Shot in the Back

by William W. Johnstone

  “Yes.”

  “I pointed my gun at him and made him leave.”

  “I remember that.”

  “When I told Ma about it, I said I wouldn’t have really killed him. But I would have, Pa. I would have killed him sure, if I had to. So yes, if it comes right down to it, I am ready to kill.”

  Jesse nodded. “Good. I know that sounds harsh, boy, but life is harsh. And your being ready to kill, if you have to, could very well save your life someday. Or mine,” he added with a smile.

  “You can depend on me, Pa. I promise, you can depend on me.”

  “I will depend on you.”

  Two days later, with their horses in the attached stock car, Jesse and Billy were on a train bound for San Angelo. Both were wearing suits, though Jesse had to buy a suit for Billy since he didn’t have one.

  “Remember, if anyone asks, we are cattle buyers, and we are going to San Angelo to look at stock,” Jesse said.

  “Yes, sir.”

  They had boarded the train at nine o’clock that night and were due to arrive in San Angelo at eleven o’clock the next day. Because they would only be on the train for one night, and to save money, Jesse had bought tickets in the day car.

  At about eleven o’clock that night, the train came to a sudden and unscheduled stop. Several in the car made comments about it, many complaining that the stop had been so rapid that they were nearly thrown from their seats.

  “What do you think this is?” Billy asked.

  “I don’t have any idea,” Jesse said. He tried to look through the window. “It’s too dark to see anything outside.”

  “Ha!” Billy said. “Hey, Pa, wouldn’t it be funny if someone was holdin’ up this train?”

  Jesse glared at him.

  “I didn’t mean nothin’,” Billy said. “I was just makin’ a joke is all.”

  “Jokes like that can be dangerous,” Jesse said under his breath. “Billy, from now on, you have to think about everything you say. Do you understand that? You have to be on guard at all times.”

  “Yes, sir, I understand,” a chastised Billy replied. “I’ll be more careful from now on, I promise.”

  “See that you are.”

  “Folks!” the conductor said, coming through the car then and holding his hands up. “I’m sorry about the sudden stop, but there were some cows crossin’ the track, ’n the engineer had to stop to keep from hitting them.”

  “He shoulda hit one of them,” a man in the car said, “if the cows don’t have any more sense than to wander out onto the right of way. We coulda had us steak for breakfast.”

  There were a few weak laughs at the man’s joke.

  “Soon as the last one is gone, we’ll . . .” the conductor said, but even as he was explaining the condition, the train started up again, “. . . get under way,” he said, completing the sentence.

  “Here’s another lesson for you,” Jesse said as he folded his arms across his chest, then leaned back in his seat. “Anytime you have an opportunity to get some sleep, you’d better take it.”

  “Yes, sir,” Billy said, following his father’s lead as he, too, crossed his arms, leaned back in the seat, and lowered his head.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  When they reached San Angelo the next day, Jesse bought a newspaper and took it with him as they had dinner at one of the local restaurants. He began reading it during the meal.

  “That’s a funny way of reading the paper,” Billy said. “You haven’t even looked at the front page.”

  “That’s because I’m not interested in the front page,” Jesse said. “This is what I’m interested in.”

  Jesse turned the paper around, then tapped one of the stories, inside.

  Business News

  First Trust Bank of San Angelo will be transferring sufficient funds to the San Francisco Bank and Savings to cover checks drawn against it when Emerson Williams arranged for the shipping of his beef to Japan. The money transfer will go out on Friday next, so that it will be there for deposit on Monday morning. The amount, to be handled by Texas Pacific Express, is said to be in excess of five thousand dollars.

  “You asked how much money?” Jesse said. “How does this sound to you?”

  “How did you know to look for this in the paper?” Billy asked.

  “I’ve seen such announcements before,” Jesse said.

  “When are we going?”

  “Tomorrow is Thursday. I want to be there in plenty of time. For now, after we eat, I want to go over to the depot and time the trains for a while.”

  “Pa, after that, could we find us a saloon and maybe have a couple of beers?”

