You accompany Dick, Wood and Charley back to Charley's Farm where you meet his sister Martha and his brother Bob, a nervous young man who seems to regard you all with awe. Your stay at the Farm isn't a happy one: Dick and Wood both like Martha and become increasingly hostile towards each other. The argument escalates one evening when you, Dick, Wood, Charley and Bob are all sitting upstairs. Screaming insults at each other Dick and Wood promptly pull out their pistols, spring to their feet and start shooting at each other.

You get the hell out of there

You haven't survived this long by being stupid and springing to your feet you race through the door out of the room. The shots continue to ring out behind you ending in the sound of a body hitting the floor - later you will learn that Charley's brother Bob has killed Wood Hite. Making it to your horse in the Farm's stable you hastily mount up and ride away. For the rest of the winter you live in hiding in Missouri, not emerging until the winter. In the meantime the James Gang is destroyed.


First Dick and Charley, fearful of Jesse's revenge after killing his cousin Wood, surrender to the law. They tell them where they can find Clarence Hite who is arrested in his hotel in Adairville. Finally Bob Ford murders Jesse James, shooting him in the back of the head while your friend hangs a picture on the wall. Stunned to hear the legendary outlaw is dead you make your way to Tennessee where the other remaining survivor of the gang, Frank James is still living.

The end of the James Gang

Frank is in shock when you join him in Tennessee: like you he finds it impossible to believe that Jesse James, America's greatest bank robber and survivor of so many gunfights and robberies, is dead. As you spend the summer hiding out in Tennessee Frank grows increasingly pessimistic.


"They'll kill us next you know Bill," he tells you one day. "I'm going back to Missouri to surrender. I figure if I surrender myself they might go easy on me, it's either that or keep running until they catch or kill me. I've got no choice. What are you going to do Bill? I suppose you could make a run down to Mexico or up to Canada or some place where the law ain't got no jurisdiction. But I reckon they'll still get you in the end, just like they got Jesse."


You carefully mull over what to do.

You go with Frank to Missouri to surrender

You and Frank make your way to Jefferson City, Missouri where friends of Frank have arranged both of your surrenders to Governor Crittenden of Missouri himself. When you meet the Governor you both hand your guns over to him, Frank commenting that it is the first time in twenty-one years since the start of the American Civil War that he has surrendered his gun to anyone.


"We have spent our last twenty-one years on the run," you tell him. "We have been hunted day and night, never able to rest in case every sound is an approaching posse or some lawman on our trail. It will be a massive relief to finally be able to rest."


The two of you are placed in custody and the next three years and taken over by a long series of trials in which Clarence Hite, Charley Ford and Dick Liddil all testify. Despite the many charges laid against you and the mound of testimony by some miracle you and Frank manage to argue your way into acquittal on all the charges and in the spring of 1885 you are finally pardoned of all your crimes and allowed to go free, a truly incredible result!

One last enemy

By the 1890's as you enter your fifties it seems that you have put your outlaw past behind you and become a respectable citizen. You have little touch with your former fellow Outlaws: Jesse James, John Younger, Clell Miller, John Jarette, Charlie Pitts, Wood Hite, Bill Chadwell, Oll Shepherd, Little Arch Clement, Bud McDaniels and Tom McDaniels are all dead. Bob Younger and Clarence Hite are dead too, claimed by tuberculosis while Charley Ford has shot himself, overwhelmed by guilt for his role in Jesse's death. Tom Webb, Bill Ryan, Tucker Bassham and Hoobs Kerry all vanished after their release from prison while Cole Younger and Jim Younger are still incarcerated. That leaves just yourself, Frank James, George Shepherd and Dick Liddil alive on the outside, and naturally you have little contact with the last two.


You do see the face of an enemy one summer day when you are in a little town called Creede in Colorado to transact some business. Bob Ford, the man who murdered your friend Jesse, owns a saloon in town and you recognize him in the street. Hatred fills you and you strongly consider killing the man who killed your friend. Doing so would of course put you back outside the law again but it would be a fitting revenge after he betrayed and murdered Jesse James.


You carefully consider what to do.

You buy a gun and kill Bob Ford

Making your way to a nearby gun store you buy a shotgun. After loading and cocking the gun you enter Bob Ford's saloon to find the man you are looking for standing at the bar with his back to you. "Hello Bob," you call out and the young man turns around. Raising the shotgun you fire both barrels directly into his throat, nearly blowing his head off. As Bob Ford is blasted to the floor everyone in the saloon stares at you in stunned silence as you slowly lower the shotgun.


