A party of Mexican deer hunters

In the New Idria Mining District,

On the eastern edge of the Gabilan,

Of towering sandstone ledges,

In an arid land with sulfurous springs,

Were sleeping in an abandoned cabin.

One told of a ghost of a woman

who returned with regularity nightly,

Wearing only a dressing gown. She moved

Toward the entrance to the bedroom

As if she were making her escape.

Then she vanished behind the door,

And slipped through the crack.

But later at night, she returned crying.

Or the observers may have mistaken the wind

For her sobbing for a lost loved one.

Two Russians from the Biola district

Quickly gave up their treasure-seeking,

Told of weird music at midnight

On the lonely heights of the Ciervo Hills.

The clattering of hooves on the rocky trail,

Or mysterious moving lights.

Early in the morning, near midnight,

a ghost in the form of a woman

often would appear from a cleft

in rocks above the baseball field

at the New Idria Quicksilver Mine.

Dressed in a black hooded cape,

she walked alone to the schoolhouse

where she disappeared behind it.

She had no name and seemed no harm,

And was seen many times in New Idria.

Three-Fingered Jack had a fondness

For tying captives, slitting their throats

As they screamed in agony and terror.

Today one might hear their screams resonate,

From where their stolen gold was hidden.

Also hear Jack’s diabolical laughter

As he watched the captive’s death struggles.

Dealing Monte, a Mexican card-game

With a deck of 40, was Joaquin’s weakness.

People talked of Joaquin,

A dangerous pistolero,

As if he were a demon or a spirit.

That Joaquin indulged in murder,

His soul was condemned to wander the earth

As a ghost, only visible at dusk.

A ghost, who dwells in Joaquin’s phantom cave

In the Three Rocks, is said to be him.

The hideout of the marauding Joaquin,

His gang of horse thieves and murderers,

Noble, and disobedient, breaking the law,

Exhibiting an indifference to fate,

Guilty of most of the horse theft,

Robberies and murders in the Mother Lode.

He kept his stolen horse saddled

And ready and was soon gone.

He ran, escaped into the dark

When Captain Harry Love’s men rode

Into his camp on Cantúa Creek,

Firing pistols indiscriminately,

Killing “Three-Fingered Jack,”

Cutting off his head and hand as proof.

Also killing some poor, unlucky Mexican

Named Theodore Larrius, from Lillus Ranch.

In the wrong place that night.

Captain Burns shot him several times,

Beheaded him, putting his cabasa in a jar

Of whiskey and called him Joaquin.

Larrius’ ghost is the headless horseman

Seen riding in the west hills at night.

Silhouetted against the starlit ridge,

He pointed a finger like a gun,

then vanished.

In a phantasmic cavern

High up in the Diablo Mountains,

Above the San Joaquin Valley and Cantúa Creek.

A ghost materializes as a vaquero,

Smelling of horse flesh,

In a low-crowned hat, leather bolero jacket, a sash,

Knee britches, leggings wrapped to the knees,

Spurs attached to buckskin boots.

He carried four revolvers,

A belt with cartridges

And a large curved Mexican knife.

The ghost of Joaquin could be heard saying:

. . . those who have injured me, I’ll slay.

And those who have not, I will rob—-or

I will die in the struggle.

At least

I will not submit.

His ghost glided from the entry to the underworld,

To where his gold was buried,

Slapping his thigh with his horse-hair riata,

His spurs rang as he lightly drifted along.

By Stephen Barile

From: United States