Authors: Pat Murphy
“A man should not be without morals;
it is better to have bad morals than none at all.”
—Mark Twain’s Notebook;
Mark Twain
F
OR THE NEXT FEW WEEKS
, the miners of Selby Flat continued speculating about the robbers who had held up the stage and about the villains who had killed Rachel McKensie and her family. The murders were generally blamed on Indians or Mexicans. Arno’s continued absence made him a favorite for the robbery. The stage company offered a reward for the recovery of the gold, but no one came forward to claim it.
Without a hint of shame, Jasper Davis speculated and discussed the murders with the others. He felt no guilt, no remorse.
Jasper Davis was an extremely intelligent man with no conscience. The youngest of six boys, he had been born on a hard-scrabble dirt farm in the hills of Tennessee. His mother, exhausted by the needs of the farm and the demands of her boys, had died two years after his birth, leaving the toddler to the indifferent care of his older brothers and drunken father.
Jasper had grown up hungry. His father was an indifferent farmer; his brothers were wild boys who helped on the farm only when threatened with beating. There was never enough food for everyone. At mealtime, he got what was left when his brothers were done—never enough to satisfy his growling stomach.
Jasper had grown up dirty. His face was always grimy. He wore clothes that his older brothers had outgrown, all well-worn and stained before he got them. He had no cause to wash, no cause to dress up. After his mother died, he never went to church. He never went to school—his father saw no need for schooling. “Waste of time,” he said. “He don’t need no schooling. Don’t want him to think he’s smarter than his pappy.”
Jasper had grown up mean. The runt of the litter, his father called him, the smallest of a family of tall, lanky, rawboned men. His father cuffed him, his brothers beat him up, and he kicked the dog when he could get away with it, which was rarely. His father treated his coon hound with more care than his children.
At age sixteen, Jasper killed his father. He waited until his brothers were out somewhere raising hell, then he hit the old man in the head with the same hatchet they used to butcher the hogs. He burned the house, stayed for a time to watch the flames, then took the mule and headed west.
That was back in 1843. On his way west, he had held many jobs—he wasn’t lazy and he could work hard when it suited him. America was a big country, with many opportunities for a young man in the process of transforming himself. Jasper worked for a year as a deckhand on a Mississippi stern-wheeler. On board, he made the acquaintance of Gentleman Jack, a lawyer from New Orleans who had, after a series of shady dealings, found it wise to leave town and take up life as a riverboat gambler and con artist.
One night, standing outside the gambling salon and having a smoke, Jasper had looked through the windows and watched Gentleman Jack cheat at cards. He saw exactly how the man palmed the cards and exactly how much he took from his fellow swells.
When Jack stepped out on the deck, Jasper hailed him. Standing at the rail while the brown waters of the Mississippi flowed past, Jasper explained, in a low, soft, reasonable voice, exactly what he had seen.
“How much do you want?” the gambler asked, ready to pay for Jasper’s silence. His fellow cardplayers would have been quite happy for an opportunity to beat him senseless and take their money back.
Jasper shook his head. “That ain’t it. I don’t want money. I want you to teach me.” “Teach you what?”
“How to gamble. How to act like a gentleman.”
The gambler laughed—then saw the dangerous glint in the young man’s eyes and stopped. “That will take a while.”
“I’ll travel with you,” Jasper said.
They traveled together, and Jasper learned a few things. He got a better suit of clothes, a better haircut. He learned that “ain’t” wasn’t proper English and that a gentleman blew his nose on a kerchief, rather than wiping the snot on his sleeve. He watched and he listened and he learned.
Though the association was forced upon him, Gentleman Jack enjoyed teaching the young man. Jasper was a quick study. He learned to say “please” and “thank you.” He learned how to flatter a lady. He learned to gamble and he learned to palm cards. He helped Gentleman Jack work out some new methods of cheating.
Jasper improved himself. By the end of his first year with Gentleman Jack, he might have been taken for a pleasant young man raised on a proper family farm—still a bit rough about the edges, but well-meaning and polite.
Then one night, after Gentleman Jack had done particularly well at cards, Jasper strangled his mentor, took the profits, and headed west once again. It was time for him to move on, and he needed money to do that.
