by Matt Braun
“My God!” Alistair Fontaine said in an awed tone. “The train is being robbed.”
Lillian shrank back into her seat. Her eyes were fastened on the riders waving their pistols. “Are we in danger, Papa?”
“Stay calm, my dear,” Fontaine cautioned. “I daresay the rascals are more interested in the express car.”
The threat posed by the armed horsemen made eminent good sense to the passengers. Like most railroads, the Kansas Pacific was not revered by the public. For years, eastern robber barons had plundered the West on land grants and freight rates. A holdup, according to common wisdom, was a matter between the railroad and the bandits. Only a fool would risk his life to thwart a robbery. There were no fools aboard today.
From the coaches, the passengers had a ringside seat. They watched as the five men outside the express car demonstrated a no-nonsense approach to train robbery. One of the riders produced a stick of dynamite and held the fuse only inches away from the tip of a lighted cigar. Another rider, whose commanding presence pegged him as the gang leader, gigged his horse onto the roadbed. His voice raised in a shout, he informed the express guards that their options were limited.
“Open the door or get blown to hell!”
The guards, much like the passengers, were unwilling to die for the Kansas Pacific. The door quickly slid open and they tossed their pistols onto the ground. Three of the robbers dismounted and scrambled inside the express car. The leader, positioned outside the car, directed the operation from aboard his horse. His tone had the ring of authority, brusque and demanding. His attitude was that of a man accustomed to being obeyed.
“Holy Hannah!” one of the passengers exclaimed. “That there’s the James boys. There’s Jesse himself!”
Jesse and Frank James were the most famous outlaws in America. Their legend began in 1866, when 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 a template by which the gang would operate over the years ahead, robbing trains and looting banks. Their raids were conducted with military precision.
A master of propaganda, Jesse James frequently wrote articulate letters to editors of influential mid-western newspapers. The letters were duly reprinted and accounted, in large measure, for the myth that “he robbed from the rich and gave to the poor.” Comparisons were drawn between Jesse 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.”
Tales were widely circulated with regard to Jesse’s charitable nature toward the poor. The loot taken in the robberies, so he contended in his letters, was simply liberated from the coffers of greedy bankers and corrupt railroads. In time, with such tales multiplying, Jesse became known as a champion of the oppressed and the downtrodden. To backwoods Missourians and gullible Easterners alike he came to represent a larger-than-life figure. A Robin Hood reborn—who wore a six-gun and puckishly thumbed his nose at the law.
The holdup took less than five minutes. The robbers inside the express car emerged with a mail sack that appeared painfully empty of cash. There was a hurried conference with their leader, and his harsh curses indicated his displeasure. He dismounted, ordering one man to guard the train crew, and waved the others toward the passenger coaches. They split into pairs, two men to a coach, and clambered up the steps at the end of each car. The leader and another man burst through the door of the lead coach.
A murmur swept through the passengers. The two men were instantly recognizable, their faces plastered on wanted dodgers from Iowa to Texas. Jesse and Frank James stood at the front of the car, brandishing cocked pistols.
“Sorry to trouble you folks,” Jesse said with cold levity. “That express safe was mighty poor pickin’s. We’ll have to ask you for a donation.”
Frank lifted a derby off the head of a notions drummer. He started down the aisle, the upturned hat in one hand and a pistol in the other. His mouth creased in a sanguine smile as passengers obediently filled the hat with cash and gold coins. He paused where the Fontaines were seated.
Lillian blushed under his appreciative inspection. She was rather tall, with enormous china blue eyes and exquisite features. Vibrant even in the face of a robber, she wore her tawny hair upswept, with fluffs of curls spilling over her forehead. Her demure dimity cotton dress did nothing to hide her tiny waist and sumptuous figure. She quickly averted her eyes.
“Beauty’s ensign”—Frank James nodded, still staring at her—“is crimson in thy lips and in thy cheeks.”
Alistair Fontaine was an avid reader of periodicals. He recalled a curious item from the Police Gazette, noting the anomaly that robber and mankiller Frank James was a student of Shakespeare. He rose as though taking center stage.
