“What is your suggestion, Mr. Monk?” asked the lady.
“Well, my habit is to get people where they are going, but with a lady on board I am not going to be foolish. I suggest we get out of the storm and go back to Carson, where I know you will be safe and warm. If Kings Canyon is still blocked tomorrow, maybe we can arrange a change of horses on south shore.”
There was a resigned agreement among the passengers and so the stage went back to Carson City. Once back at the Silver Star Hotel, David McGarrity hurriedly got the rooms ready for those that needed them. Two of the passengers who lived locally returned home.
As Monk helped with the luggage, the lady asked him in front of the other hotel guests if he would tell the story of his famous ride with Horace Greeley. Monk excused himself and said he hadn’t told the story for many years.
McGarrity jumped in and said, “You know, Hank, I have never heard your version of that story either.”
“Well it was a longtime ago, and I am happy to let it be.”
McGarrity turned to the lady. “Have you seen Mr. Monk’s gold watch, Ma’am? He was given it by the most distinguished residents of Nevada, in memory of that day. Whether you like it or not, Hank, that day has gone down in the annals of western folklore. I think these people deserve to hear the story from your own lips, since today you broke your habit of getting people to where they are going.”
“Well, that’s hardly fair,” grumbled Monk. “I can’t control avalanches.”
“That’s very true, but you know what I discovered from Ted Herman, who stopped you today? He told me that the avalanche happened barely an hour before he stopped you. So, you know what that means?”
Monk was a bit lost in thought and for words. “No, what?”
“It means if the stage had been on time today, you would have been on the other side of that avalanche, and right now you would have been in Glenbrook.”
A hurt look came over Monk’s face. He looked around at the half-dozen faces gathered before him. “Had to get those runners on, and had a little bit of difficulty.”
McGarrity raised an eyebrow, knowing the real reason why the stage was late.
“You know, Hank, not only do these people deserve to hear your story, but I deserve it too!”
Monk was red faced with embarrassment. Yes, McGarrity did deserve it and he was struck to the core, thinking that maybe he had let his friend down once too often.
“You really want to hear that old story?” he said, looking again at the expectant faces. No one said a word, but several of them nodded. Monk looked at his pocket-watch. “OK, I am first going to the saloon to get myself a drink, and I’ll be back by seven. I want Josh to be here too.” Monk had a real softness for the fifteen-year-old stable lad, who always helped him to get ready. “I am going to tell this story because I am indeed indebted to David. I will tell it because perhaps I did let my passengers down today. And finally I will tell it so Josh can take this old story into a new century.”
Without another word Monk marched out of the hotel, got back on the driver’s box, and drove the stage to the livery stable.
It was fifteen minutes past the hour when McGarrity walked over to the saloon. There was Monk with his friend Gordon again, merrily drinking and laughing. McGarrity reminded Monk that he had promised to tell the Greeley story back at the hotel.
Monk turned to his drinking friend Gordon. “I got to go to the hotel and tell the Greeley story.”
“Do you even remember the Greeley, story Hank?” Gordon inquired.
“Why you drunken old fool I remember it as if it was yesterday.”
“But Hank you DON’T remember yesterday!”
“Look, you old fool….,” Monk turned on his friend with a bit of annoyance. “Josh is going to be there. The lad wasn’t born when Greeley was here. I want the lad to remember me and remember me telling the story. You and I, Gordon, we won’t see the twentieth century, but Josh will.”
“I am off to tell that story, probably for the last time, and I want it to be good.”
Gordon smiled at his old friend. “Go tell it, my friend, and I won’t be there to embarrass you when you say something I’ve never heard before.”
It was still snowing as Monk and McGarrity trudged over to the hotel. There were maybe twenty people in the lobby, including young Josh. A seat had been left vacant to the side of a roaring log fire. McGarrity whispered to his friend “The seat is for you Mr. Monk.”
Hank turned to look at his friend who addressed him with such deference.
“It’s been a great joy to know you, Hank.”
