told her of my plan to meet and interview Salterini’s nephew for a position as my assistant. With Georges gone for several months I needed help with the letter concession and someone who could be my guide to the French mining camps in the southern placers.
Manon gave me her most devilish look. “So you gonna abandon your very pregnant wife again and gallivant around the mining camps with a young Italian Lothario, yes?”
“Your Pierre will have no time to chase the señoritas. He has a family to feed and if Manon’s doctor is right, he’ll soon have a nursery full of hungry mouths hollering for food. Let’s try the salami with a glass of Italian red wine and see if your Pierre has earned his reward.”
After helping Giselle and Teri set up our stands to sell Manon’s soup, slices of fresh brioche, pâté of wild venison and duck sandwiches and our wines and spirits by the glass, I headed to my makeshift office at the back of a pharmacy to pick up my messages. As the morning fog over the city had not yet dissipated and had left everything clingy-damp, I bought all the daily newspapers and headed through the Clay Street side of Portsmouth Square to take refuge in Pierre-Louis’ restaurant, Les Bons Amis. I could always count on Pierre-Louis for the latest tidbits of gossip he picked up from early morning clients, police, firemen, and merchants, some of whom were members of the notorious Committee of Vigilance.
As usual, I took a rear table where I could see all who entered. Pierre-Louis brought me a strong coffee during a lull in business.
“So, what’s the latest with the Committee?” I asked.
He sat down, added water to his pastis and took a sip of the cloudy colored mixture before replying. “Well, one of the Committee members had coffee this morning and said there’s conflicting evidence in the trial in Marysville whether the guy calling himself “Berdue” is really James Stuart. Evidently, two of the members of the court testified the Berdue character was not Stuart. They claimed he was two inches shorter and eyes were a different color.”
“Does that mean he’ll walk free?”
“Dunno. The prosecution claims it’s got to be Stuart based on physical evidence. They say Stuart had a finger tattoo, a stiff middle finger and a scar on the right side of the jaw. All of which this “Berdue” character has. So it’s pretty sure they’ll convict and hang him.”
“So, they think they got the right guy who killed the sheriff?”
“Dunno for sure.” Pierre-Louis took a long slug from his glass before replying. “The guy’s a Duck and that’s enough for me to see him hang given what they’ve done to our town. Hanging a bunch of ‘em quickly is the only message they understand. They didn’t pull up stakes when they hung Jenkins, so maybe if the Committee hangs enough of them fast this time, they’ll clear out for good.”
While I didn’t like the idea of vigilante justice, I understood Pierre-Louis’ position and hatred of the Sydney Ducks and all the other hooligans that preyed the city’s citizens and merchants. Manon and I were with him during both the recent arson fires and saw how close he had come both times to losing his business and life’s savings. I told Pierre-Louis that I was meeting a potential employee for lunch and asked him to prepare a special shellfish lunch for us. I ordered a carafe of white wine and settled in to read the papers and enjoy a good cigar.
All the newspapers featured the sensational story about the hanging of a Mexican beauty in Downieville, a rough mining town high up on the north fork of the Yuba River in the northern placers. According to the papers, the young Mexican señorita was twenty-three, slender, with striking black hair worn in two braids and was “well set-up,” according to one journalist who claimed to be present at her trial. According to all accounts, though she was vivacious and quick-tempered, she was not a whore. She lived in a cabin with her beau, a Mexican gambler.
A Scotsman named Cannon (nick-named “Loose Cannon” by one wag) got drunk and gambled at Juanita’s boyfriend’s table and lost. Angry, he went to the gambler’s house, intruded and made a drunken scene. According to the Scotsman’s confidants, he returned to the gambler’s cabin the next day “to apologize” for is drunken behavior of the previous evening. According to Juanita and the boyfriend, Cannon used the word puta referring to Juanita and she grabbed a knife, stabbed him in the heart, killing him.
After the stabbing, she and her boyfriend both fled to a saloon in town seeking refuge. On hearing of the stabbing, an angry mob of miners seized both of them, hauled them to the town plaza to try them for murder while screaming “hang her!”
Juanita verbally defended her actions, but the mob was hell bent on hanging her. The miner who attempted to defend her was knocked off the barrel he was standing on pleading her case and beaten up. The mob chanted, “hang her, she’s guilty.” A local doctor, Cyrus Aiken, declared to the “trial court,” made up of members of the mob, that Juanita was three months pregnant and thus by law, couldn’t be hanged. The mob ordered Dr. Aiken to leave town “or else.”
According to eyewitnesses, Juanita calmly accepted her fate and even put the noose over her own head, let them tie her hands and said “adios señores” as her executioners cut the rope and she dropped to her death. She died proud and unrepentant to the end. Her paramour was acquitted and beat it out of town as fast as his horse would carry him.
I was touched by the story of this beautiful, defiant woman. I had heard stories of miners’ juries hastily trying and hanging claim jumpers, thieves and murderers at the diggings, but this case gave me cause to worry about more travel to miners’ camps. If the Yankee hatred of foreigners could be quickly coalesced and focused on a beautiful, pregnant Mexicana, then any foreigner could suffer the same fate if the object of mob hatred in this lawless land. The journalists now referred to Downieville as “Hangtown.” My musings were interrupted by the appearance of a handsome young man with a lady-killer smile.
One look confirmed Manon’s claim of an Italian “Lothario.” Gino Lamberti was a tall, sinewy, olive-skinned Adonis. His deceptive “baby face” with dimples and a patrician nose was encased in long black, curly hair tied in a pony tail that had a raven’s glossy sheen. Unlike most Italians, Gino’s eyes were dark blue. He looked to be in his late twenties or early thirties and was dressed casually in tight trousers, open-necked shirt, suede vest and Italian moccasins. Around his neck hung a gold chain and icon of his patron saint. After a brief question to the waiter, he strode confidently back to my table, threw me a charming smile and jutted out his hand. “Monsieur Dubois, I am pleased to meet you. I’m Gino Lamberti, Luigi Salterini’s nephew,” he said in French with a pleasing accent.
I grasped his hand and was surprised at his steely grip. His hands were tough and hardened by physical labor which I deemed a good sign. “Pleased to meet you Gino. Call me Pierre. Have a seat. Your uncle recommended you to me as I’m in need of an assistant who speaks and writes French and English, can gather information from all sorts of people from snooty bankers to rough speaking miners of all nationalities, and has a good knowledge of the French mining camps in the southern placers.”
Gino nodded his head in agreement. “I can do all of that except write English. But I can speak Spanish as well as French and that could help getting information as well. In the southern diggings, many of the French work with and alongside Mexicans, Chileans, Peruvians and other groups from South America. I’m an experienced and successful miner and I can easily navigate the trouble spots in the southern mines. I’ve been to most of the foreign mining camps and know the lay of the land. I’d be pleased to be your guide.”
I was pleased that he’d
