“I’m Jesse James. I keep hearing about the coming surrender, but surrender has played out for good with me.”
Those were the first words I ever heard uttered from the man, and I knew he meant them.
The number of the gang now stood at sixteen.
Jesse, Frank, and I discussed the war on into the night. I asked him if he thought the plunder from our various raids would suffice to fund a second Confederate uprising if it came to that.
“The Confederacy ain’t dead yet. But let me tell you something—there’re other funds coming in from places you wouldn’t believe if I told you.”
“Like from where?”
“Just leave it. I ain’t authorized.”
Those comments proved words on which to ponder.
Forty-four days later we arrived in the vicinity of Cincinnati but stayed on the Kentucky side of the river. We decided to use skiffs with which to cross the river. Jesse and I were the first to float across the river to begin surveying and planning for the job ahead. We walked a section of tracks between the stations of Gravel Pit and North Bend and found a spot where one pried rail from the track section would culminate in a derailed engine.
Two days later in the late afternoon, the entire gang arrived on the spot, removed said rail and waited. A short time after eight o’clock we heard the engine of the express train chugging down the tracks in our direction. It came into view, and we beheld the engine pulling the Adams Express car immediately behind with four passenger coaches and a baggage car following.
The engine roared past the missing rail, derailed and fell over on its side. The Adams Express car, which held the safes, capsized and its roof split wide open, with one of the safes rolling out to a spot more than convenient for our gunpowder men to blast it open. The passenger coaches and baggage car remained upright.
In an instant, our band sprang upon the cars. Two men approached each car with two more behind them to provide cover. Each member of the gang, except for myself, carried Navy revolvers and they commenced firing said weapons over the cars while demanding in the sharpest tones that the passengers and train personnel refrain from any defensive demonstrations lest they get their brains blown out.
Jesse and I ran to the Adams Express car with our gunpowder specialists to supervise the opening of the safes. We had planned for our men at the other cars to simply hold the engineer and passengers at bay long enough for our gunpowder men to blast open the safes.
Just then I heard one of our members declare, “Rob every damn man, but don’t hurt the ladies!” My eyes scanned down the tracks and saw our men pouring into the passenger cars to loot the railway line’s customers.
I looked over to Jesse and expressed my dissatisfaction at the turn of events.
“The K.G.C. is robbing citizens now, Jesse? Were these the orders?”
“Yes. And I gave ’em. Never you mind it and let’s get these safes open.”
The capsizing of the express car essentially imprisoned the messenger within. At the beginning, he poked his head out of an opening to ascertain the events outside. One of our gunpowder men, standing within five feet of the opening, saw the messenger, aimed his Navy at the target and told him to behave lest his exposed head explode to Kingdom Come.
So, while my group went about the business of blowing open the steel safes of the Adams Express, our men in the passenger cars commenced robbing the male travelers of pocketbooks, gold watches, diamond pins, gold rings, bracelets, coins – both gold and silver -- and paper money. One of our associates even broke off the gold handle of a man’s walking cane and stuffed it into his own pocket.
During all of this, the conductor attempted to offer resistance. One of our men commenced firing upon him but, thankfully, missed his target.
From time to time during the affair, I looked down at the passenger car spectacle and liked none of it. I planned to separate myself from the band shortly after we crossed the river back into Kentucky. In the midst of this affair which I had, in my mind, deemed a debacle, I longed for the feel of a glass of Sazerac in my hand and the sweetness of its nectar on my lips in far more comfortable environs and with better society.
Safes finally blown open, we emptied the contents which amounted to thirty thousand dollars in U.S. government bonds. Frank and Jesse secured these in water-proof pouches for the skiff ride across the river.
Bonds secured and passengers robbed, we traversed the river for the last time and ran like hell for our horses that were stabled at a farm owned by a K.G.C. sympathizer a few miles distant. The horses were saddled, fresh and ready to go. From there, we made for Verona, Kentucky where we picked up a new set of fresh horses hidden away at the home of another K.G.C. sympathizer.
While we tarried not at the man’s home, we listened as he offered up a quick round of news and rumors circulating throughout the country.
“Any of you men ever hear of Loreta Velazquez, our lady spy?”
I remained quiet, but all amongst our band said they had heard the remarkable stories of Madame Velazquez, the rebel secret agent loved by Southerners and despised by those in the north.
Our host elaborated further.
“Heard she was killed by a certain Mrs. Williams who’d been working for the Federals. Velazquez had been recruiting and organizing our boys in gray across the country, had even been organizing a rebellion of Confederate prisoners held in Ohio and Indiana. Yankees wanted her dead and paid another woman to do it.”
Hearing this news felt like a ton of bricks had fallen upon me.
I asked how this information had been verified.
“Them photographer men recorded it. Saw a picture of it. Showed her shot up body lying there on the ground.”
Jesse spoke up.
“I hear she spent a lot of time down in New Orleans. Did you ever know her, Broussard?”
“Heard the name, sure. But never met her.”
