Placer, writing in his ledger, did not look up when the tall cowboy entered.
“Mornin’, mister,” said the latter. “I’ve come to see if you kin grubstake th’ hull crowd of us fer dinner t’day.”
Placer did not then raise his eyes, but with a certain churlishness, as if it annoyed him that his hotel was patronized, he asked: “How many?”
“Oh, about thirty,” replied the cowboy. “An’ we want th’ best dinner you kin raise an’ scrape. Everything th’ best. We don’t care what it costs s’ long as we git a good square meal. We’ll pay a dollar a head: by God, we will! We won’t kick on nothin’ in th’ bill if you do it up fine. If you ain’t got it in the house, rustle th’ hull town fer it That’s our gait. So you just tear loose, an’ we’ll——”
At this moment the machinery of a cuckoo clock on the wall began to whirr, little doors flew open, and a wooden bird appeared and cried “Cuckoo!” And this was repeated until eleven o’clock had been announced, while the cowboy, stupefied, glass-eyed, stood with his red throat gulping. At the end he wheeled upon Placer and demanded: “What in hell is that?”
Placer revealed by his manner that he had been asked this question too many times. “It’s a clock,” he answered shortly.
“I know it’s a clock,” gasped the cowboy; “but what kind of a clock?”
“A cuckoo clock. Can’t you see?”
The cowboy, recovering his self-possession by a violent effort, suddenly went shouting into the street. “Boys! Say, boys! Come ’ere a minute!”
His comrades, comfortably inhabiting a nearby saloon, heard his stentorian calls, but they merely said one to another: “What’s th’ matter with Jake?—he’s off his nut again.”
But Jake burst in upon them with violence. “Boys,” he yelled, “come over to th’ hotel! They got a clock with a bird inside it, an’ when it’s eleven o’clock or anything like that, th’ bird comes out and says ‘Toot-toot, toot-toot!’ that way, as many times as whatever time of day it is. It’s immense! Come on over!”
The roars of laughter which greeted his proclamation were of two qualities; some men laughing because they knew all about cuckoo clocks, and other men laughing because they had concluded that the eccentric Jake had been victimized by some wise child of civilization.
Old Man Crumford, a venerable ruffian who probably had been born in a corral, was particularly offensive with his loud guffaws of contempt. “Bird a-comin’ out of a clock an’ a-tellin’ ye th’ time! Haw-haw-haw!” He swallowed his whiskey. “A bird! a-tellin’ ye th’ time! Haw-haw! Jake, you ben up agin some new drink. You ben drinkin’ lonely an’ got up agin some snake-medicine licker. A bird a-tellin’ ye th’ time! Haw-haw!”
The shrill voice of one of the younger cowboys piped from the background. “Brace up, Jake. Don’t let ’em laugh at ye. Bring ’em that salt codfish of yourn what kin pick out th’ ace.”
“Oh, he’s only kiddin’ us. Don’t pay no ’tention to ’im. He thinks he’s smart.”
A cowboy whose mother had a cuckoo clock in her house in Philadelphia spoke with solemnity. “Jake’s a liar. There’s no such clock in the world. What? a bird inside a clock to tell the time? Change your drink, Jake.”
Jake was furious, but his fury took a very icy form. He bent a withering glance upon the last speaker. “I don’t mean a live bird,” he said, with terrible dignity. “It’s a wooden bird, an’——”
“A wooden bird!” shouted Old Man Crumford. “Wooden bird a-tellin’ ye th’ time! Haw-haw!”
But Jake still paid his frigid attention to the Philadelphian. “An’ if yer sober enough to walk, it ain’t such a blame long ways from here to th’ hotel, an’ I’ll bet my pile agin yours if you only got two bits.”
“I don’t want your money, Jake,” said the Philadelphian. “Somebody’s been stringin’ you—that’s all. I wouldn’t take your money.” He cleverly appeared to pity the other’s innocence.
“You couldn’t git my money,” cried Jake, in sudden hot anger. “You couldn’t git it. Now—since yer so fresh—let’s see how much you got.” He clattered some large gold pieces noisily upon the bar.