  “Yeah, we can do that. But don’t get drunk. When people get drunk they start talking. And sometimes when they start talking, they say things they shouldn’t. We have to be very careful.”

  “I’ll have a beer,” Billy said, stepping up to the bar of the Brown Dirt Cowboy Saloon a few hours later.

  “Honey, if you’ll buy me a drink, I’ll sit and talk with you for a while,” a pretty, heavily painted, and scantily dressed young woman said, stepping up to him.

  Billy smiled. “And a drink for the lady,” he added.

  With drinks in hand, the two started toward a table that was near the vacant piano.

  “My name is Rose,” the woman said as they sat at the table. “What’s yours?”

  “Bil—” Billy started, then paused. “Billings,” he said. “Seth Billings.”

  “Well, Seth, you are a handsome man in that suit. You aren’t dressed like most of the cowboys who come in here.”

  “That’s because I’m not a cowboy,” Billy said. “I’m a cattle buyer. My pa and I are here to look at cattle.”

  Rose laughed. “What’s there to look at? They all look the same to me.”

  Billy laughed, too.

  “Tomorrow,” someone said from the next table over. “They’re goin’ to hang both of ’em tomorrow.”

  “I hate to see that. Both of ’em have been in here several times. They both seemed to be good ole’ boys, as far as I was concerned.”

  “Yeah, but when they robbed the stage, they kilt Emmett Drew. He was the shotgun guard, ’n don’t forget, Emmett had hisself a wife ’n two kids.”

  “I’m not sayin’ that Lou ’n Harry don’t deserve to get hung. I’m just sayin’ I hate that it come to this.”

  “You goin’ to watch?”

  “I don’t know. I reckon I prob’ly will watch.”

  “There’s goin’ to be a hangin’ here, tomorrow?” Billy asked Rose.

  The smile left Rose’s face. “Yes,” she said.

  “Do you know the two they’re talkin’ about?”

  “Like the man said, they used to come in here. Yes, I know both of them. I never thought they’d do anything like holdin’ up a stage and killin’ Mr. Drew, though.” Rose forced a smile. “Let’s not talk about them anymore. Let’s talk about you. Where are you from?”

  “Colorado. Denver, Colorado.”

  “I’ve heard there are mountains in Colorado,” Rose said. “It must be very pretty there.”

  “It is.”

  The next morning, there were at least three hundred people gathered at the corner of North Main and Pulliam streets. The scaffold stood at the junction of the two streets, with two nooses dangling from the crossbeam. A few minutes earlier, filled sandbags had been placed on the two trapdoors, and the handle pulled to test the operation. Billy had jumped at the sound.

  “Pa, why are we here?” Billy asked. “I don’t think I’m goin’ to like watchin’ a couple of men get their necks stretched.”

  “Let’s just say it’s part of your education,” Jesse replied.

  “But what kind of lesson is this?” Billy asked.

  “Let’s just say that it will make you aware of what could happen if you aren’t careful.” Jesse saw someone close by and realized that his comment might have sounded a little suspect.

  “You need to always walk the straight
and narrow,” he added.

  Apparently, his added comment satisfied the curiosity of the man because the man turned his attention back to the empty gallows.

  “When are you goin’ to do it?” someone shouted. “We’re gettin’ tired ’a standin’ out here all mornin’.”

  As they waited, Jesse, subconsciously, put his fingers to his neck where he could feel the slight puffy welt of the scar.

  “Where’s your brother Frank at?” Union soldiers asked the sixteen-year-old Jesse James.

  “I don’t know. He’s gone.”

  “He’s with the Bushwhackers, ain’t he?”

  “He didn’t tell me where he was goin’.”

  “String the little whelp up,” a sergeant said. “If he ain’t goin’ to talk, he ain’t no good to us. We may as well hang ’im.”

  A rope was looped around Jesse’s neck, then the end tossed over the limb of a big oak tree. Two soldiers pulled on the rope, hoisting Jesse, by his neck, from the ground. He began to choke.

  “Sergeant! What are you doing?” a lieutenant called.

