CHAPTER SEVEN -The City of Death
Northfield, Minnesota
(Mwa ha ha! here's my chance to do some Frank-bashing now!...oh, how i loathe my pastimes...)
~
"Rain's coming." Comanche Tom tilted his head, looking up at the lazy red clouds that rolled by. Not a drop of a sign or the tip of a hat to show you he was right, so any outsider might guess him wrong. But the original group knew, and drew their collars up against their necks.
"How can you tell?" Bob squinted one eye up at the silver lined sky.
"The sky carries the color of blood. That means it will rain soon."
"You sure you're up to this?" Frank looked over to Jesse on the horse beside him, sitting almost giddy in his new saddle and horse. He was up on the balls of his feet in the stirrup, only the back of his jacket touching the saddle. Frank could see a grin working away at the corners of his mouth, chopping away at its edges.
"'Course I am," Jesse said, looking over his shoulder at the group of men trailing them.
Riding five abreast were Comanche Tom, Clell, Cole, Bob, and Jesiah. Behind them, was two lines of the same count in alignment, mostly rough faces of men that had been drafted specially by Cole and Frank.
Patches of panicum grass whispered in the barely felt wind, catching coat flaps and sneaking them open, their firearms winking their intentions to the blind streets.
The streets of Northfield were deserted; save for a few people shuffling about skittishly; all hurrying to get inside as if that foreshadowed storm was about to hit. Men with women laced in their arms worked garishly faster at their stride, pulling the limp umbrellas of people along as they found doors closed behind their backs. Old drunks stood crowded in Saloon doorways, gruff faces ignoring the spits of brown tobacco nested in their long white whiskers as they took another sip of their drinks and winked at the men.
Jesse did his best to tip his hat to everyone he caught an eye with, smiling politely and saying "howdie, my name's Jesse James" to any lady whose precious head peeked through the crowd.
Something didn't feel right to Frank as he sat back and silently watched his brother, something felt off.
Most everyone else was feeling the same as well, looking about at the examining faces; some turning back around to not lose a primal stare that soaked them through, their horses skittering between their thin thighs.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Bob said from the side looking up to the red sky again, his horse restless, with its long brown head swaying this way and that, flapping its lips.
"You bein' a yellow belly, Bob?" Cole shook the hesitance from himself by poking at his brother, but didn't bother to look at him. He caught sight of the bank up the street some and raised his shoulders.
"The wind is speaking," Tom was leaning back on his horse, his hands off the reigns and pressed forward in the air, feeling the oncoming breeze.
"What's it tell you?" Bob stuck out his hand to see if he could feel the same thing, but dropped them when nothing happened.
"We're already here," Cole cut in before Tom could answer, not wanting to know what the wind was telling him, just wanting to get this goddamn thing over with.
He raised his arm and all the men's heads came up like they were on strings. Twirling his finger in the air, five of the back men broke off from the group and came around, trotting a ways up ahead of the bank and stopping their horses a few buildings down from it, some choosing to unmount and tie their horses to the hitching post.
All of the twenty men brandished their various pistols and rifles openly now with their coat lapels flung back, some with their hands on them, others deciding to test their quickness.
"I don't like this either," Jesse turned as he heard it come out of Frank's mouth, suddenly feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck.
But he didn't say anything as they stopped in front of the Bank and dismounted, tying up their horses.
Bob was nervous now. "You sure we should be doing this today?"
Cole put his head back in frustration. "What the hell is the difference between today or tomorrow?"
Bob had crossed one arm around his chest, the other was cradled in it like it was a sling, just at the height to where he could chew on his thumbnail. "I don't know, it's just, we've all got a bad feeling..."
Cole made a step towards Bob like he was gonna smack him one upside the head when Jesse, shrugging up courage, stomped through the boardwalk and kicked open the door, drawing his pistols.
The rest of the men followed without little hesitation.
The bell above the door swung hard and clanged against the wall as it upended before clattering back to a stop on its iron spiral hook, giving birth to dead silence, except for the tromping of boots as the men entered.
The bank was as deserted as the streets had been, save for the corpulent man in a pinstripe shirt and armbands behind the barred window of the tell. Sweat rings darkened and smeared beneath his arms and around his collar, despite the fact that it was in September.
"Can I help you gentlemen?" The teller's voice came out broken, sweat pouring down his broad face as he wiped at it with his handkerchief, shoving it back into his back pocket. A black smear was streaked across his forehead, from his blackened thumb that had flipped through all the wet inked bank notes. Then suddenly, his fat face fell aghast as realization struck him.
"Jesse James?"
Jesse smiled and nodded; he'd forgotten how sweet infamy felt.
"All them newspapers said yous was dead." The teller's skin turned a brighter red as he stepped back from the bars separating them, giving himself some room. "But if you're alive, that means, you're here to rob me..." He was almost horrified.
Trying to hold back a laugh, Jesse leaned up against the counter, putting a hand around one of the bars.
"Sorry sir, but that'd be the truth," Jesse presented his pistol up on the countertop and pointed it at the man's pale head, Frank coming to join him at his side with his rifle raised as well, smiling in kind.
The teller put his hands up, swallowing hard as he shook his head profusely, his double chin shaking like the bloated beard gullet on a turkey. "I'm sorry Mr. James, but the safe is on a time lock. I won't be able to open it until four o'clock tonight." He jabbed a fat thumb towards the large cabinet behind him, the lock looking like it could have rightly been so, looking all high tech and fancy.
Frank reached into his vest pocket and drew out his pocket watch, unclasping it.
"It's two seventeen." He announced to the room.
"That puts us in a dilemma then, doesn't it?" Jesse said, smiling at the teller, his eyes not moving.
"Yes sir, Mr. James, it does." The banker jiggled.
Jesse paused and clicked the air at the bottom of his lip before turning to look about the room trying to decide what to do.
He rubbed at his eye with his free hand and sniffed as he turned back to the banker, leaning in close to the bars. "Come here," he flexed his hooked finger and the banker reluctantly rolled forward, still beckoned until his nose was almost pressed up against the bars.
Jesse reached out and grabbed the man's shirt, ignoring the wetness, and leaned in close, their noses touching, looking him dead in the eye. "You wouldn't be lying to me now, would you?" He drew out his words, making sure the teller heard every single one of them clearly.
The teller jiggled some more, more sweat breaking out across his rosy red face. "No, no sir."