Frank and Jesse said they were bound for the town of Cynthiana, Kentucky where a man with the last name of Stamper had another set of fresh horses as well as instructions on where to take the bonds now owned by The Circle. The route to Cynthiana took the band further east than I wanted to travel with a band that robbed citizens, so I lied and stated to the group that my instructions called for an immediate return to General Stand Watie in the Indian Territory. Frank and Jesse admired Watie and possessed at least some respect for the K.G.C. hierarchy, so they seemed to have confidence in the story.
The time lay upon me.
I made straight for Louisville, then down through western Kentucky, across the southern tip of Indiana into Tennessee, angling directly back to Watie and my duties in the Indian Nations.
Therein explains my role in the North Bend Train Robbery still “unsolved,” an event that stands as the first train robbery in the history of the United States, as the first of such raids by the K.G.C., as the model for The Circle’s future holdups, and as the first non-war related stickup involving Frank and Jesse James—all at once.
8
A Curious Stranger in Indian Territory
Some fifty days after the train robbery near Cincinnati, I found myself back in the land of the Five Civilized Tribes of eastern Indian Territory. Having traveled the entire distance with Loreta heavy on my mind, I returned in time to see the war out with General Watie and his men right up to Watie’s surrender in Doaksville on June 23, 1865, some two months after Lee’s surrender at Appomattox.
News traveled slowly in those days.
I did not know of Lee’s surrender on April 9 until returning to Indian Territory. The news gave me to know that the Ohio train robbery on May 5 happened squarely after war’s end, surely making the K.G.C. action there against civilians a non-war affair that could land the participants in prison for a long time.
I also did not know of another great event that took place barely one week after Lee’s surrender—the assassination of Abraham Lincoln by the young and distinguished actor, John Wilkes Booth on April 14.
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nbsp; Why did that name ring a bell? I thought to myself at the time. The answer came suddenly. Because I had heard Father mention the name on multiple occasions.
Then, I remembered, once again, other words from Father, words uttered by him when I asked about leaving The Circle: “Just slither within its ranks as unnoticed as possible, play the game, play it smart, wait it out until the end, and, when the end comes, as it most certainly will come, have yourself situated on the other side of the world if possible.”
As it turned out, I failed to heed his advice. Both the end of the war and Lincoln’s assassination occurred with me working a train robbery in Ohio with Jesse and Frank James, all of us in the service of the K.G.C., the very society responsible for the “Killing of the King” at Ford’s Theatre in Washington City—hardly the behavior of one slithering within K.G.C. ranks as unnoticed as possible.
I longed to return to New Orleans, to the Pickwick, to the dark and shadowy streets of the Vieux Carre, and, if by some seemingly unlikely chance she still lived, to Loreta Janeta Velazquez. New Orleans certainly did not qualify as “the other side of the world,” but I knew how to navigate it and felt comfortable in its clutches, even if hordes of blue-coats now roamed its wicked back alleys and side streets.
After Watie earned the distinction of becoming the last Confederate General to surrender to the Yankees in late June, he and his men remained in the Choctaw Nation for a short time, and I remained with them.
One evening a few hours before sundown, Watie called me to his tent. I went straightaway, ready to receive orders not from a Confederate General but from a K.G.C. superior. I somehow knew this meeting would prove my last with the cunning fighter. I entered the tent and paid my salute.
“It has been an honor to fight alongside you, Broussard. A damned fine honor.”
“And vice versa, General. You have taught me a lot. I’m forever grateful.”
“We were clever, devious, bold and decisive, and those things took us far. You possessed those qualities in spades when first I met you. But the fight continues, and that’s why I called you here.”
“Yes, sir?”
“I’ve been messaged to order you back to New Orleans at once. You leave first thing in the morning.”
“I cannot pretend for that to be anything other than the best of news, General.”
“I hear you like a place there called the Pickwick Club.”
“News does travel, General.”
“After you return, you are to check in there regularly.”
“That will not be a problem, sir. But, why?”
“You will receive dispatches there. If you are not handed an envelope while there, then there is no dispatch to be handed. You may go many months and not receive anything. Do we have an understanding?”
“Certainly, General.”
“Good. You leave at dawn.”
I saluted the General for the last time and then turned and exited. Barely an inch past the threshold of the tent’s entryway I nearly collided with one making his own way to the General, one verily surrounded by a host of shadow people, and one-off whose lips flowed quick-fired prose appropriate to the situation.
“But as the unthought-on accident is guilty to what we wildly do, so we profess ourselves to be the slaves of chance, and flies of every wind that blows.”
“I, too, like The Winter’s Tale. To whom may I thank for such prose in the wilds of the Choctaw Nation on this summer night?”
Slowly, gracefully, he raised his hand.
“To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man. My name is John St. Helen, at your service.”
Before me stood a man of worried expression and penetrating black eyes, a man whose physical countenance and mannerisms indicated genteel birth and upbringing and superior education. Despite his appearance of high culture, I felt his soft manners did little to hide the face of one capable of inflicting swift violence and certain death. He appeared only a few years older than me.
While he appeared somewhat disheveled, as if recently off a long trip, perhaps in the wild where attention to appearance is often difficult at best, nothing about his visage suggested he belonged anywhere in the vicinity of what then constituted the wilds of the western frontier.
