The man frowned and turned to go. “Wait a minute,” Charlie called. He reached for a sack of flour, laid it on a counter. Then he stood a slab of bacon on its edge and cut off a chunk. “You’ll stop at Bradbury Well—” “I won’t stop nowhere,” the truckman said. “You’ll have to. Your radiator will be boiling.” He got a carton, put the flour and bacon in it and reaching on a shelf behind, got coffee, sugar, and canned milk and put these in. “Old Dobe Charlie Nels is camped there. Poor old fellow hasn’t been in for two weeks....” The man looked at Charlie, uncertain. “You want me to drop it off, huh?” “Yes,” Charlie said and lugging the carton to the truck, he shoved it in. With squinted eyes the driver watched. “Mister, I’ll surely fill up here on my way back,” and with a friendly wave, climbed into his cab and I began to understand why all over the desert I’d heard of Charlie. The cabin assigned me was the usual box type, shaded by the overhanging branches of a screwbean mesquite. “Cabin’s not much,” Charlie said, “but you’ll have a Beauty Rest mattress to sleep on. My wife says folks’ll put up with most anything if they have a good bed.” He looked the room over and I noticed that nothing escaped him. Wood and kindling. Oil in the lamp. Water in the pitcher—an ornate vessel with enormous roses edged with gilt. He opened a closet door, saw that the matching vessel was in place and went out. After arranging my belongings, with time to kill, I returned to the store, hoping to learn something about nearby trails. A short woman who preceded me slammed a can of coffee on the counter, removed her long cigarette holder, blew a ring of smoke at the ceiling and asked Charlie where he got the coffee. He told her that it came in a shipment. “Well bigod, you send it back.” Charlie laughed and turned to me: “This is Myra Benson. You want to stay on the good side of Myra. She has charge of the dining room.” My remark that good coffee was my early morning weakness led to an invitation to sample her brew. “Mine too,” she said. “The pot’s on the stove before daylight, if you’re up that early.” I soon discovered that Myra’s language was just a bit of color Death Valley imparts to speech, for she was deeply religious if not in all its forms, in all of its essentials and the occasional use of a two-fisted phrase did not in the least detract from the eternal feminine of one of Death Valley’s most remarkable women. Guided by the light in her kitchen, I joined her the next morning while Shoshone still slept, and over a delicious cup learned something about people and places. The man with the wide Stetson was Dan Modine, deputy sheriff. Liked poker. The quiet, squat fellow with the blue pop eyes was Billy de Von. “College man. Works on the roads. Taught in the University of Mexico before he came here. Siberian Red? Oh, that’s Ernie Huhn. No place on Godamighty’s earth he hasn’t been. As soon bet $1000 as two bits on a pair of jacks.”