The Ghosts of Lake Tahoe

by Patrick Betson

  Greeley thanked Taylor and the others for their hospitality. Looking over the top of his spectacles, he turned to the hotel manager and spoke softly, “Quite a character your Mr. Monk.”

  Taylor assured him that Monk was the finest driver in the territory and no one knew the mountain passes better. Greeley had to bow to Taylor’s better knowledge of the man.

  Having shaken the hands of the locals, Greeley turned around to get on the stage. Monk, who had yet to get back on board himself, said to his only passenger, “If I may be permitted, I’d like to introduce you to all the team.” Taylor shot his friend a look of disgust, but Monk continued on, laying a hand on the first horse. “This is the noble Sir Regis, who was sired from the Scot Greys that fought at the battle of Waterloo. Monk moved around to each horse in turn. This is Tyrone, who was bred from the horse which Meriwether Lewis rode west. This is Prince, who once belonged to Davy Crockett. And last but not least, this is Running Star, who was stolen from the Shoshone Indians, and they very much want him back!”

  “And you? Who are you, Mr. Monk?” Greeley inquired.

  “I am a son of an innkeeper from Waddington, New York. I believe we are related to royalty, but we are waiting for our confirmation from Queen Victoria. Until then my lot in life is to be a humble servant. I am here to serve his eminence and to take him, and his blue parasol, on his journey west.”

  “It’s not a parasol, Mr. Monk, it’s an umbrella.”

  “Well, it would have been more useful if it had been a parasol, because it don’t rain here, at least ways not at this time of the year.”

  “Well, I think it’s time we left, Mr. Monk. If we cannot make Placerville in time, I think they have a telegraph wire connection at the relay station in Strawberry.”

  Monk knew Greeley doubted his ability to make an on time arrival happen and Taylor knew this was like waving a red flag to a bull; Monk never took kindly to being underestimated.

  “OK, Horace, if you would like to get your honorable personage aboard your exclusive charabanc, we’ll get going. If you need to talk to me at any time, you can use the hatch above your head.” Monk pointed to a foot-square hole in the ceiling of the coach.

  As Greeley got inside, Monk clambered up to the driver’s box. In sight of Taylor, the brazen Monk took a healthy swig from one of his bottles and took hold of the reins. He shook the reins, the horses responded and the stage started in motion. The locals waved as the easterner, satisfied he was finally on his way, waved goodbye from the stage window. The stage ambled along for twenty minutes or more but not at the urgent pace that Greeley thought was necessary.

  “Do you think we can go a little faster, Mr. Monk?” Not sure Hank had heard, Greeley repeated himself.

  “I just want ALL your admirers to be able to see you as you go by, Horace.”

  “There is nothing but sagebrush outside, Mr. Monk.”

  “Well, we have the smartest jackrabbits in all the country out here, and they shouldn’t be deprived a glimpse of their future president.” Changing the subject completely, Monk suggested. “You know, Horace, you ought to interview Snowshoe Thompson when we get to Woodfords. Now there’s a real local hero.”

  Still, the stage ambled on at a leisurely rate.

  “Mr. Monk, please can we move a little faster?”

  Pretending not to have heard, Monk continued, “Delivers the mail over the mountains in the snow, he does, on two pieces of whittled-wood.”

  Through the hatch, Greeley caught sight of Monk taking a swallow from a bottle.

  “Why do you drink so much, Mr. Monk?”

  “Because of the bugs I swallow, Horace. Have to wash them down and make sure they are all drowned.”

  It was nearly two o’clock when the stage slowly came into Woodfords Station. They had barely covered thirty-five miles in four and a half hours; at this rate Greeley doubted they would even make Strawberry by seven. He had started to wonder why Fred Taylor had sung Monk’s praises so highly.

  At Woodfords, a new team of horses were put in the traces and Greeley was anxious to go as soon as everything was ready. Monk said, “Let me introduce you to your new team, Horace.”

  “Please, Mr. Monk, I have no wish to be introduced to any more blue-blooded equine. That you yourself are royalty is enough for me. Can we PLEASE go on our way and a little faster, Mr. Monk? This is a very important meeting in Placer-ville, and the whole community is expecting me.”

