Jesse: A Supernatural Thriller

By Jim Feazell

Jesses turn to crime after the end of the Civil War helped cement his place in American history as a simple but remarkably effective bandit. Displaced by reconstruction, the antebellum political leadership
mythologized Jesses exploits. During the time before and after his death, he became the subject of dime novels, which set him up as pre-industrial
models of resistance. During the populist and progressive eras, was when Jesse became a symbol as Americas Robin Hood, standing up against corporate syndicates in defense of the small
farmer. Protrayals in the 1950s pictured Jesse as a psychologically troubled individual rather than a social rebel. Some filmmakers portrayed the former outlaw as being vindictive, replacing social with exclusively personal motives. It was only shortly after Jesses death, that in his afterlife, he began to discover ways to effectuate his desire for vengeance. Revenge on those who betrayed him. Revenge on those who sought his death.What price could one put on a Mothers arm?a little Brothers life?A Wifes suffering? Yesand on his own life!!

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781450294829

Jim Feazell

Jim Feazell?Retired filmmaker and singer/songwriter worked in Hollywood for 22 years as a motion picture stunt actor and cinematographer and also performed in folk clubs and coffeehouses as a singer. After retiring from stunt work he headed his own film company for 15 years in El Dorado, Arkansas and Tucson, Arizona. He has written numerous theatrical screenplays?ie. The Lord?s Share/A Deadly Obsession/Two Guns To Timberline/Wheeler/Redneck Mama/The Legend Of Cat Mountain and Psycho From Texas.

Book preview

Contents

Acknowledgments

Forward

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

About The Author

Acknowledgments

Grateful acknowledgment is made to Wikipedia encyclopedia for permission to use Dates, Places, Names and excerpts under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License 3.0., and the GNU free Documentation License to authenticate the Supernatural Novel, Jesse.

For any who wish to study the realities of an existing spiritual afterlife. I highly recommend James Van Praagh’s Ghosts Among Us 1st edition, Harper Collins Book—It will explain how the physical laws of the Universe do not limit ghosts. How they travel from one place to another instantaneously. Etc, etc.

Forward

Jesse Woodson James (September 5, 1847 – April 3, 1882) and his older brother Frank were Confederate guerrillas during the Civil War. They rode as secessionist bushwhackers under the command of Fletch Taylor, William Clarke Quantrill, William T. Bloody Bill Anderson and Commander Archibald, (Archie) Clement. They were accused of participating in atrocities committed against Union soldiers and civilian abolitionist.

After the war, as members of one gang or the other, they robbed banks, stagecoaches and trains. History books refer to Jesse as an American outlaw, gang leader, bank and train robber from the state of Missouri and the most famous member of the James-Younger gang. A celebrity while he was alive, he became a legendary figure of the Wild West after his death. Some scholars place him in the context of regional insurgencies of ex-Confederates following the American Civil War rather than a manifestation of frontier lawlessness or economic justice. Despite popular portrayals of Jesse as a Robin Hood, robbing from the rich and giving to the poor, there was no evidence that he or his gang used any of their ill-gotten gains for the benefit of anyone other than themselves.

The James brothers were most active with their gang from about 1866 to 1876, when their attempted robbery of a bank in Northfield, Minnesota resulted in the capture or deaths of several members. They continued in crime for several years, recruiting new members, but were under increasing pressure from law enforcement. On April 3, 1882, Jesse James was killed by Robert Ford, who was to be a new member of the gang living in Jesse’s house, and who was privately making plans to collect a state reward on Jesse’s head.

There could be two schools of thought regarding Jesse and Frank as citizens, during their days as an outlaw team, but there is no question they came from solid stock. Their people were eminently respectable, with marked religious inclinations, evidenced by the number of ministers among them. In their young years, Jesse, and Frank, his senior by three years, was a curious pair. Jesse, happy-go-lucky, mischievous bad boy and active as the town joker: Frank, quiet, self-composed, intelligent, practical, and well-read.

