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The Patty I knew and called The Camel Lady is told of in the Outlaw John Story that took place in 1982. This story is posted here on the home page of my Walt Bickel Heritage Project. The lady who came into Bickel Camp with a camel caravan never called herself Blue Scout that I remember. The young woman I knew and now think actually was Patty Partin was a horrible drunk. In fact, I have few recollections of her ever being sober. It was her drunkenness, in fact, that caused the college group exploring the desert via camels to drop her off at Bickel Camp. She did, however, often speak of a rich husband and was never short on money. Occasionally, The Camel Lady would say she needed to go to Long Beach and she would return with supplies, and cash.
I had called her The Camel Lady so many years; I had forgotten her actual name. I had a cloudy recollection that she might have been called Patty but I wasn't sure. Sadly this experience recounted here only establishes the name Patty and little more. The account below then is simply an interesting aside, and by no means offered as positive proof that the Camel Lady and Patty Partin are the same person.
In fairness this report of an event in a Randsburg bar called "The Joint" also brings into question my memory of events in the Outlaw John and Camel Lady story.
By Bill Gann
A recent desert trip and a visit to the town of Randsburg might shed some light on the story of Patty Partin whose bones were found in Death Valley. It's ironic that this Randsburg visit was in preparation for the ashes scattering ceremony of Alex Apostolides, a one-time close associate of Carlos Castaneda.
Apostolides and John the Outlaw with his Camel Lady lived at Bickel Camp at different times, but it now seems both had possible connections to Carlos Casteneda.
I made the short stop in the area where the Outlaw John and Camel Lady story took place as part of a family desert outing. My Brazilian wife, Elisabeth, her visiting father Nakolaus, our children Daniel and Analissa returned on April 6, 2006 from five days traveling the Death Valley area of the California Mojave Desert.
On the final night on the road we arranged to stay at a place ran by a Randsburg character known locally as Cowboy Bob. Bob has an antique shop where he and his wife Pam also rent rooms. The plan was to spend the night in the quaint mining town, and scout the roads into Last Chance Canyon for the Apostolides memorial on April 16th. Apostolides had asked that his ashes be scattered on the mesa behind Bickel Camp in Last Chance.
While wife, father-in-law and the kids were strolling the old gold mining town, I had set out to photograph Randsburg's old buildings in yellow sunset light. Randsburg was once considered a Ghost Town but still lives on. It was a week day, cold for early spring, and the town was quiet and deserted. There were clouds and my golden-hour light was interrupted frequently by overcast.
During one of these moments when a passing cloud caused amber to fade to dismal grey, I found myself standing with my back to a bar called The Joint. I wanted to get a picture of Cowboy Bob's Inn across the dusty street when I heard laughter coming from the bar's interior.
Thinking that waiting out the slow cold cloud inside; I ducked into The Joint for the first time in years. There was an old woman sitting setting in front of a fireplace that I hadn't remembered was there. There was the usual bar smell of ashes and stale beer lit by neon. Three men huddled in a close group at a far booth. The bar itself was located on the left of the door. Funny I though, I had always remembered it as having been on the right where what I assumed was a new fireplace. The bar, I thought, stood where the booths had formerly been. Nothing was as I remembered.
When I replayed the scene told about in the Outlaw John story, where Lee and his Army buddies were accosted by the drunken young miner, it always took place in a booth that was supposed to be where the bar now was. Strange, I thought.
I announced my presence by commenting how the place had changed. The old woman sitting by the fire looked at me quizzically, got up and took her position behind the bar. She had a round face framed by a Forties-era hair style. She reminded me of Shirley Temple grown older. "Nothing's changed much around here in the 50 years since I've owned this bar," the little woman said. "What can I get you?"
I ordered a beer and explained how things had been the last time I had been in the place. "Nope, wasn't like that ever," the woman, who was obviously quite proud of her place just the way it had always been, explained patiently. Was it possible I had never been in the Joint? "The bar and fireplace have always been just where they are," I heard her saying.
Confused, I spent a few minutes interviewing the lady who told me her name was Olga Guyette and that she was 95 years old. She and her now deceased husband had run the bar for half a century. She seemed to know something about everybody who had once lived in the area.
When I told her I had been a friend of Walt Bickel's, she told me she knew Bickel when he first moved to the area. I asked her about the famous Della Gerbach, and mentioned she had been called "The Queen of the El Paso's" referring to the El Paso Mountains where her gold mining camp and been near Bickel's. "I went to Catholic church right down the street with Della," Olga said somewhat sharply. No one around here ever called her Della, the Queen of anything." So much for desert legends, I thought.
