May 1

At the foot of San Carlos Creek. This majestic pool is downstream from the New Idria mines, a Superfund site. 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.

May 1

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.

May 1

There are many paths – muchas veredas por la veritas, Murrieta followed the water. Mendota Pool is below me, where the fishes dance and the ridge above me circles back to the east and my jaw drops like a gaping yawn for I am stunned by the beauty. The constant hum of the tires on the road with a flick of my wrist I go round the pointy rocks and the edge of the passing trees vibrate resting on a lone pine silhouetted in the laminating sun.
I hear the song like a memory of Peter Gabriel in your eyes
‘I am complete.
In your eyes’
I am Joaquin
I flick the light the heat and the pointy rocks on the road
and ‘wake up from the inside’
The immeasurable breath, the dialectics of alchemy, and the polar fusion of carbons reducing matter to its essence, is everywhere one and the same
I am losing myself as I get closer to where I will find the answer, or maybe one, that would be enough. First, I am going down to the pool, and look to see if I can spy on a goddess bathing with the goldfish and not get chased by the hounds.

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.

May 1

at Mendota Pool. 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 fifty years ago – except I’m in a Volvo, that isn’t four wheel drive, and he was on a horse – but we’re both following the water

5-1 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 indentures caressing my face – like I’m an old man basking in the sun at the foot of the creek looking up at the sky with the water flowing by overhead.But I’m not a rock… am I? I can feel it, and it isn’t because I’m tired, and the night before is starting to take its toll, which was never the case when I was a youngman, and only now do I realize how I left all of that behind the instant it happened and was never meant to look back in rumination, so as long as my wheels are in forward motion, I’m doing fine. And so is Joaquin wherever he is, somewhere along the trail, sometime ago – La Vereda del Monte – The Mountain Path.

Keeping in mind the end result is the infamous adventures of Joaquin Murrieta, I am attempting to answer the question: How does a man of such promise end up with his head in a jar? In so doing I am on a trail that includes not only his last moments on earth but his pillage of the California goldfields, and to understand this, the history of the Anglo conquest of the state. One pivotal character was John Fremont, who, by all accounts, cut a dashing figure, trumpeting the Bear Flag around and raising the banner of Manifest Destiny. Known as ‘the Pathfinder,’ Fremont’s commission was as a cartographer and explorer in the US Army, and he was one of the more adventurous personalities of his time. He also played a vital role in the ‘acquisition’ of California. Married to the beautiful, trilingual daughter of Senator Benton from Tennessee, who, with her father helped commandeer the ethos of Manifest Destiny into Fremont’s expeditions, as well as write up the reports that made him a celebrity, was about as fairy-tale a wife as one could imagine. The financial backing to fund his 25 or so hand picked Yankee buckaroos, who, along with the famed explorer and injun’ scout, Kit Carson, would have been considerable. The army sponsored the expedition, but the diverse and skilled hand-picked crew, suggests arrangements outside of normal government channels. Manifest Destiny had a hefty following at this time, fueled by the notion that god wills it so, and all the fervor this blood drenched incentive includes. So when he entered the state from the north in 1846 and raised the stars and stripes over the Presidio at San Francisco, there was a lot of ballyhooing, and saber rattling, and just as quickly Fremont vanished in the San Francisco fog, or more accurately back to Sutter’s Fort. In addition to Kit Carson’s fee, things like camping out at Sutter’, with his endorsement, was not quartered, but included at minimum a quid pro quo – to have a hand in the spoils of a liberated California. Sutter was a Swiss Anglo, who built a traditional medieval fort with impregnable walls and gun emplacements, out in the middle of, then, nowhere, now, Sacramento, in some sort of flight of aristocratic fancy, fashioning himself as the new royalty, complete with surrounding serfdom, (some call slavery) from the local population of disenfranchised Native Americans, and of course Mexicans. Sutter’s greatest hold on history is the gold that was first discovered at his saw mill. He was working on a saw that could harness the power of water to cut boards, instead of the manual intensive two man saw, then used exclusively, when the first nugget was spied in the diverted creek. But I’m getting ahead of myself. At Sutter’s Fort, Fremont then proceeded to play a cat and mouse game with Californio governor Pio Pico, (taunting the Mexican alcalde governor from the edge civilization meant that some kind of military campaign had to be launched, and Pico neither had the heart nor the money) Within months, Fremont meets Archibald Gillespie – Lieutenant in the American Navy, who had just sailed in from Hawaii – to shore up the coup. Gillespie, of course, under orders from the US government, no doubt to seize the state at all costs, but do so surreptitiously, was a critical piece of the puzzle. Keep in mind, the US had not yet declared war on Mexico.

First meeting Thomas Larkin in Monterey, before engaging Fremont off the coast of Oregon, he was charged with delivering his dispatch; a couple of years earlier, in 1844, Larkin was appointed American Council – whatever that means, and was the first American born Californio in the state. That is to say, the first born to an American family in California – ie: White Anglo decent. Larkin was a colorful dude in his own right, a builder who designed the Monterey Colonial, which in architecture embodies the blend of cultures colliding at this time – adobe with the second story porch, in a style found in Virginia, or North Carolina. To cut to the chase, Larkin, Fremont, Sutter, and company, were up to their teeth. Fremont ends up boarding ship in Monterey Bay, sailing into Los Angeles and taking over the town, more or less, without much of a fight. After the battle of San Pasqual, in San Diego, Pio Pico, a true Califonrnio, and legally appointed governor, was banished to Baja for a time, and will play a role in the legend of Joaquin when the dust settles over who owns the state. The gold dust that is. Keep in mind Murrieta is roughly 16 at this time, and would have known of, or come to know, Pico, Fremont and certainly Sutter.

Sonora, Mexico, where Murrieta was born, was initially under the oversight of the Jesuits, who, in their mission ethos, integrated the native peoples rather than dominated them. One of the practices was to use the vaquero, indigenous cowboys, who had, by the time of Murrieta's day, learned to work the Spanish horse over generations. The mission culture and the church would have shaped his character at a young age, both as a horseman and in his education. This introduces the theme of racism from an angle that is nuanced, but significant. Racism is said to play a large role in understanding Murrieta's actions as a thief and killer; it is a major aspect of California history at this time, the 'gold bug' culture, the Vigilance Committee, the lynchings of Mexicans, are examples, the slaughter of the grizzly, might be another - and he would not have seen himself as openly defying the church - or at least been able to make some justification for his murderous spree. Junipero Serra was a Franciscan; a fervent missionary who 'relished physical suffering and self mortification', and not the liberal ideals of the Jesuits. The church may have had little or no influence on Murrieta, but he may have been able to maintain at least some identity with the Catholic Church through the Jesuits, And if we - and this is pure speculation - add this to his other well known indictments of racism, we can get an idea of how one might develop a desperado's psychology. A further complexity lies in his ethnic identity, Murrieta would have seen himself as white, but also native to Mexico, able to trace his roots through Spanish blood, and also connected to the earth, as only an indigenous people can be. It is this lineage, the lineage of the Spanish vaquero, that would have given him a right of passage in California; a rite that would have led him to the Panoche Pass through the San Benito Mountains and along a road very near to the one I'm on now. We're above the turn off to Clear Creek, and I have passed by, stopped, inspected, or scaled almost every gate that looks like it goes anywhere. All are locked, none have signs except: No Trespassing  - no trail head, no opportunity no way, and it seems my quest to reach the ridge has been thwarted - but only for a time. I'm done for the day, I have to teach a zoom class tomorrow, and there is no wi fi out here, so it's back to LA. I will reconnoiter and return as soon as I can, for another day.