“M’lord,” he said in a mellifluous voice. “You see me here before you a poor man, as full of grief as age, wretched in both.”
“King Lear,” Frank said, grinning. “I take it you fancy the Bard.”
“A mere actor,” Fontaine replied modestly. “Known to some as a Shakespearean.”
“Well, friend, never let it be said I’d rob a man that carries the word. Keep your money.”
“Frank!” Jesse snapped. “Quite jawin’ and tend to business. We ain’t got all night.”
Frank winked slyly at Fontaine. He went down the aisle and returned with the derby stuffed to overflowing. Jesse covered his retreat through the door and followed him out. Some moments later the gang mounted their horses and rode north from the railroad tracks. A smothered sun cloaked them in silty twilight.
The passengers watched them in stunned silence. Then, as though a floodgate was released, they began babbling to one another about being robbed by the James Boys. Chester shook his head in mild wonder.
“Some introduction to the Wild West,” he muttered. “I hope Abilene’s nothing like that.”
Lillian turned to her father. “Oh, Papa, you were wonderful!”
“Yes,” Fontaine agreed. “I surprised myself.”
Twilight slowly faded to dusk. Fontaine stared off at the shelterbelt of woods where the riders had disappeared. Abruptly, his legs gone shaky with a delayed reaction, he sank down into his seat. Yet he thought he would remember Frank James with fondness.
It had been the finest performance of his life.
CHAPTER 2
ABILENE WAS situated along a dogleg of the Smoky Hill River. The town was a crude collection of buildings, surrounded by milling herds of longhorn cattle. The Kansas plains, flat as a billiard table, stretched endlessly to the points of the compass.
The Fontaines stepped off the train early the next afternoon. They stood for a moment on the depot platform, staring aghast at the squalid, ramshackle structures. Eastern newspapers, overly charitable in their accounts, labeled Abilene as the first of its kind. One of a kind. A cowtown.
“Good heavens,” Fontaine said in a bemused tone. “I confess I expected something more … civilized.”
Lillian wrinkled her nose. “What a horrid smell.”
There was an enervating odor of cow dung in the air. The prairie encircling Abilene was a vast bawling sea of longhorns awaiting shipment to eastern slaughterhouses, and a barnyard scent assailed their nostrils. The pungency of it hung like a fetid mist over the town.
“Perhaps there’s more than meets the eye,” Fontaine said, ever the optimist. “Let’s not jump to hasty conclusions.”
Chester grunted. “I can’t wait to see the theater.”
A porter claimed their steamer trunks from the baggage car. He muscled the trunks onto a handcart and led the way around the depot. The Kansas Pacific railroad tracks bisected the town east to west, cleaving it in half. Texas Street, the main thoroughfare, ran north to south.
Lillian was appalled. Her first impression was that every storefront in Abilene was dedicated to separating the Texan cattlemen from
their money. With the exception of two hotels, three mercantile emporiums, and one bank, the entire business community was devoted to either avarice or lust. The street was lined with saloons, gambling dives, and dancehalls.
The boardwalks were jammed with throngs of cowhands. Every saloon and dancehall shook with the strident chords of brass bands and rinky-dink pianos. Smiling brightly, hard-eyed girls in gaudy dresses enticed the trailhands through the doors, where a quarter bought a slug of whiskey or a trip around the dance floor. The music blared amidst a swirl of jangling spurs and painted women.
“Regular circus, ain’t it?” the porter said, leading them past hitch racks lined with horses. “You folks from back East, are you?”
“New York,” Fontaine advised him. “We have reservations at the Drover’s Cottage.”
“Well, you won’t go wrong there. Best digs this side of Kansas City.”
“Are the streets always so crowded?”
“Night or day, don’t make no nevermind. There’s mebbe a thousand Texans in town most of the trailin’ season.”
