Having uttered his last words, the Rifle King turned his head to the wall and expired.
The daughter died soon afterward, leaving the widow bereft and in despair, but within a short time she felt her husband’s spirit hovering near her, whispering, “Go West, dearest, make a home for the ghosts of the slain, appease their anger. The lost souls will haunt you, and give me no peace, until amends are made.”
The poor woman did not know what to make of it, but every night her husband’s shade entered her bedchamber, whispering, “For the sake of my salvation, propitiate the ghosts of those whose lives have been ended by death-dealing Winchesters. Go West, I implore you! Give the ghosts a home!”
And, shuddering, Sarah heard not only her dead husband’s voice, but also the clamorings of numberless phantoms, pleading, “Give us a home!”
Sarah sold the fine house and left Hartford for California. She had inherited a fortune of twenty million dollars, which she resolved to use as her husband intended. She bought a thirty-acre estate that included a mansion of seventeen rooms, situated in the Santa Clara Valley, not far from San Jose. At once, in feverish haste, she began adding more and more rooms, keeping a whole army of workmen busy without regard for the costs. Turrets, domes, spires, and balconies sprouted like weeds, turning the mansion into a bizarre castle of mysteries.
For some superstitious folks thirteen is a number of ill omen. Not so ghosts, who consider it luck-bringing, as they whispered into Sarah’s ears. And so she put to work thirteen carpenters, thirteen cabinetmakers, thirteen bricklayers, thirteen plasterers, thirteen house painters, thirteen parquetteers, thirteen glaziers, thirteen tile layers, and thirteen Japanese gardeners. Over the years her palace proliferated into a maze of a hundred thirty rooms, to which were added thirteen bathrooms, thirteen pantries, thirteen storage rooms under the roof and, in the center of it all, the Blue Room, the inner sanctum in which Sarah, dressed in splendid brocaded robes, surrounded by many priceless occult and magic objects, held séances and communed with her ghosts. And ghosts there were, by the hundreds. As soon as one more room was added, it was occupied by these specters, crowding upon each other, whispering, “Give us room, more room!”
Nothing was good enough for these phantoms which had been “Winchestered” into another world. Chambers with thirteen windows, reached by stairways of thirteen steps, were sumptuous beyond imagination. There were stairs made of Italian marble, stained-glass windows, inlaid wood panels, silver-ornamented doors, Tiffany lamps, gleaming multicolored mosaics, and bathtubs of sculptured bronze. The bathrooms had glass doors, or no doors at all. As the spirits were incorporeal, and therefore invisible, decency was not offended.
Sarah installed a ballroom in which ghostly waltzes and polkas were performed. She also added a music room and a billiard room. The mansion was replete with secret passageways, hidden stairways, underground tunnels, and trompe l’oeil doors that led nowhere—special features built to the ghosts’ specifications.
The castle stood amid huge trees, ornamental shrubs, and exotic plants. It was surrounded by thick, high hedges and almost completely hidden from view. Corporeal visitors were unwelcome, the castle being meant for the dead, not for the living. Those knocking at the door were discouraged by the haughty stern-faced butler, telling them, “Madame is unwell,” or “Mrs. Winchester is not receiving today.” Even President Theodore Roosevelt was denied admission, left to cool his heels before the great front portal. The only living person ever suffered to penetrate Sarah’s inner sanctum was Harry Houdini, the famed escape artist and master of the occult, on account of his being an expert on ghosts and being on excellent terms with them. In time, the main entrance was simply boarded up, leaving a single door at the back for delivery of goods and victuals. Thus Sarah lived in splendid isolation, alone except for her thirteen servants and a multitude of spirits.
Every night at the stroke of twelve a great far-sounding bell from the mansion’s tallest spire summoned the ghosts to come forth. At once the 130 chambers echoed to muted gunshots, the moans of the wounded, the curses of disembodied gunfighters, the war whoops of tribal warriors, the keening of Indian women, and the screams of their children, massacred at San Carlos, Sand Creek, the Washita, or Wounded Knee.
