the Sackett Companion (1992)

by L'amour, Louis

  THE HENRY RIFLE: Perfected by B. Tyler Henry, a .44 calibre repeating rifle produced at the old Volcanic plant in New Haven, Connecticut. Aside from the Spencer, it was the only successful repeating rifle on the market in the United States. It was the forerunner of the Winchester, which was developed from the Henry in the late 1860s.

  The Henry appeared during the Civil War and a few of the rifles saw service in that conflict, although its distribution was limited at first. It carried fifteen shots in a magazine tube under the barrel.

  OTHER WEAPONS: During the period immediately before and following the Civil War, many kinds of guns appeared on the frontier. For a time almost any pistol was called a "Colt," almost any rifle a "Winchester." The two types became so common that the brand names became synonyms for those types of weapons.

  The men who came west often brought with them the weapons they had used during the war. A frontiersman himself, Lincoln knew a man could scarcely exist or keep his family alive without a horse and a rifle, so the discharged Confederates were allowed to keep their weapons.

  The men and women who came west were from a variety of backgrounds and so the weapons they brought with them varied too. The Hawken, the Sharps, Spencer, Henry, and Winchester were all well-known, and the Ballard as well, but at least fifty other types of rifles might be found on the frontier, and as many pistols. These included: the Le Mat, a pistol with two barrels, one firing a .36 caliber shell, the other a shotgun shell; the Dancer; Whitney; Griswold & Gunnison; Spiller & Burr; Merwin & Hurlburt; and many another. Some men in the West bought weapons there but many inherited them from older members of the family or from friends.

  Many varieties of derringers (named after Henry Derringer) were produced, and pistols combined with knuckle-dusters or knives were common. There were canes as well as umbrellas that carried gun barrels.

  However, next to the Colt, the most popular pistol was the Remington. Smith & Wesson won a contract to supply 250,000 pistols for the Russian Army after the Grand Duke Alexis saw what Buffalo Bill Cody could do with one. That kept them from supplying many guns to the western market.

  Colt revolving rifles and shotguns were also generally available. My great-grandfather was carrying the former when killed by the Sioux in Dakota. Those who knew him said he was seldom known to miss his target.

  WALCH NAVY: A pistol firing twelve shots; there was also a Walch that fired ten shots. Yet these were not exceptional, for pistols were made at the time capable of firing eighteen or twenty shots. I have not heard of one of these on the frontier but everything else wound up there, so why not?

  ORLANDO SACKETT: A son of Falcon Sackett and Aleyne Kurbishaw, he was five feet ten inches in height and usually weighed about one-hundred eighty pounds, but was unusually strong. This was partly a matter of heritage, but even more due to the very hard work he did as a boy and young man. He grew up, like most of the Sacketts, in the mountain country of Tennessee, where a major part of their living depended on their hunting and trapping ability.

  Among their neighbors were the Cherokee Indians, and a bit further away the Choctaw, Chickasaw, Creek, and Seminole Indians. The Sacketts hunted with the Indians, shared a part of their lives, and learned much from them.

  He also appears in THE SACKETT BRAND.

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  MOJAVE CROSSING

  First publication: Bantam Books paperback, July 1964 Narrator: William Tell Sackett Time Period: c. 1875--1879

  In which William Tell Sackett meets a beautiful woman. It so happens he is carrying thirty pounds of gold. Is the meeting coincidence? Even a young man raised in the mountains can begin to wonder, especially when the woman convinces him he should guide her to Los Angeles, across the desert.

  Tell knows a lot about the desert but how much does he know about women? Or can one woman make him forget what he knows?

  HARDYVILLE: Near the present site of Bullhead City and Davis Dam, not far from the site of the old Katherine Mine where this writer put in several months underground, and near the area where Johannes crossed the Colorado in my book THE LONESOME GODS.

