Daily Prompt
Cowardice

Write a new post in response to today’s one-word prompt.

“Cowardice is a trait wherein fear and excess self-concern override doing or saying what is right, good, and of help to others or oneself in a time of need. Cowardice – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia <Cowardice>”

After reading the definition of the word cowardice. You would think a coward would live a reclusive, low-profile lifestyle and not want to be noticed by the people around him. Robert Ford that dirty little coward that shot Mr. Howard, then took glory in his cowardice. He hoped to collect a reward on old Jesse’s head! Maybe he killed Mr. Howard to stop him from seeking the good life? He knew Mr. Howard well. They traveled together, shared the same rooms together ate the same food together.

Jesse James evidently decided he was going to change his lifestyle and settle down and raise a family. He took the name Mr. Howard and married and had three children. He and his wife and family were living a peaceful life in St. Joseph, Missouri. He was hoping to leave his colorful past behind him and start a new life.

Robert Ford came to St. Joseph one day, went to Mr. Howard’s house and shot him in the back while he was hanging a picture on the wall. He did the perfect cowardly act by shooting his old friend Jesse James square in the back because he was too much of a coward to ever face him in a gunfight. Robert Ford turned on his old friend and comrade and killed him in his own home, in cold blood, while he was unarmed.

The James Brothers gang along with Robert Ford robbed many trains and many banks. Jesse James became a Robin Hood to many people that he helped in the mid-west. He and his brother Frank had many different gang members in their time. They were feared by most and welcomed by many who hid them from the law and tended to their gun shot wounds. They shared some of their loot with the hungry people that helped to hide them until things cooled back down.

The James brothers were most active as members of their own gang from about 1866 until 1876. They joined up with the James Younger gang to rob the bank at Northfield, Minnesota, the Younger gang was all killed or captured at that time and that gang dissolved for awhile. Jesse James was reported to have rounded up a new gang down in Missouri.

The robbery of the bank at Northfield, Minnesota backfired. The whole town was waiting for them to ride in and get off their horses. That was a very bad day for the James and Younger gangs. My grandfather recalled that day of the Northfield Bank robbery many times. The James gang got shot up real bad at Northfield and the ones that got away rode right through this part of South Dakota as they were heading down into Nebraska or Kansas. There were many different posses on their trail, no cowardice among those riders .