  “The little bastard ain’t tellin’ us nothin’, so I figured to hang ’im,” the sergeant replied.

  “Let him down! We aren’t here to hang kids.”

  The soldiers let go of the rope, and Jesse fell, collapsing to the ground. His neck was on fire from the rope burn.

  “Let’s go. Frank James isn’t here, and we’re just wasting time.”

  Jesse heard the soldiers riding off and as he lay there, recovering his breath, he made the decision to find Frank. He was going to join him, and the group he was riding with, which he knew, but didn’t tell the soldiers, was Todd’s Guerillas. He would show the Yankees who was a kid.

  A shout from someone in the crowd jerked Jesse back from his reverie. “Here they come!”

  Looking back toward the jail, Jesse could see the two condemned men being led to the gallows. Their legs weren’t hobbled, but their hands were handcuffed behind their backs. Apparently, one of them had been given a chew of tobacco earlier, because just as he reached the foot of the gallows he stopped to squirt out a stream.

  “Go on up there now, Lou,” the sheriff said. “You don’t want to keep these folks standin’ out in the hot sun any longer than they already have, do you?”

  “Sheriff, I’m just all broke out with pity for ’em,” Lou answered. There was a smattering of nervous laughter in the crowd at his remark.

  “Come on, boys, the longer you wait, the more time you have to worry about it. If it was me, I’d be wantin’ to just get it over with.”

  “I’d be happy to trade places with you,” the other prisoner said.

  Again, there was a scattering of nervous laughter.

  “You boys are both just full of laughs,” the sheriff said.

  The two men moved onto the scaffold, then both were positioned on the trapdoors, under the noose. A clergyman, who had been standing silently in one corner of the gallows, moved over to them.

  “Lou Clayton and Harry Foster, since you both are soon to pass into an endless and unchangeable state, and your future happiness or misery depends upon the few moments which are left you, I require you strictly to examine yourselves, and your estate, both toward God and towards man, and let no worldly consideration hinder you from making a true and full confession of your sins, and giving all the satisfaction which is in your power to everyone whom you have wronged or injured, that you may find mercy at your heavenly Father’s hand and not be condemned in the dreadful day of judgment.”

  “How ’m I s’posed to do that?” Lou asked. “Hell, Parson, folks I’ve wronged is spread out all over the place.”

  “Make contrition in your soul,” the parson said. “And, as the soul of the good thief saved by our Lord, so, too, can your soul be saved.”

  “Ha! This is workin’ out real good then,” Lou said. “I’ve done near ’bout ever’ sin can be done, ’n you’re tellin’ me all I got to do now is say I’m sorry, ’n I won’t be goin’ to hell?”

  “That is exactly what I’m saying. I beg of you, sir. Repent. Repent now, before it is too late.”

  “I don’t repent of nothin’.”

  “I do, Parson,” Harry said. “I repent of ever’thing. I’m just real sorry for all the things I’ve done.”

  “Then you, sir, like the Good Thief, are saved,” the parson said with a beneficent smile.

  “When I get to heaven, I’m goin’ to tell Emmett that I’m just real sorry we kilt him,” Harry said.

  “And when I get to hell, I’m goin’ to kick the devil right in the ass ’n take the place over,” Lou said with a loud cackle.

  Now the crowd gasped.

  “All right, Parson, step aside, please,” the sheriff said. He slipped masks over the heads of each of the prisoners, then stepped to the edge of the gallows. The sheriff glanced down toward the hangman, who had his hands on the lever that would open the trapdoors.

  The crowed grew silent, and neither of the prisoners said a word.

  The sheriff nodded his hand, and the hangman pulled on the lever. The trapdoors opened with a bang, and the two men fell through them, waist-deep into the opening. Both were perfectly still.

  “Pa, watchin’ that hangin’,” Billy said an hour later as the two men started west on their forty-mile ride, “I didn’t like that.”

  “I didn’t figure you would.”

  “Why did you say it was a lesson?”

