Teaspoon Hunter, traveling with Louise Scott and her youngest child on the southbound Little Rock Express, was dozing in his seat. Louise looked at Teaspoon affectionately, and with a little concern at his gaunt appearance. She was bringing him on the train to see Dr. Spencer again. Teaspoon had gone, at her insistence, though the old man seemed well resigned to the last doctor’s prognosis. “Six months, maybe a year, Mr. Hunter,” he’d said. Teaspoon had a good life; he was approaching eighty now. He felt his time had come, but indulged his adopted daughter by agreeing to see Dr. Spencer, a specialist, who in turn had suggested this operation. Again, Teaspoon agreed for Louise’s sake, less than his own. The poor girl had been through a lot in the last few years, Teaspoon reflected. He wanted to put up a fight for his life for her sake.
Louise rustled uncomfortably in her fashionable new traveling dress. She preferred the simple clothes she wore to work around her ranch, but her four daughters and best friend Rachel had insisted she dress “properly” for the train ride, and in something other than the full mourning dress she still clung to even after four years. She’d given in to the girls for once, and let Rachel take them into town for the fun of picking something out to surprise her, though Lou had insisted they limit themselves to at least half-mourning colors. As a result she now wore her first new dress in years - - a cream challis traveling suit with heliotrope tape edgings on the hem and cuffs and a small bustle gathered in back with matching bows. A new, smart little hat, a gift from Rachel, completed the outfit. Her daughters had been thrilled to see her prettily dressed when they saw her off with Rachel at the station, and she’d noticed several admiring looks from the male passengers and crew as she boarded; but she still couldn’t help wishing herself back in her comfortable and practical work clothes, or even her old full mourning dress.
Shifting awkwardly as she tried to find a comfortable position sitting in the new bustled dress, she looked in her bag. There was exactly $400.10 in it, all she had gotten from the sale of the last of the spring stock. She knew she was safe enough with it -- no train had ever been robbed in Missouri, and she was very careful -- but she never carried such an amount of money with her as a rule. The money was needed for Teaspoon’s operation and hospital stay, but she had hidden this from him. He would have refused the operation had he known the exorbitant cost.
She rifled through the bag and pulled out the new Lewis Carroll book her friend Cody had sent her. Settling back she started to read it quietly aloud to her four year old son Aloysius James Scott, better known as “Al”, who nestled against her in the wide seat, trying valiantly not to twitch or fidget while dressed up in his first suit with long pants, bought especially for this, his first train ride. Little Al was the youngest of her five children and her only boy. With his sparkling blue eyes and sandy curls, he was the image of his father, who had died six months before Al’s birth. Teaspoon had lived with the Scotts for several years before then, and had been a rock for her when her Kid died so young, through her last pregnancy, and ever since. There wasn’t anything she wouldn’t do for the old man, her father in all but blood, she thought.
The rocking rhythm of the train soon put little Al to sleep like his grandpa on her other side, and Louise quietly shut the book, gazing down at her boy’s peaceful face and then idly out the window. The horizon was gray and ominous, like a day she remembered well from almost five years ago.
“Heading out this early, Kid?” she had asked him sleepily, looking over at him in the eerie dawning light from the window.
“Yeah, I think I’d better round up the stock. I don’t like the looks of that sky. You stay in bed, though, and rest up. How’s your morning sickness today?”
“Actually, not bad at all. Really, this time I’ve been barely had any at all, nothing like the other four times,” she replied.
He grinned. “That’s because we’re finally having a boy this time.”
Lou had laughed at him. “Oh, Kid. That’s a an old wives’ tale. Don’t get your hopes up too high, now.”
“You know it doesn’t matter to me whether it’s a boy or a girl. But I haven’t guessed wrong yet, have I?”
She had to admit, he hadn’t. Four girls had come along rapidly in the first five years of their marriage, and each and every time he’d guessed correctly, and insisted on giving each baby girl the middle name “Louise” after her. Mary Louise. Elizabeth Louise. Caroline Louise. Margaret Louise. Then there had been a gap of several years since Maggie Lou’s birth, and they had figured that their family was complete, until this pregnancy hit them by surprise.