Every night the huge mahogany table was laid for thirteen diners—Sarah and twelve unearthly guests, the scene illuminated by a silver chandelier of thirteen lights. Here they feasted on dainties served on golden plates—on venison and glazed pheasant Souvaroff, caviar, quail Richelieu en gelée, bécasse Lucullus, truffles and lobster salad, washed down with noble wines, such as Château d’ Yquem, Château Petrus, Château Margaux, Premier Cru, or Grand Vin de Château Latour, all decanted into goblets of the finest crystal. And, afterward, a bombe Marie-Antoinette, or a gateau régent aux marrons, finished off with a nipperkin of Hennessy or a brandy Napoléon. For phantoms with less educated palates, such as cowboys or Indians, there was an occasional steak or buffalo boudin served with a tumbler of home-brewed tanglefoot. What the spirits were unable to consume was eaten by the thirteen servants, who waxed fat on the ghostly fare.
All was not well, however, in the ghost palace. The lady of the house was troubled by premonitions of impending catastrophe. The increasing number of people killed by Winchesters, the spirits informed Sarah, called for condign punishment. She thought it might portend an all-encompassing deluge and promptly had her thirteen carpenters build a huge ark for herself and her invisible friends. She had guessed wrong. On April 18, 1906, the earth shook, Sarah’s bed was upturned, and she herself was hurled violently to the floor. The ghosts had decided not on a flood but on an earthquake. As the ground split open and houses tumbled, the Winchester spirits broke into bloodcurdling, bone-chilling cheers. Unfortunately, the lesson was lost on the American people, who never guessed the real cause of this calamity. Sarah of course knew. She left her ghostly rabbit warren only once—through the back door—for her own funeral. At the moment of her death, there burst forth from a thousand phantom throats a great, eerie wailing and lamenting that could be heard for a hundred miles around. A local newspaper reported:
Yesterday night, September 21, 1922, a tremendous melancholy noise was heard throughout the Santa Clara Valley and in numerous places along the coast. It sounded, in the words of Mrs. Betty-Lou Smith, a longtime resident of San Jose, “like the groans of a million women in labor.” Mr. Carlos Martinez, a local wine grower, described it as “the howlings of all the devils in hell.” As the night was clear and calm, and as nowhere in our state were perceived such natural phenomena as earth tremors or volcanic activity, the cause of this great, sorrowful noise remains a mystery.
CHAPTER 10
Bucking the Tiger
Gambling is as old as mankind. Painted pebbles and animal knucklebones, used as gaming pieces, have been found in Stone Age caves. Sumerians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans—all gambled. Gambling was the one vice the white man did not bring to the New World. Indians were passionate gamblers, playing the plum-pit, stick, pebble, moccasin, or hand games. The horse had hardly been introduced to the Plains when the “Red Knights of the Prairie” bet all they possessed on horse races. Mayan and Aztec priests and nobles wagered on the outcome of ceremonial ball games—games with high stakes, as the members of the losing team often had their heads cut off. The Founding Fathers played whist in their favorite taverns while quaffing hot buttered rum. Mountain men wagered their furs, horses, squaws, or even buckskin shirts at euchre. They bet on who could devour the most boudins—lightly roasted buffalo intestines. More men were gunned down inside saloons as the result of arguments over cards than for all other reasons combined. According to Colonel Frank Triplett:
All men on the plains were gamblers, from the red savage, with his Indian poker, too complicated for a white man’s brain, to the itinerant faro banker, with his broadcloth suit and his set of magnificent “tools.” Gambling was the universal passion; some men hunted, some traded, some trapped, some ranched,
some freighted, some drove teams, but all gambled. Here the steady old veteran of three score and ten might be seen “chipping in” at a game of poker, there two youngsters, not counting more than two dozen years between them, engaged each other for small stakes at seven-up or euchre; in one place the Texan or Mexican bucked fiercely against a monte bank, while two or more stalwart sons of Africa gave way to the seduction of “craps.”
Judges and clergymen gambled with the same abandon as bullwhackers or stagecoach drivers.
