Posted by AlOmega on July 28, 2004 at 19:41:16:

Ogden - which was called "Junction City" - was the first settlement of Mormons we came to. Aint much of a place except it’s the place where those spikes was put down and taken out - one made outta gold for California and silver for Wyoming I suppose. Anyways they ripped them spikes outta there quick enough knowing someone woulda sooner or later. What it all means though is that we aint gonna travel no more on the Union Pacific but on the Central Pacific. Was mostly a stop for water and wood. Actually the junction was in some place called Promontory some 50 miles west of Ogden. Prayer was offered by a Massachusetts clergyman but the ceremony, according to those who was there, was a combination of heathen, Christian, and civil rites - which pretty much represented America around then what with all them foreigners filling the streets in New York. But after all that work and about six months after them stupid celebrations, the junction was moved to Ogden, a more practical spot than the dry and desolate Promontory Mountains.

Some of the passengers took a side trip to Salt Lake City about thirty miles south to meet some old guy named Brigham Young. He was maybe 75 and had brought them Mormons to Utah. All I knowd is that most of the houses got gardens in front with flowering shrubs. Again a reminder of Martha. Something I couldn’t abide though was the males’ habit of taking bunches of wives. This Brigham Young had over twenty wives from what I heard. Suppose it made the house cleaning and other chores easier but they still had to have all them kids and that aint easy. I suppose that was why Mormon women got the right of legislation in school stuff and can even sit in the legislator when it gots something to do with children and schools. I aint so sure this is a good thing cause next they’ll be asking to vote and that can’t be a good thing.

At Ogden we transferred from the Union to the Central Pacific and dumped them Pullman cars replacing em with what are called Silver Palace Cars. I donno much about em since I just slept in the bench seat I was riding in. From Ogden we headed Northwest through Brigham City and Corinne to the historical Promontory. Weren’t much there. No one would ever have guessed that this spot made history just a few years ago.

Now I’ve mentioned that most of the trip we traveled either through prairie or mountains and that’s true. You could run cattle in most of it. But then we came to Nevada and that may be the most desolate place yet. I cannot imagine that a drop of dew has ever lain on this God-forsaken land. The Humbolt or Twelve-Mile Canyon breaks up the monotony of the desert with its steep, high cliffs rising nearly straight up some three to six hundred feet above us. Coming out of the canyon, we rush by the "Maiden's Grave". This pioneer grave was discovered by the railroad builders and fenced as a reminder of the many whom died while moving west. I tipped my hat knowing that ya can get killed real easy like when traveling. And death don’t care if you’re a woman, a man, or a kid. Actually we did see a wagon train. But nowadays travelers go by wagon only to get from the station to their final destination, or to carry goods to and from mines and farms. The railroad has cut the five month trip from Omaha to Sacramento to just under five days. For a family to travel by wagon train it woulda cost about $2000. Now for just $47 anyone can make the same journey on what is called the Emigrant ticket. Of course this price does not include the luxuries of the Pullman Palace Cars.

No matter whether you occupied the Pullman Hotel, the passenger cars, or the emigrant cars, you would be much better off than the way many tramps choose to travel. When footsore, these tramps will try catching a free ride on the train by jumping unseen under the cars, coiling themselves along the ironwork between the wheels. Half-lying, half-hanging, they are whirled away at the astounding speed of 20 miles per hour. Any man willing to tie himself in a knot and suspend his aching butt in the midst of dust, alkali, and cinders only 6 inches above the tracks oughta be left alone and allowed to torture himself in his own way. The conductors don’t think like that though. Fact was, our conductor told of startling legends of personal encounters with what was called “these gentry of the road.” Only once did I see a fight break out on the platform, and the strong-armed conductor, with reinforcements of brakemen, pitched the intruder right and left without much regard for personal feelings. The guy was unconscious when we left.