There is not space here to detail all of Jasper’s exploits. Suffice it to say that he came to California in 1849, like so many men, to make his fortune and remake himself. He thought it was time for him to adopt the veneer of respectability.
For that, he needed money. That was where the stagecoach came in. He robbed the stage to get the money he needed, then covered his tracks by killing all witnesses. Except for Sarah, but surely she was dead in the wilderness.
He was smart enough not to spend the money he had stolen all at once. He would spend it gradually, establishing himself as a successful miner, a respectable man of means.
Max stayed in Selby’s Hotel for a time, happy to have a bed to sleep in and a roof over his head. He staked a claim a mile or so north of town, on a gravel bar that looked promising, and worked it just often enough to keep his hand in. He’d been staying at Selby’s for a week or so when Mr. Selby mentioned some past business.
“I still have that sketch of yours,” Mr. Selby said. Max was eating a late breakfast at the bar and the barroom was empty. “That Arno fellow never stopped by for it.” Mr. Selby waved toward the mirror. Max could see a sketch tucked behind one corner, held up by the weight of the framed glass against the rough wall. Arno’s grinning face, captured in pen and ink.
Just before Max had left on his prospecting trip, Arno had begged Max to complete a sketch of him. Arno, a short, tough man with a high opinion of himself, had posed by the fireplace at the end of the barroom, grinning to reveal his gold front tooth. Bandoleers crossed his chest and a bowie knife of impressive proportions was sheathed at his belt.
It had been a long, wet, spring afternoon, and Max had been reluctant to leave the warmth of the barroom. So he had lingered over the portrait, shading it carefully and including details that he might ordinarily leave out. The handle of Arno’s knife, for example, had caught Max’s attention: the polished wood was decorated with silver inlay depicting a running wolf with black-onyx eyes. Max had included this detail in the sketch. The portrait was, Max thought, one of his best.
It was only after Max completed the portrait that Arno had told him that he couldn’t pay for it right away. “I’ll be getting the money soon,” Arno had said. “A fellow owes me some money, and he’s coming to town. I’ll pay you then.”
Max had frowned, feeling that Arno had taken advantage of him. “When you pay me, that’s when you’ll get the picture.”
Arno had argued. “But I might be gone by the time you come back.”
“My point exactly,” Max had said. “You’ll be gone and so will my payment.”
Still grinning, Arno had pulled his knife, leaning back in his chair and using the point of the blade to clean his fingernails. The blade glinted in the dim light of the bar. A running wolf, twin to the one on the handle, had been etched on the knife’s blade.
Easily twelve inches in length, the blade was an inch and a half wide at the handle, tapering only slightly for the first eight inches, then curving to a saber point. Both edges of the curving section were sharp, giving the weapon a ripping edge on the back as well as a foot of cutting edge on the front. Below the curving section, the back of the blade was sheathed in brass, a metal softer than steel. In a knife fight, an opponent’s blade could catch in the brass, which kept it from sliding down the blade to cut the hand of the knife fighter. At the handle, a broad guard offered further protection. Patterned on the famous knife of James Bowie, this was a knife fighter’s blade.
Max glared at Arno, refusing to be intimidated. “You’ll get the picture when I get my payment,” he said.
It was just then that Mr. Selby had come up to join them. “What the hell are you doing with your knife out, Arno. I can’t imagine why you need that in here.”
“We were having a business discussion,” Arno said sheepishly, and slid the blade back into its sheath. A man who angered Mr. Selby would be banned from the best bar in town. Arno clearly wasn’t willing to risk that.
Max took advantage of the interruption. “I’m sure Mr. Selby could help us out here. Arno wants to pay me for this portrait when he gets the money, but I’m leaving town. Do you suppose you could hold the picture and take payment for me when he has it?”
For a share of the proceeds, Mr. Selby agreed to hold the portrait for Arno’s payment. Max left town the next day. But Arno, it seemed, had never returned with the money.
Mr. Selby frowned at the portrait. “What do you want to do with it?”
Max shrugged. “If you’re willing to keep it for a time, then let’s just see if Arno shows up to claim it.”
“And if he robbed the stagecoach like some of the boys think, it’ll make a fine wanted poster,” Mr. Selby said.
