September 1881Jesse James
to The Kansas City Loyalist
Indian Territory
Dear Mr. Editor,
For sixteen years my enemies have hunted and hounded me and now they have succeeded in driving me into the wilderness. Me & my wife are forced to scratch out a living from soil that is nothing better than dust & rocks. We draw our water from a mile away.
My little children cannot stand another winter in these surroundings, but we dare not show our faces in our own native state. We would dearly love to visit my poor mother, crippled by a Pinkerton bomb, as her grandchildren would be a comfort to her. But her house is always watched, and I must move with caution & trust no man. My brother Frank, in the last throws of the illness that took him, dared not even visit a physician.
I have taken advantage