The porter went on to enlighten them about Abilene. Joseph McCoy, a land speculator and promoter, was the founder of America’s first cowtown. Texans were beef-rich and money-poor, and he proposed to exchange Northern currency for longhorn cows. The fact that a railhead didn’t exist deterred him not in the least. He proceeded with an enterprise that would alter the character of the West.
McCoy found his spot along the Smoky Hill River. There was water, and a boundless stretch of grassland, all situated near the Chisholm Trail. After a whirlwind courtship of the Kansas Pacific, he convinced the railroad to lay track across the western plains. In 1867, he bought 250 acres on the river, built a town and stockyards, and lured the Texas cattlemen north. Four years later, upward of 100,000 cows would be shipped from Abilene in a single season.
“Don’t that beat all!” the porter concluded. “Dang-blasted pot o’gold, that’s what it is.”
“Yes indeed,” Fontaine said dryly. “A veritable metropolis.”
The Drover’s Cottage was a two-story structure hammered together with ripsawed lumber. A favorite of Texas cowmen, the exterior was whitewashed and the interior was sparsely decorated. The Fontaines were shown to their rooms, and the porter lugged their steamer trunks to the second floor. They agreed to meet in the lobby in an hour.
Lillian closed the door with a sigh. Her room was appointed with a single bed, a washstand and a rickety dresser, and one straight-backed chair. There were wall pegs for hanging clothes and a grimy window with tattered curtains that overlooked Texas Street. The mirror over the washbasin was cracked, and there was a sense of a monk’s cell about the whole affair. She thought she’d never seen anything so dreary.
After undressing, she poured water from a pitcher into the basin and took a birdbath. The water was tepid and thick with silt, but she felt refreshed after so many days on a train. Then, peering into the faded mirror above the washstand, she rearranged her hair, fluffing the curls over her forehead. From her trunk, she selected undergarments and a stylish muslin dress with a lace collar. She wanted to look her best when they went to the theater.
Her waist was so small that she never wore a corset. She slipped into a chemise with a fitted bodice and three petticoats that fell below the knees. Silk hose, ankle-high shoes of soft calfskin, and the muslin dress completed her outfit. On the spur of the moment, she took from the trunk her prize possession, a light paisley shawl purchased at Lord & Taylor in New York. The shawl, exorbitantly expensive, had been a present from her mother their last Christmas together. Lillian wore it only on special occasions.
Shortly after three o’clock the Fontaines entered the Comique Variety Theater. The theater was a pleasant surprise, with a small orchestra pit, a proscenium stage, and seating for 400 people. Lou Gordon, the owner, was a beefy man with a walrus mustache and the dour look of a mortician. He greeted the men with a perfunctory handshake and a curt nod. His eyes lingered on Lillian.
“High time you’re here,” he said brusquely. “You open tomorrow night.”
Fontaine smiled. “Perfect timing, my dear chap.”
“Hope for your sake your booking agent was right. His wire said you put on a good show.”
“I have every confidence you will be pleased. We present a range of entertainment for everyone.”
“Such as?”
“All the world’s a stage.” Fontaine gestured grandly. “And all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances. And one man in his time plays many parts.”
Gordon frowned. “What’s that?”
“Shakespeare,” Fontaine said lightly. “As You Like It.”
“Cowhands aren’t much on culture. Your agent said you do first-rate melodrama.”
“Why, yes, of course, that, too. We’re quite versatile.”
“Glad to hear it.” Gordon paused, glanced at Lillian. “What’s the girl do?”
“Lillian is a fine actress,” Fontaine observed proudly. “And I might add, she has a very nice voice. She opens our show with a ballad.”
“Cowhands like a pretty songbird. Just don’t overdo the Shakespeare.”
“Have no fear, old chap. We’ll leave them thoroughly entertained.”
“You know Eddie Foy?” Gordon asked. “Tonight’s his closing night.”
“We’ve not had the pleasure,” Fontaine said. “Headliners rarely share the same bill.”
“Come on by for the show. You’ll get an idea what these Texans like.”
“I wouldn’t miss an opportunity to see Eddie Foy.”
