Shot in the Back

by William W. Johnstone

  “Oh, dear,” the car salesman said. “Perhaps you would do better to shop for a car that is . . . shall we say, more in keeping with your class?”

  “Our class?” Jesse said. “Tell me, mister, just what is our class?”

  “Oh, please, do not misunderstand me. I mean nothing demeaning by it. I was just trying to help you avoid embarrassment is all. After all, this car costs—”

  “Two thousand seven hundred and fifty dollars,” Jesse said, finishing the comment. He reached down into a valise he was carrying and counted out twenty-seven bound stacks of bills. “You’ll find that each of these stacks is worth one hundred dollars. And here is an additional fifty dollars.”

  “That is . . . so much money in one-dollar bills. How is it that you have so much money in one-dollar bills?”

  “We sold our farm to a man who runs a vending operation, and he deals almost entirely in dollar bills,” Jesse explained. “You will take dollar bills, won’t you?”

  “Yes, sir, of course we will. But it will take a few minutes to count it, to verify that it is all there,” the salesman said.

  “Don’t you have people who can do that while you tell us all about this car?” Jesse asked.

  “Yes, indeed, we certainly do have such people in our employ,” the salesman replied, now all smiles. “Did you know that this car is equipped with an electric self-starter?”

  “You mean we don’t have to crank it?” Billy asked.

  “No, sir, you don’t. Allow me to demonstrate.”

  The salesman made a show of putting his left foot on the starter button. The engine turned over and caught quickly.

  “You’ll not get that on a Model T Ford,” he said proudly.

  A few minutes later Jesse was given a bill of sale, and he and Billy drove away in a brand-new Packard.

  Chandler—November 21, 1916

  When they drove the Packard into the front yard of the farm house that neither Jesse nor Billy had seen for nearly thirteen years, they were met by a young, barefoot boy.

  “Gee, this is certainly one fine car,” he said, running his hand over the smooth finish of the fender. “It’s a Packard, ain’t it?”

  “That’s what it is, son. Now, tell me. Would your name be James William Alexander?”

  The boy looked confused. “Yes. But people call me Jimmy. How do you know my name?”

  Frank stepped out of the house then, and, with a big smile on his face, came to greet his father and his brother.

  “He knows your name, Jimmy, because he is your grandpa,” Frank said. “Hello, Pa. Hello, Billy. I was beginning to think I never would see either one of you again.”

  “Hello, Frank.”

  “This isn’t my grandpa. I see Grandpa all the time,” Jimmy said.

  “The grandpa you know is your mom’s pa. This is my pa, so he is your other grandpa. And this your uncle Billy.”

  “Hello, Jimmy,” Billy said, sticking out his hand. Jimmy took it, and smiled up at him.

  “How long are you going to stay?” Frank asked.

  “Not too long. We wouldn’t want to put you out any.”

  “You wouldn’t be putting us out at all,” Frank said. He took a closer look at the car, then let out a little whistle. “My, oh, my, you two must be doing mighty fine to be driving an automobile like this.”

  “We were doing all right for a while, until the feather market went bust,” Jesse said.

  Frank chuckled. “Yes, in one of your very infrequent letters, you said that you were growing ostriches for the feathers. So the market went bust, did it?”

  “I’m afraid it did. So we sold out and figured we’d come here to visit you for a few days. How is Ethel Marie getting along?”

  “Come on in and see for yourself,” Frank invited.

  Ethel Marie greeted them warmly, then told Frank to go out and kill a hen.

  “Are you going to make chicken and dumplin’s, Mom? Oh, good! That’s my favorite!” Jimmy said.

  “Dumplin’s?” Jesse asked.

  Frank told me how much you love dumplin’s, and how you sometimes made them because his mother couldn’t,” Ethel Marie said. “So I learned how from my aunt Eunice. She lives in Jackson, Mississippi, and she says every woman in Mississippi must learn how to make dumplin’s, or they will be run out of the state.”