Many different kinds of games were the sucker’s ruin—monte, chuck-a-luck, vingt-et-un, keno, roulette, euchre, craps, loo, banco, thimblerig, and a dozen others, but faro and poker, the latter introduced in its present form around 1830, were the preferred games. Gambling dens were aptly referred to as wolf traps, deadfalls, and skinning houses, run on the principle of never giving the sucker an even break. Every new gold strike brought to the scene whole flocks of cardsharps, bunco-steerers, and tinhorn gamblers with their many tricks for fleecing the little lambs. Theirs was a very remunerative, but also extremely dangerous, vocation, as tough Westerners considered it their birthright to kill the fellow whom they caught cheating.
Strangely enough, the macho world of the Plains gave rise to a number of gambling queens, such as Poker Alice, Simone Jules, Buckskin Alice, Minnie the Gambler, Kitty the Schemer, or Madam Moustache. “Occasionally Calamity Jane took a hand in a poker game or attempted to manipulate a faro box, but she was much more adept at another business even more ancient than gambling.”
The great part gambling played in western history is shown by the way gambling terms became part of our everyday language. Faro contributed “getting down to cases” and “coppering a bet.” To poker we owe “bluff,” “kitty,” “pot,” “ante,” “showdown,” “four-flusher,” “call,” “jackpot,” “raise,” “freeze-out,” and others. “In a nutshell,” of course, came from the old flimflam game.
A Hard Head
In most all of the many fights that I have been engaged in, I made use of what I have called “that old head of mine.” I don’t know (and I guess I never will while I’m alive) just how thick my old skull is, but I do know it must be pretty thick or it would have been cracked many years ago, for I have been struck some terrible blows on my head with iron dray-pins, pokers, clubs, stone coal, and bowlders, which would have split any man’s skull wide open unless it was pretty thick. Doctors have often told me that my skull was nearly an inch in thickness over my forehead. They were only guessing at it then, of course, but if my dear old mother-in-law don’t guard my grave, they will know after I am dead, sure enough, for I have heard them say so.
For ten to fifteen years during my early life, sporting men tried to find a man to whip me, but they couldn’t do it, and finally gave it up as a bad job. After they gave up trying to have me whipped, and they knew more about my old head, they would all go broke that I could whip or kill any man living, white or black, by butting him. I have had to do some hard butting in my early days, on account of the reputation I had made for my head.
I am now nearly sixty years of age, and have quit fighting, but I can today batter down any ordinary door or stave in a liquor barrel with “that old head of mine”; and I don’t believe there is a man living (of near my own age) who can whip me in a rough-and-tumble fight. I never have my hair clipped short, for if I did, I would be ashamed to take my hat off, as the lines on my old scalp look about like the rail road map of the state in which I was born.
During the winter of ’67 or ’68, John Robinson’s circus was showing in New Orleans, and they had with them a man by the name of William Carroll, whom they advertised as “the man with the thick skull, or the great butter.” He could outbutt anything in the show except the elephant. One night after the show Al and Gill Robinson were uptown, and their man Carroll was with them. We all met in a saloon and began drinking wine. While we were enjoying ourselves, something was said about butting, when Gill spoke up and said Carroll could kill any man in the world with his head. “Dutch Jake,” one of the big sporting men of New Orleans, was in the party, and he was up in an instant, and said: “What’s that? I’ll bet $1,000 or $10,000 that I can find a man he can’t whip or kill either.”
I knew what was up, and as we were all friends, I did not want to change the social to a butting match, so I said: “Boys, don’t bet, and Mr. Carroll and I will come together just once for fun.”
The Robinson boys had great faith in Carroll, and so did Dutch Jake have in me. I was at least fifty pounds heavier than Carroll, and I knew that was a great advantage, even if his head was as hard as my own. It was finally agreed that there would be no betting, so we came together. I did not strike my very best, for I was afraid of hurting the little fellow; but then he traveled on his head, so I thought I could give him a pretty good one. After we struck, Carroll walked up to me, laid his hand on my head, and said, “Gentlemen, I have found my papa at last.”
He had the hardest head I ever ran against; and if he had been as heavy as I was, I can’t say what the result would have been if we had come together in earnest.