Jesse nodded in satisfaction and let go of the man, looking at his wetted hand in distaste before wiping it on the lapel of his coat, turning towards Frank.
"What do you think Frank? Think we should pass some time? Or just kill him and find out if he's really tellin' the truth?"
Frank cocked his head, but never for a second took his eyes or his rifle off the teller. "I think we should be complaisant about it, even if we have to kill him. This is, after all, the nineteenth century." He cocked his rifle, watching the fat man jump at the sound, his hands moving a little bit farther up in the air.
"I agree," Jesse nodded, turning around and putting his elbow on the counter, fingering the buckle of his holster that hung low across his hips. "What about you Bob? What do you want to do?"
Bob licked his lips, having lost his hesitance now that they were inside and amidst the robbing. A crazy look came over his eyes as he dove into the game. "I think..." he paused for a dramatic effect, keeping everyone on their toes. "We should shoot him and take our chances."
"Anyone disagree?" Jesse looked over the crowd at the semi smiling faces, not seeing any heads shake in protest.
He leaned over the counter top again, coming in close to the bars. "Sorry," he said, almost looking sympathetic. "Majority rule."
The teller's eyes flashed between Jesse's dark eyes and Frank's rifle and he pulled at his collar.
"How much do you got on you?" Jesse asked, putting a hand around one of the bars again, suddenly replacing his pistol into his holster.
The teller paused as if wondering, then reached down into his pocket, pulling out a wad of bills, he slid them beneath the caging, Jesse picking them up.
"How much is that?" Cole asked from the side, eyeing the money.
"About," Jesse counted through it, "twenty dollars."
"Enough for a proper burial." Frank surmised and Jesse agreed, shoving the bills into the breast pocket of his duster.
"We could even throw in a cross so's people know where not to piss, since he'd been so nice and all." Cole said and the room grumbled with sniggers.
"You want anything before you die?" Jesse asked and the teller nodded, his hands lowering a bit.
"I have some brandy beneath the counter, do you mind if I have a last drink?" Sweat melted into his eyes from his large, wrinkled forehead, glazing them over.
Jesse waved his hand in approval and the teller nodded his thanks, bending down out of sight, Jesse looking towards Frank.
It took only a second; the teller was up with a pistol and had fired. The bullet struck Frank in the left side and an immediate roar was heard from the rest of the group as their bullets tore through the teller, making him a new, thinner head.
Frank stumbled back, a stunned look on his face as he hit the nearest wall before sliding to the ground. His rifle clattered out of his hand as it went for his side, feeling the gush of blood beneath his shirt and vest and coat immediately soak through the cloth.
"Frank?" He looked up at him from his position on the floor, blinking his eyes as if he had trouble seeing. He put one of his bloodied hands onto Jesse's shoulder as he crouched low, beginning to push himself up, but falling back against the wall at the sudden staple of pain that clamped his side.
Suddenly, from outside, there came a volley of gunfire, answered by more gunfire and some screams as the men standing guard at the door were torn down. Bullets ricocheted and pelted through the thin walls and shattered the greasy window panes.
"Holy shit!" Bob suddenly jumped as he heard a volley of grape shots burst around him. He ducked down against the floor while Cole dove for the window, pressed up against his side before taking a quick glance outside.
"They've got people up on the roof, they've got cannons and a - aw shit."
"What?!" Bob yelled from the floor, wiggling his way towards the counter for cover.
"They got a gattling gun..."
"Aw shit..." Bob 's face turned to horror as he looked over towards Jesse.
Comanche Tom was kneeled next to Frank, having gotten him to lie down, his body still shaking, whether from shock or from pain, none of them could tell. He was pulling on his shirt, trying to get it loose to uncover the wound as Jesse joined Cole at the other side of the window, chancing concerned looks every so often over to Frank.
"I told you I had a bad feeling about this." Bob said from his crouched position on the floor. "Everyone did."
"There ain't shit we can do about it now!" Jesse's voice came out convicting, aimed at himself more so than Bob. He looked to his brother, whose shirt was now loose and opened, revealing a bleeding mass of muscle as Tom worked at the wound, reaching beneath him to check for the exit and both luckily and unluckily finding one. Frank kept picking up his head, trying to see the wound for himself.
"Don't look at it, look up," Tom said, putting his bloody hands over Frank's eyes to push his head back down, smearing his face red. Tom pulled off his bandana and shoved it against the wound, trying to stop the blood. He pressed hard against Frank's side, cramming the cloth into the purging wound and getting a cry from him. "Try not to move."
Suddenly, another rapid shudder hit the walls; followed soon by pounding shrieks as the gattling gun's bullets pierced and streamed through them like paper. Everyone who was up dove to the floor, except for Jesiah, who in the excitement of the gunfire had froze solid in the middle of the room.
They all watched as the gattling's bullets bore right through him, lifting him up like a puppet and throwing him back towards the ground to where he slid against Bob's boots, oozing and dead.
Working on instinct, Jesse brought his pistol around and slammed it hard against the window, propping his barrel over the clear sill, seeing gunners on the opposite building's roofs. Even from their darkened frames, he could tell they were all smeared, each one packed to the threads with ammunition.
This had been an ambush, someone had gotten the better of Jesse and was now taking out what was left of the guards outside. Soon, there was no hope for this little broken band of men.
Jesse fired towards the shadows on the roof, getting an angry shod of cannonade from them in return, the bullets screaming through the walls and window as he threw himself to the floor.
A rifle bullet caught Tom in the temple as he was stooped over Frank, cracking his head sideways and flipping his long black hair as he spun a quarter turn before falling. The back explosion reaching the side of the counter and spattering it, immediately dribbling down.
Suddenly, the door burst open as a cannon ball about the size of a man's head came crunching into the room, denting the floor once on a bounce before crashing hard into the teller's counter, about a foot away from Bob's head.
The color on Bob's face dropped about four shades up from death and he immediately felt his stomach lurch as he vomited.
"Jesse!" Frank pushed himself up onto his elbow, fumbling for the freed cloth, as he pressed down on his own wound with all he could muster, his jaw locked. Then, having contained the bleeding, he reached over for his rifle and threw it towards his brother.
Kicking up the rifle once the volley fire had stopped, Jesse made a move and pressed himself back up against the wall beneath the window, before pivoting up to the side and pushing the end of the rifle out of the broken corner.