Jesse was an elegant dresser for that period: Frank more reserved and conservative in his style. Jesse always wore a pair of black gloves to hide his right hand with a missing fingertip. Guns were as common as boots in Jesse’s childhood. Playing with a revolver at about the age of seven, he shot off the end of his middle finger on the right hand.

Jesse’s turn to crime after the end of the war helped cement his place in American history as a simple but remarkably effective bandit. After 1873 he was covered by the National Media as part of social banditry. Displaced by Reconstruction, the antebellum political leadership mythologized the James gang exploits. Indeed, some historians credit Jesse’s myth as contributing to the rise of former Confederates to dominance in Missouri polities. In the 1880’s both U.S. Senators from the state were identified with the Confederate cause.

During the time, before and after Jesse’s death, Jesse James became the subject of dime novels which set the bandits up as pre-industrial models of resistance. During the Populist and Progressive eras, was when Jesse became a symbol as America’s Robin Hood, standing up against corporations in defense of the small farmers. In portrayals in the 1950’s Jesse was pictured as a psychologically troubled individual rather than a social rebel. Some filmmakers portrayed the former outlaw as being vindictive, replacing social with exclusively personal motives.

Jesse James remains a controversial symbol, one who can always be interpreted in various ways, according to cultural tensions and needs. Renewed cultural battles over the place of the Civil War in American history have replaced the longstanding interpretation of Jesse James as a Western frontier hero. While his heroic outlaw image is still commonly portrayed in films, as well as in songs and folklore, recent historians place him as a self-aware vigilante and terrorist who used local tensions to create his own myth among the widespread insurgent guerrillas and vigilantes following the Civil War.

There have been numerous portrayals of Jesse James in film and television, including the first two films wherein his own son, Jesse Edwards James, billed as Jesse James Jr. portrayed his father as a Robin Hood like character. Both produced in 1921, they are: Jesse James, Under the Black Flag and Jesse James, the Outlaw. To date there have been 23 additional Jesse James films produced, all glorifying him as a hero.

It is inconceivable to this writer how today’s supposedly civilized culture can worship murderous criminals such as Frank and Jesse James, the Younger’s, the Dalton’s, Billy the Kid, John Dillinger, Baby Face Nelson, The Hole in Wall Gang (Butch and Sundance) Clyde Barrow, Bonnie Parker and others—as heroes.

It was only shortly after Jesse’s death, that in his afterlife, he began to discover ways to effectuate his desire for vengeance. Revenge on them who betrayed him. Revenge on them who sought his death. What price could one put on a mother’s arm? a little brother’s death? a wife’s suffering? Yes, and on his own life.

Although the Dates, Places, Names and Historical events are authentic, I have, for the Mercy of the Cynical non-believers, reluctantly deemed this book to be a work of Fiction.

Chapter 1

On April 3, 1882, after eating breakfast, the Fords and Jesse prepared to depart for another robbery. They went in and out the house to ready their horses. As it was an unusual hot day, Jesse removed his coat and declared that he should remove his side-arms as well, lest he look suspicious if some neighbor should pass. Noticing a dusty picture on the wall, he stepped upon a chair to clean it————.

KA-BANG Bob Ford sent a bullet crashing through Jesse’s head.

Jesse was confused. What’s the matter, Zee? What’s happened? Who is that? Zee was sitting on the floor holding his bloody head in her lap. She was crying hysterically. Looking down at her, he saw that it was he she held. He realized then that she could not hear him. He saw Bob and Charley run out of the house. He knew disbelievingly that he was dead. He tried to console Zee as she tried frantically to stop the bleeding. He got on his knees and put his arms around her. There, there, baby. It’ll be alright.—I don’t hurt. She continued to cry and scream, holding his bloody head and rocking to and fro. Jesse knew he could not make contact with her. He had never known such helplessness. The two children ran in from playing in the yard. What’s the matter, Mommy?—Jesse Edward screamed. What’s wrong with Daddy? The young daughter started crying. Jesse screamed, unheard, My God!!—somebody help them. Zee was at that time five months pregnant.

