Jack Powers: Lion Among Rats
5. Jack Takes Command
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5. Jack Takes Command
From “Remembering Jack Powers” by Bill Horace in the Los Angeles Star, 1876.
Within remarkably few months, Jack established full command over Los Angeles society and over Calle de los Negroes. He was honored by the dons for giving them a private place to mix and gamble in the presence of a charming and attractive hostess, providing elegance and exclusivity such as Los Angeles had never known. And in the triumph Powers most desired over Dr. Den, the Angeleno dons embraced Jack as an equal. He was invited to participate in high stakes races with the leading Californios, men who only rode against their peers. As a horseman equal or superior to the best of them, his opinions on their horseflesh were solicited and gravely weighed. He always spoke to them in Spanish, which he polished with the help of Jose Rijo. And in a culture that prized clothing, Jack brought verve and creativity to riding dress and evening clothes alike. He was a genuine celebrity, the first the place had ever known, and he discovered that celebrity meant power.
The Americans invited to Jack’s sala admired his smooth grace assuaging tensions that divided them from the rancheros in the wake of the unpleasant Lugo murder charges, which had been quietly permitted to dissolve. And everyone praised Jack for his police force. There still were many murders, but no longer near the plaza and the gambling strip, so that everyone felt safer patronizing Calle de los Negroes. The desperado element that so often passed through town feared tangling with Jack’s Veterans, and the gamblers had accepted Powers’ taxing power because they came to understand how much the settlers supported him, and they were making so much money anyway. Everyone was yielding to Jack’s magic sway, and when he visited the Calle de los Negroes, the crowd divided in the street for him like Moses in the Sea of Reeds, a lion among rats.
* * *
But one element in town was unprepared to honor Jack’s authority.
The people of Sonora, that large desert state of Mexico beneath the borderlands of Tucson, got word of the great gold discovery quite early and headed north across the wastes. The Sonoreños were a different breed than Californios. They could be very rough and violent, unlike the peaceful cattle folk. And they knew prospecting and mining.
As we've mentioned, few Americans were expected to move out to California when the country was first conquered, before gold was found. How much less did anyone expect a wave of Mexicans! The gringos and the Californians both assumed the only Latin population would be those already living there. But suddenly it seemed that Mexicans, or at least the Sonoreños, were bent on taking back the province for themselves. Confrontations between gringos and Sonorans in the Mother Lode were vicious, and Americans prevailed in pushing out the Mexicans through sheer brutality and numbers. Mexico, crushed so recently by gringo arms, could not be let to reap that golden harvest Providence had sowed for the United States.
Though driven from the mines, few Sonoreños left the state. They settled in Los Angeles, where they created their own barrio above the plaza. The gringos called the place Sonoratown, but they knew nothing of what happened there. They didn't even know how many Sonoreños lived there, or in the settlement around the mission at San Gabriel, where they had also taken root.
Only one Sonoran was well known outside the barrio. Joaquin Murrieta was a huero, a light-haired man more European than the average Mexican mestizo. He'd come up with his woman and her brother, and being a gambler rather than a miner, he banked monte in a large blue tent in mining camps. But he was flogged out of the Mother Lode, and some said that his Rosa had been raped. Jack Powers noticed this Joaquin in Calle de los Negroes, where he banked monte at the Aquila de Oro. As Murrieta was the only Sonoreño in the place (all others gambled in Sonoratown), and as his presence was apparently accepted by the gringo gamblers who despised his race, Jack concluded that this huero was a man of power in some way, but thought no further of the matter.
Then Jose Rijo told Jack Powers what no gringo and few Californians knew. Joaquin Murrieta was no ordinary gambler, nor any ordinary man. He'd figured out a way to best both Californians and Americans in a manner both were blind to.
California mustangs were so common, living wild in shifting herds like schools of fish, that no one took the slightest measure of their numbers. So long as any pilferage was spread around, thefts of scattered untamed horses barely merited attention. Unlike cattle, they were worthless until broken, and less than one out a hundred was chosen to be tamed. In fact, the only reason that the Lugos chased the Utahs through the desert was to discourage what they feared might be more serious attacks on their vaqueros. The horses by themselves meant nothing.
