June 29, 1902 dawned with a terrible, pounding rainstorm, not the most ideal weather for the exhumation of a man dead for 20 years.
Earlier that morning, Jesse Junior and J.T. Samuel, Jesse's half-brother, had accompanied two men, Zach Laffoon and his nephew, Zip Pollock, to the James-Samuel farm and removed Jesse from the grave. It had poured rain all morning and the task had been made more unpleasant when the men attempted to lift the coffin out of the grave. The top came away from the sides and bottom, leaving Jesse's body in the grave – the rain coming down in torrents.
Eventually, the men managed to get Jesse's body out of the grave and placed in a new coffin, leaving him inside the old farmhouse until they could return with Zerelda and Frank to accompany Jesse's body into Kearney for reburial next to Jesse's wife, Zee, in Mt. Olivet Cemetery.
After lunch, the family and old guerrillas headed out to collect Jesse and escort him to the side of his wife. By now the rain was reduced to a dreary drizzle, the kind of day conducive to mourning and sadness.
The wagons wound slowly through the rutted roads, crossing Muddy Creek, where once Jesse had been baptized in 1868. As soon as they arrived at the farm, the rain stopped and the sun broke through the clouds, as if Jesse had bestowed his blessing on the reburial from his home in heaven.
Jesse was placed in the wagon and the men turned to look at Zerelda, stoic and proud, as she left the farmhouse – the place she'd come to as a bride – where so much love and happiness, along with tragedy and sorrow, had taken place.
Slowly she walked to the edge of the old grave of her Jesse. She stopped and stared down into the hole where her son had rested the past 20 years under her watchful eye.
"Jesse, my boy," Zerelda said to herself, "I can no longer watch over you. We're taking you to be with Zee now. May God be with you."
In a matter of minutes, the short years of Jesse's life flashed before Zerelda's eyes. His joyous birth; the sight of him clinging to his father's leg as Robert prepared to leave for California in 1850; the battered and bruised teenager after Union soldiers had beaten him that fateful day in 1863 before they tortured her husband Reuben.
It was those acts that further fueled Jesse's fervor to join Frank, who was already riding with William Quantrill and his raiders.
Zerelda saw Jesse, worn down by a horrific war at the age of 17, shot in the lung for the second time and hovering near death. In between those years, she and Reuben and their younger children had been banished to Nebraska by Ewing's Order Number 11.
Flitting quickly through her mind were the ensuing years after they returned to Kearney. They were tough years – life would never be the same as it was before the war.
Jesse and Frank had entered into a life of outlawry and were rarely able to return home. Then there was the awful night the Pinkerton's men had killed little Archie and cost Zerelda her right arm.
Zerelda took a deep breath and looked out over the beautiful rolling hills of the farm. She could hear the birds chirping, the wind whistling through the trees and the low murmur of the men's voices as they awaited her back at the wagon. It was such beautiful land, it didn't seem to bear the scars wrought by the past 40 years – only Zerelda and her family bore those scars.
She looked at the empty grave, remembering that cold April day in 1882 when her Jesse was killed by Robert Ford – a coward who had met his own violent death 10 years later in a Colorado saloon. "He got what he deserved," she said under her breath.
She had told Jesse that Bob Ford was no good and not to be trusted. But Jesse had just scoffed at her. Just a few short weeks later, Jesse was dead at the hand of Ford himself.
One lone tear escaped from the corner of Zerelda's eye. She prided herself on remaining strong and stoic, but she was an old woman now and her emotions more difficult to control. She was so very tired of life.
Zerelda was suddenly brought out of her memories by the touch of a hand on her shoulder.
"Mother," said Frank, "It's time."
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