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Charlie said John told him about the plant. He said he worked for his uncle who owned the claim. He seemed anxious when I mentioned I knew his uncle, a retired Green Beret named Lee, who lived at the Gerbacht cabin.
Shortly after meeting Charlie, John and I went to visit Lee at Gerbracht Camp. I hadn't been in the cabin since John Bullock and Mark Aslin had lived there in the 70's. I had met Lee at Walt's many times, and knew he didn't seem to like visitors at his place. I mentioned this to John when he suggested I take a broken pistol up to him to repair. He said there would be no problems but not to bring up Railroad Charlie and the Jimson Weed.
Lee had been a commando in Vietnam and still lived with his demons. His hair was starting to turn gray but he was fit, wiry, and suspicious of any movement around his cabin. In those days he still wore Nam camouflage. Because of my Navy tour in Vietnam as a reconnaissance photographer Lee accepted me as a brother. He offered me a tour of his camp.
As Lee and I walked about the old camp, I was reminded of the days when John Bullock and Mark Aslin practiced their shamanic arts in those environs. Lee militarized the place and gave it a whole new feel. Suddenly Lee looked around as if he sensed trouble. He looked to reassure me this was just a training maneuver. He froze and made a quick athletic thrust into a crevice near the front door, and came back with a loaded 45 automatic at the ready. As we walked about the camp he did this little demonstration many times. Each time he grabbed a weapon, he would put his back to a wall and demonstrate a deadly solution to whatever trouble might come his way. “I’m never more than a foot away from a weapon,” he pointed out. “Every door, every window, is locked and loaded.” This, he said while patting the 9 mm on his hip.
We spent the rest of the afternoon sitting around a table in the cabin as Lee tore apart and began to repair the 25 automatic pistol I had brought him. Lee seemed relaxed and contented when he worked with guns. It was at such times one might get him to open up and tell a war story or two. That day, he recounted how he had avoided a barroom fight. In fact, Lee told stories so vividly that for years I actually believed I had been present at an event that had occurred in the nearby mining town of Randsburg.
Lee told John and I about an episode he had had at a little bar in town called The Joint. He had gone to the little village to meet some of army buddies, he said. In those days, Randsburg wasn't as much of a tourist stop as it is today. It was more of a backwater ghost town populated by Yellow Aster miners, old timers, and slackers who spent their days in the berg’s dark bar.
Lee said that war stories were being told at a booth over several pitchers of beer when a foolish young buck, hard as the rock he busted everyday in the Yellow Aster came up to the table to ask him, "You that ex-Green Beret thinks he so damn tough?" Strange as it seems, for years I could see the young miner in my memory, and really believed I had been sitting next to Lee in the booth.
In my mind, I saw the young man, in his early 20's who had a surly smirk and was clearly looking to prove his mettle to a group of local lay 'bouts. He had been drinking, and was clearly a mean drunk. He told Lee he'd like to step outside and see just how tough he was.
Maybe Lee looked into his beer as he cleaned my pistol when he told this part of the story. I transposed the event in my memory and can still clearly recall watching his eyes as if he were seeing something long ago and far away. "Without a doubt, boy, you could kick my ass in a fair fight,” Lee recited his lines as John and I listened. “Truth is, I'm no longer as quick, or tough as I was at your age. You see, I’m too old to fight fair, or to get my ass kicked.”
Lee seemed proud of how he resolved the conflict. “Why don't you just let me buy you a beer?” he asked the young challenger. “Because if we go outside, I'll have to kill you." In my remembered version of the story, I can still see the young man thinking over his situation and wisely accepting the beer.
Lee and his war buddies parted company, and I went back Orange County where I was living and teaching photography. I think I began to relate this story to friends, and in time began to believe I was there when it happened. I remember thinking part of my life was playing like a B movie, and that I should say away from places like The Joint. It took a trip to the joint many years later for me to realize I had never actually been in the bar. Perhaps I was simply the producer of B movies.
I do remember hearing much about how John and the Camel Lady began hanging around Randsburg’s little bar. John loved the sharp edge of life found around The Joint and stayed on. In fact, the place became his new headquarters of operation. I would come to visit the canyon, and ask about John and his lady. Walt said they were seldom in the canyon, and had taken to hanging out in town.
Walt blamed the whole thing on the woman, and had faith John would straighten up once the lady went back to her husband. Walt was like a father defending a son gone bad, and any suggestion that he send them packing was greeted defensively.
About that time something happened that even a defensive father couldn't ignore.
One Saturday morning with the rising sun, a convoy of police vehicles slowly worked past Lee's place at Gerbacht Camp while another line came in Last Chance Canyon's only other entrance from Hart's road.
Lee, who also told this story, had been expecting this and was, locked, loaded, alert and ready for action. High Sheriff and Police moved on into Last Chance Canyon, and took up positions on the hills around Bickel's cabin. Bickel, who later verified much of this tale, was sleeping and knew nothing of what was about to come down.
