by Daniel Knapp
She was thinking of James King now, and of the threat he had reported in the Bulletin two days before, when she heard Murietta's carriage turn up the road to her house. James Casey had boasted that he would shoot King on sight. She dismissed the idea. Surely, as biased and vindictive as King's editorials sometimes were, there was much truth in them. And Casey would not dare to…
Murietta came into view. Gathering her parasol and trying unsuccessfully to hold her annoyance in check, she went down the front steps as he reined up his lathered team.
"Joaquin, I've been waiting an hour! Did you forget?" She noticed he seemed breathless, agitated.
"For God's sake, will you ever remember to call me Jack? Someday you will forget in public!"
"Jack, then. I'm sorry. But you're almost never this late…" Then she noticed the bayonet-fitted muzzle-loader propped up beside him.
"What in God's name are you doing with that weapon?"
He ignored the question. "I simply came to say we must postpone our ride. I'm sorry, but I have to get back to town. Too much is happening."
"Wait a minute! What is happening? What are you talking about?"
"You haven't read the papers?"
"No. Not for a day or so."
"Casey shot King. He's dying. I witnessed it from the doorway of the Pacific Express Company."
"When?"
"Yesterday. It's the last straw. We're forming our own city government. We're going to put a stop to what's happening in San Francisco."
"Who is forming a government?"
He cracked the buggy whip and started to rein his horses around.
"Wait!"
"I have to go!" he called over his shoulder. "A group of businessmen. I'll be a witness against Casey. I'll tell you more about it tonight—if I'm still invited for supper."
She nodded, and he cracked the whip again. He was out of earshot by the time Esther collected her wits. Her first impulse was to hitch up her own team and race after Murietta, but she realized he was already a quarter of the way back to the city. She needed to think. Spotting the paper lying on the porch, she walked over and picked it up. It was all there: The account of the shooting… Eyewitness quotes from several men, including "Jack Marin." …Casey's subsequent surrender to the authorities… The prediction at the end of the story that James King would likely die.
And then she caught sight of the notice printed on the lower left corner of the front page:
The members of the Vigilance Committee in good standing will please meet at No. 105-1/2 Sacramento Street, this day, Thursday, 15 inst. at nine o'clock a.m. By order of the Committee of Thirteen.
A feeling of predestined dread rose in her as she turned to the third page and saw Charles Cora's name. It was in a reprint of a James King editorial entitled "The Heavens Be Hung With Black."
"Thieves and harlots will rejoice," the column ranted, "with the acquittal of Charles Cora in the murder of Marshal William Richardson."
She had heard Murietta mention an upcoming trial in which a gambler was accused of the unprovoked killing of a U.S. Marshal. But she had no idea the gambler was Charles Cora. When it had happened, she and Solana had been visiting little Moses in Marysville, and she had been busy trying to find a second teacher for her expanding school in Sacramento. Esther also remembered Murietta saying the man owed him a gambling debt. She had not pursued the matter, never asked his name.
Astonished by the coincidence, she read how Cora had surrendered himself to his own employer; how Arabella Ryan had spent $10,000 tampering with justice and hiring as counsel Edward D. Baker. A masterful lawyer, Baker had secured a hung jury. Half the panel had been bought off: Cora, in fact, had almost been acquitted. He sat in jail now, King's editorial went on, but it was almost a foregone conclusion that Baker, Arabella Ryan, and corrupt city officials would set Cora free. Something, King had raged, had to be done.
Esther pondered what might happen and tried to understand why Murietta would be a party to any of it. All she could guess was that the vigilantes' actions would be a repetition of the kangaroo courts, trials without due process, whippings and hangings they had sponsored, carried out in the early fifties.
She guessed that he saw joining them as a final maneuver that would forever screen his past from view. She could understand that, but she couldn't believe he would ever participate in mob violence. Perhaps he thought this time it would be different, lawful. She doubted that. Worse, Murietta's life might be in danger. The thought chilled her. Somehow, at dinner that night, she would find a way to guide him to an objective appraisal of things.
