Loafing Along Death Valley Trails

“They haggled awhile and the fellow agreed to accept $50 and a plug horse. He took the money and started for the horse.

“‘Wait a minute,’ Pancake says, ‘I want a bill of sale,’ and wrote it out on the spot, and made the fellow sign it. Didn’t keep her long though. She ran away with a tramp fiddler. The Comstock Lode produced over a billion dollars. He might have had a fifth of that. Just too smart for his own good. Finally paid the price. Found him on the trail one day. Brains blowed out. Suicide.”

Dobe Charlie Nels was at Bodie, rendezvous of the toughest of the bad men when the United States Hotel rented its rooms in six-hour shifts and guests were awakened at the end of that period to make places for others. He recalled Eleanor Dumont, whose deft fingers dealt four kings to the unwary and four aces to herself. Smitten lovers had shot it out for her favors on the Mother Lode and on the Comstock, but when life and love still were fair, fate played a scurvy trick on the beauteous Eleanor. The shadow of a little down began to show on her lip and darkened with the years and so she became Madame Moustache. “She just got tired living and one night she went outside, swallowed a little pellet and passed the deal to God.”

But the charmers of Bodie and its bad men and the millions its hills produced were not so deeply etched on his memory as the job he lost because he did it well. Hungry and broke when he arrived he took the first job offered – stacking cord wood.

“It was a job I really knew. The boss drove stakes 4×8 feet alongside a mountain of cut wood. I figured I had a long job. He left and I took pains to make every cord level on top, sides even. When the boss came back he blew up, kicked over my piles and wanted to know if I was trying to ruin him. ‘If you’d picked out a few crooked sticks and crossed a few straight ones, you could have made a cord with half the wood. Get out and don’t come back.’” Charlie also had a story of a memorable night.

A bartender in one of Bodie’s better saloons was putting his stock in order after a busy night when three celebrants in swallow tails and toppers came unsteadily through the doors. The two on the outside were gallantly steadying the one in the center as they led him to the bar. The bartender smiled understandingly when, coming for their orders, he noticed the center man’s head was pillowed on his arms over the bar, his topper lying on its side in front of his face. Recalling that the fellow had consumed often and eagerly but had paid for none in an earlier session, he nodded at the silent one: “Shall I count him out?”

“Oh no. Bill’s buying this time.”

The drinks served, the bartender left to attend another late patron and moments passed before he returned to find Bill just as he had left him, but alone – his drink untouched. He tapped Bill’s shoulder and asked payment for the drinks. When three taps and three demands brought no answer, he picked up a bung starter; went around the counter, seized Bill by the shoulder, wheeled him around only to discover that Bill was dead. Startled and panicky, the bartender now ran to the door, saw Bill’s friends weaving up the street and ran after them, told them excitedly that Bill had croaked.

“Oh,” one said thickly. “Bill’s ticker jammed in our room an hour ago. His last words were, ‘Fellows, I want you to have a drink on me.’ Couldn’t refuse old Bill’s last request.”

When Dobe Charlie had finished this story he turned to a clear-eyed ancient standing nearby. “Jim, I reckon you’d call me a Johnny-come-lately since you were a Forty-Niner.”

“No,” Jim said. “I was 12 when I came to Hangtown. I remember a fellow they called Wheelbarrow John, because he made a better wheelbarrow than anyone else. He saved $3000 and went back East. He was John Studebaker. Made wagons first. Then autos.

“Young fellow named Phil Armour came. No luck. Pulled out. He did all right in Chicago though. Founded Armour Company.

“Did I ever tell you about the Digger Ounce? No? Well, it’s history. The Digger Indians didn’t know what gold was. Actually they’d been throwing nuggets at rabbits and couldn’t believe their eyes when they saw miners exchange the same stuff for food and clothing at the store. The Indians had been getting it along the stream beds for ages. So they came in with their buckskin loin bags full of it. The merchant took it all right, but when he balanced his scales, he used a weight that gave the Digger only one dollar for every five he was entitled to. Then the Indian had to pay three prices for everything he bought. One miner loafing around the store, followed the Diggers one day, learned where they were getting it and cleaned up $40,000 in no time. That’s history too.

“Crooked merchants used the same trick on drunken whites and anybody else who didn’t keep their eyes open. So the Digger Ounce became a byword all along the Mother Lode.”

