by the whites, told me that the head man of his tribe sent runners to Ash Meadows for reinforcements and that the recruits were marched in circles around boulders and in and out of ravines to give the impression of superior strength. This strategy deceived the whites, who then went on their way.)
Teck claimed title to all the country in sight. Little is known of his past, but whites later understood that he chose the forbidding region to outsmart a sheriff. He brought water through an open ditch from its source in the nearby foothills and grew alfalfa and grain. He named his place Greenland Ranch and it was the beginning of the present Furnace Creek Ranch.
There is a tradition that Teck supplemented his meager earnings from the ranch by selling half interests to wayfarers, subsequently driving them off.
There remains a record of one such victim – a Mormon adventurer named Jackson. In part payment Teck took a pair of oxen, Jackson’s money and his only weapon, a rifle. Shortly Teck began to show signs of dissatisfaction. His temper flared more frequently and Jackson became increasingly alarmed. When finally Teck came bellowing from his cabin, brandishing his gun, Jackson did the right thing at the right moment. He fled, glad to escape with his life.
This became the pattern for the next wayfarer and the next. Teck always craftily demanded their weapons in the trade, but knowing that sooner or later some would take their troubles to a sheriff or return for revenge, Teck sold the ranch, left the country and no trace of his destiny remains.
Before Aaron and Rosie Winters or Borax Smith ever saw Death Valley, one who was to attain fame greater than either listed more than 2000 different plants that grew in the area.
Notwithstanding this important contribution to knowledge of the valley’s flora, only one or two historians have mentioned his name, and these in books or periodicals long out of print.
Two decades later he was to become famous as Brigadier General Frederick Funston of the Spanish-American War – the only major war in America’s history fought by an army which was composed entirely of volunteers without a single draftee.
Of interest to this writer is the fact that he was my brigade commander and a soldier from the boots up. Not five feet tall, he was every inch a fighting man. I served with him while he captured Emilio Aguinaldo, famous Filipino Insurrecto.
Chapter III
Aaron and Rosie Winters
While Bellerin’ Teck was selling half interests in the spectacular hills to the unwary, he actually walked over a treasure of more millions than his wildest dreams had conjured.
Teck’s nearest neighbor lived at Ash Meadows about 60 miles east of the valley.
Ash Meadows is a flat desert area in Nevada along the California border. With several water holes, subterranean streams, and abundant wild grass it was a resting place for early emigrants and a hole-in for prospectors. It was also an ideal refuge for gentlemen who liked its distance from sheriffs and the ease with which approaching horsemen could be seen from nearby hills.
Lacking was woman. The male needed the female but there wasn’t a white woman in the country. So he took what the market afforded – a squaw and not infrequently two or three. “He’s my son all right,” a patriarch once informed me, “but it’s been so long I don’t exactly recollect which of them squaws was his mother.”
Usually the wife was bought. Sometimes for a trinket. Often a horse. Among the trappers who first blazed the trails to the West, 30 beaver skins were considered a fair price for an able bodied squaw. She was capable in rendering domestic service and loyal in love. Too often the consort’s fidelity was transient.
“For 20 years,” said the noted trapper, Killbuck, “I packed a squaw along – not one, but a many. First I had a Blackfoot – the darndest slut as ever cried for fo-farrow. I lodge-poled her on Coulter’s Creek … as good as four packs of beaver I gave for old Bull-tail’s daughter. He was the head chief of the Ricaree. Thar wan’t enough scarlet cloth nor beads … in Sublette’s packs for her … I sold her to Cross-Eagle for one of Jake Hawkins’ guns… Then I tried the Sioux, the Shian (Cheyenne) and a Digger from the other side, who made the best moccasins as ever I wore.”
So Aaron Winters chose his mate from the available supply and with Rosie, part Mexican and Indian, part Spanish, he settled in Ash Meadows in a dugout. In front and adjoining had been added a shack, part wood, part stone. The floors were dirt. Rosie dragged in posts, poles, and brush and made a shed. Aaron found time between hunting and trapping to add a room of unmortared stone. At times there was no money, but piñon nuts grew in the mountains, desert tea and squaw cabbage were handy and the beans of mesquite could be ground into flour.
Rosie, to whom one must yield admiration, was not the first woman in Winters’ life. “He liked his women,” Ed Stiles recalled, “and changed ’em often.” But to Rosie, Aaron Winters was always devoted. Her material reward was little but all who knew her praised her beauty and her virtues.
One day when dusk was gathering there was a rap on the sagging slab door and Rosie Winters opened it on an angel unawares. The Winters invited the stranger in, shared their meager meal. After supper they sat up later than usual, listening to the story of the stranger’s travels. He was looking for borax, he told them. “It’s a white stuff…” At this time, only two or three unimportant deposits of borax were known to exist in America and the average prospector knew nothing about it.
The first borax was mined in Tibet. There in the form of tincal it was loaded on the backs of sheep, transported across the Himalayas and shipped to London. It was so rare that it was sold by the ounce. Later the more intelligent of the western prospectors began to learn that borax was something to keep in mind.
To Aaron Winters it was just something bought in a drug store, but Rosie was interested in the “white stuff.” She wanted to know how one could tell when the white stuff was borax. Patiently the guest explained how to make the tests: “Under the torch it will burn green…”
Finally Rosie made a bed for the wayfarer in the lean-to and long after he blew out his candle Rosie Winters lay awake, wondering about some white stuff she’d seen scattered over a flat down in the hellish heat of Death Valley. She remembered that it whitened the crust of a big area, stuck to her shoes and clothes and got in her hair when the wind lifted the silt.
The next morning Rosie and Aaron bade the guest good luck and goodbye and he went into the horizon without even leaving his name. Then Rosie turned to Aaron: “Maybe,” she said … “maybe that white stuff we see that time below Furnace Creek – maybe that is borax.”
“Might be,” Aaron answered.
“Why don’t we go see?” Rosie asked. “Maybe some Big Horn sheep – ” Rosie knew her man and Aaron Winters got his rifle and Rosie packed the sow-belly and beans.
It was a long, gruelling trip down into the valley under a Death Valley sun but hope sustained them. They made their camp at Furnace Creek, then Rosie led Aaron over the flats she remembered. She scooped up some of the white stuff that looked like cotton balls while Aaron prepared for the test. Then the brief, uncertain moment when the white stuff touched the flame. Tensely they watched, Aaron grimly curious rather than hopeful; Rosie with pounding heart and lips whispering a prayer.
Then, miracle of miracles – the green flame. They looked excitedly into each other’s eyes, each unable to believe. In that moment, Rosie, always devout, lifted her eyes to heaven and thanked her God. Neither had any idea of the worth of their find. Vaguely they knew it meant spending money. A new what-not for Rosie’s mantel. Perhaps pine boards to cover the hovel’s dirt floor; maybe a few pieces of golden oak furniture; a rifle with greater range than Aaron’s old one; silk or satin to make a dress for Rosie.
“Writers have had to draw on their imagination for what happened,” a descendant of the Winters once told me. “They say Uncle Aaron exclaimed, ‘Rosie, she burns green!’ or ‘Rosie, we’re rich!’ but Aunt Rosie said they were so excited they couldn’t remember, but she knew what they did! They went over to the ditch that Bellerin’ Teck had dug to water the ranch and in its warm water soaked their bunioned feet.”
Returning