“Well, I guess you probably are right this time, too, then. Have you picked out his name yet?”
“Of course I’m right,” he’d said, pulling on his boots. “And I picked Aloysius James.”
She’d grimaced. “I love Teaspoon too, Kid, but even he doesn’t use that name. Are you sure?”
“Think how happy it’d make him, Lou.”
She’d sighed a little, and agreed. Kid stood up and grabbed his coat, returning to her side to kiss her tenderly on her forehead, then her lips. “Try to get a little rest until the girls wake up, okay, honey? Don’t tire yourself out.”
“You either, Kid. That sky looks like it wants to storm. Be careful, will you?”
He’d rolled his eyes and kissed her again, more intimately this time. “I love you,” they’d both said at the same time. For the last time.
Shaking herself from her reverie, Louise slipped Teaspoon’s pocket watch from his vest pocket and glanced at it surreptitiously. Quarter to five, it read. They should be pulling in to the Gads Hill station soon; she’d heard they were making a stop at the tiny exchange station, to let out an important passenger. She might step out and stretch her legs with Al then, she thought.
As they slowed in approach to the station, Louise was surprised when the train switched onto the sidetrack; looking out the window, she saw the conductor, who must have jumped from the train to see what was going on. He was being held by three men with white pointed hoods, with eye holes cut in them. One masked bandit was shouting, threatening the conductor. Lou, thinking quickly, quietly ripped a hole in the cloth on her seat, shoved her bag inside and sat on it. At least this ridiculous bustle will finally come in handy, she thought darkly.
Two of the masked men approached the train with guns drawn, ordering the engineer and fireman out. Some of the passengers leaned out the windows for a closer look - and were waved back by a hooded man with a huge shotgun, screaming, “heads inside, or you’ll lose them!” Two more were riding alongside the other side of the train, waving shotguns.
Louise stiffened. She knew that voice … it had been almost fourteen years, and he had been no more than a boy then; but somehow she knew it like it was yesterday. Jesse.
Jesse and two of the men boarded the mail car. Louise could see them through the door to that car as they opened and searched the safe, grabbing at the contents. Two of them stepped off the train for a moment, while Jesse asked the for the receipt book. Jesse, in his familiar drawl, remarked, “I reckon you’ll want me to sign for these?” He opened the book and scrawled something inside, before laughing and tossing it back to the agent.
Teaspoon was awake, now, taking in the events. In his day, he would have intervened somehow, but he was too old, too sick to do so now. Louise prayed that he hadn’t recognized Jesse; she knew it would break the old man’s heart.
Jesse ordered the agent out on the platform with the conductor and engineer, where they were held at gunpoint by one of the bandits. Then the rest of the outlaws joined him and they entered the passenger cars.
Jesse stood at the front of the car, speaking pleasantly to the passengers. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. We have a few announcements to make, if you would give us your undivided attention for just a moment. We plan on robbing this train, as you may have deduced. Any of you men wearing plug hats, danged Yankees, or rich fellows, start pulling your wallets and valuables and throw them in the sacks as we pass on by, and you won’t have any trouble from me or my gang. Ladies and workingmen, rest easy, we don’t intend on robbing any of you fine folks.”
The robbers proceeded down the aisle, holding out their bags. When they reached male passengers of indeterminate wealth, they examined their palms. If their hands were calloused, they were spared. Otherwise, they were ordered to pay up. Jesse and his gang were putting on quite a show, joking with the passengers, flirting with the ladies, and even quoting lines of Shakespeare as they walked through the car.
As they passed Louise and Teaspoon in the car’s last row, the bandits bowed politely to Louise and patted little Al on the head amiably. Louise breathed a sigh of relief as they started to pass by without further comment.