  “For two reasons. One reason is, there is a very real possibility that, given the business we’re about to go into, that one or both of us could wind up in the same place. I thought you might need to know that.”

  “What was the other reason?”

  “To show you how awful it is, so that we’re careful enough to keep either of us from winding up in the same place.”

  “Well, if you wanted to get my attention, you sure as hell did,” Billy said. “Because I really don’t want to wind up bein’ hung. I think if it came right down to it, I’d rather be shot.”

  “Gettin’ shot isn’t all that good, either.”

  “I’ll tell you what really got my attention,” Billy said. “And that’s the way that fella, Lou, acted.”

  Jesse chuckled quietly. “He was a feisty bastard, wasn’t he? All full of piss and vinegar.”

  “Yeah,” Billy said, and he managed a chuckle as well. “You reckon he really done it?”

  “What? Hold up the stagecoach and shoot the guard? I reckon so, seeing as the other fella much as admitted it just before the hangin’ took place.”

  “No. I mean do you reckon he really did kick the devil in the ass when he got to hell?”

  Jesse laughed out loud.

  “Well now, I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  “Pa, do you remember what Frank said when he spoke over Ma’s grave? I mean about her not havin’ to learn to be an angel and all that.”

  “Of course I remember,” Jesse said. “I was real proud of your brother that day. I think the words he spoke were just fine.”

  “I think they were, too. Pa, his talk about Ma being an angel and all. Do you reckon she is in heaven?”

  “Yes, as sure as a gun is iron she is in heaven.”

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  They spent that night down in an arroyo.

  “Why are we throwing out our sleeping rolls down here?” Billy asked. “There ain’t no breeze down here. Seems to me it would be a lot cooler up top.”

  “You want to eat your food raw?”

  “No.”

  “Do you have any idea how far away you can see a campfire at night?”

  “No, I don’t know. I’ve never really given it any thought.”

  “If you are down on the ground, you can see it for three or four miles. If you’re up on a high enough hill, so the world doesn’t curve away from you, you could see a campfire from fifteen to twenty miles away. But down in the arroyo, can’t nobody see it.”

  “Who thinks about things like that?”<
br />
  “I do,” Jesse said. “And you are going to have to start thinking about it. Billy, I may not always be here. But believe me when I say that if you want to stay out of jail, better yet, if you want to stay alive . . . you absolutely must start thinking about things like that.”

  “I will, Pa,” Billy promised. “I will.”

  As Jesse and Billy stretched out that night, Jesse looked over at the low-burning fire and let his thoughts drift back more than thirty years ago. That was when he held up his first train.

  Near Adair, Iowa—July 21, 1873

  “One hundred thousand dollars in gold,” Frank said. “That’s what this train is carrying.”

  “If we wreck the train, someone could be hurt,” Bob Younger said. “Someone could even be killed.”

  “Do you think the train would just stop if we held up our hand?” Jesse asked.

  “No, but if someone gets killed, wouldn’t your conscience bother you?”

  “Whatever conscience I had, I left back in the war,” Jesse said.

  “Conscience is but a word that cowards use, devised at first to keep the strong in awe,” Frank said.

  “That don’t make no sense at all,” Cole Younger said.

  “It’s probably from one of those books Frank is always reading,” Jesse said.

  “You’re right, Dingus. It is from King Richard the Third. Shakespeare.”

  “The third? You mean there was three kings named Richard?” Bob asked.

  “There were.”

  “How did they tell them apart?”

  “Get ready,” Jesse said. “Here comes the train.”

  “One hunnert thousand dollars,” Bob said. “Woowee. I didn’t know there was that much money in the whole world.”

  Earlier, the men had loosened a length of the rail that was just beyond a blind curve, choosing the location so that by the time the engineer saw it, he wouldn’t be able to stop.

  Just as the train came around the curve, they pulled on the rope that was tied to the track. The locomotive hit the dislodged rail and turned over. The boiler burst with a loud noise and a gush of hot steam as the engine slid along the ground, throwing up rocks and dirt. Finally it stopped, and with guns drawn, Jesse and the others ran toward the train.