John, who had run all night on foot over open desert, was sleeping in his trailer, gun in his hand. The night before he had shot Mexican Bob in the right shoulder for having sex with the Camel Lady. He barely missed hitting the lady in the head in this little dispute.
It seemed he and the lady had been drinking at The Joint. Everyone was also smoking John's Jimson weed-Marijuana concoction and the world had been a clouded, lost surreal dreamscape.
John was holding court with some locals at a booth when he noticed The Camel Lady was missing. So was Mexican Bob. John took his gun and went to Mexican Bob's place where he found him sexually engaged with a limp, clueless Camel Lady. John burst in, ordered Mexican Bob to dismount at gunpoint. Bob said he would, just as soon as he was finished. John shot him in the shoulder, but Bob, still trying to finish the task at hand, grabbed a 357 magnum from the bedside and returned fire.
Folks around The Joint heard the gunfight, grabbed weapons, and piled in somebody's truck to join the Frey. Legend has it that Bob, bleeding from the shoulder, finished his business, before running off to join the chase for John. Well, there’s that B-movie hitting the silver screen on someone’s cerebellum again I suspect.
The story goes that the boys in the pickup exchanged several rounds with John who eventually escaped into the night. He ran from Randsburg all the way to Mesquite Canyon, and finally to Lee's place at Gerbacht Camp. Lee advised that the police were sure to come and that John should leave the country immediately. This was sage advise, but not followed.John insisted he was too tired to run anymore, and begged Lee to give him a ride to Bickel's trailer where he was now surrounded.
Lee, who had guns in reach from any position in his car, had followed the police to Bickel Camp. He was parked just outside of the police line. John had promised he would not go without a fight, and Lee, backing up a brother, was willing to go out in a blaze of glory with Outlaw John.
At the first light the police using a megaphone let everyone know at Bickel Camp to come out with hands up. Bickel came out in his long flannels, his white hair and beard in disarray, with his hands up, and cats at his feet.
John yelled that he wasn't going to come peacefully, and the policeman said no problem, pointing out that after several hundred rounds had been fired into the trailer, he would come out more peaceful than ever. Outlaw John came out with his hands up.
It was about then that the police noticed Lee posted by his car, a gun on the seat, one in his hand, as well rifles on the floorboard. This got their attention. Lee claimed he was just backing them up. After questioning, however, they let him go long enough to do John a big favor. The officers didn't forget Lee and would get back to him later.
Lee, who told me many parts of this story, went to town and called in a favor from an old Green Beret buddy who was working in law enforcement. He claimed he was able to slow down any information on John's arrest warrants long enough to find the Camel Lady who went to Ridgecrest with her husband's money to bail John out of jail.
From there, she and John went off on a wild crime spree, robbing liquor stores and banks and were finally arrested in a shoot-out in Arizona. They could easily be out of prison by now.
I arrived at Bickel Camp the next day after receiving a strange phone call at my Fullerton residence. It was from the Camel Lady who was trying to get me involved in their escape. I declined, but rushed to the desert to check on Bickel.
Everyone in the canyon was excited and had parts of the story to share. Toni Seger said she saw the whole event from her mountaintop at Burro Schmidt's Tunnel. Lee filled in many details and told his part like an after-action report.
It was rumored that Mexican Bob and the wild bunch from The Joint had sworn revenge against what they were now calling "The Bickel Camp Gang." It was Friday night and they planned to attack, I'm told, over too many pitchers of beer. Other Bickel friends had heard of the trouble and had gathered to cuss and discuss the whole affair. Tom Cody, a real live descendent of Buffalo Bill was on hand. Eric Jansen came in from Bakersfield. Larry O'Neil, Walt's son in law slept up in his trailer, overlooking the camp. Lee said they would likely come in through Mesquite Canyon, and he'd be right behind them if they did. I remember sleeping that night in the back of my bus listening for the sound of approaching desperados. They never came.
I suppose a fair question is, what the hell was a junior high school photography teacher doing involved in all these matters, especially parts that were clearly illegal? My only defense is that I was also a free-lance reporter in those days and considered myself in pursuit of this story. Fact is, I've had to leave some pretty good parts out to protect the not so innocent. For this and other reasons, I'm sticking to my First and Fifth Amendment rights.
A short time later, Lee himself came under police scrutiny and the most bazaar part of this story unfolded. The police went to Gerbacht Camp looking for weapons and found plenty. Some were illegal.
More curious, however, was a jar on his mantle of what turned out to be human testicles. This was before DNA testing, but the testicles were said to have once belonged to Railroad Charlie, whose body was never found.
Lee served several years for various charges. I saw him when he got out of prison in 1988. He was on hand to back up Bickel when the BLM tried to kick him off his claim and bulldoze the cabin. He had bulked up in prison, and had taken to dressing in cowboy style. He had a new girlfriend, seemed more peaceful than before.
He said it was okay if I wrote this story some day. I sure hope the time span has been long enough. The last thing I want to do is cross Lee or John, and wind decorating someone’s mantle.
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