  Hardyville was for many years the head of navigation on the Colorado. Steamboats from Yuma came up the river and occasionally, when the water was high, continued on to Callville now under the waters of Lake Mead. Hardyville was the creation of William Hardy, who established a trading post, saloon and other structures at that point on the river. He helped build the road east to Beale Springs (now Kingman) and thence to Prescott and Fort Whipple.

  For a number of years the Beale Road was constantly under attack by small parties of Indians. Through the 1860s there were continual reports of attacks along the road, and a number were killed on both sides.

  CALLVILLE: Now buried under the waters of Lake Mead, this was the final possible port on the Colorado, but could only be reached when the season was right. This station was founded and held by Jacob Hamblin, a well-known Mormon pioneer who explored much of the region north of the Colorado. Born at ^alem, Ohio in 1819, he emigrated to Utah in 1850, and devoted himself to establishing and maintaining peace between the Indian and the white man. In his areas he succeeded very well. Hamblin, for a time missionary to the Hopi, investigated the area of Bluff, Utah in 1879.

  TRELAWNEY GIRLS: They lived in the mountains from which the Sacketts came and, like the Sacketts, were a very special breed. Wild, beautiful girls who occasionally left the mountains for the "Settlements," they were as expert with rifles as most mountain men, and needed protection from no one.

  DEAD MOUNTAINS: On the Colorado; a small, very rugged range, and not as dead as they at first appear.

  BEALE: A former Naval officer from whom Beale Springs was named. He carried the news of the gold discovery to Washington, D.C., and some of the gold. The news had reached Washington before his arrival, but the gold itself was most convincing. Beale also advocated the use of camels in western transportation and some were imported, along with camel drivers. The experiment was written off as unsuccessful despite the loads the camels could carry, but much of this was because the soldiers simply did not like them (there's not much to love about a camel!) and they frightened the horses, causing runaways and stampedes. One argument given was that the sharp rocks in our deserts cut their feet, though it may not have been realized that many Asiatic and African deserts are similar to ours.

  However, other camels were imported and were used to transport salt from Walker Lake to Austin, in Nevada, for some time. By and large, though, westerners did not take to them and the effort petered out. Some of the camel drivers became quite well known in their own way. Hadji Ali, known in the West as Hi Jolly, was a favorite character. And it was at the home of Greek George, another camel driver, that Tiburcio Vasquez, the famous California outlaw, was captured.

  SECRET PASS: An abandoned stage route west of Kingman to the Colorado and beyond. Winding through a maze of rock formations, it offered unique opportunities for ambush.

  SECRET SPRING: A spring of good water near the old stage line.

  MOJAVE CROSSING

  SACRAMENTO WASH: The valley west of Kingman that lies between the Cerbat and the Black Mountains. The road crossed by Union Pass, slightly changed from the old route, possibly because of a somewhat embarrassing rock formation. Close by the old route lay the old Frisco and Arabian mines, now forgotten except by history.

  PIUTE OR PAH-UTE SPRING: A desert watering place about twenty-two miles west of the Colorado. In the early days there was good grass on the hills to the right of the spring and a patch of grass below the spring. This was a station on the old Government Road (also referred to in my novel CALLAGHEN) and a small fort was built there. Usually four soldiers stood guard.

  ROCK SPRING: Twenty miles west; usually guarded. A stopping place for mail riders. Considerable grass nearby in those days.

  MARL SPRING: Well back in the country now, another station on the old Government Road. The water used to come from tunnels in the hillside; now it issues from a pipe and
is used by cattlemen. It is twenty miles further west. Remains of the small fort can be found. In July of 1866 a small band of Piutes attacked the last wagon of a small train and killed a teamster named Leonard Taylor, shot him through with arrows. The other teamsters opened fire and drove off the attackers.

  Such attacks took place at intervals all along the old Government Road from San Bernardino to Prescott.

  DORINDA ROBISEAU: A traveling lady of wit and nerve. As Tell Sackett said, "When I saw the black-eyed woman a-looking at me I wished I had a Bible."

