Legends and Tales of the American West

by Richard Erdoes

  Humphreys, Noon, Bell, and Packer next agreed among themselves that Miller should furnish the next meal, because he was young, tender, and fat. He was killed with a hatchet while stooping to collect firewood. The survivors now eyed each other with a great deal of apprehension, but men have to sleep sometime. Humphreys and Noon did not manage to stay awake and wound up in the cooking pot, but Packer pronounced them not nearly as succulent as Miller.

  Packer and Bell were now alone. Calling God to witness, they made a solemn pact not to kill each other, even if they starved to death. Each had a rifle and they were hoping to find game. Their hopes were disappointed. Again they were living on a thin diet of roots. Bell, with that certain hungry glint in his eye, began to shout: “I can stand it no longer. One of us must make meat for the other, right here and now!”

  Raging like a maniac, and baring his teeth like a wolf, he took a swing with his rifle butt at Packer, who parried the blow and, in return, buried his hatchet in Bell’s skull. Packer gorged himself on his companion’s flesh, packed up what was left of it, and stumbled on. Wading hip-deep in snow, and utterly exhausted, he spied a distant light. It came from the Ouray Agency. He had come full circle.

  Packer was held for trial, but escaped. For nine and a half years “he got lost.” There were rumors that he had gone to Australia, where a gold rush attracted thousands of prospectors. But nothing was really known of his whereabouts. In March of 1883 an old gold miner named Frenchy was tossing restlessly on his bed in a Fort Fetterman boardinghouse, being kept awake by particularly voracious bedbugs. Through the thin partition between his and the adjoining room, he heard the voice of a man slinging woo at a “lady of the night.” Frenchy recognized the voice as belonging to none other than the long-sought “Packer the Cannibal.” He at once rousted out the local sheriff, who arrested the man in question who said that his name was John Schwartze. But it was Packer all right, and he was speedily brought to trial. The Saga of Packer the Cannibal ended on a dramatic note. Sentencing Packer to death, Judge Gerry concluded with this historic and memorable pronouncement of doom:

  PACKER, YAH REPUBLICAN, MAN-EATING SON OF A BITCH, THERE WERE FIVE DIMMICRATS IN HINSDALE COUNTY, AN YAH VORACIOUS BASTARD HEV EATEN ’EM ALL! I SENTENCE YAH TO BE HUNG BY THE NECK UNTIL YOU’RE DAID, DAID, DAID, AS A SOLEMN WARNIN’ AGIN’ REDOOCIN’ THE DIMMICRATIC POPULATION OF THIS COUNTY. AN’ MAY THE LORD HAVE MERCY, FOR I DON’T, ON YER DAD-BLAMED CANNIBAL SOUL!

  Packer’s sentence was eventually commuted to forty years in the Canon City penitentiary. He vowed never to speak again and silently spent the next eighteen years braiding ropes and making hair bridles. Then Polly Pry, a pretty lady journalist working for the Denver Post, “rediscovered” the man-eater and got a good story out of him. “PACKER THE CANNIBAL REDIVIVUS!” read the headline. The Post started a campaign for the cannibal’s release, and on January 1, 1901, Packer was pardoned to become the doorman and elevator operator for the Denver Post, giving those passengers, riding alone with him to the top floor, a wonderful case of the jitters. The man-eater finally went up the flume, as the miners put it, on April 24, 1907. Democrats are now in the majority in Hinsdale County.

  A Golden-Haired Fellow

  A miner named Nugget Nick had struck pay dirt—about five thousand dollars’ worth of gold dust and nuggets. On the spur of the moment, he decided to go to town for a little spree—get soused, buck the tiger, visit the scarlet ladies. He set off as he was, mud in his ears, mud between his toes, mud in his hair. When he got to town, the first thing he saw was a barbershop with a big sign: SHAVE & HAIRCUT 25 CTS.

  It occurred to him that his beard had not been trimmed in almost a year, that his face was hidden behind a veritable jungle of hair, and that his appearance could conceivably frighten the Daughters of Babylon. He entered the tonsorial parlor and told the barber: “Here’s your chance to make some money. Will you cut my hair for what you can get out of my beard?

  “You’re crazy,” said the barber, “it’s two bits or vamoose.”

