Epilogue Ironically, the story of Charles Manson and his Family does us all a favor. It reveals in no uncertain terms the disease of our own society. It chronicles the transformation of communal love into its opposite. There was nothing simplistic in what happened. And it isn’t something to turn away from. People seem to feign a horror of blood and carnage, yet invariably rush to accident scenes and fistfights, to anything that will put them in touch with their own blood and something that is primal – to something that will wake them up to the fact that they are not robots but living, breathing organisms. The Manson Family did more than this. It tore the lid off suburban complacency with a vengeance, and left us with a lot of questions to answer. I thought once the headlines and the novelty had worn off that the questions would cease. But as the days went by after the trials, and the months turned into years, the questions continued. Even after the publication of Helter-Skelter, it was clear that people did not understand what had actually transpired in the Manson Family. During the trials, I was approached by producers Robert Hendrickson and Lawrence Merrick, who wanted to make a documentary film on the Manson Family. They had already shot footage around Spahn’s while Charlie was on trial, inducing the remaining Family members to make music and rap about Charlie on film. The group obliged, believing that they were helping to program Helter-Skelter. Later, we shot some footage in Merrick’s studio and in the desert. I hoped the film, Manson, would help explain what actually happened. It fell far short of the mark, but even so, won an award for the best documentary at the Venice Film Festival in 1974. Merrick signed the distribution rights over to American International Pictures, and he and I toured the country premiering the film in Albuquerque, Chicago, and elsewhere. To me, the film seemed to be popular, but the company reported box-office flops and legal problems and it was virtually scrapped. After Helter-Skelter hit the stands I began touring with Vince Bugliosi to promote the book on TV talk shows. I realized then that there was a genuine need to know what caused the phenomenon of the Manson Family. I remember people asking me, “What can we do to protect our kids?” Often, I became the scapegoat for people’s collective outrage. When I appeared on the Tom Snyder Tomorrow show, his first question nearly floored me. “How is it that you are allowed to walk the streets and do this show?” Along with Bugliosi, I wasted no time in setting him straight. But I was astonished and angry, and I asked myself: why go through this? I questioned my own motives, realizing that deep down I did feel a sense of guilt. I had played a part and did have a responsibility to explain what had happened. After the Snyder show I got serious about public speaking and learned to handle myself under fire. I began giving lectures on the effects of drugs. I spoke at district attorneys’ conventions on college campuses. I pondered the idea of writing a book. In my own mind, I knew the Manson story had not really been told. With the exception of the Vietnam war, the Kennedy assassinations, the slaying of Martin Luther King, Watergate, and perhaps the kidnapping of Patricia Hearst, few events in the last twenty years have had more impact on the public at large than the story of Charlie Manson and his Family. People’s fascination with death, violence, abduction, and money, it seems, can never be fully satiated – which says something about the public consciousness. Oddly enough, the Manson Family originated as a rebellion against that very state of consciousness and was a direct outgrowth of the psychedelic revolution of the early sixties, grounded theoretically in principles of love and the freedom “to be.” What happened to those ideals, to me, and to the minds of Charlie’s followers was the story I wanted to tell – the story of mind control and mental programming. The questions to be answered were crucial – the echoing refrain of a lady from Atlanta who asked me on the Phil Donahue show: “What experiences in your own background would make you susceptible to a man like Manson?” The woman appeared shocked when I told her we had shared many of her own experiences. Like her, we had shuddered through the Cuban missile crisis. We too cried for our country and the Kennedys. We watched in disgust while our natural inheritance turned into plastic and concrete, and bit our lips in rage as our brothers died in Southeast Asia. We saw movies on drugs made by people who knew nothing about drugs. We felt the need to live and to believe that we had inherited a world worth living in. So we hit the road in the mid-sixties; searching for truth, hoping we might recognize it once we saw it. We needed to love and to be loved. One by one we met Charlie and saw in him and his followers the love we were looking for. It has been too easy to classify the Manson Family as a pack of sick, drug-bludgeoned kids duped by an ex-con. The transformation from a “flower-child” Family whose only revolutionary activity was an alternate lifestyle into a militant, Helter-Skelter-ready band of death-wielding robots was slow, methodical, insidious. Yet, many still cling to the notion that all Charlie had to do to get people to kill was to stuff them full of dope and say “sic ‘em.” Had that been the base, the interest in the Manson story would have waned long ago. No, Charlie Manson was intelligent, and so were most of his followers. Hippies who wanted only to get laid or stoned were neither susceptible nor acceptable to Charlie. In conversation, he would lose the average “lodle” as soon as he opened his mouth. People are still surprised when reminded that Sandy and Mary both had college degrees; that Leslie Van Houten was a homecoming queen and one of the most popular girls at Monrovia High School; that Katie was a Sunday-school teacher… and so the list goes. And how could it be that Tex Watson, who took part in so much killing, was not only an A student and a top athlete but was voted the most likely to succeed by his classmates in high school. No, Tex was programmed to kill, just as young soldiers are programmed to kill in the name of democracy or the flag or whatever. But in that case, it’s just an all-American boy performing a heroic