Chapter 29: Murderer’s Bar

 

After almost a week’s absence, Joel returned from Sutter’s Fort without any new miners to work with them. “Don’t need anyone,” he told Mac, just like he had before he left for the fort. “We’re purty good shots. I didn’t see anyone I wanted to trust.”

“I hope you’re right,” Mac said. “But there are only three of us.”

 

April 5, 1849. I cannot force Joel and Huntington to take on more partners. But every week more men crawl through the hills seeking riches. Some prefer violence to hard labor.

I turn twenty-eight today. How long will it be before I decide my future?

 

The weather warmed. By late April the men could sit comfortably in the evenings around a campfire outside their shack. Sometimes miners from nearby claims in the valley joined them, though Mac kept his pistol handy even among faces he knew.

One night another prospector from Oregon named Eberman joined them as they passed a bottle of raw whiskey around. “Indians been killin’ whites not far from here,” Eberman said.

“How do you know the killers are Indians?” Mac asked. His wagon train hadn’t had much trouble with Indians when they traveled west. Still, he remembered the braves who’d come to their claim a few weeks earlier.

“Bodies was found all carved up and charred,” Eberman said, then paused to belch. “One man burned at the stake. Only a savage would do that. And the murderers left the gold. Must’ve been Indians—whites or Mexicans would’ve taken the color.”

“I’d a thunk Indians would steal it, too,” Huntington interjected.

Eberman shook his head. “Most of the tribes don’t care about gold. Folks is callin’ the creek where it happened ‘Murderer’s Bar’ now.”

“How many were killed?” Joel asked.

“Four. This time. Last time it was three. Rascals took clothes and tents that time, but again left the gold. We’re outfittin’ a posse to go after ’em. Men from these parts, mostly Oregonians. You boys want in?”

“We need to stay here. Guard our claim,” Mac said. The Oregon militia seeking the Whitmans’ killers had searched for weeks without success. He didn’t want to leave the gold claim for long.

“I’ll go,” Joel volunteered. “You and Huntington can stay.”

“Why don’t y’all both go?” Huntington said. “Need to catch the varmints what’s murderin’ folks. I’ll stay. If I was ten years younger, I’d trade places with you. But my bunk is softer’n the ground.” He coughed.

“No one’ll bother your claim if’n you’re with our posse,” Eberman said. “Men stayin’ behind in this valley have agreed to look out for each other till the Indian scourge is gone. You’re from Oregon, ain’t ya?”

Joel nodded. “Mac and I came out in forty-seven.”

“You sure it’s Indians?” Mac asked again. He didn’t like the idea of leaving Huntington alone on the claim. But he could always leave the posse if it stayed away too long.

“Sure as shootin’,” Eberman said.

“Which tribe?” Mac asked. He knew very little about the Californian tribes and wondered how much Eberman knew.

“They’re all the same.” Eberman shrugged. “Some valley Indians who been workin’ for white folks in the gold fields say it’s the mountain tribes. So the posse is headed into the mountains with some valley tribe guides.”

The next morning Mac and Joel rode with Eberman and found the posse gathered under the direction of a Captain O’Brien. Mac was surprised to see Smith in the group, and he eyed the large man suspiciously.

“What’s he doing here?” Mac asked Eberman.

Eberman shrugged. “Don’t know. Someone else must have rounded him up. You know him?”

“I think he attacked our claim last fall. We killed his partner. Though he denies any involvement.” Mac had been uneasy about this posse from the start. Smith’s inclusion made him feel worse.

The group headed out in the direction the valley Indians pointed, but after two days of searching saw no sign of other tribes. “Must not be the mountain tribes. Must be these thievin’ valley Indians after all,” Eberman said.

Mac was sure they were on a wild goose chase. He worried about Huntington, alone on the claim. He thought about leaving the posse and returning to their mine.

O’Brien led the men south toward Coloma, near Sutter’s Mill, then announced the posse would look for the valley tribe’s camp. After half a day’s searching, they found the camp twenty miles from Coloma at the mouth of Weaver Creek.

“These must be the killers,” O’Brien said. “We need to attack.” He motioned the posse to follow him.

“Where’s the evidence?” Mac asked.

“We’ll find it when we capture the camp,” O’Brien answered. “Just ride like the devil and shoot any Indian you see.”

It wasn’t much of a plan, Mac thought. The Oregon militia he’d ridden with had been much better organized, even with Samuel Abercrombie leading the unit. “Should we split into two? Flank them?” he asked.

“Hell, ain’t no need for strategy. They ain’t expectin’ us,” O’Brien said. “And we got more guns.”

Mac wanted to question the commander further, but stayed quiet. He hadn’t appreciated interference as leader of the wagon train. O’Brien was leading this posse, and Mac decided not to object.

At O’Brien’s signal, the posse charged into the Indian camp, every man shooting as fast as he could.

Heart pounding, Mac fired at a couple of Indians, one of whom dropped to the ground. As best as he could tell, none of the Indians shot back. When he didn’t see any Indians with guns, Mac stopped shooting, sickened by the slaughter.

It wasn’t long before O’Brien gave the signal to cease fire. The posse surrounded the Indian camp and counted bodies.