He fired twice, hearing a crisp scream before another volley hit the side of the bank. They were tearing the wall to shreds and bitter ashes.
"Jesse James!" There was call from the outside, a voice he knew all too well. "Give yourself up!"
It was Thaddeus Rains.
Jesse looked to Frank, who was propped up on one elbow still and a grimace twisting his face.
Cole looked to Jesse while Bob lay behind the counter, having pushed the body of Jesiah behind him and was currently wiping the spit from his chin.
"We'll kill you if we have to," Thaddeus called from somewhere close but unseen.
"'Cause you did such a good job before..." Jesse challenged and he could hear Thaddeus laugh from outside.
"Come on Jesse, those boys were just having a bit of fun..."
Frank sat up fully, his head spinning and pushed himself onto his knees, using the wall as leverage. He doubled over onto his hand as the pain hit and he fought to control it, his hat falling down off his head, revealing a sweated mess of blond hair, something driving him.
"Come in here and let me have a bit of fun with you..." Jesse ground his teeth, no humor in his words.
"I'm disappointed Jesse," Thaddeus said, sounding closer than he ever did before, almost like he was up on the boardwalk next to them. "It looks like I got you before you got me..."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Jesse moved silently up so that he was standing beside the blown open doorway, the rest of them squatted next to the walls.
Frank's wounded gut worked hard to tell him of the things that were coming and he readied himself.
"Jesse..." he breathed a warning and Jesse glanced to him, licking his lips. His eyes stubbornly claiming his intentions while Frank's countered them fiercely before fading and almost falling to his knees again as he pressed his fist harder into his wound, blood puddling around his boot and streaming down his leg, both back and front. He didn't have enough hands to hold both wounds and keep upright.
"How's your wife Jesse?" Thaddeus pricked, taking time to reach up and light a cigarette between his lips, reveling in the uneasy silence that followed.
"Come on," he could tell Jesse was bristling at the conversation. "I'm unarmed...why don't you shoot me?"
Jesse's eyes twitched as an angry sickness washed over him, his face tight as the memories of his wife came back to him in a rush, nearly knocking him flat. "I hear you two never made it to your new homes. That's truly a shame. What was it that happened to her...?"
There was an absorbed laugh from outside as Thaddeus shook away the used match, digging his cold, steel fingers into the open wound of Jesse's heart with one final blow. "Oh yes...I remember."
"You destroyed my father's pocket watch Jesse, come get what's coming to you." His eyes narrowed at the shadow through the wall.
"You killed my wife asshole..." Jesse seethed.
"I did, didn't I?" Thaddeus chortled to himself again snidely, noting his tawdry victory. "Think she made good firewood?"
"You son of a bitch..."
Just as Jesse lunged for the door, Frank was with him. They both flew, Jesse pivoting around the frame just as Thaddeus took off running and Frank lurched and caught Jesse right across the waist with his shoulder, knocking him immediately to the ground.
He shoved him hard across the doorway, Jesse tumbling away as two of the many fired bullets ripped into Frank's upper left thigh and left arm, puncturing meat in his leg and shattering his wrist.
Suddenly, a hissing stick whistled by over his head as he crumpled, the bottom of it tripping on his ear as it flipped with a clatter to the floor. And in its stillness, Frank noticed what it was.
"Dynamite!" Bob screamed loud and wrapped the brim of his hat down over his head, cowering against the floor, praying.
Frank kicked the stick of dynamite with the scuffed tip of his boot partly back out the door and lunged on instinct, landing on top of the curled Jesse just as the explosion rocked the floor.
~
It had been silent forever now, until it was broken.
"Frank!" Jesse coughed and wiped the blood of another man from his face, clearing his eyes as he began to swim through the broken building.
Suddenly, bottles shattered grotesquely loud as dark flasks of liquor came flying through the pock marked walls, wailing cries fissuring behind them. The townspeople were revolting.
The stifling blaze soon became overwhelming, melting clothes to flesh and stinking as half-dead bodies began to burn and scream. Smoke rose in black plumes and flames grew blue at the feet, crawling to wherever the liquor had exploded.
"Frank!" Jesse called above the noise, his eyes scanning, thinking he saw Frank, but when he looked more carefully, he found it to be a corpse. They were running out of time. "Frank!"
"Yeah?" The voice was pain wracked but still managed to find itself.
"Where are you?"
"Over here..." the voice faded and a bloody hand flew upward, some feet away from him before falling. Crawling quickly, Jesse came to his side, seeing Frank twisted sideways in the debris, blood covering most of him, black ash covering the rest.
Frank moaned as he tried to move and Jesse leaned over his head, wiping the blood and grime from his face, checking for any head wounds.
Frank was using his good arm to try and clear debris off of himself, but pain kept knocking him flat.
His side wound was still gushing blood and the two new wounds in his arm and leg were doing the same, staining his clothes crimson.
"Can you get up?" Jesse clutched at his brother's shoulders, helping him up as he cried out, still not enough hands to clutch the more than too many wounds now. Suddenly a shadow stumbled over them and Jesse turned to see Cole drop to his knees beside them, reaching down to help, his face bloody as a gash on his forehead leaked.
"You've gotta get out of here Jesse." There was, for the first time since Jesse had looked into them, fear in Cole's eyes. "Take Frank and head for the Dakotas."
"What about you?" Jesse asked, shifting the last bits of building off Frank's legs and looking to where Bob was now at the window, Frank's full-length ten-gauge was propped in his arms and on the window, firing heatedly at any man that tried to approach the compound. Comanche Tom lay dead at his side, curled against him, Bob protecting his corpse.
Cole reached out and seized Jesse by the lapels of his mackinaw. "Go Jesse." He spoke without a thread of hesitance, his eyes digging into Jesse's brain so hard his head hurt.
And Jesse nodded.
Grunting, he pulled his brother up and compensated heavily for his weak frame, throwing his wounded arm about his shoulders.
Cole lunged for his pistols and joined his brother with his back against the wall, kicking at any flames that grew too close.
Jesse shuffled quickly through the rubble, dragging Frank around him, his head bouncing against his shoulder as they moved, his legs trying to help but usually just sliding.
Suddenly, he felt a fist grab his pants, and looking down, saw Clel smiling up at him, it was a numb smile. The lower half of his body was gone, spilling pale entrails and a pool of blood big enough for a full-grown man to lay down flat in.
