Sweet, Sweet Revenge
A few days later, one of the bodies of the men who killed Murrieta’s brother was found cut into tiny pieces, and tossed near their gold prospecting camp. When some of his friends found the body, they rode their horses to see if they could catch up to the culprit, and they spotted Joaquin Murrieta. They recognized him as the man they had whipped, and started shooting at him, but he rode away so quickly, he avoided all of the bullets.
One by one, these men began disappearing from the camp. Everyone knew that Joaquin Murrieta was out to get his revenge. Even when they were on high alert at their camp, Murrieta still somehow managed to pick them off when they least expected it. He was like a ghost, rarely being seen or heard as he exacted his revenge.
Of course, these men were guilty of abusing multiple Mexicans, not just Joaquin Murrieta’s brother. So when some of the other Mexican villagers knew that a mysterious hero was taking down the villains who were oppressing them, they wanted to help him. He realized that getting vengeance for just himself was not going to be enough. After all, with his wife and family dead, he probably felt that he had nothing left to live for, and this was a cause he could stand behind. These original Mexican inhabitants were also left unprotected from the Americans who were coming in to take their land, and they needed someone to fight for them. He decided to devote his life to getting justice for the Mexican community.
Murrieta formed a gang of men who all lost members of their families to these American men who were taking over their homeland. Most of them were in their late 20s to mid-30s. Even though they were mostly older than Joaquin, they all followed him as their leader, because of his skills. They had each fought in the war, and they all had grievances against the Americans. One of the most well-known characters in the gang was nicknamed Three-Fingered Jack, because he lost the other fingers in a battle. Another member of the gang, Reyez Feliz, was just 16 years old. Joaquin fell in love with Feliz’s sister, and they formed a new family. The members of his gang would lasso American miners off of their horses. They stole the gold, and their horses, and moved on to the next gold miner.
After recovering the money that was stolen from him, Murrieta and his gang would return to the village and give money to the townspeople who had their gold stolen from the Americans, too. He was like Robin Hood, except that he was beginning to kill without prejudice. It was no longer a mission to go after the specific people who had done them wrong.
Soon enough, word spread that their territory was not safe for American gold miners to travel through, because a gang of Mexicans would kill them. When the U.S. army learned about this vigilante gang who was killing American gold miners, a man named Harry Love was put in charge of The California Rangers. They had a mission to take down Joaquin Murrieta at all costs.
The rangers caught a group of Mexican men stealing horses, and they shot at the gang, killing all of them. When examining the bodies, they saw the man with three fingers, who they knew right away was Three-Fingered Jack. Based on all of the stories and descriptions of Joaquin Murrieta, Harry Love was confident that he actually found him. He cut off his head, put it in a jar, and charged people $1 to come and see it.