Jack Powers: Race Against Time
6. The Gang Implodes
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6. The Gang Implodes
From “Remembering Jack Powers” by Bill Horace in the Los Angeles Star, 1876.
Jack had planned to tell Linares and El Huero of his plan to flee the state. But he delayed so long while basking in the adulation, and even questioning whether he need flee at all, that his vaqueros drove the horses back to Santa Barbara before he mentioned any possible departure. His nature, so theatrical, had abandoned a sensational departure from the stage, at the instant of his triumph, for the siren song of curtain calls and "bravos."
But Powers didn't have to tell his men his plans. Once back in San Luis, Linares and El Huero told the gang they didn’t think that Jack would be returning. They understood he’d come to fear the risk of further holdups, and hadn’t lined up further jobs. They’d have to operate without him. In theory, this would leave El Huero in command. But Pio, who was close to Powers in his own right and distrusted Raphael, was not quite certain he would go along.
* * *
Then Raphael identified a target. As they didn't have Jack's means of luring drovers, the gang would have to seek out opportunities as they appeared. Two Frenchmen had come down to San Luis from Oakland, to start a little cattle ranch. They apparently had money, as they'd been buying up the means to stock the property.
Raphael brought out the gang to reconnoiter, but Pio balked the moment he arrived. Two Californios were working on the piece as hands, and Linares was revolted at the thought of killing them. This was the opposite of what the gang was thought to be about and would enrage the countryside that had supported and protected them. Linares could not possibly defend such murders to his countrymen.
But even worse, if possible, was the discovery that one of the two Frenchman had a wife. Pio wouldn't kill a woman, nor would associate with anyone who did. His anger spurred a matching anger in El Huero. He was also shocked to find a woman on the property, but insisted on his plan as he refused to let the gang see Pio countermand him. Linares rode away alone, and Raphael approached the ranch on horseback. The other bandits hid under the cover of some oaks.
The Frenchmen were both cleaning out a well and didn't see El Huero coming. When they noticed him right next to them, he asked them for a drink of water. One Frenchman led him off a little ways to get it and El Huero shot him dead. That gunshot was the cue for all the others, who stormed in from the trees and killed the second Frenchman right away. El Huero ordered a Sonoran to take both the Californians off into the oaks and shoot them. Both pleaded for their lives, and as the bandit had been living with a California woman, he couldn’t face the murder of her countrymen. So he yielded and accepted both their promises they'd never say a word. When he returned to Raphael, he told him that he'd killed both Californians, and Raphael believed him.
El Huero tore apart the ranch house looking for the money. He found a bag of gold coins in a strong box, enough to satisfy the gang. But what about the woman who had seen her husband and the other Frenchman shot before her eyes? El Huero ordered someone to remove her to the oaks and kill her, but this resulted in an argument, so he commanded someone else to do the task. This other bandit dragged the woman out, but once deeply in the forest, he told her that he'd save her life. He led her to a road and gave her money, advising that she not stop for a minute until she made it back to Oakland. Just as with the Californians, this bandit lied to Raphael and said he'd done the job.
* * *
The two Californian hands hid out for days after the murders, but then approached a ranch owned by a gringo. That American rode down at once to San Luis to tell his countrymen, who rose in arms. Meanwhile, the woman made it back to Oakland, and only then informed the sheriff there, who sent her story down to San Luis.
The Americans of San Luis commenced a vigilance committee and gathered up a posse. The local Californians didn't interfere once they heard from their two countrymen. In fact, some Californians led the gringos in their search to find the bandits, as they knew all their camps and movements. Pio was discovered first and shot down in a gunfight, even though he had refused to join the crime. El Huero and another Sonoraño suffered three days without food or water, hiding in dense willows under fire. In the end, they had to break for it and both expired in a hail of lead. A few other bandits got away, but three or four were captured, including Nieves Robles and the man who'd saved the woman's life. The latter man said nothing through the moment he was swung off on an oak branch. But Robles shot his mouth off.
* * *
Jack was partying in San Francisco and so could not have been involved in this most recent crime. He didn't even know it had occurred. But Nieves Robles, who was certain he'd be hanged in any case, revealed that Powers planned the murder of the two Basque drovers he’d been tried for and acquitted. He could prove it. Robles took a saddle from a man in San Luis the evening that he left on his purported cattle drive, but he rode back on another the next day. He'd swapped it for one used by Powers at the crime scene, and Jack returned it to its owner when he arrived in San Luis a few weeks later. Jack must have been with Robles when the Basques were shot .
This was easily enough to get a warrant to arrest Jack Powers, and the San Luis Obispo sheriff rode to Santa Barbara for a steamship up to San Francisco. But he spoke about his mission with another passenger, unaware he was a longtime friend of Jack's. That friend searched everywhere for Powers in The City and found him at a gambling table, only minutes in advance of the police. Jack fled at once. He'd already made a deal with a ship's captain bound for Mexico, back in the days before the race. Now he stole out to the boat at midnight. Within two days, the ship was out the Golden Gate and headed for San Blas. No one in The City knew where Jack had disappeared to.