Poor fellow! He is dead now, and I know of no other man with as hard a head, except it is myself. My old head is hard and thick, and maybe that is the reason I never had sense enough to save my money. It is said of me that I have won more money than any sporting man in this country. I will say that I hadn’t sense enough to keep it; but if I had never seen a faro bank, I would be a wealthy man to-day.
Indians Can Play Poker
The year I was in St. Paul they paid off a lot of Indians a short distance from town. I was told that the Red Man was a good poker player, and was always looking for the best of it. They paid them in silver, so I got some of the hard money, hired a horse and buggy, got some whiskey, and started out to give them a game, more for the fun and novelty of the thing than to win their money; for I had the old keno game running, and she was a good provider. When I got among the savages, they were having a war dance. After the dance they smoked the pipe of peace and drank my whisky, and I smoked their pipes. After the friendly smoking was over, they started in to play poker. They invited and insisted on me changing in, so at last I sat down and took a hand. One of the old bucks soon began to cheat. He had an old hat in front of him, and inside the hat he had a looking-glass, so that on his deal he could see every card he dealt out. I knew he was after me, so I told him to put the hat away and play fair. He saw I was no sucker, so he put it away. We played for some time, and it was all I could do to keep even by playing on the square with big “Injins,” as I found them very good card players. I held out a hand, but had to wait for some time for the “wild man of the forest.” At last there was a big “blind and straddle,” and I kept raising it before the draw. They all “stayed,” and drew two or three cards (I do not remember which). I took one, and when we came to “show down,” I was the lucky fellow. This was too much for the bucks, so three of them dropped out, and left an old chief and myself single-handed. As I was over $150 ahead of the game, I played liberally, to draw the old chieftain on; and as he had one of his bucks walking around behind, and talking “big Injin” all the time, he was getting the best of me. I knew that my hands were being given away, but I did not let them know that I was on to their racket. I waited my chance, and clinched on to four fours and a jack. I kept “going blind,” until the chief got a big hand, and then he came back at me strong. We had it hot and heavy. I let the buck see my hand until it came to the draw, and then I shifted the hand, and came up with the four fours and the jack, but the warrior did not get to see that hand. I then made a big bet. The old chief called his squaw, and she brought him a sack of silver. He then “called” me. We showed down; the money was mine; and then you should have seen the fun. The buck that had been giving my hand away started to run. The old chief jumped up, grabbed his tomahawk, and lit out after him. I jerked off my coat, dumped all the silver into it, jumped into my buggy, and lost no time getting out of that neck of the woods
. As I was going at a 2:40 gait, I looked back and saw the buck and the old chief going through the woods. I never knew whether the old man caught the buck or not, but I do know he did not catch me.
Jim Bowie Takes a Hand
It happened in 1832. A young southern gentleman from Natchez went to St. Louis on his honeymoon. To defray the expenses thereof, he transacted some business, such as collecting fifty thousand dollars on behalf of several cotton planters from his area. Unfortunately, he fancied himself quite a cardplayer, sitting in on a number of high-stake games at the best hotel in town. A local cardsharp figured the young honeymooner for an easy mark. He formed a consortium with two others of his kind to relieve the greenhorn of his considerable fortune.
When the young gentleman and his bride boarded the splendid new side-wheeler New Orleans for their return journey downriver, the three sharpers were waiting for him. One of them posing as an eastern merchant and cotton buyer, the other two claiming to be Louisiana planters, the trio made themselves agreeable to the newlyweds and promptly engaged the mark in a number of friendly poker games over a glass of the best. After first letting their victim win a few hundred dollars, the sharpers pulled out all stops and took the poor innocent for forty thousand dollars in greenbacks. While the young man was frantically trying to recoup his losses, Jim Bowie happened upon the scene. Being an old hand at the game, Bowie saw immediately that the crooks were “dealing from the bottom.” After a few more hours, the young gentleman from Natchez had bet and lost his last dollar. Maddened by remorse and his guilty conscience at having lost not only his own money, but also that which his friends had entrusted to him, the young man rushed to the ship’s side to throw himself overboard, where Bowie just managed to grab him by the scruff of his neck, barely saving him from a watery suicide. Taking the distraught greenhorn firmly by the arm, Bowie forcefully conducted him to his cabin, putting his bride as a guard to watch over him.
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