View of Little Falls - a postcard from the 1960s
“Camp
Jolly” is a story from a work in progress, a new series set in the
village of Asteronga, a fictionalized version of Little Falls, New
York. Readers may recall the first volume of Asteronga stories
in which a young man recounts a variety of experiences from the mid
1950s through the late 1960s. Several of those stories are also
available on podcast. In a day or two I will post a second story from the collection, a version of the Roxy Druse murder case.
The
new series is inspired by events from the history of the town and
county in the late 19th and early 20th century.
The story now made available below and as a free PDF is based
on an infamous murder of 1916, moved here to 1917 to coincide with
the beginning of World War I. Mike Masco, a “foreigner” living on
the South Side, murdered his wife, stuffed her in a trunk, and then
attempted to ship the body to a fictitious address. When his crime
was discovered, he fled into the woods and fields east of the village.
A manhunt ensued, in which Chief of Police Long was joined by volunteers, including
firemen led by Fire Chief Cooney.
The
second element of the story drawn from actual events is the Home Guard, a loosely regulated version of what later became the
National Guard. Some time before 1917, the local militia men held a
picnic at Camp Jolly, a resort on the railroad about five miles east
of Little Falls. Some or all of the men became drunk and, as their excursion train headed home, took a few pot shots at innocent cows peacefully grazing
in their pasture. They were disarmed by Chief Long and their rifles,
obsolete single shot weapons last used in the Indian Wars, were confiscated. When war
came in 1917, many of the same Home Guard men were inducted into the
new National Guard unit in Mohawk, NY which suffered significant
losses in France. Although a Colonel Beardslee was associated with
the old Home Guard, no one of that name was involved in the tragic accident depicted in this story.
Here
is the story of “Camp Jolly” - Reactions by email will be
welcome: wildernesshill@gmail.com
Camp
Jolly
by
Michael
Cooney
copyright
2018
based
on several true stories
When the people of Asteronga
heard that Home Guard boys were taking pot shots at cows on their way
home from Camp Jolly, they wondered what the hell was wrong with the
Colonel. Those boys were his pride and joy so why was he letting them
get drunk and raise hell. Was he getting too old to manage that gang
of his?
When the train pulled into the
depot, his boys were ordered to hand over their ancient 45-70s to the
cops, who had gotten word of their bovine mayhem. However, the troops
like they were in no mood to take orders from Chief Long, and for a
minute it was touch and go. The Colonel finally came out of the depot
gent’s room where he had hurriedly betaken himself and called up a
few military commands. Looking them up and down with disgust as they
staggered and swayed to attention, he pronounced himself very glad
that the State of New York in its wisdom had seen fit not to issue
repeating rifles to a crew such as his. He turned to his sergeant and
told him to order the men to stack their rifles. “Bear in mind, you
fools,” he added a final word, “that unlike cows, the Spaniards
do tend to shoot back.”
Two years later, the murdered
cows had been forgotten, and it was the Germans and not the Spaniards
who were on everybody’s mind. The Colonel, being over seventy, was
denied the privilege of accompanying his troops into the machine gun
fire, and he was outraged. He called in every favor he had,
bombarding the War Department with letters, reminding the youngsters
in Washington of his youthful service at Petersburg, his valor
against the Sioux, and his sanguinary work in the Philippines, all to
no avail.
“Those lads are utter
fools!” he thundered to Homer P. Snyder, Member of Congress. “No
one but I can keep the Kaiser from cutting them to bits. They don’t
know a damn thing about war!”
“Sorry, Colonel, but I went
all the way to Pershing and even he can’t do a thing. It’s a
matter of age, just numbers of course, but there it is. Nothing I can
do.” The Congressman stifled a yawn and offered his guest a fine
Cuban cigar. “But don’t worry over the lads. The Regular Army
will whip your Home Guard rascals into shape.”
“Those are the same idiots
who shot up eight hundred dollars worth of cows. They are drunkards,
fornicators and shiftless louts. Only I can keep them in order.”
The Congressman managed to
avoid pointing out that his guest had assembled, not to say
hand-picked, that sorry lot that he now wished to lead to France. “Be
that as it may, Colonel, Uncle Sam has declined to make use of your
services this time around, despite my most vigorous efforts.”
Throwing down the half-smoked
cigar, Colonel Beardslee stalked out of Snyder’s office with barely
a word of thanks and made his way to Union Station. For the long
trip back to upstate New York, he sat in the bar car sipping bourbon
and cursing Woodrow Wilson to all who would listen. “That snooty
bastard turned down Teddy Roosevelt too. Said he was too old! Why,
between him and me, we practically whipped the Spaniards
single-handedly, Teddy in Cuba and me in Manila.”
