly. “How ‘bout you, darlin’? Do they scare you?”

  Lucinda knew what her answer should have been. She began to formulate it in her mind, with the requisite shiver and fetching wide eyed look, but she heard herself respond before she even knew she had taken a breath. “No. They don’t frighten me either. I’m just curious.”

  Jesse seemed pleased by that response, and she felt a genuine answering smile on her own face. She cursed herself in the silence of her own mind. The smile, however, remained professionally in place.

  “No, I didn’t figure you’d be scared of too much, actually.”

  They found themselves staring at each other. The silence stretched on. Lucinda could feel Courtright’s eyes on her back. She tried desperately to summon up some thought or statement that would break the lull, but all she could do was smile.

  All he seemed to want to do was grin back at her.

  *****

  Henry Courtright watched as Lucinda and James fenced back and forth. Every gesture and look she employed was masterful. He had seen her use it all before. She was deploying her full arsenal on the poor copperhead, and the secret agent had no doubt the rube would not know what hit him.

  But at the same time, Courtright felt a touch of nerves. Lucinda was usually focused to a fault and would never let a mark go by without getting the answers she needed. The fact that James seemed to fluster her at all was reason enough to feel concern, despite the fact that she seemed to have marshaled her efforts back to the task at hand.

  A whispered doubt crept into his mind, however. She had never acted like this before. How would he know if she was back on her game? If she started to use her talents on him, would he be able to puzzle out her true intentions beneath the layers of falsehood and illusion she had spent a lifetime learning to weave?

  Courtright eased back into his chair, elbow once again hooked over the back, and stared openly at a Jesse James too caught up in Lucinda to even notice. The freak’s artificial hands were clasped behind his head in an attitude of complete relaxation. The dull metal of the arms contrasted sharply with the brighter metal of their internal components and the flat black of the tubes and wires. And of course the flickering gleam of RJ-1027 cells and indicators winked here and there along their lengths.

  What were the chances that any man, no matter how good he had been with the arms God had given him, was as good, never mind better, replacing them with gears and pulleys, wheels and pistons? There were many stories, told and retold across the territories, about Jesse and the speed of his draw. Most of the tales sounded fantastical, painting a picture Courtright found it impossible to fully believe. And yet there seemed to be a path of dead bodies behind the man, and the agent wondered how many of those had thought the same thing.

  Courtright patted the blaster pistol riding on his hip and thought fondly of the mini Gatling in his room. He felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. Their orders were to find Carpathian wherever he was hiding, and to get that information back to Washington. But everyone knew that Jesse James had ties to the mad inventor. If their paths should cross in the wilds, things might just develop on their own. And maybe, just maybe, Mama Courtright’s little boy would get a chance to see what Mrs. James’ little piss-ant was capable of.

  Chapter 6

  Jesse stared at the cards in his hand without seeing them. There was no forgetting those dark eyes and that wide smile. He could not deny, Lucy had made quite an impression on him. She had left when a few of his posse came in, and even after she had gone back to her card sharp friend, Jesse had been sitting there trying to remember their conversation. He could not recall much, and for some reason that did not bother him. When Harding, Chase, and a couple of the other men asked if he wanted a game, he just nodded and they sat down, oblivious to their leader’s lack of focus.

  Despite his inattention, however, his stake was still healthy after several hands. His eyes kept drifting back towards Lucy, although he never caught her looking his way. Even though his heart was not in the game, his luck was bearing up better than usual. The same could not be said for Harding.

  “Who brought this tainted deck o’ pasteboards into this parlor?” Harding threw down his hand and spat off into the corner. “I swear, one more hand goes ‘round that way I’ll know one of you is bilkin’ the table.” The other men were not trying hard to conceal their amusement.

  “Well, you know what they say, Harding: Unlucky at cards, lucky in… what are you lucky in?” A red haired outlaw chuckled as he went back t
o looking at his cards. Jesse smiled as Harding sputtered.

  “Bryce,” Harding growled, low in his throat. “You wanna make it out of here to spend any of that coin you’re hoardin’, you best hobble your lip before I beat you within an inch of the Almighty, and we’ll see if your luck’ll save you then.”

  The men laughed as Harding organized the coins and notes in front of him, ignoring the continued banter.