But wild mustangs weren't worthless in Sonora because good horseflesh was in constant shortage in that parched, desert land. So while the Californios sent their cattle north to feed the miners, the Sonoreños under Joaquin Murrieta moved large herds of stolen horses south. His force, amounting to an army, was disciplined and crack. Stealing horses from the ranchos and collecting them at stations was quite easy. Driving them across so many hundred miles of wasteland to Sonora was for heroes, and the men were paid accordingly.
This, so Rijo told Jack Powers, was what Joaquin and his companions were all doing in Los Angeles, the center of their operations. And it explained why there was so much money in Sonoratown. Rijo learned this all directly from Joaquin, who saw him as a fellow Mexican and not a Californian, and expected information in return. In fact, the only reason Murrieta (who spoke English) banked a table in the Calle de los Negroes was to overhear the conversations of the gringos. He was determined to detect the least suspicion of his operation and prepared to counter its discovery with violence.
Rijo warned Jack Powers to leave everything about Sonoratown alone. Murrieta was in charge there. There were killings sometimes between Sonoreños, but Jack's police force dare not get involved. Murrieta hated gringos with a passion that could barely be contained, and with the size and impact of his army, he could unleash a firestorm against Los Angeles such as no gringo or Californian could imagine. The only curb upon his fury was the profit he was making from his horse gangs.
Jack and Murrieta silently saluted one another if they passed, but never spoke directly. Joaquin's principal lieutenant, though, fell under Powers' spell. Raphael Herrera, a huero like his captain, went by many different names. His favorite was Raphael Money, though most people called him Huero Raphael, or just El Huero. This man admired everything about Jack Powers. His clothes, his famous jet black mare, his riding skill, his dancing and athletic beauty. Especially the way Jack charmed the dons, because, unlike Murrieta, El Huero idolized the rancho aristocracy.
Joaquin did not approve of Raphael's infatuation with Jack Powers, but thought it far beneath with his dignity to notice it. And El Huero never personally approached Jack, but rather opened up a channel to him via Jose Rijo. Rijo passed Jack many messages, some with quite important information to prevent unnecessary confrontations with Jack's Vets. Powers had to figure (as in fact was true) that Raphael had Murrieta's leave to do so, and so he always listened carefully and sent his thanks through Rijo. And Jack was flattered that at least one leader of the Sonoreños seemed so mesmerized by him.
* * *
We've already noted that the case against the Lugo boys had been abandoned, but not because the racial tensions had subsided. It had finally occurred to the Americans that it would be impossible to convict a Californian so long as any of their countrymen were on the jury and, given that they now were U.S. citizens, it was impossible to keep them off.
This point had never been considered. Robberies were very rare because everyone had money, and the killings were entirely within the drifter element that plagued the town. The Angeleno gringos did not care to try or punish any of these undesirables murdering their own. Califonians never killed each other, and were peaceable by nature. And the tiny company of gringo settlers had no violence between themselves.
But there was fear continually lurking in the background, shared equally by Americans and Californians. The whole economy depended on large cattle sales to drovers who sailed down to Los Angeles with enormous sums in gold. If these buyers feared to come here, the house of cards would instantly collapse. No Californio or gringo settler would ever contemplate a crime so devastating to the region, and so it wasn't clear exactly who to fear. But a vague and constant trepidation on this subject lingered.
Then it happened. A cattle buyer was discovered murdered on the road out to San Pedro. He had already stored his money, mostly, in a safe owned by a Jewish merchant selling dry goods. But whatever he had on him, not a negligible sum, had been taken by his killer. Who could possibly have done it?
The answer came to Jack from Jose Rijo who'd been informed by Raphael at the direction of Joaquin. The killer was a Sonoreño. Not of Murietta's gang, but a lobo, a lone wolf with no status in Sonoratown at all. Word was that he’d fled to Santa Barbara.
Jack understood the danger, and why Joaquin had wanted him to know. The local gringos might well fear that a Sonoran did it, but if they pushed into Sonoratown, they'd set off an explosion far more dangerous than even frightening off the drovers. Jack Powers was the only man who might avert such a disaster by capturing the criminal himself and assuring that no violence was threatened to Sonoratown such as would trigger war.
Jack rode up at once to Santa Barbara with two Veterans. The Sonoran, a pathetic individual by the name of Zavaleta, had been spending gold around the bars there and attracting much attention. Jack got the sheriff to arrest him and to hand him to himself to take back to Los Angeles, where he was thrown into the tiny jail. The man was slightly crazy and confused, but strangely proud, and he effectively confessed the crime.
