YOU MAY HAVE SEEN ME
Marian Huyck
Dateline 1850s
When we high-tailed it out of Mexico we rode our mounts nearly into the ground and it showed: their coats were covered with the white froth of heat, manes stuck to their hide, and grunting as we pushed them harder. Our horses were relieved when we stopped for the night at a deserted tumbling down adobe near San Diego.
We knew where we were headed.
There were three of us: Joaquin Jalama; his long-time friend, Garcia, or better known as “Three-fingered Jack”, and me - Pablo Camarillo. They called me the “Pablo Wooden Head,” because I was unable to speak. In the early days of my career as an outlaw, I had my tongue cut out for spitting at the sheriff of San Diego. Instead of going to trial - he told me he had had his fill of being bad-mouthed for the month and decided the next person who bad-mouthed him was not going to be able to talk that way to anyone again. I happened along at the wrong time, but I’ll tell you about that in a little while.
***
Although I can’t speak, my brain is alive and well. I sided with Jalama for all of the reasons he went on his murderous rampage. I was witness to the events that occurred in my hometown of La Paz when the rancheros and their two-gun no good low-lifers decided La Paz was where they wanted to stop and “fuel up” for the rest of their journey.
When they had bellied up to the bar several times they went loco. Plumb loco in the cabeza. Those pendejos lit out of the saloons like they had been bit by a Spanish fly. They ravaged, raped, and murdered many of the women in the tiny village; my wife included. She was pregnant and we were to have our first child. She died while giving premature birth to our child. Only minutes later our baby, a girl I named Maria after her mother, died. I buried them atop a hill with the wind facing their grave - a single grave - for I had Maria holding our daughter. They would go to eternity together. I said the Rosary while gently laying a handmade rosary in their hands to take with them on their journey.
As I was leaving my wife and child’s gravesite I met up with a solitary man who loosely held the reins of a black stallion which was pulling a buckboard carrying a pine coffin. He was sobbing; mumbling to himself. His wife was also a victim and had suffered the death of rape: her soul died then; and the death of fire, for her body died in the smoldering ruins and she was released into the heavens by our Father above.
The legend says that may or may not be true, but who would want to conjure up such sinful thoughts. The rest of what you are about to read is true as well.
The man’s name was Joaquin Jalama. Bowing my head in respect, he stopped and looked at me as though in a fog. It was then we exchanged sad greetings and I rode with him in silence to support him as laid his wife to rest. I had a great amount of sympathy for Joaquin for I was traveling the same path. We wept together. We held onto one another. Who else could we turn to?
At that time we spoke and talked of our revenge against these murderous rapists. We vowed to kill them all before we ever gave up or before we were captured and killed.
Soon after the burials of our wives and my baby, Joaquin invited me over to his small tattered tent. There was nothing left of the wooden clapboard one room house except still-smoldering charred wood.
***
Joaquin introduced me to Garcia. I shook hand and wondered what he could do if one caught him on a bad day. His friendly handshake was a bone-crusher.
Our plans were set in motion. We were going to leave the following Saturday and headed out toward San Diego.
However, there was a slight change. An altercation occurred just south of San Diego at some scum-bucket gutter-sludge little hole-in-the-wall. While I was having a second drink of tequila, watching the worm go down, Joaquin walked in, six-starred spurs clanging as though they had bells on them. Motioning at me to leave he said, “Pablo, it’s time - we have to reach the Los Angeles before three days pass or we will lose the murderers.”
The sheriff stood at the doorway and asked what we were planning. Joaquin walked out, acting as though he had not heard. When the sheriff came up to me and asked what we were planning I looked at him and said, “I know nothing.” I didn’t tell him our plans; but I was hot as a fire on a cold night and let him know it was our business. I told him to get out of my way as I pushed him aside and headed out the door.
He took his leather gloved hand and swung it across my face. Again and again he pummeled me. His knuckles knocked my teeth all over the bar floor. I kept a few and made dice out of them. It is then he said he was going to cut out my tongue; said he had had enough of my mouth for the day.
He took out his switch blade and right there on the bar floor as I lay, unable to get up, he did the deed. It hurt - hurt like hell and I passed out. I mended well and we headed out again. Joaquin, Garcia, and I had a mission and we didn’t want to hold it up any longer.
***
Two weeks later we finally reached Los Angeles. After inquiring around we found out the herd of wild mustang were on their way to Sacramento. We knew the mountains and ravines would slow them and felt we had the upper hand.
We all had our high Spanish styled saddles on our horses. I rode my Appaloosa; Joaquin rode his black stallion - a mean one, full of fire, and Garcia rode his quarter horse. We didn’t load them down with unnecessary weight; we knew how to live off the land.
***
Our anger grew to the boiling point as we recounted what had happened to our wives and my child. We lived with our sorrow every day and became obsessed, pushing ourselves harder as each day came and went. Although Garcia didn’t have a wife he lost, he felt our agony, and his seed of anger and hate grew rapidly. When we happened upon someone who bad-mouthed us, we shot him and kept riding. We were not going to be stopped.
***
Reaching Sacramento, near the crossing to the delta, we were met up by a sheriff hell bent on capturing the three of us; we had reputations as murdering, crazed men. We headed up a ravine. Deep into the valley of the ravine we found no escape.
The town of Sacramento was a long distance away by horseback.
The sheriff and his posse got us cornered and shot us. Joaquin and Garcia lie dead on the ground. I couldn’t answer any questions and they called me wooden head. Little did they know I heard everything they said and my mind screamed at them with venomous words.
The sheriff pulled the trigger and a bullet burned through my heart, killing the ache it carried. Yet like an echo, I heard the words, “We can’t take these bodies back to Sacramento to prove we killed them - it’s too far, so we will take a portion of each man to show we got the murdering Mexicans. With that Jalama’s head was whacked off and put into a sack. Garcia’s hand was cut off and put into a can. They chiseled me off at the knees and took me along on the ride slung over the back of my horse.
***
When they arrived in Sacramento the governor was pleased and paid the men, who were never to be seen again.
California was in dire straits and needed money to re-fill their coffers. After a lot of debating it was agreed the state would have a touring side show, exhibiting the hand of “Three-Fingered Pete” as they called Garcia; the preserved head of Joaquin Jalama in a jar; and me.
They had nick-named me “Pablo, the wooden head.” They strung my body with hemp after it dried in the depths of hot sand. I looked about the same. During the show the ropes were pulled by a puppeteer who told a story they fabricated of Joaquin and his murdering band of outlaws.
We three dead men raised so much money for California that the governor absconded with what he could and was never heard from.
That is the true story of Joaquin Jalama; Three Fingered Pete; and me: Pablo, the Wooden Head, strung up to dance for his money.
END
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