by W R. Garwood
copyright © 2010 by W.R. Garwood
First Skyhorse Publishing edition published 2014 by arrangement with Golden West Literary Agency
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available on file.
ISBN: 978-1-62087-827-9
eISBN: 978-1-62873-892-6
Printed in the United States of America
For Tracey
Our Golden Granddaughter
Chapter One
Gold is where you find it and the good Lord knows I’d been hunting it in one shape or other since a shirt-tail young ’un back in Mason County, Kentucky. Now as I hunkered down over my lonely campfire on a windy June evening in 1849, I wondered if I finally might be on the track of a real bonanza.
Maybe, I told myself, my side-winding trail could lead me to a hidden fortune if that gangling stranger I’d run into back in El Paso del Norte spoke the truth. Before his luck ran out he’d shown me what he was talking about—a glittering gold eagle. But he insisted it was just penny ante to a hidden outlaw cache out there somewhere—just waiting for the right man to come along.
Yet that wasn’t what had first got me traveling toward California like a wind-buffeted tumbleweed. It was the Bean wandering eye matching the Bean wandering foot that catapulted me westward.
Just a shade past twenty-three I’d already lived several busy lifetimes. I’d flat-boated from Kentucky to New Orleans at fifteen, spent a hitch teamstering cannon balls and gunpowder for General Taylor in the late Mexican fracas, and finally became a counter jumper at my brother Sam’s little trading post and groggery in the town of Chihuahua till a few short weeks ago.
Early that explosive morning, as I was dusting off the bar while musing on the local girls, Sam rushed into the place all wrought up. “Gol-dummed knot head!” His eyes stuck out like he’d been punched in the brisket. “Been out tomcattin’ again with them Verdugo gals?”
“Might have walked out with one or the other,” I said, wondering who’d been talking. Likely it was that green-eyed cat Conchita Peralta—and just because I’d dropped a hint or two that she might become Mrs. Roy Bean. sometime. Trouble was I’d worked the same dodge around Chihuahua quite freely since joining Sam.
When I’d gave up freighting after the war, I promptly got visions of becoming a merchant prince using Sam’s connections for a starter. I was a go-getter, for one thing! One or the other could wind up as a spouse to a whopping success, which would be me. The only joker in the deck was which little señorita to settle down with—and so I kept sampling the merchandise and getting away with it.
But now it seemed my sampling was catching up with me.
“Well, you’re sure in one hell of a fix!” shouted Sam. “Esteban Domingo just galloped in filled to the brim with firewater and yellin’ for your scalp!”
“Margarita’s old beau? Thought he was in a Vera Cruz jail for slicin’ up some rival.” A chill plunged down my backbone.
“He must have let himself out to come visitin’. And here he comes now!”
Sam was right. One of the meanest-looking Mexicans I’d ever set eyes on had burst through the batwings, waving a mighty long knife.
“¡Borrachón! Puckered-horned toad! Two-faced Coyote!” And these were the kindest of the volley of words shouted as he ran me around the saloon, scattering our early risers and bottles to hell and gone.
Wasting no time for peace talk, I leaped back of the bar to grab Sam’s big Walker Colt, hoping for a dry charge.
“Hold on there! I don’t know you, you crazy fool, let alone your infernal lady friends!” I cocked the heavy pistol with both hands as the last customer plunged headlong into the street. Sam was already absent.
“Sí, I know you, though, you woman-chasing cockroach!” And with a drunken war whoop he flung himself at me, knife slashing a glittering streak.
Things happened fast. And quickly came the ear-blasting roar of the Walker as the weapon belched fiery lightning. That thunderous crash was still racketing through the building as the late Esteban Domingo thudded onto the sawdust with half his ugly face missing.
