he was growing into middle age, and was living then in a bungalow on woodland avenue. he installed himself in a rocking chair and smoked a cigar down in the evenings as his wife wiped her pink hands on an apron and reported happily on their two children. his children knew his legs and the sting of his beard against their cheeks. they didn't know how their father made his living, or why they so often moved. they didn't even know their fathers name. he was listed in the city directory as thomas howard and went everywhere unrecognized, lunching with kansas city shopkeepers and merchants, calling himself a cattlemen or a commodities investor. someone rich and leisured with the common touch. he had two incompletely healed bullet holes in his chest and another in his thigh. he was missing the nub of his left middle finger, and was cautious lest that mutilation be seen. he also had a condition that was referred to as granulated eyelids, and it caused him to blink more than usual, as if he found creation slightly more than he could accept. rooms seemed hotter when he was in them, rains fell straighter, clocks slowed, and sounds were amplified. he considered himself a southern loyalist and guerrilla in a civil war that never ended. he regretted neither his robberies nor the seventeen murders he lay claim two. he had seen another summer under in kansas city, missouri, and on april third, in the year 1882 he was thirty four years old. after eating breakfast, he, along with his companion bob ford, prepared to depart for a robbery. they went in and out of the home preparing their horses, dodging his gleeful children who were lost in games under the warm morning sun. he removed his coat as the day grew hotter, and unbuckled his gun belt, lest the firearms made him appear suspicious. before leaving he glimpsed a dusty picture on their living room wall, he stood on a chair to reach the portrait, and bob ford fired one final shot into the body of jesse james entering the back of his head and killing him instantly.