  COOK'S WELL: East of the Providence Mountains in the Mojave Desert. Off any known trail when I was last there, but a few miles southeast of the Old Domingo Ranch. Flowed into a trough built for range cattle.

  BLIND SPRING: This one is tough to find. Four miles or so south of Cook's Well. A watering place for stock, off the beaten track. (Readers must understand that in some cases I have not visited these spots in forty to fifty years. I could go right to them, but in that intervening period some springs may have ceased to exist, while others may have only occasional supplies of water.) The only trails have probably now been overrun by motorcycles or four-wheel-drive vehicles.

  PROVIDENCE MOUNTAINS: Probably so-called because in this desert region the pioneers found springs where they expected none. Several peaks are over five thousand feet. The Mitchell Caverns are here.

  HIDDEN VALLEY: Formerly one had to get down and crawl under some rocks to enter, but now the park rangers have created steps so anyone may climb easily over the rocks and go inside. Stolen horses were once hidden here until the chase was over, and then driven on to be sold. How they got into the valley is still a mystery, although possibly a huge boulder has blocked the entrance they once used. A search might require months, and prying into every nook and cranny in a place where there are thousands of them. An interesting visit.

  PEG-LEG SMITH: An historical character; a trapper, horse thief, and whatever it took to get whiskey money. Famous for claiming a lost "mine" that never existed. Peg-Leg stole some mules and murdered their drivers, and knowing nothing of gold ore, he emptied the sacks they were carrying on the ground, wanting the sacks. Later, when he discovered what he had dumped out, he could not find the place again. There is a story that the gold was found just a few years ago, and I believe it possible.

  BUFFUM'S: The best saloon and gambling house in Los Angeles during those wild days when the town was ceasing to be just a cattle town and supply center, and moving to become a city.

  LA NOPALERA: Literally, The Cactus Patch. Now Hollywood. In those early years a sea of prickly pear.

  TIBURCIO VASQUEZ: Mentioned earlier; California's most noted outlaw, and from whom some of the details were taken to garnish the story of the fictional outlaw, Joaquin Murietta. The latter was a creation of a Cherokee Indian writer, John Rollin Ridge, who did a fictional piece for the old Police Gazette, which many believed, and still believe, was factual.

  Vasquez Rocks, seen in many movies and now in commercials, were named for him. He had a hide-out in a canyon close by but often kept a man up in the rocks to watch for prospective "customers" or the posses that often hunted him. He was for a few years a very busy outlaw, robbing Anglos and Hispan-ics alike until captured just off what is now the Sunset Strip in Los Angeles. He was hanged at San Jose.

  WASHINGTON GARDENS: An amusement park, 200, and picnic grounds, very popular in Los Angeles, for a number of years. Long forgotten now.

  CALLE DE LOS NEGROS: Then called "Nigger Alley," and the toughest street in the toughest section of Los Angeles, although the people who lived there were largely Chinese or a mixed lot from the rougher side of things.

  RANCHO RODEO DE LAS AGUAS: The area now known as Beverly Hills, California.

  BEN MANDRIN: He had been a pirate once, and he still had in him what it took to make men walk the plank. He also still had some of his ill-gotten gains stashed in the mountains that overlook Malibu and divide it from Hidden Valley. His friends did not know that, nor did his enemies.

  SANDEMAN DYER: He had been a coldblooded killer during the Civil War and why should he have changed? Tell Sackett had known him at Shiloh, and he wasn't a man you forgot.

  NOLAN SACKETT: He was one of the so-called outlaw Sacketts, a descendant of Yance who settled in the Clinch Mountains. Was blood thicker than branch water? What would happen when Sackett found Sackett?

  WILLIE AND CHARLIE BUTTON: They were known men, horse thieves by reputation, hiding their stolen stock in Hidden Valley in what is now Joshua National Park. Well-known characters in their time and place.