For a tingling, humming moment I stood frozen, flat-footed, staring at that sprawled body on the blood-spattered floor, then I dropped his big silver-laced sombrero onto his face, or what was left of it, and staggered out onto the street. As I stood there gulping the air, a head or two poked around the nearby adobes. Other faces peered from behind cottonwoods or stared out of the alley shadows. Feet began thudding, like rolling drums, as Mexicans ran up the street. Groups gathered, big straw sombreros tipped together as their owners whispered and rolled glittering black eyes in my direction.
Although Esteban Domingo had been a no-good drunken troublemaker, he came from an old Sonora family with plenty of pesos, which had been the main reason he’d lasted as long as he had. He’d also served in the Mexican Lancers and was rated a jim-dandy Yankee sticker. Well, he’d sure enough stuck his last Yank!
Two of our regulars, Siquio Sánchez and Garcia Tayopa came pussyfooting in through the front door, brittle smiles lurking under their handlebar mustaches. More Mexicans broke away from the growing crowd and eased their way into our place to gawk and mutter.
Our Anglo traders began to show up. Big Jim Wilson and cock-eyed Frank Burns dashed over from Portales Street with old Solomon Fancher, of the freighting company, waddling at their heels. My brother was with them and he tugged me off to one side.
“Wait a minute, that bunch in there’ll steal us blind unless someone watches them,” I told him.
“Don’t fret yourself over some bottles of pop-skull or a few yard goods. and give me that weapon.” Sam grabbed the Walker out of my fist and jammed it into his waistband. “Take a look at that.” He jerked a thumb at the growing crowd.
Although it was still early in the day, the whole town of Chihuahua was up and out on the streets.
“Git yourself over to th’ wagon yard and hitch up old Zack and Betty and damned muypronto!” Sam gave me a shove and Solomon Fancher pushed me along through the milling Mexicans. He waved a hand at the wagon yard when we got there.
“Thanks to you, Mister Quick Shot, me and your brother and every gringo’s got to pull freight fast, if we don’t want our throats cut by those jumped-up chili con carnes. They’re good customers but gol-damn’ hot enemies when their dander’s roused. I oughts to know. I was at Goliad!”
Fancher waddled around, yanking his beard and flinging orders. “When we heard Domingo was after your hide, we knew one or t’other would hit th’ deck. And you . . . you unconsiderate imp . . . had to come out on top. Jest listen at that!”
The shrilling of women and bellowed curses of the menfolk began to rise around town. I wondered if Margarita Verdugo was helping in that caterwauling while I was mighty busy hitching up our Dearborn wagon. Most of the American merchants used the big, heavy Conestoga freight wagons or lubberly Chihuahua high-wheeled carts with double-yoked ox
en. I’d always felt that it gave us style to drive a span of horses, and now it looked as if we could use them to move in a hurry, for the uproar was swelling like the mutter of a coming storm.
“Hustle! Hustle! They’re about to start th’ hull darn’ war over again!” Sam was back again, wild-eyed and sweating as he mounted the squeaking seat of our Dearborn. By now just about every Americano was on the streets or gathering in the wagon yard with all of their weeping women and bawling kids.
Those glowering knots of Chihuahua citizens, milling about, waving fists, had been neighbors, customers, and apparent friends ever since Sam and I and the other gringos moved in after the signing of peace back in March of 1848. Since then we all had dug in and made the fur fly with our businesses—trading, grocery, drygoods, and the rest. But now it seemed the honeymoon was over for good.
Not a man in all those staring crowds made a move to stop our leaving. Even the local jefes kept their distance as our makeshift wagon train began to rumble, cart and wagon, up Galagos, past the rows of stores and cantinas, but the racket over on the other streets was getting louder. There came the brittle clash of broken windows and the hollow thud of scattered shots.
Hearing those sounds, every one of us whipped up our horses more briskly.
Some of our party made several hurried stops on the way to save trunks and other valuables. I got a small chest and some other oddments from our comfortable adobe on Jalapa, leaving our Yaqui house servant, Texutla, behind to watch the place against our return.
