Even in early May the sun tears into everything, but the water is running and it’s pleasant enough in the shade and as long as I keep a steady pace I can keep the windows down and the dust wont get in. Later in the summer the asbestos hazard increases, and the rattlesnakes are awake, and according to Ranger Tom, it’s a cauldron. For now, the pointy rocks are about all I have to worry about. I got my eye out for Spanish Lake, gotta be just up ahead, and I wonder if it’s anything like Mendota Pool, or maybe even bigger, and this gets me thinking about the Feliz brothers and something to do with swimming and San Carlos Creek, maybe not Mendota Pool, because that was after their time, but they had a favorite swimming hole, probably more than one, all vaqueros did, especially in the Sierra. Picture them swimming along the Mokelumne River and diving off the rocks and splashing each other like there was no tomorrow in the pools of water, warm by the afternoon and filled with a hover of trout not a minute before, Three Fingered Jack sits up in his saddle and lets off a big fart and slides off with yahoo and a belly flop after a hard days ride – Consider the irony, a gang of murderers called the Happy Bros – I’ve mentioned Claudio, the oldest, several times, but Reyes was the younger one, the kid brother. He went on trial for the murder of General Joshua Bean, who was the head honcho of the San Gabriel Mission, and one night, on the way home from the maromas he gets popped right outside his front door. The circumstances are peculiar and fall directly into Murrieta’s lap, at least according to Ana Benitez and her testimony, not exactly an innocent bystander, or a bystander at all, she was sleeping with him, according to her, when they hear shots at 3am, but she refuses to finger him, instead concocts this other story involving Reyes Feliz and some other poor sod, who had a dog in the race, but was a cobbler’s son, and may have been jilted by the woman Bean was hosing down, but he was not the type to lay in wait in fit of jealous rage for anyone, let alone Bean, who was as prominent a citizen as there was in those days – so for him to stand up and shoot a man of Bean’s status is unlikely, that only leaves Murrieta. Benitez had plenty of reasons to modify her story, one was to save her neck from the noose, and the other was to save her neck from Murrieta’s butcher knife, either way she was in a bind. Bottom line is Reyes Feliz, the baby brother, barely 16 , takes the fall, but not for Bean! After a week of interrogations, in which everyone involved is cross examined by this hackneighed committee, he confesses to killing one person, in the goldfields the previous year, with Joaquin and the gang, It had nothing to do with Bean, but they hang him anyway, and some other guy too, but everyone knows Murrieta was up to his eyeballs, and rumor is all over it that he pulled the trigger. Bean was the alcalde of San Gabriel, which is kind of like the mayor, and on record, abused his authority several times, and when drunk, which was most of the time, he abused his women, Mexican women, Californias – he was just the type of gringo that Murrieta might lay in ambush for. That’s not Benitez’ testimony, but then again she managed to save her neck. First Claudio, now Reyes takes the fall and swings, it must have weighed heavily on his head, that is while he still had it on his shoulders and not in a jar. After shooting this picture I’m back on the road, I figure 20 more miles. I have a half a tank of gas, a half a Kombucha, and a half of something else around here to keep me awake, coffee, maybe I’ll brew one up at Spanish Lake

Garcia, aka: Three Fingered Jack, is reputed to be the more savage of the gang, and he must have had twenty years on Murrieta, which is curious. He was around since Texas and the Mexican War and the Alamo, and I have posted on him a few times. In California, he distinguished himself in the battle of Salinas as a bold enemy of the Americans and was admired by all the vaqueros who called themselves Californios and participated in opposing the Bear Flag Revolt under the banner of Saloman Pico. As to when he met up with Claudio Feliz is anybody’s guess, it would have been around the Goldrush, say 1849. He is already established and mentioned as a member of Claudio’s gang, and then he brutally murders two white dudes, both scoundrels of the worst nature, which is why he tortured them to death and further cements his reputation for brutality. We know Claudio bought it in a shootout, in 1852 – when 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 address here is why, or, how did Murrieta take over from Claudio? Claudio is the older brother, the one who wrote to Sonora and started the whole story going, and Rosa Feliz is Claudio’s younger sister, the woman who eloped with Murrieta and rode into California on the Southern trail. It is likely that they traveled through Tulare Lake, and he probably looked off to the west and wondered what was in those hills – his presence is here and I can feel it, like a vibration, or a sound pitched just out of range and it gives me a shiver and for a second, in the lap of this unbridled eloquence that only eons can render possible, I’m mesmerized. What is this rock with a hole in it like a cyclops?, and suddenly, as Hermes is want to do, I’m in a different dream, a different narrative, 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: “ Why not an older, more ‘seasoned’ gang member?” there were at least a dozen who could have filled his shoes, Why Murrieta? and how is it that Bernardino 3fingers affirmed his allegiance, it seems, almost like fealty, or at least to the death?