  Greeley got back into the stage. Monk, disappointed he could not introduce his new team, clambered back on top of the driver’s box. Again they were in motion, but again it was at a slow pace.

  “Would you like me to stop on the way and give you a view of Lake Bigler, Horace?”

  “No thank you, Mr. Monk. When I am back this way, I would love you to take me on a slow leisurely stage ride and show me all the sights and introduce me to Mr. Thompson and others, but not this time, and definitely not today.”

  A few miles out from Woodfords, a buck-board driven by an elderly lady overtook the stage. Frustrated, Greeley shouted up to his hard-of-hearing driver, “You’re being very tiresome, Mr. Monk!”

  “Me? I’m not tired any, Horace. I had a good sleep on the saloon floor.”

  “If I have insulted you, Mr. Monk, can you please forgive me? If you get me to Placerville on time, I will buy you a new suit of clothes.”

  “Bribery is it, Horace? You’re a politician if ever I met one. I promised Fred I’d get you to Hangtown, and get you to Hangtown I will.”

  Suddenly, Monk let out a loud cry and the stage lurched violently. Greeley was thrown backward against his seat. He looked out of the stage window to see the surrounding countryside hurtling by. The horses were in a full gallop, and the speeding stage swerved dangerously around the buckboard that had passed them several minutes earlier. The startled lady driver coughed as the dust flew heavily about her. Inside, Horace desperately tried to grab hold of anything to stop being bounced up and down.

  “The wind has shifted direction, Horace.” Monk gleefully announced. “We’ll make good use of it over the mountain.”

  Greeley could not keep his seat as the stage careened around every bend in the trail. He was slammed against every hard surface inside the stage. Every time Greeley opened his mouth to speak, he was thrown from one side to the other. He suffered it a little longer before pleading with his driver.

  “Please, Mr. Monk, forget about arriving in Placerville at seven, just slow down!”

  “You just keep your seat, Horace. We’ve got a tail wind now and we’ll be even faster on the down slope.”

  “God forbid, I won’t be any good black and blue! The meeting isn’t that important.”

  “I won’t hear of it, Horace, Your public awaits you and my duty is to get you to them.”

  The stage sped all the way to Strawberry, and Horace was relieved for the stage to stop again. It was just before four o’clock, and they had gotten over the mountains and were well on the downward stretch. They had covered the last thirty miles in less than two hours. Greeley was now not in a hurry to go on.

  At Strawberry another new team was put in the traces. Monk had not gotten down from the driver’s box at any time. After taking some refreshment, Greeley was slow in coming out of the station.

  “What about our new team, Mr. Monk, who are they?”

  Monk smiled at the newspaper man. “You know, Horace, I am beginning to like you. I am afraid I am not familiar with any of these horses, but they all look pretty stouthearted to me.”

  “Mr. Monk, you are my erstwhile friend. All I desire in this world right now is for you to like me and to give me the most comfortable of rides the rest of the way.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to send your telegram?” chided Monk.

  “I have no intention of sending that telegram, as you well know.”

  “Well, my friend, if you feel no need to send that telegram and with the wind behind us as it has been since we left Woodfords, I think we don
’t have to drive quite as fast. So, get inside and we’ll get you down to Hangtown on time I think, just another forty miles to go.”

  “I am in your capable hands, Hank.” Monk smiled at Greeley’s use of his Christian name for the first time. In response to Monk’s smile, Greeley continued, “I met Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in London. I’ll write to the queen and suggest she makes you a knight of the realm. They’ll call you ‘the Knight of the Lash.’”

  “Whether I become a knight or not, Horace, I will always wish you to call me Sir Hank.

  Monk laughed and Greeley smiled for the first time since he had left Carson City.

  “You know, Hank, you mentioned Sir Regis being sired from the Scot Greys at Waterloo. I also met the Duke of Wellington. I saw him at the Crystal Palace in Hyde Park….a truly magnificent construction of glass and iron, but it suffered from the problem of bird droppings. I believe it was the duke who suggested the use of sparrow hawks.”