Fontaine led the way out of the theater. He set off at a brisk pace toward the hotel. “The nerve of the man!” he said indignantly. “Instructing me on Shakespeare.”
Lillian hurried to stay up. “He was only telling you about the audience, Papa.”
“We shall see, my dear. We shall indeed!”
The chorus line kicked and squealed. They pranced offstage, flashing their legs, to thunderous applause from the crowd. The house was packed with Texans, most of them already juiced on rotgut liquor. Their lusty shouts rose in pitch as the girls disappeared into the wings.
The orchestra segued into a sprightly tune. The horns were muted, the strings more pronounced, and the audience quieted in anticipation. Eddie Foy skipped onstage, tipping his derby to the crowd, and went into a shuffling soft-shoe routine. The sound of his light feet on the floor was like velvety sandpaper.
Foy was short and wiry, with ginger hair and an infectious smile. Halfway through the routine, he began singing a bawdy ballad that brought bursts of laughter from the trailhands. The title of the song was Such a Delicate Duck.
I took her out one night for a walk
We indulged in all sports of pleasantry and talk
We came to a potato patch; she wouldn’t go across
The potatoes had eyes and she didn’t wear no drawers!
Lillian blushed a bright crimson. She was seated between her father and brother, three rows back from the orchestra. The lyrics of the song were far more ribald than anything she’d ever heard in a variety theater. Secretly, she thought the tune was indecently amusing, and wondered if she had no shame. Her blush deepened.
Foy ended the soft-shoe number. The orchestra fell silent with a last note of the strings as he moved to center stage. Framed in the footlights, he walked back and forth with herky-jerky gestures, delivering a rapid comedic patter that was at once risque and hilarious. The Texans honked and hooted with rolling waves of laughter.
On the heels of a last riotous joke, the orchestra suddenly blared to life. Foy nimbly sprang into a high-stepping buck-and-wing dance routine that took him cavorting around the stage. His voice raised in a madcap shout, he belted out a naughty tune. The lyrics involved a girl and her one-legged lover.
Toward the end of the number, Foy’s rubbery face stretched wide in a clownish grin. He whirled, clicking his heels in midair, and skipped offstage with a
final tip of his derby. The audience whistled and cheered, on their feet, rocking the walls with shrill ovation. Foy, bouncing merrily onto the stage, took three curtain calls.
The crowd, still laughing, began filing out of the theater. Fontaine waited for the aisle to clear, then led Lillian and Chester backstage. They found Foy seated before a mirror in his dressing room, wiping off greasepaint. He rose, turning to greet them, as Fontaine performed the introductions. His mouth split in a broad smile.
“Welcome to Abilene,” he said jauntily. “Lou Gordon told me you’re opening tomorrow night.”
“Indeed we are,” Fontaine affirmed. “Though I have to say, you’ll be a hard act to follow. You’re quite the showman.”
“Same goes both ways. The Fontaines have some classy reputation on the circuit back East.”
“The question is, will East meet West? We certainly had an education on Texans tonight.”
Foy laughed. “Hey, you’ll do swell. Just remember they’re a bunch of rowdies at heart.”
“Not to mention uncouth,” Fontaine amended. “I’m afraid we haven’t your gift for humor, Eddie. Gordon warned us that culture wouldn’t play well in Abilene.”
“You think I’d try the material you heard tonight in New York? No sir, I wouldn’t, not on your tintype! You have to tailor your material to suit your audience. Westerners just like it a little … raunchy.”
“Perhaps it’s herding all those cows. Hardly what would be termed a genteel endeavor.”
“That’s a good one!” Foy said with a moonlike grin. “Nothing genteel about cowboys. Nosiree.”
“Well, in any event,” Fontaine said, offering a warm handshake. “A distinct pleasure meeting you, Eddie. We enjoyed the show.”
“All the luck in the world to you! Hope you knock’em in the aisles.”
“We’ll certainly do our very best.”
Fontaine found the way to the stage door. They emerged into a narrow alley that opened onto Texas Street. Lillian fell in between the men and glanced furtively at her father. She could tell he was in a dark mood.