To understand this we need to try and picture how AKA: Emanuel Garcia and Claudio met, My guess is Stockton. The river city, which is pure speculation. Claudio met three fingers at a bar in Stockton, maybe, but wherever it was, there were two things they had in common. They both were experienced vaqueros – that means command of skills like the lariat, the butcher knife, chaps, herding horses, shooting pistolas, driving them into Mexico was an endurance test that utilized instincts and an animal connection, an earth connection. The other thing was they were both angry vaqueros. Bernardino lost his fingers, and then California, and Claudio lost his mining claim, and just on the road east and into the foothills there was plenty of gold for the both of them and they didn’t have to mine a fleck. What Claudio couldn’t dig from the earth he’d rip from their gizzards with his 17’’ butcher knife, and leave the tailing of Yanques on their way into town to have their nuggets weighed on the side of the road for the crows.

The road rises in the center so that I have to drive real slow to keep from bottoming out because if that happens I’m sunk and will have to pull out the block and tackle and find a tree or pound a stake or wait for Ranger Tom on the side of the road. For now, the road is good and as long as my wheels are going forward, I’m doing fine. It’s a bit of a trick to gauge how far I’ve come, even in a few hours. Ten miles, twenty, with me stopping every 5 minutes to take a photo. Not that it matters,’ just keep going and don’t get off the road,’ like he says, all the way to the end, and if the sun doesn’t set, there might be enough light to walk out to the rocks. Another hairpin like this one and I’m thinking of how he was betrayed by his lover, La Molinera, who was interviewed ten years after the fact – long after he had his head cut off – that she was the one who told Harry Love where to find him, and not Ana Benitez, and that is was she who dressed up like a man and rode with the gang stealing horses and whooping it up across half of California. But I’m not sure if I believe that part of the story, Whether she ever made it out here or just heard the stories and was boasting, one thing seems certain, Joaquin Rocks is where he kept his hundred stolen horses watered at the spring that mouthed just down the slope, and both the rocks and the spring still have his name, and he must have built a make-shift corral out of manzanita before driving them through Horse Thief Canyon, then up the Tejon, and then onto Sonora along the mountain path where he could make a sizable profit and no one in Mexico would recognize the brand, even if there was one. I’m keeping my eyes peeled for artifacts and nomenclature and geometric figures that live in the rocks like they’re breathing the very air I am, and I wonder if that’s possible that a rock has a name and places they have lived for a million years, at the top of the mountain, and now rest – wearing my age in the patina and shallow

I’m considering diving in, but I know that up the creek is the old Quicksilver mines, and even though there are fish, I’m hesitant. Twenty years ago I would have stripped and dove off the pier, now that I’m over the hill, I have an excuse, And then there is the light, still high in the sky, but that wont last and I’m not even close to Spanish Lake and Ranger Tom said it was a few miles along the ridge past that and just keep going and keep going and then you’ll come to this gate and you’ll have to park, and then walk in 3.5 miles.

And I ask, ‘3.5 miles?’ because he seemed pretty exact and he is a ranger, and he says: ‘Yep’ so I know I have a ways to go and there really isn’t time to take a swim, only pictures. I don’t think this fish pond was here when Joaquin was, but the creek is the same and there’s a spring called Clear Water and another called Bitter Water, and that tells you something. I’m going to have to call Tom at the BLM office and ask him about Mendota Pool, and how safe it is. For now, I’m doing about the same thing Joaquin was doing a hundred and seventy five years ago – except I’m in a Volvo, that isn’t four wheel drive, I’m calling my car Mozo, talking to it occasionally, and just like Joaquin, we’re following the water.

The afternoon is melting and along with it I disappear into the landscape slowly climbing up the incline to the ridge where Joaquin once rode at midnight with Ana Benitez dressed as a man and Three Fingered Jack, his longtime associate and partner in crime, to Tulare Lake and the gambling tents and the Maramos, which were the rope jumping competitions. I’m getting closer, I can feel it. Ranger Tom has assured me that if my car should get stuck he would be along in a day or two and I have my eyes peeled on the road for all the pointy rocks which takes considerable concentration which is fine except I keep seeing photographs everywhere and stopping and then I’m thinking about goldfish and the hermetic arts and Murrieta and the Monte tables, which is a card game – a different deck than the Tarot, but he dealt his fate all the same, I look out across the Allcades, a dead mountain range that not even horse thieves would venture, and try and make a connection, and there it is right in front of me, only you can’t see it any more. Once you could see it from here, the largest lake in all of California, except maybe Lake Tahoe. It’s where he took Ana Benitiz, dressed like a vaquero to the rambla or maybe just to watch him win at gambling in the tent village with the colorful ribbons, sticking on the poles and the whores and the guitarras, and the travelers in wagons who just came in from Ohio and were headed for them thar hills with a Yankee Doodle Dandy You could see it from here, Lake Tullare , back in his day, And it isn’t because I only had a couple hours of sleep at Oak Flat campground last night, or the puff of weed Ranger Tom busted me for, it’s the light, it seeps in everywhere, the corners of my eyes, a scintilla, a demon, a voice from antiquity