Humbled by his friend’s respect, Hank took his seat. He noticed a glass of whiskey had been placed on the table in front of him. “First of all,” Monk grabbed the glass and lifted it to his mouth, “I aren’t anyone special.”
“I heard you could turn a stagecoach around at full gallop on a city street,” exclaimed an excited voice.
“Never done such a thing, as I remember,” replied the stagecoach driver. “Seems like such a silly thing to do.”
“Wait a minute, didn’t I hear of you once spending a winter’s night on Spooner Summit, Mr. Monk?”
“Yes, that I did, but that was because I unknowingly drove a stage onto a frozen mill pond covered in snow and the stage broke through the ice. Up to my thighs in ice-cold water, now that’s something you don’t easily forget. We didn’t get the stage out of the pond until the spring.” Monk laughed.
“Are you not known as the Knight of the Lash?” asked another.
“It was dear old Horace who gave me that nickname, that day in ’59.”
A look of nostalgia was evident on the stage driver’s weathered face as he remembered Horace with some affection.
“I heard that you cost Horace Greeley the presidential election in ’72,” interrupted another.
Monk’s eyebrows knotted together as his expression changed. “How can that be?”
“It was said the story of his stagecoach ride to Placerville was told on Capitol Hill, to ridicule Greeley on the floor of the Senate.”
Monk wanted to refute that he had any dealings with sabotaging Greeley’s presidential run. “Horace wasn’t always liked. He stood for things, he fought against corruption, and he didn’t stay dumb, like the most of us. He knew the worst of those political charlatans, and his enemies wanted any nonsense to make him look foolish. If they chose a harmless incident which involved me several years earlier, it just shows how desperate they were.”
“So, Mr. Monk, you didn’t purposely set out to embarrass him that day?”
“For heaven’s sake, no. I had a bit of fun with him, that’s all.”
“Can you tell us your own version?”
Monk looked up to see the hopeful face of the young lady.
“Well, you have to remember it was a long time ago, more than eighteen years now. Before the Civil War, before Lincoln was president, before Reno came into existence, before the railroad, before the Indian troubles, before the Pony Express, and before the Kingsbury Grade. The West was a different place. For a start, this wasn’t Nevada back then; this was Mormon Utah Territory, and the governor was Brigham Young. Most of the Mormons had gone back to Salt Lake City by ’57, and those of us left here on the western side of the territory wanted to break free from Salt Lake City. Carson City was a community of no more than three dozen buildings. Lake Tahoe was known as Lake Bigler and barely a handful of people lived on the south shore of the lake. The main route over the mountains then was via Diamond Valley. Virginia City was just a few tents, and all the millionaires had yet to be made. There was no timber cutting, no wooden v-flumes, no lumber yards, and no telegraph on the eastern side of the Sierra.”
The atmosphere in the hotel lobby was palpable, as if all those gathered were in the presence of living history. The story was well known in many variations through-out the country, but they were to hear the story from the only man living who was actually there.
“Of cour
se, I was different too. I could drive all day and night when I was young. I perhaps took risks I shouldn’t have done, but when you are caught up in a spirit of an age, when everything is new, when every day brought change, you didn’t live by rules. You had to make things happen. Fred Taylor, he made things happen. He built the first hotel in Carson and defiantly called it The Nevadan; he knew even back then that someday Nevada would be born.
One bright summer morning he hung a big sign on his hotel. It said, “Horace Greeley will stay here tonight.” It was partly because of that sign and how all the towns-people were talking about Horace that got me a little bent out of shape. I was a little bit of a rebel back then.”
McGarrity, who was leaning against the back wall, started laughing. “You do yourself a disservice my friend. You are still the rebel.”
“Maybe that’s so, but I feel sorry for Horace now, God rest his soul, and just maybe I was a little naughty. Horace Greeley was a popular man back then, before those political hacks played with his reputation. Horace Greeley was probably the most important easterner ever to come out west. You know he personally met the crowned heads of Europe. Why, he was even thrown into jail in Paris. Horace was all right. I might just have been a little in awe of him, but I was determined I weren’t gonna let it show. Everybody wanted to meet him, but I pretended I didn’t care.”
