On the Trail of the Truth

by Michael Phillips

  Chapter 33

  To Mariposa

  The two-day ride to Sacramento was by now a familiar one. I had traveled the road three or four times in each direction. It was almost like coming to another one of my “homes” to stay at Miss Baxter’s boardinghouse again. When I told her where I was going, she gave me several names of people she knew along the way where I could lodge.

  “If you go down the valley,” she said, “there are nice women who will put you up in Lodi, Modesto, Turlock, Merced. I’ll write their names down for you, dearie.”

  I thanked her.

  “But if you take the short route through the foothills, it’s rougher, and mostly men. I don’t know of a single reputable place from Angels Camp down through Chinese Camp and Moccasin Flat. No, you’d best stick to the valley and then cut east from Merced.”

  She wrote the names down for me, and having them in my pocket gave me a feeling of security. Then we talked a little about our old trail boss, Captain Dixon. She said he was just about due, and I told her to give him a hug for me.

  “He’ll be so proud when I tell him how you’ve grown and how you’re a real reporter for a San Francisco newspaper!” she said.

  “Not a reporter,” I corrected her. “Just barely a writer, and only sometimes at that!” I laughed.

  “Perhaps that will change when you find what you are seeking in Mariposa,” she said.

  I hoped so, too, although inside I was getting more and more fearful that I was on what Pa would call a fool’s errand. But I wasn’t about to turn back now, even if I did come back empty-handed.

  I left the comfort and security of Miss Baxter’s and Sacramento early the next morning, and went straight south on the road leading through Lodi, Stockton, and Modesto. It was hot and dry and dusty, and I was glad I had plenty of water with me. There weren’t too many people on the road—now and then a rider on horseback, and two stagecoaches headed to Sacramento.

  At first I rode pretty hard, but before the morning was half gone, I knew I had to slow down or poor Raspberry would drop from exhaustion in the heat. Stockton was fifty miles, and I’d thought of spending my first night south of Sacramento there. But I passed through Lodi well before noon, so I decided I’d try to make it all the way to Modesto, where I had the name of a boardinghouse. That extra thirty miles in the afternoon sun nearly wore me out, and when I got to Modesto that night I didn’t think I could ever get in a saddle again in my life!

  I didn’t start nearly so early the next morning. I only had to go thirty miles that day, though on my sore rump it was far enough! I got to Merced in the middle of the afternoon, found Harcourt’s Boarding House, took a bath, and then fell fast asleep until dinnertime.

  The next morning I prepared to go to the Fremont estate, only fifteen miles from Merced. I told Mrs. Harcourt that I might be back that night, but that I couldn’t be sure.

  When I set off east from Merced toward the foothills, the rising sun was in my eyes. As it rose in the sky, the hills came closer and closer, with the mountains in the distance behind them. It was probably ten-thirty or eleven in the morning when I approached the Rancho de las Mariposas, estate of presidential candidate John Charles Fremont. In my heart, I must confess, I felt about as uncertain, scared, and intimidated as I had ever felt in my life. If this was “following my dream,” as Almeda had put it, I began to wonder if it wasn’t time to just give the whole thing up and turn around! I had no idea who I’d run into or what they’d say to me . . . or what I’d say to them!

  Lord, I prayed silently, remembering my prayers before the blizzard and the article I’d written about the Wards, I don’t know what I’m supposed to do next, but please guide my steps . . . and show me what you want me to do.

  And then, taking in a deep breath of the warm dry air, I rode forward toward the gate of the estate, about half a mile outside the little village of Mariposa.

  I learned later some things about the estate I didn’t know at the time. In 1847, the explorer John Fremont gave a friend $3,000 to buy some land for him near San Jose, just south of San Francisco where he hoped to settle with his family. By mistake, however, the man bought a huge estate eighty miles too far inland, across the flat, dry San Joaquin Valley. At first they were disappointed, but as soon as the Fremonts saw their new land, they realized perhaps the mistake had been a blessing in disguise.

