December, 2014

Issue #63

The Cripple of Pioche
by Edward McDermott

On December 28th, 1872, men fought by candle light under the ground in the cut that lay somewhere between the Raymond and Ely, and Pioche Phoenix Mines. No one was quite certain where the boundary between the claims lay down here in the twisted passages that followed the veins of silver and zinc.

Four days earlier a blast shattered the stone and filled the shaft with ore to muck and joining the two mines' shafts. That led to accusations, and counter accusations. Lawsuits were threatened by the company lawyers, and the mine foremen refused to share a glass of Christmas cheer. Instead the two mines hired guards, and now men with shotguns and pistols patrolled above and below ground. That night Thomas Ryan was killed at Pioche in an underground fight. The next day Charles Swanson was fatally shot at Pioche by some unknown person as he went to work for the Raymond and Ely mine.

Pioche, the wildest mining town in Nevada, wilder than Virginia City, wilder than Tombstone, was grinding up miners and guards at a maniacal rate.

None of this mattered to Jack Wheelock as he lay on a bed in the Overland Hotel. When the blast joined the two mines into armed conflict it, dropped part of the drift down on Jack and his leg. His helmet saved his life, but the rocks broke his leg in at least six places.

The doctor peeled back a bit of the bandage that held the splints in place, dropped his head down to the spot and sniffed like he was doing snuff. He shook his head and sniffed again. "Bad, bad. Look miner. You'll have to lose the leg. Mortification has set in."

"I rode through the war with Picket with nary a scratch, when every man around me died, and no drunken saw bones will tell him that he's going to cut off my leg," Jack replied. He snatched his pistol from the holster beside the bed, cocked it and pointed it at the Doctor. "I'd rather be dead than half a man."

"Son," the Doctor said, as he pulled out a Mexican cheroot and began to light it. "Put that gun away. If you want to keep that leg and die, it is fine by me. I've already been paid for setting the leg, and I don't much care for surgery anyway. I spent three years cutting off mangled limbs after chain shot had done its job. You just rest, nice and easy. In a couple of days the stench will be so strong it will turn your stomach, but by then it won't matter what anyone does. I'll see that you get a nice spot up on the hill for your grave."

"You don't scare me."

"I'm not trying to. Here, have a smoke. Think about it. You can keep the leg, or keep your life."

Jack remembered the men coming home from the war, some missing arms, some missing legs, some missing more. He had returned to Georgia to find the farm destroyed, his father dead, and his mother living with neighbors, glad to eat turnip greens and poke sally. Now, just as he had put together a stake to start a ranch, this had to happen.

"What can a one legged man do? Can you fit me with a peg leg, Doc?"

"Sorry, son. I'll have to take if off at the hip. You'll need a crutch for the rest of your life."

John H. Ely stepped into the hotel room. "Sorry to hear about your leg, Wheelock. I'd talked to the owners of the Phoenix about this, but after they murdered poor Swanson last night, I know that's no good. You'll stay on the payroll until you're better, and there's a job waiting for you. It won't be underground, but it'll be a job."

Miners' wages were three times any topside job, even shotgun on the four stages that ran through Pioche. Jack thought for a second about putting his gun to his head and ending it all, but who would send money home to mother then? No, he had to live. If the Doc said it meant losing the leg, he'd have to do that too.

"O.K. Doc, cut away," Jack said, holstering his gun. "But just in case I don't make, would you ask the Judge to come over. I need to make up my will."

January brought raging winds and snow to Pioche as the town huddled into the mountains above Meadow Valley. The dispute between the mining companies continued to simmer, and Ely had hired Thomas Welch, and Jeff Howard. In response the Phoenix hired Charles Sanbourn and Gus Wright. Miners took to wearing pistols, and some bars had men sitting in chairs on the bar with shotguns to keep the peace.

Jack Wheelock limped up the hill, using two crutches to replace the missing leg. One of the crutches slipped on a spot of ice and nearly tumbled him to the ground before he reached his shanty. The fire in September of 1871 had destroyed the houses and possessions of nearly two thousand people, and construction hadn't replaced those buildings yet. Jack knew he should feel happy to have a tent house. It was a canvas tent boarded up around the sides about three feet high to keep out the cold. He had been hoping to buy some boards to put a more substantial roof onto the sides before the snow hit, but the construction of the new court house had driven the price of boards through the roof, even for a boom town. How they planned to pay for that courthouse was beyond Jack, but they must have it now that Pioche was the county seat.