The one she knew was Jesse, however, stopped and looked at them as his associates headed passed into the Pullman car, where the wealthiest passengers traveled. To Louise’s dismay, he actually pulled back his hood and addressed them. Though he was a grown man now, over six feet tall and handsomer than ever, his face was still laughing and youthful as a boy’s.
“I’ll be damned. If it isn’t my old friends Teaspoon Hunter and Lou McCloud.”
At the curious glances of the other passengers, Jesse snapped, “Mind your own business,” and they quickly averted their eyes. Shoving a fat, wealthy looking male passenger from the seat across the aisle from Louise and Teaspoon, Jesse sat to speak with them. Another of the bandits, returning from the Pullman car, approached and asked, “You crazy, little brother? We got to keep moving.” It’s Frank, Lou thought despairingly.
“Well, imagine, running into you two under these circumstances. It’s a distinct pleasure,” Jesse was laughing, ignoring his brother, who stood by impatiently.
Teaspoon looked gravely at him. “Not for me it ain’t. Jesse, I’ve been reading about you a few years now. Been mighty disappointed in ya. Thought I might have taught you something, but I can see I was dead wrong on that.”
Jesse shrugged. “You been wrong before,” he smirked. Turning to Louise, he grinned, leering up and down at her. She felt uncomfortably like a prize horse being appraised. He nodded approvingly. “You’re still looking mighty nice, Lou.” He reflected how when he was fourteen, and she was eighteen, and he’d had a crush on her, the age difference had been insurmountable. Now, she’d be just thirty-two to his twenty-eight. She looked no more than twenty-five, and as full of fire and fight as she ever had.
Jesse’s eyes flickered to the blue-eyed boy standing stiffly by his mother with his lower lip protruding and his face drawn in a frown. Kid all over again, he thought contemptuously. Lou settled for a soft life with a safe man, he thought. Remembering her adventures with the Express, he thought what a shame that was. She would have made a fine partner in crime, if the timing had been better. And a fine partner in other ways, too, he thought, looking her over again appreciatively. She’s probably a wildcat in bed, wasted on that plowboy husband of hers.
He tossed the boy a watch he’d taken from one of the other passengers. “A souvenir of your first train ride, little fella,” Jesse said magnanimously. The child promptly handed it back. “It belongs to that man over there, and I ain’t taking it, mister,” he said stoutly. “Grandpa taught me not to steal.”
Jesse’s face twitched dangerously. He fancied himself a folk hero, a latter-day Robin Hood, and it pricked at his pride when this small boy spoke plain truths to him. Especially in front of Louise, the first love of his boyhood. He realized with some surprise that her opinion of him seemed to matter more than he thought it would.
Louise pulled the child to her protectively. Noticing the gesture, Jesse forced a smile to his face. “No need for concern, Lou. The boy’s entitled to his opinion.”
“Where you headed, anyway?” Jesse asked, idly, not ready somehow to break off the conversation with her. Before Louise could stop him, little Al responded. “Grandpa’s sick and Ma’s taking him to have an operation. We had to sell all the new spring colts for it.”
Louise paled. She had no idea how her four-year-old knew where the money for the operation had come from. Now both the James brothers and Teaspoon knew too, and she didn’t know which was worse.
Jesse grinned wickedly at the little boy. “You sure like to talk, don’t you little fella? Tell me, why didn’t your pa come along on this trip? Busy back on the farm, I suppose?”
Louise trembled. “Kid died a few months before Aloysius was born,” she answered shortly. “Pneumonia. He … he worked himself to death, trying to save our stock from an early blizzard.”
Jesse smirked arrogantly. “Always knew Kid would come to an end like that. Dang foolish, I figure, when there’s easier ways to make a living.”
