The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories
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Owen Wister >> The Jimmyjohn Boss and Other Stories
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"Your piah-chuck?" Mart inquired.
The man faced the boy like a rat, but the alertness faded instantly from
his eye, and his lip slackened into a slipshod smile."Why, yes, sonny, me
and my grub-stake. You've been to school, I'll bet, but they didn't learn
yu' Chinook, now, did they? Chinook's the lingo us white folks trade in
with the Siwashes, and we kinder falls into it, talking along. I was
thinkin' how but for delay me and my grubstake--provisions, ye know--that
was consigned to me clear away at Spokane, might hev been drownded along
with them hogs and Hebrews. That's what the good folks calls a
dispensation of the Sauklee Tyee!--Providence, ye know, in Chinook. 'One
shall be taken and the other left.' And that's what beats me--they got
left; and I'm a bigger sinner than them drummers, for I'm ten years older
than they was. And the poor hogs was better than any of us. That can't be
gainsaid. Oh no! oh no!"
Mart laughed.
"I mean it, son. Some day such thoughts will come to you." He stared at
the river unsteadily with his light gray eyes.
"Well, if the ferry's gone," said John Clallam, getting on his legs,
"we'll go on down to the next one."
"Hold on! hold on! Did you never hear tell of a raft? I'll put you folks
over this river. Wait till I git my pants on," said he, stalking nimbly
to where they lay.
"It's just this way," Clallam continued; "we're bound for the upper
Okanagon country, and we must get in there to build our cabin before cold
weather."
"Don't you worry about that. It'll take you three days to the next ferry,
while you and me and the boy kin build a raft right here by to-morrow
noon. You hev an axe, I expect? Well, here is timber close, and your
trail takes over to my place on the Okanagon, where you've got another
crossin' to make. And all this time we're keeping the ladies waitin' up
the hill! We'll talk business as we go along; and, see here, if I don't
suit yu', or fail in my bargain, you needn't to pay me a cent."
He began climbing, and on the way they came to an agreement. Wild-Goose
Jake bowed low to Mrs. Clallam, and as low to Nancy, who held her
mother's dress and said nothing, keeping one finger in her mouth. All
began emptying the wagon quickly, and tins of baking-powder, with
rocking-chairs and flowered quilts, lay on the hill. Wild-Goose Jake
worked hard, and sustained a pleasant talk by himself. His fluency was of
an eagerness that parried interruption or inquiry.
"So you've come acrosst the Big Bend! Ain't it a cosey place? Reminds me
of them medicine pictures, 'Before and After Using.' The Big Bend's the
way this world looked before using--before the Bible fixed it up, ye
know. Ever seen specimens of Big Bend produce, ma'am? They send 'em East.
Grain and plums and such. The feller that gathered them curiosities hed
hunt forty square miles apiece for 'em. But it's good-payin' policy, and
it fetches lots of settlers to the Territory. They come here hummin' and
walks around the wilderness, and 'Where's the plums?' says they. 'Can't
you see I'm busy?' says the land agent; and out they goes. But you
needn't to worry, ma'am. The country where you're goin' ain't like that.
There's water and timber and rich soil and mines. Billy Moon has gone
there--he's the man run the ferry. When she wrecked, he pulled his
freight for the new mines at Loop Loop."
"Did the man live in the little house?" said Nancy.
"Right there, miss. And nobody lives there any more, so you take it if
you're wantin' a place of your own."
"What made you kick the other man if it wasn't your house?"
"Well, now, if it ain't a good one on him to hev you see that! I'll tell
him a little girl seen that, and maybe he'll feel the disgrace. Only he's
no account, and don't take any experience the reg'lar way. He's nigh onto
thirty, and you'll not believe me, I know, but he ain't never even
learned to spit right."
"Is he yours?" inquired Nancy.
"Gosh! no, miss--beggin' pardon. He's jest workin' for me."
"Did he know you were coming to kick him when he hid?"
"Hid? What's that?" The man's eyes narrowed again into points. "You folks
seen him hide?" he said to Clallam.
"Why, of course; didn't he say anything?"
"He didn't get much chance," muttered Jake. "What did he hide at?"
"Us."
"You, begosh!"
"I guess so," said Mart. "We took him for the ferry-man, and when he
couldn't hear us--"
"What was he doin'?"
"Just riding along. And so I fired to signal him, and he flew into the
door."
"So you fired, and he flew into the door. Oh, h'm." Jake continued to
pack the second horse, attending carefully to the ropes. "I never knowed
he was that weak in the upper story," he said, in about five minutes.
