Fistfight at Judas Gulch

FISTFIGHT AT JUDAS GULCH

by MARK LIND-HANSON

FISTFIGHT AT JUDAS GULCH

by MARK LIND-HANSON

copyright 2014, 2015 Mark Lind-Hanson

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER 3

CHAPTER 4

CHAPTER 5

CHAPTER 6

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 8

CHAPTER 9

CHAPTER 10

CHAPTER 11

CHAPTER 12

CHAPTER 13

INTRODUCTION

This book grows rather organically out of the earlier work, the Julian Plectrum trilogy. While nothing of the sort is planned at this time such as two more sequels to this, the Early West has been, in some regard, as much a fascination for my imagination as the Pre-Renaissance. And I have brought, again, a number of liberties of the imagination, to this work— readers will note the appearance of a few modern figures with little or no recommendation as to how they ended up here. Or hidden behind a thinly veiled disguise composed of poetic license. But again, this is not so much a historical novel, as it is a historical fantasy novel. The television show Wild, Wild West was quite influential in this regard, during my formative years, although herein you will not find James West, nor Artemis Gordon, but it does take a fair amount of mental courage to which that the modern world may, in fact, bear some import upon the period which preceded it.

A number of books helped to inform me on background during the work as to this period in California’s culture. Those in particular I would wish to acknowledge are: Saloons of the Old West, by Richard Erdoes; Eldorado by Dale L. Walker; the Collected Short Stories of Bret Harte; Gold Rush, A Literary Exploration, edited by Michael Kowalewski; Mud, Blood, and Gold by Rand Richards; The Bohemians: Mark Twain and the San Francisco Writers Who Reinvented American Literature; by Ben Tarnoff; and Roughing It, by Mark Twain.

Some friends and influential others also did their part (knowingly or not) in the creation of Sardo Pat and his little world of Judas Gulch. These include that famous Irish outlaw gang, The Donohue Brothers; Marilyn Hoffman-Jones; Barry Jamison; Joe Keith; Bill Merritt; Karen Schwartz; and Michael Wilhelm.

I am sure there are grammar nazis out there who will complain a whole bunch about Sardo Pat’s spelling. These same types would have sent Huck Finn to the woodshed without any supper, too, I suppose. Well, this book tells it just like he spelt it, an’ eff you don’t likes it, that’s jes’ tough biskits, tennerfoot!

CHAPTER 1

HOW SARDO PAT CAME TO CALIFORNIA

Call me Sardo Pat. Everybody else does, why not you? You know what sardo is, doncha? It’s thet special bread they bake down in Frisco. Folks claim the air got some special magical yeast en it or sumpin, makes et all so taste salty an’ tangy. Anyhow, my real name ez Patrick Menahee Machlachglenahee an’ I was borned in Ireland. Came to ‘Merica when I was two. My pappy he worked on the Eerie Canal. You heard of that too, aintcha? Lived in Skanecktidee. Came out west with the Rush I did, got me a claim on a placer on the Consumniss River, an’ my main drag is the town o’ Judas Gulch.

I gots t’ tell y’all a little sumpin bout how it all came about, too, how I come out here, cuz I am one o’ those them like t’ call Orijnul FortyNiners— That is, I made it out here while thar was still somethin’ good about it, an’ I had a chance t’ make me an ackshul bit of money. Nowadays with all the hydrollicking goin’ on, there’s lots o’ land gits washed through but lots less gold fer the pickin’! When I come here a man could still work his own damn claim, didn’t need no help er none.

But that’s all different now. Takes me my six pardners an’ me together workin’ a sixty feet sluice together t’ get what little we gits. Oh et’s still somethin’, usually ‘bout two ounces a day I spoze, but it aint like the old days when you could jes’ find them nuggets willy-nilly sometimes.

I come from Skanecktidee New York, like I said, ain’t all so much back there ‘cept my folks an’ little brother, an’ I ain’t been back, an’ I don’t care if I don’t, neither. I left Skanecktidee an’ got myself on a boat outa city o’ New York called the Curij. The Curij she were jes’ a two-master, couldn’t take the trip round the Horn, you know, an’ so I had me passage t’ Limon in Costa Rica, down thar en jungle land. Took me a weak o’ hard travelin’ through them rustic vines an’ tangles, with a cupple Injuns as my guides, with twenny others, hackin’ an’ hewin’ our way to the Pacific. But we got thar, an’ we got t’ Puntarenas.