But of all the stories about the Comstock this fine old gentleman told us, I like best one about Joe Plato. Young, strong, and handsome as Apollo, Joe craved a fling after months of toil in the gulches with no sight of woman other than the flat-faced Washoe squaws.

In San Francisco Joe saw a big red apple and he wanted it. A breath-taking girl sold him the apple and he wanted her. He acquired the girl also. His gambols over, Joe handed her five shares of ten he owned in a Comstock claim. ‘A little token,’ he grinned, never dreaming the beautiful wanton had a heart and loved him madly. So he forgot her. She didn’t forget Joe.

Months later the ten shares were worth on the market $1,000,000. Joe remembered then. ‘Too much for a girl like that.’

To beat the news and retrieve the stock, he braved Sierra storms, found her. In the battle of wits she played her cards superbly. “Of course,” she said at last, “… if we were married…”

So the beaten Joe faced the preacher.

When Joe Plato died she took her millions to San Francisco, married a rich merchant, became a social leader and the mother of nabobs.

One morning at breakfast Myra informed me that I could get to Bradbury Well, a famous landmark on the road to Death Valley. To break the routine, I went. The route leads over Salsbury Pass, named for Jack Salsbury – a congenital promoter who was forever hunting something to promote. He had made and lost fortunes in cattle, lumber, and mines and for a while lived at Shoshone.

In a ravine near Bradbury Well were two or three dugouts. In one was the ubiquitous Rocky Mountain George – lean, seamed, and soft voiced. On the box he used for a table lay a letter mailed in Denver and bearing this address: “Rocky Mountain George, Nevada.” Known all over the gold belt, a dozen postmasters had sent it from town to town and now it had caught up with George.

Meeting George a few weeks later in Beatty I recalled our meeting. He hadn’t shaved in a week and his torn overalls were covered with grime. A well-tailored gentleman came out of the hotel across the street and stepped into a smart car. “Hey, Jim – ” George called. “Come over here a minute…” The man left his car and walked over. “Jim, I want you to meet my friend…” Jim and I shook hands. “Jim’s our governor,” George added and I looked again at Nevada’s Governor James Scrugham, later its U. S. Senator. For an hour he and George talked of canyons in which, they decided, somebody would find a billion dollars and I decided Democracy was safe on the desert.

Walking up the wash from George’s dugout I was surprised to see a slim blonde with blue eyes and a nice smile. Obviously she had just left her stove, for she had a steaming pot of coffee in her hand. I made some inane remark about the beauty of the morning.

“It’s nearly always like this,” she said and after a moment I was sitting on the bench outside the dugout sipping coffee. I learned that her name was Helen. “Why shouldn’t I try prospecting? I’ve nothing to lose. I had a job clerking, but I just couldn’t scrimp enough to pay for medicine and the doctors’ bills.”

That and the telltale spot on her cheek seemed reason enough for her presence and, as she explained, “I might make a strike.”

Later in Beatty, I noticed a small crowd about the office of Judge W. B. Gray, Beatty’s marrying Justice, who was also interested in mines. “What’s the riot?” I asked Rocky Mountain George, who was whittling on the bench beside me. “Helen made a big strike,” he told me and I hurried over and met her coming out – radiant and excited.

“I’ve just heard of your strike,” I said. “Where did you make it?”

“Right in that wash,” she laughed. “He came along one day and – well, we just got to liking each other and – ” She paused to introduce me to a good looking clean-cut fellow and added: “So we just up and married.”

The population of Beatty had so changed in one generation that in 1949 when the town wanted to put on a celebration, not a citizen could be found who knew Beatty’s first name. Finally a former acquaintance was located at Long Beach who advised a booster group that the name of its founder was William Martin Beatty. The gentleman is mistaken. Beatty’s first name was Montelius and was called Monte by all old timers.

A feature of social life in Shoshone was the Snake House – an unbelievable structure made of shook from apple crates, scraps of corrugated iron found in the dump, tin cut from oil cans, and cardboard from packing cartons, which because of scant rainfall, served almost as well as wood or iron.

A fellow comes in from the hills, craves relaxation and finds it in the Snake House. Though he never plays poker, Eddie Main who lived a few yards away was induced to function as a sort of Managing Director, to see that the game remained a gentleman’s game.

Inside, swinging from the roof is a Coleman lantern and under it a big round table covered with a blanket stretched tight and tacked under the edges. A rack of chips. Chairs for players and kegs and beer crates for spectators. A stove in the corner furnishes heat when needed. If you limit your poker to penny ante, the game is not for you. I have seen more than $1000 in the pots and large bets are the rule.