"Knew his brains was tenas, but didn't suspect he were that weak in the
upper story. You're sure he didn't go in till he heerd your gun?"
"He'd taken a look and was going away," said Mart.
"Now ain't some people jest odd! Now you follow me, and I'll tell you
folks what I'd figured he'd been at. Billy Moon he lived in that cabin,
yu' see. And he had his stuff there, yu, see, and run the ferry, and a
kind of a store. He kept coffee and canned goods and star-plug and this
and that to supply the prospectin' outfits that come acrosst on his ferry
on the trail to the mines. Then a cloud-burst hits his boat and his job's
spoiled on the river, and he quits for the mines, takin' his stuff along
--do you follow me? But he hed to leave some, and he give me the key, and
I was to send the balance after him next freight team that come along my
way. Leander--that's him I was kickin'--he knowed about it, and he'll
steal a hot stove he's that dumb. He knowed there was stuff here of Billy
Moon's. Well, last night we hed some horses stray, and I says to him,
'Andy, you get up by daylight and find them.' And he gits. But by seven
the horses come in all right of theirselves, and Mr. Leander he was
missin'; and says I to myself, 'I'll ketch you, yu' blamed hobo.' And I
thought I had ketched him, yu' see. Weren't that reasonable of me?
Wouldn't any of you folks hev drawed that conclusion?" The man had fallen
into a wheedling tone as he studied their faces. "Jest put yourselves in
my place," he said.
"Then what was he after?" said Mart.
"Stealin'. But he figured he'd come again."
"He didn't like my gun much."
"Guns always skeers him when he don't know the parties shootin'. That's
his dumbness. Maybe he thought I was after him; he's jest that
distrustful. Begosh! we'll have the laugh on him when he finds he run
from a little girl."
"He didn't wait to see who he was running from," said Mart.
"Of course he didn't. Andy hears your gun and he don't inquire further,
but hits the first hole he kin crawl into. That's Andy! That's the kind
of boy I hev to work for me. All the good ones goes where you're goin',
where the grain grows without irrigation and the blacktail deer comes out
on the hill and asks yu' to shoot 'em for dinner. Who's ready for the
bottom? If I stay talkin' the sun'll go down on us. Don't yu' let me get
started agin. Just you shet me off twiced anyway each twenty-four hours."
He began to descend with his pack-horse and the first load. All afternoon
they went up and down over the hot bare face of the hill, until the
baggage, heavy and light, was transported and dropped piecemeal on the
shore. The torn-out insides of their home littered the stones with
familiar shapes and colors, and Nancy played among them, visiting each
parcel and folded thing.
"There's the red table-cover!" she exclaimed. "and the big
coffee-grinder. And there's our table, and the hole Mart burned in it."
She took a long look at this. "Oh, how I wish I could see our pump!" she
said, and began to cry.
"You talk to her, mother," said Clallam. "She's tuckered out."
The men returned to bring the wagon. With chain-locked wheels, and tilted
half over by the cross slant of the mountain, it came heavily down,
reeling and sliding on the slippery yellow weeds, and grinding deep ruts
across the faces of the shelving beds of gravel. Jake guided it as he
could, straining back on the bits of the two hunched horses when their
hoofs glanced from the stones that rolled to the bottom; and the others
leaned their weight on a pole lodged between the spokes, making a balance
to the wagon, for it leaned the other way so far that at any jolt the two
wheels left the ground. When it was safe at the level of the stream, dusk
had come and a white flat of mist lay along the river, striping its
course among the gaunt hills. They slept without moving, and rose early
to cut logs, which the horses dragged to the shore. The outside trunks
were nailed and lashed with ropes, and sank almost below the surface with
the weight of the wood fastened crosswise on top. But the whole floated
dry with its cargo, and crossed clumsily on the quick-wrinkled current.
Then it brought the wagon; and the six horses swam. The force of the
river had landed them below the cabin, and when they had repacked there
was too little left of day to go on. Clallam suggested it was a good time
to take Moon's leavings over to the Okanagon, but Wild-Goose Jake said at
once that their load was heavy enough; and about this they could not
change his mind. He made a journey to the cabin by himself, and returned
saying that he had managed to lock the door.
"Father," said Mart, as they were harnessing next day, "I've been up
there. I went awful early. There's no lock to the door, and the cabin's
empty."
"I guessed that might be."
"There has been a lock pried off pretty lately. There was a lot of broken
bottles around everywheres, inside and out."
"What do you make out of it?" said Mart.
"Nothing yet. He wants to get us away, and I'm with him there. I want to
get up the Okanagon as soon as we can."