After boarding the Twentieth
Century Limited in New York, he found a fresh audience. “The
problem with Wilson,” he confided to his fellow passengers after a
fourth bourbon, “is that he’s a glory hound. It would kill him to
share the spotlight with real men like me and Teddy. He’s a
goddamned college professor, that’s all he is and all he ever will
be!”
As the train neared Asteronga,
he woke from a long nap, soothed by the sight of familiar hills,
farms and roads. Through the train’s grimy windows, he saw Camp
Jolly, abandoned now for two summers in a row, the once bright colors
of the picnic pavilions fading quickly, the walkways covered with
weeds. He frowned at the sight but smiled to see the gables of his
own majestic mansion at East Creek.
Clambering down from the
train, the Colonel brushed aside his wife’s solicitude. “Just
dandy, girl. I’m just dandy. Wasted too much time on those stuffed
shirt in Washington. Waste of time. Waste of time.”
“Have you heard the news?”
his wife asked as they were driven toward home by Fernando, the
chauffeur who had been with them since Manila. “There’s been a
murder.”
“Some Italian, no doubt.
They have heavily infested the south side of town.”
“Well, I suppose he might be
Italian. Mike Masco is his name and he killed his wife. Stabbed her
in the heart and stuffed her body in a trunk.
The Colonel glanced at his
wife, appreciating once again her lively manner. Although they were
of an equal age, he still saw her as the young girl he met in St.
Joseph not long after the War ended. “So what happened? Has this
Masco been arrested?”
“No, that’s what has
everyone in a tizzy. He killed her, that’s certain, and put her
body in a trunk and can you believe he was about to ship it to
Chicago when the stationmaster noticed the blood...” She paused
dramatically.
“The blood? What about the
blood?”
“Well, you see it was like
this. He was all set to ship the trunk containing his wife’s body
to a fictitious address in Chicago when the stationmaster, even
imagine that it could be human blood so he said to the Italian
fellow, ‘What’s that?’ “What’s in here, raw meat?’ Hurley
says, “it’s against railway regulations to ship raw meat.’ Can
you imagine the two them just conversating over the trunk containing
the body of a dead woman and just chatting away?”
“Can you picture it?” she
continued. “there’s this Irish fellow, very officious as they
always are as soon as you put them in a uniform and...”
“Isn’t that the truth?”
interrupted her husband.
“So this Hurley is out to
dot every i and cross every t and meanwhile the Italian fellow must
be sweating to beat the band. And all the while the poor woman’s
blood must be dripping more and more out of the bottom of the trunk
and...”
“Yes, Yes,” her husband
interrupted her again. “Please, to the point, dear. The
stationmaster sees the blood and what did he do then?”
“Why, Hurley didn’t do a
thing other than to ask his questions and then this Mike Masco – a
very good looking fellow in a dark Italian way, they say – he just
takes off like a jackrabbit! He runs right out of the depot and
straight down Main Street. People say the last they saw of him he was
running along the railroad tracks out toward the Burnt Rocks...”
Mrs. Beardslee paused to
assess her husband’s attention before resuming her tale. “So the
stationmaster pries open the trunk with a screwdriver and sure enough
the sees the corpse of poor, murdered Mrs. Masco. They say she was a
very beautiful young girl, long dark hair, a perfect little figure,
shining dark eyes...Of course, in the trunk she didn’t look like
that.”
“No, I would imagine not.”
“They say that she was very
badly slashed by her beast of a husband. And they say he broke her
legs squeezing her into the trunk.”
“I see.” The Colonel was
recalling images of the many young foreign women who had come to work
in the mills over the past decade. He wondered if he had ever seen
the murdered girl, just walking past. He didn’t realize he was
smiling, but his wife noticed and took it as a sign that he
appreciated her narrative abilities.
“The neighbors say that he
accused her of adultery,” she added.
“Did the Italian kill her
paramour, as well?”
“Paramour? You mean, her
boyfriend? Well, according to the neighbors, he was yelling at her
and beating her, demanding that she tell him who the man is so that
he could go and kill him.”
“He was shouting all this in
English?”
“Well, I suppose it was in
Italian but all his neighbors were Italian and they could hear every
word he said right through those thin tenement walls. They’re the
ones who told Chief Coughlin.”
“Coughlin? But he’s the
fire chief. Why did they tell him?” The Colonel had strongly
disliked Coughlin ever since the Chief had found fire code violations
in some of the tenements he owned on the south side.