"I was right Jesse..." Clel coughed up through the blood pouring down his face, "I swore it was the last one..."
Jesse watched his smile fall as his face melted into death, his hand falling limp away from Jesse's leg, his eyes wide open and still, the whites gleaming.
"Jesse!" He turned as he heard Bob yell from behind him, watching him as he began to tear away the broken boards that the cannonball had dented, having given his brother control of the window momentarily. "Come on!"
He ripped a hole big enough to fit a man's shoulders through and stepped back to help him lower Frank down into the elevated foundation.
Jesse followed in after him, pausing as he looked to Bob with discomfort. "Are you coming?"
Bob licked his lips and looked behind him at his brother pressed up against the wall, then turned back to Jesse nervously. "I think I'm gonna stay through this one..."
Jesse nodded his approval with the tip of his hat, "Good luck," he said as he began working his shoulders down into the hole, removing his hat for a better fit. Bob removed his coat and threw it onto the enclosing flames, stamping them out.
"Yeah," Bob said to himself, "we're gonna need it."
Jesse was having difficulty crawling around in the tight space. The air below was musty and thick, and the muddy, sloppy ground wasn't much better, not having been touched by the sun in quite a few years he guessed and the smell sure made up for it.
Working as a sort of lunging crawl backward, almost the motion of a cat heaving with its back curled, Jesse had Frank by the lapels of his coat and was dragging him on his back, Frank doing his best to keep quiet and kick his legs against the mud for propulsion every so often.
He kept moving to the crack of light towards the back of the building, aiming so that he came to the side of a large cleave in the foundation, big enough to hopefully squeeze through.
It had begun to rain outside, just as Tom had commented earlier. And now the rain pelted the ground in front of the hole like it was trying to dig right through the earth.
Jesse stuck his head out of the hole, taking a look around. With most of the action taking place in front, only two men were patrolling the back. They were heavyset and fish belly white, their bloated paunches threatening to pop their buttons. Each of them had rifles in their fat fists, but the muzzles were pointed towards the ground, devoid of attention.
Reaching into his scabbard for his pistol, he found the angle weird, the hole was big enough for a head or a hand, not both; he would have to shoot blind.
Scooting his head back in, he waited from the recesses of the darkness, his thumb pressing down on the hammer and waiting, holding his breath, he was only going to get one shot at this.
Waiting until one of the heavy footsteps trudged by with their sound and shadow, Jesse fired, shattering the man's ankles with one ball as he went down with a cry of surprise. Tilting the gun quickly, he guessed where the man's upper body had landed and fired twice, catching the man right in the jowls, snapping his head back and cracking his spine instantaneously.
"Ike?" The other fat man had his gun raised now and was flipping it wildly around, looking for the culprit, Jesse having slunk back into the darkness like a snake after striking its first kill.
Finding no one, the man crouched down next to his dead buddy, putting a hand on his swollen belly. Jesse made another stab, gouging the crack in the wood with his pistol muzzle and fired three times in succession, the man leapt up with surprise and staggered, clawing at his belly with the blood showing black between his yellow fingers. He fought to hold footing before he crashed onto his back, lying still.
Pulling his head back in, he looked to his brother, whose pale face was streaked with mud as it caught the light.
"We're gonna get out of here, alright?" Jesse told him and he didn't nod, he wasn't in the disposition to nod. "Just hold on."
Turning so that he was propped up on one elbow, Jesse kicked hard at the foundation boards, the thick mud holding them at the bottom creating a restrain for many of the planks to easily snap half in the middle.
Then, grabbing his brother by the shoulder again, he drug himself arseways out through the hole, coming out into the rain first. If someone was going to suddenly come around the side of the building, Frank wasn't going to be the one to be shot first.
He pulled hard, scraping his hips and wrenching his gun belt sideways as he squeezed out, then worked carefully to pull Frank out behind him. He laid him out in the mud, noticing how the rain seemed to attack his face, so he threw his hat over it.
He worked on his knees, stooped over him to pry at his sticky clothing once more, the rain helping to clean some of the blood away as he uncovered the wounds.
He worked fast, stripping both the corpses down of possessions and shoving them into his shirt, taking whatever they had on them. Watches, wallets, suspenders, stockings, hats, and guns now came into Jesse's possession.
He grabbed the new hat and palmed it on, its brim hanging down low over his brow, nearly blinding him. He stripped the clothes off Frank's room, ripping them some as he took the corpses's stockings and worked quickly to fill them with handfuls of mud before shoving them deeply into the wounds, making sure they would stay.
He was working for speed at the moment, not prudence, he would worry about infection later.
He took Frank's arm around his shoulder and lifted him upright, Frank bending over himself as he hopped and slid along side him, half-conscious and fading.
They made it to the side of the building, pressed up against the decking as Jesse peered around the corner.
A couple of the new recruits and Cole and Bob stood abreast on the edge of the boardwalk, bleeding with their hands held high as townsfolk took turns running up and spitting at them.
Thaddeus Rains was standing out before the boys, his arm up in the air as a firing squad - with their rifles at ready aim - stood beside him, set at his command.
It was now or never; just as he brought his arm down, Jesse ducked his hat low and stumbled out from around the corner, working quickly to head towards the jumping horses still tied to their hitching posts, hoping no one would claim their escape.
He threw Frank up across the rump of the startled horse and pounded it hard with his fist as he took the reigns in his hand, running along side as it gained speed. Then, at the last possible moment, he hopped up on one foot and slid his boot into the stirrup, spreading over the horse just as there came a call from the rain.
"There he goes!" It was Thaddeus. "He's getting away. Jesus Christ! Jesse James is getting away!"
He turned dumbfounded to the men around him, an angry expression spreading over his old, gray face. "What the hell are you just standing there for? Shoot him!"
Many fumbled to reload their rifles with fresh powder and amalgam balls. But just as the raised their rifles to fire, a crackle of fusillade came from the rooftop opposite the bank, the gattling gun chattering as the men were mowed down in beastly explosions of red. Those that could, turned to fire upon the broad gattling, catching whatever meat they could.
Looking up from their facedown position on the boardwalk where they had thrown themselves, Cole and Bob peeked up to identify their savior. Slumped over its crank, was the ghostly corpse of Comanche Tom.