The Philadelphian shrugged his shoulders and walked away. Jake was triumphant. “Any more bluffers round here?” he demanded. “Any more? Any more bluffers? Where’s all these here hot sports? Let ’em step up. Here’s my money—come an’ git it.”
But they had ended by being afraid. To some of them his tale was absurd, but still one must be circumspect when a man throws forty-five dollars in gold upon the bar and bids the world come and win it. The general feeling was expressed by Old Man Crumford, when with deference he asked: “Well, this here bird, Jake—what kinder lookin’ bird is it?”
“It’s a little brown thing,” said Jake, briefly. Apparently he almost disdained to answer.
“Well—how does it work?” asked the old man, meekly.
“Why in blazes don’t you go an’ look at it?” yelled Jake. “Want me to paint it in iles fer you? Go an’ look!”
III
Placer was writing in his ledger. He heard a great trample of feet and clink of spurs on the porch, and there entered quietly the band of cowboys, some of them swaying a trifle, and these last being the most painfully decorous of all. Jake was in advance. He waved his hand toward the clock. “There she is,” he said laconically. The cowboys drew up and stared. There was some giggling, but a serious voice said half-audibly, “I don’t see no bird.”
Jake politely addressed the landlord. “Mister, I’ve fetched these here friends of mine in here to see yer clock——”
Placer looked up suddenly. “Well, they can see it, can’t they?” he asked in sarcasm. Jake, abashed, retreated to his fellows.
There was a period of silence. From time to time the men shifted their feet. Finally, Old Man Crumford leaned toward Jake, and in a penetrating whisper demanded, “Where’s th’ bird?” Some frolicsome spirits on the outskirts began to call “Bird! Bird!” as men at a political meeting call for a particular speaker.
Jake removed his big hat and nervously mopped his brow.
The young cowboy with the shrill voice again spoke from the skirts of the crowd. “Jake, is ther’ sure ’nough a bird in that thing?”
“Yes. Didn’t I tell you once?”
“Then,” said the shrill-voiced man, in a tone of conviction, “it ain’t a clock at all. It’s a bird cage.”
“I tell you it’s a clock,” cried the maddened Jake, but his retort could hardly be heard above the howls of glee and derision which greeted the words of him of the shrill voice.
Old Man Crumford was again rampant. “Wooden bird a-tellin’ ye th’ time! Haw-haw!”
Amid the confusion Jake went again to Placer. He spoke almost in supplication. “Say, mister, what time does this here thing go off ag’in?”
Placer lifted his head, looked at the clock, and said, “Noon.”
There was a stir near the door, and Big Watson of the Square-X outfit, at this time very drunk indeed, came shouldering his way through the crowd and cursing everybody. The men gave him much room, for he was notorious as a quarrelsome person when drunk. He paused in front of Jake, and spoke as through a wet blanket. “What’s all this Goddamn monkeyin’ about?”
Jake was already wild at being made a butt for everybody, and he did not give backward. “None a’ your damn business, Watson.”
“Huh?” growled Watson, with the surprise of a challenged bull.
“I said,” repeated Jake, distinctly, “it’s none a’ your damn business.”
Watson whipped his revolver half out of its holster. “I’ll make it m’ business, then, you——”
But Jake had backed a step away, and was holding his left hand palm outward toward Watson, while in his right he held his six-shooter, its muzzle pointing at the floor. He was shouting in a frenzy, “No—don’t you try it, Watson! Don’t you dare try it, or, by Gawd, I’ll kill you, sure—sure!”
He was aware of a torm
ent of cries about him from fearful men; from men who protested, from men who cried out because they cried out. But he kept his eyes on Watson, and those two glared murder at each other, neither seeming to breathe, fixed like two statues.
A loud new voice suddenly rang out: “Hol’ on a minute!” All spectators who had not stampeded turned quickly, and saw Placer standing behind his bright pink counter, with an aimed revolver in each hand.
“Cheese it!” he said. “I won’t have no fightin’ here. If you want to fight, git out in the street.”