  And as I entered the estate, I understood why! The Fremont ranch covered over 44,000 acres, with mountains and streams, waterfalls, trees, forest, pools, meadows, areas of rich soil, and even two small towns. I had already been through the first, for which the ranch was named, and I would later get to know the town of Bear Valley, and spend several nights in Oso House, the small hotel owned by Fremont himself. Fremont named his estate Mariposa after the millions of beautiful, tiny winged creatures that flew and fluttered all about it—Ranch of the Butterflies.

  Even before Fremont had set foot on the land himself, farther to the north James Marshall and John Sutter discovered gold at Sutter’s Mill along the American River, and the California gold rush was on. Only a year later, in 1849, huge amounts of gold were also discovered at Mariposa. Overnight John Fremont was a rich man. He had been well known already because of all the exploring he had done throughout the West for years; he became even more famous for the stories of the gold found on his land. When California became a state in 1850, John Fremont was immediately elected one of its first senators. Fremont’s wife Jessie was the daughter of the well-known United States senator from Virginia, Thomas Hart Benton. Fremont was therefore a nationally known politician throughout the whole country. So when the new Republican party was formed in 1854, they nominated John Fremont to run as their candidate for President.

  Fremont had not even been back to California during the whole campaign, so I didn’t know what kind of story I figured to get by coming here. And as I rode up to the gate I desperately wanted to turn around and go home. But I was here, and it was too late to turn back, so I might as well see what happened.

  A man was sitting in a little shed by the gate, which stood open. A painted sign on the fence read Rancho de las Mariposas. The man looked like a Mexican, and he stood up as I approached and glanced over me and my horse. He wasn’t carrying a rifle, though he had a pistol in his holster at his waist, and he didn’t seem too friendly. I suppose he was standing guard on account of the trouble Pa talked about with the Fremont mines.

  “I . . . I’m a newspaper writer,” I said hesitantly. “I’ve come to—”

  But he didn’t wait for me to finish and didn’t seem to care what I was doing there. With a wave of his head, he motioned me to come through the gate, then pointed along the road toward some buildings in the distance, which I assumed was the ranch itself. I urged my horse along slowly, and the man sauntered back to his shed and sat down, never speaking a word.

  Well, I thought to myself with relief, at least I made it past the outside gate!

  As I approached the house, which wasn’t big and fancy at all like I had expected, I could hear the sound of machinery and voices and wagons and workers in the distance. I knew that must be the gold mining going on. And as I got closer I saw more and more people about—all men, lots of Mexicans—but none of them paid any attention to me. There were several buildings, mostly adobe, a barn with corrals and stables attached with both horses and cattle in the enclosed areas. Several log buildings were scattered about, with a few men going in and out of them, and I figured maybe that’s where the mine and ranch workers lived. The main house was made of wood planks, but it didn’t look impressive like the house of a U.S. President. The Fremonts had never actually lived here, however. They spent most of their time back in Washington, D.C.

  I stopped, got off my horse, tied her to the hitching rail in front of the house, and took in a deep breath. I looked around again. Still no one had taken any notice of me. I walked up onto the porch, then knocked on the door, my knees shaking.

  The door opened and another Mexican ap
peared. He could not have been much older than I was.

  “Hello,” I said, trying to sound confident, “I am a newspaper writer and I have come to write an article—”

  I paused just for a second, wondering from the fellow’s blank stare whether he understood English. But even before I opened my mouth to continue, he spoke quickly.

  “Sí, you come see Mrs. Carter!” He motioned me inside. “Venga aquí, you seet down . . . you seet here,” he said, pointing to a chair. “I get Mrs. Carter—she veesit you!” And before I realized it, the young man had left the room and I was alone again.

  A minute or two passed. Then I heard footsteps coming down the hall in my direction. A woman appeared and came toward me.

  “I am Ankelita Carter,” she said. “Felipe says you want to see me about something for a newspaper.”