  “Suit yourself,” said the miner, “but I’ll pay you double if you catch all the hair you cut off my head and beard in one of them shavin’ basins of yourn. Be sure to catch it all.”

  “It’s a deal,” said the barber.

  When the job was done, the miner said; “Now fill this here basin with water and then watch me.”

  The barber did as told. Nugget Nick started sloshing the water round and round, washing every last speck of dirt out of his hair. Then he removed the hair and started panning for the yellow. Nugget Nick got thirty-one buckaroos’ worth of gold out of the basin. The barber was the saddest tonsorialist in all the West.

  Treasures of Various Kinds

  There was a poor man named Juan living halfway between Santa Fe and Chimayo. Pobrecito! This Juan was indeed very poor—poorer than poor. His wife was a nag, telling him every day about the rich and handsome men she could have married, men who would have kept her in style, giving her fine things to wear, and jewels, and servants to do all the housework. Juan’s son, Jesús Eulalio, was a pícaro, a no-good hombre, doing time in the calabozo for horse theft. Juan could thank his patron saint, San Juan Nepomuceno, that his Jesus was merely jailed and not hanged. And there was Pablita, Juan’s daughter, who had so far forgotten herself as to have borne a child out of wedlock to that poltrón Pedro, an idler given to drink. The good padre, Fray Domínguez, had persuaded this Pedro to marry Pablita, threatening him with everlasting damnation, but what satisfaction could there be in a marriage with the fruit of their sin squalling all through the ceremony, reminding all present of this scandal. And what good was a son-in-law like Pedro, not a respectable hardworking muchacho who contributed something to the family, but a holgazán, a lie-a-bed, eating up more than his share of food and wasting time in idle chatter while hitting the bottle.

  Pobre Juan! To add to his misery, his fields were small, full of rocks, insufficiently irrigated, and yielding little. His sheep suffered from blackleg; his lambs were devoured by coyotes and bobcats. His single horse had glanders and the blind staggers. His mule was vicious, waiting for an opportunity to kick Juan in the hip or groin. His sow had the lamentable habit of eating her piglets. His chickens were succumbing to parasites and refused to lay. Cutworm had gotten into Juan’s beans, cornworm into his maize. There were more wiggling, voracious grubs in his orchard than apples. “Madre de Dios!” Juan cried out in despair. “What am I going to do?”

  Juan’s father had also been poor. He had left his son nothing but an old map, drawn on deerskin, indicating a spot where an ancient treasure might be found. Now there had always been talk about lost bonanzas and hidden eldorados. Almost every one of the older families had such a map of forgotten mines and hidden treasures, maps drawn on the skins of animals, on cowhide, on parchment, on faded paper, written in Latin, Spanish, or English, maps of the conquistadores who had ridden with Coronado, Oñate, and de Vargas, maps accidentally lost by gringo prospectors or palmed off by larcenous hucksters. Juan had not paid much attention to the map because his father, and grandfather, and great-grandfather had already gone treasure hunting with it and found nothing. But now, with hunger knocking at the door, he remembered it. Quién sabe? His father might have searched in the wrong place, or could have overlooked something, or misread the map. Might Juan not succeed where his father had failed? He had forgotten where the deerskin map had been stored and had to search long and hard for it. He found it at last at the very bottom of an old trastero filled with heaps of worthless things. He carefully unfolded the map and studied it. The treasure, according to his ancient mapa, seemed to be located somewhere in the Jemez Mountains, in or around an old mission church, destroyed by idol-worshiping indios during the great Pueblo Revolt of 1680. But of its history Juan knew nothing.

  Before he set out on his quest, he invoked the help of his patron saint. He had not one but two images of his santo, two ancient bultos of faded colors and full of worm holes. One image was big and the other sma
ll. Juan concluded, not unnaturally, that the little one represented the saint’s son, his niño. Juan lit a candle before his two santos, knelt down, and prayed: “Señor Santo, you see how it is. We are so poor, muy pobre. We need your help. It costs you nothing. So why not do it. I have only enough centavos to light this one small candle for you, but if you help me find the treasure, I’ll light a dozen candles for you all the time. And I’ll cover you and your little niño with gold leaf and build an altar for you. Do this for me, por favor, Señor San Juan Nepomuceno. It is your job to do it.”

