Pudgy Buffalo

From 150 Things to See, Do & Love: Joshua Tree National Park…

REVENGE OF THE HAUNTED MINE

The late 1800s saw a gold rush in the Joshua Tree area, and pulling gold from mines was often a deadly pursuit. Miners risked their lives in dangerous underground conditions, and aboveground faced another set of threats. A miner who happened to “strike it rich” was sometimes targeted by jealous outlaws who sought to get their hands on the gold—no matter the cost. Legend has it that the ghost of one such murdered miner haunts a mine in Joshua Tree’s Hexie Mountains.

Now, a story has been going around for years concerning an outlaw biker who visited his bank-robbing brother in Chuckawalla Valley State Prison, just east of Joshua Tree National Park. During the visit, the inmate directed his biker brother to the location of some of the unrecovered loot. The plan was for the outlaw’s brother to gift the loot to a crooked judge in exchange for the bank robber’s early release. The stash included a bundle of cash, a handful of gold coins, and a very beautiful ruby necklace. Enthusiastically agreeing to the plan, the outlaw biker bid his kin farewell, promptly dug up the loot from a secret hiding spot in the desert, stashed it in his saddlebags, and headed for home.

Along the way, the outlaw biker called up his lady, an overnight nurse, and told her that he’d pick her up after she got off her shift in the morning. He was taking a favorite route through Joshua Tree up Pinto Basin Road and would be home as the sun came up. He just had to stop for a moment to check out his motorcycle… ever since he entered the park he’d heard a dull clanging sound and wanted to make sure his bike was okay. His lady was concerned, but her outlaw boyfriend assured her that everything was alright—he’d see her soon. And by the way, he had a big surprise for her… an expensive one that may even convince her to finally marry him.

The outlaw biker, of course, never returned to his lady. The next day, his motorcycle was found parked by Porcupine Wash. Boot prints tracking west suggested the outlaw was headed towards the Hexie Mountains. When law enforcement arrived on the scene, they discovered a stack of money and twelve gold coins in the leather saddlebags of the motorcycle. The biker was nowhere to be seen. Detectives eventually chalked up his disappearance as another unsolved mystery. And it may have stayed that way… except for the curiosity of two backpackers.

A few months after the disappearance of the outlaw, two backpackers were wrapping up an adventure exploring the Hexie Mountains when they both heard a strange clanging noise… almost like the sound of a miner’s pickaxe. They followed the sound to an abandoned mine. When they got to the entrance, the sound stopped. Splayed out in the entrance of the mine was the body of the biker, and in his hand… a beautiful ruby necklace. The body was in rough condition when the forensic pathologist arrived to examine it, but DNA evidence soon confirmed the outlaw’s identity… along with the fact that the biker was related a few generations back to a gang of murdering claim jumpers.

Now no one in the sheriff’s office officially said that the ghost of a murdered miner lured a crooked outlaw to a mine and then killed him to avenge his own death at the hands of the outlaw’s ancestors, but that’s what everyone was sure thinking.

Find more ghost stories in 150 Things to See, Do & Love: Joshua Tree National Park on Amazon.