We had to stop a bit before attacking the grade of the Sierra-Nevada Mountains so we made a small detour to see the mining town of Virginia City. Actually that was where Maverick decided to leave us. Those from the East that went there found the place God-forsaken. The whole town burned down one night, and was rebuilt as good as ever in just six days! It don’t rain here much but there was plenty of snow. Even in May there can be as much as two or three feet of snow on the ground. I wouldn’t ever live there and no one else either except for the Comstock Silver deposits. The whole town is full of miners and few women and those few being generally of the more interesting and least reputable kind.

It was here that Maverick met his brother. And it was here that both met some fellers that wanted their money back. I suppose they felt they’d been took in some gambling game though I also think that the Mavericks didn’t cheat either. Most guys who gamble don’t know how to play much and play bad mostly anyways. One reason I don’t gamble. As Maverick explained later, that was what he’d been running from. Suppose he didn’t think about the telegraph. Them fancy inventions will take all the fun outta the West soon, I think. Bet it’ll mean the end to thieves and the like soon. The James gang mighta gotten away with robbing a train but it won’t be long before every one of em gets caught I’m thinking’. As to these guys taking on the Mavericks, they was lucky in that I was wearing iron cause I took two of down just as they’d cleared leather. Only reason I didn’t have to stay for a trial was that they’d been drawing first and I hadn’t kilt em. Not withstanding, I left Virginia City in a hurry ready for the ordeal of crossing the Sierra-Nevada Mountains. Don’t do to take chances cause some guys wants revenge fer my stopping their killing of some tinhorns.

"If the Americans were not the most modest people in the world, they would have, before this, convinced the public that no other piece of engineering ... is to be compared with this passage of this, the Sierras from Ogden to Sacramento ... Americans err in lack of self appreciation. I'd advise those statistical souls who thirst for exact information about anything, to go and read all the about this national triumph. Without the industrious Chinese workers the 1,659 foot granite tunnel would certainly still be under construction." That’s more or less what Mr. Curtis said.

As for me, I’ll simply say that I was awed at what we encountered getting up to the Sierra's Blue Canyon. There had to be a thousand feet straight down and far below was a narrow ribbon of blue water. It added such grace and beauty to the stern and rugged scene that I thought of it all as a marriage of a man and women - both ruggedly male and beautifully female. Perhaps that’s why we calls a river "she", and a mountain "he" - although that weren‘t what anyone was thinking when they named them Grand Teton Mountains. Of all the scenery of the entire route, nothing can compare with this great canyon. There is even a ‘rounding of Cape Horn place’ where the railway clings to the face of a cliff with a thousand feet of crag above and two-thousand feet below.

Finally we reached Sacramento, the western end of the great transcontinental railroad. The capital of California is a pretty town, with fancy houses and beautiful gardens. We quickly passed on, however, to San Francisco. This is what they call a “Big City” I suppose and had lotsa stuff for fancy visitors like the luxuries that Eastern cities got. However, I wouldn’t advise any widowed mother of a family of boys and girls to carry them to San Francisco for social training or whatever they call it in the East. There gots to be lotsa people making up what is commonly called “the upper class consisting of charming, exceptional, and rigidly moral society.” But there are several other classes. Much of the city reminded me of Texas where only the Rangers held justice. One reason I wore iron again. Shouldn’t I say I felt more comfortable than I had since I’d started riding that there train?
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I finally caught my first view of the Pacific Ocean. Out in the water, the United States Flag stood firmly over Alcatraz, That gave me pride in this country which I hadn’t felt in Texas. Perhaps that was because of what went on after the War Between the States. Later I got my first glimpse of the side-wheeler Chrysopolis (which meant, Golden City) that was the first to start what came to be known as the Golden Age of River Palaces. She was very expensive costing over $250,000. It didn’t go into the ocean but went between San Francisco and Sacramento in 1860. She was said tp be the most beautiful steamer in the all the world - what with a buncha Victorian gold and white cabins, glistening brass lamps and plate-glass mirrors. Artists decorated passageways with California-inspired murals. I found out. Throughout, her 1,000 passengers found red plush upholstery and marble-topped tables. Her paddle-wheels were 36 feet in diameter. At night, all the windows of these water-palaces were illuminated and their chimneys vomited fire like volcanoes. I say this cause of what happened later in my trip.

