Rampage in the High Sierras
It all came to a bubbling boil one day when Murrietta was away at work dealing monte in a saloon. While he was away from home some miners, probably on a wild drinking spree for one reason or another or no reason at all, attack Joaquin's wife and raped her. Talk about getting your hot Mexican blood up! That is exactly, and understandably, what happened.
Joaquin Murrietta went just about right out of his mind over the criminal act of his wife being raped by gold miners. And, right or wrong, he started getting even. He'd had a small gold claim on the Stanislaus River, but now it, and just about everything else, was forgotten except revenge.
At first he started pulling off small holdups of individual miners. Then the holdups got bigger and bolder. While Murrietta raged he was accused of horse stealing and, whether he was guilty or not and may have been, was caught and beaten with a thronged bullwhip by some white men. Now there was no doubt that Joaquin was a confirmed gringo-hater.
It was now time for Murrietta's outlawing to expand and if the James or the Youngers had managed to organize a gang the size of what Joaquin had the west might have stayed wild a lot longer than it did.
Joaquin's gang of desperadoes reached some eighty men, and at least one woman-his lovely and molested wife Antonia Molinera. Antonia dressed like a man and learned to pull her gun from her sash with the best of the men. It's said she could kill, and did, with a single shot.
This gang of gunfighting Mexicans was soon swooping down on stagecoaches with the intent to rob and loot. All up and down the mining camps of the High Sierras, Murrietta and his followers helped themselves to gold nuggets and dust.
Joaquin Murrietta continued.
