The Jimmyjohn Boss, and Other Stories

by Owen Wister

  Napoleon Shave-Tail

  Augustus Albumblatt, young and new and sleek with the latestbook-knowledge of war, reported to his first troop commander at FortBrown. The ladies had watched for him, because he would increase thenumber of men, the officers because he would lessen the number ofduties; and he joined at a crisis favorable to becoming speedily knownby them all. Upon that same day had household servants become anextinct race. The last one, the commanding officer's cook, had told thecommanding officer's wife that she was used to living where she couldsee the cars. She added that there was no society here "fit for man orbaste at all." This opinion was formed on the preceding afternoon whenCasey, a sergeant of roguish attractions in G troop, had told her thathe was not a marrying man. Three hours later she wedded a gambler,and this morning at six they had taken the stage for Green River, twohundred miles south, the nearest point where the bride could see thecars.

  "Frank," said the commanding officer's wife, "send over to H troop forYork."

  "Catherine," he answered, "my dear, our statesmen at Washington sayit's wicked to hire the free American soldier to cook for you. It's toomenial for his manhood."

  "Frank, stuff!"

  "Hush, my love. Therefore York must be spared the insult of twentymore dollars a month, our statesmen must be re-elected, and you and I,Catherine, being cookless, must join the general mess."

  Thus did all separate housekeeping end, and the garrison began unitedlyto eat three times a day what a Chinaman set before them, when thelong-expected Albumblatt stepped into their midst, just in time forsupper.

  This youth was spic-and-span from the Military Academy, with atop-dressing of three months' thoughtful travel in Germany. "I wasdeeply impressed with the modernity of their scientific attitude," hepleasantly remarked to the commanding officer. For Captain Duane, silentusually, talked at this first meal to make the boy welcome in thisforlorn two-company post.

  "We're cut off from all that sort of thing here," said he. "I've notbeen east of the Missouri since '69. But we've got the railroad across,and we've killed some Indians, and we've had some fun, and we're gladwe're alive--eh, Mrs. Starr?"

  "I should think so," said the lady.

  "Especially now we've got a bachelor at the post!" said Mrs. Bainbridge."That has been the one drawback, Mr. Albumblatt."

  "I thank you for the compliment," said Augustus, bending solemnly fromhis hips; and Mrs. Starr looked at him and then at Mrs. Bainbridge.

  "We're not over-gay, I fear," the Captain continued; "but the flat'sfull of antelope, and there's good shooting up both canyons."

  "Have you followed the recent target experiments at Metz?" inquiredthe traveller. "I refer to the flattened trajectory and the obuscontroversy."

  "We have not heard the reports," answered the commandant, with becominggravity. "But we own a mountain howitzer."

  "The modernity of German ordnance--" began Augustus.

  "Do you dance, Mr. Albumblatt?" asked Mrs. Starr.

  "For we'll have a hop and all be your partners," Mrs. Bainbridgeexclaimed.

  "I will be pleased to accommodate you, ladies."

  "It's anything for variety's sake with us, you see," said Mrs. Starr,smoothly smiling; and once again Augustus bent blandly from his hips.

  But the commanding officer wished leniency. "You see us all," hehastened to say. "Commissioned officers and dancing-men. Prettyshabby--"

  "Oh, Captain!" said a lady.

  "And pretty old."

  "Captain!" said another lady.

  "But alive and kicking. Captain Starr, Mr. Bainbridge, the Doctor andme. We are seven."

  Augustus looked accurately about him. "Do I understand seven, Captain?"

  "We are seven," the senior officer repeated.

  Again Mr. Albumblatt counted heads. "I imagine you include the ladies,Captain? Ha! ha!"

  "Seven commissioned males, sir. Our Major is on sick-leave, and two ofour Lieutenants are related to the President's wife. She can't bear themto be exposed. None of us in the church-yard lie--but we are seven."

  "Ha! ha, Captain! That's an elegant double entendre on Wordsworth'spoem and the War Department. Only, if I may correct your addition--ha!ha!--our total, including myself, is eight." And Augustus grew ashilarious as a wooden nutmeg.

  The commanding officer rolled an intimate eye at his wife.

  The lady was sitting big with rage, but her words were cordial still:"Indeed, Mr. Albumblatt, the way officers who have influence inWashington shirk duty here and get details East is something Ican't laugh about. At one time the Captain was his own adjutant andquartermaster. There are more officers at this table to-night thanI've seen in three years. So we are doubly glad to welcome you at FortBrown."