The local gringos weighed their options. They did not consider this a normal civil crime, but an attack on the community by a foreigner, a Mexican, not a Californian, and therefore not a citizen entitled to protection of the law. The overwhelming need was to defend Los Angeles and to assure the cattle buyers it depended on that the city wouldn’t tolerate such threats to its survival. Thus, rather than a legal trial, the gringos chose to form a vigilance committee. Judge Haines, our District Judge, presided formally as chairman. Twelve jurors sitting as committee members were selected from the leading gringo settlers, though two Californio dons were also seated to reflect community of interest and avoid resentment. And indeed, there was no sympathy for Zavaleta among the Californios. He was a dangerous outsider whose crime had threatened everyone, although he likely didn’t understand that.
Given that the man confessed, the purpose of the trial could not be to determine guilt or punishment. These were given in advance. The trial was more an inquisition, with Jose Rijo doing the translation. For two full days, the man was hammered with the same small set of questions in an attempt to break him down and name accomplices. The effort was defensible because a man who hadn’t been in town more than a couple days was most unlikely to have known his victim was a cattle buyer. Someone local might have told him. Zavaleta kept insisting he knew nothing of the victim in advance. He’d simply noticed he was drunk and walking on the edge of town at night, and took advantage of the opportunity. But, of course, his execution being certain, he had no reason to say otherwise or incriminate another man. And so the questioning went on and on, and had the most exasperating impact on the Sonoreño. A hanging he could understand, but all these words were torture worse than pulling out his fingernails, and at the end he lost composure.
Jack kept clear of the proceeding. He’d already done the major service finding out and capturing the murderer, and because his ranch was up in Santa Barbara he wasn't strictly deemed a local citizen and had not been offered any place on the committee. He showed no interest in the matter, until he heard alarming news from Rijo.
Joaquin and his compatriots had learned about the brutal questioning that sought to tie the killing to Sonoratown. They were angry and insulted because (as only Jack and Rijo were aware) Murrieta was responsible for naming Zavaleta in an effort to avoid unnecessary blood. And just like Zavaleta, the Sonorans could accept that he'd be hanged, but not the gringos dragging him through such an inquisition, which they correctly understood would never happen had he not been a Sonoran. Zavaleta was a killer, but he'd been publicly degraded by the gringos and their vigilance committee. Joaquin warned Rijo that, despite his great authority, he might not be capable of stopping an attack upon the hanging.
This was dangerous enough, but Rijo had some other news for Jack that was completely unexpected. The lower classes of the Californians, the vast majority of people, were also angry. Their dons had passively allowed the gringos to take command in this important matter, which was especially embarrassing because the Californio rancheros were the parties most affected by the threat to cattle sales. The Americans were exploiting this great crisis to push Californians aside and prove that gringos owned Los Angeles. The dons, it seemed, were supine, unprepared to struggle for the primacy of Californians, and this enraged a population that had never questioned their authority before. The common rung of Californians understood that gringos didn't see them differently from Sonoreños or any other Mexicans. The Americans were cynically co-opting the rich dons and throwing all the other Latins of whatever origins into a single class of greasers they despised and would entirely suppress. Zavaleta was a symbol of their own humiliation, and his public inquisition and resulting public death were understood as acts of tyranny and bold contempt against the Latin race in general. The natives, like the Sonoreños, were certain to make trouble at the execution in their current state of mind. This was trouble that could start a war.
* * *
Jack walked over to the courtroom as the case was wrapping up and watched from just inside the doorway. He’d had two days to talk with Zavaleta on the trip from Santa Barbara and had a good sense of his personality. The man was a pathetic creature, worthless to his countrymen and treated so. He'd developed a most wretched sense of humor at his own expense, a pitiful self mockery to demonstrate he understood his own position and thereby win a measure of respect in the midst of his rejection. He played the clown to ease his misery and loneliness, and get attention, which he craved.
The trial had ended and the whole committee in a show of hands voted to convict him and to hang him in the plaza the next day at noon. This was hardly a surprise as construction of the gallows had already begun. But when Zavaleta heard the sentence he was shockingly alarmed, not by his impending death but rather that he lacked some decent clothes for the occasion. He grabbed a filthy sleeve in demonstration and demanded with disturbing pathos whether he was really to be swung off "in these rags."