On the day Murrieta had taken the drove this far, signal fires were lit from the peak in the distance. Looking down the Tesla Grade, south of Livermore, El Mocho could see the smoke, rising in plumes, from on top of his horse, waiting for his boss at Estacione #4, He would know to expect him in a couple of days and spend that time rustling the last of the stray mustangs roaming the San Joaquin Valley south of Altamont, repairing the manzanita corrals, and making sure the water was flowing from the spring. This view is much the same as it was back then, the same trail, or parts of it, that I’m walking now, making my way to the top. The hike is spectacular, about three and half miles in, and if you head straight for the highest peak, just as the crow flies, ignoring trails and climbing fences, as is my pleasure, you can have an adventure, even get lost, or just take in a view, that hasn’t changed much in a 175 years.

Old oak – summit at Brushy Peak. It is entirely possible Murrieta took in this view. In May, the days are noticeably starting to warm, but the late afternoons so favorable he’d take in a short nap before he’d hobble the horses for the night, I would. La Molinera traveled with his band of vaqueros; a woman dressed as a man. 10 years later she testified to this in a court hearing, and several other sources corroborate, she was Murrieta’s lover, rode with his gang of outlaws, and sat sipping min

Goldfish at Mendota Pool – the foot of San Carlos Creek. This majestic pool is downstream from the mines. Arsenic and other chemicals used in the processing of cinnabar into Mercury threaten to contaminate the water. but from what I can see it looks like spring water. I wouldn’t drink it, but I might swim in it, there are fish and it’s as clear as a winter sky.

I believe we left off somewhere with sulphur and mercury as a construct of alchemy and even if we didn’t, that’s where we’re picking it up. I realize it’s quite a stretch, and what does this have to do with Joaquin Murrieta? but bear with me, all will be made clear soon enough. New Idria was a Quicksilver mine, first opened a year after Murrieta’s murder, in 1854, off to the left, right up here is the turn off. I’ll show you the sign later. I’m not going to the old mines, I’m headed for Joaquin’s Ridge, then to Joaquin Rocks and according to the sworn testimony of Ana Benetiz at the trial of Reyes Feliz, just before they hung him, this was Joaquin’s hideout. On my way out there, I come across, Hermes Trismegistus manifesting the properties of Sulphur and Mercury – right before my eyes – Hermes lived about the time of Moses and is considered the grand father of alchemy and Joaquin lived about the time of my great grandfather’s father – I have no clear idea what the connection is, only that there is one, I’m sure of it. Just as the alchemists were sure, for centuries, that base metals could be reduced to gold, thus in accordance with the understanding that Sulphur is the fatness of the earth, dug up from mines miles below the surface, and Mercury is the cause of perfection; the distillation, from course into fine. I haven’t a clue what the connection is, other than Murrieta mined gold from the Stanislaus and had he been left the fortune he rightfully claimed, I wouldn’t be on this road. And just like that majestic river in the Sierra foothills, there is a confluence happening in front of me, I can feel it, an oddness that illuminates as if the source of light, along with everything else, comes from within. And just around the bend I am about to encounter something I have not understood for a very long time, as if sulphur and mercury were playing itself out in a transubstantial dance in front of my eyes and inside my head at the same time.. My tires are holding up fine, I’m taking it slow. I’m in the land of gypsies and outlaws, back on the mountain path – La Vereda del Monte.

Here we cross into Murrieta’s badlands. Imagine herding 100 stolen horses along this ridge. One thing would have been true, he followed the water. The San Carlos River, Spanish Lake, to Joaquin’s Spring – La Vereda del Monte

Around the next bend, I’ve come to a lone pine and I am caught off guard by its simplicity as if deliberately crossing my path with intent it stands without hesitation to witness our congress and recognize my existence for as long as time lasts. There is a moment of gratitude here, singular, and in a flash it passes, but I remain, climbing to the ridge of Joaquin, on my way to Spanish Lake and the spring where he last watered his horse, then rode down to Cantua Creek, where he lost his head.