  "I am fortunate to be on duty where my services are so required, thoughI could object to calling it Fort Brown." And Augustus exhaled a newsmile.

  "Prefer Smith?" said Captain Starr.

  "You misunderstand me. When we say Fort Brown. Fort Russell, Fort EtCetera, we are inexact. They are not fortified."

  "Cantonment Et Cetera would be a trifle lengthy, wouldn't it?" put inthe Doctor, his endurance on the wane.

  "Perhaps; but technically descriptive of our Western posts. The Germanscriticise these military laxities."

  Captain Duane now ceased talking, but urbanely listened; and from timeto time his eye would scan Augustus, and then a certain sublimatedlaugh, to his wife well known; would seize him for a single voicelessspasm, and pass. The experienced Albumblatt meanwhile continued,"By-the-way, Doctor, you know the Charite, of course?"

  Doctor Guild had visited that great hospital, but being now a goaded manhe stuck his nose in his plate, and said, unwisely: "Sharrity? What'sthat?" For then Augustus told him what and where it was, and thatKrankenhaus is German for hospital, and that he had been deeplyimpressed with the modernity of the ventilation. "Thirty-five cubicmetres to a bed in new wards," he stated. "How many do you allow,Doctor?"

  "None," answered the surgeon.

  "Do I understand none, Doctor?"

  "You do, sir. My patients breathe in cubic feet, and swallow their dosesin grains, and have their inflation measured in inches."

  "Now there again!" exclaimed Augustus, cheerily. "More antiquity to beswept away! And people say we young officers have no work cut out forus!"

  "Patients don't die then under the metric system?" said the Doctor.

  "No wonder Europe's overcrowded," said Starr.

  But the student's mind inhabited heights above such trifling. "Death,"he said, "occurs in ratios not differentiated from our statistics." Andhe told them much more while they booked at him over their plates. Hemanaged to say 'modernity' and 'differentiate' again, for he came fromour middle West, where they encounter education too suddenly, and itwould take three generations of him to speak clean English. But withall his polysyllabic wallowing, he showed himself keen-minded, pat withauthorities, a spruce young graduate among these dingy Rocky Mountaincampaigners. They had fought and thirsted and frozen; the books that heknew were not written when they went to school; and so far as war is tobe mastered on paper, his equipment was full and polished while theirswas meagre and rusty.

  And yet, if you know things that other and older men do not, it is aswell not to mention them too hastily. These soldiers wished that theycould have been taught what he knew; but they watched young Augustusunfolding himself with a gaze that might have seemed chill to a lesshighly abstract thinker. He, however, rose from the table pleasantlyedified by himself, and hopeful for them. And as he left them,"Good-night, ladies and gentlemen," he said; "we shall meet again."

  "Oh yes," said the Doctor. "Again and again."

  "He's given me indigestion," said Bainbridge.

  "Take some metric system," said Starr.

  "And lie flat on your trajectory," said the Doctor.

  "I hate hair parted in the middle for a man," said Mrs. Guild.

  "And his superior eye-glasses," said Mrs. Bainbridge.

  "His staring conce
ited teeth," hissed Mrs. Starr.

  "I don't like children slopping their knowledge all over me," said theDoctor's wife.

  "He's well brushed, though," said Mrs. Duane, seeking the bright side."He'll wipe his feet on the mat when he comes to call."

  "I'd rather have mud on my carpet than that bandbox in any of mychairs," said Mrs. Starr.

  "He's no fool," mused the Doctor. "But, kingdom come, what an ass!"

  "Well, gentlemen," said the commanding officer (and they perceived aflavor of the official in his tone), "Mr. Albumblatt is just twenty-one.I don't know about you; but I'll never have that excuse again."

  "Very well, Captain, we'll be good," said Mrs. Bainbridge.

  "And gr-r-ateful," said Mrs. Starr, rolling her eyes piously. "Iprophecy he'll entertain us."

  The Captain's demeanor remained slightly official; but walking home, hisCatherine by his side in the dark was twice aware of that laugh of his,twinkling in the recesses of his opinions. And later, going to bed, alittle joke took him so unready that it got out before he could suppressit. "My love," said he, "my Second Lieutenant is grievously mislaid inthe cavalry. Providence designed him for the artillery."

  It was wifely but not right in Catherine to repeat this strictconfidence in strictest confidence to her neighbor, Mrs. Bainbridge,over the fence next morning before breakfast. At breakfast Mrs.Bainbridge spoke of artillery reinforcing the post, and her husbandgiggled girlishly and looked at the puzzled Duane; and at dinner Mrs.Starr asked Albumblatt, would not artillery strengthen the garrison?