Northfield, Minnesota
(Mwa ha ha! here's my chance to do some Frank-bashing now!...oh, how i loathe my pastimes...)
~
"Rain's coming." Comanche Tom tilted his head, looking up at the lazy red clouds that rolled by. Not a drop of a sign or the tip of a hat to show you he was right, so any outsider might guess him wrong. But the original group knew, and drew their collars up against their necks.
"How can you tell?" Bob squinted one eye up at the silver lined sky.
"The sky carries the color of blood. That means it will rain soon."
"You sure you're up to this?" Frank looked over to Jesse on the horse beside him, sitting almost giddy in his new saddle and horse. He was up on the balls of his feet in the stirrup, only the back of his jacket touching the saddle. Frank could see a grin working away at the corners of his mouth, chopping away at its edges.
"'Course I am," Jesse said, looking over his shoulder at the group of men trailing them.
Riding five abreast were Comanche Tom, Clell, Cole, Bob, and Jesiah. Behind them, was two lines of the same count in alignment, mostly rough faces of men that had been drafted specially by Cole and Frank.
Patches of panicum grass whispered in the barely felt wind, catching coat flaps and sneaking them open, their firearms winking their intentions to the blind streets.
The streets of Northfield were deserted; save for a few people shuffling about skittishly; all hurrying to get inside as if that foreshadowed storm was about to hit. Men with women laced in their arms worked garishly faster at their stride, pulling the limp umbrellas of people along as they found doors closed behind their backs. Old drunks stood crowded in Saloon doorways, gruff faces ignoring the spits of brown tobacco nested in their long white whiskers as they took another sip of their drinks and winked at the men.
Jesse did his best to tip his hat to everyone he caught an eye with, smiling politely and saying "howdie, my name's Jesse James" to any lady whose precious head peeked through the crowd.
Something didn't feel right to Frank as he sat back and silently watched his brother, something felt off.
Most everyone else was feeling the same as well, looking about at the examining faces; some turning back around to not lose a primal stare that soaked them through, their horses skittering between their thin thighs.
"I've got a bad feeling about this," Bob said from the side looking up to the red sky again, his horse restless, with its long brown head swaying this way and that, flapping its lips.
"You bein' a yellow belly, Bob?" Cole shook the hesitance from himself by poking at his brother, but didn't bother to look at him. He caught sight of the bank up the street some and raised his shoulders.
"The wind is speaking," Tom was leaning back on his horse, his hands off the reigns and pressed forward in the air, feeling the oncoming breeze.
"What's it tell you?" Bob stuck out his hand to see if he could feel the same thing, but dropped them when nothing happened.
"We're already here," Cole cut in before Tom could answer, not wanting to know what the wind was telling him, just wanting to get this goddamn thing over with.
He raised his arm and all the men's heads came up like they were on strings. Twirling his finger in the air, five of the back men broke off from the group and came around, trotting a ways up ahead of the bank and stopping their horses a few buildings down from it, some choosing to unmount and tie their horses to the hitching post.
All of the twenty men brandished their various pistols and rifles openly now with their coat lapels flung back, some with their hands on them, others deciding to test their quickness.
"I don't like this either," Jesse turned as he heard it come out of Frank's mouth, suddenly feeling the hair rise on the back of his neck.
But he didn't say anything as they stopped in front of the Bank and dismounted, tying up their horses.
Bob was nervous now. "You sure we should be doing this today?"
Cole put his head back in frustration. "What the hell is the difference between today or tomorrow?"
Bob had crossed one arm around his chest, the other was cradled in it like it was a sling, just at the height to where he could chew on his thumbnail. "I don't know, it's just, we've all got a bad feeling..."
Cole made a step towards Bob like he was gonna smack him one upside the head when Jesse, shrugging up courage, stomped through the boardwalk and kicked open the door, drawing his pistols.
The rest of the men followed without little hesitation.
The bell above the door swung hard and clanged against the wall as it upended before clattering back to a stop on its iron spiral hook, giving birth to dead silence, except for the tromping of boots as the men entered.
The bank was as deserted as the streets had been, save for the corpulent man in a pinstripe shirt and armbands behind the barred window of the tell. Sweat rings darkened and smeared beneath his arms and around his collar, despite the fact that it was in September.
"Can I help you gentlemen?" The teller's voice came out broken, sweat pouring down his broad face as he wiped at it with his handkerchief, shoving it back into his back pocket. A black smear was streaked across his forehead, from his blackened thumb that had flipped through all the wet inked bank notes. Then suddenly, his fat face fell aghast as realization struck him.
"Jesse James?"
Jesse smiled and nodded; he'd forgotten how sweet infamy felt.
"All them newspapers said yous was dead." The teller's skin turned a brighter red as he stepped back from the bars separating them, giving himself some room. "But if you're alive, that means, you're here to rob me..." He was almost horrified.
Trying to hold back a laugh, Jesse leaned up against the counter, putting a hand around one of the bars.
"Sorry sir, but that'd be the truth," Jesse presented his pistol up on the countertop and pointed it at the man's pale head, Frank coming to join him at his side with his rifle raised as well, smiling in kind.
The teller put his hands up, swallowing hard as he shook his head profusely, his double chin shaking like the bloated beard gullet on a turkey. "I'm sorry Mr. James, but the safe is on a time lock. I won't be able to open it until four o'clock tonight." He jabbed a fat thumb towards the large cabinet behind him, the lock looking like it could have rightly been so, looking all high tech and fancy.
Frank reached into his vest pocket and drew out his pocket watch, unclasping it.
"It's two seventeen." He announced to the room.
"That puts us in a dilemma then, doesn't it?" Jesse said, smiling at the teller, his eyes not moving.
"Yes sir, Mr. James, it does." The banker jiggled.
Jesse paused and clicked the air at the bottom of his lip before turning to look about the room trying to decide what to do.
He rubbed at his eye with his free hand and sniffed as he turned back to the banker, leaning in close to the bars. "Come here," he flexed his hooked finger and the banker reluctantly rolled forward, still beckoned until his nose was almost pressed up against the bars.
Jesse reached out and grabbed the man's shirt, ignoring the wetness, and leaned in close, their noses touching, looking him dead in the eye. "You wouldn't be lying to me now, would you?" He drew out his words, making sure the teller heard every single one of them clearly.
The teller jiggled some more, more sweat breaking out across his rosy red face. "No, no sir."