act. It’s possible that had Tex gotten into that kind of program, he’d have been one hell of a marine – a hero with decorations instead of a murderer in jail for life. It may be stretching a point, but it’s one that should be made nevertheless. What drew us to Charlie initially was a real love we helped put there. So we submitted to his trip; we burned our bridges and left our past far behind, to become lost in Charlie’s nightmare with nowhere to go. But Charlie always had the “joint” to go back to. The Family didn’t realize that he had a home and that the bridge to it could not be burned. Still, there are questions that remained unanswered. Just how and why did Charlie change? Did he have Helter-Skelter planned from the start, or was it only a bud in his subconscious awaiting its time to flower? Only Charlie knows the answers to all the questions. But ultimately he must be seen for what he was: the worst kind of criminal, a man who subverted the power of love, turning it into the most despicable evil imaginable – the domination of souls. Charlie did more than give hitchhikers and hippies a bad name. He manifested and expressed not only the mechanism of his own twisted psyche, but the latent evils existing within our own society. You cannot divorce Manson from the culture that spawned him. That too is an easy way out and would be a grave error. I know that his incarceration has not put an end to my own struggles. It has taken years for me to untangle and come to grips with all that I experienced in the Family. But more than anything, in the wake of all the destruction, the killing, the inner crippling of those who survived, I wanted to salvage something, if only the knowledge that what happened to the Family could well have happened to others; that mind control and programming are a part of our daily lives and that the results, unless people develop an awareness, can be, in the long run, no less insidious and destructive. Clearly, in a world where the majority of the populace speeds around in varied states of hypnosis, bombarded into stupor around in varied states of hypnosis, bombarded into stupor by the media, it is necessary to understand the fundamentals of programming. Perhaps, if there is one lesson I have learned, it is to listen to myself. To be what I am. This is the bottom line of awareness, and paradoxically the greatest link to humanity after all. Had I been so grounded in March 1968, on the day I met Charles Manson, I would probably find it hard now to remember who he was. But the Manson saga is not over. In June 1977 and again in May 1978 I testified in Leslie Van Houten’s retrials, each of which resulted in her reconviction. Whether or not she will appeal that conviction is not certain. I don’t know what happened to all the others. I do know that Susan Atkins and Charles Watson, both born-again Charistians, have written books about their experiences and are serving life sentences for their crimes, as are convicted murderers Bruce Davis, Mary Brunner, and Bobby Beausoleil. Lynette Fromme is also in prison following her attempted assassination of former President Gerald Ford. Diane Lake (Snake) has been completely rehabilitated and the last I heard was working as a teller in a bank in northern California. As for Brooks, Juanita, Juan Flynn, and Crockett, all are doing well: Brooks is a full-time musician, while Juan lives in Panama, where he works on a ranch. Charles Manson, meanwhile, now forty-four, is serving a life sentence in California, awaiting his eligibility for parole. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Paul Watkins was the class president of all his high school classes in a suburb of Los Angeles and student body president in his senior year when he dropped out and took to the road. A series of circumstances led to his being picked up by two girls of the Manson Family and he soon became one of Manson’s most devoted followers. Later, however, he became concerned about Manson’s predilection for violence and left the family before the Tate murders. He now lives in the desert town of Tecopa, California, and earns his living in construction and by lecturing on the subject of drug prevention and rehabilitation. Guillermo Soledad is the pen name of a member of the faculty of the University of California at Santa Barbara. He has written a number of magazine articles for publications such as Ms., Playboy and Playgirl. COPYRIGHT PAUL WATKINS AND GUILLERMO SOLEDAD --------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 26 Is it that you recall being in harmony Is there something in you that yearns to see Or do you remember a time When you were free Did you ever wonder what you’re living for Is there anything of which you are sure Have you asked yourself Is there more A moment’s moment can be an eternity And all the while time has its flow So how many lifetimes can you live in infinity It’s all there for us to know… - song by Paul Watkins, summer of 1970 The book Helter-Skelter chronicles events that took place during the Tate-La Bianca trials – the saga of a murder case which lasted longer, received more publicity, and cost more than any other in American history. For me to repeat what was written there would be wasted effort. I can only conclude my own story which is a part of that saga, a single thread in a legal tapestry which will not be forgotten. I saw Charles Manson for the last time in a courtroom in the L.A. Hall of Justice in the fall of 1972. I saw him face to face, not twenty feet away, across an odyssey of time and circumstances that in retrospect seems totally unbelievable. What happened that day in the midst of my testimony, when Charlie leaped to his feet and screamed, “Liar!” must remain indelible to all those who bore witness to it. For me it was a catharsis, a moment of utter unwavering certainty, as inevitable as the dawning of a new day. Yet, by the time it happened, I was prepared. By then I had testified not only in the Tate-La Bianca trials and the grand jury proceedings but also in Tex Watson’s trial, and the Shea-Hinman trials. I had spent weeks on the witness stand and had been asked the same questions time and time again. I had been examined and cross examined by some of the best defense attorneys in Los Angeles, including Charlie’s most tenacious counselor, Irving Kanarek. I had been referred to as a “robot” drug addict, pimp, thief, social misfit. But through the process of concentration and a commitment to remembering the truth in court, I was able, as Crockett had foreseen, one step at a time, to deprogram myself from the subtle yet profound effects of Charles Manson’s philosophy, so that when my final showdown with Charlie came, I welcomed it. From the beginning the courtroom had served as a theater for some of Manson’s best performances. Even those who most wanted his blood could not help but be struck by his spirited charisma. Early in the Tate-La Bianca proceedings, Joseph Ball, the former president of the state bar association, and former senior counsel to the Warren Commission, found Charlie to be “an able, intelligent young man, quiet-spoken and mild-mannered.” He remarked, further, that Charlie had “a ready understanding of the law” and “a fine brain.” Ball said, too, that Charlie was “not resentful against society… he feels if he goes to trial and he is able to permit jurors and the court to hear him and see him, they will realize he is not the kind of man who would perpetrate horrible crimes.” Following Ball’s remarks, the then presiding judge, William Keene, begged Charlie to reconsider his decision to defend himself. But Charlie wouldn’t budge. “For all of my life,” he said, “as long as I can remember, I’ve taken your advice. Your faces have changed, but it’s the same court, the same structure. All my life I’ve been put in little slots, your Honor, and I went along with it. I have no alternative but to fight you have any way I know how, because you and the district attorney and all the attorneys I have met are on the same side and the newspapers are on the same side and it’s all pointed against me, personally. No, I haven’t changed my mind.” But Charlie didn’t defend himself long. His courtroom antics and violation of procedure, much of which was done to play up to the press, forced the judge to appoint an attorney, Charles Hollopeter, with the stipulation that Charlie could enlist another attorney if he so desired. Along the way, Charlie would make many substitutions, selecting, at last, Irving Kanarek. From December 1969 until July 1970, when the Tate-La Bianca trials finally got under way, Charlie called most of the shots, both in and out of the courtroom. And in the beginning, when he had the support of the free press and radicals like Jerry Rubin, he put on a real show. Together with the girls who came to court daily and kept vigil an the sidewalks of L.A. (Broadway and Temple), Manson was able to hold his own on the battleground of what he called “injustice.” But the evidence and testimony against Charlie, Sadie, Katie, Leslie, and Tex mounted. But neither Charlie nor the girls gave up, and we were continually threatened. I was entering the courtroom one morning when Squeaky approached me just outside the doorway of the Hall of Justice. It was in September, around the time I was to begin my testimony. “What are you doing?” she asked. “I’m just telling the truth… it’s time to tell the truth.” “Are you still my brother?” “Yeah… I’m your brother.” “Listen to your love.” “That’s what I’m doing, Lynn.” “There’s no such thing as death,” she muttered. “It’s all love.” “Here, Lynn.” I took a five-carat emerald ring off my little finger and handed it to her. Then I walked into the courtroom. Nearly three years later to the day (September 5, 1975), in Sacramento, California’s “city of justice,” Lynette “Squeaky” Fromme attempted to assassinate the president of the United States. My testimony, together with that of Brooks and Juan, not only substantiated the murder charges against Charlie – he had admitted killing Shorty to each of us separately – but provided corroboration of Helter-Skelter (the race war) as a motive. We had all experienced Charlie’s programming techniques and were thus able to convey at least in part how Charlie’s devices operated. On cross-examination the defense continually sought to invalidate my testimony by suggesting that drugs had destroyed my mind. During the Bruce Davis trial (Shea-Hinman), after I had testified to hearing Bruce describe the murder of Shorty Shea, the defense attorney approached the bench. “Your Honor, it is my intention to show that this witness has, over a period of time involved in his testimony, been engaged almost continually in the taking of drugs. That he has acknowledged on examination and cross-examination in prior cases that he has taken LSD… and that as a result his mind has been bent.” Hours and hours were spent grilling us on drugs, everything from acid to marijuana. The numerous transcripts of trial testimony read very much alike. From the Shea-Hinman trial, February 1972: Q. “And now, Mr. Watkins, how about marijuana… what are the effects on you of marijuana?” A. “On my?” Q. “On you, sir.” A. “You get high, or what I would hall high. Kind of happy, laughing, feel free, feel good.” Q. “Is this after just one, or does it take several?” A. “It depends on how strong it is, and how strong you are; who you are with, and what you are doing; and it depends on a lot of things.” Q. “All right. How about hashish?” A. “It has the same effect, only much stronger.” Q. “Much faster?” A. “Much faster.” Q. “And when you say much stronger, does it affect your balance?” A. “Hmmm. It depends on the type of hashish you’re smoking. I never has it affect my balance, like I suppose you’re likening it to being drunk, where you are stumbling around. It’s not like that, no.” Q. “Does it affect your sense of time?” A. “Inasmuch as though you may be having a good time, and time would seem to fly.” Q. “Does it affect your sense of vision?” A. “Not really.” Q. “It doesn’t enhance or detract from your ability to see; is that right?” A. “Well, I may have had it enhance my ability to see at times and detract at other times.” Q. “Does it cause you to have any sort of visions or hallucinations at all?” A. “No.” Q. “Does it cause sounds to be more… cause you to be more keenly aware of sounds and sights?” A. “You’re still talking about marijuana and hashish, right?” Q. “Right.” A. “Yeah. On certain occasions it would… you would be more aware of sounds and sights.” Q. “Well other than that, does it do anything for you?” A. “Other than what?” Q. “Those things we’ve named.” A. “Well, I don’t know how deep you want to get into