"Well, I'm takin' yu' the soonest way," said Wild-Goose Jake, behind
them. From his casual smile there was no telling what he had heard. "I'll
put your stuff acrosst the Okanagon to-morrow mornin'. But to-night
yourselves'll all be over, and the ladies kin sleep in my room."
The wagon made good time. The trail crossed easy valleys and over the
yellow grass of the hills, while now and then their guide took a
short-cut. He wished to get home, he said, since there could be no
estimating what Leander might be doing. While the sun was still well up
in the sky they came over a round knob and saw the Okanagon, blue in the
bright afternoon, and the cabin on its further bank. This was a roomier
building to see than common, and a hay-field was by it, and a bit of
green pasture, fenced in. Saddle-horses were tied in front, heads hanging
and feet knuckled askew with long waiting, and from inside an uneven,
riotous din whiffled lightly across the river and intervening meadow to
the hill.
"If you'll excuse me," said Jake, "I'll jest git along ahead, and see
what game them folks is puttin' up on Andy. Likely as not he's weighin'
'em out flour at two cents, with it costin' me two and a half on
freightin' alone. I'll hev supper ready time you ketch up."
He was gone at once, getting away at a sharp pace, till presently they
could see him swimming the stream. When he was in the cabin the sounds
changed, dropping off to one at a time, and expired. But when the riders
came out into the air, they leaned and collided at random, whirled their
arms, and, screaming till they gathered heart, charged with wavering
menace at the door. The foremost was flung from the sill, and he shot
along toppling and scraped his length in the dust, while the owner of the
cabin stood in the entrance. The Indian picked himself up, and at some
word of Jake's which the emigrants could half follow by the fierce lift
of his arm, all got on their horses and set up a wailing, like vultures
driven off. They went up the river a little and crossed, but did not come
down this side, and Mrs. Clallam was thankful when their evil noise had
died away up the valley. They had seen the wagon coming, but gave it no
attention. A man soon came over the river from the cabin, and was
lounging against a tree when the emigrants drew up at the margin.
"I don't know what you know," he whined defiantly from the tree, "but I'm
goin' to Cornwall, Connecticut, and I don't care who knows it." He sent a
cowed look at the cabin across the river.
"Get out of the wagon, Nancy," said Clallam. "Mart, help her down."
"I'm going back," said the man, blinking like a scolded dog. "I ain't
stayin' here for nobody. You can tell him I said so, too." Again his eye
slunk sidewise towards the cabin, and instantly back.
"While you're staying," said Mart, "you might as well give a hand here."
He came with alacrity, and made a shift of unhitching the horses. "I was
better off coupling freight cars on the Housatonic," he soon remarked.
His voice came shallow, from no deeper than his throat, and a peevish
apprehension rattled through it. "That was a good job. And I've had
better, too; forty, fifty, sixty dollars better."
"Shall we unpack the wagon?" Clallam inquired.
"I don't know. You ever been to New Milford? I sold shoes there.
Thirty-five dollars and board."
The emigrants attended to their affairs, watering the horses and driving
picket stakes. Leander uselessly followed behind them with conversation,
blinking and with lower lip sagged, showing a couple of teeth. "My
brother's in business in Pittsfield, Massachusetts," said he, "and I can
get a salary in Bridgeport any day I say so. That a Marlin?"
"No," said Mart. "It's a Winchester."
"I had a Marlin. He's took it from me. I'll bet you never got shot at."
"Anybody want to shoot you?" Mart inquired.
"Well and I guess you'll believe they did day before yesterday"
"If you're talking about up at that cabin, it was me."
Leander gave Mart a leer."That won't do," said he. "He's put you up to
telling me that, and I'm going to Cornwall, Connecticut. I know what's
good for me, I guess."
"I tell you we were looking for the ferry, and I signalled you across the
river."
"No, no," said Leander. "I never seen you in my life. Don't you be like
him and take me for a fool."
"All right. Why did they want to murder you?"
"Why?" said the man, shrilly. "Why? Hadn't they broke in and filled
themselves up on his piah-chuck till they were crazy-drunk? And when I
came along didn't they--"
"When you came along they were nowhere near there," said Mart.
"Now you're going to claim it was me drunk it and scattered all them
bottles of his," screamed Leander, backing away. "I tell you I didn't. I
told him I didn't, and he knowed it well, too. But he's just that mean
when he's mad he likes to put a thing on me whether or no, when he never
seen me touch a drop of whiskey, nor any one else, neither. They were
riding and shooting loose over the country like they always do on a
drunk. And I'm glad they stole his stuff. What business had he to keep it
at Billy Moon's old cabin and send me away up there to see it was all
right? Let him do his own dirty work. I ain't going to break the laws on
the salary he pays me."