"That's for Jesse James," you declare.


You surrender without a struggle and after a short trial you are naturally found guilty of murder. The Judge takes a very lenient view of the killing and you are sentenced to just nine years imprisonment, being released in 1901. You never regret the killing of Bob Ford.

The end of the story

The year of 1901 brings two pieces of good news for you: first the traitor Dick Liddil dies of a heart attack and then finally Cole and Jim Younger are released from prison after serving the full term of their twenty-five year sentences. Jim struggles to adjust and when his parole conditions don't allow him to marry the woman he loves he commits suicide a year after his release from prison, a tragic end to a life beset by tragedies. Cole does better, reuniting with you and Frank James.


For several years the three of you travel around the Old West in various exhibitions and shows, earning a bit of money from your notoriety. The days of the horseback outlaw are truly over now with fictional accounts of your crimes told in awful Dime Novels, songs and in the revolutionary new moving picture films. Your infamy is never far away and one day when the three of you have some business to transact in a bank Cole suddenly stops you.


"If the tellers see Frank James, Cole Younger and Bill Grey walk into their bank they are liable to start shooting," he points out.


The years pass and the last actors leave the stage: Frank dies in 1915 and Cole in 1916. The death of one time gang member George Shepherd in 1917 leaves you the last surviving member of the James Gang, now well into your seventies you continue to live in your native Missouri which is peaceful now. The young folks don't believe you when you tell them tales of whizzing bullets, thrilling horseback rides and the screams of dying men in the dust. They don't believe you when you say you rode with the best: the daring Younger Brothers and the best bandits of them all, the legendary outlaws Frank and Jesse James.


CONGRATULATIONS, YOU HAVE EARNED THE HIDDEN SURVIVOR BONUS OF 100,000 WHICH WILL BE ADDED TO YOUR SCORE AND VISIBLE TO OTHERS IF YOU LEAVE A COMMENT.


THANK YOU FOR TAKING THE TIME TO PLAY MY GAME.

You click here if you are interested in how you wrote this

Jesse James stands alongside Billy the Kid and John Wesley Hardin as one of the foremost outlaws of the Old West thanks in part to his actions and in part to his legend, which Jesse actively worked on and promoted during his lifetime. Jesse was genuinely a bank robber of outstanding ability, the James-Younger Gang's successful record would not be beaten until the rise of Butch Cassidy's Hole in the Wall Gang in the 1890's. Jesse had a reputation as a Southern Robin Hood and a deadly gunfighter of outstanding ability.


In truth most of the men Jesse and his gang shot and killed were unarmed and you certainly wouldn't have wanted to be in a bank when he and his pals came through the door. Many of their killings were random and pointless and Jesse rarely had much stomach for a fight once people started shooting back at him. Far from being a Robin Hood Jesse and his friends never shared their money with anyone except their immediate friends and family, in fact most of the banks and trains he robbed contained the money of his fellow Southern men in Missouri and other states.


But Jesse has been kind to Jesse in part because of the fun alliteration of his name and in part because of his legend. Jesse promoted himself in a way his somber brother Frank or the cautious Cole Younger never did and he couldn't care less about the people he hurt along the way. As one historian pointed out people tended to look at this legendary figure of Jesse James, they rarely spent time looking into the details of all the killings and robberies that put him on this pedestal.


Researching outlaws is always fun and easy, building up a timeline of their activities provides a natural framework to build the story up around, all that really needs to be fleshed out are the characters of the outlaws themselves and the details of the gunfights which were genuinely dramatic and exciting. I think Cole Younger riding back into Northfield towards a dozen people shooting at him to rescue his wounded brother Bob show that the historic truth can sometimes be more amazing than fiction, even great works of fiction like True Grit.


As I have timelines for every gang of American criminals including the Doolin-Dalton Gang, the Hole in the Wall Gang, John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde, Baby Face Nelson, Al Karpis and the Barkers, Pretty Boy Floyd and every other major outlaw gang of bank robbers between the years 1865 and 2015 I may write more sequels depending on how this story is received, though the slightly repetitive nature of the story (robbery, possible gunfight, hide out for a time with another possible gunfight or arrest attempt, robbery again etc etc) does concern me as does the fact the reader is encouraged to kill defenseless people to improve his or her score.


Still those people who really lived and really did so many incredible things may prove just too fascinating for me not to write about!