Robert Ford, followed by his brother Charley, ran down the road yelling that he had killed Jesse James. In a short while the house was filled with people. Jesse watched the commotion as he tried to talk to them, not giving a thought to the fact that he was now an earthbound spirit with not a chance in hell of ever entering the light to paradise. A neighbor lady took the children to her house.

Robert Ford went straight to the telegraph office and wired Governor Crittenden, Police commissioner Craig and Clay County Sheriff Timberlake to claim the reward. I’ve got my man. He said. I have killed Jesse James.

About mid-morning the St. Joseph undertaker moved Jesse’s body to the mortuary. The inquest began that afternoon with Jesse and a room full of curious spirits attending. Newspaper reporters had arrived from Kansas City with photographs of Jesse. They compared them to the dead man. The coroner measured and examined the body. Five feet and eleven inches tall, solidly built on the slender side. The body had the scars of two bullet wounds on the right side of the chest and a wound on his upper left thigh. The middle finger of his left hand was missing to the first joint.

Some St. Joseph citizens were impounded for the inquest which lasted for two days. Zee James, wife of Jesse, gave testimony that Thomas Howard, the man shot by Robert Ford was indeed Jesse James. Through her tears, she got it into the record that Jesse had been an affectionate father and a thoughtful, loving husband.

Jesse’s mother, Zerelda James-Samuel arrived in St. Joseph the morning of the second day. She identified the body of that of her son. When she testified at the courthouse she was again asked if the body was positively that of Jesse James. Her answer in part was Would to God it was not!

Among those who testified that the body was Jesse James were some of his fellow guerrillas of Civil War days: Ben Morrow, Sim Whitsett and Captain Harrison Trow, all of whom had served with Quantrill.

Bob Ford testified that he was in cahoots with Governor Crittenden, Captain Craig, of Kansas City and Sheriff Timberlake of Clay County. He said he was to be paid a $10,000. Reward for the job he was commissioned to do. In the light of the immediate pardon of the Ford brothers by the Governor, and Sheriff Timberlake testifying that he told Bob to get his brother to help him. Bob Ford, inclined to be talkative and having center stage, went on to say "I first met Jesse James three years ago. He used to come out to my sister’s farm. Kind of a meeting place for the gang. Last November he moved here to St. Joe and went by the name of Thomas Howard. He rented a house on the hill back of the World’s hotel, a quite part of town and not thickly settled. My brother Charley and I had known all of the gang, but I had never worked with them otherwise.

I was in cahoots with the detectives, and was one of the party that went to Kentucky and arrested Charles Hite last February. Hite got twenty-five years in the pen. Jesse never suspected that we were false to him, and, as his gang was all broken up, he wanted new material and regarded us favorably. Two weeks ago he came to Clay County to see his mother, Mrs. Samuel, who lives forty miles northeast of Kansas City. Charley told him I wanted to join him and be an outlaw and he said alright. Charlie came here with him a week ago Sunday, and I followed last Sunday night. We both stayed at his house, a one-story building with seven rooms.

Governor Crittenden had offered a $10,000. reward for Jesse, dead or alive. We knew the only way was to kill him. He was always cool and self-possessed and always on the watch. During the day he would stay around the house and help his wife with the housework and in the evening he would go downtown to the news depot and get the papers. He said there were men here who ought to know him, but they never did. He took the Chicago Tribune, the Cincinnati Commercial, and the Kansas City Times regularly and always knew what was going on all over the world. About a week ago he read a piece in one of the papers that Jesse James career was over. Charley said he was awful mad about it. He said that he would show them, before long that Jesse James was not done yet.

He had not done a job since the Blue Cut train robbery last September and I don’t believe he had over seven or eight hundred in money. He was thinking of robbing some nearby bank and then running in under close cover. It was for this he wanted our help. We knew we had to kill him, but there was no chance to get the drop on him until this morning.

His wife was in the kitchen and his boy of 7, and girl of 3, were playing in the yard. Jesse was in the front sitting-room, where he slept. Never knew him to be so careless. He commenced brushing the dust off some picture frames, but stopped and took his guns and laid them on the bed. There was a colt revolver and s Smith and Wesson, each .45 caliber. He also had in the room a Winchester repeating rife, fourteen shots, and a breech-loading shotgun.