  I liked Mrs. Carter immediately. From her dark brown skin it was plain at once that she was Mexican, and her broad smile of white teeth put me instantly at ease. Despite the color of her skin and her overall appearance that seemed to me at first glance that of a servant or maid, she spoke flawless English without even the hint of an accent. There was even a cultured sound to her tone, which made me immediately curious.

  She was a stocky woman, not fat, but strongly built, and looked well accustomed to work. She might have reminded me of Katie, though she was taller and her broad shoulders had almost a manly quality. She was not “pretty,” although her brown complexion was clear, her eyes bright, and her smile so infectious that you couldn’t help but consider her attractive to gaze at and converse with. Her hair was pure black without a trace of gray, but from the rest of her appearance I would have guessed her to be somewhere in her mid-forties.

  “I write sometimes for the Alta,” I said, “and I was hoping to be able to write something about the estate or the Fremonts. My name is Corrie Belle Hollister.”

  “Well, Miss Hollister,” replied Mrs. Carter, “I am very pleased to make your acquaintance.” She held out her hand, and as I shook it I was further reassured by this woman with the friendly smile. “You must have come a long distance.” She sat down in a chair opposite me.

  “I have ridden four and a half days,” I said.

  “My, you are dedicated! But I must admit to some surprise. You are a woman, and a very young one at that. How do you come to be a reporter? I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

  “I don’t suppose I’m really what you’d call an official reporter,” I replied. “I try to write things I’m interested in, and then I hope the editor will want to print them.”

  “And he is willing to print something written by a woman?”

  “Actually, the first few things he’s printed appeared under the name C.B. Hollister. To tell you the truth, he hasn’t printed anything of mine since he found out I was a girl not even twenty years old yet.”

  “How old are you, Corrie?” Mrs. Carter asked.

  “Nineteen.”

  “Well, you are brave to try what you’re doing.” She paused. “Hmm . . . C.B. Hollister, you say?” She seemed to be thinking. “Did you write something about, let’s see . . . it’s coming to me—something about a lady from Virginia who went out to California as a mail-order bride and planted an apple tree?”

  “Yes, yes!” I answered excitedly. “Did you actually read it?”

  “I did indeed,” she said. “It was very well done.”

  She smiled at me again, and gave a little nod, as if she was looking me over again for the first time.

  “My, but isn’t this something! For us to meet like this—a year later and all the way across the continent.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked. “I’ve only just come from north of Sacramento.”

  She laughed broadly. “That’s not what I meant,” she said. “I read your article in Virginia, when I was there with Mrs. Fremont.”

  “It really did get printed back there?” I said. “Mr. Kemble said it was going to be, but I never knew if it really did.”

  “Oh, yes, we all read it. Mrs. Fremont, the Senator.”

  “You were there with the Fremonts?” I asked, my surprise showing through.

  “I’ve been with Mrs. Fremont since they were in Monterey in 1850. Her father, you know, is Senator Benton, and we were at their Virginia estate of Cherry Grove often, until the house burned down two years ago. After that and the death of Mrs. Fremont’s mother, we went south less frequently. Though that is still where we encountered your article. Jessie herself is a writer, or at least she helped her husband a great deal with the memoirs of his travels. She hopes to write again one day. Just wait until I tell her I’ve met you! She will be thrilled. I know she will recall the article and your name because it made an impression on her at the time.”

  “I can hardly believe it,” I said, in wonder. “To think that someone that far away actually read something I wrote out here!”

  We continued to visit, and Mrs. Carter turned out to be as interesting herself as the Fremonts or the election or the estate. From a wealthy Mexican family, she had been well-educated in eastern United States, had returned to Mexico where she had married a California businessman. Her husband had been killed and most of her family’s wealth lost during the Mexican war, and in Monterey, Jessie Fremont had taken her into her household, at first as a domestic. But soon realizing Ankelita’s training and education, Mrs. Fremont put her in charge of most of the household, including the Fremont children. The two women fast became friends, and Ankelita had been part of the Fremont home ever since—in Washington, D.C., during Mr. Fremont’s term as senator, back in California, accompanying them to Europe. Only two months earlier had she left the Fremonts to return to California.

