Northfield by Johnny D. Boggs Page B

but Frank’s voice called out: “Mister Huddleson?”
    “Yeah?”
    “That little row from this room earlier has cast a pall on the evening’s entertainment. Mister King and I are taking our leave, and you might find it prudent to leave via the back stairwell. The gentlemen in the parlor are anxious to see Miss Ellsworth, and their numbers grow at an alarming rate. If she does not show her face soon…well, one of your cases might just drop in on you, sir.”
    “Directly,” Jesse said caustically. He filled a glass and gently placed it in my hand.
    The brandy burned like blazes. While I drank, he slowly withdrew an envelope from his coat pocket and placed it on my bed. It was addressed to a Mrs. David Howard, in care of General Joseph Orville Shelby of Page City, Missouri. His wife, I suspected, living a lie, living under an assumed name, with mail delivered through a second party, an old Confederate war hero like Jo Shelby, someone Jesse could trust. Sometimes I think whores have it rough, but, really, ours is an easy life. I felt for Mrs. Jesse James then, and Mrs. Frank James, though I try hard not to feel for anyone, even myself.
    “If you hear of my death, would you mail that for me, Mollie? Only though if I’m dead, certain sure.”
    “Sure, Jesse, but you’ll never die.”
    “Oh, I shall die like a dog, or eat the hatchet.” He placed five gold pieces on the letter, kissed my whore’s forehead, and left.
    The next afternoon, after learning for sure that Mr. W.C. Huddleson of Baltimore, Maryland had checked out of the Nicollet House, and left no forwarding address, I located a policeman on Hennepin Avenue. Knowing the boys the way I do, I figured they would continue to split up into groups of two or three, scouting for the perfect target, then joining forces, and when those forces joined—well, I did not care to think of that.
    I told the policeman that some strangers had been playing cards in a public house, armed like bandits, and arousing suspicion.
    “I wouldn’t concern yourself,” the copper told me.
    “Do you know who I am?”
    “I am familiar with the goings on along North Second.”
    “Well, I do not want to be implicated for not speaking up if these banditti try something here or in Saint Paul.”
    “Like I said, don’t worry yourself.”
    So much for a whore’s duty, I thought. No one would believe me. Maybe I should have expected that attitude, probably did, deep down, but I figured this would clear my conscience, or at least my name, because I knew Jesse James well enough to know he did not go anywhere without, as he would put it, dropping into some case. The man was a thief, and always would be one. A thief and a killer, temperamental, cold, unpredictable, frightening. As I walked away, the copper called out my name.
    “Did these suspicious men give their names?”
    Well, I just saw Jesse again, the time he charged out with that stocking of money in St. Louis, and him straddling me, beating me to learn me my place, though I think it had more to do with his own guilt, and him laughing about Hattie Floyd’s death.
    “I never asked their names,” I said.

C HAPTER S IX
C OLONEL T HOMAS
V OUGHT
    I had just stepped onto the shadiest part of the porch to enjoy an after-dinner pipe when I spied two riders riding slowly down Buck Street. Watching them, wondering if they would stop or ride on, I admired their horseflesh, hoping they would ask for accommodations, for not only did their horses interest me, but so did these strangers. Their hats were broad, black, their faces full of character, and they had an easy way of sitting in the saddle, slouched but alert. I dare say they rode with the cocksure attitude of a cavalier, and though I had detested horse soldiers during the War for the Suppression of the Rebellion, I enjoyed stimulating conversation.
    Which is why I am a hosteler.
    The biggest of the two—or so he seemed to me, though perhaps the way he carried himself influenced this