up the grade, keeping my eyes peeled for Coyote Creek, or a valley to the west, Blackbird Valley it says on Google, it used to called Valle de Mocho and it’s where the 4th Estacion on la Vereda was located a hundred and seventy-five years ago. Mocho was crew chief, gathering herd and corralling all winter, branding them with the Tres Piedras iron and waiting for Murrieta’s next drove with his eyes on the horizon, around the seventeenth of each month, looking for smoke signals from off the top of Brushy peak. And I look over my shoulder and see this old cowboy and four horses, feeding off a bail of hay, and I keep driving a ways up, looking for a place to turn around. Maybe he would let me take a shot of his horses, or maybe he could tell me where Coyote Creek was, I didn’t know exactly why but I knew I had to turn around, instinct is what it was, as I was to find out. So I pull a Uee, and drive back and when I get there he’s still in the pen, and I holler over, if he’d mind if I asked him a question. He sat in his truck, with the four horses gnawing on the bail behind him, and looked over, sort of dead pan and said. “No, not at all.” like he didn’t have a thing in the world better to do. And I ask him if he’s ever heard of Coyote Creek, and he says, ‘Sure, about three miles, straight up the road’ and he points. “How’d you know about Coyote Creek?” he asks. And I say, “I’ll tell you about it in a minute, but first, I have another question.” And he looks at me, slightly amused, although it’s hard to read this old timer, he seems genuine enough, “not at all,” he says. So I ask him if I can photograph his horses, and I walk over and this Sorrel’s friendly and feisty, comes sniffing over, and i get a shot or two, I don’t want to take too much of this guys time, so I walk back and ask him if he’s ever heard of Joaquin Murrieta, and of course he had, and then I tell him about Mocho,, and his eyes get a little wider, although it’ hard to tell behind his tinted glasses, and he says “You know this is Mocho Creek, right here” And then he tells me how to find Coyote Creek, that his friend owned the land that goes back up in there, explaining that I go up the grade, then it drops, and just before it starts up again, toward San Antonio Valley, “there’s a gate on the left, with three wagon wheels.”” A gate?” I ask him, and he nods
“Bout three miles,” he says again. “give or take,”
Then I ask him what his name is and he says: John Luiz, it’s a Portuguese name,” even though he speaks like he’s from Texas. I get his phone # and as I’m driving away, he says: “Be careful. I just heard there was a motorcycle accident, just past there.” Through the window, I ask him if those are California horses and he smiles real big, and I tell him I’m going to call him. I didn’t want to go so quick, but the light was dropping, and I wasn’t even there yet

The California Sorrel is known for its stamina, it needed it to make the 800 mile trek to Sonora, This one, bred in these mountains, is very much the same horse as were common in Murrieta’s droves, it has no fear and walks straight up to the camera.