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Some people considered Walt Bickel a hermit. In fact I once walked through an Orange County art gallery that featured an oil painting of Bickel at his kitchen table. The painting was titled, "The Hermit." The artist couldn't have been farther from the mark. Walt was a gregarious lover of people and life, who simply lived in a remote area. Walt did have a neighbor, C. B. Jones, who was as close to the stereotypical cave-dwelling hermit as one could imagine. I always assumed Mr. Jones was referred to by his first initials, but I’ve also heard Jones had been a Navy Seabee. The correct way to refer to him might be Seabee Jones. Regardless, I had been visiting the canyon for years before I got my one and only glimpse of Mr. Jones and it was a memorable event.
It was in 1978 when Fred Smith, a Fullerton teacher I worked with at Ladera Vista Junior High School, and I were hiking up Bonanza Gulch. I knew Jones lived in a cave somewhere in Bonanza, but I could never get it clear from Walt exactly where.
Bickel expected you to be as familiar with the canyon as he was. He had a quick abbreviated way of giving local directions, and he became irritated if you asked him to repeat or clarify too much. He might describe a place as "just east of the Big Four, in that wash next to the uplift, where the fault turns to the east…" This would leave me thinking "fault, Big Four, and which wash?." If you ask for clarification he might say something like. "You know, just past Colorado Camp, but on the lower quarter of Bent Nail."
It was with directions like, "C. B. lives in a cave just inside that second wash about a half mile up the Bonanza…You know, it's just past the Sears place." Walt would always caution us to be careful approaching C. B. Jones.
"He ain't been right since I pulled him out of that shaft he and his wife working back in the Fifty's," Bickel said, telling of how C. B. Jones and his wife spent years digging a vertical shaft up on the Sandy's Mesa. The shaft got so deep that it became necessary to pump in air so Jones could work. Mrs. Jones stayed on the surface and kept the pump running. The pump stalled or ran out of gas and she couldn't get it running again. C. B. passed out and Mrs. Jones ran to Bickel for help. Walt raced with the frantic woman back to the shaft, got the motor running and went down and pulled C. B. to the surface. By that time, C. B. had been so long with low oxygen, he had brain damage. Walt used to joke that the brain damage was so severe that C. B. Jones became a Republican. This all took place during the McCarthy era, and Jones became obsessed with a possible communist invasion. He lived from then on keeping an eye to the north. The commie hoards, he figured, would come from San Francisco on their way to Los Angeles. His wife left him and C.B. became a troglodyte.
Long before my first meeting with Jones, I was quite familiar with his shaft. It was where Sandy's Mesa meets a second mesa coming down from Black Mountain. Now I’m giving directions like Bickel. This is about a half hour hike from Bickel's cabin. In the early days there was a lean-to big enough for two people to sleep in, and a rather elaborate cooking area made from area rocks. The shaft was a big dangerous open hole that's probably still there. You could throw a rock down the shaft, and there would be a long pregnant pause before one heard a rock fall somewhere deep in the Earth.
It was such a good campsite, I often slept or at least stopped there to cook. In those days, I would hike the canyon living off canned chili, tortillas, and what weeds I could gather. The shaft was usually a stop or a destination of my canyon wanderings. I've always wanted to rappel down and see what was there, expecting to find skeletons and all sorts of secrets hidden there over the years. I suppose one would need oxygen tanks, or they might suffer Jones' fate. I've also thought of lowering a video camera with a strong light, but I'll leave that to others.
I met Jones quite by accident. It was near sunset and Smith and I were hiking Bonanza when a man confronted us with an unusual looking pistol. It was a 22 with what looked like a three-foot barrel. We both had beards and probably looked like communists.
"Hold it right there," Jones said, holding the pistol with the barrel pointed across his chest like a guard. "Where do you think you're going?"
The man was standing a short distance from the opening of a cave or mining tunnel that had a door made of very thick wood. He was wearing a tattered white shirt under a blue, threadbare sport coat. He wore a dusty plaid hunting cap, and scuffed brown boots. He looked well enough fed, standing about 5'8", and weighing around 200 pounds. It didn't appear that he had a vehicle, as nothing was parked in the area.
"Are you C.B. Jones?" I asked when I realized this was most likely the man Bickel had once pulled from a deep shaft, adding quickly, "Walt Bickel has told me about you."
"Bickel? You say you know Bickel? I've know him a long, long time," Jones said. "He's a good man. He's told you about me has he?"
At this point we were still standing about 15 yards apart and Jones still had his pistol at the ready. "That's quite a pistol you have there Mr. Jones," I said. "I don't think I've ever seen one quite like it."
"It shoots 22 long rifle, has a two-foot barrel," he said, adding with pride, "I can drop a Cotton Tail at 100 yards with it." He then gave us a demonstration of this skill, pointing out something set up as a target on the hillside to the east. He fired off a shot and made a direct hit. We praised his shooting greatly.
