When Juan found the other Vaquero

 Page 6.

When Juan found the other Vaquero named Pedro, they both saw the strange man climbing to the top of a nearby mountain on horseback screaming wildly, “ give me back my hand”?  Juan told the priest both he and Pedro searched for the man but never found him but they did find one of the many villages scattered alone the California coast of Costanoan “coast people”. The Costanoan’s told them of a white man who’s been roaming the hills and valley’s with great power. They reported he was found on the beach half dead and severely burned and taken to a village over the hills near the bay. He was cared for and recovered and told the villager’s he spoke to the stars but this angered the sun who burned his face and took his ivory hand? His says the sun gave his hand to a young girl and the hand is very powerful and must be returned to him and the girl must be killed. Father Mendez knew what this meant and knew the mission and it’s people were in great danger.

The Sakla-n tribe who inhabited the eastern end of he peninsula where warriors and willing to fight for any reason and with just two days ride away from the mission Father Mendez and the Vaquero’s were outnumbered. That afternoon Father Mendez spoke to Jade about the Ivory hand and without telling her of the possible connection to Finley they decided to bury the object somewhere away from the mission. Jade sensed something was wrong and her mind raced back to the deck of the Topaz but she was sure Finley was dead? How could he have survived knowing everything on the Topaz was burned and destroyed or was it?  Father Mendez asked Jade to tell no one and to bury the hand in a place only she would know, so she and Scratch placed the wrapped ivory hand into a basket and walked quietly passed the corn fields, orchards and vineyards and stopped near a slow moving creek covered in shady green willows. As Scratch jumped into the clear running water the large willows lined the creek as it snaked it’s way directly to the ocean as many of the creeks and streams did along the coast. It was late afternoon and many of the night creatures where beginning to stir.

Black crowned night herons began to leave the willows and fly upstream for their nighttime feeding. A blue kingfisher practiced it’s diving almost landing on Scratch as the three legged dog splashed like a puppy in the knee high water. Jade brought nothing to dig with so as not to arouse suspicion and looked to make sure that she had not been followed. Finding a heavy flat rounded river rock shaped like a turtle shell just above the creek she lifted it up and scrapped out enough dirt for the ivory hand to fit.  And just as she covered the hand with the stone she heard a fast running horse coming in her direction interrupting the tranquil sounds of the running stream, it was Juan and he was at full gallop. Scratch heard it too and quickly ran next to Jade and stood as a sentry as Juan jumped from his horse and said, “Jade, come quick there’s trouble at the mission”.  Juan helped Jade board his chestnut mare named Reina and together they rode back while Jade clutched Scratch in one of her arms.

Birds of Prey

 

Like so many thousands of others just like her

 Page 2.

Like so many thousands of others just like her Jade was sold into slavery and prostitution by a aunt who took charge of her after her mother was murdered by unsatisfied French Commander stationed on the island . Jade went to the highest bidder and this time it was Finley and for just three coins of silver Jade sat in a floating dungeon of death with hands and feet shackled and chained to a young girl who died three days earlier. It was almost completely black where she and the others were held and the smell of death was horrific. Rats fed on the dead and dying and some girls caught and ate the rats just to survive. Captain Finley’s crew placed bets on who would survive the voyage and often they caught live sharks that followed the Topaz and threw them into the cargo hole and laughed at the screams. “Not to hard on the cargo lads but they must learn life will bite if your not careful“, Finley shouted as he threw a gutted shark into the hold. Jade was strong and she ate what she could reach and as she swallowed another piece of raw shark liver her spirit took over and brought her to another place far, far away from this hell.

With literally hundreds of wharf rats and other vermin infesting the Topaz it was a tough endeavor for a three legged dog named “Scratch”. The last of the dogs on board the ship the others were eaten by Finley and his crew. Infested with fleas and thin to his rib bones Scratch was the closes thing to humanity that walked the decks on the Topaz even if he was shy of one leg. Living on rats and rainwater was all that was available for this black and white terrier with three legs and one blue eye. When Captain Finley stepped in some droppings left by the small dog he shot Scratch blowing his left front leg completely off. Miraculously Scratch survived and often remained in the cargo hole venturing out only at night when Finley and his crew lay drunk in their cabins. Scratch befriended Jade and brought her fresh killed rats and any other scraps he could find by dropping them down into he hole until one night he found a forgotten key to the shackles. As the Topaz hugged the rugged coastline forced by the constant fog and dangerous currents the ship was often just two hundred yards from the beaches. That morning as some slivers of rare sunlight began to filtered through the grayest fog in spots slicing through the sky the crew was beginning to stir from another night of whiskey and smoke.

