The Jesse James Scrapbook

Summer 1858

Summer 1858Charlie Taney

Caretaker, Old Siloam Christian School

Excelsior Springs, Missouri

It was a bad afternoon, three years before the war. Hot, it was. The clouds were black, and the air had a weight to it—so wet it stuck to you like honey. Tornado weather, my pa used to say.

“You boys be careful, now,” Frank’s ma called out.

“Don’t worry,” Frank said.

We sat on two old horses in front of the James place. Fifteen years old, Frank and I were, almost military age, but still just barefoot farm boys.

Frank’s ma said, “Where you goin’, anyway?”

“Goin’ swimmin’.”

I admired Frank, in those days—tailed along behind him like a puppy dog—but what he’d told his mother was a lie. No good ever come from such a thing. We were “goin’ swimmin’”—like he’d said—but not at the creek, like she must have figured. No sir, we had an idea to ride all the way to Fishing River—seven, eight mile as the crow flies.

“Be back ‘fore supper,” his ma ordered. “There’s a storm blowin’ up.”

“Yes, Ma.”

“And take Jesse with you.”

“Oh, Ma.”

Jesse was but eleven years of age, then, and his voice hadn’t yet changed. He still sang in church, and I mean to tell you, us bullfrogs never wanted no sopranos tagging along.

“Not today, Ma.”

“You do as I say, Mr. Frank.”

Frank didn’t savor it much, when his ma called him that, but we was afraid of his ma—everybody was—so he just reached down and pulled Jesse up on the horse behind him.

“Mr. Frank,” Jesse said, just so.

“Choir boy,” Frank shot back.

Nowadays, there’s a town stands at Fishing River—got hotels and so on, restaurants and mineral baths. But when I was a boy-child it was God’s own paradise there. Big elms on the bank. Mud cats, bass, bluegills so thick in the water, you could walk across ‘em, like stones—“A river flows out of Eden…” Genesis, II, 10.

We was there, that stormy day, to investigate the mineral springs that bubbled up ‘round there. My own baby cousin had been scrofulus until he’d drunk the miracle of the waters, and I’d bragged to Frank about it.

“Cures all,” I’d said. “Scrofula. Sciatica. Rheumatis’.”

“No such thing as miracle waters,” he’d said—a doubter Frank James always was, and hell-bound, even then.

When we got there, to the river, he knelt right down in the mud, got it all on his trousers—didn’t care none about that. Lifted a handful of this magic water up to his mouth. Smelled it. Licked at it with his tongue. Drank some, then spat it right out.

“Tastes poorly,” he said.

“Ain’t so bad,” I told him. “You just prejudice. You just don’t want nothin’ to do with it. You just made up your mind and won’t bend.”

Jesse weren’t that way. Jesse dashed right on up to the edge, flopped down, and dunked his whole front face in it. Sucked up a bellyful of the stuff then rolled on his back and spit it out like a fountain.

“No such thing as miracle water,” Frank says.

“Mr. Frank,” says Jesse, needlin’ him.

Further up along the bank, we found this fat, old oak with roots so thick they heaved up the ground. Trunk was split in twain. Some boys before us had gone and tied a rope to one of the branches, and, the day was so hot, we had our clothes off in no time.

Took turns grabbin’ the rope, swinging out and over the river, letting go and flying like fisherbirds. But Jesse, you see, he never was a patient boy, and, soon enough, he got bored with it all. Wasn’t good enough for him, just swingin’ on that rope, so he started braggin’. Bragged that he was going to fly out, over the river, touch his toes in mid-air, then dive head-first into the water.

“I got wings,” says Jesse.

“But you ain’t got the sand,” says Frank.

Fool idea, it was. The water wasn’t all so deep and you could get your neck broke doing what Jesse’d proposed. A boy from Bethany Plantation had dived head-first into the river, paralyzed himself, and died of it—or so the story went.

Jesse strutted round that fat, old tree, looking her up and down. He stretched out the swinging rope and measured it.

“All brag and no show,” Frank said, but Jesse never backed down from nothin’.

He stepped back and made a little run at the rope. He clutched and grabbed and swung—as big a swing as a boy might hope. He flew off towards heaven. Started to touch at his toes but only got about halfway bent. Then he got all turned round in the air, mixed-up it seemed. He dangled there ‘bout half a second, then straight down he went, like a sack of flour, slap on his back in the shallows.

Frank leaped right in after him, I’ll give Frank that. Grabbed his little brother by the arm and pulled him up and out, rescued him—‘cept he didn’t need rescuing.

“You all right?”

“Leave me alone.”

“Choir boy.”

Jesse always had a temper, which is why he killed so many, I suppose. He stormed towards the bank. Set down by me in the grass. Drew his knees up into himself. Wrapped his arms around them.

“You all right?” I asked. “Ain’t broke your courage or nothin’?”

“Shut up.”

Frank said, “Charlie asked you a question. Don’t you answer people’s questions no more.”

“Leave me alone.”

Frank picked up a handful of mud and threw it at him. “Choir boy.”

Jesse dodged it, so Frank just picked up another handful and, splat, this time the black mud hit square in Jesse’s chest and splattered his face.

“The boy looks like a damn African,” Frank said.

I laughed along. “Guess he does.”

“Don’t know how it could possibly be,” Frank went on, “but my little brother seems to have African blood in him.”

Jesse sneered. “Mr. Frank.”

And that was when Frank blew up. He was mean, sometimes, and now the meanness was on him. He come after Jesse right off—charging out the water and up the bank. Jesse tried to dodge him, but Frank caught his scrawny, little leg. Pulled him down, hoisted him up, cradled him like a baby, and carried him back into the water.

“Are you washed in Jesus’ blood?” Frank cried. “Are you washed in the blood of the atoning lamb?”

“Don’t you dare!” Jesse said.

Frank spoke scripture. “And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, like a dove upon him, and a voice came from heaven…” Luke, III, 22.

I told Frank to stop, but he had a mean on, now, and he never paid me no mind, no way. He dunked Jesse down, like he was baptizing him. Two, three, four times.

“Mr. Frank! Mr. Frank! Mr. Frank!” Jesse came up kicking and spitting each time. Wouldn’t give in.

The air was cracklin’ electric from the storm by now, and big, fat rain drops had begun to fall—one, two, three—so slow you could count ‘em. Frank dunked Jesse down again, but this time Jesse picked up a stone off the bottom. Round like an egg, it was—I saw it plain in his hand—round like an egg, but black, like iron.

The lightening flashed as he swung that smooth, old stone, and it come to me that the Lord would smite Frank and his blasphemy.

But the Lord did no such thing. Jesse swung and missed. Frank grabbed onto his wrist and held it firm. Bent it back, farther and farther, until Jesse let drop the stone. Then Frank pushed him under and held him down the longest time.

“You’ll drown him,” I called from the bank.

“He’s only a damned choir boy,” Frank said. But he let him up just the same.

The storm broke in earnest, then—“the same day were all the fountains of the great deep broken up, and the windows of the heavens were opened.” Genesis VII, 11.

We rode home through the fury of it—the thunder like cannons, the lightening-flash. Three barefoot farm boys, lost in the wilderness—“And ye shall be as gods, knowing good from evil.”