One night Sam Flake who has been in Death Valley country longer than any living man, joined the game. Sam, a student of poker, ran afoul of four queens and went home broke. The next day as he worked in a mine tunnel, Sam was holding a post mortem over his disaster. He went over his play point by point. Like many a desert man used to solitude, Sam occasionally talked to himself aloud, And unaware that Whitey Bill McGarn was in a stope just above him, Sam diagnosed his loss: “I opened right. I anted right. I bet right. I called right. Can’t be but one answer. I was sitting in the wrong seat.” (Sam Flake died suddenly at Tecopa Hot Springs in 1949.)

The village of Tecopa is 11 miles south of Shoshone. When the railroad was built stations were given names of local significance and this honors the Indian chief, Cap Tecopa.

Important discoveries of gold, silver, lead, and talc were made and are still being worked. In the early days murders of both whites and Indians, without any clues were of frequent occurrence. Someone recalled that every killing of an Indian by a white man had been followed by a white man’s murder.

The Piute believed in blood atonement and when a young American was found butchered in the Ibex hills, friends of the deceased went to Cap Tecopa with evidence which indicated the murder was committed by Cap’s tribesmen. “We want these killings stopped,” they told him heatedly.

Cap denied any knowledge of the crime and brushed aside the suggestion that he produce the assassin. “Too many Indians,” Cap said. “But if you help, I can stop the killings.”

“How?” they demanded.

“You tell hiko no kill Indian. I tell Indian no kill hiko.”

Cap Tecopa was a good prospector and owned a coveted claim which he refused to sell.

Among the fortune seekers was a flashily dressed individual who wore a tall silk topper. The beegum fascinated Cap and he wanted it. He followed the wearer about, his eyes never leaving the shiny headgear. At last the urge to possess was irresistible and he approached the owner. A lean finger gingerly touched the sacred brim. “How much?”

All he got was a shake of the head. Failure only stimulated Tecopa’s desire. His money refused, Cap in his desperation thought of the claim which the cunning of the promoters, the wiles of gamblers, the pleas of friends had failed to get.

The owner of the hat annoyed by Tecopa, decided to get rid of him. “You take hat. I take claim.”

The Indian reached for the topper. “Take um,” he grunted and the deal was made. Several other versions of this story are recalled by old timers.

The Tecopa Hot Springs were highly esteemed by the desert Indian, who always advertised the waters he believed to have medicinal value. In the Coso Range he used the walls of a canyon approaching the springs for his message. The crude drawing of a man was pictured, shoulders bent, leaning heavily on a stick. Another showed the same man leaving the springs but now walking erect, his stick abandoned.

The Tecopa Springs are about one and a half miles north of Tecopa and furnish an astounding example of rumor’s far-reaching power. Originally there was only one spring and when I first saw it, it was a round pool about eight feet in diameter, three feet deep and so hidden by tules that one might pass within a few feet of it unaware of its existence. The singularly clear water seeped from a barren hill. About, is a blinding white crust of boron and alkali. There Ann Cowboy used to lead Mary Shoofly, to stay the blindness that threatened Mary Shoofly’s failing eyes. When the whites discovered the spring, the Indians abandoned it.

Later it became a community bath tub and laundry. Prospectors would “hoof” it for miles to do their washing because the water was hot – 112 degrees, and the borax content assured easy cleansing. Husbands and wives began to go for baths and someone hauled in a few pieces of corrugated iron and made blinds behind which they bathed in the nude. A garment was hung on the blind as a sign of occupation and it is a tribute to the chivalry of desert men that they always stopped a few hundred feet away to look for that garment, and advanced only when it was removed.

Today you will see two new structures at the spring and long lines of bathers living in trailers parked nearby. They are victims of arthritis, rheumatism, swollen feet, or something that had baffled physicians, patent medicines, and quacks. They come from every part of the country. Somebody has told them that somebody else had been cured at a little spring on the desert between Shoshone and Tecopa.

Some live under blankets, cook in a tin can over bits of wood hoarded like gold, for the vicinity is bare of growth. It is government land and space is free. Some camp on the bare ground without tent, the soft silt their only bed. “Something ails my blood. Shoulder gets to aching. Neck stiff. Come here and boil out” … “Like magic – this water. I’ve been to every medicinal bath in Europe and America. This beats ’em all.”