But no one reading this would care to learn more about no riverboat since I didn’t travel on it anyways. So I’ll change to talking about the waterfront area also known as the Barbary Coast. There musta been at least three or four blocks of low, flat-roofed wooden shops fulla goods. There were a scattering of tents and shanties, two daily newspapers, two churches, and a buncha drinking, gambling, and “dance houses” which was what the locals called em. I knowd better though. Seemed funny that they had only two churches though. They need more for what went on in THAT city. Anyway it had more people I’d ever seen in one place. Mighta been around five thousand men and women. I donno though cause I didn’t stay all that long - or hadn’t intended to. There were places so dismal, so wretched, so horrible that while you was edging your way from a gambling hell into an opium hell, and from there to some worse place, nobody in the world coulda persuaded you otherwise that most in that place were the devil’s own. The thieves and jail-birds leaning over the gambling tables weren’t dirty, so far as I could see. Fact was that most of em - thieves, loafers, and other poor wretches lying under and on top of shelves, three deep sometimes and smoking a ‘bit’s worth’ of twice-laid opium - were decently dressed even though their surroundings were nasty. I woulda gladly left except I had to do a bit of business thereabouts. Besides I want to tell a bit about the Barbary Coast. It was from a long time resident - a gunfighter actually - that I heard about some of the ‘lovely’ residents of the Barbary Coasts - six of em to be exact and all of em were considered ‘artistes’.

These ladies were widely known as the Galloping Cow, the Dancing Heifer, the Roaring Gimlet, the Waddling Duck, Lady Jane Grey, and the Little Lost Chicken. The Galloping Cow and the Dancing Heifer, two enormous women who had forsaken the wash-tub for a fling at high life in the melodeons and the concert saloons, were a sister act; they did a sorta classical dance, lumbering about the stage like a brace of elephants. The Roaring Gimlet was very tall and really thin, but from her scrawny throat issued a voice which would have shamed a longhorn bull. Lady Jane Grey was a rather handsome, sad-faced woman of middle age, who was more than half-cracked on the subject of the nobility. She confided to everyone who would listen that she was the illegitimate daughter of an English earl, and during her waking hours, on or off the stage, she wore a coronet fashioned from cardboard which had bits of colored glass put in it. The Waddling Duck was a singer who was also extremely fat. She was advertised as the only female who could sing in two keys at one and the same time. As a matter of fact, she sang in none; she simply opened her mouth and screeched what she called scales - possibly fish scales, along which her voice bounded like a frightened mountain goat. The Little Lost Chicken was a tiny girl in her middle twenties - probably about the size of Lisa. She knew but one song, a ballad which began: “The boat lies high, the boat lies low; she lies high and dry on the Ohio.” This she sang in a quavering falsetto, invariably bursting into tears at the last note. She so obviously required protection against the cruel blasts of the world that many fancy gentlemen offered it. But that‘s when their wealth would disappear. That was cause the Little Lost Chicken was a first-rate thief and pickpocket. All of these women were very popular for a brief period, but none made any lasting impression on the Barbary Coast except the Galloping Cow. She saved her money and, about 1878, opened a saloon on Pacific Street, in a large room shaped like a half-moon, with a balcony, in which were tables and benches. On the day she opened her establishment, the Galloping Cow announced that she had had enough of men during her career in the concert saloons and melodeons, and that anyone who tried to take advantage of the fact that she was a lone woman would rue the day he was born. Only one man ever violated her rule against flirtations. He chucked her under the chin one night when she served him a bottle of beer, and she promptly smashed the bottle against his head. Then she flung him over the balcony railing and broke his back. Next day a huge sign appeared above the bar:

I’d heard about some guy called Strauss had started to market some heavy duty pants with copper rivets holding em together. He called em, blue jeans. I found out several months later that them copper rivets weren’t sometimes so good. There was one ‘specially placed so that when ya kneels in front of the campfire that rivet got hot and ya jumped up real fast. It don’t do to put cloth over it so I had em redone later so that the rivet was gone. Hey, I’m not all that bright sometimes but I don’t want to burn my log Comanch-style.