The Clallam family had gathered round Leander, who was stricken with
volubility. "It ain't once in a while, but it's every day and every
week," he went on, always in a woolly scream. "And the longer he ain't
caught the bolder he gets, and puts everything that goes wrong on to me.
Was it me traded them for that liquor this afternoon? It was his squaw,
Big Tracks, and he knowed it well. He lets that mud-faced baboon run the
house when he's off, and I don't have the keys nor nothing, and never did
have. But of course he had to come in and say it was me just because he
was mad about having you see them Siwashes hollering around. And he come
and shook me where I was sittin', and oh, my, he knowed well the lie he
was acting. I bet I've got the marks on my neck now. See any red marks?"
Leander exhibited the back of his head, but the violence done him had
evidently been fleeting. "He'll be awful good to you, for he's that
scared--"
Leander stood tremulously straight in silence, his lip sagging, as
Wild-Goose Jake called pleasantly from the other bank. "Come to supper,
you folks," said he. "Why, Andy, I told you to bring them across", and
you've let them picket their horses. Was you expectin' Mrs. Clallam to
take your arm and ford six feet of water?" For some reason his voice
sounded kind as he spoke to his assistant.
"Well, mother?" said Clallam.
"If it was not for Nancy, John--"
"I know, I know. Out on the shore here on this side would be a pleasanter
bedroom for you, but" (he looked up the valley) "I guess our friend's
plan is more sensible to-night."
So they decided to leave the wagon behind and cross to the cabin. The
horses put them with not much wetting to the other bank, where Jake, most
eager and friendly, hovered to meet his party, and when they were safe
ashore pervaded his premises in their behalf.
"Turn them horses into the pasture, Andy," said he, "and first feed 'em a
couple of quarts." It may have been hearing himself say this, but tone
and voice dropped to the confidential and his sentences came with a
chuckle. "Quarts to the horses and quarts to the Siwashes and a skookum
pack of trouble all round, Mrs. Clallam! If I hedn't a-came to stop it a
while ago, why about all the spirits that's in stock jest now was bein'
traded off for some blamed ponies the bears hev let hobble on the range
unswallered ever since I settled here. A store on a trail like this here,
ye see, it hez to keep spirits, of course; and--well, well! here's my
room; you ladies'll excuse, and make yourselves at home as well as you
can."
It was of a surprising neatness, due all to him, they presently saw; the
log walls covered with a sort of bunting that was also stretched across
to make a ceiling below the shingles of the roof; fresh soap and towels,
china service, a clean floor and bed, on the wall a print of some white
and red village among elms, with a covered bridge and the water running
over an apron-dam just above; and a rich smell of whiskey everywhere.
"Fix up as comfortable as yu' can," the host repeated, "and I'll see how
Mrs. Jake's tossin' the flapjacks. She's Injun, yu' know, and five years
of married life hadn't learned her to toss flapjacks. Now if I was you"
(he was lingering in the doorway) "I wouldn't shet that winder so quick.
It don't smell nice yet for ladies in here, and I'd hev liked to git the
time to do better for ye; but them Siwashes--well, of course, you folks
see how it is. Maybe it ain't always and only white men that patronizes
our goods. Uncle Sam is a long way off, and I don't say we'd ought to,
but when the cat's away, why the mice will, ye know--they most always
will."
There was a rattle of boards outside, at which he shut the door quickly,
and they heard him run. A light muttering came in at the window, and the
mother, peeping out, saw Andy fallen among a rubbish of crates and empty
cans, where he lay staring, while his two fists beat up and down like a
disordered toy. Wild-Goose Jake came, and having lifted him with great
tenderness, was laying him flat as Elizabeth Clallam hurried to his help.
"No, ma'am," he sighed, "you can't do nothing, I guess."
"Just let me go over and get our medicines."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Jake, and the pain on his face was miserable to
see; "there ain't no medicine. We're kind of used to this, Andy and me.
Maybe, if you wouldn't mind stayin' till he comes to--Why, a sick man
takes comfort at the sight of a lady."
When the fit had passed they helped him to his feet, and Jake led him
away.
