William Caruthers

“ Brown had sent Ernest Huhn from Shoshone the night previous, a distance of about 60 miles, to dig the grave.
On the desert a man dies and gets his measure of earth—often with not so much as a tarpaulin. With this in mind Ernie had made the hole to fit the man, but with the coffin it was a foot too short. While waiting for the grave to be lengthened, the casket was opened and in the fading twilight Shorty’s friends passed in file about the casket, while the Indians, silhouetted against the brush paid silent tribute to him whom their fathers and now their children knew as “Short Man.” ”

“ Some on the trails, God only knows where. These dead they see pass in and out of the old saloons. These dead they hear again. Glasses tinkle, slippered feet dance again.
Tomorrow? Their pale eyes lift to the canyons and though dimmed a little, they see one hundred billion dollars.
What of Shoshone? It remains with changes of course. The shanties hauled from Greenwater have been hauled somewhere else. No longer do I step from my car as I have so often and call to those on the bench. “Move over, fellows” and hear their familiar greeting: “Where the hell you been?” ”

“ When you travel through the desolation of Death Valley along the Funeral Range, you may find it difficult to believe that several thousand feet above the top of your car was once a cool, inviting land with rivers and forests and lakes, and that hundreds of feet below you are the dry beds of seas that washed its shores. ”

“ Finally he found a canyon which he believed might have been the site, but no wagon load of nuggets.
John Goller was a solid, clear-thinking man—not the type to chase the rainbow. Gold is known to exist in the canyon and some mines have been operated with varying success, but none have been outstanding. It is quite possible that cloudbursts for which the Panamint is noted washed Goller’s gold away or buried it under an avalanche of rock, dirt, and gravel. Manly, with his forgivable inclination to error refers to Goller as Galler and discounts the story. ”

“ Ed Cross had all to gain; nothing to lose by following an experienced prospector.
At a water hole known as Buck Springs they made camp. Within an hour they went up a canyon, each working a side of it. Shorty broke a piece of quartz from an outcropping; saw shades of turquoise and jade. “Come a-runnin’ Ed,” he shouted. “We’ve got the world by the tail and a downhill pull.” ”

“ In the newspaper office where the writer worked, was a constant parade of adventurers. Talented press agents; promoters; moguls of mining and prospectors who, having struck it rich, now lived grandly in palatial homes, luxurious hotels or impressive clubs. In their wake, of course, was an engaging breed of liars, and an occasional adventuress who by luck or love had left a boom town crib to live thereafter “in marble halls with vassals” at her command. All brought arresting yarns of Death Valley. ”

“ So Aaron Winters chose his mate from the available supply and with Rosie, part Mexican and Indian, part Spanish, he settled in Ash Meadows in a dugout. In front and adjoining had been added a shack, part wood, part stone. The floors were dirt. Rosie dragged in posts, poles, and brush and made a shed. Aaron found time between hunting and trapping to add a room of unmortared stone. At times there was no money, but piñon nuts grew in the mountains, desert tea and squaw cabbage were handy and the beans of mesquite could be ground into flour. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He died in 1943 and at the funeral were the state’s greatest men and its humblest—bankers, lawyers, doctors, beggarmen, muckers and miners, and with them, those he loved best—sun-baked fellows from the towns and the gulches along the burro trails. No man who has lived in Death Valley country did more to put the region on the must list of the American tourist and none won more of the regard and affections of the people. ”

“ Due to his priority standing and the retirement of older senators, the big fellow who walked 150 miles to get a job at Greenwater in order to save the fare to eat on, automatically shares with two men the power to control the legislation of the state.
Hell, like gold, is where you find it—either in people or places. A lady of wealth and aristocratic background in route to Furnace Creek’s luxury inn, stopped at Shoshone for gas. Worn out by the long drive over the corduroy road, she looked about her and then at Charlie in greasy overalls. ”

“ The Mexican counted it and with a smile looked at Jean. “Pardon me, Señor ... it’s two bits short.”
“Be gone,” ordered Jean.
“But Señor, I have worked hard. My wife is hungry and I am hungry. My children are hungry.”
“Be gone,” again shouted Jean and whipped out his gun.
But the Mexican was young, lean, and lithe and he seized Jean’s wrist and when he turned the wrist loose Jean Cazaurang was dead. And then the Mexican made one mistake. Instead of going to the sheriff he became panic stricken and taking the body to a nearby ravine, he heaved it into the brush where it was found later, feet up. ”

“ Sex in Death Valley Country
Sex, of course, went with the white man to the desert, but because there were no Freuds, no Kinseys stirring the social sewage, it was considered merely as a biologic urge and thus its impact on the lives of the early settlers was a realistic one. It was not good for man to live alone. The husky young adventurer found a water hole and a cottonwood tree and built a cabin. But he found it wasn’t a home. The lonely immensity of space he knew, was no place for a white woman and none were there. He faced the fundamental problem squarely and looked about for a squaw. ”