“Well, I really don’t
know. Maybe they saw his uniform and just assumed he was a policeman.
People say he’s very friendly with the Italians because his wife is
Italian but from what I hear, she claims to be one of those Dark
Irish, as if there was such a thing!”
“Say, dear, this Masco
fellow didn’t live in one of our buildings, did he?”
“Well, I really wouldn’t
know, dear. After all, you are the one in complete charge of our
business dealings. I wouldn’t even know if we owned any of those
terrible rookeries by the river if your sister hadn’t told me.”
“They are not rookeries, as
you put it.” The Colonel was irritated but not so much at his wife
as at the fire chief. It seemed to him that Coughlin was always
meddling in his affairs, even sticking his nose in that business
about the slaughtered cows. And then there was the 1912 strike when a
whole crowd of those IWW radicals were turned loose from the lock-up.
Everybody said Coughlin did it just because he recognized some
volunteer firemen in that mob, but of course nothing was done because
the Chief of Police was another Irishman. Thick as thieves, they
were, all of them.
“So to make a long story
short,” he said, “This Masco killed his wife because he thought
she was stepping out, then tried unsuccessfully to hide her body, and
is now on the loose.”
His wife was about to add
another detail when suddenly they were both thrown forward as
Fernando jammed on the brakes. The Packard shuddered and swerved,
ending up sideways and nearly tipping over before coming to a halt.
“You goddamned fool!” the
Colonel shouted at his driver. His wife’s nose was bleeding and he
felt a pain in his wrist. “What the hell are you doing?” He saw a
man picking himself up just to the left of the car. Had the car hit
him? Just missed hitting him? He leaned out the window, shouting now
at the man limping away across the road and climbing up onto the
rocks on the opposite hillside. “Are you trying to get yourself
killed?” he shouted after the man who didn’t even turn to look
back.
“Human stupidity!” he
muttered. “I’m surrounded by it everywhere I go.” He noticed
his wife holding a handkerchief to her nose. “Are you injured,
dear?” she asked him. She was breathing heavily.
“Palpitations? Should I ask
Fernando to take us to Dr. Eveleth?”
“No, it’s just that...it’s
just that...it’s that..” She could barely get the words out. Her
husband was afraid that she would become hysterical.
“It’s that...that...that
man...”
“Yes, dear, we almost hit
the fool. Ran right out in front of the vehicle but Fernando managed
to bring us to a halt in time. Good man, Fernando!” The small
Filipino smiled weakly.
“He’s the man!” his wife
was able to say. “The murderer. Mike Masco. His wife rose
dramatically from her seat in the open car, still holding the
handkerchief to her nose, and pointing at the trees into which the
man had just vanished.
The Colonel immediately sprang
into action. “Fernando, double quick now! Open the storage
compartment. Fetch the Springfield 45-70 and the bandolier of
cartridges.” As ordered, the chauffeur went around to the back of
the car and procured the single-shot rifle, one of the many
confiscated from the Camp Jolly merrymakers in ‘15. Pulling back
the “trap-door” breech, the Colonel inserted a single cartridge,
slung the bandolier over his shoulder and prepared to track down the
murderer. He regretted that he had no bayonet but he was very glad to
be going into battle once more with an old black powder weapon.
“Fernando, drive Mrs.
Beardslee home, call Dr. Eveleth to see about her palpitations and
then stand guard with the Remington double-barrel. No telling which
way this miscreant will head.”
“Yes, sir,” Fernando
saluted, getting back behind the steering wheel.
“Take care, dear, don’t do
anything foolish,” cried his wife, waving her bloodied handkerchief
as the Packard pulled away. The Colonel was already striding
resolutely in the direction in which the man had vanished. As he
walked up a hillside and into a patch of trees, Colonel Beardslee’s
memory took him back to Richmond in 1865. He could still see
President Lincoln and his young son, surrounded by the grateful
former slaves. “Fine people, the darkies,” he said half-aloud.
“Damn fine soldiers with the right officers.”
The day was warmer than he
realized and soon the Colonel had taken off his jacket. Hanging it on
tree branch, he proceeded forward in his shirt and vest, Springfield
at the ready. Through a clearing in the thick June foliage, he caught
a glimpse of a man. Masco, surely! Who else would be out here?
Dropping to one knee, the old soldier held his breath and took
careful aim at the man’s legs. Before he could squeeze off a shot,
a loud outcry of many voices startled him. His quarry looked over his
shoulder and found himself directly in the colonel’s sights. He
ducked sideways and rolled rapidly out of sight.