It gave both Sam and me a wrench to pull up stakes and leave our business and our dandy little home with its walled patio garden and dozens of flowering plants. There, in a corner, our huge chimoya tree, festooned with a rainbow of orchids, lorded it over a regular little Garden of Eden, rioting with lemons, kumquats, grapefruits, and golden oranges. Nothing like it in old Kentucky! And now we were being driven headlong from that Eden.
As I dashed out of the house with the last piece of luggage, old Texutla, her broad brow creased more than ever with furrows, held up gnarled hands, wailing: “Return, oh, señores, return!”
I gave her a big hug and the keys to the place, joshing her about her tears as I jumped into the Dearborn beside Sam.
Texutla wiped at her eyes. “Lágrimas de corazón son como una bendición del cielo.” Which means: Tears of the heart are like a benediction of heaven. Then she smiled through those tears. Dear old soul, we’d not see her again.
Whips cracked, wheels creaked their rusty protest, and we trundled out into the sage and sand barrens heading for anywhere but Chihuahua, women white-faced, men clamped-jawed, and kids sniffling—all grieving for their own lost Edens.
We traveled on, most of the men on horseback, trailing their families in the heavy wagons, to the tune of forty-odd. But as we followed the sandy track northward, we kept craning our necks to gaze back at the receding white cubes and oblongs of old Chihuahua; then at last the town sank away behind the rolling brown sand hills. But it was still marked by drifting black plumes, smearing up into the bright blue sky dome, where some house or business place vanished in flames.
Gone out of sight were Conchita, Emilita, and Margarita, and all the rest of those red-lipped, dark-eyed, soft-curved señoritas—as well as a year of hard work.
We figured to be followed, but it seemed the ranting citizens of Chihuahua had felt they’d come out ahead at that. Not only had they gotten rid of the gringos but they’d laid their lazy, brown paws on that bustling Yankee tribe’s property as well.
At first I’d figured to be treated like a first-class pariah by all our spontaneous exiles, but hardly a one, outside of old Fancher and Sam, gave me the slightest dirty look. Most seemed sort of proud of me. Those Mexicans back there might have booted us out, but I’d upheld the U.S.A. It was as if I’d won the war all over again before our retreat.
So we stretched out our wagon train to dig into the hundred hot and sandy miles separating us from the town of Jesús María in northern Sonora, our nearest place of refuge.
Chapter Two
After four days our entire wagon train creaked up the sandy yellow slopes of the Padre Baca and rumbled into another Eden in the midst of the empty wastelands. Here orchards bloomed around the nearby mines and inside the old town’s walls were masses of apples, figs, grapes, pomegranates, and oranges. A goodly sized stream flowing from the upper hills had been diverted through the fields to bring forth these riches. And while we waited for our scouts to return, we filled our canteens and water barrels and tended to our stock.
But we didn’t have long to wait, for within half an hour here came the scouts and tagging along as fast as they could lash their carts and wagons, every blamed Americano family in the place.
Word had somehow reached town of our forced exit from Chihuahua and all of Jesús María was bound to follow suit and drive off every gringo in sight. Before we’d finished hitching up again, at least ten families had joined us.
Again it was the same old story. Smoke from Yankee buildings billowed up into the sky like the pillar of fire the Israelites had beheld—and like those old desert wanderers we took the hint and moved on, in our case toward the border and El Paso del Norte.
It was a good thing we’d filled our canteens and casks at Jesús María for it was a long hot trek to the great bends of the Río Grande. But we gritted our teeth and stretched out, arriving at the river across from El Paso the third evening. There we went into camp in the blue dusk while the yellow lights of the adobe town began to gleam through the velvety evening.
Once ferried across the big river next morning on a pair of rickety flatboats that landed wagons and carts, one by one, at the foot of El Paso Street, there was a general meeting in the cottonwood-shaded plaza.