Jesse nodded in satisfaction and let go of the man, looking at his wetted hand in distaste before wiping it on the lapel of his coat, turning towards Frank.
"What do you think Frank? Think we should pass some time? Or just kill him and find out if he's really tellin' the truth?"
Frank cocked his head, but never for a second took his eyes or his rifle off the teller. "I think we should be complaisant about it, even if we have to kill him. This is, after all, the nineteenth century." He cocked his rifle, watching the fat man jump at the sound, his hands moving a little bit farther up in the air.
"I agree," Jesse nodded, turning around and putting his elbow on the counter, fingering the buckle of his holster that hung low across his hips. "What about you Bob? What do you want to do?"
Bob licked his lips, having lost his hesitance now that they were inside and amidst the robbing. A crazy look came over his eyes as he dove into the game. "I think..." he paused for a dramatic effect, keeping everyone on their toes. "We should shoot him and take our chances."
"Anyone disagree?" Jesse looked over the crowd at the semi smiling faces, not seeing any heads shake in protest.
He leaned over the counter top again, coming in close to the bars. "Sorry," he said, almost looking sympathetic. "Majority rule."
The teller's eyes flashed between Jesse's dark eyes and Frank's rifle and he pulled at his collar.
"How much do you got on you?" Jesse asked, putting a hand around one of the bars again, suddenly replacing his pistol into his holster.
The teller paused as if wondering, then reached down into his pocket, pulling out a wad of bills, he slid them beneath the caging, Jesse picking them up.
"How much is that?" Cole asked from the side, eyeing the money.
"About," Jesse counted through it, "twenty dollars."
"Enough for a proper burial." Frank surmised and Jesse agreed, shoving the bills into the breast pocket of his duster.
"We could even throw in a cross so's people know where not to piss, since he'd been so nice and all." Cole said and the room grumbled with sniggers.
"You want anything before you die?" Jesse asked and the teller nodded, his hands lowering a bit.
"I have some brandy beneath the counter, do you mind if I have a last drink?" Sweat melted into his eyes from his large, wrinkled forehead, glazing them over.
Jesse waved his hand in approval and the teller nodded his thanks, bending down out of sight, Jesse looking towards Frank.
It took only a second; the teller was up with a pistol and had fired. The bullet struck Frank in the left side and an immediate roar was heard from the rest of the group as their bullets tore through the teller, making him a new, thinner head.
Frank stumbled back, a stunned look on his face as he hit the nearest wall before sliding to the ground. His rifle clattered out of his hand as it went for his side, feeling the gush of blood beneath his shirt and vest and coat immediately soak through the cloth.
"Frank?" He looked up at him from his position on the floor, blinking his eyes as if he had trouble seeing. He put one of his bloodied hands onto Jesse's shoulder as he crouched low, beginning to push himself up, but falling back against the wall at the sudden staple of pain that clamped his side.
Suddenly, from outside, there came a volley of gunfire, answered by more gunfire and some screams as the men standing guard at the door were torn down. Bullets ricocheted and pelted through the thin walls and shattered the greasy window panes.
"Holy shit!" Bob suddenly jumped as he heard a volley of grape shots burst around him. He ducked down against the floor while Cole dove for the window, pressed up against his side before taking a quick glance outside.
"They've got people up on the roof, they've got cannons and a - aw shit."
"What?!" Bob yelled from the floor, wiggling his way towards the counter for cover.
"They got a gattling gun..."
"Aw shit..." Bob 's face turned to horror as he looked over towards Jesse.
Comanche Tom was kneeled next to Frank, having gotten him to lie down, his body still shaking, whether from shock or from pain, none of them could tell. He was pulling on his shirt, trying to get it loose to uncover the wound as Jesse joined Cole at the other side of the window, chancing concerned looks every so often over to Frank.
"I told you I had a bad feeling about this." Bob said from his crouched position on the floor. "Everyone did."
"There ain't shit we can do about it now!" Jesse's voice came out convicting, aimed at himself more so than Bob. He looked to his brother, whose shirt was now loose and opened, revealing a bleeding mass of muscle as Tom worked at the wound, reaching beneath him to check for the exit and both luckily and unluckily finding one. Frank kept picking up his head, trying to see the wound for himself.
"Don't look at it, look up," Tom said, putting his bloody hands over Frank's eyes to push his head back down, smearing his face red. Tom pulled off his bandana and shoved it against the wound, trying to stop the blood. He pressed hard against Frank's side, cramming the cloth into the purging wound and getting a cry from him. "Try not to move."
Suddenly, another rapid shudder hit the walls; followed soon by pounding shrieks as the gattling gun's bullets pierced and streamed through them like paper. Everyone who was up dove to the floor, except for Jesiah, who in the excitement of the gunfire had froze solid in the middle of the room.
They all watched as the gattling's bullets bore right through him, lifting him up like a puppet and throwing him back towards the ground to where he slid against Bob's boots, oozing and dead.
Working on instinct, Jesse brought his pistol around and slammed it hard against the window, propping his barrel over the clear sill, seeing gunners on the opposite building's roofs. Even from their darkened frames, he could tell they were all smeared, each one packed to the threads with ammunition.
This had been an ambush, someone had gotten the better of Jesse and was now taking out what was left of the guards outside. Soon, there was no hope for this little broken band of men.
Jesse fired towards the shadows on the roof, getting an angry shod of cannonade from them in return, the bullets screaming through the walls and window as he threw himself to the floor.
A rifle bullet caught Tom in the temple as he was stooped over Frank, cracking his head sideways and flipping his long black hair as he spun a quarter turn before falling. The back explosion reaching the side of the counter and spattering it, immediately dribbling down.
Suddenly, the door burst open as a cannon ball about the size of a man's head came crunching into the room, denting the floor once on a bounce before crashing hard into the teller's counter, about a foot away from Bob's head.
The color on Bob's face dropped about four shades up from death and he immediately felt his stomach lurch as he vomited.
"Jesse!" Frank pushed himself up onto his elbow, fumbling for the freed cloth, as he pressed down on his own wound with all he could muster, his jaw locked. Then, having contained the bleeding, he reached over for his rifle and threw it towards his brother.
Kicking up the rifle once the volley fire had stopped, Jesse made a move and pressed himself back up against the wall beneath the window, before pivoting up to the side and pushing the end of the rifle out of the broken corner.