Rising with difficulty to his
feet, the Colonel found himself facing a crowd from Asteronga, led by
none other than that obnoxious fire chief, Coughlin. The chief, a
heavy-set man a good twenty years younger than the Colonel, was
surrounded by firemen and other loafers from town. His son, young
Tom, was carrying the only visible weapon, a .22 pump gun. “Say,
Colonel,” the chief grinned, “are you ready to take command of
these troops?” The old soldier saw the invitation as a mockery of
his recently sundered authority over the local military unit, now on
their way to Long Island without him.
“I nearly had him just now!”
he snapped at the chief. “That was before you and your pack of
layabouts scared him off.”
“Layabouts?” echoed
someone in the crowd, laughing.
“Well,” said Coughlin,
stifling a chuckle, “maybe it’s just as well, seeing as we were
hoping to take him alive. Masco’s not a bad character, just lost
his head. Crime of passion, as they say.”
“Glad to know you have
already exonerated the man.” The colonel was growing furious at
what he took as a barrage of insults to his authority. “Evidently,
we wont need a judge and jury. Let him go scot free instead of
hanging him, is that how you see it?”
Coughlin was puzzled by the
Colonel’s rising anger. He had kept his job all these years by
knowing just how manage people of the Colonel’s class but his usual
joviality seemed to be backfiring this afternoon. “To tell you the
truth, sir, the real manhunt is led by Chief Long. He’s circling
around from the river with about ten men and Deputy Walrath is coming
from the Burnt Rocks. The plan is to drive Masco towards a point of
convergence at the old Camp Jolly fairgrounds. Our part of it here is
just to keep him moving in that direction, toward the cops.”
“That’s your brilliant
strategy, is it? What if Masco tries to rush through your line of
men? He may still have the knife. Or even a pistol. What then?”
“I have my rifle,” said
the chief’s son.
“That .22?” The colonel
examined it skeptically. “Even if you hit him one or twice with
this, he could keep on charging and slash up a few of you before
dying later on from loss of blood.”
“So what do you recommend,
colonel?” The old soldier was gratified to see the fire chief
beginning to recognize his authority. After all, who other than he
had commanded men in battle? “It’s like this, chief,” he
explained, making note of a new look of respect in the Irishman’s
eyes. “Masco must be presumed dangerous. Forget whatever you knew
of him before he committed this crime. He has now tasted blood and
will not hesitate to kill again. I will shoot to kill and I recommend
the same to your son. Keep in mind that the man now faces the
electric chair and there is no logical reason why he would not kill
one or more of us to avoid that penalty.”
He looked each man in the
eyes, and each nodded. There would be no more weak-kneed talk of
taking Masco alive. “You men who are unarmed must depart for town.
Your presence here will endanger your comrades. Those who are armed
form ranks here.”
“Colonel,” the chief was
clearly weakening in his resolve to recognize superior authority. “Is
it really necessary for us to be armed? This isn’t exactly a war.”
“And that is where you are
wrong, sir! We face an enemy no less dangerous than the Hun that our
men will face in France. This murderer will be as eager to take our
lives as any Teuton. Here, as in France, we represent civilization
and our enemy, barbarism.”
The men milled about
uncertainly, no longer sure who was in charge. They began to drift
off toward town with vague ideas of procuring firearms. The chief
took a nickel-plated revolver from his pocket. Young Tom rested his
small rifle over his shoulder in a vaguely military fashion. ‘It
looks like just the three of us who are armed,” his father told the
Colonel. He told the few remaining firemen to head back to the
firehouse. When the last of them had departed, the Colonel silently
moved forward, motioning to the father and son to follow. “Keep a
sharp lookout, men, so that he doesn’t double back on us.”
The chief saw that his son was
impressed by the Colonel’s military bearing and decided to go along
with the old man, despite his uneasiness. After a few minutes he was
hot and panting heavily. “That old goat’s in pretty good shape,”
he whispered to his son. “I’ll give him that.”
His son nodded grimly. He had
been very moved by the declaration of war against Germany in April.
On the day when Congress gave Wilson the vote that he wanted, young
Tom had marched with the other high school boys all around town,
carrying a huge American flag and singing patriotic songs. He was
still a few months too young to volunteer and the chief prayed that
the war would be over before it took his only child.
“Listen, Pa, if you’re
tried, you can rest here,” the boy whispered to his father, his
eyes never moving from the old man twenty feet ahead of them. “I
can guard the Colonel’s back.”