“ A curious story of a man haunted by his conscience is that of William Dooley and told to me by Dr. Samuel Slocum, who had come to Randsburg from Arizona after making a fortune in gold.
A howling blizzard had driven everyone from the streets and the campers in Fiddlers’ Gulch into Billy Hevron’s saloon. Dr. Slocum, lost in the blinding snow and stumbling along the street, felt with his hands for walls he couldn’t see, while a barroom noise guided him to the door.
At the bar he saw William Paddock, mining engineer. “Bill, you’re the man I’m looking for. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It is interesting to note that apart from a Government Land Survey in 1856, which proved to be utterly worthless, there is no authentic record of the white man in Death Valley between 1849 and 1860. However, during this decade the canyons on the west side of the Panamint harbored numerous renegades who had held up a Wells-Fargo stage or slit a miner’s throat for his poke of gold. Some were absorbed into the life of the wasteland when the discovery of silver in Surprise Canyon brought a hectic mob of adventurers to create hell-roaring Panamint City. ”

“ The Shoshone business grew and soon required his entire time and that of Stella.
Born in Richfield, Utah, Stella Brown grew up in Death Valley country and a reel of her life would show an exciting story of triumph over life in the raw; in desolate deserts and in boom towns where bandits and bawdy women rubbed elbows with the virtuous, millionaire with crook, and caste was unknown. If a girl went wrong; if an Indian 108 was starving; a widow in need—there you would find her. Some day somebody will write the inspiring story of Stella Brown. ”

“ I had the bronze tablet made in Pomona, California, and Charlie Brown insisted that he pay for it. “Shorty left a little money,” he said. “Whatever is lacking, I will pay myself.”
On March 14, 1936, the monument was dedicated. Streamers of dust rolled along every road that led into the Big Sink trailing cars that were bringing friends from all walks of life to pay tribute to Shorty. At the grave the rich and the famous stood beside the tottering prospector, the husky miner, the silent, stoic Indian. Brown was master of ceremonies. ”

“ Today the store that started on a kitchen table requires a large refrigerating plant and lighting system, three large warehouses, two tunnels in a hill. About a dozen employees work in shifts from seven in the morning till ten at night, to take care of the store, cabins, and cafe. Three big trucks haul oil, gas, powder, and provisions to mines in the region. Out of canyon, dry wash, and over dunes they come for every imaginable commodity, and get it.
A millionaire city man who vacations there sat down on the slab bench beside Brown, aimlessly whittling. “Listen, Charlie,” he said. ”

“ True or false, none has ever been found.
A steep trail leads down to the water which will then be over your head. Indians will tell you that a squaw fell into this hole within the memory of the living and that she was sucked to the bottom and came out at Big Spring several miles distant. The latter is a large hole in the middle of the desert and from its throat, also bottomless, pours a large volume of clear, warm water.
“Explored?” shouted Dad Fairbanks one day when a white-haired prospector declared every foot of Death Valley had been worked over. “It isn’t scratched!” ”

“ She brought a certain degree of orderliness to the cabin, washed his clothes, cooked his meals. A child was born and the cabin became a home. The squaw could sharpen a stick, walk out into the brush and return with herbs and roots and serve a palatable dinner. She worked his fields, groomed his horses and relieved him of responsibility for the children. The progeny followed the rules of breeding. Some good. Some bad.
Said old Jim Baker, who married a Shoshone, pleading for a “squar” deal for his son: “There’s only one creature worse than a genuine Indian and that’s a half breed. ”

“ Actually the first discovery of borax in Death Valley was made by Isadore Daunet in 1875, five years before Winters’ discovery. Daunet had left Panamint City when it was apparent that town was through forever and with six of his friends was en route to new diggings in Arizona.
He was a seasoned, hardy adventurer and risked a short cut across Death Valley in mid-summer. Running out of water, his party killed a burro, drank its blood; but the deadly heat beat them down. Indians came across one of the thirst-crazed men and learned that Daunet and others were somewhere about. ”

“ So began in 1910 an empire of trade that is almost unbelievable.
Charlie had at last coaxed the right answer from Stella but there wasn’t enough in the business at the start to support two families, plus the score of children and grandchildren of Fairbanks. At Greenwater he had known all the moguls of mining and he had only to ask for a job to get one. Retaining his interest in the Shoshone store he became superintendent of the Pacific Borax Company’s important Lila C. mine and thus formed a connection which grew into valuable friendships with the executives. ”