Jack suddenly stepped forward so that everyone could see him in a suit of cobalt blue, an elegant frock coat and trousers he'd just had made for him in San Francisco, and offered it to Zavaleta. "You can have the clothes I'm wearing now. And the boots," he said in Spanish. Everyone looked shocked except the Sonoreño, who grinned as though he'd just discovered gold. "Gracias! Muchas gracias, mi patrón! You are an hombre and a caballero and not a miserable gringo!"
But Powers was already leaving. He wished to bring the suit to Madame Barre to alter it to fit a man at least six inches shorter than himself and fifty pounds the lighter. But before he reached his home, he had an inspiration. He would leave the suit just as it was and turn the execution into comedy. This brilliant gamble played out even better than he guessed.
* * *
Every Angeleno and many people from the ranches packed the plaza for the execution. The gringo gamblers made a showing as company. They formed a ring around the gallows with their pistols out to guard against all greaser interference. Jack could have asked his Veterans to stop them, but he didn't. Tensions were already high and though the sporting men had bowed to Jack's taxation, they’d enormously resent a curb on their dramatic posture as defenders of the gringo race and conquest. But their presence raised the temperature when Joaquin Murrieta and some sixty Sonoreños entered in a block. They’d come to make sure Zavaleta met his death with dignity, as less than that would be a fatal provocation and an insult that demanded vengeance. The Californians in the crowd, the large majority, were also troubled by the fear that the condemned would be humiliated in a whiplash of contempt for all Latinos and triumph of American supremacy.
Anxiety was palpable as the sheriff led out Zavaleta and the two men climbed the stairs. Everyone expected to see the Sonoreño in Jack's clothing, and there was much expression of respect for Jack providing them. But no one was prepared to see the ludicrous display of such ill fitting garments. The pant legs swam absurdly at his ankles and the coat sleeves reached his fingertips. Was this some kind of unexpected mockery and personal humiliation?
But Jack had read the man and situation perfectly. Zavaleta on the platform reveled in the personal attention he'd secured by this outrageous costume, and turned at once to comedy. He hiked his pants up in a circus pantomime to show how large they were, and then released them so they nearly fell down to his knees. And when that produced a smattering of chuckles, he started laughing at himself, which drew more laughter in return until the crowd was calling out for more. He'd never had an audience before and never had experienced appreciation. He jerked his chin up, gesturing that he'd appreciate a snort of liquor. But the motion only served as a reminder that he was just about to have his neck snapped, which triggered guffaws in the crowd, and when he grasped the joke himself, he chortled and repeated the routine to even more hilarity. For the first time in his life, he’d won the spotlight and the grudging admiration of an audience because there was indeed a manly courage underneath it all, a casual contempt of death. He’d proved himself an “hombre,” and some people in the crowd began to chant that honored epithet.
The sheriff fixed the noose around his neck and, bending to demands called from the crowd, offered the condemned a final drink out of a bottle taken from the Sonoreño’s pocket that Jack had hidden there. Zavaleta’s hands were tied behind him, and so the sheriff had to hold it up, with the Sonoran clowning, mimicking a calf sucking an udder. He smacked his lips and asked for more, and the crowd roared its approval. In that moment, every person in the plaza, American, Californian and Sonoran, shared precisely the same sentiments and all fears of violence and confrontation were dissolved in admiration of this brave burlesque.
The drop went flawlessly. Zavaleta barely bucked in hint of agony, and then hung lifeless for ten minutes before his corpse was taken down. The audience dispersed in an almost festive spirit. All was credited to Jack and he passed through the crowd receiving warm congratulations and expressions of respect. He even won a personal salute from Murrieta, who nodded cordially, indeed impressively. Some gamblers slapped Jack on the shoulder with an open admiration they’d been formerly reluctant to reveal .
But the full scope of Jack’s theatrical and comic triumph became evident two weeks later when a handful of rambunctious gringos played a joke upon the mayor. That gentleman was tricked into believing that a revolution was in progress and that he needed to command the American defense. This was at night, and the jokesters fired rounds off in the dark, riding horses past the mayor shouting “Viva Mexico!” When dawn broke and the gag exposed to daylight, the mayor was the butt not only of Americans, but of the larger population, too. Thus, for the moment, a comic spirit had relieved the racial tensions in Los Angeles, and Jack Powers had won full command of the divided city as the only man with the complete respect of all.