The Jessie James Archives

by Craig Gallant

  “What!?!” The shout from within the saloon was harsh, and several folks walking along the street were distracted from their fascination with the Judgment wagon. They cast cautious glances at the saloon before hurrying along on their way.

  Courtright smiled tightly at Lucinda as the shouting continued inside, muffled just enough to mask the words. It looked as if they could add the bartender to the list of folks who were not having a good day.

  Earp and his gang pushed through the doors with enough force to send them crashing into the wall with a resounding crack. Lucinda and Courtright once again assumed their roles, empty smiles in place, and nodded to the retreating lawmen. Henry could not quite keep the edge from his smile, however, and he realized he may have overplayed his hand when one of the marshals hesitated in his stride, looking right at him. But the man shook his head slightly and continued after the Over-marshal and the judge.

  The two agents watched as the lawmen conferred by the flank of their massive wagon. Almost immediately the four UR-30 units snapped into motion, moving off in four different directions, bodies moving smoothly down the street while heads began to swivel continuously, scanning everything in sight. One unit moved down the street past the Arcadia, and Lucinda and Henry watched as it strode by, head swiveling with every step. It was past them already, moving down to the east, when its pivoting head stopped suddenly, followed almost immediately by its entire body.

  The body of the Enforcer was still for a moment, standing in the shining sun, staring into their shadowed retreat. When it began to move towards them a ruby beam lashed out from its single eye, scanning them up and down several times before winking away again. When the metal man was about ten feet away it stopped, and in a buzzing, unnatural voice, began to speak.

  “Federal agents Lucinda Loveless and Henry Courtright, currently on assignment for the President in the western territories. Please accompany me to the Over-marshal.”

  Courtright looked at Lucinda with an upraised eyebrow, but she was staring at the machine, real anger flaring alight in her brown eyes.

  Lucinda snapped her fan closed and stalked off the boardwalk and into the blazing sun, not flinching for a moment under the brilliant heat. She walked past the android and directly into the circle of lawmen standing beside the looming wagon. The men all turned to watch her approach with faces that ranged from expectant to appreciative to surly. One of the men was wearing a bulky rebreather mask that covered the lower half of his face, but his eyes seemed to crinkle with amusement. The man at the center of the circle, however, with long flowing mustaches and hard, flat eyes, merely stared at her with cold calculation.

  “Over-marshal Earp, I assume?” Lucinda’s voice was harsh. With a jerk of her head she indicated the android that had followed her back towards the lawmen. Henry, following a little way behind the robot, watched the proceedings calmly with a hand casually hooked into his belt near his blaster. When Earp nodded once in recognition, she snapped, “and who do you think you are, endangering federal agents like this?”

  Earp’s head tilted slightly at the attack, but otherwise registered no reaction. “I’m sure I don’t know what you’re talkin’ about, young lady.”

  She pivoted slightly to stab a finger at the robot. Now her voice was harsh but low, hissing with anger. “Your creature, here, just called my partner and me out in the middle of the street! We are currently working in the territories under cover for the president himself, marshal! If our work here has been jeopardized, the president will—“

  “Which one?” The mild tone of the question caught her off guard and Lucinda stuttered to a temporary pause.

  “What?” Her anger was still boiling, and it was clear she did not like being forestalled this way.

  Earp shook his head with a slight smile. “Never mind. I apologize for the actions of the robot, however.” His eyes flicked to the machine now standing behind the agent. “They ain’t known for their subtlety, and half the time, I don’t know what they know. They sure as Sam Hill weren’t supposed to go pulling you out of your lair, though, miss. So again, I apologize.”

  The apology took much of the steam out of her approach and she paused again, attempting to rally her thoughts. While she struggled, however, Henry stepped up, hand still near his weapon, eyes tight with suspicion.

  “Well, an apology is all nice and good, marshal, but it doesn’t do us any good now if our cover has been blown.”