  "Even a light battery," pronounced Augustus, promptly, "would be absurdand useless."

  Whereupon the mess rattled knives, sneezed, and became variouslydisturbed. So they called him Albumbattery, and then Blattery, which ismore condensed; and Captain Duane's official tone availed him nothingin this matter. But he made no more little military jokes; he dislikedgarrison personalities. Civilized by birth and ripe from weather-beatenyears of men and observing, he looked his Second Lieutenant over, andremembered to have seen worse than this. He had no quarrel with themetric system (truly the most sensible), and thinking to leaven it witha little rule of thumb, he made Augustus his acting quartermaster. Buthe presently indulged his wife with the soldier-cook she wanted at home,so they no longer had to eat their meals in Albumblatt's society; andMrs. Starr said that this showed her husband dreaded his quartermasterworse than the Secretary of War.

  Alas for the Quartermaster's sergeant, Johannes Schmoll, that routinedand clock-work German! He found Augustus so much more German than hehad ever been himself, that he went speechless for three days. Upon hislists, his red ink, and his ciphering, Augustus swooped like a birdof prey, and all his fond red-tape devices were shredded to the winds.Augustus set going new quadratic ones of his own, with an index andcross-references. It was then that Schmoll recovered his speech andwalked alone, saying, "Mein Gott!" And often thereafter, wandering amongthe piled stores and apparel, he would fling both arms heavenward andrepeat the exclamation. He had rated himself the unique human soul atFort Brown able to count and arrange underclothing. Augustus rejectedhis laborious tally, and together they vigiled after hours, verifyingsocks and drawers. Next, Augustus found more horseshoes than his paperscalled for.

  "That man gif me der stomach pain efry day," wailed Schmoll to SergeantCasey. "I tell him, 'Lieutenant, dose horseshoes is expendable. We don'tacgount for efry shoe like they was men's shoes, und oder dings dot isissued.' 'I prefer to cake them cop!' says Baby Bismarck. Und he smilemit his two beaver teeth."

  "Baby Bismarck!" cried, joyfully, the rosy-faced Casey. "Yo-hanny, takea drink."

  "Und so," continued the outraged Schmoll, "he haf a Board of Soorvey ondree-pound horseshoes, und I haf der stomach pain."

  "It was buckles the next month. The allowance exceeded the expenditure,Augustus's arithmetic came out wrong, and another board sat on buckles.

  "Yo-hanny, you're lookin' jaded under Colonel Safetypin." said Casey."Have something?"

  "Safetypin is my treat," said Schmoll; "und very apt."

  But Augustus found leisure to pervade the post with his modernity. Heset himself military problems, and solved them; he wrote an essay on"The Contact Squadron"; he corrected Bainbridge for saying "throw backthe left flank" instead of "refuse the left flank"; he had reading-roomideas, canteen' ideas, ideas for the Indians and the Agency, andrecruit-drill ideas, which he presented to Sergeant Casey. Casey gavehim, in exchange, the name of Napoleon Shave-Tail, and had his whiskeyagain paid for by the sympathetic Schmoll.

  "But bless his educated heart," said Casey, "he don't learn me nothingthat'll soil my innercence!"

  Thus did the sunny-humored Sergeant take it, but not thus the mess.Had Augustus seen himself as they saw him, could he have heard Mrs.Starr--But he did not; the youth was impervious, and to remove hiscomplacency would require (so Mrs. Starr said) an operation, probablyfatal. The commanding officer held always aloof from gibing, yet oftenwhen Augustus passed him his gray eye would dwell upon the Lieutenant'sback, and his voiceless laugh would possess him. That is the picture Iretain of these days--the unending golden sun, the wide, gentle-coloredplain, the splendid mountains, the Indians ambling through the flat,clear distance; and here, close along the parade-ground, eye-glassedAugustus, neatly hastening, with the Captain on his porch, asleep youmight suppose.

  One early morning the agent, with two Indian chiefs, waited on thecommanding officer, and after their departure his wife found himbreakfasting in solitary mirth.

  "Without me," she chided, sitting down. "And I know you've had some goodnews."

  "The best, my love. Providence has been tempted at last. The wholesomeirony of life is about to function."

  "Frank, don't tease so! And where are you rushing now before the cakes?"

  "To set our Augustus a little military problem, dearest. Plain livingfor to-day, and high thinking be jolly well--"

  "Frank, you're going to swear, and I must know!"

  But Frank had sworn and hurried out to the right to the Adjutant'soffice, while his Catherine flew to the left to the fence.