You finally turn away, dazed with stories of elephantine legs, restored to perfect size and symmetry. Of muscles dead for a decade, moving with the precision of a motor. Of joints rigid as a steel rail suddenly pliable as the ankles of a tap dancer.

Here they sit in the sun – patient, hopeful; their crutches leaning against their trailer steps. They have the blessed privilege of discussing their ailments with each other. “Oh, your misery was nothing. Doctors said I would never reach here alive…”

An analysis shows traces of radium.

A few miles below Tecopa is another landmark of the country known as the China Ranch. To old timers it was known as The Chinaman’s Ranch. One Quon Sing, who had been a cook at Old Harmony Borax Works quit that job to serve a Mr. Osborn, wealthy mining man with interests near Tecopa. His service with Osborn covered a period of many years.

“I can’t state it as a fact,” Shorty Harris once told me, “but I have been told by old settlers that Osborn located him on the ranch as a reward for long and faithful service.”

The land was in the raw stage, with nothing to appeal to a white man except water. It was reached through a twisting canyon which filled at times with the raging torrents dropped by cloudbursts. Erosion has left spectacular scenery. In places mud walls lift straight up hundreds of feet. Nobody but a Chinaman or a bandit hiding from the law would have wanted it.

There was a spring which the Chinaman developed and soon a little stream flowed all year. The industrious Chinaman converted it into a profitable ranch. He planted figs and dates and knowing, as only a Chinaman does, the value and uses of water the place was soon transformed into a garden with shade trees spreading over a green meadow – a cooling, restful little haven hidden away in the heart of the hills. He had cows and raised chickens and hogs. He planted grapes, dates, and vegetables and soon was selling his produce to the settlers scattered about the desert. From a wayfaring guest he would accept no money for food or lodging.

After the Chinaman had brought the ranch to a high state of production a white man came along and since there was no law in the country, he made one of his own – his model the ancient one that “He shall take who has the might and he shall keep who can.” He chased the Chinaman off with a shot gun and sat down to enjoy himself, secure in the knowledge that nobody cared enough for a Chinaman to do anything about it.

The Chinaman was never again heard of.

The ranch since has had many owners. Though the roads are rough and the grades difficult, on the broad verandas that encircle the old ranch house, one feels he has found a bit of paradise “away from it all.”

Sitting on the porch once with Big Bill Greer, who owned a life interest in it until his demise recently, we talked of the various yarns told of the Chinaman.

“The best thing he did was that planting over there by the stream.” He lifted his huge form from the chair. “Just wait a minute. I’ll get you a specimen.”

While he was gone I strolled around to see other miracles wrought by the heathen chased from his home by a Christian’s gun. When I returned Bill was waiting with two tall glasses, diffusing a tantalizing aroma of bourbon. Floating on the liquor were bunches of crisp, cooling mint. He gave me one, lifted the other. “Here’s to Quon Sing. God rest his soul,” Bill said.

As we slowly sipped I asked him if he had brought the specimen.

“It’s the mint,” Bill said.

Chapter XII

A Hovel That Ought To Be a Shrine

An Indian rode up to the bench, leaped from his cayuse and tried to tell Joe Ryan something about a “hiko.” Joe matched his pantomime and broken English, finally jerking a thumb over his shoulder and the Indian went into the store.

“That’s Indian Johnnie,” Joe said: “Hundred and fifty miles to his place, other side of the Panamint. Awful country to get at. Shorty Harris is in a bad way at Ballarat.”

A few moments later Charlie drove his pickup to the pump, filled the gas tank and before we realized it, was swallowed in a cloud of dust. “He’s in for a helluva trip,” Joe said.

Before the day was over, snow covered the high peaks and a biting wind drove us from the bench. “Let’s go over to the Mesquite Club,” Joe said.

We hurried across the road to the sprawling old building hidden in a thicket and listing in every direction of the compass, but over the roof, like friendly arms crooked the branches of big mesquite trees. Among mining men that ramshackle was known around the world.

Inside was a big pot-bellied stove. Beside it, a huge woodbox. Chairs held together with baling wire. Two or three old auto seats hauled in from cars abandoned on the desert. An ancient, moth-eaten sofa on which the wayfarer out of luck was privileged to sleep. Three or four tables, each with a dog-eared deck of cards where old timers played solitaire or a spot of poker. There were books and magazines – high and low-brow, left by the tourists. But there was a friendliness about the shabby room that had nothing to gain from mahogany or chandeliers of gold.