A small beam of sunlight cut into the darkness of the hole where Jade and the others where held until a tiny shadow from above deck suddenly blocked it out. It was Scratch and like he’d seen so many times by the crew throwing things down into the hole he to had something of his own to share. The key hit the floor with a ping and bounced into the now lit area of sunlight right near Jade’s feet. She pulled the key toward her and unchained herself and passed the key to the others. At almost the same moment there was a terrible scrapping sound as if the Topaz was being torn in half from underneath. Jade instantly knew what it meant and looked for anything to be used as a weapon. Pulling the jaws of a rotting shark apart she fashioned them across both of her hands and tied them tight with strips of the shark’s skin. Several of the other captive girls did the same and they sat quietly and waited with their fists ready. Jolted from his bed Captain Finley rushed to the ships deck cursing and spitting out a gut full of whiskey and corn.

Jade and the Ivory Hand

Jade and the Ivory Hand

The captain of the Connecticut Clipper ship christened the Topaz cursed out loud as he scanned the shoreline just three hundred yards off the California coast not knowing he was less than thirty miles from his destination to the port of San Francisco. With a hole packed with Chinese opium and English whiskey he’d be paid handsomely if the ship could clear this dam fog and treacherous rocky reefs of this rugged coastline . It was 1855 some six years after the 1849 gold rush but money was still to be made if you dealt and traded in pain and misery something the captain of the Topaz was well adjusted and thriving at. Now the captain knew the dangers of his trade and the slowness of death these pacific waters could bring as many of his kind rested deep in the ocean below him. But the promise of pockets filled with gold and silver coins swirled  like devil wind’s in selfish mind’s filled with greed erasing the pain with inflict on innocent others .  Captain James Finley who captained the Topaz was no stranger to he ways of the sea first cutting his teeth as a stowaway from his native Ireland to escape the potato famine that starved so many of his kinsman to death. He was more of a pirate than anything else with more than one hangman’s noose waiting for him in ports from China to Haiti but San Francisco welcomed him like a long lost son. 

After losing a hand in the lucrative Africa slave trade over a dispute involving money and an African Chief’s daughter, Captain Finley stayed just long enough to have the missing hand fashioned and carved from ivory. A weapon of sorts and tipped with razor sharp silver claws on each fingertip he gutted several who failed to obey and maimed many others. He himself deserved to die so many times over and it was only a matter of when and not where. As the Topaz sailed northward in a blinding blanket of thick grey fog the chains below began to stir for it was more when just opium and whiskey that fuels this voyage. With fresh whore’s needed to quench the thirst of men in the bars, saloons and back alleys of the city, Captain Finley picked up thirty live ones during a layover in Haiti. Some as young as ten years old he kept the finest for himself and forced his way on the others under threat of death. “These pretties should awaken those stinking dead Frisco flounders”, he’d yell out to his man. But many jumped overboard when given the chance choosing death at sea over life on board if you could call it life.

Once several young girls managed to free themselves from the hold below deck and stabbed a shipmate with a marlin spike. Captain hung the girl responsible and left her body swinging from the mast for a week this was after the crew fired endless rounds into her body for sport. The others where tied below the ships head and the crew took turns relieving themselves before cutting the ropes allowing the girls to drown. Captain Finley made it clear to the other girls that they were just an afterthought and it didn’t matter to him if they survived or not. With no law to speak of and forced by the tip of a blade, Finley made his own rules to follow until you were sold and paid for that is. Chained below deck sat Jade a Haitian girl about twenty years old but looked much younger for her age. Her brown skin now stained with blood and filth her arms and legs were worn raw and infected by the iron shackles that imprisoned her but her deep dark colored eyes where the doorway to her soul and they always stepped forward with the will to survive.