it. We could leave it right there; if it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me.” When attempts to discredit me failed along those lines, the defense tried other means. At one point during the same trial, the defense lawyer approached the bench to tell the judge he could prove that I was working with the police and that therefore my testimony was prejudicial and biased. Out of earshot of the jury he explained to the judge what I clearly overheard: “I will offer proof that between October and December – and specifically in mid-December of 1969 – this particular witness had several conversations with officer Dave Steuber and other officers of the highway patrol and the sheriff’s department in Inyo County; that thereafter, and as a part of the plan of the prosecution, he returned to the Manson Family, to the Spahn Ranch, specifically sent there to be a spy; that he saw Charles Manson in January approximately eight times at the jail – which visits are recorded – and that I contend that this was done specifically to get information, to pass along to the sheriff; that therefore his testimony is biased and prejudiced, because of his connections with the prosecution, based on this background.” Though none of these assertions were true, I felt at times as though I were on trial. Q. “Well, you did visit Charlie at least seven or eight times in January of 1970, in jail; is that correct.” A. “At least.” Q. “All right. And these were just friendly visits, to pass the time of day, to help poor old Charlie while away the hours -?” The state’s attorney at the time, Manzella, objected, and the objection was sustained. Q. “Well, were these just friendly visits to help your friend, who was there in great trouble?” A. “Some –.” Manzella objected and the court sustained it. Q. “All right, sir,” Denny went on. “ These were visits in order for you to try and pump Charlie Manson for the prosecution; isn’t that right?” A. “No, that isn’t right.” Often I felt totally exasperated. I wanted to tear through the mumbo-jumbo of the courtroom decorum; I wanted to explain to the court, to the judge, the jury, and everyone present, the real truth – the torment, the depth of feeling, the reality of my experience, which seemed inaccessible and paradoxically out of place in what has been called the halls of justice. But I had learned the courtroom games well, and focusing my energy on the truth enabled me to outlast the most determined defense attorneys. The mind games played in a courtroom are complex, and it takes a good deal of awareness to stay on top of them. It is not simply a matter of telling the truth, since everything you say is controlled by the questions, and many of the questions are asked obliquely so that the intent of the lawyers is not always clear. Plus, your consciousness must encompass not only the attorneys on both sides but also the jury and the judge. But it was neither the judge nor the jury that made testifying traumatic; it was facing the defendants. It’s hard to describe the multitude of feelings I had when taking the stand as a witness for the prosecution – facing Charlie, Sadie, Leslie, and Katie in the courtroom eye to eye. Facing girls who had once had beauty in their hearts, girls I knew better than any jury would ever know – girls I had lived with, traveled with, made love with, sung with. All of them, on trial for murder. And the man who had taught me a great deal about music and love and had asked me to submit to that love; a man I had once seen as the embodiment of life but who had become its opposite, but who nevertheless continued to project incredible force and presence even late in the Tate-La Bianca proceedings, after Brooks and I had testified. Clean-shaven, well-groomed, and articulate, he made a great spectacle, prancing confidently around the courtroom. According to Charlie it was not he who was on trial but the system which brought him there. And in part, he was right. Near the end of the Tate-La Bianca trial, when it was clear that the evidence against him was insurmountable, he took the stand to testify in his own behalf. Even Bugliosi, who had fought so hard to ensure the death penalty, admitted to the hypnotic effect of Manson’s words. And Bugliosi had not met Charles Manson at eighteen before the murders, during the Summer of Love, when the youth of America were riding the crest of an awakening consciousness and were high on life and LSD. But I had. And I had come a long way since then, far enough, at least, to see through Charlie’s impassioned soliloquy, shot through with truths and half-truths and the subtle nuances of his madness. Yet, even when Charlie spoke, and he spoke for more than an hour, what he said was not only for the benefit of the court but to manipulate the other defendants – his Family, still programmed to loyalty to the bitter end, ready to die for a man who could have just as easily cut their throats. Charlie’s testimony began slowly, but as he spoke, his voice became clear and resonant; if Charles Manson was anything, he was a performer. “Most of the people at the ranch that you call the Family were just people you didn’t want, people that were alongside the road, that their parents had kicked out, that did not want to go to Juvenile Hall. So I did the best I could and took them up on my garbage dump and I told them this: that in love there is no wrong… “I told them that anything they do for their brothers and sisters is good if they do it with a good thought… “I was working at cleaning up my house, something that Nixon should have been doing. He should have been on the side of the road picking up his children, but he wasn’t. He was in the White House sending them off to war… “I don’t understand you, but I don’t try. I don’t try to judge nobody. I know that the only person I can judge is me… But I know this: that in your hearts and your own souls, you are as much responsible for the Vietnam war as I am for killing these people… “I can’t judge any of you, but I will say this to you, you haven’t got long before you are all going to kill yourselves, because you are all crazy. And you can project it back at me… but I am only what lives inside each and every one of you. “My father is the jailhouse. My father is your system. … I am only what you made me. I am only a reflection of you. “I have ate out of your garbage cans