  Earp smiled even more broadly, hooking his thumbs into his vest pockets and rocking back on his heels. “Well, folks, you do have my sympathies, but if your real concern was maintaining some sort of fictional cover, it don’t strike me as you’re doin’ yourselves any good, comin’ at me guns a’blazin’ in the middle of the street. Am I wrong in that, though? Is this some sort of secret agent trick, maybe an honest lawman wouldn’t know about?”

  Lucinda’s anger blazed anew, and her own hands balled into fists as she leaned closer to the Over-marshal. “Why you bastard pissant!How dare you lecture us—“

  Earp raised a hand, head cocked to one side. “Now, don’t get your bloomers in a bunch, there, Miss. I’m just makin’ a point. But maybe it ain’t the best time nor place to make it, as the milk’s already been spilled.”

  An older marshal standing by Wyatt Earp’s shoulder snorted. “Don’t make his point any less relevant, miss. Weren’t more’n a soul or two could o’ heard the mechanical man’s words, but you rushin’ this way… that weren’t none too smart.”

  A muffled laugh quickly followed. “Virg, always makin’ friends with the ladies.” The man in the breathing mask shook his head. “Anyone else curious as to why the metal man called ‘em out in the first place?”

  Earp nodded. “Unit AZ-21, why did you stop the agents here?”

  “And how the hell did it know they were agents?” One of the marshals muttered under his breath, shying away from a dark look from the Over-marshal’s brother as soon as the words were out of his mouth.

  “Federal information indicated agents Loveless and Courtright are currently on assignment in Kansas City region.” The machine’s voice, with its unpleasant buzzing, was at the same time hard to hear and hard to ignore. “Recent reports indicated the agents were currently searching for Jesse Woodson James in the same region. Federal asset requisition protocols indicate immediate contact with agents authorized and advantageous under current circumstances.”

  Lucinda scowled at the inhuman metal face with its single eye and round, grill-like mouth. She looked back at Earp without changing her expression. “What circumstances?”

  Wyatt Earp coughed apologetically, looking down for a moment and kicking a small stone aside with his boot. “Well, miss, there was an incident down the river aways, in Missouri City. A bank job, saw over twenty people killed, more’n that injured. Don’t know how much money they made off with, as there weren’t no one left to ask.”

  Lucinda looked confused, her hands falling at her sides. “Over twenty dead? Was it a battle? Did they fight back?”

  Virgil Earp snorted. “Did they fight? No, miss, they didn’t fight. What they did, mostly, was die. James and his gang burnt the bank down when they were done, most of the customers trapped inside to burn like animals.”

  The circle of faces turned bleak and angry. “Miss, if you’d a seen what we seen down Missouri City, you’d be angry, for sure, but it wouldn’t be us you’d be cussin’ at.”

  Lucinda was still distracted, turning to look at Courtright with a questioning tilt to her head. “Over twenty people?”

  Courtright stepped up and made a big show of offering his hand to Earp and then the other marshals in the circle. “Over-marshal Earp, sir, my name is agent Courtright, sure enough. Sorry for the earlier misunderstanding. We have been, in fact, seeking contact with James, but not as a direct part of our investigation. He was a source of intelligence in our current assignment, is all.”

  Earp stared at him, the smile gone from his face. “By that flannel-mouthed res
ponse, agent, I’m going to assume you met Jesse James, but did not apprehend him or his men?”

  Courtright’s own eyes flared. “Sir, it is not our job to apprehend petty criminals. If we had been aware of the events down in Missouri City, then we may well have taken a different tack. But we had not heard anything about it, and we are in the middle of our own assignment.”

  “You know for a fact it was Jesse James that killed those people, marshal?” Lucinda’s voice broke in on their conversation and both men turned to look at her. “It could’t have been some other gang? Perhaps one of the unaffiliated groups working out of the badlands?”

  Earp shook his head. “No. We had several folks down there who recognized him. It’s been awhile since he’s been active, but there wasn’t any doubt, this was his job.”

  Lucinda’s thoughtful gaze passed beyond the circle of men and robots, focusing on some distant object. “But Frank James and the Youngers were all in Kansas City the whole day.” She turned to Courtright. “He almost never does a major job without his brother and one or two Youngers with him. And he’s never put up numbers like that before. Twenty civilians?”

