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.