to stay out of jail… I have wore your second-hand clothes… I have done my best to get along in your world, and now you want to kill me, and I look at you, and then I say to myself, you want to kill me? Ha! I am already dead, have been all my life. I’ve spent twenty-three years in tombs that you built. “Sometimes I think about giving it back to you; sometimes I think about just jumping on you and letting you shoot me… If I could, I would jerk this microphone off and beat your brains out with it, because that is what you deserve! That is what you deserve… “You expect to break me? Impossible! You broke me years ago. You killed me years ago. “You can do anything you want with me, but you cannot touch me because I am my love. If you put me in the penitentiary, that means nothing because you kicked me out of the last one. I didn’t ask to be released. I liked in there because I liked myself.” On April 19, 1971, Judge William Older sentenced Charles Manson, Susan Atkins, Patricia Krenwinkle, and Leslie Van Houten to die. Ten months later (February 1972) the death penalty in California was abolished and their sentences were reduced to life imprisonment. But the drama wasn’t over. Not yet. I saw Charlie one more time, on an afternoon during the final stages of the Shea-Hinman trials. But by then the flamboyance was gone. He no longer looked like the high priest of flower power but an embittered convict. He was seated in front of me, twenty feet away, just to my left beside his attorney. His head was shaved, the scar of a swastika stamped on his forehead; his jaw was dotted with a fine stubble. He looked old, worn-out, beaten. Since the early days of the trials, much had happened: a major earthquake had rocked Los Angeles, killing sixty-five people. Spahn’s Movie Ranch had burned to the ground. In less than one month of each other Jimi Hendrix (September 18, 1970) and Janis Joplin (October 4, 1970) had o.d.’d on drugs, perhaps symbolizing the end of an era. Someone once said, “all universes die”; looking at Charlie that afternoon, you got that feeling. Yet when I took the stand, he looked up suddenly and just stared at me, a strange half-leering smirk on his face. As I spoke, he just watched me, tilting his head from side to side as if he were an artist attempting to get the right perspective for a painting. Maybe he was remembering, seeing as I had so many times the arc of the circle we had made in time, the journey from one end of the human condition to the other, from a perfect dream into the bowels of a nightmare from which I had awakened just in time. I was in the midst of my testimony when Charlie suddenly lurched to his feet and shouted, “Liar! You’re a liar!” “Order!” The gavel came down. But Charlie didn’t stop. “No, no… little boy… you lie!” Charlie was pulled to his seat, but his eyes were blazing, and I looked at him and held his gaze, and after a warning by the court, went on with my testimony. As I spoke, Charlie raised his finger, grinning, and slowly drew it across his throat. “You’re pathetic, Charlie,” I said. “Order.” Then Charlie was standing again. “You’re a liar!” he roared. “No, Charlie… I’m telling the truth!” “Order!” “Liar!” Charlie was pulled to his seat. Then I was standing, filled suddenly with emotion – a surging of rage, remorse, and utter revulsion. “You… you… made it all a lie! You calling me a liar proves it! Your whole trip has been a lie.” Charlie struggled to his feet and began grappling with the bailiff, but I didn’t stop yelling. “It’s like you said… the truth will set you free. I know that!” “Sit down, Mr. Watkins!” “I speak the truth, Charlie!” “Remove Mr. Manson from the courtroom!” Charlie was seized by both arms, but he continued to kick and struggle. “You’re just an insecure little boy!” he shouted. “The truth, Charlie. The truth will set you free!” They dragged Charlie out of the room. “Order… there will be order in this courtoom!” The door closed, and I slumped into my seat. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Chapter 24 Black Beard had changed only slightly since I’d seen him more than a year before, just a few miles away from where we now stood facing each other in the middle of Topanga Canyon Boulevard. His fleecy, tousled hair hung to his waist; his smile was infectious. He said he’d rented a place up the canyon and invited me there for breakfast. I followed him in my car. Five miles back up the canyon he turned up a steep side road to a small house built beneath a stand of oak trees, and parked. Before going inside, we stood on the porch and smoked a joint. I told him about Charlie and the Family and what I’d been doing. To my surprise, he knew a lot about the Manson Family – firsthand. In July 1969 (just after I had split for the desert), Black Beard had inherited some money and had moved into Topanga Canyon with a friend named Bob Kasabian. A short time later, he met Bob’s wife, Linda, who had just joined the Family and who, on orders from Charlie, had ripped off Black Beard for five thousand dollars. When Black Beard tried to get the money back, Charlie merely showed him the sword he’d used to chop off Gary Hinman’s ear. Black Beard got the picture and a week later took off to South America. He’d only recently gotten back, and was again living with Bob Kasabian. During the weeks which followed, I visited Black Beard regularly, thereby adding another dimension to my fragmented state, another tendril of extended energy I could ill afford. When I confided to him the many roles I was playing, maintaining at the same time that I had faith that things were going the way they should, he said he wasn’t surprised. He recalled the night we were busted at Half Moon Bay, saying, “I never seen anyone turn a scene around like you did that one. It was karma, man… the real McCoy, you blew those pigs’ minds…” In early February 1970 we were still living in the Chandler Street house during the week and repairing to Spahn’s on the weekends to do music and unwind. I continued to confer with Charlie, to help arrange for attorneys, and to convey his messages to Leslie and Sadie. I was also in touch with Crockett and Posten by phone. About that time Bruce Davis was arrested again and sent to Inyo County on charges of grand theft. I was subpoenaed and told that without my testimony they couldn’t hold him. I’d hitchhiked to Inyo