  Earp shook his head sharply. “Sorry, miss, but that just ain’t so. During the war, Jesse James and his brother took part in more than one massacre, killing scores of unarmed soldiers. He’s capable, and he’s done it in the past. And we know he was in Missouri City, in the bank, with a force of men on their damned Iron Horses.” He gave her a closer look, and she could feel his eyes boring their way beneath the façade of her role. “And what I’m wonderin’ right now, if you don’t mind my speculatin’ out loud, is why it is that a Federal agent seems to be lookin’ for excuses that this atrocity can’t have been perpetrated by a man who’s been known to commit worse crimes.” His eyes flicked to Courtright. “Am I wrong, Agent Courtright? Or is your agency, perhaps, working along a different set of assumptions than us lawmen, scratchin’ along on the sharp edge out here?”

  “I’m not looking for excuses for anything.” Lucinda snapped, and she tried to reign herself in, knowing she would not be doing herself any good if she let this Podunk yahoo get under her skin here in the middle of the street. “Jesse James puts on a good act, Over-marshal, and he’s got quite a reputation. But you’re going to see, as you continue to track him, that he’s a lot smarter than you’d think. You’ll also see, I believe, that he’s done a lot of growing up since the war. I have no doubt this atrocity you’re speaking of took place, and that those poor people were killed. I have no doubt that Jesse James was there.” She shifted her gaze to take in all of the men around the circle. “What I am saying, however, is that there is more here than what you are reporting. Something about the events in Missouri City does not add up, and you’d do well to take that into consideration before rushing off into the wilderness after them all.”

  The men were momentarily taken aback by her harsh words, but even as she allowed herself to think that maybe she had gotten through to them, that they were looking at the evidence before them with clearer vision, Virgil Earp leaned forward and muttered through his mustache. “No, look here, miss. That was a nice little speech you just gave, but it sounded a lot more like a wife arguein’ for a guilty husband than a Federal agent giving a concise field report.”

  Wyatt Earp’s eyes tightened at his brother’s words, and his gaze remained steady on Lucinda. “Gotta admit, miss.Virg’s got a point. Is there any chance you ain’t lookin’ at this whole thing with a complete lack of bias?”

  There was no warning as Loveless’ hand suddenly plunged into the slit of her dress and whipped up, holding a long, slim knife. Even the UR-30 unit was only beginning to react when her arm hurtled back down again, sending the knife tumbling through the air.

  The knife glittered as it spun through the harsh sunlight, and when it smacked into the packed dirt of the street directly between Wyatt Earp’s dusty boots, it was as if a brief electrical current had run through the entire group. Every marshal around the circle tensed at the exact moment, hands on gun butts or reaching for knives of their own. Doc Holliday already had his weapon out and pointing straight at Lucinda’s head at the end of an arm as steady as bedrock. Virgil Earp was crouching down, a hand on either pistol grip at his waist. Only Wyatt had not moved.

  “Well, that was mighty fine knife work, miss.” Wyatt lobbed a gobbet of spit out of the circle and into the dust. “Don’t really address the issue at hand, however.”

  Courtright grabbed Lucinda by the shoulder and forced her behind him, his other hand raised in a placating gesture that took in all the marshals but focused primarily on Holliday and the bore of his RJ-1027 pistol.

  “Now, Over-marshal, to be fair, I think Luce meant that for being in the way of addressing that very issue.” His voice was steady and calm, but Holliday and the robot were particularly unnerving, neither moving but both focusing hard on the two agents. “We been together a long time, and we’ve been together on this assignment the whole time. No one’s been compromised. She just took exception to your tone, I think. Ain’t that right, Lucinda?”

  The snarl was still firmly on her face, but she thawed it through a force of will and gave a bright smile to the Over-marshal and his brothers. “Absolutely.”