As he turned away from the bed, we stepped between him and his weapons and pulled on him. I was about eight feet from him when he heard my pistol cock. He turned his head like lightning. I fired, the ball hitting over the left eye and coming out behind the right ear. Charley had his finger on the trigger, but saw that he was done for and did not shoot. Not one of us spoke a word. He fell at Charley’s feet. We then we got our hats, went to the telegraph office, and telegraphed what we had done to Governor Crittenden, Captain Henry Craig, of Kansas City, and Sheriff Timberlake, of Clay County. The later replied. I will come at once. Stay there until I come.

All of Bob Ford’s testimony bore truth in the inquest hearing.

Jesse’s spirit, plus many other spirits listened closely to what Bob had to say. The spirit of an ex-bushwhacker which Jesse knew, whispered to Jesse, what log did’ya ever find that sorry bastard under?

Two days after the killing, Jesse’s body was released to the family and taken by special train from St. Joseph, to Kearney, Clay County, Missouri, about forty miles northeast of Kansas City. The body lay in state under heavy guard, at the Kearney Hotel the entire evening and night of April 6, 1882. Several thousand friends and curiosity seekers filed past the open casket, leaned on a bier, to view Jesse’s body.

The day of the funeral, Kearney was overrun with thousands of people. . The Baptist Church was filled to capacity with family and close friends. People stood on the lawn and up and down the street in a dreary April drizzle. When the service concluded, the procession went to the family home some four miles from town. No one except close relatives was allowed to enter the house. It is said that Frank James was in the house, unseen by the crowd, along with Allen Parmer, Frank and Jesse’s brother-in-law whom had married their sister Susan. Also in the house was John Thomas Samuel, nursing a wound. The funeral was quite modest. Jesse was buried in a plain pine coffin in the corner of the yard under a large shade tree.

The immediate family, seated on chairs and holding umbrellas, along with his mother and step-father were his wife Zee and two children Jesse Edwards age 7 and Mary Susan age 3, his younger sister Susan Lavenia, James-Parmer, Frank’s wife Annie and two half-sisters Sarah Louisa Samuel and Fannie Quantrill Samuel. There were in excess of a thousand mourners and spectators standing in the light drizzle.

Jesse’s mother wrote his epitaph: In loving memory of my beloved son, murdered by a traitor and coward whose name is not worthy to appear here.

Jesse was pleased with his funeral.

At the time of the burial, all the family, fearing that his body may be stolen consented to the place of burial.

In 1900 his wife Zee in a final illness, ask that his grave be moved to the family cemetery at Kearney. Jesse’s grave today lies between his mother and step-father.

Jesse found out right away that he wasn’t alone. There were abundantly more curious spirits or ghosts around than there were living people. According to James Van Praagh, ghosts are seen as transparent full human forms, complete with hair, facial features, and clothing. Also, ghosts are extremely sensitive. They can pick up on your thoughts and feelings with crystal-clear clarity.

They were everywhere. In the house, in the yard, on the streets in town, in the mortuary, at the inquest and in the church—more were in the church, giving homage to Jesse’s spirit, than there were living people. He heard them whispering to one another. He saw a lot of them that he had known when alive. Most were distinctive and some were somewhat opaque. He quickly learned that he too could communicate with other spirits. Jesse knew nothing about the difference between being an earthbound spirit and of those who could enter the light. Because of his evil and murderous ways, caused by the time in which he lived, Jesse was most certainly an earthbound spirit. Archie Clement explained it all to him. Archie had come to Kearney as soon as he heard of Jesse’s death. Jesse was overjoyed to see him. He told Jesse that in this section of the country, because of the regional insurgencies of Confederate guerrillas, there are probably more earthbound spirits than anywhere across the country. If, in the spirit world there was ever such a thing as a weeping spirit. Then, Archie Clement on that drizzling afternoon certainly shed his share of tears.

Jesse had become good friends with Archie Clement