The Mojave Heathen - Robert F. Clifton (best books to read non fiction TXT) 📗

Chapter one The Journal

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mojave Heathen

by

Robert F. Clifton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Mojave Heathen......Copyright 2016 by

Robert F. Clifton

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be

reproduced in any form or by any means without

written permission from the author.

 

The reader is advised that this is a work of fiction.

Any similarity to person, places or events is purely

coincidental. R. F. Clifton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dedicated to:

 

Cassidy, Lane, & Adeline

My Great Grand Children

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Table Of Contents

 

 

Chapter One... The Journal

Chapter Two.... Hopkins Site

Chapter Three. George Bingham

Chapter Four...Furnace Creek

Chapter Five....The Heathen

Chapter Six......Doctor Ross

Chapter Seven..Colonel James French

Chapter Eight..Steven Bennett

Chapter Nine...Questions

Chapter Ten.....Final Solution

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chapter One

The Journal

 

It was nearly midnight but caught up in the excitement of his discovery of information in the now, yellow-paged, aged journal, Doctor Benjamin Cortland ignored the time and continued to read. Outside, a summer storm blew large, heavy raindrops against the windows of his study. An occasional flash of lighting followed by thunder failed to break the man's concentration. It was July in New Jersey. Cortland, a Ph.D. and noted anthropologist had recently been offered a professorship position at Princeton University. Still, at that moment he was undecided on whether to take the post or to return again to the field and continue his search for Paleo-Indian sites and remains. What he was now reading aroused the desire to be out in the field again. He enjoyed the work on the digs, the feeling of excitement and joy when finding what he was looking for, those artifacts and physical objects, things from ancient times.

He turned a yellowed, dry, crisp, page and read. What he read was the journal of an old, prospector who in eighteen forty-nine entered the Mojave Desert. The miner's name was Chester

Hopkins and from what Ben Cortland could determine by the written word, Hopkins was an educated man. Hopkins for some unknown reason had kept a hand written journal of his time in the desert. He mentioned the hardship of desert living, the heat of the day, the cold of night, the need for water and the lack of fresh food. At the same time, he listed what he found. He found gold. What else he found increased the need, the professionalism and the desire in Cortland to return to the place and places Hopkins mentioned in his journal.

Hopkins journal had been sent to Benjamin Cortland by

Edith Shipley, a noted archeologist now teaching at Stanford. Along with the ledger, she sent a note. “ Should you decide to investigate this area I would like to be included.”

Benjamin had known Edith for several years. They had worked professionally on scientific digs in Utah, Canada, and the Amazon Rain Forest. On two different times, they supported each other when the papers they had submitted on their findings were challenged by their peers. They also had an on again off again romance.

Cortland glanced at his wristwatch and noticed the time as fifteen minutes past twelve. “It’s only nine fifteen in California,” he thought to himself. He reached for the private address book on his desktop. Opening it to the S page found Edith Shipley’s telephone listing and after picking up the telephone dialed her number. After several rings, he heard her voice. “Hello?”, she said.

“Edith? Ben Cortland. I hope I’m not disturbing you.”

“No. not at all. I take it that you have received the material I sent you.”

“Yes, I have. As a matter of fact, I’m finding it hard to put down.”

“I thought it would peek your interest.”

“It has Edith. As you know the Mojave is and has been the home of the Timbasha Tribe, Native Americans known as the Panamint Shoshone.”

“Yes, I know. Right now they’re living near Furnace Creek and Grapevine Canyon.”

“Correct, allow me to ask you something,” said Ben.

“And, that is?”

“Where did you find Hopkins journal?”

“In a small bookstore in San Bernardino. It cost me five dollars. I took it home and read it. When I was finished reading it, I thought of you.’

“I’m glad you did.”

“Well, now what?”

“ Naturally, I want to investigate. However, I’m between the devil and the deep blue sea, so to speak. I’ve been offered a position at Princeton, yet, I have the urge to get my hands dirty, if you know what I mean?”

“ Let me ask you something”, said Edith.

“What?”

“How much have you read of Hopkins journal?’

“Approximately half.”

“Then you haven’t read the part where he finds the remains of a body.”

“A body? Really?”

“Read on Ben, then call me when you have finished. I’ll

bet that after you turn the last page you’ll make a decision on whether to do research or to teach. Now, I’ll say good night.”

Cortland placed the telephone receiver on the cradle and stood in silence. He had a desire to read once again Hopkins writings, but at the same time, he had the need for sleep. It was late. It was already another day. Hopkins journal could wait. He reached for the desk lamp and turned it off, then made his way through the darken rooms to his bedroom. There, he undressed and climbed into bed.

The next morning after breakfast Ben Cortland took a seat at his desk. He sat for a moment looking at the old, worn, yet strangely preserved, leather covered, manuscript that he had left on the desktop. He had used the electric bill that came in yesterday's mail as a bookmark when he closed the journal before going to bed. He reached for and opened Chester Hopkins ledger once again. He began to read. “ Monday, October 15, 1849. Cool, this day. Will be cold tonight. Last night was. woke by loud thunder and a streak of lightning that lasted for a long while. Climbed out of my blankets and searched the sky for clouds or rain. looked towards the water, then to the mountains, didn’t see a thing. While up, checked my stash of gold nuggets. Still afraid of robbers and Indians in the area. Saw a few Shoshone on the horizon yesterday morning. Looked like women.