  "Ella!" she cried. "Oh, Ella!"

  Mrs. Bainbridge, instantly on the other side of the fence, broughtscanty light. A telegram had come, she knew, from the Crow Agency inMontana. Her husband had admitted this three nights ago; and CaptainDuane (she knew) had given him some orders about something; and couldit be the Crows? "Ella, I don't know," said Catherine. "Frank talked allabout Providence in his incurable way, and it may be anything." So thetwo ladies wondered together over the fence, until Mrs. Duane, seeingthe Captain return, ran to him and asked, were the Crows on thewar-path? Then her Frank told her yes, and that he had detailedAlbumblatt to vanquish them and escort them to Carlisle School to learnGerman and Beethoven's sonatas.

  "Stuff, stuff, stuff! Why, there he does go!" cried the unsettledCatherine. "It's something at the Agency!" But Captain Duane was goneinto the house for a cigar.

  Albumblatt, with Sergeant Casey and a detail of six men, was in truthhastening over that broad mile which opens between Fort Brown and theAgency. On either side of them the level plain stretched, gray withits sage, buff with intervening grass, hay-cocked with the smoky,mellow-stained, meerschaum-like canvas tepees of the Indians, quiet as apainting; far eastward lay long, low, rose-red hills, half dissolved inthe trembling mystery of sun and distance; and westward, close at handand high, shone the great pale-blue serene mountains through the vasterserenity of the air. The sounding hoofs of the troops brought theIndians out of their tepees to see. When Albumblatt reached the Agency,there waited the agent and his two chiefs, who pointed to one lodgestanding apart some three hundred yards, and said, "He is there." Sothen Augustus beheld his problem, the military duty fallen to him fromProvidence and Captain Duane.

  It seems elementary for him who has written of "The Contact Squadron."It was to arrest one Indian. This man, Ute Jack, had done a murder amongthe Crows, and fled south for shelter. The telegram heralded him, but
with boundless miles for hiding he had stolen in under the cover ofnight. No welcome met him. These Fort Brown Indians were not his friendsat any time, and less so now, when he arrived wild drunk among theirfamilies. Hounded out, he sought this empty lodge, and here he was,at bay, his hand against every man's, counting his own life worthlessexcept for destroying others before he must himself die.

  "Is he armed?" Albumblatt inquired, and was told yes.

  Augustus considered the peaked cone tent. The opening was on this side,but a canvas drop closed it. Not much of a problem--one man inside asack with eight outside to catch him! But the books gave no rule forthis combination, and Augustus had met with nothing of the sort inGermany. He considered at some length. Smoke began to rise through themeeting poles of the tepee, leisurely and natural, and one of the chiefssaid:

  "Maybe Ute Jack cooking. He hungry."

  "This is not a laughing matter," said Augustus to the by-standers, whowere swiftly gathering. "Tell him that I command him to surrender," headded to the agent, who shouted this forthwith; and silence followed.

  "Tell him I say he must come out at once," said Augustus then; andreceived further silence.

  "He eat now," observed the chief. "Can't talk much."

  "Sergeant Casey," bellowed Albumblatt, "go over there and take him out!"

  "The Lootenant understands," said Casey, slowly, "that Ute Jack has gotthe drop on us, and there ain't no getting any drop on him."

  "Sergeant, you will execute your orders without further comment."

  At this amazing step the silence fell cold indeed; but Augustus was incommand.

  "Shall I take any men along, sir?" said Casey in his soldier's machinevoice.

  "Er--yes. Er--no. Er--do as you please."

  The six troopers stepped forward to go, for they loved Casey; but heordered them sharply to fall back. Then, looking in their eyes, hewhispered, "Good-bye, boys, if it's to be that way," and walked to thelodge, lifted the flap, and fell, shot instantly dead through the heart."Two bullets into him," muttered a trooper, heavily breathing as thesounds rang. "He's down," another spoke to himself with fixed eyes; anda sigh they did not know of passed among them. The two chiefs looked atAugustus and grunted short talk together; and one, with a sweeping liftof his hand out towards the tepee and the dead man by it, said, "MaybeUte Jack only got three--four--cartridges--so!" (his fingers countedit). "After he kill three--four--men, you get him pretty good." TheIndian took the white man's death thus; but the white men could not yetbe even saturnine.

  "This will require reinforcement," said Augustus to the audience. "Theplace must be attacked by a front and flank movement. It must be knockeddown. I tell you I must have it knocked down. How are you to see wherehe is, I'd like to know, if it's not knocked down?" Augustus's voice wasgetting high.

