When the West Was Young. Frederick R. Bechdolt
all the time and the departing ones in most instances made the mistake 30 of confiding their intentions to acquaintances. All authorities agree that Joaquin Murieta managed to kill at least fifteen––and possibly two or three more––of the score whose faces he had so carefully imprinted on his memory while the lash was biting into his bare back.
When he had finished with the work which the first part of his vow demanded, he rode away from Murphy’s with Rosita and set about the task of gathering a band that he might be able to carry out the second half.
There were plenty of cutthroats in California during that spring of 1850, and no lack of Mexicans among them. Several swarthy leaders of banditti were then operating throughout the State. One of these was Manuel Garcia, better known as Three-Fingered Jack, who had been ranging over the Sonoma valley for several years, occasionally varying the monotony of murder by tying a victim to a tree and flaying him alive. Joaquin Valenzuela was another, a middle-aged outlaw who had learned the finer arts of bushwhacking down in Mexico under Padre Jurata, the famous guerrilla chief. There were also Claudio, a lean and seasoned robber from the mountains of Sonora, adept in disguises, skilful as a spy, able to mingle with the crowd in any plaza unrecognized by men who had known him for years; and Pedro Gonzales, a specialist at horse-stealing, who had driven off whole bands under the very noses of armed herders.
Every one of these leaders had his own ugly gang of riders and his own ill fame long before young Joaquin Murieta ceased dealing monte; and every one was getting rich pickings from pack trains, stage-coaches, valley ranches, and miners’ cabins. Yet within six 31 months they all turned over their bands and became lieutenants of the nineteen-year-old boy. That list of victims at Murphy’s Diggings, his superior breeding, and his finer intelligence gave him high standing from the beginning, but his greatest asset was the purpose which had driven him forth among them. They had robbed and killed and fled with the aimlessness of common murderers, but here was one with a definite plan, to leave the whole State a smoking shambles. They submitted their lives and fortunes to the possessor of this appealing idea.
During the first year, while organization was being perfected, Joaquin Murieta traveled through northern California with Rosita gathering recruits, establishing alliances among disaffected Mexicans, and spying out new fields for plunder. Gradually, as he accomplished these things, the bands under his different lieutenants began to rob and plunder more systematically, and the scene of their operations shifted with bewildering rapidity. To-day a number of travelers were dragged from their horses by the reatas of swarthy ambuscaders in the Tuolomne County foot-hills and to-morrow a rancher down in the valley found the bodies of his murdered herders to mark the beginning of the trail left by his stolen cattle. As the months went by suspicion that these different bands were working under one leader grew to certainty among the longer-headed officers. Then the name of Joaquin Murieta began to be spoken as that of the mysterious chief. He was quick to confirm the rumors of his leadership, and before the spring of 1851 was over he managed by grimly spectacular methods to let more than one community 32 know that he was responsible for some outrage which had startled its inhabitants.
That was the case in San José. A number of the robbers had swooped down into the Santa Clara valley and their chief was living with Rosita in the outskirts of the town, directing their raids, giving them such information regarding travelers and plunder as he was able to pick up by mixing with the crowds in the gambling-houses. A deputy sheriff by the name of Clark captured two of the marauders red-handed, and Murieta determined to make such an example of him as would put fear into the hearts of other officers.
In those days the fandango was a popular function in San José, which still retained all the characteristics of a Mexican pueblo, and there was not a night without the strumming of guitars and the lively stepping of the dancers in some public hall. Murieta went to one of these fandangos and, by arrangement with confederates, brought it about that Clark came to the place searching for a criminal.
The dancing was in full swing when the deputy entered; scores of lithe dark men and their black-eyed partners were whirling in the fervid Spanish waltz; but as he crossed the threshold a discordant note arose: disturbance broke out in a corner of the hall; a woman screamed; a knife-blade flashed. Clark shoved his way through the crowd and reached the fight in time to disarm a good-looking young Mexican who was flourishing the weapon; placed him under arrest and took him away to the nearest justice of the peace, who passed sentence of twelve dollars’ fine.
“I have not the money on me,” the prisoner said, 33 “but if this officer will go with me to my house I can get it there.” It was an easy-going period and such small matters as pulling a knife were of frequent occurrence. The deputy consented to the request and the pair went forth together from the lighted streets to the fringes of the town. They were talking pleasantly enough when they came to a dark place where willow thickets lined the road on either side.
Here the prisoner halted abruptly. “I am Joaquin Murieta,” he announced, “and I brought you here to kill you.” Upon which he stabbed Clark to the heart.
All this was told the next day in the streets of San José, but where the information came from no one knew. Murieta’s custom of sending out such tidings through confederates was not so well understood then as it came to be later.
From San José Murieta went northward into the Sacramento valley and took quarters with Rosita in Sonorian Camp, a Mexican settlement near Marysville. About twenty cutthroats under Valenzuela and Three-Fingered Jack began working in the neighborhood. The ambush was their favorite method––three or four in a party and one of the number ready with his reata. When this one had cast the noose of rawhide rope over the neck of some passing traveler and dragged him from the saddle into the brush the others killed the victim at their leisure. The number of the murders grew so appalling that Sheriff R. B. Buchanan devoted all his time to hunting down the criminals. Finally he got word of the rendezvous in Sonorian Camp and took a small posse to capture the leaders.
But the news of the sheriff’s expedition had preceded 34 him, and when they had crept upon the tent houses in the dark, as silent as Indians, the members of the posse found themselves encircled by unseen enemies whose pistols streaked the gloom with thin bright orange flashes. While the others were fighting their way out of the ambush Sheriff Buchanan emptied his own weapon in a duel with one of the robbers, and collapsed badly wounded in several places. Weeks later, during his recovery, Joaquin Murieta sent the sheriff word that he was the man who had shot him down.
Northward the band rode now from Marysville until they reached the forest wilderness near Mount Shasta, where they spent the most of the winter stealing horses. Before spring they went south again, traveling for the most part by night, and drove their stolen stock into the State of Sonora. Their loot disposed of and a permanent market established down across the line, Murieta led them back into California to begin operations on a more ambitious scale. He planned to steal two thousand horses and plunder the mining camps of enough gold-dust to equip at least two thousand riders who should sweep the State in such a raid as the world had not known since the Middle Ages.
In April––almost two years to a day after the monte-dealer had left his job at Murphy’s Diggings––six Mexicans came riding into the town of Mokelumne Hill, which lies on a bench-land above the river. A somewhat dandified sextet in scrapes of the finest broadcloth and with a wealth of silver on the trappings of their dancing horses, they passed up the main street into the outskirts where their countrymen had a neighborhood to themselves.
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Here they took quarters in those tent-roofed cottages which were so common in the old mining camps, and now three of them appeared in their proper garb, well-gowned young housewives and discreet to a degree which must have exasperated those of their neighbors inclined to gossip. For these ladies had nothing to say concerning whence they had come or the business of their husbands. Two of those husbands were now spending much of their time in other camps and came home but seldom to pay brief visits to their wives. The third stayed here in Mokelumne Hill.
The days went by; the pack-trains jingled down out of the hills; the processions of heavy wagons lumbered up from the San Joaquin valley enwrapped in clouds of red dust; an endless stream of men flowed into the town on its bench-land