As he spoke, Fred and I advanced to handshaking distance, and we introduced ourselves. His calloused hand felt rock hard. He seemed shy, and didn't like looking us directly in the eyes. He talked on about his gun, keeping his head down, saying he had gotten it years ago from the Sears Catalogue. I was doing mental calculations as to how far back it was that one could buy a mail-order gun.
Fred kept asking him questions and I managed to snap off two quick photographs that I don't think he even realized I took. The sun had set, the light was low, and I wasn't sure I had any image at all.
"Walt told me you lived back here someplace," I said whishing I had my camera's flash that was stored in my gadget bag at camp. "Do you mind if we look inside your cave," I asked.
"Well I don't see any harm in that, friends of Bickel and all," he said still looking down, but putting his pistol away. "Come on in and look around if you like."
First, I was struck by the neatness and order. Everything seemed efficiently arranged and in its place. Shelves were carved into the rock walls, and they were well stocked with supplies and utensils. The floor was neatly swept, hard-packed dirt. It was dark and cool, and felt a bit claustrophobic with three of us inside. Jones went to the stove, took a wooded match and lit one of the giant candles setting in a carved out niche. Wax flowed like a frozen brown waterfall all the way to the floor.
"I make all my candles myself," Jones said proudly as he went around and lighting other candles. "I save that wax, and use it over, and of course add to it as I live." Soon, with the light coming in from the door, we were able to see clearly.
There were two rooms. One room was the entrance and kitchen and it was burrowed to the west directly into the hill. It might have been 15 feet long. The second room went to the south for about 10 feet. I asked if I could take a look.
"Sure go right ahead," Jones said, gesturing with his hand. In that room it was even darker so Jones lit another candle. I noticed there were clothes, boxes, and mining tools. There was only a simple bench to sit on and I didn't see anyplace to sleep.
"Where do you sleep," I ask, looking around the crowded dark quarters.
"Why, right up there," Jones said, pointing to what looked like a dark hole in the wall. He had carved a concave hole about the size of a twin bed. There was no pillow or bedding.
"You sleep in there?" I asked. Don't you have a mattress or something?"
"No, I don't need one," Jones said. "I have a little matt I throw down, and a sleeping bag is all I need. I roll it up to keep scorpions out."
I asked him if I could crawl up into the hole to see how it was, and he said I was welcome to try it out. While the "bed's" floor was smooth enough, I noticed that the earth was only a few inches from my nose as I stretched out. I felt as if the whole hill was about to come crashing down on me, and could only stand to lie there for a few seconds. Fred tried it out too, and said later that he felt the same way.
In fact, a short time later, Jones did have a cave-in at his place. It wasn't in the bedroom but was near the entrance. Jones had to shore up the door with beams and wood to close off the roof again. I visited the cave a few weeks ago and it appears the entire kitchen and entrance is now caved in.
It was getting dark, so we visited a short while more and said our goodbyes. I promised to take his regards to Bickel and to return soon. I did return too, the next time I was in the canyon. This time, I went armed with proper lighting to photograph Jones and his abode. The place was locked up tight as a bank vault, and there was no sign of Jones.
On the next trip several weeks later, the cave door had been busted open. Jones' stuff was ransacked, and scattered about the wash. Anything of value was gone. I went back to Bickel's and told him about the place. Bickel shook his head slowly and said he figured that would eventually happen.
"C. B. Jones ain't been seen round these parts for weeks," Bickel said. "Nobody seems to know a thing about what happened to him. He seems to have just plain disappeared from the face of the earth."
That's all I know of C.B. Jones' story. Charlie Hattendorf e-mails me today and said he had heard of others who might have known Jones. I'd love to know if his mystery disappearance was ever solved. For some reason, I've always had the theory that he may have stumbled down his mineshaft up on Sandy's Mesa.
Once, while hiking in the rainforest near my house Guarapiranga, Brazil, C. B. Jones' ghost came visiting. I was following a game trail with my cameras paying more attention to the surroundings for possible photographs than to the trail. For some reason, I stopped quickly to investigate wildlife movement on the shore of a small lake to my right. I might have taken a photograph of a bird flock or something, but thankfully I glanced down at the trail before I started up again.
I was standing at the edge of a dark hole that reminded me of Jones' shaft. It was possibly an old well as I noticed an abandoned home site nearby.' "Damn," I said out loud. "C. B. Jones' shaft." I took a rock and tossed it into the abyss. Like Jones' shaft, there was a long pause before I heard a report. Had I taken one more step, people would be talking about how I had disappeared in Brazil without a trace. I heard myself thanking the Lord for not so small favors, and asked him to pass blessings along to old C. B. Jones, wherever he might be.
Pictured above are Bill Gann (left) and Bill Schlenk camped at Jones' shaft on Sandy's Mesa, about a mile east of Bickel's cabin.
Pictured above is C.B. in front of his Bonanza Gulch cave.
Above is how C.B. Jones' Cave looked when he still lived there. He wasn't home on this visit when I took this picture. I noticed a broken motorcycle was left in front, and wonder if this was his transportation. On the next visit to the cave, the door was busted, C.B. was never seen again.