Search the Encyclopedia Mavericana:   ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ

La Mesa Hotel

Hotel in La Mesa, New Mexico Territory, in 1876.[1]

In May of 1876, Bart Maverick and Daisy Haskell took rooms at the La Mesa Hotel while traveling together by stage from Santa Fe to Laramie. Bart, hired by Daisy to pose as her husband, John Haskell, had been concerned about Daisy's strange behavior since leaving Santa Fe and had confronted her about it.[1]

In their hotel sitting room, Daisy pulled her jeweled derringer on Bart while she set the scene to appear as though a thief had entered through the window to steal her jewelry. She shot Bart twice in the chest and Bart fell to the floor. While feigning terror, she screamed loudly and stashed her jeweled necklace and derringer inside the hollowed stock of the Winchester carbine Henrique Fillipe had given Bart for protection along the trail.[1]

Responding to the gunshots and Daisy's screams, the hotel clerk called for the doctor and sheriff while Fred Adams and his wife took Daisy to their rooms to console her. But upon entering Bart and Daisy's room, the clerk discovered Bart was alive. He had surmised part of Daisy's plan and had loaded her gun with blanks. The sheriff investigated the scene and questioned Daisy as to what had happened. Afterwards, the sheriff examined the Winchester and corroborated Bart's story.[1]

In the hotel room again two nights later, after a mock funeral for John Haskell, staged by Bart, the sheriff and the town's undertaker, Daisy and Fillipe discussed their plan and revealed its details to Bart who had been hiding in the shadows. When Bart stepped into the light, Daisy fainted. Fillipe rushed Bart, but Bart knocked him out with a single punch. The next morning, the sheriff escorted Daisy and Fillipe out of the La Mesa Hotel onto the stage bound for Santa Fe where they would stand trial for the murder of John Haskell and the attempted murder of Bart Maverick. Bart stayed at the hotel one more night before boarding the Laramie stage the following day.[1]

See: The Jeweled Gun