“No, that’s okay,” the
chief panted. “A little warm weather can’t slow down an old
football player like me.
The three men moved on in
single file across another patch of woodland, pausing when the
Colonel paused and advancing when the Colonel advanced. They reached
the brow of a hill overlooking the river. “He’s probably in
those bottom lands,” the Colonel said, wiping off his glasses to
get a clearer look.
“I see him!” Young Tom
pointed excitedly toward the river. “He’s got a white shirt on!
Down there!” He lifted his .22 to his shoulder and took aim.
“Don’t fire, boy,” the
Colonel ordered. “He’s out of range of your pea-shooter.” The
old soldier squinted in the bright sunlight but could see no trace of
what the boy said he had seen.
“He must heading toward Camp
Jolly, as you fellows had anticipated. If he has a pistol, he may
hole up in one of the buildings and make a last stand.”
“Somehow,” the chief said,
“I don’t think he’s the kind of man to go in for any melodrama.
He’s as likely to surrender as not.”
“All these Italians love
melodrama,” disagreed the Colonel. “Everything’s a grand opera
for them. I’ve seen several of their operas in New York City and
they offer profound insights into the Italian mind. Puccini. Verdi.”
“Masco isn’t Italian.”
“Not an Italian?” The
Colonel was incredulous. Stabbed his wife? Stuffed her in a trunk?
And you say he’s not Italian?”
“His wife Maria was Italian.
Beautiful girl. But Masco is some other nationality, maybe
Slovenian.”
“Whatever he is,” said the
boy, “we’re going to catch him, right Colonel?”
“You bet, son!”
“Go ahead, sir. We’ll
cover your back.”
“Good man!” The old
soldier held onto a tree branch with one hand and his rifle with the
other as he started to descend toward the river. Then he missed a
step and began to slide down the embankment. “Be careful, sir,”
said Tom, taking the old man’s elbow to steady him. His father
caught up with them and helped the Colonel to sit down on a stump.
“Catch
your breath here, sir. My father and I can go forward
and apprehend this
criminal. You keep watch in case he circles around to get behind us.
If you see him, just blast away, sir. Shoot first and ask questions
later.”
The
Colonel nodded, struggling to catch his breath. The boy’s face
seemed to waver before him. “Good man,” he muttered, “Keep
up the pressure. Run him to
ground.”
The fire chief looked back
once to see the old Colonel sitting on the stump, leaning on the
rifle barrel with both hands, his shirt and vest dark with sweat. The
Colonel waved weakly, unable to summon even his usual surge animosity
toward the fireman.
As
he sat on the stump, holding onto the 45-70, the old man dozed off
and
returned to Virginia in a dream. He had fallen asleep on picket duty.
General Granthad given
orders that any soldier falling asleep on picket be shot.
He forced himself to wake up but he wasn’t in Virginia. He
wasn’t on the banks of the
Rappahannock. He was...where? He
remembered the words of the boy. The boy had told him to stay here
and shoot first, ask questions later. Somebody mustn’t get past
him. He checked the breech to make sure he had loaded a cartridge. He
squinted toward the river, the river but not the Rappahannock. What
was the river called?
The brush was moving. He heard
footsteps and dry branches snapping. The Colonel stumbled off the
stump and fell into a kneeling position. He raised the familiar rifle
to his shoulder. A dark figure appeared, moving toward him, trying to
hide behind the trees. He had only one shot, he knew that. He had to
make it count. He held his breath. He pulled the trigger. A huge
cloud of black gunsmoke. He heard the man moaning where he had
fallen.
The old man’s fingers were
trembling and he dropped several cartridges before he was able to fit
one into his Springfield. Several men arrived and one of them grabbed
the rifle out of his hands. They were all shouting at him. One of
them was the fire chief who found those violations of the fire code.
The man had him by the throat but the other men pulled him off. The
Colonel stood up straight and tall. “The boy? You are saying the
boy was shot?”
“You shot Tommy Coughlin,
you old fool!”
“You killed him!”
“You shot my son!”
“You damned fool!”
“God damn you to hell!”
The Colonel looked from one
face to another. “We shelled our own boys. That’s what we did at
Petersburg. We shelled our own boys. No one’s fault. Accidents of
war. No one’s fault.”
The other men pulled the fire
chief back and took away his nickel-plated pistol.
The Colonel looked across the
river to where the murderer was running along the West Shore tracks.
He was escaping. He was free.
“That lad over there, he
knows how to throw off pursuit. I could have used more like him in
the Philippines.”
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