“It was July, and it was very hot and dusty the day we met. I had been drinking a bit the night before and if my memory serves me right I was a little bit late that day too…”
Besides the sign hanging outside the Nevadan hotel, leaflets had been distributed through the surrounding areas: “Horace Greeley, the founder and editor of the New York Tribune, an ex-United States congressman and possible future presidential candidate, has come to discover the West, so please welcome him to Carson City, the future capital of the new Nevada Territory.”
Thus it was that Greeley was welcomed by all the inhabitants of Carson City, except the one man who was scheduled to take him into California. In Salt Lake City, the newspaper man had been given a rare interview by the famous Mormon leader Brigham Young. That had been eight days and five hundred miles earlier, and he still wasn’t out of Utah Territory. Now he was finally on the western fringe of the territory on the border of California, in a small community which had grown up around a desert trading post known as Eagle Station and which had been recently renamed Carson City.
This high desert outpost was his last stop before going into the Golden State. The next day he would take an early-morning stage across the Sierra Nevada Mountains. He would see Yosemite, San Francisco, and the Pacific Ocean. Tomorrow night he was to deliver an important speech to the gold-mining community of Placerville, in the foothills above Sacramento. The stage he had taken from Salt Lake had headed back to the Mormon capital. It was to be a new stage and a new driver that would take him into California. After Yosemite he would take a paddle steamer from Sacramento down the delta to the San Francisco Bay, so he had just a little more than two hundred miles of rattling around in a stage.
Small as the desert community was, there was a constant coming and going of wagons. It seemed there had been a valuable discovery of silver, as well as gold, in the hills to the northeast. Dozens of miners were headed there to try their luck. Still, the distinguished visitor was creating a lot of excitement of his own.
Once washed, Greeley decided to wander along the small town’s boardwalk; several people stopped him to shake hands. The last rays of the setting sun reflected pink and purple in the wispy clouds overhead and a warm breeze blew through the valley. Greeley had been given the royal treatment wherever he had gone, and people flocked from far and wide to see the great man. As he wandered around the small community, he smelled the fragrance of the sagebrush and heard the sweet sound of a harmonica played by a solitary figure leaning on the fence of a nearby corral.
Inside the town’s only saloon the Golden Nugget, a small group of men were drinking and playing cards. One of those in the saloon that night was the thirty-one-year-old Hank Monk. The young stagecoach driver had a moustache but no beard back then. He, like Greeley, was from New York, but from the opposite end of the Empire State. The two men had never met before, but that was all going to change in the next twenty-four hours.
In keeping with the preferential treatment he had been accustomed to, Greeley was going to be the only passenger on an exclusive overland stage to California. Fred Taylor had made all the arrangements for his distinguished guest. The newspaper man had been given a lavish breakfast, and after packing his things he was down in the hotel lobby waiting for his special ride west. The stage was already more than thirty minutes late and Taylor was getting nervous. He took leave from the great man’s company and decided to go over to the livery stable, where the stage was kept. Toby, the stable lad, had everything ready; the four horses were coupled together and it was just the driver who was missing.
“Where’s Monk?” Taylor asked.
The stable lad shrugged his shoulders.
“Go to his lodgings and get him down here as quickly as possible!”
Toby ran around to the boarding house where Monk usually stayed when he was in town, but there was no sign of him.
Frustrated by Toby’s news, Taylor murmured to himself, “He was definitely in town yesterday.”
Back at the hotel, Greeley had also started to become a little concerned. He was supposed to deliver his speech to the Placerville community at seven o’clock that evening and there were more than a hundred miles of trail to cover. Even if they left straightaway it would be tight.
