Willie Boy

On our Thursday Jeeping around parts of Lucerne Valley we were referring to Bill Mann's Guide To The Beautiful and Historic Lucerne Valley. He's got a lot of interesting sites listed there, but sometimes the directions to find a site are totally lacking. He's got a rough map with few road names and he provides GPS latitude and longitude coordinates for each site. You've got to have a route-finding GPS, like my new one. My handheld GPS will only point directly to a site, without figuring out a route.

One of the sites listed is Willie Boy's grave. Willie Boy is most well known through the movie Tell Them Willie Boy Is Here starring Robert Blake as Mr. Boy. Robert Redford plays the pursuing deputy sheriff. The movie is based on the book by Harry Lawton, Willie Boy: A Desert Manhunt. If you prefer something more meta, there's The Hunt for Willie Boy: Indian-Hating and Popular Culture, by James Sandos and Larry Burgess.

The various tellings of the story differ in their details, especially regarding the name of the girl victim. It's almost like reading old mythology. The basic story is that in 1909, Willie Boy fell in love with his cousin who was 14 or 15 years old. They eloped, her father came after them, Willie Boy killed her father. One story says that according to the tradition of his tribe, he and the girl could now be married. The San Bernardino sheriff, not being bound by tribal traditions, saw it otherwise. Classic western pursuit across the desert, over jumbo boulders, around Joshua Trees, ensues. The hysteria is slightly heightened because President Taft was about to visit Riverside, some 50 miles away from the Gilman Ranch in Banning where the story had commenced. The girl dies. She was either killed by Mr. Boy, killed herself, or died from exposure. Take your pick. Eventually the sheriff's posse caught up with Mr. Boy. After a gunfight, Willie Boy was dead. In the movie, it's "suicide by cop" as Robert Redford discovers Willie Boy's rifle was not loaded in the final standoff. Here's the Wikipedia version. In the Chemehuevi version of the story, Willie Boy doesn't die at all. Here's how the N.Y. Times reported it (PDF) (also available here):

INDIAN OUTLAW KILLED HIMSELF
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Body of Willie Boy Found on the Mountain Where He Made His Final Stand
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PURSUED FOR TEN DAYS
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He Murdered Mike Boniface and Fled with His Daughter, Whom He Also Killed - Chase Across the Desert

SAN FRANCISCO, Oct. 16—Willie Boy, the Piute Indian desperado, for whom three armed posses have been searching the San Bernardino Desert, was found dead yesterday on the summit of Bullion Mountain [now Ruby Mountain], where he had been making his final stand.

He had killed himself with the last shot in his rifle and had been dead several days.

Willie Boy made his stand on the mountain against the pursuing posse of Sheriff Ralphs on the afternoon of Oct. 7, after being followed for ten days across the most barren section of the western desert.

Among the Piute Indians Willie Boy was regarded as a Lothario. On Sept. 26 he murdered Mike Boniface, an aged Indian, and fled with the latter's fifteen-year-old daughter. Four days later the pursuing posse found the girl's body. She had been beaten and finally murdered when she became too exhausted to keep up with her fleeing captor.

In the battle on Bullion Mountain Willie Boy wounded three members of the posse, killed three of their horses, and finally forced them to abandon the attack temporarily.

The popular story is that Paiutes cremated Willie Boy's remains and interred the ashes at the spot where he died. Google map here.

Scott put the coordinates into his Garmin, and it directed us to New Dixie Mine Road. Which loops around to Willie Boy's grave and then continues on, returning to highway 247 at Remy Road. The loop is a heavily traveled, but very rough, Jeep road. The only thing along the road seems to be Willy Boy's grave, so either a lot of people are visiting that grave, or dirt bikers enjoy tearing along the loop. We got there late in the day, so the grave was in shadow, but here's what I got:

Willie Boy's grave is inside the chain link fence.

Willie Boy's gravesite.

The marker on Willie Boy's grave.