  PICO HOUSE: It still stands in Los Angeles, once its best hotel, and built by Pio Pico, the provincial governor at Los Angeles, in 1870. In his time everybody in Los Angeles knew Pio.

  DAYTON AND OLIPHANT: The sort of men every town has to deal with, briefly at least. Supposed businessmen but prepared to cheat anyone for a dishonest dollar. They come and they go and usually the only ones who remember them are those they cheated or tried to cheat. They call it business but legitimate businessmen soon learn to recognize their kind.

  RODERIGO ENRIQUEZ: A grandson of old Ben Mandrin, a gentleman and a brave man.

  JOSEPH CHAPMAN: Only mentioned here; he came ashore from a pirate ship, was wounded and captured. Nursed back to health, he married, in the most romantic tradition, the girl who did the nursing. He was California's first Anglo citizen, built a mill, and had a hand in building much else. He proved himself a good citizen and an honorable man.

  LOS ANGELES: A wild little town on the Los Angeles River, founded by the Spanish in 1781. It has since become a city. In the early days it was rough as Dodge City or Abilene or Tombstone. It had more than its share of "western"-type characters, and some famous gun battles, with the Carlisle-King fight being the most notorious. Several of its leading citizens were former mountain men who came west to develop cities after the price of beaver dropped due to the change in fashion that replaced the beaver hat with the silk hat. They were men with ideas who knew opportunity when they saw it. At one time they owned much of what is now the western part of the city.

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  MUSTANG MAN

  First publication: Bantam Books paperback, May 1966 Narrator: Nolan Sackett Time Period: c. 1875-1879

  Nolan Sackett was one of the fighting twins from the Clinch Mountain country of Tennessee. His branch of the Sackett family had been founded by Yance, to whom living in the mountains was like cider in the jug. He liked nothing better.

  When rich land down in the bottoms was being settled by late-comers, Yance and his descendants kept to the high country where the hunting was good. The Clinch Mountain Sacketts never did take to towns and hi-falutin' ways. They took to long rifles and hound dogs.

  They were lion and bear hunters, but coon hunters, too. Generally speaking, when it came to the world's goods, they were poor folks. Now and again they'd be scrapin' the bottom of the cornflour barrel, but there was always meat on the table.

  When they needed cash money they hunted ginseng, " 'sang" to mountain folks. Knowing the mountains the way they did, it was easy for them to come upon a patch of ginseng, which was worth real money down to the Settlements.

  Their feet were clever for dancing but usually they sat out the dances waiting for the fighting to begin. As soon as the 'shine had been circulating long enough to generate differences of opinion, there would be fighting.

  Nolan and Logan were never strong for dancing, or maybe they were too strong for it. They ate ramps.

  When a body eats ramps that keeps his dancing partners down to a minimum. Ramp-eaters are a special breed of folk. Nobody has ever discovered whether they make good neighbors or not because nobody ever gets that close unless it's another ramp-eater. Back in the coves and hollows folks say a ramp-eater can take a bear just by breathin' at him. I hold that to be an exaggeration. Maybe sometimes a coon, but not a bear.

  Wild onions and garlic will make for space around a man, but ramps? They'l
l empty a room.

  The Clinch Mountain Sacketts were workers with wood. When they weren't hunting or fighting or farming their side-hill acres they were making things. Of an evening they'd sit by the fire, talk to family or neighbors while they whittled and polished on axe handles, gunstocks, or shoe trees. Not that they ever used a shoe tree but down at the Settlements they brought a good price.

  It was not an easy thing to pin them down to it but they made the best cradles in the mountains and there were a lot of good cradlemakers around, as well as men willing to fill them.

  MUSIC IN THE HILLS: Back in the high-up hills in those days there was singing in the mountains, and folks made their own instruments or had them made by somebody close by who was handy at it. They made fiddles, dulcimers, and banjos, or whatever was needed to make music.