  “Well, Horace, I could talk to you all day, but sadly we must press on.”

  “Remember, Sir Hank, those people in Placerville won’t mind if I am thirty minutes late.”

  “A promise…is a promise, my friend and Hank Monk always makes good on his promises.”

  At first the pace out of Strawberry was not so fast and Horace was able to relax. It had been a day he would never forget, and Hank Monk was a man he would never forget either. It seemed Monk had timed the journey to the nth degree and the newspaper man had been taught a lesson by probably the wiliest, whiskey-filled stagecoach driver of all time.

  Hank had indeed purposely played with Greeley, knowing all along that he would get to Placerville at exactly seven o’clock, but now there was an unforeseen difficulty. In Diamond Spring, a welcoming committee was gathered. Dozens of people, complete with marching band and military attachment, were set to escort the great man in a grand procession the last five miles into Placerville. Monk looked warily on the people he could see blocking the trail up ahead. All these people were going to delay him, and if they didn’t get out of the way, he might not reach Placerville on time as he had promised.

  “Hang on, Horace!” Monk shouted.

  Suddenly the stage lurched a second time as it was again being driven at neck-break speed. The stage and horses flew down toward the gathering. The people in harm’s way panicked as it became evident that the stage was not going to slow down. People pushed each other to get out of the way. Many of them fell over, and a base drum was hurriedly abandoned by one of the fleeing band members. As several horses’ hooves and one of the stage wheels went over the drum, the stage bounced higher and harder than it had at any previous time. Greeley was thrown with so much force that his head went through the hatch, and for a moment he was stuck with his head protruding through the roof of the stage.

  Several of those gathered shouted for Hank Monk to stop as the stage thundered through their midst, but Monk ignored all their pleas. He had made his promise and nothing would deter him from it.

  As Monk pulled the stage up to the Cary House in Placer-ville, a look of horror was evident on the faces of those who had stayed behind to prepare the meeting. “Where are the mayor and all the townspeople who were supposed to meet you in Diamond Spring? Where is the marching band and the attachment who were supposed to escort you here?”

  Greeley painfully got out of the coach. It was a totally inglorious way to end what had been one of the most humiliating days of his life. He was battered and bruised, his jacket was torn at the shoulder, his neck-tie had shifted to one side, and one of his spectacles was badly cracked. However, before he could muster enough strength to speak, his cheerful nemesis declared “Ten minutes early Horace!”

  “And that’s about how I remember it.” Monk smiled at his delighted listeners inside the Silver Star lobby.

  “If Horace Greeley was so important, why didn’t you have a shotgun ride with you?” asked one of the men in the audience.

  “Well, if there had been a shotgun rider with me, I would probably have lost him overboard by the time we left Wood-fords.” Monk laughed. “There was no need for a shotgun and I rarely had one. Of course, the Paiutes went on the warpath the year after Greeley’s visit but I never had any real trouble with them. I used to give them whiskey, which I told them I made myself. They knew if they killed me, then that would be an end to their firewater.”

  “Really, Mr. Monk, you are one of the most unusual persons I have ever met,” the delighted lady clapped gently. “So you drink in the winter to keep yourself warm while singing to your horses, and you drink in the summer because of the bugs and to appease the Indians?”

  “All good reasons you have to admit Ma’am. I also drink in case I fall off the driver’s box, which only hurts when I am sober.”

  The man at the end of Homewood pier was waiting for the Steamer Ship Tahoe to come around the point from Tahoe City. He was overweight and a bit sluggish on his feet, but this belied a natural aptitude he had in the water. No one could swim like Martin Lowe. He could dive more than sixty feet, retrieve any chosen item off the bottom of the lake, and bring it back up to the surface. Somehow, he had turned this talent to his advantage and had become a showman, performing aquatic feats for visiting holiday-makers. His shape and size gave his antics a comical edge, and even the locals would drop by to see the man they knew as “The Homewood Walrus.”