Wind kept us indoors for two days. On the third we were on the bench again when someone said, “Here comes Charlie…”

A moment later Joe and Big Dan were helping Charlie take Shorty Harris, dean of Death Valley prospectors, more dead than alive, into a cabin and lay him on the bed. “You must have had an awful time,” Joe said to Charlie.

“Not too bad … made it,” Charlie answered as he started a fire in the stove. He brought in water and wood and turned to Joe. “Wish you’d fill up that gas tank and see about the oil…”

Joe looked at him, puzzled.

“Got to take him to the hospital,” Charlie said.

We knew that meant another trip of 140 miles.

“Damned if you do,” Joe said. “I’ll get somebody to go.”

I supposed after the all night trip under such conditions Brown would go to bed but an hour later when I went to the store for some small purchase a woman climbed out of a pickup truck and with three small children, came in. She lived on her ranch 60 miles away and had come to buy her month’s supply of provisions – a full load for the truck. When she paid her bill she nodded toward her brood: “Charlie, those kids look like brush Indians with all that hair…”

Charlie got scissors and comb and went to work. Before he had swept out the shorn locks Ben Brandt came in, holding his jaw.

“Feels like a stamp mill,” he groaned. “Haven’t slept in a week. Be dead by the time I get to Barstow.” It was 125 miles to Barstow and Ben was waiting for a ride with someone going that way.

Charlie went behind the counter, returned with forceps, opening and closing the jaws of the instrument two or three times as if in practice and then he turned to the sufferer: “You understand it’s against the law for me to use these things. In a pinch – ”

“To hell with the law,” Ben snapped. “Yank it out!”

Charlie took a chair to the back porch. Ben sat down and with a vice-like arm about Ben’s head, the forceps went in and the tooth came out.

I went outside and sat on the bench with a better understanding of Shoshone and people and values which come only from friendships closely knitted and help unselfishly given.

Why does a man like the desert? As good an answer as any is another question: Why does he like chicken? Students of human behavior, poets, writers, gushing debutantes and greying dowagers, humorless scientists, and bored urbanites have labored mightily to explain it.

“Something just gets into the blood,” one says, frankly groping for an answer. Immensities of space. Solitudes that whittle the ego down to size. Detachment from routine cares. A feel of nearness to whatever it is that is God. Stars to finger. The muted symphonies of farflung sky and earth.

Whatever it is, I was now aware that as between hell and Shoshone, I would give the nod to Shoshone. I was getting used to Shoshone and desolation when a few days later Charlie came out of the store and sat beside me on the bench. “Road’s open,” he said. “I reckon you’re in a hurry to get away.”

I didn’t answer at once but conscious of his searching look, finally stammered that Dan Modine wanted me to go with him to Happy Jack’s party. “I can spare another day…” Charlie lit a cigarette, took a puff or two. “You’ve gone desert,” he chuckled and went back into the store.

For a week I’d been hearing of Happy Jack’s party and when Dan told me that everyone within 100 miles would be on hand, I was glad to go. Dan gave me Jack’s background on the 35 mile trip across dry washes, deep sands, and hairpin turns on pitching hills.

Born on the desert, Jack was the son of a Forty Niner and a Piute squaw. He had grown up as an Indian and had married Mary, a full blood Piute. Jack’s brother Lem married Anna, another squaw.

“Lem had worked at odd jobs and in the mines,” Dan said. “Now and then he and Anna would do a little prospecting. Anna found a claim that showed a little color. Lem worked alongside his squaw a couple weeks, but it was a back breaking job and Lem quit it. But Anna kept digging and one day she came up to their shack with a piece of ore that was almost pure gold. Anna’s find made them rich.

“I reckon money does things to people. Anyway, it didn’t take Lem long to get rid of Anna. He gave her enough so that she could take it easy. Then he pushed off to the city to live high, wide, and handsome. I see Anna now and then. She’s not jolly like she used to be. Lem has always wanted Jack to get rid of Mary and come to the city. In fact, Jack told me once that Lem offered to give him half of his money if he would do that. But Jack said, to hell with the city. He’s the happy go lucky sort. Big, good looking, and lazy. His old dobe under the cottonwood tree and the water running by with plenty of outdoors – that suits Jack.”