The glowing fire at the far end of her long, oak-paneled dining room did little to warm Esther as she listened to Murietta go on and on about the developments of the day. Eight thousand men were under arms, among them policemen who had turned in their badges, at least temporarily, for the white-linen buttonhole markers of the vigilantes. William T. Coleman, active in vigilante affairs in 1852 and now a prosperous San Francisco businessman, had been elected Chairman of the Vigilante Committee. Coleman had requested the delivery of Cora as well as Casey. The new marshal had refused. In forty-eight hours the committee would take the prisoners by force if they were not turned over voluntarily. Tomorrow, Friday, others would be arrested. Opposing forces were organizing, calling themselves the "Law and Order Party." Among its leaders: Luther Mosby.
How ironic! Esther thought, hardly touching her food. She let Murietta go on until Solana retired to her room and her nightly ritual of prayers for Miwokan and Mwamwaash before going to bed. Sitting there, gazing past him, Esther feared for Murietta. The enthusiasm in his candlelit eyes sickened her; his earnest expression appalled her. Beyond the walnut harvest table where they sat, a fog that seemed as thick as lamb-fat blocked from view everything beyond the sixteen-paned windows. She felt as if they were sailing blindly in some unearthly ship on a collision course with doom. She recalled a similar sensation crossing the Missouri on a river ferry with Alex, years before. They had hit no shoal, just the opposite bank, slightly off the waiting slip. It had been startling for a moment, but no more. This time, on this imaginary vessel, Esther was increasingly certain the landing for Murietta would be a graveyard.
"You're not listening to me!"
"I am listening! It's simply that I can't believe it's you speaking." She had been stunned, speechless, but now disappointment and rising anger unlocked her tongue. "Do you honestly believe it will be any different this time? That Coleman and the rest of those animals will wait for legal juries to convict, authorized judges to sentence?"
Murietta glowered. "They're not animals! Some of them are my friends."
"Friends?" Esther laughed scornfully. "They're the same men who hunted you like a beast! Who laughed and made jokes about the 'greaser' whose head they displayed all over California! The man who leads them helped put the scars on your back! Friends?"
He shifted uneasily. "That's all in the past. This is different. This has to do with the life I now lead. I have to forget Joaquin Murietta. Don't you understand?" He lowered his voice. "They are simply replacing corrupt men who bend the law any way they choose." His voice grew more emphatic again. "It is their law, their courts, isn't it? Everything will be as it should be." He fished into a jacket pocket, pulled out a handbill Coleman had hastily printed up, unfolded and handed it to her. "Here. Read this."
At the top of the page the all-seeing eye in the center of the vigilantes' seal stared at her indifferently. Around it were circled the words:
"Fiat Justitia Ruat Coelum * No Party. No Creed. No Sectional Issues. * Committee of Vigilance -*- San Francisco."
Below the seal, the self-justifying first paragraph read:
"Who made the laws and set agents over them? The people. Who saw these laws neglected, disregarded, abused, trampled on? The people. Who has the right to protect these laws, and administer them when their servants had failed? The people."
Enraged, not a little because Coleman had seized on some truths that
galled her, she balled the handbill up and threw it at Murietta. "And you're swallowing this self-righteous trash?" she shouted. "It's nothing less than well-dressed anarchy. The rule of the mob—again. You must have lost part of your brain while you were robbing innocent people in stagecoaches."
Murietta pushed away from the table, stung by her sudden attack. "You don't know I did that."
"I'm sorry," she said, appalled that she had cut at him in such a humiliating and unjust way.
"And even if I—even if Joaquin Murietta—did such things, the Murietta who was driven from a lawful life, driven to rob simply to survive, would he not be forgiven? Understood?"
Revived feeling for him washed through her. "Yes. Yes, he would be." She reached out and touched his hand. "I didn't mean to speak the way I did. I'm afraid for you. I can't just sit here and let you take part in something so evil."
"It's the others who are evil, Esther. And you're in no position to allow or not allow me to do anything. This is the life I live now. These are my friends, business associates. I'm with them because their cause is just."
Born of unspoken terror for his own life or not, the piety of his words made her furious again.