On the way there, though, I almost ran a young mother down while she was carrying her baby. Found out her name was Isabelle Frost and the kid was Robert. Lucky for me she was fine. I hated it when bad things happened to people and I was the cause. Found out she was from Sweden and her son was named after Robert E. Lee. That put more of a positive slant on it anyways. Never know what a person’ll turn out to be.

Anyway, I got several of these new pants delivered to my hotel about the time I was packing for the sea voyage. Don’t do, not to be prepared. And I wasn’t sure whether I’d be back or not either. It was while in Straus’s establishment that I met a local dandy. Seems he hired out sometimes to assist people when they got wronged - sorta like Pinkerton men I suppose who hire out to the railroad. He was mighty friendly and seemed to know everything worth knowing in San Francisco including the sleazier side of even the Barbary Coast. It was he that advised me to take a steamer. MacGregor, outta San Francisco It’s schedule would put it in Hawaii first, Auckland, and finally to Sydney. He also informed me that I should transfer my money from Denver, where I had finally deposited it all, to San Francisco. And when I finally figured out where I wanted to in Australia that all I had to do was to sent a telegram to San Francisco to get the money wired to my Australian Bank. They’d even change the dollars to English Pounds or whatever they use for money down there. Figures whatever he did for a living had made him pretty rich cause he knew more’n I ever would about such things. I knows ranching and cattle and such but that’s what I growed up with.

So that’s when we thought about going back to the Hotel Carlton where I found he had a room as well, and after we got all my stuff that I’d ordered, we’d go and see what was what. He also suggested that a wise feller pack iron - both visible and less than visible. As it happened, events proved him right.

It was around five that we took off for Pacific street. I’d only brought about forty dollars and he mighta had more or less but we didn’t worry none about that. If we lost it all, I figured, what would the difference be. First place we went to wasn’t such a good place so we walked a bit until we came to the Pale Horseman. Donno why it were named that but maybe it had to do with a picture of a white horse with a skeleton on it that mighta been the reason. Inside was a bit of gambling but that didn’t interest us at the moment. It were the tall woman that got our attention. She was maybe five ten or so with short hair and was probably working in the place. She was facing another woman a mite smaller and both were circling with drawn blades. Most of the customers were cheering em on which I though was a bad thing to do. No telling what it was about and people here probably didn’t think like us Texicans anyway. We’da stopped all this quick enough by throwing water on em or grabbing em - and grabbing can be a treat I suppose. But we wouldn’t have let it get outta had like it was now.

Although the taller one was stronger (she had a slight limp, I noticed), the shorter one, a blond, seemed to be a mite faster. Both were looking to sink a blade in the other - something I’ve seen cowboys do sometimes but never women. The taller one (who I found out was called Vicky Ann) feinted to the left and struck to the right quickly scoring a slash to the blonde’s left arm. That didn’t stop her though. Only made her madder cause she chanced a quick slash to the right at her opponent’s left arm but ended up thrusting inside her guard to the stomach. Vicky Ann stumbled but came back with a thrust of her own catching the blonde, Karin, in the ribs. I heard the crowd shout their encouragement when Karin stepped inside to deliver another thrust to Vicky’s lower bowels. I figured that thrust went home cause Vicky stumbled once again. But it was Karin that received the thrust under her ribs into the heart. She fell dead on the spot.

But Vicky Ann was not unscathed. She’d taken that low thrust in order to get her own blade into Karin’s heart but she was bleeding badly. That was when a taller guy outta the crowd rushed forward and ripped open Vicky Ann’s skirt at the waist. My friend knew him as Doc Freedman. Don’t know why he’d been there. I hadn’t seen him thereabouts myself. But then I didn’t know anyone in the whole of San Francisco all that well. We helped the Doc take Vicky Ann to his office which was just at the edge of the Barbary Coast. I found out he gave free medical services to the poor who worked and lived there far away from the rich places on Nob Hill.