“So, Hopkins found gold. Naturally, he doesn’t mention his location. He does use the word, nuggets. I doubt if he found them in water. That means he found them in rock or rock formations. One must presume that old Chester worked in or near either the Black mountains or the Owlshead Mountains. Which one?” Ben asked himself. He continued to read.

“Tuesday, October 16, 1849. There be a strange smell on the air. Appears to remind one that it be like the smell of spent gunpowder. Still, no one near or in sight. don’t figure.”

“Odd. What could that smell be? Hopkins mentioned possible thunder and lightning the night before, yet he found nothing. Smells like spent gunpowder he said,” Cortland thought to himself. Ben got up from the desk and walked into the kitchen. There he poured himself another cup of coffee. As he stood taking sips from the cup his mind continued working.

“Lightning, thunder, a smell of spent gunpowder. Spent gunpowder? He had heard or read about spent gunpowder before. Where was it? After battles of course. Then, there is fire and brimstone. That’s mentioned in the bible, but brimstone is actually, sulfur. Burnt or burning sulfur smells like rotten eggs, not spent gunpowder. Damn it! Spent gunpowder .Where have I heard that expression before? ” Ben asked himself mentally.

As he turned the pages of the journal his eyes searched for any mention or clues to the words gunpowder. He found none.

Instead, he read the daily routine of a prospector in the nineteenth century looking for gold in one of the most desolate places on earth. “Thursday, October 25, 1849. Woke up today and found that I’m running low on coffee. Will now have to boil and reboil the beans. When they’re gone will use desert chicory. Also almost out of salt pork. Might have to resort to hunting game. There be quail, jackrabbit and antelope squirrel a plentiful all hiding in the tall grass.

Will set traps as ammunition is needed more for protection, me not knowing the disposition of the natives.”

Cortland looked at the clock on the wall. Seeing that is was just past nine in the morning and knowing that he had things to do that day he fought the urge to sit and continue to read Hopkins journal. Instead, he closed the manuscript and gently pushed it away to a place at the left side of the desktop. He then stood up and walked away heading out the door to do the chores that needed to be done, one of which was grocery shopping.

At the age of thirty-four, Benjamin Cortland was still a bachelor. He stood at six feet tall, weighed one hundred and eighty pounds, had a full head of dark brown hair on his head. His eyes were blue and unknown to him at the time were developing cataracts in both eyes, the result of working in the bright sunlight at scientific anthropological digs in various parts of the world. After serving an enlistment in the United States Navy, Cortland enrolled at the University of New Mexico where he studied both anthropology and archeology. He worked at night as a dishwasher and took odd jobs to help pay his way through college. Years later, after working on several projects he wrote his dissertation for his earned doctorate and set out later on his own explorations.

One of his first assignments had been to work for Doctor Eugene Benson, a noted archeologist from the University of Arizona. Benson, financed by a grant from a private citizen along with money from the university organized a team of archaeologists and anthropologist for the purpose of researching and studying the Txapanawa Tribe near the Envira River in South America. It was at this location that Ben first met Edith Shipley. It was at this time that Doctor Benjamin Cortland decided to make the study and research of Paleo-Indians his life’s work. He became fascinated with the fact that then, in the modern world, people such as the members of the tribes that existed in the Amazon areas of Brazil, Peru, and Columbia had lived and still lived in the jungles without any contact to the modern world. The thought came to him that if isolated tribes of the Amazon Basin lived as they have lived for the past hundreds of years then what was it like for the Paleo-Indians of North America?

As Cortland worked he also studied. Sweat dropped into his eyes as he removed dead leaves and black soil from what might have been an ancient fire pit. He toiled in ninety per cent humidity. The trees growing in the area reached far into the sky their canopy’s too high to offer the water vapor they gave off as a cooling agent. Ivory colored ants with red dots on their body bit him, their bite like that of a hornet's sting. Working in these conditions he developed Jungle Rot with a lesion on the back of his left hand and right foot. Eventually, even with treatment, the sores became infected. They were sore and painful. Still, Cortland limped each day to the site and continued to work. Fortunately, there was a medical doctor assigned to the team. Ben received treatments and Edith changed the bandage on his foot every day.

Ben Cortland was recognized by his peers when it was he that discovered the ancient fire pits and stone tools of the Devonians on the plains and in the Altai Mountains of Siberia. These campsites were found to be sixty thousand years old. Later, it was found that the Devonian lived beside Neanderthal and Modern man.

Upon his return to the United States Cortland met with geologist’s that were known to him. At that time he had a theory. If an ancient human existed in the Devonian mountains and the plains of Siberia, was there Devonian like mountains in North America? If so, wasn’t it possible that Paleocene-Indian