"Hogwash! You're with them because you think they will never suspect anything about you if you take part in this despicable business! Admit it! You live in fear despite the fact that no one in the world believes Joaquin Murietta is still alive! They'll provide you with a little more insurance. A little less uncertainty. At the expense of God knows how many lives!"
"You have no right—"
"Listen to me! Continue with them and you will cease to exist as far as I'm concerned. Do you understand? You will be dead."
"Esther—"
"Don't 'Esther me! I mean it! I want an answer now. This instant!"
He couldn't look her in the eye. "Esther… please…" he whispered. "Please try to understand why—"
"Get out!" she shrieked, slapping him in the face. "You coward. Get out of my house! I never want to see you again!"
Sixty-one
She awoke drained from a near-sleepless night, her first thoughts a vivid recollection of a dream that had played over and over in her mind as she tossed fitfully the last few hours before dawn:
Murietta swallowed up by the fog enshrouding the house the night before. Then nothing but the fog and a distant wailing of women, her own voice recognizable above the rest. Then pelting, choking, blinding snow driven by a freezing wind. Rain and head-high waves that turned from muddy gray to red. None of it touching her. Then the fog again. And Murietta finally emerging from it, his face shattered and bloodied, his jacket covered with spreading stains. Dark liquid dripping from his string bow tie…
She tried to dismiss the dream. Her anger had cooled. In its place, as she bathed, dressed, and ate breakfast, were compassion and hard-won awareness that losing control of one's emotions was always self- defeating. Getting into the buggy and starting for town, she chided herself for having lost any influence she had over him, any chance of persuading him to reconsider. Then she turned from self-recrimination to more hopeful thoughts: There is still time. I will find him. Talk with him. Point out that, if these men, Coleman in particular, have not recognized him now, in these circumstances no one ever will… I mean something to him still. Somehow, if reason failed, that depth of feeling would provide her with the means to divert him from this madness.
Within a four-block-square area around Sacramento and Front streets, the thoroughfares were impassable. Hundreds of men carrying muskets and rifles drilled on hard-packed earth and planks set between stone or wooden sidewalks. Other groups stood in squads at intersections or idled, their weapons at rest, in orderly fashion at various storefronts.
In Sacramento Street, she found number 105-1/2 deserted. Pushing back through the crowds, she turned left and started eastward toward a concentrated din coming from the direction of four vacant lots not far from the waterfront. She could make out long lines of vigilante troops standing in formation. Brushing past onlookers, she stepped away from the buildings and first heard, then saw a team of carpenters starting the foundation for a huge gallows in the center of the vacant area. Beyond the heads and shoulders of the armed men in the columns, she could see another team of craftsmen constructing hinged platforms just below two third-floor windows of the building at number 41 Sacramento. Above them, on the roof over a sign reading "Mills & Vantine," cannons pointed out over the open area. Armed men lined every visible rooftop.
She worked her way around the perimeter of the vacant lots and moved toward an eight-foot-high wall of gunnysacks filled with sand in front of number 41. The three-sided temporary breastwork was pocked with slits for rifles. A police lieutenant wearing an incongruous military cap from the Mexican War blocked a narrow, baffled entrance through the wall of sandbags.
"I haven't the faintest idea, madam," the lieutenant intoned, when she asked him how she could locate Jack Marin. "He could be in that formation out there, or anywhere in the city."
"Would anyone inside know where he is?"
"Not likely." The lieutenant grimaced and raised his eyebrows importantly. "Wait a minute… Marin? Isn't he the fellow witnessed the King shooting?"
"Yes, he is. One of them."
"Well, the committee'd likely know where he is."
"Could I pass through to speak with someone who might know."
"Not allowed, madam."
"Could you send someone in to inquire? Please? It's extremely important. A—a family emergency." She fished in her purse and took out a gold coin.
The lieutenant glanced around, saw that several men were watching him. "There won't be any need for that, madam. Let me see what I can do."
He beckoned to a police sergeant standing nearby, whispered in his ear, and sent him in through the sandbags. Esther stepped back a few paces. While she was waiting, a tall, fully-bearded man walked toward the entrance and stopped to shake hands with the police lieutenant. Esther didn't recognize him at first. The last time she'd seen him up close he had been much thinner and he'd worn only chin whiskers. But as soon as she heard his harsh, booming voice, she knew it was Sam Brannan.