  “Hey, isn’t that Billy the Kid?” Ty’s voice was curious and soft as he whispered into the considering silence of the game. “I think that’s Billy the Kid, right?”

  Jesse looked at the youngster with a blank face, all of the warm confusion draining from his mind. When he spoke, he did not take his eyes off Ty. “Gage, William Bonney just step into the establishment?”

  In a moment Jesse’s mind had gone from a pleasant, relaxed state to a vicious tension as Ty’s words about Bonney and Misty on the trail to Missouri City came back to him. There was no sense of guilt or irony as he shifted from idle speculation concerning one lady to a building jealous rage over another. He had entirely forgotten the beauty sitting not twenty feet away. As the heat began to rise in his chest, he could only think about Misty, and Ty’s innocent words.

  It had been years since the big train job that had ended the brutal persecution of the men and women living on the edge of society, putting them on an even footing with the soldiers and lawmen who had been trying to exterminate them. Nearly a decade since those seemingly hopeless days when RJ-1027 tech was new, and Carpathian’s weapons had suddenly shifted the balance of power forever. Since then, he had worked a couple jobs with Billy the Kid, but it had been a couple years since he had seen the Kid in person.

  Jesse contemplated all the different ways he could welcome the Kid into Kansas City, from a hug to a handshake to a hole in the head. Instead, he decided to ignore him and continued to look at his cards, waiting for Chase to make his call on the current hand. Conversation around the saloon died down, however, and Jesse could feel William Bonney coming towards him through the room.

  “I’ll see your whole pot and raise you one of these, Jesse!” The voice was pitched high with excitement and anticipation, but he refused to turn. When an object sailed over his shoulder and landed in the pile of coins and notes in the center of the table, however, he could not ignore the Kid any longer.

  Jesse leaned forward a bit to look at the thing in the middle of the pot: a piece of poorly cured leather trailing a tuft of long white hair. Jesse looked over his shoulder to where Billy the Kid stood with a wide grin, and jerked a thumb at the object.

  “What is that?” Jesse kept his voice flat, knowing the anger building in his gut could get the better of him at any moment.

  “Why, don’t you recognize it?” The Kid’s voice was mocking. “Well, that there is a bona fide Injun scalp, that is! And ain’t no normal brave, neither. That there’s the scalp of a gen-u-ine medicine man!”

  Jesse looked at the sad, pathetic thing with a curled lip. “Get it outa my pot before I lose my manners.”

  An enormous fat man beside Billy gave a wet chuckle and reached out with a long, wickedly curved knife, picking the scalp up by its white lock with a neat twist. He swung the thing wide and offered it back to the grinning young outlaw leader.

  “Thanks, Smiley.” Billy took the scalp and gently put it back in a cloth bag. “You remember Smiley, Jesse? He was in on the train job.” Being in on the train job was often a way of dividing the innumerable outlaws throughout the territories between the established and respected and the inexperienced and green. It did not always work like that, however, and Jesse remembered the man most folks called ‘Smiley’ for a violent lunatic who enjoyed disfiguring the faces of his victims. He grunted without a smile and looked back at Billy.

  “Is there a reason you come lookin’ for me, Billy?” Jesse’s tone indicated that the younger man was beneath him within the obscure outlaw pecking order. “Or am I just lucky today?”

  Billy’s smile never faltered as he swung an empty chair around, bringing his leg up and over to sit down backwards. “No, sir. I came here to find you.

  “Ain’t exactly like you been hidin’ yourself out this way, you know, living like a bunch of city swells.” The younger man on Billy’s other side muttered.

  Billy grinned at the boy and wagged a finger at him, still swinging the bag. “Now, Garrett, we’re all friends here, right?” He looked at Jesse. “Right, Jesse? All friends?”

  Jesse grunted and put his cards down. “Sure, Billy. We’re all friends. Now you care to tell me why you’re lookin’ for me? I got places I gotta be, and you’re seriously queering my luck.”

  Billy nodded, his pleasant smile still firmly in place. “Sure, Jesse, I get it. You’re a busy man.” He looked at the cards in front of the other outlaw and his grin widened slightly. “We’re all busy men.” He gestured broadly towards the bar and then signaled for the man standing there to bring three whiskeys. “You heard what went down out in the mountains, a couple weeks ago?”

