TOMMYKNOCKER TALES II

Conversing with a Dead Man

     The following is the continued story of a chance dialogue with Patrick McGinty, a miner who was killed during a labor dispute at the Smuggler-Union Mine in 1901.

Despite the laws of nature and the average life expectancy in the San Juans, McGinty lingers. He has outlived over 100,000 mules. Meeting was quite cordial at our first encounter up Marshall Basin. It was 1975.

     I accepted his invitation to a second rendezvous.

     Driving over Dallas Divide from my cabin at Willow Swamps gave me time to think about my first encounter with the spirit of Patrick McGinty. It had happened the previous Friday while camped near the Bullion Tunnel above Telluride. He had suggested we meet up again so as to “drill a few centuries of history into my head”, as he put it.

     I secured my backpack, stuffed with curiosity, and began my ghostly ascent hoping he had not forgotten. Sure, it was a little questionable, meeting up with spooks and all, but this grizzly one seemed harmless enough. It was getting dark as I dropped into Marshall Basin and I searched the horizon for crotchety squatters and their stew pot licking pack animals.

     “Hey, there! You made it. You’re late!” came a hoarse voice from the vicinity of the tunnel. “What’d you bring us for dinner?”

     “Trail mix, yogurt, sea weed, dried apricots and water,” I said, “and steaks and beans and corn on the cob.”

     He approached laughing like a prisoner given reprieve, sorting through the provisions at hand.

     “Give those first selections to my mule. You and I can chow down on the real food,” he said. “You scared me there for a minute with all this sea weed and dried apricots crap.”

     “I bought these steaks from Milt over at the Ridgway Mercantile and the corn’s from Olathe. The beans are ala tin can.”

     We started a small fire and began to prepare our alpine feast.

     “You don’t see rib eyes like this down in town anymore,” frowned McGinty. “Nowadays everyone is busy eating pasta and sushi and god knows what else. Before you know it a man won’t be able to look crossways at a steer without having the law come down on him.”

     He went on to describe the culinary experience of the average miner at the turn of the century lighting on ranch food, town food and jail food along the way. He said nobody much liked hardtack and bacon but that it traveled well.

     “Things were very different in those days,” I offered, “but maybe people appreciated what they had in a way that’s foreign now.”

     “What do you know about it!” McGinty snapped. “You weren’t even here,” he said biting into a steak. “Good steak, kid.”

     “Some day in Telluride they’ll pass an ordinance against having any fun at all, except that which is approved by some committee or the other,” he mumbled, stuffing his mouth. It was as if he hadn’t eaten for decades. “Do you have any idea what they charge for a hotel room down there?

     “Back in my day we were free. We didn’t have so many damn laws. Hell, we only had two lawyers in the whole county and they were busy fighting with each other. Today,” he sighed, “we’ve got people making laws faster than Herefords poppin’ out calves in May. I think a lot of these folks ought to get a real job or go back to where they come from…or both.”

     It was then I realized that it was time to jump back into the conversation.

     “Well, in those days you didn’t have some of the problems we have today, like rampant growth, insurance companies, government intrusion, parking, excessive taxes and polarization,” I said.

     “Hell! We had more people in Telluride in 1890 than there are today and a man carried his insurance on his hip,” said McGinty. If you want to talk about the feds I suggest you research the demise of the Silver Standard in 1894. Parking wasn’t much of a problem unless the livery was full up and there were no income taxes but we paid the town a property tax,” he continued. “Now about this polarization…it was cold back in them days too, son, don’t you think otherwise.”

     I asked him to what kinds of laws were on the books back 100 years ago and if he agreed with any of them. I think it was the cue he was waiting for.

     “The rip roaring days in Telluride lasted only 35 years and even that period was interrupted by times of economic depression,” he began. “During the heyday everyone worked, with the possible exception of the mine owners’ wives who engaged in all kind of social activity but not in politics. That alone kept the legislation down,” he smiled.

     “I remember the day the town fathers decided to outlaw the carrying of guns inside town limits. As usual they wouldn’t be the ones enforcing such a fiasco,” he explained. “That chore would go to a rather large fellow named Knous or Knobbs, or something like that. Now this Knous had a well deserved reputation for sniffin’ out trouble and putting the fire out before it got burning, but this pistol law was even too much for him. Oh, he survived the ordeal and later on was fired due to lack of fines collected. Knous was so good at his job that he never let any of the cowboys or miners get that out of control, even on Saturday night!

     “Years later Telluride had a marshal named Jim Clark who was just the opposite. He was a bully. Some said he was even sadistic. Crime jumped but so did fines and Clark served in his enforcement capacity for years,” said McGinty. “The town council and the county loved him. He was the apple of their eye, or eyes as it were. That’s a good civics lesson, heh?

     Then later we had Everett Morrow, a son-of-a bitch, who loved the hassle the newcomer hippies that were arriving to live in the San Juans.”

     He went on to talk about traveling circuses, medicine shows and licenses for such migrational diversions. He talked about Butch Cassidy, the dark, little Ute chiefs, Otto Mears, and the gambling webs weaved by people like the Reverend Mr. Ley and the infamous Parson Hogg.

     “You ever heard of a red-haired woman named Marie Scott? She has a spread of sizable proportions down west of Ridgway.”

     “I work for her,” I said.

     “Well, why didn’t you say that at first!” he snarled. “You be sure to say old Patrick McGinty says hello. She probably thinks I’m dead these days.

     “Things just aren’t the same when a man’s fortune was lying under a rock,” he said. “Gambling and bawdy houses were tolerated in those days since making them against the law would only cause bigger problems. We haven’t learned much, have we? I recall the Gold Belt and the Cozy Corner handling the tax burdens for five to ten years in the early 1900s.

     “There weren’t many eligible ladies in town in those days. I remember a real pretty one named Sally. She was from Cincinnati or somewhere back East, and I was young and in love. Well, old whatshername didn’t have eyes for me and married an older man who owned controlling stock in the Tomboy. That was three days before I got shot up at the Smuggler. I was a union man, you know.”

– Uncle Pahgre