Mrs. Jake made her first appearance upon the guests sitting down to their
meal, when she waited on table, passing busily forth from the kitchen
with her dishes. She had but three or four English words, and her best
years were plainly behind her; but her cooking was good, fried and boiled
with sticks of her own chopping, and she served with industry. Indeed, a
squaw is one of the few species of the domestic wife that survive today
upon our continent. Andy seemed now to keep all his dislike for her, and
followed her with a scowling eye, while he frequented Jake, drawing a
chair to sit next him when he smoked by the wall after supper, and some-
times watching him with a sort of clouded affection upon his face. He did
not talk, and the seizure had evidently jarred his mind as well as his
frame. When the squaw was about lighting a lamp he brushed her arm in a
childish way so that the match went out, and set him laughing. She poured
out a harangue in Chinook, showing the dead match to Jake, who rose and
gravely lighted the lamp himself, Andy laughing more than ever. When Mrs.
Clallam had taken Nancy with her to bed, Jake walked John Clallam to the
river-bank, and looking up and down, spoke a little of his real mind.
"I guess you see how it is with me. Anyway, I don't commonly hev use for
stranger-folks in this house. But that little girl of yourn started
cryin' about not havin' the pump along that she'd been used to seein' in
the yard at home. And I says to myself, 'Look a-here, Jake, I don't care
if they do ketch on to you and yer blamed whiskey business. They're not
the sort to tell on you.' Gee! but that about the pump got me! And I
says, 'Jake, you're goin' to give them the best you hev got.' Why, that
Big Bend desert and lonesome valley of the Columbia hez chilled my heart
in the days that are gone when I weren't used to things; and the little
girl hed came so fur! And I knowed how she was a-feelin'."
He stopped, and seemed to be turning matters over.
"I'm much obliged to you," said Clallam.
"And your wife was jest beautiful about Andy. You've saw me wicked to
Andy. I am, and often, for I rile turruble quick, and God forgive me! But
when that boy gits at his meanness--yu've seen jest a touch of it--
there's scarcely livin' with him. It seems like he got reg'lar inspired.
Some days he'll lie--make up big lies to the fust man comes in at the
door. They ain't harmless, his lies ain't. Then he'll trick my woman,
that's real good to him; and I believe he'd lick whiskey up off the dirt.
And every drop is poison for him with his complaint. But I'd ought to
remember. You'd surely think I could remember, and forbear. Most likely
he made a big talk to you about that cabin."
John Clallam told him.
"Well, that's all true, for onced. I did think he'd been up to stealin'
that whiskey gradual, 'stead of fishin', the times he was out all day.
And the salary I give him"--Jake laughed a little--"ain't enough to
justify a man's breaking the law. I did take his rifle away when he tried
to shoot my woman. I guess it was Siwashes bruck into that cabin."
"I'm pretty certain of it," said Clallam.
"You? What makes you?"
John began the tale of the galloping dots, and Jake stopped walking to
listen the harder. "Yes," he said; "that's bad. That's jest bad. They hev
carried a lot off to drink. That's the worst."
He had little to say after this, but talked under his tongue as they went
to the house, where he offered a bed to Clallam and Mart. They would not
turn him out, so he showed them over to a haystack, where they crawled in
and went to sleep.
Most white men know when they have had enough whiskey. Most Indians do
not. This is a difference between the races of which government has taken
notice. Government says that "no ardent spirits shall be introduced under
any presence into the Indian country." It also says that the white man
who attempts to break this law "shall be punished by imprisonment for not
more than two years and by a fine of not more than three hundred
dollars." It further says that if any superintendent of Indian affairs
has reason to suspect a man, he may cause the "boats, stores, packages,
wagons, sleds, and places of deposit" of such person to be searched, and
if ardent spirits be found it shall be forfeit, together with the boats
and all other substances with it connected, one half to the informer and
the other half to the use of the United States. The courts and all legal
machines necessary for trial and punishment of offenders are oiled and
ready; two years is a long while in jail; three hundred dollars and
confiscation sounds heavy; altogether the penalty looks severe on the
printed page--and all the while there's no brisker success in our far
West than selling whiskey to Indians. Very few people know what the
whiskey is made of, and the Indian does not care. He drinks till he drops
senseless. If he has killed nobody and nobody him during the process, it
is a good thing, for then the matter ends with his getting sober and
going home to his tent till such happy time when he can put his hand on
some further possession to trade away. The white offender is caught now
and then; but Okanagon County lies pretty snug from the arm of the law.
It's against Canada to the north, and the empty county of Stevens to the
east; south of it rushes the Columbia, with the naked horrible Big Bend
beyond, and to its west rises a domain of unfooted mountains. There is
law up in the top of it at Conconully sometimes, but not much even
to-day, for that is still a new country, where flow the Methow, the
Ashinola, and the Similikameen.
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