That popping sound echoed from valley

That popping sound echoed from valley to valley and then from mountain to mountain for almost a minute. It was that popping sound made by the snapping of Millers neck that brought the rescuers directly to those desperate and forsaken travelers and everyone was saved. Doris recovered from her wounds tented to by Lorenzo and together they remained lifelong companions. The entire party returned safely back to Kansas but not before Gerald Higgins was given a proper burial even though his head was never recovered. It was a funny thing when they pulled Millers body down still hanging from the frozen grip of Higgins hands, that snowman face that Miller had replaced for the head of Higgins was no longer frowning instead it was beaming with a huge smiling grin? And while dangling from those hands Millers eye’s were fixed and glazed over bulging from their sockets like a dead prairie dog flatted under a heavy wagon wheel. And his thick squatty neck was clearly broken and it stretched like a piece of salt water taffy making an occasional snap, crackle and pop sound as it twisted in the chilling wind.

From out of nowhere a pair of ravens swooped down from the surrounding ponderosa pines and as one of the birds perched in a nearby branch the other landed directly on top of Millers head. The majestic birds glistening plumage flashed like lightning as it caught the last remaining light from a fast approaching sundown. Everyone present stood silent with some captivated by the moment while others did not wish to frighten the regal birds. The raven cocked its head to one side and in an instant plucked out one of the bulging eyes from Millers hideous corpse. It then just as swiftly took flight and jointed by it’s mate together they disappeared into the evening shadows but not before depositing their own calling card over Millers face. Some folks speculated the two ravens where possibility the spirits of Benjamin and Katie O’Neil and perhaps the eye was food for Posse maybe still alive and lost in the snow but this was doubtful. That evening before the party started their return trip home they all gathered around the body of Potts Miller. They quickly tossed his frozen corpse now with the missing eye like a piece of cord wood in to his wagon and pulled it to a deep and forbidding ravine.

There the wagon was set on fire and as the flames reached skyward some twenty feet the wagon was pushed over a bottomless cliff. The wagon skipped and ricocheted off several sheer granite ledges showering sparks and flames into the freezing sky until it rested at the bottom with a crashing thud. No one dared to look inside the wagon before it was set adrift into the endless sea of snow because if they had done so they would have discovered the bodies of the O’Neils as well as their faithful dog Posse. As Granny watched the flames flicker and start to die out she turned and said to the others, “ it’s time to leave this terrible place of death and  horror,  the horror of cannibal canyon”. Well that’s the story of Potts Miller and his appetite for organ meats or just one of many that could have remained a mystery forever. So the next time you drive through the High Sierra’s stop and take a long look into the cliffs and mountains that lay before you. Try to imagine what it was like for those terrified souls living in a time not so long ago. You just may see the wandering spirit of Potts Miller waving his tomahawk at you or perhaps the O’Neils and Posse locked in a time capsule.

But like so many stories and legends of the old west this story never left the memory of a four year old little girl named Sarah Margaret Bently, you see she lived to be one hundred years old or so they say and grew into a fine woman a lot like granny. But before leaving this earth she taught this rime to her children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren from that time forward.

Evil Potts Miller went insane

Evil Potts Miller would eat your brain

Evil Potts Miller didn’t give a heck

So dead Gerald Higgins broke his wicket neck

Sarah Margaret Bently

Wichita, Kansas

As told in her later years on her One Hundredth Birthday

In the year of our Lord

1944

The mouth of the snowman

Page 12.

The mouth of the snowman was arranged with a frown and in place of Higgins heart was a dried apple with two pieces missing. Lorenzo screams echoed throughout the camp and the surrounding mountains. He again screamed out at the top of his lungs, “ Miller, you scum of the earth, I’ll kill you myself”. Granny and the others rushed outside only to be met by Lorenzo who alerted the men and women to arm themselves and keep the children inside. Granny and Myra stood next to Higgins frozen body as Myra covered her face and wept and while Granny comforted Myra she noticed footprints leading away from the camp and into the mountains. The morning stillness was broken by a sudden blizzard of freezing snow. Granny tried to cover Higgins body with piece of canvas but the chilling winds forced her to stop. Granny called out to Myra and Lorenzo to return back to the shelter but as they neared the doorway the sound of a barking dog was heard coming from a nearby tree line. “It sounds like Posse”, Myra was the first to say, “it can’t be”, replied Lorenzo, “ he could have never survived out in these conditions”. 