“Twenty-six dead,” Smith told O’Brien, kicking one of the bodies. “Six men surrendered. Plus women and children.” The Indian women wept loudly among the bodies.

“Why you shoot us?” one Indian man asked. He knelt on the ground, hands in the air.

“You killed our men,” O’Brien said.

“White Californos pay us to kill,” an Indian woman said. Another woman nodded. “Oregon men steal. Give bad goods in trade. But Californos pay us.”

“Hell,” Eberman muttered from behind Mac. “Them Californians don’t give fair trade to the Indians neither. Us Oregonians is just better at negotiatin’.”

“Californians are only mad we’re undercutting ’em,” another posse member said with a grin.

So the attacks were motivated by disputes between two groups of whites, Mac thought with revulsion. He remembered the cracked ax handle he’d traded for the deerskin the month before. All he’d wanted was to get the Indians to leave the claim. Had his trade been part of the unfair dealings that led to the killings at Murderer’s Bar?

He’d probably killed another man today, though there was no way to know for certain whether his bullet had felled the Indian he’d seen drop. He wanted no more part in this posse.

“Tie ’em up,” O’Brien told his men, gesturing at the surviving Indians. “We’ll take ’em to Coloma.”

“But they weren’t the leaders,” Mac protested. It wasn’t right for these Indians to die, when white men put them up to it. “What about the white Californians who encouraged them?”

“We’ll go after them next,” O’Brien said.

So far, Mac had only killed in self-defense or battle. He didn’t want any role in punishing these Indians—not if the white men went free. “Come on, Joel. This isn’t our fight anymore. Never was.”

Joel shook his head.

“But these men weren’t guilty.”

“I’m staying,” Joel said.

“Well, I’m not.” Mac spun Valiente around and rode away.

Mac arrived back at the claim the next day. “Was there any trouble?” he asked Huntington.

“Someone nosin’ around in the trees one night,” Huntington said. “Never got a look at him. I shot into the woods, and he headed away. Could it have been your friend Smith?”

Mac shook his head. “Smith was part of the posse.”

“So what happened?” Huntington demanded every gruesome detail of the battle, which Mac recounted in disgust.

“You left before O’Brien strung ’em up?” Huntington hooted. “Why, a good hangin’s hard to beat for entertainment.”

“I don’t need that kind of entertainment,” Mac said.

“What kind you like then?” Huntington asked. “No women? No hangin’s? You’ll take good whiskey, but ain’t you got any other vices?”

After supper Mac lounged in his bunk and wrote:

 

April 30, 1849. More killing over gold, this time the posse killed a group of unarmed Indians who may or may not have killed whites. And to my regret, I was a part of it.

Mac and Huntington worked the claim for a week before Joel returned.

“Did ya string ’em up?” Huntington shouted when Joel rode into camp.

Joel shook his head somberly. “No hangings, but they’re dead. We took ’em into Coloma, where O’Brien got into an argument with a sawmill overseer. The overseer was who put the tribe up to killing prospectors—he’d ordered one of the Indians working in the mill to hire the valley tribe to kill the Oregonian prospectors. When we brought in the prisoners, the overseer tried to take ’em and let ’em go.”

“What happened?” Huntington asked.

“O’Brien kept hold of his prisoners. After a time, he let the women and children free. Then he ran the six Indian men and the mill overseer out of town. But when they ran off, O’Brien ordered our posse to shoot ’em like deer.”

Huntington wheezed. “Mowed ’em down, eh?”

“Only two Indians made it to the river. One got shot in the water, and the last was killed as he ran up the far bank.”

“Wish I’d seen it,” Huntington said, shaking his head with a grin. “Ain’t seen nothin’ like that since a lynchin’ back in Georgia.”

Mac’s stomach lurched at Joel’s description and Huntington’s response. “We don’t need any part of Indian conflicts,” he said. “Should have stayed out of it from the start.”

Joel nodded with a grimace. “They may be Indians, but they didn’t deserve what happened,” he said. “Even folks in Coloma think O’Brien was too harsh. Now they fear an Indian uprising.”

“What happened to Smith?” Mac asked.

Joel shrugged. “He was one of the men shooting at the Indians near the river. Then he rode off. Don’t know where he went.”

“He didn’t follow you back to this valley?”

“I didn’t see him,” Joel said.

As Mac swung his pick and ran water through the sluices, he thought about what mining had become. When he’d started the year before, it had been an adventure in a pristine wilderness, a treasure hunt like those of childhood birthday parties. Now? With so many miners? The quest had warped into violence.

Gold had brought him wealth, which in turn gave him independence from his father. But he’d earned enough. He didn’t need to toil any longer. He didn’t need to battle men like Smith and O’Brien, nor to incur guilt killing helpless Indians.

Should he pull out? Turn his claim over to Joel, as he’d promised? Then what? He had no place in Oregon. So return to Boston? Maybe it was time.

The confines of a law office still didn’t appeal to him after the freedom of trail and mountains. But he didn’t want more carnage on his conscience. He’d been partially responsible for the Indians’ deaths in Coloma, even though he’d left before it happened. Maybe if he’d stood firmer before the attack on the village, taken charge as he had of the wagon train, he could have lessened the tragedy.

Spring was still young. He could leave for Boston and be there by fall.