  “I expect that’s right,” Jesse said with a little laugh.

  For the rest of the afternoon the house was permeated with the aroma of baking chicken, broth, dumplings, and rolls. As Ethel Marie worked in the kitchen, Frank, Jesse, and Billy visited in the living room.

  “One letter about every four months,” Frank complained. “And from all over the country. You said in one of your letters that you had been in that big earthquake they had in California.”

  “Yes,” Jesse said.

  “That must have been quite an experience.”

  “Not one that I want to go through again,” Jesse replied.

  “Me, neither,” Billy added.

  “You should write more often,” Frank said. “We are family.”

  “I apologize for that, Frank,” Jesse said. “But, like you pointed out, we never seem to stay in the same place very long.”

  “I believe you said in one of your letters that you went to Wild Horse and you visited Ma’s grave.”

  “Yes,” Billy said. “The town is all gone now, and what buildings there are left are all boarded up. But the cemetery has been kept up real good.”

  “I’m glad you stopped by to see Ma,” Frank said. “I know she was lookin’ down from heaven and appreciated it.”

  “Gentlemen?” Ethel Marie called from the dining room. “Dinner is ready.”

  “Oh, my, Frank,” Jessie said later as he pushed away from the table. “That’s the best thing I’ve eaten in a long time. You are one lucky man to have a wife who can cook like this.”

  Ethel Marie beamed.

  “Come on out with me, let me show you the farm,” Frank said. “We’re all modernized now. I’ve got two tractors to do all the plowing.”

  “Two tractors? You can only drive one at a time.”

  “I’ve got a hired man named Ben, and he’s a real good worker.”

  Frank hooked a couple of mules to a wagon, then the three men climbed in and he began his tour.

  “I didn’t grow any corn this year. I just grew cotton and soybeans,” Frank said.

  “What do soybeans taste like?” Billy asked.

  Frank laughed. “People don’t eat soybeans. They’re most used as forage.”

  “I never heard of any animals eating beans,” Billy said.

  “It’s not like they are butter beans or anything. As you can see, I’ve got all my crops out, and this was my best year ever.”

  As Frank continued with his tour, proudly pointing to everything, Jesse glanced over at Billy and saw that he was almost falling asleep with boredom. He wondered how twins could be so different.

  After supper that night, they all sat out on the front porch, watching the sun sink with a blaze of color in the west.

  “You know, Pa, I don’t mean to carp about it, but you and Billy could have come to visit once or twice before this. You can’t blame Jimmy for not knowing who you were. He’s never seen you, not for his entire life.”

  “Has he heard of me?” Jesse asked pointedly.

  “Not that much,” Frank admitted. “Pa, sometimes it would be so long between letters, we didn’t know if you were alive or dead.”

  “Can I ask Grandpa a question?” Jimmy asked.

  “Sure you can,” Jesse said before Frank could reply.

  “Grandpa, have you ever seen an airplane?”

  “Yes, I’ve seen a few of them.”

  “Have you ever gone up in one?”

  Jesse chuckled. “I never have, and I don’t plan to ever go up in one.”

  “I’ve been up in one,” Jimmy said.

  “You have?” Jesse replied, surprised at the boy’s words. “You’ve act
ually been up in an airplane? You aren’t foolin’ your old grandpa, are you?”

  “He’s tellin’ the truth, Pa,” Frank said. “There was a fella who came to the county fair here, back this past spring. He gave rides in his airplane for a dollar, and Jimmy wouldn’t be denied.”

  “He begged so that Frank finally gave in,” Ethel Marie said. “I’m not lying to you when I tell you I was so frightened that I scarcely drew a breath until he came back down.”

  “Well how was it, Jimmy?” Billy asked. “What did you think of it?”

  “It was the most funnest thing I’ve ever did,” Jimmy said. “When I grow up, I’m going to fly one. You know what they call someone who flies an airplane? They call them a pilot, and that’s what I’m goin’ to be. I’m going to be a airplane pilot.”