with a new girl in the Family named Ginny who was carrying twenty-four tabs of acid, all but two of which we’d sewn into the lining of a sleeping bag. Squeaky had suggested we slip a tab of acid to Bruce during the trial; in part it was a means of testing me. Charlie had told them to watch me closely. During the proceedings, while Don Ward sat with Crockett and Posten on one side of the room and Ginny on the other, I took the Fifth Amendment, refusing to answer on the grounds that what I said might incriminate me. Steuber, and Inyo’s D.A., Frank Fowles, were furious. They needed the testimony to hold Davis. While they had interviews from me which more than implicated Bruce Davis, they could not be used in the court. Brooks and Crockett knew the game I was into and they looked pretty dejected. It got even more insane when Ginny got up and, while passing in front of Bruce, slipped him a tab of acid in the courtroom. Bruce dropped it on the floor, but before anyone could react, picked it up and ate it. A cop meanwhile had seized Ginny’s purse and found the other tab of acid. She was held for two days, then released. A few days later they let Bruce go, and my loyalty to the Family was, for the time being, reconfigured. In the meantime, the scene had been set for my sexual number with Squeaky. It was never talked about directly, but the promptings were there, a feeling that the Family would benefit by such a consummation of power. It happened one afternoon at the Chandler Street house. I’d been at court all morning and had just returned to change clothes. While I was changing, Squeaky entered the bedroom and flopped down on the bed. She was talking about how great things were going, that Charlie was going “to walk.” The free press was taking up the cause. This was during the time that Bernardine Dhorn told a convention of Students for a Democratic Society, “Offing those rich pigs with their own forks and knives, and eating a meal in the same room, far-out! The Weathermen dig Charles Manson.” It was also at the height of Charlie’s flamboyant courtroom theatrics, when he wore embroidered shirts, kept his hair combed, and paraded around the courtroom like a peacock. I walked by Squeaky, telling her to follow me into the other bedroom. I heard her giggle as she waltzed in behind me, removed her blouse, and tossed it on a chair. I’d all but forgotten the day at Barker’s when I’d seen Charlie bring Squeaky out of an epileptic seizure following sex. And I was momentarily stunned when, after making love to her, she began to shake and convulse. Within minutes she had lost all control. It was as if her entire being had been reduced to a quivering mass of jelly. Then her body stiffened and she clenched her fists until her knuckles turned white. Her head thrashed from side to side. “It’s okay, Lynn…” I said. “It’s okay. It’s Paul… just relax.” I climbed on top of her grabbed her by the wrists. “Ohhh… Ohhh,” she moaned. “Aghhh.” Her breathing came in short pants and gasps. “Go ahead… go ahead,” I said. “Tighten you fingers… yeah… good… tighter, no, tighter… Now, relax them… relax… Now tighten… relax… tighten…” Using the method I had seen Charlie employ, I was able to settle her down, but it wasn’t easy. By the time I’d calmed her, we were both exhausted. Afterward we drove to Spahn’s and Squeaky behaved as if nothing had happened. But the incident stayed with me, a graphic expression of the control mechanism Charlie had implanted in Squeaky and by which he had been able to dominate both her mind and body. After that episode, things happened fast. Later that same week I was coming out of the court building when a dapper little guy sporting a goatee and dressed in a double-breasted suit approached me, saying he was a lawyer and wanted to ask me a few questions. I walked with him to a chauffeured limousine and we drove up to Hollywood. He introduced himself as Jake Friedberg, saying he just wanted some information about the Family and that he’d make it worth my while to provide it. He asked if I’d mind staying at the Continental Hyatt House for a couple of days, and when I said no, he made a reservation for me in the penthouse. I spent two days there telling him what I knew; on the morning of the third day, as I was leaving the hotel, I was paged to the phone. It was Crockett; I’d called him the day I arrived and left my number. His voice was hard and clear, like a pick against granite. “Where the hell you been?” “Nowhere.” “I been tryin’ to get you. D.A.’s office called us up and said that guy Friedberg is a Mafia man… somethin’ about La Bianca’s connection with the syndicate… he say anything about it?” “Nope.” There was a long pause. Then Crockett spoke. “Where you tryin’ to take yourself anyway, oblivion?” I didn’t answer. I didn’t know. “When you comin’ out to the desert?” “It won’t be long.” I waited to Friedberg to come back, but he didn’t. And I never saw him again. A couple of days later, we moved out of the Chandler Street house and back to Spahn’s. George had mellowed enough to allow us to move in again on a permanent basis. The day after we moved back, Clem was released on bail and joined the rest of us in a small wooden structure built just beyond Randy Starr’s trailer, a beautifully symmetrical building we called the Story-Book House. The day we moved in, I was standing on the boardwalk with Sandy when a car with two men in it pulled up beside me and stopped. “You Watkins?” the driver asked. I nodded. Both men got out of the car. Both wore baggy sports jackets and gray fedoras. One of them had on sunglasses. They asked if we could talk, and I led them into the saloon, where Squeaky and Brenda were sitting on the floor working on Charlie’s vest. “We’ll make it fast,” the shorter of the two men said. “We hear Charlie wants to be sprung.” “Huh?” Brenda stood up. “We don’t know nothin’ about that,” Squeaky said. “Where’d you hear that?” The man didn’t look at Squeaky. His eyes were on mine. “So what’s the deal?” “I don’t know anything about it.” I didn’t. The two looked at each other. Then the short one grinned. “Well, that’s cool… just forget it ever happened.” They walked out, climbed in their car, and drove away. To this day I have no idea what their visit was all about. That same week a motion for discovery was made by the defense, and all the prosecution’s evidence (including my statements) was turned over to Charlie and his ever-changing team of lawyers. I had known this would happen eventually, but I didn’t think it would be that soon. I would later learn that on the very day Charlie was presented with those documents we at Spahn’s had set things up for an acid trip to celebrate our return to the ranch. It was rather chilly the night we gathered inside the saloon to play music and smoke a little grass. I had Mark Ross pass out the acid, and we all dropped at the same time. It was good acid and we each took one tab. Sitting at the head of the circle on a pillow, with Sandy and Brenda on one side and Squeaky on the other, I felt as though I had assumed control. I sensed at once that Kevin and Mark were uptight. I signaled for Cappy and Ginny to move closer to Mark. We all joined hands and I initiated some motion into the circle. It was then that I saw Mark’s eyes kind of roll back in his head. I knew we might lose him if I didn’t intervene. I knelt in front of him and raised his hands, setting his palms against mine. “Hey, Mark… hey, man, don’t fade away on us.” I began exerting a slight pressure against his palms until he met the pressure with some resistance. When he did, I gave in to his motion, then applied pressure again. Pretty soon our hands began moving in a series of synchronized movements. I watched his eyes and saw he was coming around… the motion was bringing him around. I’d seen Charlie do the same thing countless times; pretty soon everyone was tripping out on me and Mark. Finally he looked me dead in the eye. As he spoke, so did I; the words we said were the same words: “Are you doin’ that or am I?” Afterward we all made love, then lay around rapping and listening to music. Sometime before dawn we heard three vehicles pull up in front of the saloon. Brenda blew out the candles, and Mark and I laid a cross beam across the door. We could hear the static from squad-car radios and the cops as they climbed out of their cars and began flashing their lights along the boardwalk. “Go on down by the corral and take a look,” one of them said. “We’ll take a peek up this way.” The boardwalk creaked as they clomped past the saloon toward the tack room. “Check the back door,” I whispered to Cappy. She walked quietly to the rear of the saloon, then came back and sat beside me. “It’s locked,” she said. “Somebody must have told them we moved back here.” Had they wanted, the cops could have gotten inside, but in listening to them, you got the feeling that they really didn’t want to. Finally they convened in front of the saloon, got in their cars, and split. The next morning (though I was scheduled to appear in court on a traffic violation), I accompanied Clem to the Hall of Justice. He too had to appear in court. It was simple procedure; he merely wanted to change attorneys, substituting Daye Shinn (at Charlie’s suggestion) for Charles Hollopeter. All that was required of Clem was a one-word answer: “Yes.” But by then Steve Grogan was pretty far gone. When he was finally called before the judge, he stood there dumbly, with a leering grin on his face, his hair disheveled across his forehead. “Mr. Grogan, the court is informed that you no longer with Mr. Charles Hollopeter to represent you, that you have decided upon Mr. Daye Shinn as your new acting attorney. Is that true?” Clem turned and looked at the girls who were seated among the spectators. “Is that true?” the judge repeated. “Huh?” Clem muttered. “Young man, I’m talking to you… do you understand what I’m saying?” “Huh?” Clem blurted again. The judge then asked that Clem be taken next door and examined for being under the influence of drugs. Forty-five minutes later he was escorted into the courtroom again, it being determined that he was not under the influence of any drug or stimulant. When the judge repeated the question, however, Clem’s response was the same. We asked for a recess, and I took Clem outside. “Look, man, all you got to do is say one word, ‘Yes.’ When he asks you if you want Daye Shinn, you say, ‘Yes.’” “Huh?” he repeated. Finally I just rared back and slapped him full in the face with the flat of my hand and shouted his name. “Steve… Steve… what the fuck is the matter?” His eyes fluttered and he looked at me. “What’s the matter?” I repeated. “Where the hell have you been? You okay?” “Sure.” “You want to keep Hollopeter or do you want Daye Shinn?” “I’d rather have Shinn; he seems to know more what’s happening.” When court reconvened, we went back inside and he told the judge he wanted Daye Shinn. Seeing Clem so completely “dodoed out” that morning unnerved me; he’d played the idiot so long that he’d literally become an idiot; all his responses were idiot responses – implants by Charlie. Steve Grogan had for all intents and purposes “ceased to exist.” Why this particular episode jolted me so, I don’t know. Unless it was the realization that my own idiocy was no less blatant. I didn’t go back to Spahn’s that afternoon. Instead, I drove out to Topanga Canyon to visit Black Beard and spent the night there. The following morning I appeared before the judge for my traffic violation. Brenda and Squeaky went with me. Since I’d failed to show on two previous occasion, the old man was in no mood for excuses, and fined me sixty-five dollars or five days in jail. I asked the girls to go out to the car and get some money I’d stashed under the dashboard. They went out but didn’t come back, and I spent five days in the cooler, not knowing that Charlie had already given the girls copies of my statements to the D.A. Charles Manson had spent twenty-three years in prison. To me, five days seemed an eternity, particularly since I knew I’d pushed my own games to their limit. Though I was in a cell with six other guys – half of them murder cases on appeal, the others alcoholics – I felt totally and utterly alone. I thought about the others in jail. I thought about what going to prison actually meant. I thought about Snake, sitting in a mental ward. I would later see a transcript of a statement she’d made to the police. When asked who she was, she replied, “I am a butterfly in a flower palace… I live on a sea of sand.” Perhaps for the first time I began to see what was happening. Not the sensationalism, the publicity, the theory, the great spectacle that was being created to glut