Big Watson laughed, and speeding up his six-shooter like a flash of blue light, he shot Placer through the throat—shot the man as he stood behind his absurd pink counter with his two aimed revolvers in his incompetent hands. With a yell of rage and despair, Jake smote Watson on the pate with his heavy weapon, and knocked him sprawling and bloody. Somewhere a woman shrieked like windy, midnight death. Placer fell behind the counter, and down upon him came his ledger and his inkstand, so that one could not have told blood from ink.
The cowboys did not seem to hear, see, nor feel, until they saw numbers of citizens with Winchesters running wildly upon them. Old Man Crumford threw high a passionate hand. “Don’t shoot! We’ll not fight ye fer ’im.”
Nevertheless two or three shots rang, and a cowboy who had been about to gallop off suddenly slumped over on his pony’s neck, where he held for a moment like an old sack, and then slid to the ground, while his pony, with flapping rein, fled to the prairie.
“In God’s name, don’t shoot!” trumpeted Old Man Crumford. “We’ll not fight ye fer ’im!”
“It’s murder,” bawled Ben Roddle.
In the chaotic street it seemed for a moment as if everybody would kill everybody. “Where’s the man what done it?” These hot cries seemed to declare a war which would result in an absolute annihilation of one side. But the cowboys were singing out against it. They would fight for nothing—yes—they often fought for nothing—but they would not fight for this dark something.
At last, when a flimsy truce had been made between the inflamed men, all parties went to the hotel. Placer, in some dying whim, had made his way out from behind the pink counter, and, leaving a horrible trail, had traveled to the center of the room, where he had pitched headlong over the body of Big Watson.
The men lifted the corpse and laid it at the side.
“Who done it?” asked a white, stern man.
A cowboy pointed at Big Watson. “That’s him,” he said huskily.
There was a curious grim silence, and then suddenly, in the death chamber, there sounded the loud whirring of the clock’s works, little doors flew open, a tiny wooden bird appeared and cried “Cuckoo”—twelve times.
December, 1899
[The Pall Mall Magazine, Vol. 19, pp. 462–468.]
THE SECOND GENERATION*
I
Caspar Cadogan resolved to go to the tropic wars and do something. The air was blue and gold with the pomp of soldiering, and in every ear rang the music of military glory. Caspar’s father was a United States Senator from the great State of Skowmulligan, where the war fever ran very high. Chill is the blood of many of the sons of millionaires, but Caspar took the fever and posted to Washington. His father had never denied him anything, and this time all that Caspar wanted was a little captaincy in the Army—just a simple little captaincy.
The old man had been entertaining a delegation of respectable bunco-steerers from Skowmulligan who had come to him on a matter which is none of the public’s business.
Bottles of whiskey and boxes of cigars were still on the table in the sumptuous private parlor. The Senator had said, “Well, gentlemen, I’ll do what I can for you.” By this sentence he meant whatever he meant.
Then he turned to his eager son. “Well, Caspar?” The youth poured out his modest desires. It was not altogether his fault. Life had taught him a generous faith in his own abilities. If any one had told him that he was simply an ordinary damned fool he would have opened his eyes wide at the person’s lack of judgment. All his life people had admired him.
The Skowmulligan war horse looked with quick disapproval into the eyes of his son. “Well, Caspar,” he said slowly, “I am of the opinion that they’ve got all the golf experts and tennis champions and cotillion leaders and piano tuners and billiard markers that they really need as officers. Now, if you were a soldier—”
“I know,” said the young man with a gesture, “but I’m not exactly a fool, I hope, and I think if I get a chance I can do something. I’d like to try. I would, indeed.”
The Senator lit a cigar. He assumed an attitude of ponderous reflection. “Y-yes, but this country is full of young men who are not fools. Full of ’em.”
Caspar fidgeted in the desire to answer that, while he admitted the profusion of young men who were not fools, he felt that he himself possessed interesting and peculiar qualifications which would allow him to make his mark in any field of effort which he seriously challenged. But he did not make this graceful statement, for he sometimes detected something ironic in his father’s temperament. The Skowmulligan war horse had not thought of expressing an opinion of his own ability since the year 1865, when he was young, like Caspar.