Most of our group, including old man Fancher and Sam, were for heading on up to Santa Fe in the New Mexico Territory, while others were determined on going back to safer ground such as Illinois, Missouri, and a few other states.
It was while we milled around, debating and visiting with the El Paso folks, that word began to circulate of some sort of gold strike out in California.
“Surely sounds like the right place to head for,” I told Sam. “Besides, our brother Josh has been out there ever since he got out of the Army back in ’Forty-Six. He’s alcalde. what they call mayors. at some spot in the road. San Diego, ain’t it?”
“Yeah, and he’s the only Bean with enough gumption to go tradin’ where th’ Mexicans ain’t so full of chili powder.” Sam had always held to a theory that Mexicans came by their hot dispositions in direct proportion to the amount of chiles they took on board each year.
“Aimin’ to go to California?” One of the Americanos of El Paso, who’d wandered up with the crowds, tackled me. “Think I’d like to git back out there. I used to sorta be in business around San Francisco. And if you cotton to company, I’ll saddle and come with you.”
Bossy old Fancher, who’d tried to coax me along with the bunch for Santa Fe, cocked an ear at us. “I been all over this end of the country, huntin’ and trappin’ twenty years back, and I tell you right now, she’s a long way from civilized.” He yanked at his beard. “Like as not you’ll run headlong into Apaches or worse. Comanche wild men.”
The big, black-bearded fellow, who’d introduced himself as Jeff Kirker, just grinned. “We’ll tote along a little Blue Ruin. Best kind of insurance. Give ’em a couple of jolts of whiskey and you can even slick ’em outta their squaws. We done it lots of times when I was ridin’ with old man Carleton’s California Column.”
“Them Californy Digger Injuns ain’t one little patch on Comanches,” Fancher growled, and, consigning us both to the devil, he shook hands and turned away to boss some easier folks.
By settling accounts with Sam, I’d got enough money to pick up a nice little bay mare with four white feet at a nearby stable on Overland Street. Then Kirker and I pooled our cash and invested in a walleyed pack mule from the same place and enough supplies fro
m Coon’s Store to take us a good long piece.
Sam, who’d definitely made up his mind to go north with Fancher and the rest of the wagon train, shook hands with Jeff and me when we mounted up next morning.
“You tell brother Josh to keep you in nights,” Sam said, grinning. “If he don’t, you just might be th’ cause of losin’ Californy back to th’ Mexicans.”
When we rode down San Antonio, followed by the good byes of all the folk we were leaving, the early sun was just spilling its beams over the eastern foothills and turning the Río Grande into one long winding path of pure gold.
* * * * *
We spent the next two days on a rough but passable trail that led along the Río Grande’s east bank toward the mission town of Albuquerque. The afternoon of the second day of our jaunt we were soaked to the very hide in one of the worst storms I’d seen in all my time in the western country, but we kept on and arrived at Albuquerque in the late afternoon of Thursday, June 20, 1849.
There were plenty of U.S. troops around as Albuquerque was still an Army base, but for some reason Jeff seemed to steer clear of any bluecoats. “Brings back hard memories,” was all he said as we sat over some downright warm beer at one of the local cantinas.
After supper of pretty passable frijoles and java at a seedy hash house on Almogordo, we squatted on a bench in the plaza and watched the sunset smoldering like the tail end of a bonfire across the gloomy mountain the Americans were calling Mount Taylor, after old General Zack, but the locals still tagged Cebolleta.
“If we’re gonna be pards,” said Kirker, clearing his throat all at once, “we’ve got to be straight with each other.” He rolled a cornhusk cigarro and peered at me, hard, in the red-gold light.
I rolled my own smoke, waiting for whatever he had in mind, while keeping an eye peeled for any spiffy-looking Albuquerque ladies that might be out taking the airs around the fence-lined plaza square.
“As I said, we oughter be straight with each other if we’re gonna be pards,” Kirker repeated while fumbling at his shirt pocket.