Granny remained silent and then spoke, “ it’s a trick”, she said, “ a trick by Miller to lured us out one by one”. Granny grabbed her blunderbuss and pulled the hammer back and stood sentry in front of the doorway and told everyone to be quite. Most of the men remained seated and paralyzed with fear but Lorenzo armed himself with a Arkansas toothpick and a pepper-box pistol no on knew he had. Some of the women pulled out long hatpins from their hair and held them out in front of them. If only these folks had known that those same Indians who laughed at them during the early part of the journey had alerted the towns people back in Kansas that the party was in trouble. Some of those same Indians not only knew Potts Miller but they also knew of his terrible secrets and feared his magic but help was now on the way. In all the confusion something remained unnoticed, it was Doris and she was missing, surely it was Miller who had her. Miller who was hiding in a tree line bit down hard on a partially eaten heart he had carved from the body of Gerald Higgins earlier that morning.

Millers hideous face and lips were smeared grey with brain matter and he laughed out loud while he sat across the back of Doris clutching a hemp rope bridle wrapped tightly around her neck. Holding up in a small outcropping of trees just a short distance from the parties shelter he felt brazen enough to call out to the group. “ I’ll never go hungry”, he screamed, “ just as long as I have you fools for the pickings and especially the young one’s so tender and tasty”. Your all doomed, Miller continued, doomed to warm my belly with your brains and red blood. Lorenzo had heard enough and slipped outside of the shelter in a instant. “I’ve got to get him before he gets us”, he called out, “ and besides, that monsters got Doris”. Lorenzo waded knee deep through the snow toward the tree line challenging Miller to show himself as Granny followed not twenty paces behind him. Miller saw them coming and stuffed the half eaten heart into his bearskin coat. “Well”, hissed Miller, “ the bullfighter comes my way, looks like I could use a new set of ear’s”. Miller snorted like a happy hog in slop freely willing to give up his hidden position in the snow covered trees.

Provisions were getting low with some flour

 Page 11.

Provisions were getting low with some flour, salt and only a barrel and a half of dried beans. No one said anything but in times like these they made people wicket with fear. We need meat someone yelled while others began to moo loudly, Granny finding her blunderbuss pointed it toward the direction of the mooing and said, “Holy Cow”, in a defending tone and the mooing abruptly stopped. It was dark now and the wind and snow whistled through the cracks in the shelter touching anyone nearby with an icy death lock. Parents huddled together with their children between them like a human sandwich. Even with the fires bodies shook and trembled while teeth chattered in between the swirling winds. Perhaps morning would bring some relief but it was doubtful, they were all doomed and anyone with a brain knew it but the folks tried to hide their true fate from the children. Sometime in the middle of the night, Gerald Higgins though he heard the sound of a barking dog? At first he though he as dreaming or the cold and wind where playing tricks with his mind?

At first it was very slight and muffled then the barking sounded far off into the distance, but it grew stronger and louder coming almost near the shelter and then it stopped. But there it went again and the barking sounded like the O’Neils dog “Posse”. Higgins couldn’t believe his ears and he tried to wake the others but it seemed no one else heard the barking but him. Higgins knew what he had heard and he was determined to find out so he lifted the canvas flap that covered the door and peered outside into the black darkness. Suddenly he again heard the muffled bark, this time coming from the direction of Millers wagon. “He’s got Posse”, Higgins said out loud and quickly rushed toward Millers wagon pulling he’s Bowie Knife from it’s sheave. Higgins reached Miller’s wagon and stood silently next to team, the horses now uncovered and almost frozen remained motionless. Higgins called out in a whispered tone, “Posse, come here boy, is that you”? A looming shadowy figure began to rise from the front of the wagon, it was Miller and he stood above Higgins glaring down at him with his Tomahawk raised above his head.

Miller hissed staring down at Higgins and cackled like a crow, “Posse is that you, come here boy”. Higgins eyes filled with terror dropping his knife as he reached up with both hands to try and deflect the blow. “It’s just the pig farmers hog with the notched ear”, said Miller as he buried his tomahawk deep into the top of Higgins skull. Higgins life was instantly over and his body stood frozen and upright with his arms outstretched like a marble statue. Miller continued to hack on Higgins body all the while making squealing noises and it wasn’t until the next morning that Higgins was discovered. Lorenzo was the first to find Higgins after leaving the shelter and noticing all the stock bunched together as far from the body as possible. What Lorenzo found shocked him to the very core of his soul. Higgins body remained standing with his two arms held outstretched and skyward with the exception of two horrifying things, his head and heart were missing. His head was replaced with the head of a snowman with pieces of black charred wood for the eyes and nose.