Rex arrives at a small house in Missouri and knocks on the door.
"Hi, can I come in?"
"Maybe, who are you? We're kinda busy right now."
"Well, I ain't gonna take up much of your time. I just wanna hear a story for my book."
"Okay, but if you try anything, me or my boys, Robert, and Charley Ford over there is gonna shoot you right between the eyes."
"Look, I already told ya that I just wanna write a book. Check my stuff. It is all writin' stuff."
"So you want a story?"
"Yeah, any story will do. Just make it excitin'."
"I think I'll tell you about the last big job I did. It was also when my gang broke up."
"Well, why don't y'all just get back together?"
"It's kind of hard when members is dead and all. But that doesn't matter. You just be quiet and I'll tell it."
"Alright."
"So we we're 'bout to rob the biggest bank we'd ever tried to rob before. It was the First National Bank up in Minnesota. We chose this bank because those fools were associated with it."
"What fools?"
"That governor of Mississippi during the Reconstruction and some Union general. That stuff don't matter though - what matters is that we were gonna make a lot of money. We had it all planned out. Some of us guarded the door, some watched from a bridge to see if someone was comin' and some of us did the dirty work on the inside."
"Who's 'us'?"
"My gang, you dimwit! The James-Younger gang!... So we was doin' fine and then the stupid cashier wouldn't open the safe for us! We had a knife to his throat and whacked him over the head with our guns but he didn't care. I don't know why either. It wasn't like it was his money! Shortly after that, all hell broke loose. Some guy escaped out the back. The townspeople started shootin' at us. At least somebody killed that cashier. I figure the whole thing was his fault to begin with. We barely got away and even had to leave two of our dead brothers."
"No offense, but you guys kind of sound like amateurs..."
"Listen buddy, you should watch what you say. So after that robbery, me and my brother parted ways from the Younger brothers and Charlie Pitts, too - so we could let things cool down. But things didn't cool down 'cause somebody found them, killed Pitts, and captured the Youngers. So that just left me and my brother Frank. After that my brother was just gonna settle down. I couldn't, so I tried to make another gang."
"No success?"
"No, they just didn't have what it takes."
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Well now I've interviewed all them outlaws. They was all pretty interesting. Black Bart was kind'a strange and boring. That Billy the Kid character was so young I just can't believe it. Jesse James just missed his confederate states I s'pose. Well, I ain't think that the life of an outlaw is for me, but I bet there are lots'a folks that are gonna buy this book. I mean, you did, so there's one already!
Author's Note:
Shortly after the interview with Rex, Jesse James would have been shot by Robert Ford. The Ford brothers were pretending to be part of his gang so they could get close enough to collect the reward on James. The house that James was shot in is now a memorial in Missouri. For some reason Jesse James was believed, by many, to be a Robin Hood sort of fellow. This "Robin Hood" aspect is mostly just legend because he robbed only for the benefit of his gang and never gave anything to the people or helped them in any way. Once again I did not change much from the history of the story. All of the details really happened. Nobody is sure who shot the cashier but either a member of the James-Younger gang or a townsperson shot the cashier. It was most likely one of the gang members. They really held a knife to his throat and even hit him so hard with the butt of their guns that it cracked his skull. Jesse James was very pro-Confederacy during and after the Civil War. He was bitter towards the Union for winning the war. This is what turned him to rob banks and trains. Many were sent to try and break up the gang and capture the outlaws but nothing was successful until the gang finally did itself in.
Bibliography
History and Story
Wikipedia
Image Info. Portrait of Jesse James. Wikimedia Commons.
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Introduction
Story 1 (Black Bart)
Story 2 (Billy The Kid)