He fired twice, hearing a crisp scream before another volley hit the side of the bank. They were tearing the wall to shreds and bitter ashes.
"Jesse James!" There was call from the outside, a voice he knew all too well. "Give yourself up!"
It was Thaddeus Rains.
Jesse looked to Frank, who was propped up on one elbow still and a grimace twisting his face.
Cole looked to Jesse while Bob lay behind the counter, having pushed the body of Jesiah behind him and was currently wiping the spit from his chin.
"We'll kill you if we have to," Thaddeus called from somewhere close but unseen.
"'Cause you did such a good job before..." Jesse challenged and he could hear Thaddeus laugh from outside.
"Come on Jesse, those boys were just having a bit of fun..."
Frank sat up fully, his head spinning and pushed himself onto his knees, using the wall as leverage. He doubled over onto his hand as the pain hit and he fought to control it, his hat falling down off his head, revealing a sweated mess of blond hair, something driving him.
"Come in here and let me have a bit of fun with you..." Jesse ground his teeth, no humor in his words.
"I'm disappointed Jesse," Thaddeus said, sounding closer than he ever did before, almost like he was up on the boardwalk next to them. "It looks like I got you before you got me..."
"I wouldn't be so sure," Jesse moved silently up so that he was standing beside the blown open doorway, the rest of them squatted next to the walls.
Frank's wounded gut worked hard to tell him of the things that were coming and he readied himself.
"Jesse..." he breathed a warning and Jesse glanced to him, licking his lips. His eyes stubbornly claiming his intentions while Frank's countered them fiercely before fading and almost falling to his knees again as he pressed his fist harder into his wound, blood puddling around his boot and streaming down his leg, both back and front. He didn't have enough hands to hold both wounds and keep upright.
"How's your wife Jesse?" Thaddeus pricked, taking time to reach up and light a cigarette between his lips, reveling in the uneasy silence that followed.
"Come on," he could tell Jesse was bristling at the conversation. "I'm unarmed...why don't you shoot me?"
Jesse's eyes twitched as an angry sickness washed over him, his face tight as the memories of his wife came back to him in a rush, nearly knocking him flat. "I hear you two never made it to your new homes. That's truly a shame. What was it that happened to her...?"
There was an absorbed laugh from outside as Thaddeus shook away the used match, digging his cold, steel fingers into the open wound of Jesse's heart with one final blow. "Oh yes...I remember."
"You destroyed my father's pocket watch Jesse, come get what's coming to you." His eyes narrowed at the shadow through the wall.
"You killed my wife asshole..." Jesse seethed.
"I did, didn't I?" Thaddeus chortled to himself again snidely, noting his tawdry victory. "Think she made good firewood?"
"You son of a bitch..."
Just as Jesse lunged for the door, Frank was with him. They both flew, Jesse pivoting around the frame just as Thaddeus took off running and Frank lurched and caught Jesse right across the waist with his shoulder, knocking him immediately to the ground.
He shoved him hard across the doorway, Jesse tumbling away as two of the many fired bullets ripped into Frank's upper left thigh and left arm, puncturing meat in his leg and shattering his wrist.
Suddenly, a hissing stick whistled by over his head as he crumpled, the bottom of it tripping on his ear as it flipped with a clatter to the floor. And in its stillness, Frank noticed what it was.
"Dynamite!" Bob screamed loud and wrapped the brim of his hat down over his head, cowering against the floor, praying.
Frank kicked the stick of dynamite with the scuffed tip of his boot partly back out the door and lunged on instinct, landing on top of the curled Jesse just as the explosion rocked the floor.
~
It had been silent forever now, until it was broken.
"Frank!" Jesse coughed and wiped the blood of another man from his face, clearing his eyes as he began to swim through the broken building.
Suddenly, bottles shattered grotesquely loud as dark flasks of liquor came flying through the pock marked walls, wailing cries fissuring behind them. The townspeople were revolting.
The stifling blaze soon became overwhelming, melting clothes to flesh and stinking as half-dead bodies began to burn and scream. Smoke rose in black plumes and flames grew blue at the feet, crawling to wherever the liquor had exploded.
"Frank!" Jesse called above the noise, his eyes scanning, thinking he saw Frank, but when he looked more carefully, he found it to be a corpse. They were running out of time. "Frank!"
"Yeah?" The voice was pain wracked but still managed to find itself.
"Where are you?"
"Over here..." the voice faded and a bloody hand flew upward, some feet away from him before falling. Crawling quickly, Jesse came to his side, seeing Frank twisted sideways in the debris, blood covering most of him, black ash covering the rest.
Frank moaned as he tried to move and Jesse leaned over his head, wiping the blood and grime from his face, checking for any head wounds.
Frank was using his good arm to try and clear debris off of himself, but pain kept knocking him flat.
His side wound was still gushing blood and the two new wounds in his arm and leg were doing the same, staining his clothes crimson.
"Can you get up?" Jesse clutched at his brother's shoulders, helping him up as he cried out, still not enough hands to clutch the more than too many wounds now. Suddenly a shadow stumbled over them and Jesse turned to see Cole drop to his knees beside them, reaching down to help, his face bloody as a gash on his forehead leaked.
"You've gotta get out of here Jesse." There was, for the first time since Jesse had looked into them, fear in Cole's eyes. "Take Frank and head for the Dakotas."
"What about you?" Jesse asked, shifting the last bits of building off Frank's legs and looking to where Bob was now at the window, Frank's full-length ten-gauge was propped in his arms and on the window, firing heatedly at any man that tried to approach the compound. Comanche Tom lay dead at his side, curled against him, Bob protecting his corpse.
Cole reached out and seized Jesse by the lapels of his mackinaw. "Go Jesse." He spoke without a thread of hesitance, his eyes digging into Jesse's brain so hard his head hurt.
And Jesse nodded.
Grunting, he pulled his brother up and compensated heavily for his weak frame, throwing his wounded arm about his shoulders.
Cole lunged for his pistols and joined his brother with his back against the wall, kicking at any flames that grew too close.
Jesse shuffled quickly through the rubble, dragging Frank around him, his head bouncing against his shoulder as they moved, his legs trying to help but usually just sliding.
Suddenly, he felt a fist grab his pants, and looking down, saw Clel smiling up at him, it was a numb smile. The lower half of his body was gone, spilling pale entrails and a pool of blood big enough for a full-grown man to lay down flat in.