"Got you out of the hoosegow soon enough, didn't we?" The lieutenant laughed ingratiatingly.
"Soon enough? Shouldn't've been jailed one minute for demanding the hanging of that son of a bitch Cora."
"Unjust. Unjust," the lieutenant nodded. "How were you to know that crowd would go wild?"
Brannan grunted in agreement.
The police officer glanced at Esther to see if she was aware that he was on privileged speaking terms with Brannan. He turned back.
"What's the latest from our friend the governor?"
Brannan sneered. "That horse's ass? Neeley's appointed William T. Sherman, the banker, commander of the state forces. I just tried to talk some sense into Sherman. Damn fool. He's taking the assignment seriously. Couldn't budge him. Well, we'll shove that West Point diploma of his up—" Brannan noticed Esther for the first time. She was sure he did not recognize her. "Well, you know what I mean," Brannan went on. "Wait 'til he finds out there aren't any state forces to command."
Both of them broke into loud, deprecatory laughter before Brannan slapped the lieutenant on the back and went in through the sandbags. A minute later, the police sergeant returned and passed a message to the lieutenant. He walked over to Esther.
"Your Mr. Marin is out with a group making arrests this morning," the lieutenant said. "It'll be difficult to find him. I shouldn't be telling you this, but you might have some luck if you keep an eye out in Sansome Street or thereabouts. I'd be careful, if I were you."
Esther thanked him and hurried off. She had no idea how she would manage to pry Murietta loose. She would have to improvise, possibly follow him back here and await an opportunity. Passage through the street was difficult and slow. When she finally reached Sansome, she searched the length of it, then doubled back. There was no sign of Murietta. She veered off into ad
joining streets with no more success. She was beginning to despair when she passed a bank and caught sight of the list of its officers in gold letters on a glass panel in the massive front door.
"William T. Sherman," she read. Remembering, she felt once again an overwhelming sense of interconnected destinies. William Tecumseh Sherman. As a young army lieutenant he had been one of the first men to see a sample of Sutter's gold in Monterey. He had surveyed Sacramento's Embarcadero, been a part of the city's rise—and, unwittingly, Sutter's fall. He had obviously done well for himself in San Francisco during the years she had also lived here. Acting on a sudden impulse, she pushed in through the doorway, asked where he could be found, then nearly bowled over a clerk blocking her way and burst in on Sherman in the middle of a meeting.
"Can nothing be done about the insanity that is gripping this city?" she pleaded.
Embarrassed for a moment, Sherman looked from Esther to each of the concerned-looking, well-dressed men who turned to her from his conference table. One of them, an aging man with rectangular Ben Franklin eyeglasses, laughed half-heartedly. "Madam, we have been discussing just that for the past hour."
Sherman scowled, then took in a deep breath as he tried to control his frustration. "I do not know who you are, or how you got in here, madam, but I assure you—"
"Can anything be done?" Esther snapped.
Sherman sighed, exasperated, toying with the tip of his carefully trimmed beard. "Our hands are tied for the moment, madam. Without men, without arms, I can accomplish nothing."
"And what are you doing to get them?"
"Everything I can," Sherman said, his annoyance mounting.
"Which is precious little, from the looks of things."
"You will be apprised of my resignation as commander by the press if the present situation continues—madam. I bid you good day!"
Incensed, frustrated, increasingly forlorn, Esther searched several streets again without success. She was about to make her way back to vigilante headquarters when she saw him. Two blocks ahead, Murietta moved resolutely across the street in a diagonal path toward a restaurant with a cluster of armed men. She started running, shoving aside those who did not make way. There were eight men with Murietta. They were heading toward six others standing on the opposite side of the street. In the midst of the second group she saw a tall man in a top hat and formal clothes directing those with him to fan out. He was affecting chin whiskers now, his moustache was gone, but the moment she was within twenty yards of the two groups, she recognized the scowl and the glaring eyes. It was Mosby.