  “But this recent trip,” she concluded, “was so much more pleasant, now that there is a railroad across the Isthmus instead of having to walk or ride a donkey or be carried and pulled in carts by Indians.” She laughed at the memory.

  “Why did you return to California?” I asked.

  “I felt it would be best for the campaign,” Ankelita replied. She stopped as a look of sadness crossed her eyes. “I love Mr. Fremont,” she went on, “and Jessie is like a sister to me. But politics is a field that attracts many enemies, where cruel things are said and done in order that men might gain their selfish ends. And many things have been said about Mr. and Mrs. Fremont that are untrue, things that others would use to defeat Mr. Fremont in the election. Some newspapers began to report that he was a Catholic. Though it is not true, the mere report has damaged him greatly. His own father-in-law, Jessie’s father Mr. Benton, has spoken out harshly against Mr. Fremont, even against his own daughter.”

  “But why?” I asked.

  “Because Senator Benton is a Democrat and his son-in-law is a Republican. The Republicans are against slavery, and most of the Democrats are in favor of slavery. And though Senator Benton himself is from the slave state of Virginia, he is personally against slavery. Yet he cannot make himself cross the party line to support his own son-in-law, though he shares his views. I find it appalling that his party has more influence than his own conscience.”

  “Is that why you left?” I asked.

  Mrs. Carter drew in a deep sigh, and I saw a look of something like sadness on her face, even pain.

  “I came to feel that my presence would ultimately do him more harm than good in the election,” she said at length. “Being raised as a Mexican, I am Catholic. It was only a matter of time before Buchanan’s press writers would have discovered about my religion, and they would have used it against the Colonel. And there were those who were beginning to talk against Jessie because of me, implying that I was Mrs. Fremont’s ‘Mexican slave,’ as they called it. Not a word of it was true. But just the darkness of my skin was enough to feed prejudices, and the hint of such a thing would have been enough to hurt the Colonel because of his strong anti-slavery position. All through the campaign people have been trying to link Mr. and Mrs. Fremont to slavery, digging up Jessie’s Virginian
upbringing, and asking pointed questions about their black servants, all of whom were perfectly free just like me.”

  “It doesn’t seem fair,” I said.

  “Politics is never fair, Corrie. Politics is politics, and it’s a matter of winning however you can and by whatever you have to say about your opponent. But fair—no, politics is rarely fair.”

  “It just doesn’t seem right!”

  “No, I don’t suppose it’s right any more than it is fair. But if you’re going to be in politics, that’s just the way it is.”

  “Did the Fremonts ask you to leave?”

  “No, Jessie would never have done that. But when I told her of my decision, she knew it was best. She gave me money for passage and asked me to come back here to watch over their household affairs. Not that I could really be of much help with the business of the mine, but they want to know there is someone here they can trust completely who can tell them what is happening. So I returned, and I have been here a little over a month. After her husband is elected President, Jessie wants me to come back and live with them in the White House.”

  “Oh, wouldn’t that be wonderful!”

  “And then you could come visit us, Corrie, and write a story about President and Mrs. Fremont. That would surely make that editor of yours stand up and take notice of you—even if you are a young woman!”

  I laughed. But just the thought of me ever visiting the White House was too unbelievable to fathom.

  “But you cannot have come all this way just to listen to me,” Ankelita said. “You must have known the Fremonts have not been in California for five years. What did you want to write an article about, Corrie?”

  I shrugged sheepishly. We’d been talking for almost an hour and the subject of my writing had hardly yet come up. If Mr. Kemble wanted “human interest,” Ankelita Carter was the perfect subject. She was as “interesting” a person as I’d ever met! I could write several stories about her, without having to worry about the Fremonts or the election or the mine or anything!