Max laughed. “For now, let’s just leave it where it is and see if Arno comes back for it.”
Just a few days later, Patrick Murphy, an agent of the recently formed Pinkerton National Detective Agency came to Selby Flat. “I’ve been engaged by the stage company and the bank to investigate the robbery,” he explained to Mrs. Selby. “I confess I’m startled to find such a fine establishment so far from civilization.”
Mrs. Selby regarded Mr. Murphy with approval. He had, she thought, an intelligent face and a discerning eye. He was dressed far better than the miners, in a fine sack coat and vest. She gave him her best room, an alcove that Mr. Selby had partitioned off from the general dormitory with a calico curtain.
Over lunch in the barroom, Mr. Murphy asked Mrs. Selby a good many questions about the town, about the stagecoach robbery, about the speculations surrounding it. She was happy to answer his questions, tell him about suspicions regarding Arno and the robbery, and fill him in on things that he hadn’t thought to ask about, such as the murders on Grizzly Hill, the price of eggs, and the difficulty getting dried apples so far from Sacramento. She asked some questions of her own, mostly about women’s fashions back in the States, a subject on which she found Mr. Murphy’s knowledge less than satisfactory. Even so, Mrs. Selby enjoyed their chat and promised to introduce him to some miners who might be able to answer questions that she couldn’t.
Late that afternoon, she spotted Max in the doorway and rushed out to meet him. “Max!” she called. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet. He’s here to investigate the stagecoach robbery. I’ve been telling him about the murders, and he had some questions.” She took his arm and led the way to Patrick Murphy’s table by the kitchen—her best table. Late-afternoon light shone through an open window beside the table, illuminating the detective’s face.
“This is Patrick Murphy,” she said. Max’s expression was one of shock and recognition.
“Max,” said Patrick. “Who would think that two old friends would meet again like this?” He grinned at Max.
“You know each other!” Mrs. Selby was delighted. She glanced at Max again to see if her delight was shared. Max wore a worried frown; he did not look happy to see Patrick Murphy.
“We certainly do!” Patrick was saying. “Max and I met in Chicago years ago, back when I was a policeman. Isn’t that so, Max?” He did not give Max time to answer. “But there’s no need to get into that now. I have a new job these days, Max. I’m a detective with the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Sit down, sit down. I wanted to talk to you about the robbery of the stage.”
Mrs. Selby left the men together. It was a busy evening. She brought their supper, but could not linger to chat. There were hungry men to feed, and she had no time to waste. She noticed that they drank together, making considerable inroads on the bottle of whiskey that Mr. Murphy had purchased. Mr. Murphy smoked one of his fine cigars, nine-inch panetella supers of an East Coast make, far better than the pipes and foul-smelling, six-inch stogies that most of the miners smoked.
She was serving dinner to a tableful of miners when Max asked her if he might take the portrait of Arno from behind the mirror. She nodded her consent
Business didn’t slow down until after sunset, when she looked over and noticed that Max was gone. She checked on Mr. Murphy then.
“Did you have a good chat with Max?” she asked. “Indeed I did.”
“He’s such a gentleman, Max is,” she said. She sat down in the chair that Max had vacated. “He’s a cut above most of the miners. He reads books and he draws so well. He is really an artist.”
Patrick nodded. “He mentioned this fellow, Arno, who never came back for his portrait.” He tapped on the portrait, which was spread on the table. “With Max’s permission, I’ll be using this to make a wanted poster.”
Mrs. Selby nodded. She was less interested in Arno than she was in Patrick’s opinion of Max.
Max was, in Mrs. Selby’s mind, a bit of a mystery. He was a cultured man, an artist, and he did not seem to be motivated by gold fever, as so many of the miners were. She wondered what had brought him to the gold country. Max had brushed off her questions about his past, saying that he didn’t like to think about all that.
“You mentioned that you were a policeman when you met Max. Was Max a policeman?”
Patrick smiled, as if at a private joke. “No, not at all. But our work did bring us together.”
“An artist and a policeman.” Mrs. Selby raised her eyebrows.
“Sounds like an interesting story there.”
“That may be, but you won’t hear it from me.” Patrick put down his whiskey glass.