Taylor had a sneaking suspicion where Monk might be; he crossed the road to the Golden Nugget. There, crumpled in a dark corner of the saloon, snoring quietly was Monk, oblivious to the world around him. It was too late to get a replacement driver; Taylor would somehow have to get Monk sober and ready.
“Wake up, you scoundrel! Please, Hank, wake up!”
Immediately one of Monk’s eyes shot open, while the other slept on. “Leave me alone… another hour or two.”
“You are already late. Please, Hank, this is my reputation as well as yours.” Taylor’s tone was desperate. “It’s Greeley, the most important passenger you’ve ever had. Come on, please wake up and get going.”
On realizing it was Taylor who was pleading with him, Monk smiled and told his friend not to worry.
“Hank, you are already an hour late, how can I not worry?”
Monk now had both eyes half opened. “What‘s all the fuss about? Horace is a New Yorker, I am a New Yorker. Nothing special about us; we all fall over when we’re drunk.”
“That’s just it, Hank, Greeley doesn’t drink and he won’t understand you, even though you’re from New York. And I don’t think you should be calling him Horace either.”
“Fuss and nonsense; he puts his britches on one leg at a time, just like we all do! When’s Horace got to be at Lake’s Crossing?”
“Hank, he’s going to Placerville ---- Placerville in California!”
“When’s he got to be in Hangtown then?” Monk used the nickname that Placerville was often known by.
“He’s got to be there by seven o’clock this evening.”
“What time is it now?
“It’s just after nine.”
“Well, he ought to get going, otherwise he won’t make it!”
“Listen, you drunken fool, YOU are taking him to Placer-ville, and YOU have got to take him there. Please, Hank, for me!”
“OK, OK, I’ll do it for you, but not for Horace. Give me five minutes, got to get the team ready.”
“Toby has everything ready; we are all waiting on you.”
Monk hoisted himself to his feet, “Got to get my supplies.”
“What supplies?”
“Well, I aren’t driving all the way to Hangtown without some liquid refreshment.”
“Please, Hank, don’t let Greeley see you with any whiskey.”
“I am always the soul of d
iscretion my friend.” Monk put a knowing finger to the side of his nostril. “You just get your all-important passenger ready for the quickest mountain ride ever.”
Taylor returned to the hotel and told Horace Greeley that the driver had encountered a little difficulty but would be with them soon. Greeley asked whether it was still possible to get over to Placerville in time. Taylor told Greeley that Hank Monk was the best stagecoach driver in the West and if anyone could do it, then Monk was the driver who could.
Before leaving the saloon, Monk grabbed a couple bottles of whiskey and chalked it up on the board behind the bar. He looked at himself in the saloon’s mirror and straightened his wrinkled clothes as best he could. He palmed his disheveled hair into some sort of obedience and went to where the stage and team were waiting.
Having checked the stage, Monk patted the broad face of a grey that was in harness with another three horses. “Well boys, we have an important man from the east to deliver across the mountains.” Satisfied that all was ready, Monk drove the stage to the hotel.
Taylor watched from the hotel’s window. On seeing the stage, he walked out with Mr. Greeley’s bag and a few seconds later the great man appeared himself. There were a dozen or so well-wishers wanting to say goodbye.
Taylor then turned to his guest. “Mr. Greeley, I want you to meet Hank Monk, your driver.”
Slowly realizing that Taylor wanted him to shake Greeley’s hand, Monk got down from the driver’s box.
“Mr. Monk, it is a pleasure. I hope we can get to Placerville on time?”
“Horace,” Monk addressed Greeley as if he had known him all his life, “I have made a promise to all the saints hereabout to deliver you one way or another to Hangtown, and there aren’t gonna be much to stop me!”
The locals smiled, as they knew pretty much what that meant coming from the likes of Monk. Monk pulled out a whiskey bottle and offered a drink to his smartly dressed passenger. Taylor looked up to the heavens and shook his head.
Greeley noticed Taylor’s pained look. “I don’t think so, Mr. Monk. I need to keep a clear head.”
The Ghosts of Lake Tahoe Page 8