When the West Was Young

by Frederick R. Bechdolt

In the north end of Los Angeles, where the old plaza church fronts the little square of green turf and cabbage-palms, you can still find a few of the one-story adobe buildings which lined the streets on the July afternoon when Joaquin Murieta whispered into Deputy Sheriff Wilson’s ear.

He was a young man, this deputy, and bold, and he had come all the way from Santa Barbara to help hunt down the famous bandit whose followers were burning ranch buildings and murdering travelers from the summits of the southland’s mountains to the yellow beaches by the summer sea. Unlike many of the pueblo’s citizens, who had formed the habit of talking of such 39 matters in undertones and looking over their shoulders as they did so, for fear some lurking Mexican might be one of Murieta’s spies, he voiced his opinions loudly enough for all to hear. “Get good men together,” he said, “and smoke these robbers out. I’m ready to go with a posse any time.” He preached that gospel of action in the drinking-places, in the gambling-halls, and on the street, until the very vigor of his voice put new heart into the listeners. It was beginning to look as if young Deputy Sheriff Wilson had really started things moving.

On a hot July afternoon he was standing on the narrow sidewalk surrounded by a group whose members his enthusiasm had drawn out of doors. Few others were abroad; an occasional Mexican woman in her black skirt and tight-drawn reboso, a peon or two slouching gracefully by with the inevitable brown cigarette, and a solitary horseman who was coming down the street.

The men in the group were so intent on what the deputy was saying that none of them observed the approach of this horseman until he reined in his animal close to the sidewalk’s edge. Then they saw him lean from the saddle and whisper into Wilson’s ear.

What words passed from his lips these others never knew. There was not time for him to utter more than one or two; perhaps to tell his name. They saw his white teeth flashing in an unpleasant smile; and Wilson’s hand moved toward his gun. But in the middle of that movement the young officer pitched forward on his face. The sharp report of a pistol, the scrape of hoofs, the smell of black powder smoke, and the vision of 40 the rider through the tenuous wreaths as he whirled his horse about––these things came to the dazed witnesses in a sort of blur.

The sound of the shot awakened the drowsing street and many who ran to their doorways saw the murderer riding away at a swinging gallop. Some of these claimed to recognize him as Joaquin Murieta, and in the days that followed their statements were confirmed by captured members of the band.

Deputy Sheriff Wilson’s death aroused more men than his words had, and when General Joshua Bean began organizing two companies of militia during the weeks after the murder he found plenty of recruits. The officers were just getting the new companies into shape for an expedition against the bandits who were now ravaging most of the country south of the Tehachapi, when Murieta and Three-Fingered Jack waylaid General Bean one night near San Gabriel Mission, dropped the noose of a reata over his head, dragged him from his horse, and stabbed him through the heart. And the two companies of militia did nothing more.

Now, while posses were foundering their lathered horses on every southland road and the flames of blazing ranch buildings were throwing their red light on the faces of dead men almost every night, a lean and wind-browned Texan by the name of Captain Harry Love took a hand in the grim game of man-hunting.

He had gained his title during the Mexican War. As an express-rider for different American generals he had dodged the reatas of guerrilla parties who were lurking by water-holes and had outjockeyed swarthy horsemen in wild races across the flaming deserts of Sonora until 41 he had come to know the science of their fighting as well as old Padre Jurata himself. And when he started after Murieta’s men he did his hunting all alone.

One day he ran across the trail of Pedro Gonzales, the horse-thief, and another lieutenant named Juan, and followed it until he overtook the pair at the Buena Ventura rancho. Like most of his Southwestern breed he was a better man at action than at words, and so the story of the gun-fight which took place when he came upon them has never been told; but when the smoke of the three pistols cleared away Gonzales was in custody and Juan was riding hard toward the hills with the blood running over his face from a bullet’s furrow along his scalp. The fugitive found five others of the band in a sun-baked arroyo that night, told them the news of the catastrophe, and got a fresh horse to ride back with them and rescue their companion.