  Juan said this because his special saint was martyred for refusing to break the secrecy of the confessional, which indicated to Juan that the saint was in charge of secrets, particularly secret tesoros. He took the smaller image and put it away in the trastero in which he had found his mapa.

  “Señor Santo,” he informed the larger bulto, “I have taken your little son away from you and you won’t get him back until you let me have that treasure. So get busy, por Dios!”

  After having settled matters with the santo, Juan saddled his limping horse, took the mapa, pick and shovel, a skin of wine, and an ancient muzzle-loading pistola as protection against bandidos who might rob him of his treasure if he should be lucky enough to find it. Thus, equipped, he set out for the Jemez Mountains. He had no trouble finding the ruin, but the ground around it was all torn up, telling him that there had been many treasure hunters there before him. He was not discouraged. He had prayed to San Juan Nepomuceno. They probably had prayed to some other saint. He dug, he shoveled, he gouged, he scooped out for many days—all in vain. His food was giving out, his wine was gone, his sorry nag had plucked up all the grass growing around the ruin. Juan was finally ready to give up when he noticed that one of the stone slabs that formed the ruin’s floor was raised a little above the others. With great effort he was able to pry the slab loose and dig underneath it. What he found was no treasure but a grave containing a moldering skeleton turned brown with age. Juan looked at the skull and the skull looked back at Juan. Juan was thinking.

  “Señor Espectro, Señor Ghost,” he said at last, “I am sorry to see you lying there like this, but it happens to all of us. But, hermano, you have been lying there for a long, long time, for hundreds of years, maybe. You must know everything that happened here. I think you are guarding that treasure. I don’t have to tell you that it is of no use to you in the condition you are in. It can’t buy you a tortilla, a bottle of wine, or the love of a woman. I, on the other hand, have great need of this treasure. I have a nagging wife, a no-good son, a daughter who makes babies before she is married, and her child, as well as a lazy good-for-nothing son-in-law to support. My fields are poor, my beans and corn are worm-eaten. Look at my old nag here, ready to drop dead at any moment, and if she does, I have no dineros to buy another horse. Look at the rags I’m wearing. Look at the holes in my pants! I can use the treasure, you cannot. If you give it to me I will do many good things for you. I will gather up your bones and put them in a fine velvet-lined coffin with silver handles, and I will have you buried in consecrated ground right in the cemetery of the big church at Albuquerque. I will have many masses said for the saving of your soul, and I will light candles for you, not a few, but many, and not small ones either, but the biggest, tallest ones I can find. But you understand that I cannot do all this until you show me the treasure without which I can neither buy the coffin, nor the candles, nor pay for the masses so necessary to shorten your time in purgatory. You must see, compadre, that it is in your own interest to give me that treasure. For the love of God, Señor Ghost, do it!”

  All at once, the grave was filled with a wondrous light, and amid sweet odors there rose from the jumble of bones a smiling, transparent spirit, dressed like a caballero of the times of El Rey Felipe, in a gold-brocaded doublet and a cartwheel of fine lace around his neck. In his hands the smiling ghost carried a chest held together with metal bands. The ghost was made up of light and air and gauzelike mist. Juan could see right through him, and when he tried to touch him he could feel nothing but air. But the chest was real and solid. It was a true miracle that a ghost made of nothing could carry such a heavy arca. The friendly ghost made a courteous bow, put the chest down in front of Juan, and smiled. Juan asked: “I do not know how to thank you, Señor Ghost, but, being on such good terms, tell me, are there women ghosts, and if there are, can you make love to them?”

  The ghost looked annoyed at such impertinence and vanished in a shimmering cloud.

  Juan felt around the chest. There was nothing ghostly about it. It had a lock, and stuck in it was a key. With trembling hands Juan turned it and lifted the cover. He could hardly believe his good luck as he stared at the fabulous treasure the arca contained—gold escudos, maravedis, florins, duros, caroluses, cruzeiros, doubloons, tostons, and coronas, making altogether an enormous fortune in coins. Juan sank to his knees to give thanks: “Gracias, gracias, Señor Espectro, gracias, San Juan Nepomuceno, thank you, thank you, Madre Santíssima, Lady of Light!”