It was while we was going back to the hotel that a Chinese guy showed up asking for some help. His name was funny to my mind. But then lotsa foreign names sound funny when ya don’t know the language or what they means. He was called, Hey Boy. Now don’t that beat all for a name?

We quickly ran back to the hotel so that he could change. He suggested I do the same and prepare for a fight - that is, if I wanted to help. To me, a friend is always worthy of help if it comes to that. But then I don’t ever want to fight for evil reasons either and I told him that. He said it was ok but I better bring my gun with me. A few minutes later I came down to the hotel lobby packing iron as I did when traveling. It don’t do to wear a gun when herding cattle because ya generally needed to get your rifle quick enough. Those who wore a pistol while on the trail generally got themselves dead.

Anyways he was dressed different when he come down. He wore black rather than white, complete with an ebony hat embellished by a band of silver conches and a holster embossed with a silver chess knight containing a He carried a Colt .45 revolver. I asked about the horse on his holster so he told me a bit of what he did while we followed Hey Boy to Chinatown. Said he got a big gambling debt; and, to pay it, he was forced by his IOU-holder - an evil lad baron called Norge - to challenge an outlaw called ’Smoke’ to a gun duel. Norge claimed Smoke terrorized the towns folk of a settlement owned by himself and he threatened to kill Norge if he ever sat foot there.

Well Smoke managed to catch him rather than the other way around and put him in a pen sort of. It had a cliff on one side and unclimbable rock on the other two and a wall of long pointy wooden poles. Smoke looked down on him and told him that he was the latest in a long line of assassins sent by Norge. Smoke said that with his passion to fulfill his sworn obligation and kill him, he said that ’in the books, there’s a name for someone like you - a paladin.” From then on Smoke calls him ’Paladin’ every time he can - which was how he got the name that I knowd. Smoke went on to help Paladin practice his draw. It’s then that Paladin notices Smoke’s persistent cough.

While practicing, he saved several of the bullets cause he’s got this idea that he can place some bushes into a smoldering fire. He faned the flames which sent the smoke upward. As the two men prepared to draw, the smoke hit Smoke (so to speak) and he began coughing and shaking. Realizing Paladin’s game, he draws quickly but only wings Paladin. Paladin though scores a critical hit and Smoke tumbles off his ledge. He heard Smoke gasp “now you think you’ve slain the dragon? ….. You know what you’ve done? …. You’ve turned the dragon loose… The only decent thing I ever did in my life was….. Chain him away from those people…. Who’s gonna stop Norge now? … You>,,, Oh, you armor does shine brightly, and your arm is… strong enough… but, where is righteousness, noble paladin?,,, Where is your cause?… You remember, there’s always a dragon loose… somewhere ---” Paladin closed Smokes eyes, he told me. He weren’t proud of what he’d done.

The townspeople held a memorial service for Smoke, while Paladin stood in the background. It's clear from the words spoken that they valued him and considered him their protector, while they regarded his hired killer as a contemptible subhuman bastard. Paladin, weeping, was stricken with grief... and with resolve.

Later when Norge was riding up the trail in a horse-and-buggy, Paladin called out, "Norge! Stay there!" At the top of an overlooking hill stands Paladin, now dressed in Smoke’s clothes of black. He slowly surveys the land below, focuses on Norge, and sneered in disgust. When I asked whether Norge had ever returned to the settlement, Paladin replied "only once."

It was then that he told me he was a gunfighter for hire that only helped the good and not the evil. And he handed me his card which had a chess knight with the words “Have gun, will travel” on it. Well it also read, “Wire Paladin, San Francisco.” His fee was a princely thousand dollars. Business must have been good.

Anyway we was heading to Chinatown and to something that really turned strange.

AlOmega