  “Well if you are, I’m sure you’ll be a good one.”

  “Jimmy, go wash your face and hands and brush your teeth,” Ethel Marie said. “It’s time for you to go to bed.”

  “I want to talk to Grandpa and Uncle Billy some more,” Jimmy complained.

  “We’re goin’ to be around for a few days,” Jesse said. “We’ll have plenty of time to talk.”

  “You promise?”

  “I promise.”

  Jimmy smiled, then said his good nights and left to go to bed.

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  “You’ve done real well for yourself, Frank,” Jesse said after Jimmy went to bed. “I can’t tell you how proud I am of you.”

  “We’ve had some tough times, especially when there’s a long drought. But these last few years have been really good. Chris Dumey is talking about selling his farm, and it’s right next to this one, so I think I might buy it.”

  “Ha. Dumey was one of the original land rushers, wasn’t he? Like us?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Why is he selling out?”

  “He’s not selling everything. He plans to keep his house, but he says that he’s too old to be farming anymore.”

  “I can understand that. I was beginning to feel my age back with the ostriches.”

  “Pa, didn’t you say once that you farmed back in Missouri?”

  “Yes, before my pa died. It wasn’t much of a farm; mostly we just grew rocks and weeds.”

  “You know, I really don’t know much about you. Now, Ethel Marie’s ma, she has a Bible that’s got all the names of her pa’s family in it, ’n she has another Bible that’s got all her family in it. Why, if you ask Ethel Marie who any of her folks are, on either side, ’n she can go all the way back to the Revolutionary War. All I know about you is that you’re from Missouri, but you lived some in Kentucky and you were in the Civil War.”

  Jesse laughed. “That’s all I know about me, too,” he said.

  “But you at least know who your grandparents were, don’t you, Pa?”

  “My ma’s last name was Mimms, before she married Ike Alexander, who was my pa. I never met any of my grandparents. My real pa died when I was very young, and my ma married again and we moved to Kentucky.”

  “Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

  “I had a brother, but he was killed in the war.”

  Jesse glanced over toward Billy, measuring his reaction. Billy knew the truth, and Jesse was concerned that the expression on his face may give away the fact that almost everything he was saying now was a lie.

  “What was his name?” Frank asked.

  “Sam. His name was Samuel Alexander.”

  “Well, that’s something at least. Do you know that, in my whole life, you have never even told me that?”

  Jesse had wanted to leave earlier, but Ethel Marie begged him to stay until November 30, Thanksgiving Day. “My mother and father will be here for Thanksgiving Day dinner,” she said. I think it would be just wonderful for all of us to celebrate together. It has been such a long time since you saw them.”

  “Is Horace still running the feed and seed store in town?”

  “No, my brother is running it now.”

  “Will your brother be here?”

  “He and Martha are celebrating the holiday with her parents.”

  Horace McGill was two years older than Jesse, but he looked ten years older. They arrived in a Studebaker, and from the living room window, Jesse saw McGill admiring the Packard. Jesse had heard, indirectly, that McGill believed his daughter was “marrying down” when she and Frank were married, and though he had never called him on it, it had always irritated him. He was glad that Frank was doing as well as he was, if for no other reason than to show McGill that he was wrong.

  “Hello, J. Frank,” McGill greeted when they came into a house that was filled with the aroma of the Thanksgiving Day dinner. He used the ‘J. Frank’ to differentiate Jesse from his son, Frank. “I heard you were back. Are you going to stay around for a while?”

  “Just through the day,” Jesse replied. “Billy and I recently sold our ranch out in Arizona, and we’re looking for some other business to get into.”

  “Aren’t you old enough to retire?”

  “Probably,” Jesse agreed. “But I’m not looking to retire just yet.”

  There were a few other exchanges, but during the meal McGill monopolized the conversation. Jesse didn’t challenge him. As far as he was concerned, the more time McGill took up talking, the less Jesse would have to.