True to his word, Ely gave Jack a job, a job as night watch man inside the mine, making sure that Phoenix miners didn't come through the cut in the middle of the night to still Ely mine ore. That was a job that wouldn't last, but at least it paid for food and whiskey.

They hadn't laughed at him at the Wells Fargo office, but you didn't laugh at a man wearing a gun in Pioche. Men had been shot for less. They hadn't given him a job either.

Jack worried. He wanted to send his mother some money, but the stages were robbed so regularly that the mines had started to melt the silver down into two hundred pound bars. That stopped the robbers from taking the silver shipments, but they could still clean out a miner's pockets. "I wonder how many other miners are in the same spot."

The next day, Jack sat in the Overland Hotel beside the Pioche Bank, with a sign on the table before him. "Parcels delivery to the railhead at Milford, guaranteed."

A miner stepped forward. "How can you guarantee that?"

"I rode with Picket for four years. I'll make it or die trying."

"You a Reb?"

"I'm from the fair state of Georgia. My word is my bond. Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. Not meaning to question your word, but there are stage coach robbers. How can you be sure to get through?"

Jack motioned to his crutch and his missing leg. "I don't have much choice in the matter. I can't run from trouble or run out on you for that matter. As for the stage coach robbers, I'll give them fair warning before I kill them."

By nightfall Jack had twenty customers.

The next morning, before the sun was up, Jack took the Gilmour & Sullivan stage out of town. It ran Bennett Springs, Bullionville, Clover Valley, Desert Springs, Mt. Springs, Sulpher Springs, Minerville, Adamville, Greenville to Beaver and then to Salt Lake City. He sat in the rocking coach, bracing his body with his one leg and holding a scatter gun under the buffalo robe he wrapped himself in. The stage coach robbers were lucky and stuck a different coach outside Jackrabbit.

A week later he returned to Pioche with receipts from the U.S. postal services in Salt Lake City. In the spring he made another trip. When the robbers tried to stop the stage coach, Jack fired one load of buck shot out the window and the other into the roof the coach. "If you boys up there plan to stop, then think again. I'll kill you just as fast as those highway men."

After that incident, Jack couldn't buy a ticket on a stage coach in or out of Pioche unless he promised to leave his scatter gun at home. That put an end to the courier business.

As he was sitting in the Overland, nursing a glass of whiskey and trying to think of a new opportunity, Special Officer Shea of the Pioche police department sat beside him. "Here you're at loose ends, Wheelock."

"Yep."

"Ever thought of pinning one of these on? Yes, I know about the leg. Men with two good legs and guts and brains are all down the mines, or robbing the miners. I need a man with no give in him. You don't need to run, or dance, or ride. Interested. It pays almost as well as mucking in a shaft."

"Yes."

Jack did well as a deputy. On the first day he walked into the Overland with his badge on, and his scatter gun strapped to his crutch. By this time, he could get around with just one.

"Boys," he said to the miners, and guards, and gamblers sitting and drinking. "Boys. They made me deputy, and told me up hold the laws of the Pioche. I'll tell you all right off that I'll do it, and I won't be bribed, I won't be bought, I won't be scared off and I can't run. So if you have any trouble with me, then let's get it over with now."

No one wanted to face that scatter-gun, even in the hands of a one legged man. Nobody ever gave Jack any back talk. The same couldn't be said for his boss. James Butler made the mistake of threatening and insulting Special Officer Shea who shot him dead on the spot.

Jack discovered that people liked him and trusted him. They trusted him so much they elected him county assessor in 1875 and in 1882 he was elected county commissioner and served one term of four years. After that he had held other positions of honor and trust, became a member of the board of trustees of the town and a justice of the peace. The silver mines closed, but Pioche remained the country seat for one of the largest counties in all of Nevada.

The new century was ready to blossom, as Jack Wheelock, justice of the peace stepped out of his house and limped down the main street of Pioche. The new bank manager was sitting in his office as Jack entered.

"Yes Mr. Wheelock, This is a considerable sum that you've accumulated over the years. Are you sure you want you will to read this way?"

"Lindsay, I've got no kin, and I've outlived pretty much all my friends. I have no where I'd rather be. When I die plant me up on Boot Hill, put up a monument and spend the rest on the best party the town's ever seen."

"Mr. Wheelock, I can't help wondering. Given all your success with one leg, I wonder where you'd have gone if you'd had two good legs."

"Heck man, I know where I'd be if I had two good legs. I'd be down in some mine, mucking out the shot."