  Earp nodded with a grin. “Well that’s good. I’d hate to think that we were all workin’ at cross-purposes on something this important.” He scuffed the street with his boot again, then looked up with a purposefully vague expression. “Now, did you folks already mention where James and his gang had scarpered off to?”

  Courtright looked to Lucinda to respond and the weight of his gaze was crushing. She flicked her eyes from her partner to Earp and back again, and was hurt and irritated to see the sudden doubt in Henry’s eyes. She sighed, shook her head, and looked back to the Over-marshal. “An old man in the bar told us he’d overheard them talking about Diablo Canyon.”

  “Makes sense, go back to hide in his old stomping grounds.” Doc Holliday nodded.

  Virgil looked puzzled, however. “Don’t they still have AZ 20 in Diablo Canyon? Ain’t gonna be like nothin’ he’d be expectin’, he heads back there right about now.”

  Wyatt nodded. “First UR-30 we sent out from Tombstone went down that way, been keepin’ the place quiet as a crypt ever since. That ought ‘a be a nice surprise to tide them over till we come ridin’ down their backtrail, eh boys?”

  The other marshals had already begun to mount their Interceptors while Morgan Earp and the robots were making their way back into the Lynch Wagon. As Wyatt was climbing up the access ladder to the high hatch he stopped and tipped his hat to Lucinda. “Now, miss, if you’re assignment should happen to bring you up towards Diablo Canyon, I trust you’ll have the professional courtesy to let us know we’re all playin’ in the same sandbox again, okay?”

  Lucinda said nothing, her jaw clenched tight, but forced herself to give a single jerky nod.

  With low, growling roars the Interceptors moved out, taking up an arrowhead formation and roaring down the street into the west. The Judgment support vehicle, its tone a much lower, subterranean bellow, rocked into motion and followed behind at a more dignified pace.

  Lucinda and Courtright stood alone in the middle of the street watching the monstrous vehicle disappear around a corner. Lucinda reached down to retrieve her throwing knife, wiped the dust and dirt off the blade, and then slid it back into her dress.

  “Well, that could have gone better.” Courtright looked at his partner with a lopsided grin. “It’s a good thing Washington doesn’t care much for the marshal’s service’s opinion, or we’d be getting our hides tanned over this.” He nodded to the disappearing knife. “Now, am I remembering correctly, or did you just throw one of your little party favors directly at the Over-marshal of the western territories?”

  Lucinda was still in no mood for joking. “If I had thrown it at him, he’d be dead, instead of making foolish accusations and riding off into the sunset.”

  “Well, se
tting aside the immaterial article of evidence that it’s hardly past noon, I agree with your assessment of the situation, anyway. I don’t think I’ve ever seen you miss something you meant to hit, so, excellent bit of inter-office relations, there, then.” His smile was wide, but his eyes were serious as he assessed his partner.

  “His words did seem to strike a nerve, though.” He leaned in towards her. “Enough to make some folks who might not know you as well as I do wonder some things we’d rather not have them wondering, no?”

  She forced herself to snap out of the fugue state and shot him a look. “I just didn’t want to be giving too much away, was all. Do you think Grant or the president would thank us for letting the Earps in on all this drama swirling around the good doctor?”

  Courtright went back to looking down the road. “Well, one thing’s for sure. Dragging that enormous contraption with them wherever they go, there ain’t no way they’re going to be able to get to Diablo Canyon before whatever James and his boys have in mind has already gone down.” He let a moment’s silence stretch on for a while before looking at her out of the corner of his eye and whispering. “He’s an outlaw, Luce, ain’t no two ways about that.”

  Lucinda nodded silently. Jesse James was an outlaw, and the body count he had racked up throughout his extended life was enough to make any peace officer blanch. And yet, while they talked the other day, she knew, against all reason and right-mindedness, she had seen something in his eyes that mirrored something in her own mind. He was a man hounded by his past, doomed to make the wrong decisions until he found the strength to break the cycle. It had taken a great man, who also happened to be a good man, to help her break the cycle in her own life. Was there any hope for Jesse, out in the middle of the badlands, hunted down by an army of lawmen itching to make a point?