carry more water, (of course we needed more now that we had more animals) and carry hay too. I figured that we'd start this new way of traveling by going up to Virginia City, Nevada and then come straight back to Death Valley before winter.
I'm sure we discussed division of labor before we left on our journey, even though neither of us remembers the chat. I do remember that I was expected to do the driving because Carol gets nervous when she has those important six ribbons in hand (so nervous that she forgets what to do with all six of them) and because she declares that it all takes more muscle than she's got. She would wrap the swing and wheeler’s lines around the post on the dash board and pick up the lines of the leaders and think she was in charge. The boys were good for her as long as there are no turns to be made.
I also remember that because I have a talent for camp cookery that I'd be cook and she'd do the clean-up.
As a jack-of-all-trades I had done plenty of cooking to earn my living and I had been used to driving a pair of Belgian Draft Horses four or five times a week as a part of my job wrangling horses at Furnace Creek Ranch in Death Valley, so I felt fully qualified for those jobs. However, I was soon to find out that wrestling with six lines of leather all day long is a job that stands all by itself in the category of pain and grit. Especially in desert heat where the lines are often too hot to touch with a bare hand.
In the planning stages of our trip, neither of us realized the amount of sheer hard work that it would take to keep our hitch on the road. And, maybe it's just as well that I didn't, because I would have been overwhelmed. As it was, we put a fresh coat of paint on our little wagon, loaded it with hay, and made our bed on top of the hay (even though Carol is allergic to alfalfa) all in a dither of happiness!
We left Death Valley National Park early in the morning on the second day of May, headed east to the ghost town of Death Valley Junction. We knew we would have to push hard that first day to get outside of the federal lands (where we couldn't camp legally) to some private land at Navel Springs where we had landowner's permission to camp and access to water. Water and camping were the two most important subjects to be considered and reconsidered every day for the next two years!)
We started out with a basic plan to stay in the remoter parts of Nevada and travel one hundred thirty miles north to Tonopah first, to take part in their annual 'Jim Butler Days' celebration, then continue on to Virginia City before turning back along the same route and home again. We just didn't realize that we wouldn't want to turn back when we got to Virginia City. I'll tell you more about that later...
Anyway, we made our start by attempting the first ten miles to Navel Springs, and it was hot. It reached 970 by noon and we were climbing up out of Death Valley from an elevation of 282 feet below sea level to a pass that reached 3,000 feet above sea level. It might not have seemed so bad if we were by ourselves but we had dozens of tourists stop to take photos of us that the burros immediately got the idea that when a car stopped near us they should stop too!
I was determined to make the needed miles before we quit for the day and all the stops were hindering us so I handed Carol those six leather ribbons that she's afraid to hold, hooked a lead rope to our left-hand leader and led out, running the gauntlet of tourists by ignoring all I could and keeping my head down with my hat pulled over my face.
It was thus that Bob Cleveland (the friend of Bob Cornelius who had sold us two sets of harness) found me; trudging along with my head down and the lead rope in my hand. Being a teamster himself he didn't hesitate to offer advice, "Hey West," he called "Don't you know you're supposed to be driving those burros, not leading them!"
He didn't make it a question, he made it an exclamation, and then before I could answer he drove away laughing fit to die!
We stopped on the side of the highway to gulp long swallows of cool water, eat a bite of lunch, and rest about mid-day. While we were pausing there an older woman who introduced herself as Beulah Gentert of Palmdale, California approached us. My ears pricked up at hearing her surname, for Bob Cornelius had told us that the wagon was built by a man named Laverne Gentert, and as the woman continued to talk she mentioned that she and her late husband used to have a wagon like ours. I blurted out, "Yes, and I'll bet this is the very one!"
I can't say which of us was the most surprised. It did turn out that our wagon used to be her wagon, and we were able to visit together just as though we were old friends.
"It's like you folks are a memorial to my husband," she said. "I was just telling my friend in the car that it's been many a year since a covered wagon came this way and we were talking about how it (waggonering) is all dying out. Then we came over the rise and there you were.
Before we parted she told us a story of her families' most harrowing trip in the wagon. It was when their team of four Shetland ponies drew them down over the steep and dangerous Trail Canyon Switchbacks (located in the Panamint Mountains) to the floor of Death Valley.
It was so dangerous, she explained, that her husband who had a heart condition had to stop at the top of the pass and take a handful of tranquilizers before he could work up enough courage to drive over the top and down the switchbacks. She said that her grown son was with them and that he kept the wagon on the curves of the narrow trail by jumping from side to side in the wagon bed as they careened downward.
It made our hair stand on end just to hear the story, and how were we to know, that hot afternoon, that in two years we would follow those same deadly switchbacks back into Death Valley.
We didn't know then of course and it's just as well for the pleasure we experienced in meeting Beulah colored the rest of the afternoon with happiness.
We made it to Navel Spring late in the day and the promised water almost wasn't. The caretakers had forgotten to unlock the valve for us. Luckily there were rust holes in the huge water tank and I could use one of our garden hoses (we carried two) to siphon the water up and out of the tank and into a big blue bucket for our thirsty burros!
CHAPTER THREE
It took us three days to climb up out of Death Valley, cross over the Funeral Range on Route 190, and descend to the ghost town of Death Valley Junction. I hadn't been slack in our work but it had taken us three days to do twenty-nine miles.
We arrived at Death Valley Junction on the eve of my forty-fifth birthday, and were greeted by Marta Beckett, dancer, artist, musician, and owner of the town, who made us welcome and provided a shower for our use. Marta insisted that we remain until her weekly ballet performance on Saturday evening.
Even though we had only traveled for three days, we were ready to rest for two days. It was not to be an uneventful time of rest however; that very night I was jolted suddenly to wakefulness as 'something huge' reached into our wagon and took a bite of our bed! It was a black night and it took me some minutes to determine that the intruder was also black. It was a "wild,” black stallion leading a herd of five mares and four foals, who now crowded up to get their share. Those supposedly wild horses weren't a bit afraid of me, and I thumped on their noses and yelled at them in vain as they eagerly ate great gaping holes in our bed!
The next morning Marta and Tom Willett (her opera-house co-star) took us on a walking tour of Death Valley Junction. (Death Valley Junction had four full-time residents when we were there; Marta Beckett, Tom Willett, and a young couple who worked for them running the Death Valley Junction Hotel.)
As we walked through the property Marta explained how the town has been abandoned for several years when she accidentally found it in 1967. She had been on a cross-country dance tour when a tire on the car she was riding in went flat. While the tire was being fixed Marta went to explore an old movie house, standing right there near the highway. The old
