May 1

Bernardino Garcia, aka: Three Fingered Jack, is reputed to be the more savage of the gang. He was around in Texas with the Mexican army in 1846, at the beginning of the war, and soon after ends up in California distinguishing himself in the battle of Salinas, as a bold enemy of the Americans. Admired by all the vaqueros who called themselves Californios and fought under the banner of Saloman Pico, Garcia was seen as a courageous, if not brutal leader. We know he is with Claudio in 1852, when he was gunned down in a shootout and Murrieta takes over – this is all on the record, in newspapers, notably the San Fran Alta, and The Star, a bilingual paper, published in Los Angeles. One of the more insightful is Ana Benitez’ testimony, at the trial of Reyes Feliz over the murder of Gen Joshua Bean, the brother of Judge Roy Bean – more about this later. What I want to bring our attention to here is how Murrieta took over from Claudio and maintained the allegiance of the gang, particularly Three Fingered Jack? If you recall, Claudio is the older brother, the one who wrote to Sonora and started the whole thing going, and Rosa Feliz is Claudio’s younger sister, the woman who eloped with Murrieta and rode into California on the Southern trail. Reyes is the younger brother, who most likely came up at the same time, and it is likely that they traveled through Tulare Lake, where, for the first time Murrieta looked off to the west and wondered what was in those hills and it wouldn’t be long before he would find out – his presence is felt here like a vibration, or a sound pitched just out of range, and it gives me a shiver. What is this rock with a hole in it? drilling for cinnabar crystals to distill Mercury and suddenly, as Hermes is want to do, I’m in a different story, on a different journey, like Odysseus in a perfect wood-cut, or an etch-a-sketch, or just out the corner of my eye, I ask myself, “How is it that Bernardino 3fingers affirmed his allegiance, it seems, almost like fealty, or at least to the death? And then I try and picture how it is they met. To understand this we need to consider Stockton, the clapboard river city, at the junction of civilization, where the Sierras meet the great San Joaquin Valley, which is one possibility, but pure speculation. Regardless, wherever it was, there were a couple of things they had in common. Both were experienced vaqueros, and both were angry vaqueros. Bernardino lost his fingers, and then California, Claudio lost his mining claim, Murrieta lost both and more, and it was the Yankees, who were to blame, And they would pay. And who wants to join us? And just on the road east up into the foothills, where the tent cites were scattered across the mountainside like a blight, there was plenty of gold, and they didn’t have to mine a fleck. What Claudio couldn’t dig up from the earth he’d rip from their throats with his butcher knife, and leave the tailings on the side of the road for the crows. Within a year all of them would be dead, Murrieta, 3 Fingers, Claudio, and 16 year-old Reyes. What fuels such a reckless heart? This is at the center of the question I am asking.