Having let a respectful period of time pass, the gents at the bar came down to introduce their selves. One gentleman, perhaps in his late thirties, wearing a black cowboy hat and down-turned mustache, introduced himself as Cowboy Jim, Cowboy Bob's son. He then laughed and said he always told people that but it wasn't true.
He said he remembered meeting me once in the nearby town of Johannesburg. He recalled once when I was passing through and getting gas, he and his wife clopped through the gas station on horses. My 12-year-old daughter Analissa is crazy about horses so I stopped him so she could adore the beasts.
Jim warned me about Olga's foul language rule and told that she would kick me out in a flash if she heard me use any inappropriate language. Evidently my exchange of stories with the locals had been spiced with my Naval language training.
Another man, Greg Fraser, had a close-cut military look, and indeed was in the reserves. He said he once taught geology at Cal State University Fullerton where I went to school, and that he loved Randsburg so much he had recently moved there.
A third man, who had been behind the bar helping Olga introduced himself as Dave Adams. He said he had lived on and off in the little town much of his life. He was currently living in his parent's old house up the hill behind The Joint. He had long blond hair growing out of a well-used ball cap, and intelligent blue eyes. He was perhaps about 50, dressed in the denim, plaid, and ball cap uniform of an outdoorsman.
We talked a bit and I gave him my version of the Outlaw John story as the fire cracked and the others listened on. Olga listened too but didn't seem to like what she heard. "Nothing like that ever happened here," Olga spoke up. "We don't allow cussing, fighting, and I sure haven't had any shoot outs."
Thinking how sad it is when facts get in the way of a good story, I was wondering if I should go back to my Outlaw John story and label it fiction.
"You talking about Patty?" Dave asked as he tipped back his long neck. I saw a bit of sparkle in his blue eyes. "Yea, I remember her, skinny blond, drunk all the time..." In a flash of recollection, I remembered the Camel Lady had indeed really been named Patty. In fact, I only called her the Camel Lady in my mind when I was thinking about her and John's shenanigans around Bickel Camp.
Dave however didn't have much to add to the shootout story. I felt possibly he didn't want to offend Olga. We talked a bit more when he went outside to have a smoke and Dave did indicate he wasn't around Randsburg a lot during the era in question. He allowed that many crazy things had happened around the dusty little town and he simply might have missed the Camel Lady episode.
"What about her boyfriend John or Mexican Bob?" I asked hoping to glean more details from Dave's memory. He told me that Mexican Bob had once lived in the area, but said he had very little recollection of the notorious Outlaw John, who in truth was likely never called anything but John to his face. Dave had some memory of Lee, the Gerbach Gold Camp commando, but said he seldom came to town.
Dave didn't know or remember much about the alleged shootout between Mexican Bob and Outlaw John. It might have been something talked about years ago and forgotten. He said anyone still familiar with such an event was no longer around town. The time Lee was supposed to have intimidated a drunken miner in the B-movie bar scene that I thought took place at The Joint could have any of a million events where a drunk picked a fight.
As I sat in the bar nursing beer number three, I couldn't understand why nothing looked familiar about the bar. I realized that I wasn't even present during this event. In that moment, I recalled instead sitting around Gerbach Camp with John and Lee as they told the story. Lee told the story so vividly that I had actually felt I was in the bar when it happened. I realized my memory of the scene was the colorful imagery Lee had projected as he told the story.
Okay, so a man in a Randsburg bar being able to recall a drunken blond named Patty is hardly positive proof of the voracity of my Outlaw John story. I suppose I have even less evidence The Camel Lady was actually the long lost bone pile of a Castaneda witch recently identified in Death Valley. Yet, recalling her name was Patty at least gives me something more to ponder. The thought actually generates a strangely familiar feeling.
I'm going back to Randsburg and Last Chance Canyon over Easter weekend for the Apostolides' ashes scattering ceremony. Because of Apostolides' connection to Castaneda and friends, some unusual desert spirits will likely materialize at this sacred event. Perhaps more light will fall on the intriguing Camel Lady chronicle. Since the wind exposed Patty Partin's bleached bones in a Death Valley sand dune, I've become haunted by mystery and captured thoughts. Since I recognized Patty's face in the newspaper accounts of this story, I've felt a fire within. Wanting to know more burns in my chest, and calls me to keep seeking.
Pictured above is Dave Adams, a resident of Randsburg. Dave has lived on and off in the area and remembered that the lady I called the Camel Lady was actually named Patty.
Above is The Joint, the small bar in historic Randsburg.