Louise’s eyes blazed at the callous reference to her beloved husband. “Like robbing honest people, I suppose?” she said, enraged. “You think you’re a big man as long as you have that rifle, don’t you? But you aren’t half the man Kid was, and you never will be. Don’t you dare deride his name in front of my little boy, you son of a -”
At that, Frank advanced angrily, and jerked her by the arm to her feet, his own eyes narrowed, and his rifle raised as if to strike her. Teaspoon, old and frail as he was, stood up as if to face Frank down. Jesse, intervening, laughed dismissively. “All right, Teaspoon, Frank, settle down. No hard feelings, I hope, Lou. I expect I did talk out of turn, at that.”
Frank looked down at the seat Louise had occupied. “Well, I’ll be. It seems for all the money the railroad’s making, they can’t be bothered to keep the seats in good repair.” He reached and retrieved Louise’s bag from the seat where she’d hidden it. Opening it, he remarked, “Four hundred dollars and ten cents.”
“I need that money for my father’s operation -” Louise started, desperately. Frank silenced her with a look.
Jesse, impatient, said, “Come on, Frank. Give her the money back. We ain’t robbing women on this run.”
“I’m a little sick of your Robin Hood game, Jesse. Let’s not take it too far, okay? Chivalry’s chivalry, but $400 is $400.” Frank pocketed the money. Mockingly, he tossed Lou the dime. “Here’s a little something for you, ma’am.”
As the two brothers turned to go, Jesse thought of something else. Handing Lou a paper, he said, “Here. Take this and give it to the newspapers. I want to make sure they get things right this time.”
THE MOST DARING ROBBERY ON RECORD
The south bound train on the Iron Mountain railroad was boarded here this evening by five heavily armed men and robbed of ______ dollars. The robbers arrived at the station a few minutes before the arrival of the train and arrested the agent and put him under a guard and then threw the train on the switch.
The robbers were all large men, none of them under six feet tall. They were all masked and started in a southerly direction after they had robbed the express. They were all mounted on fine blooded horses. There's a hell of an excitement in this part of the country.
“They can fill in the amount later, we don’t have time to count it just now.” Bending and quickly kissing Louise on the cheek in farewell, Jesse pulled his hood back on and vanished from the car.
Minutes later, looking out the windows, Louise saw the outlaws were now shaking the engineer’s hand with an exaggerated cordiality before riding off to the west, not the south as they’d written in their “article.” Sinking into her seat between her boy and her father, she clasped Teaspoon’s and Al’s hands in relief that they hadn’t been hurt, as the train pulled out of the station and continued south.
Louise scraped together another $400 for the operation. It grieved her a little to have to sell several more horses, including Katydid, who had been Katy’s last foal, to do it. She knew that Kid would have understood. Still, she had felt another link with Kid while Katy’s daughter, who looked so like Kid’s treasured mare who had been lost in the same storm that killed her master, had been around the little ranch. But no matter; I still have the children and the ranch we started together, she thought, grateful beyond words for them, and for the treasured memories of her happy years with Kid locked safe in her heart, always.
And the sacrifice was well worth it, once Teaspoon was persuaded again to undergo the operation, and it was a success. The doctors felt he had a number of good years left ahead of him as a result.
Louise read the many newspaper accounts of the James-Younger gang’s daring train robbery, an unprecedented exploit, over the next few weeks. She thought sadly that Jesse was no longer the boy she used to know all those years ago. He had sold his soul for a little money and some adventure, it seemed.
Then one day, about three weeks later, she opened her mail to find four $100 bills inside an envelope addressed to “Mrs. Kid Scott” at the ranch. The note, in the same handwriting as the prepared newspaper “article” Jesse had handed her, read only,
To my first “love” Lou McCloud with memories from Gads Hill. Good luck, your friend the famous Jesse James.
** Author’s note: This story is based on accounts of the James-Younger gang’s first train robbery in January 1874. “Mrs. Scott” and her $400.10 were real, though I’ve made her over into Lou in this A/U story (we all know Kid & Lou “really” lived long healthy lives together well into the 1940‘s, right?). The pre-written newspaper article I’ve quoted here was also from historical accounts, as were other details of the robbery itself that were included in this story. Thanks to my betas catsimmie and Shannon!