“Well, well,” said the Senator finally. “I’ll see about it. I’ll see about it” The young man was obliged to await the end of his father’s characteristic method of thought. The war horse never gave a quick answer, and if people tried to hurry him they seemed able to arouse only a feeling of irritation against making a decision at all. His mind moved like the wind, but practice had placed a Mexican bit in the mouth of his judgment. This old man of light, quick thought had taught himself to move like an ox cart. Caspar said, “Yes, sir.” He withdrew to his club, where, to the affectionate inquiries of some envious friends, he replied, “The old man is letting the idea soak.”
The mind of the war horse was decided far sooner than Caspar expected. In Washington a large number of well-bred, handsome young men were receiving appointments as lieutenants, as captains, and occasionally as majors. They were a strong, healthy, clean-eyed, educated collection. They were a prime lot. A German field marshal would have beamed with joy if he could have had them—to send to school. Anywhere in the world they would have made a grand show as material, but intrinsically they were not lieutenants, captains, and majors. They were fine men, though manhood is only an essential part of a lieutenant, a captain, or a major. But, at any rate, this arrangement had all the logic of going to sea in a bathing-machine.
The Senator found himself reasoning that Caspar was as good as any of them, and better than many. Presently he was bleating here and there that his boy should have a chance. “The boy’s all right, I tell you, Henry. He’s wild to go, and I don’t see why they shouldn’t give him a show. He’s got plenty of nerve, and he’s keen as a whiplash. I’m going to get him an appointment, and if you can do anything to help it along I wish you would.”
Then he betook himself to the White House and the War Department and made a stir. People think that Administrations are always slavishly, abominably anxious to please the Machine. They are not; they wish the Machine sunk in red fire, for, by the power of ten thousand past words, looks, gestures, writings, the Machine comes along and takes the Administration by the nose and twists it, and the Administration dare not even yell. The huge force which carries an election to success looks reproachfully at the Administration and says, “Give me a bun.” That is a very small thing with which to reward a Colossus.
The Skowmulligan war horse got his bun and took it to his hotel, where Caspar was moodily reading war rumors. “Well, my boy, here you are.” Caspar was a captain and commissary on the staff of Brigadier General Reilly, commander of the Second Brigade of the First Division of the Thirtieth Army Corps.
“I had to work for it,” said the Senator grimly. “They talked to me as if they thought you were some sort of empty-headed idiot. None of ’em seemed to know you personally. They just sort of took it fo
r granted. Finally I got pretty hot in the collar.” He paused a moment; his heavy, grooved face set hard; his blue eyes shone. He clapped a hand down upon the handle of his chair.
“Caspar, I’ve got you into this thing, and I believe you’ll do all right, and I’m not saying this because I distrust either your sense or your grit. But I want you to understand you’ve got to make a go of it. I’m not going to talk any twaddle about your country and your country’s flag. You understand all about that. But now you’re a soldier, and there’ll be this to do and that to do, and fighting to do, and you’ve got to do every damned one of ’em right up to the handle. I don’t know how much of a shindy this thing is going to be, but any shindy is enough to show how much there is in a man. You’ve got your appointment, and that’s all I can do for you; but I’ll thrash you with my own hands if, when the Army gets back, the other fellows say my son is ‘nothing but a good-looking dude.’ ”
He ceased, breathing heavily. Caspar looked bravely and frankly at his father, and answered in a voice which was not very tremulous. “I’ll do my best. This is my chance. I’ll do my best with it.”
The Senator had a marvelous ability of transition from one manner to another. Suddenly he seemed very kind. “Well, that’s all right, then. I guess you’ll get along all right with Reilly. I know him well, and he’ll see you through. I helped him along once. And now about this commissary business. As I understand it, a commissary is a sort of caterer in a big way—that is, he looks out for a good many more things than a caterer has to bother his head about. Reilly’s brigade has probably from two to three thousand men in it, and in regard to certain things you’ve got to look out for every man of ’em every day. I know perfectly well you couldn’t successfully run a boarding house in Ocean Grove. How are you going to manage for all these soldiers, hey? Thought about it?”
“No,” said Caspar, injured. “I didn’t want to be a commissary. I wanted to be a captain in the line.”
The Complete Short Stories and Sketches of Stephen Crane Page 88