  Martin had come from obscurity a year earlier, a drifter who had arrived in the late spring of 1906 looking for work. He was originally employed as a handy man and often used to walk around with a hammer in hand. But what work he actually did, was an amusing mystery to the locals of Homewood. He hadn’t received much scrutiny in those early days, and he had liked it that way. Now he was some kind of freakish tourist attraction, which he didn’t mind either……… as long as he was rewarded!

  In the spring of 1906, Martin Lowe’s life had literally come crashing to an end. He was working as a house painter in San Francisco and had been renting a single room on Larkin Street.

  On the evening of April 17th, he went to bed at nine thirty, only to be woken at eleven by the continual barking of a neighborhood dog. The dog never did stop barking, but Martin eventually drifted into a restless sleep. Then, before daybreak, he was suddenly tossed from his bed. Before he could completely come to his senses, an explosion flung him violently toward the street below.

  Bruised, dazed, and bewildered, he slowly became aware that the house was missing its walls and ceiling. The air was full of dust and he sat there choking and spluttering, uncomfortably perched on the remnants of the house. As he had struggled to his feet, in his torn and shredded pajamas, the light of the coming day brought evidence of an unimaginable disaster. The explosion had been deafening. Every single house in the street was a shell of its original structure. As he took it all in, slowly his hearing recovered and the surreal turned into a dreadful reality. He remained motionless in the ruins of the house, listening to the sounds of horses whining and distant explosions, as the sun rose on the shambles of a broken city.

  It was his first and only experience of being in an earthquake. Stunned, shocked, and dismayed, he struggled to his feet but a massive aftershock knocked him down again, and it took him a long time to trust the ground enough to stand once more. Caught between wanting to remain still and an urgent need to get away, he haphazardly searched through the rubble for some of his possessions. After an hour or so, he found some clothes, boots, a blanket, fourteen dollars, and his dead landlady. With these few possessions he spent the next few hours stumbling over the ruins of a devastated San Francisco. There were numerous aftershocks that brought renewed terror and palls of smoke which billowed into an ever-blackening cloud that hung low over the city for days. There was also a pervasive smell of gas and the sound of people moaning wherever he went. Many people, still in their night attire, wandered aimlessly wanting to escape but fearful to leave their homes.

  Martin kept on moving. He stepped over bits of masonry and all
other kinds of debris in the streets. Some paved streets had cracked and buckled, crippling the cable car service and making all other means of transportation nearly impossible. Drivers abandoned their carriages, unhitched their horses, and left them to fend for themselves. Aftershocks would panic the horses, and one would occasionally bolt past the homeless house painter.

  After precariously picking his way over a variety of obstacles, Martin turned a corner to see a jet of flame roaring from a hole in the sidewalk. It was just one of several ruptured gas mains below street level that would add to a growing inferno. He passed half and completely destroyed buildings, he witnessed several rescue attempts but a lot of people simply sat huddled together, whimpering. As night approached he saw soldiers with rifles and hastily written signs on damaged properties saying “Keep Out!”

  He was making his way to Union Square when he was stopped by a fire so huge that it engulfed a city block. The heat was tremendous, and burning embers filled the sky and flew in all directions. There were no efforts to put the fire out, and it became obvious that soon many more blocks would go up in flames. He had to abandon all hope of reaching Union Square, so he turned around and headed to the waterfront.

  The first night on the wharf was fine; there was even a sense of camaraderie, everyone being in the same boat. He spent an uncomfortable but relatively peaceful night on one of the many boardwalks with hundreds of other homeless victims. By afternoon of the second day a feeling of unease set in and several people had climbed the fences surrounding the piers to get at the store of goods unloaded from ships. By the second night, fires were deliberately set by looting, wayward gangs, and various disputes broke out.

  He spent the second night with one eye open and had to move several times to avoid being robbed of his meager possessions. On the third afternoon, things went from bad to worse, as federal troops indiscriminately shot suspected looters. The innocent fell along with the guilty. Many people lay dead and dying, in a city that was ablaze for more than fifty blocks from Market Street to the harbor area to Van Ness Boulevard. Nothing in the legendary Wild West compared with the hellfire and insanity of those few days in San Francisco. All he thought to do was escape, to find somewhere he could think and be safe.