“And I am Drouet Broussard, sir.”
At that, St. Helen bowed, raised again and then stood silent, if only for a few seconds, his brain appearing to digest the few words I had just expressed, most notably the two comprising my name. I sensed he had heard those words before. He smiled.
“Strong reasons make strong actions, and you appear as one on a mission.”
“I leave the company of General Watie and his Cherokee Mounted Rifles first thing in the morning.”
“To where, pray?”
“To home. To New Orleans.”
“Ah, I know the city well, Broussard!”
We shook hands, and he bade me adieu.
“Farewell, Drouet Broussard! God knows when we shall meet again.”
St. Helen turned and into General Watie’s tent he walked, and with a limp I noted.
I arose early the following morning to begin my voyage home. Barely out of Watie’s camp, I turned around for one last look at the camp of men making up the Mounted Rifles. From out of one of the tents walked St. Helen, freshly-shaven, and carrying himself with the same elegant manner as the night before, albeit with the conspicuous hitch in his walk.
Of all those I had met since last leaving New Orleans, St. Helen stood out as the only one with whom I wanted to converse over a glass of Sazerac.
9
New Orleans Under Cover of Darkness
While en route from Indian Territory back to the Crescent City I allowed my mustache and beard to grow in. I wanted to walk the streets of home incognito, as no one there had ever seen me unshaven.
Once in New Orleans, I remained mindful that K.G.C. operatives wanted to stay apprised of my every move. The memory of the nighttime alleyway technicians stood as a constant reminder that people above me in The Circle most certainly desired to know the whereabouts of the mint heist plunder, and worried not over the methods necessary to pluck said information from yours truly.
More than a few high-ranking members of New Orleans society belonged to The Circle, and some within the ranks surely wanted answers regarding the hiding place. Even though I owned a respected name as the son of a prominent New Orleans businessman who helped establish the underground league, I knew I walked the streets of the Crescent City at my own risk.
While the fact that I alone knew the location of the cache provided me a certain level of protection against K.G.C. assassins, there surely existed those more than willing to use whatever creative devices to make me chirp.
General Pike at least pretended an air of nonchalance over the matter and outwardly acted as if he believed in my stated commitment to using the booty toward the stated goals of the clandestine institution. What he truly thought of my intentions regarding the stash I knew not, but I actually possessed no certain designs of any kind regarding it.
Father had suggested I slither as unnoticed as possible while working within the society, sort of playing things by ear and keeping my options open, and that is exactly how I thought about the contents of the crypt at Lafayette Cemetery.
On my first night back home, a thick fog enveloped the city. Shadow people danced in and out of it. Over time, I came to the conclusion that these manifestations were fueled by dubious energies.
I went first to Father’s old place and found that it had been ransacked thoroughly, probably by those looking for the loot or at least for clues to its whereabouts. I wondered about beautiful Marguerite but felt certain she had been safe while residing elsewhere in my absence. While there, I trimmed my new mustache and beard and made myself presentable to polite society. From there, I made straight for the apartment in the Vieux Carre. There I found more disarray, for each room had been completely plundered.
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What the K.G.C. thugs did not find in my absence from New Orleans they undoubtedly hoped to discover with my return, another reminder for me to stay hidden in the shadows.
I cleaned up and made straightaway for the Pickwick. Nothing could dissuade me from a glass of Sazerac after so many months without one, not even a foggy night replete with shadow people.
There were clear reminders everywhere that as I strode the side streets and narrow alleyways of New Orleans I did so as a wanted man, not by the law or by the loud, ill-mannered and boisterous Yankees, but by a power higher than either, by a force that enlisted spies, informants, and thugs from the ranks of each.
The doorman at the Pickwick asked for my cape, but I politely refused to turn it over. The blades in the long pockets could function well within the Pickwick as well as out, and so the need for quick defense regardless of location won out over manners and etiquette.
I declined my favorite section on the second floor and chose a table on the first near the outer door against the possible necessity of a quick exit. Glass of Sazerac in hand, I began weighing over my next move.
I resolved two items immediately.
I could not reside at either of the night’s previously-visited addresses without fear of capture whilst asleep and torture once awakened. Furthermore, I could not safely and confidently walk the streets without some sort of disguise.
Through the smoke and faint lighting, I saw a figure walk into the room and take a seat at the wall opposite me. A closer, more focused glance revealed a bearded Yankee officer. How he gained admittance into the Pickwick—a members-only club—I knew not, but then reminded myself that officers of occupying armies seldom asked permission in such matters. The blue-coat removed his hat, pulled a perfecto from his pocket, bit off the end, and promptly lit the tobacco-filled cylinder into action. In a matter of seconds, smoke bellowed from the table. While making as if minding my own business, I occasionally glanced his direction and soon ascertained beyond a shadow of a doubt that the set of eyes behind the camouflage of smoke were set intently on me. I remained seated for perhaps another thirty minutes and never once did those eyes between the smoke plumes cease peering straight at me.
Ghost Knights Of New Orleans Page 5