  Juan loaded the heavy chest on his old horse, which staggered under the burden. He gathered up the skeleton in his ragged coat, and hurried home, a most happy fellow—a muy feliz hombre. He arranged for his bag of bones a magnificent funeral, gave alms with both hands to the poor, covered his santos, both the big and the small, with gold leaf, and invited everybody he knew, and some he did not know, to a big fiesta.

  Juan had a neighbor, a certain Don Fernando. He was a well-to-do rancher, but mean-spirited, miserly, and covetous. He always made fun of Juan, laughed at his ragged clothes, at his sorry-looking horse, and made insulting remarks about Pablita, who, he said, had given birth too early and married too late. Juan’s good fortune kept Don Fernando awake at night with envy. A no-account pauper like Juan, in Don Fernando’s opinion, did not deserve to have found so rich a treasure. What did such a low fellow know about money? He would only squander it. But a caballero like himself would know so much better what to do with such a tesoro. Where there was one chest of gold there might be another. Juan had made no secret of how and where he had found his. And so Don Fernando too saddled his horse, a sleek and blooded animal, took pick and shovel, a flask of the finest amontillado, and his pair of silver-handled pistols, and rode off to the Jemez Mountains.

  He had no trouble finding the ruin, and he too discerned on its stone floor a slab that was slightly out of position. He pried it loose and underneath also found a grave containing a skeleton. Playfully, he picked up the skull, tossing it from hand to hand.

  “You little son of the devil,” he addressed the brittle cranium. “For certain you have been a bandito sitting on your ill-gotten gains. You do not deserve them. They belong to the finder, namely to me! Don’t make any fuss! Hand them over and be quick about it! I don’t want to waste much time on you.”

  He sat there, expectantly, on what had once been a column. After a little while a mist arose from the grave and from it rose the shape of a spectral caballero in old-fashioned attire, similar to, but not, the one Juan had buried. This ghost too was made of nothing but air, and also carried a heavy chest.

  “It’s about time,” said Don Fernando to the apparition. “Don’t stand there like a fool. Give me the chest!”

  The ghost obeyed, grinning horribly. “Now go,” said Don Fernando, “you are no longer wanted. Get lost. Vamoose!”

  The ghost laughed in a most unnatural hair-raising manner and vanished without a trace.

  “Good riddance,” said Don Fernando. “Now let’s see what we’ve got.” Impatiently, he pried open the lid and groped in it for the expected gold coins. Then he began to curse in the vilest, most shameful way. The chest contained no treasure but … but what? Ah, it would be indelicate to tell you.

  The Missing Chest

  About one hundred miles southwest of Santa Fe lies the sleepy village of Manzano, at the time of the events to be described a jumble of low adobe buildings baking in the sun, exclusively inhabited by Spanish-speaking fo
lks. Time meant little in Manzano then, at least time as conceived by gringo historians. The year in which it all happened is therefore undetermined. It happened “some time ago,” or “long, long ago,” or “when grandmother was a young girl.” An educated guess can be made from the tradition that it happened before the railroad came to New Mexico and before the first Anglo settled in the vicinity of Manzano. Something can also be deduced from the appearance of the mysterious stranger who, like an alien from another world, one day showed up in the village plaza. He wore, all agreed, an elegant knee-length frock coat resembling the one President Lincoln wore. It was remembered by the earliest tellers of this story only because it was held together in front by a long row of buttons—not ordinary ones, but buttons made of twenty-peso gold pieces, something that stuck in the mind of the Manzano folks. The stranger also wore a stovepipe hat, never before seen in this part of the country. In view of this attire one may say with some confidence that the mysterious event took place some time between 1845 and 1870.

  The stranger arrived in a handsome light carriage drawn by a team of mules, the finest, sleekest mules ever seen. He was a most imposing personage, portly and over six feet tall, and endowed with a stentorian voice that could be heard at a great distance. Of his face it was only remembered that it was dominated by a mouth engagingly smiling from ear to ear and displaying an extraordinary set of brilliantly gleaming teeth. He was an exceedingly cheerful, polite, back-slapping individual who called everybody “amigo” and “compadre” in spite of being, obviously, a very important caballero, a rico hombre. Of his name there are many versions. Suffice it to say that he was Don So-and-so from the town of Chihuahua in Mexico, come on a mission of utmost importance.