  Jesse nodded sourly. “Yeah.Heard you ran into some squaws and cut ’em down from behind.” He pointed to the bag still swinging in Billy’s hand. “That a bit o’ one of them poor ladies?”

  Billy’s smile darkened a bit before coming back full force. “Squaws. You’re funny, Jesse. I always said that about you.” He turned to the fat man now sitting beside him. “Don’t I always say that about Jesse, Smiley? That he’s funny?”

  The man’s small eyes tightened. “Yeah. You say that.”

  “See? Jesse’s funny. I always say that.” Billy leaned back, relaxing in his chair as if he owned the Arcadia. “No, they weren’t squaws, Jesse. We hit ourselves a Warrior Nation war party, wanderin’ around out there in the wilds, way past their usual haunts. An’ we dry gulched ‘em somethin’ fierce. Din’t we, Garrett?”

  The young man, still standing behind Billy, nodded.

  Jesse nodded, mechanical arms folded over his chest. “Okay, so, you got lucky against some Injuns. An’ that lands you all the way back here, in Kansas City, sittin’ at my table?”

  Billy frowned and shook his head. “You’re missin’ the point, Jesse. What was a war party of braves, led by this white haired bug himself, doin’ kickin’ around up in the mountains? Almost all of Sittin’ Bull’s savages are back this way, gettin’ fancy with Grant and the Union slugs.” He met Jesse’s disdainful glare with a steady look. “Why were they that far west, Jesse?”

  The older outlaw shook his head. “This ain’t my tale, Billy, it’s you’rn. So why don’t you tell it?”

  Before Billy could continue, one of the barkeeps stopped by and dropped three heavy whiskey glasses on the table, standing stubbornly by until Billy nodded to Garrett, who pulled a couple coins out of a pocket and handed them over. The barkeep looked as his palm, sniffed, and turned to walk away.

  “Okay,” Billy sat back, resuming his nonchalant pose and idly picking up his drink. “They was lookin’ fer somethin’, Jesse. Somethin’ big. Twenty braves, led by one o’ their white-hairs hisself?” He waved the bag again for emphasis. “You don’t see that kind of weight out that far for nothin’.”

  Jesse’s mouth quirked into a tight grin for the first time since Billy had walked into the saloon. “That’s what you got? Injuns don’t go that far, so they must’a been lookin’ fer somethin’?”

  Billy’s smile dropped completely from his face and he shook his head. “No, Jesse, that ain’t all I got. Before we sent Senor White Hair to the happy hunting ground, we got some words out’a ‘im. He was singin’ like a showgirl afore Smiley finally did for him. So yeah, we got a lot more to go on.” He smiled again, leaning back in his chair. “Way I figure it, we got a real hog-killin’ time comin’, and I’m the only one knows where to start lookin’.”

  Jesse stared at William Bonney for a moment, eyes flat and blank, before he said, “So, what were they lookin’ for, Billy? You ain’t mentioned that.”

  Billy’s sm
iled faded again. “Well, we din’t get that out’a him, but we know where they was headed! An’ we know it was real important-like, cuz’a they had a medicine man with’em!”

  Jesse nodded. “So, you don’ know what it is you’re lookin’ for, or why even the savages would’a wanted it, you’re hell-fire sure you wanna go hairing off into the wilds after it? And, since you dropped your sorry ass here on my doorstep, half a country back in the wrong direction, I’m assumin’ you wanna drag me in after you?”

  Billy nodded, ignoring the sarcasm. “They was good, Jesse. It took everything my posse had to take ‘em down, and even then, I lost half my guys. Half of ‘em, Jesse, and that was with we had the drop on ‘em! Sittin’ Bull and the other chiefs, they never woulda sent that many o’ their best young braves, led by a white hair, out that far, in the middle of a war where they need every one o’ their boys an’ girls close to home, lessen there was a damned good reason.”

  Jesse shook his head. “That ain’t necessarily true, Billy. Coulda been they saw a shape in some smoke, or a bird crapped on the wrong man’s head, and they thought it was their Great Spirit jawin’ at ‘em from the Big Beyond, and off they go, gallivantin’ into the wilds, to get chewed up by the likes ‘o you, who then comes runnin’ back to civilization with this tall tale an’ your eyes all full o’ gold, ‘r gems, ‘r God knows what you think is out there.”