Shot in the Back (18 page)

“Jim, do you have a wife or kids to worry about?” Jesse asked after Cummins agreed to be a part of Jesse's new gang.

“No, I ain't got nobody dependin' on me but this team of mules. But I can sell them and buy a horse.”

“You don't need a horse,” Jesse said. He pointed to the Oldsmobile. “We've got ten horses,” he said with a smile.

“How many men do you have?” Cummins asked.

“For now, just the three of us.”

“Do you want anyone else?”

“Only if it's someone dependable. Why, do you have a suggestion?”

“I do. He rode with Billy the Kid for a while, but he's a Missouri boy, like us. Right now he lives in Texarkana.”

“What's his name?”

Cummins chuckled. “You'll like this. His name is Jesse. Jesse Evans.”

It took them two days to reach Texarkana.

“Stop here,” Cummins said, leaning over the seat to point to a building that had a large mug of beer painted on one of the front windows. “Jesse works here, only there don't nobody know him by that name. Here, he is called John Tucker.”

“How is it that you know him?” Jesse asked.

“Me 'n him done a few things together,” Cummins replied without being more specific.

“You think you can get him to come talk to us? Without telling him who I am, I mean.”

“Well if we are goin' to work together, don't you think he ought to at least know who you are? I mean, I done told you who he is.”

“If you tell him who I am, I'll have to kill both of you,” Jesse said, and the almost nonchalant way he spoke the words had a more chilling effect than if he had said them more menacingly.

“I won't say a word,” Cummins promised.

 

 

“Frank, this here is John Tucker,” Cummins said. “He's workin' as a bartender down at the Arktex Saloon.”

Jesse extended his hand. “It's good to meet you, John. This is my boy, Billy.” Jesse glanced over at Cummins. “Does John know why I wanted to talk to him?”

“He knows. When I asked him if he might be interested in something a bit more excitin', and something that might pay a little more, he said he was ready to listen.”

“This is more than just talk, ain't it?” Evans asked. “I mean, I got me a job now, so I'm not interested in just talk.”

“How much do you make a week?”

“Fifteen dollars.”

Jesse reached into a sack and drew out two hundred dollars. “Here's a hundred dollars for each of you,” he said. “If you throw in with me, there will be a lot more where that came from. Are you in?”

The two men smiled as they took the money.

“Yeah,” Evans said. “You can count me in.”

“This is our plan,” Jesse said. He showed them a newspaper, tapping an ad.

 

 

Angus Cattle for Sale
Cattle Dealers Welcome

 

“We're goin' to steal cattle?” Evans asked. “I've done that, and to tell the truth, stealin' cattle is almost like workin'. You got to drive the critters somewhere to sell after you get 'em stoled. Then you don't hardly get nothin' for 'em, 'cause most of the time whoever you're sellin' 'em to knows they was stoled.”

“We're not going to steal cattle. That is just our excuse for being there,” Jesse said. “What we're going to do is rob a bank.”

“All right!” Evans said with a big smile. “Now, that's more like it.”

“When are we goin' to do it?” Cummins asked.

“Not until the end of the month,” Jesse said. “The bank will have more money then because all the ranchers and businesses will be paying their workers.”

“What do we do until then?”

Jesse indicated the money he had just given them. “Well, you've got enough money not to have to do anything if you don't want to.”

“Where will you be?” Jim asked.

“Billy and I will stay here in the hotel until the time comes. We'll meet here for breakfast on the morning of the thirtieth, then we'll take the automobile down to Daingerfield.”

“Daingerfield? I thought we was goin' to Linden.”

“We are. We just aren't going to go all the way in the auto.”

 

 

“Hey, Pa,” Billy said later that afternoon. “What are we goin' to do while we're waitin' here?”

“I hadn't thought much beyond just waiting,” Jesse said. “Why do you ask?”

“I want to go to a moving picture show.”

“What? Why would you want to do something like that?”

“Listen to this,” he said, reading from the newspaper.

“‘
The Great Train Robbery
is a moving picture show that is a faithful duplication of the genuine holdups made famous by various outlaw bands in the far West. This motion picture is based upon a true event, that being the robbery that occurred on August twenty-nine, 1900, when four members of Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall gang halted the Number three train on the Union Pacific Railroad tracks toward Table Rock, Wyoming. The bandits forced the conductor to uncouple the passenger cars from the rest of the train and then blew up the safe in the mail car to escape with about five thousand dollars in cash.'”

“
You actually want to see that?” Jesse asked.

“Yeah, Pa.” Billy chuckled. “You could call it professional curiosity. If we watch how other people do it, we might learn a thing or two.”

“Son, every train robbery there's ever been was copied from me,” Jesse said. “But if you want to go see it, we will.”