  After the meal, as Jesse sat in an easy chair in the living room, listening and watching the conversation and the interplay between everyone, he couldn’t help but wonder about his other two children, Jesse and Mary. Where were they on this Thanksgiving Day? What were they doing, and if they were celebrating, who were they celebrating with?

  He put that thought out of his mind. He had managed to live a life without them all these years, and he knew that they were much better off without him.

  The cabin on the Brazos—March 21, 1942

  “I know from your story, so far, that Molly never learned your true identity. Billy did, because he was with you when you and your brother met. But what about your son, Frank? Did Frank ever find out who his father really was?”

  “No. I thought it best for Frank, I mean, being the kind of boy he was, and the kind of man he became, that he not know about me. I believe it would have been more than he could take, to know that he was the son of an outlaw. I swore Billy to secrecy, and Billy never broke his trust. Neither Frank, nor his wife, nor his boy ever found out.”

  “Where are they all now? Frank, Jimmy, and Ethel Marie? They are sure to find out when this book comes out. Or I guess, now that you are telling the story, you are resolved to everyone finding out.”

  “You’re right, I don’t care who knows now. In fact, I want everyone to know; that’s why I’m doing this. But Frank and Jimmy won’t find out. They’re both dead.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry I brought it up.”

  “That’s all right, it’s been long enough.”

  “What happened? That is, if you don’t mind my asking.”

  “Jimmy got his wish to become a pilot. He joined the army air corps and learned to fly. But in 1928, he crashed and was killed. Frank died two years after that. The doctors said it was a heart attack, but I think it was of a broken heart. He never got over losing his boy.”

  “What about Ethel Marie?”

  “The last I heard, she had remarried and moved to California. I haven’t heard from her since, and there’s no reason she should keep in touch with me. I just want her to have a good life.”

  Faust, not knowing what to say, just nodded in sympathy.

  “The thing that bothers me most was that after both of the boys were grown, I never was the father to Frank that I was to Billy. I mean, I just wasn’t a part of Frank’s life like I should have been. And I was, for sure, not a part of Jimmy’s life.”

  “I think we all have personal regrets in our lives,” Faust said.

  “If you don’t mind, let’s pick this back up tomorrow.”

  “All right,” Faust agreed.

 
When Jesse woke up the next morning, it was to the aroma of coffee and bacon. He went into the kitchen to see Faust beating up some batter in a bowl.

  “I thought I would make some of my world-famous pancakes for breakfast this morning,” he said.

  “World-famous, are they? By whose account?”

  “I’m just telling you what John Wayne said when I was on the set for the movie Stagecoach.”

  “You wrote that?”

  “No, Ernest Haycox wrote it. The short story, that is, not the screenplay. But he was invited on the set; he invited me, and one morning I made pancakes.”

  “John Wayne was right,” Jesse said half an hour later. “They are world-famous. Or, if they aren’t, they should be.”

  “Are you ready to get back to the story now?” Faust asked.

  “Yeah, I’m ready.”

  “The big question I have is, did you pull another job after you and Billy robbed that bank in the middle of the night?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Jesse said. “We were just getting started.”

  “How did it go?”

  “As far as the money is concerned, it went very well. But for the first time since the Northfield Raid, I had one of my men get killed.”

  Chandler—December 1, 1916

  Jesse and Billy left Chandler just after sunrise the next morning after Thanksgiving.

  “Where are we going, Pa?” Billy asked. Billy was driving.

  “How about heading for Blytheville, Arkansas?”

  “Blytheville? You mean Mr. Cummins? Do you think he’s still there?”

  “He was two months ago,” Jesse said. “I wrote him a letter and asked if he would be interested in getting involved in another adventure with us.”

  “Hot damn, you’ve got something else planned, don’t you?”

  “Yes.”

  “And what did Mr. Cummins say?”

  “He said he would be very interested.”

  They reached Blytheville before nightfall that same day, and they drove right up to Jim Cummins’s house. He came out to see who it was when they honked the horn.