"I was right Jesse..." Clel coughed up through the blood pouring down his face, "I swore it was the last one..."
Jesse watched his smile fall as his face melted into death, his hand falling limp away from Jesse's leg, his eyes wide open and still, the whites gleaming.
"Jesse!" He turned as he heard Bob yell from behind him, watching him as he began to tear away the broken boards that the cannonball had dented, having given his brother control of the window momentarily. "Come on!"
He ripped a hole big enough to fit a man's shoulders through and stepped back to help him lower Frank down into the elevated foundation.
Jesse followed in after him, pausing as he looked to Bob with discomfort. "Are you coming?"
Bob licked his lips and looked behind him at his brother pressed up against the wall, then turned back to Jesse nervously. "I think I'm gonna stay through this one..."
Jesse nodded his approval with the tip of his hat, "Good luck," he said as he began working his shoulders down into the hole, removing his hat for a better fit. Bob removed his coat and threw it onto the enclosing flames, stamping them out.
"Yeah," Bob said to himself, "we're gonna need it."
Jesse was having difficulty crawling around in the tight space. The air below was musty and thick, and the muddy, sloppy ground wasn't much better, not having been touched by the sun in quite a few years he guessed and the smell sure made up for it.
Working as a sort of lunging crawl backward, almost the motion of a cat heaving with its back curled, Jesse had Frank by the lapels of his coat and was dragging him on his back, Frank doing his best to keep quiet and kick his legs against the mud for propulsion every so often.
He kept moving to the crack of light towards the back of the building, aiming so that he came to the side of a large cleave in the foundation, big enough to hopefully squeeze through.
It had begun to rain outside, just as Tom had commented earlier. And now the rain pelted the ground in front of the hole like it was trying to dig right through the earth.
Jesse stuck his head out of the hole, taking a look around. With most of the action taking place in front, only two men were patrolling the back. They were heavyset and fish belly white, their bloated paunches threatening to pop their buttons. Each of them had rifles in their fat fists, but the muzzles were pointed towards the ground, devoid of attention.
Reaching into his scabbard for his pistol, he found the angle weird, the hole was big enough for a head or a hand, not both; he would have to shoot blind.
Scooting his head back in, he waited from the recesses of the darkness, his thumb pressing down on the hammer and waiting, holding his breath, he was only going to get one shot at this.
Waiting until one of the heavy footsteps trudged by with their sound and shadow, Jesse fired, shattering the man's ankles with one ball as he went down with a cry of surprise. Tilting the gun quickly, he guessed where the man's upper body had landed and fired twice, catching the man right in the jowls, snapping his head back and cracking his spine instantaneously.
"Ike?" The other fat man had his gun raised now and was flipping it wildly around, looking for the culprit, Jesse having slunk back into the darkness like a snake after striking its first kill.
Finding no one, the man crouched down next to his dead buddy, putting a hand on his swollen belly. Jesse made another stab, gouging the crack in the wood with his pistol muzzle and fired three times in succession, the man leapt up with surprise and staggered, clawing at his belly with the blood showing black between his yellow fingers. He fought to hold footing before he crashed onto his back, lying still.
Pulling his head back in, he looked to his brother, whose pale face was streaked with mud as it caught the light.
"We're gonna get out of here, alright?" Jesse told him and he didn't nod, he wasn't in the disposition to nod. "Just hold on."
Turning so that he was propped up on one elbow, Jesse kicked hard at the foundation boards, the thick mud holding them at the bottom creating a restrain for many of the planks to easily snap half in the middle.
Then, grabbing his brother by the shoulder again, he drug himself arseways out through the hole, coming out into the rain first. If someone was going to suddenly come around the side of the building, Frank wasn't going to be the one to be shot first.
He pulled hard, scraping his hips and wrenching his gun belt sideways as he squeezed out, then worked carefully to pull Frank out behind him. He laid him out in the mud, noticing how the rain seemed to attack his face, so he threw his hat over it.
He worked on his knees, stooped over him to pry at his sticky clothing once more, the rain helping to clean some of the blood away as he uncovered the wounds.
He worked fast, stripping both the corpses down of possessions and shoving them into his shirt, taking whatever they had on them. Watches, wallets, suspenders, stockings, hats, and guns now came into Jesse's possession.
He grabbed the new hat and palmed it on, its brim hanging down low over his brow, nearly blinding him. He stripped the clothes off Frank's room, ripping them some as he took the corpses's stockings and worked quickly to fill them with handfuls of mud before shoving them deeply into the wounds, making sure they would stay.
He was working for speed at the moment, not prudence, he would worry about infection later.
He took Frank's arm around his shoulder and lifted him upright, Frank bending over himself as he hopped and slid along side him, half-conscious and fading.
They made it to the side of the building, pressed up against the decking as Jesse peered around the corner.
A couple of the new recruits and Cole and Bob stood abreast on the edge of the boardwalk, bleeding with their hands held high as townsfolk took turns running up and spitting at them.
Thaddeus Rains was standing out before the boys, his arm up in the air as a firing squad - with their rifles at ready aim - stood beside him, set at his command.
It was now or never; just as he brought his arm down, Jesse ducked his hat low and stumbled out from around the corner, working quickly to head towards the jumping horses still tied to their hitching posts, hoping no one would claim their escape.
He threw Frank up across the rump of the startled horse and pounded it hard with his fist as he took the reigns in his hand, running along side as it gained speed. Then, at the last possible moment, he hopped up on one foot and slid his boot into the stirrup, spreading over the horse just as there came a call from the rain.
"There he goes!" It was Thaddeus. "He's getting away. Jesus Christ! Jesse James is getting away!"
He turned dumbfounded to the men around him, an angry expression spreading over his old, gray face. "What the hell are you just standing there for? Shoot him!"
Many fumbled to reload their rifles with fresh powder and amalgam balls. But just as the raised their rifles to fire, a crackle of fusillade came from the rooftop opposite the bank, the gattling gun chattering as the men were mowed down in beastly explosions of red. Those that could, turned to fire upon the broad gattling, catching whatever meat they could.
Looking up from their facedown position on the boardwalk where they had thrown themselves, Cole and Bob peeked up to identify their savior. Slumped over its crank, was the ghostly corpse of Comanche Tom.