I was lucky, some o’ them other fellers took ill off malaria cause they got killer skeeters down there, an’ a cupple o’ cholera, because ain’t no good water, I was lucky I had this here special large canteen carried my own so sip by sip I slipped across the Isthmus. Soon as we gets t’ Puntarenas we all catched a schooner headed up Frisco way. Ackshully et was headed to Portland Oregon, but had a stop there.

Frisco! Man what a place. Folks told me that when I got there wuz thangs about started t’ get hoppin’ an’ it’s been hoppin’ ever since! I only stayed enough time t’ get me a map an’ an outfit—fer me thet meant a pickhammer , a shuvil, an’ a pannin’ pan an’ a fryin’ pan, an’ a good hat. That lucky hat’s been with me all along, too! An’ I headed up this here way t’ Judas Gulch, an’ put down my claim on my little place on the Consumness. Made me a couple of friends there, them ez now pardners in the minin’ comp’ny, too, Piney an’ Transom. An’ Cakey. Cakey’s sorta like our man Fridey, he’s frum th’ Sandwich Islands, he is.

In fact, Cakey were the first akshul man I met that first day on the street of Frisco. I wuz jes’ t’ set about gettin’ my land legs when this feller comes up t’ me— he’s got dark skin like a Nigro but more tan— an’ he asks me if I would be going up t’ the mines.

I said, Why, yes, what man here ain’t?

He proceeds t’ tell me he will make me an excellent guide, fer a small fee. He is Cakey Kowakowa, from the island of Owahoo, an’ dang if he ain’t already been up thar en the gold fields an’ has his own claim goin’. Says, I will need some good advice as t’ how t’ go about things, this I cannot argue with, an’ he says, agin, fer a small fee, he will guide me t’ a good pannin’ river, the Consumness, an’ he will help git me an outfit (that war the shuvil an’ pick an’ pan an’ a little rocker) an’ we would both git two mules, an’ I can strap my gear on the back o’ one.

Now I happent t’ have brought me a blanket, an’ that were a good thing, since thet wood have cosset me some fifty dollars there eff I got it in Frisco. The shuvil an’ pan an’ pick war bad enough, that war a whole thirty. By the time I had bought us both lunch an’ paid fer the supplies an’ paid the rent on two mules, I hed about spent near seveny whole dollers, an’ I had left only about a hunnert, fer whatever else would need come up.

Cakey said, though, that up thar a man must rely on his wits, slim supply, must make his shelter, must have good strong clothes, much also he must have good strong back, because minin’ ez hard work.

I weren’t afraid of no hard work, that is so.

So anyhow I must also pay for the ferry fer us both. My ticket was thirty an’ Cakey’s was thirty-five dollers on account of his Kanaka color, but we got the ferry, an’ left Frisco that same afternoon.

Now there were some troubles goin’ on, an’ which I had of coarse no sense of the meaning, though Cakey seemed to.

We get out of there jest in time, Pat he says, looking back over his shoulder et the town of Frisco as et diminished behind us on the water.

Big bad fight happen. Sidney Ducks and Frisco Hounds makin’ big trouble fer Chillytown minders.

Chillytown? Frisco Hounds? Sidney Ducks? Me no savvy, I says, intersted in the paticulars.

Chillytown. Make homes there in tents, many Spannards from Chilly. Come up t’ work mines with sons and wives. Sidney Ducks— bad news operators. With Frisco Hounds, get paid to watch docks, an’ drag sailors back t’ boats. Unlucky sailor cannot leave his ship to go mines! Bad.

Sidney Ducks, Frisco Hounds, back there, they raging on Chillytown. Say, men from Chilly have no pay tax on mines. I pay tax on mines too! Yes, twenny dollah! Twenny dollah fer year fer man work mines not white American man. But Hounds mad that many, so many, too many Chillyman here en Frisco. So fight. Big fight go on, we leave it behind us. Big trouble. Where we go, not so bad. Lots o’ Kanaka, lots o’ Chillymen, lots of’Chinaman, lots o’ Injuns. But many men friends. You see. Gold work magic!