  "I want the howitzer," he screeched generally.

  A soldier saluted, and Augustus chattered at him.

  "The howitzer, the mountain howitzer, I tell you. Don't you hear me? Toknock the cursed thing he's in down. Go to Captain Duane and give him mycompliments, and--no, I'll go myself. Where's my horse? My horse, I tellyou! It's got to be knocked down."

  "If you please, Lieutenant," said the trooper, "may we have the RedCross ambulance?"

  "Red Cross? What's that for? What's that?"

  "Sergeant Casey, sir. He's a-lyin' there."

  "Ambulance? Certainly. The howitzer--perhaps they're only flesh wounds.I hope they are only flesh wounds. I must have more men--you'll comewith me."

  From his porch Duane viewed both Augustus approach and the man stopat the hospital, and having expected a bungle, sat to hear; but atAlbumblatt's mottled face he stood up quickly and said, "What's thematter?" And hearing, burst out: "Casey! Why, he was worth fifty of--Goon, Mr. Albumblatt. What next did you achieve, sir?" And as the tale wastold he cooled, bitter, but official.

  "Reinforcements is it, Mr. Albumblatt?"

  "The howitzer, Captain."

  "Good. And G troop?"

  "For my double flank movement I--"

  "Perhaps you'd like H troop as reserve?"

  "Not reserve, Captain. I should establish--"

  "This is your duty, Mr. Albumblatt. Perform it as you can, with whatforce you need."

  "Thank you, sir. It is not exactly a battle, but with a, so-to-speak,intrenched--"

  "Take your troops and go, sir, and report to me when you have arrestedyour man."

  Then Duane went to the hospital, and out with the ambulance, hoping thatthe soldier might not be dead. But the wholesome irony of life reckonsbeyond our calculations; and the unreproachful, sunny face of hisSergeant evoked in Duane's memory many marches through long heat andcold, back in the rough, good times.

  "Hit twice, I thought they told me," said he; and the steward surmisedthat one had missed.

  "Perhaps," mused Duane. "And perhaps it went as intended, too. What'sall that fuss?"

  He turned sharply, having lost Augustus among his sadder thoughts; andhere were the operations going briskly. Powder-smoke in three directionsat once! Here were pickets far out-lying, and a double line ofskirmishers deployed in extended order, and a mounted reserve, and menstanding to horse--a command of near a hundred, a pudding of pompous,incompetent, callow bosh, with Augustus by his howitzer, scientificallyraising and lowering it to bear on the lone white tepee that shone inthe plain. Four races were assembled to look on--the mess Chinaman, twoblack laundresses, all the whites in the place (on horse and foot, somewith their hats left behind), and several hundred Indians in blankets.Duane had a thought to go away and leave this galling farce under theeye of Starr for the officers were at hand also. But his second thoughtbade him remain; and looking at Augustus and the howitzer, his laughwould have returned to him; but his heart was sore for Casey.

  It was an hour of strategy and cannonade, a humiliating hour, which FortBrown tells of to this day; and the tepee lived through it all. For itstood upon fifteen slender poles, not speedily to be chopped down byshooting lead from afar. When low bullets drilled the canvas, the chiefsuggested to Augustus that Ute Jack had climbed up; and when the bulletsflew high, then Ute Jack was doubtless in a hole. Nor did Augustuscontrive to drop a shell from the howitzer upon Ute Jack and explodehim--a shrewd and deadly conception; the shells went beyond, except one,that ripped through the canvas, somewhat near the ground; and Augustus,dripping, turned at length, and saying, "It won't go down," stoodvacantly wiping his white face. Then the two chiefs got his leave tostretch a rope between their horses and ride hard against the tepee. Itwas military neither in essence nor to see, but it prevailed. The tepeesank, a huge umbrella wreck along the earth, and there lay Ute Jackacross the fire's slight hollow, his knee-cap gone with the howitzershell. But no blood had flown from that; blood will not run, you know,when a man has been dead some time. One single other shot had struckhim--one through his own heart. It had singed the flesh.

  "You see, Mr. Albumblatt," said Duane, in the whole crowd's hearing,"he killed himself directly after killing Casey. A very rare act foran Indian, as you are doubtless aware. But if your manoeuvres with hiscorpse have taught you anything you did not know before, we shall all begainers."

  "Captain," said Mrs. Starr, on a later day, "you and Ute Jack have endedour fun. Since the Court of Inquiry let Mr. Albumblatt off, he has notsaid Germany once--and that's three months to-morrow."