“ The tycoons of mining and their agents appeared as if borne on magic carpets and in a little while men who would have turned him from their doors, were fawning around the little man with the golden smile and the ugly brawl for the Bullfrog was on—a struggle between cheap promoters who gave him cheap whiskey and moguls who gave him champagne.
Scores of yarns have been written about the sale of the Bullfrog. It was one of the few things in Shorty’s life which he discussed with reserve. ”

“ I joined Dan on the bench. “Well,” Dan said, “they saved the price of a canteen.”
Two spinsters—teachers of zoology in a fashionable eastern school for girls—came in search of a place they called Metbury Springs. Brown told them there were no such springs in the Death Valley region. Obviously disappointed, one produced a map, spread it on the counter, ran her finger over a maze of notes and looking up asked what sort of rats lived about Shoshone. Charlie told them that very few rats survived their natural enemies and were seldom seen. ”

“ No argument could convince him that the trip was foolhardy and on the third day we started through Hall’s Canyon opposite the Indian Ranch. The ascent from the canyon is so steep that in many places we had to crawl on hands and knees. The three and a half miles were made in seven hours, but on the return the inevitable happened. Shorty, exhausted, staggered from the trail and collapsed. ”

“ The bad boy instinctively knew the look that pages death and Slim’s fingers fell from the bottle.
Greenwater had no jail and Brown took him to his own cabin. Leaving the manacles on the prisoner he took his shoes, locked them in a closet. No man drunk or sober he reflected, would tackle barefoot the gravelled street littered with thousands of broken liquor bottles. ”

“ How many have lost their lives trying to find the Gunsight no one knows. There are scores of sunken mounds on lonely mesas which an old timer will explain tersely: “He was looking for the Gunsight.”
Dr. French, after his failure, pursued another and even more intriguing lost mine. With a ready ear for tales of treasure, he heard of a tribe of Indians in the Death Valley area who were making bullets for their rifles out of gold. Accordingly he organized another party to find the gold. ”

“ Ben went into the Johnnie country to prospect and passing through I looked him up. He was living in a tin shack in the canyon leading to the old Johnnie Mine. I asked Ben about his luck.
“Last prospecting I did was right out there.” He pointed to the slope in front of his house. “Good placer ground too.”
“Why did you quit?”
“Woman,” Ben grumbled. “Don’t know yet what come over me, but I took a woman for a partner.” He pointed to a boulder a few hundred yards away. “There’s where I wanted to start digging. It’s rich dirt. She wanted to start up there near her shack.” ”

“ It was easy to understand the appeal of vast distances, of desert dawns and desert nights but what was it that made men “go desert”?
The answer was becoming clearer. Fellows like Slim had found God in a snake hole, or if you prefer—a way of life patterned with infinite precision to their needs. It is easy enough to tear into scraps, another’s formula for happiness and recommend your own but that is an egotism that only the fool will flaunt and I began to suspect that the Slims and the Shortys had found a freedom for which millions in the tired world Outside vainly struggled and slowly died. ”

“ The significant feature is that a stratum that began with creation may lie above one that is an infant in the age of rock—a puzzle that will engage men of Levi Noble’s talents for years to come. But one doesn’t have to be a member of the American Geological Society to find thrills in other gripping features.
Throughout the area south of Shoshone are many hot springs containing boron and fluorine—some with traces of radium. The water is believed to come from a buried river. The source of other hot springs in the Death Valley area is unknown. ”

“ Here in 1928 Dad Fairbanks built cabins and a store and installed a gas pump. Water was hauled in. “Coming or going,” he said, “when they reach this place they’ve just got to stop, cool the engine, and fill up for the hill ahead.” The place is Baker on Highway 91.
Here, as at Shoshone, sales technique was tossed into the ash can. Stopping for dinner one day I met Dad coming out of the dining room. “How’s the fare?” I asked.
“Are you hungry?”
“Hungry as a bear....”
“All right. Go in. A hungry man can stand anything.” ”

“ But the world had enough salts, Epsom City failed. Nothing is left to remind one of the incredible folly but a few boards and a pile of bones. The bones are those of wild burros slaughtered by vandals who in a project as inhuman as ever excited lust for money, went through the country and killed the helpless animals, to be sold to manufacturers of chicken and dog food.
A singular character known as Dad Smith, who had come to California with John C. Fremont was one of the earliest settlers at Post Office Springs. ”

“ Myra laughed. “Bachelor. Just loves kids. He was born in San Francisco in the days when a nickel just wasn’t counted unless it had a dime alongside. His folks sent him to New York to be educated. Eddie didn’t like it. ‘It’s a nickel town,’ Eddie said. ‘Cheapest hole on earth.’ He came to the desert and the desert took him over. When he’s not hauling kids around he’s reading. Don’t get out on a limb in an argument with Eddie. You’ll lose sure. Every now and then Eddie goes East for a vacation. It’s awful on the mothers. They have to take care of their own children and the children want Eddie.” ”