Shooting a Mule

Image courtesy of David L. Spahr, stereoviews.com.

“It became necessary, one day, at Willet’s Point, to destroy a worthless mule, and the subject was made the occasion of giving useful instruction to the military class there stationed.” - from Scientific American, September 24, 1881.

Dicky keeps saying that things could have gone differently if that damned fool mule had had the good sense not to cow-kick General Abbot in the thigh this Thursday last. A barrel of salt pork could easily have been pressed into service, or a side of rotting beef, but no, that rotten mule had to go and assault a commanding officer, and so, Dicky reckoned, he had to pay.

“See, a horse would have shown some respect,” he said, crooking his mouth to spit. “But once you start putting donkey in there, it’s just unnatural, the creature’s instincts get all mixed up, it starts getting its own ideas about who’s boss, against God’s plan, and I tell you what, that’s a dangerous thing.” He ground his spit into the ruddy dirt with his bootheel, and nodded vigorously as he reached for his snuff. “It’ll get just what it deserves, and I tell you, I’m sure going to watch.”

He was. But then, we all were. General Abbot’s vendetta against “Colonel,” the mid-aged grade mule that had left him with a bruise shaped like a cannonball, was already the stuff of legend around our battalion, and the General’s revenge was, if Dicky’s account of the matter was to be believed, destined for epic scale. The General was a ruthless man at best, and the old Colonel’s assault, prompted by a cinch pulled too tight, had invoked the General’s purest wrath. That afternoon, he submitted us to hours of calisthenics under the New York summer sun. He trampled the already suffering scrub grass of the parade ground, all the while slapping a riding crop against his bad thigh, as if to prolong the pain, and through it, stoke the steaming engine of his rage.

By evening, during an impromptu dinner party at Corporal Smith’s palatial manse, the beast’s fate was sealed. The execution was imminent, and the secret method employed would, we heard, be a modern wonder worthy of Barnum himself, a spectacular of American know-how. Dicky began collecting bets at sundown, weighing the odds of electrocution versus firing squad, his eyes two thin slits in his leathern face as Henry, Thom, and all my chums invented novel ways to die.

But even the condemned should receive last rites. And that, it seemed, was left to me. I stole from my bed in the pitch of night, while my bunkmates snored on, unaware. I made my way to the stable softly. The horses were whales in the dark, silently shifting through the black, their massive bodies drifting just above the earth as they cropped the dewy brown grass. Not a soul was in sight, save them. And I was frightened as one is frightened in church. I, who had thrown rocks at them mere days before, drunk on cider with Dicky and Thom.

The mule I found alone, sequestered in a round pen beside the main barn, his great bullish head butting up against an empty feed drum, his huge brown eyes limpid, innocent of the drama that now surrounded him. He greedily lipped the handfuls of grass that I pushed through the fence, and allowed me to groom the long black funnels of his ears, stretching his neck out so I could scratch them. We smoked my last pipe of Cavendish together, that mule and I. And he seemed glad for the companionship of a fellow creature, however unfamiliar, his damp nostrils flaring and huffing, his warm breath joining coils of smoke.

As reveille sounded next morning, we were visited by the General himself. He marched through our bunkhouse, a wide grin slashing his bearded face, his best riding crop beating a tattoo upon his massive right thigh. A mincing, suited businessman brought up the rear, his shoulders burdened with an array of leather satchels, his forehead slick with perspiration despite the chill of the room. We dressed with rapidity, and scrambled to attention.

“Today, boys, you will bear witness to history,” announced General Abbot, his crop thwacking the footboard of Dicky’s bed so hard, the metal rang out. My bowels crept at the sound. “With the technological assistance of my new acquaintance, this Englishman, Mr. Charles Bennett, I shall perform a grand experiment in the new art of”-and here the General looked to Bennett, who prompted him with a wormlike twist of the lips-”instantaneous photography, the likes of which the world has never known, and never shall again.”

We were forthwith trooped out of the bunkhouse, unwashed and unbreakfasted, to a barren tract of land just south of the parade ground. There stood the Colonel, motionless and trusting, his rope tied securely to a wooden stake freshly driven into the earth. A makeshift surcingle secured around his girth was, we saw, elaborately attached to a host of electrical wires running through the dirt.

Upon our arrival, Bennett immediately rushed toward a tripod that straddled the land like a strange metal insect. The General boldly strode toward a card table ranged approximately thirty feet away from the beast, and we followed like puppies, jostling one another to take our places on either side of him, hastily buttoning our jackets and trousers. The table held a gadget I’d never seen before, and the General stood with one hand on either side of it, as if protecting the mysterious machinery from our prying eyes. We watched, puzzled, as Bennett approached the animal, accompanied by a petty officer who gentled it with a whiff of ether whilst a necklace of wire and gunnysacks was fastened about its noble neck. The daguerreotypist spoke then, his accent clipped and purposeful.

“The experiment will proceed as follows. The slide of my camera is supported by a fuse; this fuse and the payload attached to the subject are connected in the same electrical circuit, arranged by my assistant. On General Abbot’s signal, an electrical pulse shall travel through the wiring, simultaneously activating the explosives and dropping my camera’s slide, capturing the very second of detonation on one of my patented Instantaneous Gelatine Photographic Plates for all posterity.”

The mule’s vast ears flicked toward the sound of Bennett’s voice, then toward Dicky, who was the first to applaud. And I stood at war with myself, scarcely believing where I was, the plain words “explosives” and “payload” ringing in my ears. The fear that the mule knew by scent that I, too, was here, complicit in its killing, bridled against years of conditioning to remain behind the card table, shoulders back, chin up, until ordered otherwise. But then-

“Fire!” shouted the General, his hammy hands slamming down upon the device in front of him. And in a terrible instant, head was ejected from body, its momentary flight filling the air with a bloody mist until both portions of the animal fell to the ground, still. The General strode jauntily toward the steaming carcass, first lifting the beast’s belly with the toe of his boot, then, with a broad smile, doffing his hat in the direction of the triumphant daguerreotypist, who excitedly exclaimed that, since all his equipment had worked as planned, we could soon expect him to publish an image of the headless creature, still standing, before the body had time to fall.

That evening, over cigars, Dicky declared the whole affair a delicious success, great sport and supremely edifying for all involved, particularly the mule. He said he couldn’t wait for the photograph.

Later, silent in my bunk, I wondered if he and I had seen the same thing.

N.B. This historic photograph recently sold at auction for $2,750.

Image courtesy of David L. Spahr, stereoviews.com.