I had t’ let this sink in for a whiles, but what I would find, a coarse, would be nothing like he described things.

When the ferry docked at Sackaminnow, he said it would be good fer us t’ rest the night. We held the mules with a livery man at a hotel. Weren’t much o’ a hotel, jes’ a little tent with five or six partishunned made out of drop cloth jes’ like the walls. But they charged me an’ Cakey three dollers each t’ sleep thar. In the morning we rustled grub— was not so bad sept it were a dollar apiece, agin. He still had not given me a price fer his good onnist fee but I was hangin’ on (eff I could) t’ every cent I had. Still, it were tough. Not so tough as the steak we ate fer breakfast, though!

We got up in the mornin’ an’ saddled the mules, an’ ridin’ on mine were not much fun with the rocker behind my butt, but somehow I managed an’ so did the mule.

Cakey was leadin’ me onward, t’ the fated camptown of Judas Gulch.

So when Cakey get me up there inta the hills, an’ after we had passed through Sackaminnow an’ I seened that fer what it wuz, we pulls inta Judas Gulch on our old mules an’ goes up a hill where’s his place. Now I seen from the way he were livin’ weren’t much t’ advertise an’ thet I wanted my own cabin right aways, jest as soon as I could make one. Cakey said Oh fine, das right, I help you make house, you no worries!

First thing as I gets offa the mule, he sets me down in this little hutch of his. I don’t know what else yer gonna call it, cuz it ain’t more than a roof an’ a wall, an’ on three sides mostly open t’ the are. He pinned back canvas around the edges. It was not til winter I seen him dubble back up them canvas flaps an’ make it almost a proper house, but thet’s all et was, canvas flaps bent round some posts. And the roof, well, it were only a piece of grass really, flowers an’ all growing on the top of et.

Anway he sets me down an’ askits me what I’ll have t’ drink.

I don’t know, watch you got?

Cakey sez he gots whisky, but I passed on that, I figger I can see whisky enough once I gits my strike, an’ then have more reason t’ drink it. He says he gots coffee so I sez, OK, fine

He pulls some coffee beans outta a big old sack an’ pounds them with a hammer on a stump-head, an’ scrapes them off into a pot, throws water on, biles it, an’ thar, thet’s a cup of coffee. Weren’t no nothing to it. Of course I was gonna set him back on his tail oncet he seen the coffee grinder I buys when I gets flush but fer now this were luxury.

Then he asks me eff I’m hongry, an’ a coarse I am, since we ain’t et nothin since this marnin’ when we lit out o’ Sackaminnow, an’ pulls a can offa his wall. He musta had twenty more these cans up thar on a shelf an’ they all says the same thing— Mr. Cook’s Two Finger Poi. I never heard of this none. He says maybe I will like it. He opens up a can an’ I looks in an’ et’s the mos’ ugly looking purple slop!

He laughs, an’ pours it inta a skillet, grabs a jug o’ molasses an/ mixes it around, stirs that gloop like it were a regular soup or somethin’. Once ets hot he says Give a while cool down then once it looks like it is, why, he takes his forefingers an’ dips ‘em in, pulls up a hunk o’ et on ‘em, an’ slurps it right down!

I says, Don’t you got a spoon for me?

Cakey laughs an’ sez if I needs a spoon, I be’s no good in Sandwich Islands, but he hands me one, an’ so I tried to start ennyway, eatin’ the glopaguss.

It go so much bettah with fish. I show you nex’ time.

Right now I guess he ain’t got no fish, so I set myself thar an’ stared into the wiggly face of the glopaguss an’ I et what I could. Which weren’t all of it. ‘Cept fer the molasses that were some purty rank stuff. Half sar, an’ thet were probly cuz it were sar t’ start off with! Without thet molasses I can’t see none how ennyone let alone Kanakas could warnts t’ tech it. Mus’ be a quired taste.

When I et my full of his poy I asset him where he got et, seein’ as were a Sandwich Island dellikasy.

He said he got a whole case of it brung to Stockton secure and custom, when he made his first strike. Tells me once a man makes his strike well et’s lots like the gates of Heaven opens. All kinds o’ things is used an’ useful and comes to him easy like, much never thought of before. I wuz talkin’ t’ him this way when he takes thet thar empty poy can an’ flattens it an’ throws it in a bucket