BIRTH OF
THE BLACKJACK QUEEN, CUTTHROATS AND GOOD TIME GIRLS OF THE GOLD RUSH
REAL PEOPLE, TRUE STORIES
HISTORICALLY ACCURATE AND FUN TO READ
(They're written like novels with dialogue based on journals, diaries and newspapers)
HISTORY AS IT HAPPENS(tm) IN HIGH ACTION AMERICAN HISTORY BOOKS
"The saddest plight
Of the night gunfight
Is you just can't tell
Exactly who fell ---
Till you meet in Hell!"
CHAPTER 41
Since Claude Chana found gold nuggets in it's main ravine in 1848, Auburn had been known by many names - Wood's Crossing, North Fork's Dry Diggin's, Rich Diggin's and finally Auburn - but none of these towns had ever hosted an outlaw as slick as Rattlesnake Dick. And to say that
At dusk on July 11, 1859, Constable Boggs got word that Rattlesnake Dick with a member of his gang - possibly Aleck Wright -- was headed toward
While Constable Boggs and big Deputy Sheriff L.L. Bullock thundered south to confront his nemesis and cohort, Undersheriff George Johnston, Deputy Sheriff William Crutcher and Deputy Tax Collector George Martin searched northward out of
It was some three hours before midnight under a darkly clouded sky, when
"You betcha!" Martin growled.
Crutcher snarled, "They're standing pat to see if we've got the guts. If it is them, let's take 'em in dead er alive!"
With his pistol in his right hand, George Johnston, yelled, "Rattlesnake Dick, surrender!"
Rattlesnake turned in his saddle, "What?"
A maverick drop of moonlight glowed on Dick's face and
Rattlesnake Dick's bullet tore through
Martin and Crutcher emptied their handguns at Rattle-snake and his crony, who returned fire as fast as they could cock and shoot at the lawmen. A pistol ball smashed through Martin's chest, blasting him backwards from his saddle to hit the ground dead.
With battle suddenly reduced to ear-ringing silence, Deputy Crutcher spurred his horse into a dead run back to Auburn for help, followed slowly by the bleeding Johnston, who'd left Martin's body only after finding no pulse.
Unaware of the night's blood bath, Constable Boggs and Deputy Sheriff Bullock abandoned the area south of
Stripping away the blanket, Boggs saw the body was clothed in fine black trousers, with a light, blood-soaked, vest, matching merino coat and kid gloves. The powder burns around the entry wound in his right temple and the pistol clutched in his rigid right hand, left little doubt that the leader of the Tom Bell gang had engineered his last, and greatest escape with his own bullet. Boggs found a letter, stained with blood from a chest wound in his shirt pocket, apparently from the dead man's sister, Harriet.
It was addressed to "My beloved brother, guide of my infant joys and long lost friend of my childhood. Years have passed away since your last letter reached us." She begged him to follow "the path of rectitude." Knowing of his outlawry, she pleaded "Oh, brother, will you not be saved? God sees your heart while you read these words. He knows there is a secret wish there to be a better man....Will you not write a few words to your own home? It may indeed be a bitter task, but may it not prove a blessing? Do try to overcome every obstacle; look deep in your heart and see if there is not a wish to remember your sister, your own most affectionate and anxious sister."
Stripping the pencil-scrawled paper scrap from Richard A. Barter's elegantly gloved left hand, Boggs read, "Rattlesnake Dick dies, but never surrenders, as all true Britons do." The other side read, "If J. Boggs is dead, I am satisfied."
Unaware of what Dick referred to, Boggs dropped the crumpled note to flutter down beside the defiant dead man's peaceful face. [The outlaw obviously died thinking the Tax Collector George Martin, who'd been shot dead in the dark, was Boggs, himself.]
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