the public’s craving for “meaning and justice.” What I saw was the truth, that the distance between good and evil is short; that the fine line between sanity and insanity is one we all walk; that I was on the brink of self-destruction. Around me were four walls and barred windows and men, who, in the face of life, preferred to stay drunk. I was released in the morning (sometime around the end of March) and immediately hitchhiked up to Spahn’s. Five nights of insomnia had left me completely obliterated. Sandy, Brenda, and Squeaky were there waiting with copies of my statements to the police. “What is this shit?” Squeaky shouted, springing to her feet. “What?” I mumbled. “Your goddamned testimony to the Inyo County pigs!” “It’s the truth… it’s the -” “Truth?” “Charlie always said we had nothing to hide… the truth will set you free.” “It didn’t set you free, did it?” Brenda lashed out. “You want to be free?” Sandy asked. “Judas… you’re a Judas!” “Get fucked!” I walked out of the saloon and up to the Story-Book House. I grabbed the keys to Mark’s van, then trotted up the trail toward the outlaw shacks where it was parked. I didn’t know where I was going, but I was getting the hell out of L.A. I stopped in Chatsworth and put some gas in the car, then headed for Topanga Canyon, deciding to see Black Beard before I split. I was completely disoriented, feeling disgust one moment, anguish the next. My entire being seemed molten, slippery, and out of control, as though all levels of consciousness belonged to the sea – to its currents, its waves, its vastness. I felt like some hapless sailing vessel on the brink of a storm. Part of it was exhaustion; part of it was I had reached the end and the beginning at the same time. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Part Four: The Truth Will Set You Free Chapter 23 Leaving the Family that night with Bruce for what I thought to be the last time did not break my ties with Charlie. Even after he was sent to L.A. county jail as a murder suspect. On the contrary, and for a variety of reasons, not the least of which, perhaps, was Charlie’s physical absence, I was drawn back to the Family. Charlie’s powers, though he was behind bars, did not diminish. For months he would manipulate not only a large segment of the public and mass media but alos law enforcement officials, lawyers, even judges. He also managed to hold the Family together. Unwittingly, I helped him. He had attempted to program me for this long before: “When Helter-Skelter comes down, I’ll be back in the joint, it’ll be up to you.” While my motives were never completely clear, being at times as much subconscious as conscious, my actions did serve, as Crockett put it, “to hold the Family together when you should just let it die.” I continued to work with Crockett and Brooks, but I was divided within myself. I can honestly say that no time in my life was more agonizing than the months between Charlie’s capture and his conviction. I walked a mighty thin line. The view from the middle often gives a panorama of all sides. But my balance was precarious at best, and what I paid for that vantage point in suffering was more than I could afford. That I survived at all appears, in retrospect, something of a miracle. The hillsides around Shoshone are riddled with manmade caves, dug originally by itinerant miners, prospectors, and other vagabonds, who, over the years, found the town a convenient oasis in the scorching lowlands of the Amargosa Valley. Shoshone was also a water stop on the railroad line and for a time the site of a thriving hobo jungle which centered in and around the tufa caves. Crockett and Poston were broke and living in one of those caves when I arrived on October 9. Don Ward had told them (as he did me) not to leave Shoshone, that the Barker Ranch was about to be busted. The following day, just before dawn, while the three of us slept off a reunion celebration on the floor of the cave, officers from the highway patrol, the Inyo county sheriff’s office, and the national park rangers assembled near Golar Wash for a raid on the Barker Ranch—a raid that lasted three days and resulted in the capture of Charlie and most of the Family. All were taken to the Inyo county seat in Independence (just four hours north of Shoshone) and booked for auto theft. I didn’t know then, nor did Brooks or Crockett, that during the raid Stephanie (Schram) and Kitty Lutesinger (Bobby Beausoleil’s girlfriend, who was then five months pregnant with his child) had been trying to escape from the Family. They asked the police for protection and were taken to Independence to be interviewed by detectives. When it was learned that Kitty was Bobby’s girlfriend, she was asked what she knew about the Hinman murder. She said she had heard that Manson sent Bobby and a girl named Susan Atkins to Hinman’s house to collect some money and that when he refused to pay, they had killed him. On October 13, Brooks, Crockett, and I were escorted to Independence by Don Ward and officers of the highway patrol. Brooks and Paul had already made statements to law enforcement officials (including Ward) as to the nature of “goings-on” at the Barker Ranch. They had talked about Charlie’s philosophy and Helter-Skelter. The law, however, at that point, was little interested in such bizarre and unlikely tales. Their primary concern, it seemed (at least on the surface), was that Manson and the others be identified and linked to the stolen vehicles found at the ranch. We were shown photographs of dune buggies and Harleys and asked to identify them. We did; both privately to Dave Steuber of the highway patrol and later that week during Charlie’s preliminary hearing in the Inyo county courthouse. But during that hearing, things changed drastically. One morning flocks of reporters appeared in the courtroom; not only L.A. and local press, but foreign correspondents as well; what had started out as a quiet, routine procedure became suddenly a circus of spectators, reporters, cops, and lawyers. Word was out that this was not a simple case of auto theft. Charles Manson had become a murder suspect. Independence, though it’s the seat of Inyo County, is a small, immaculate town located in the heart of the Owens Valley at the foot of the eastern Sierras. From the center of the main drag, snowcapped peaks are visible year round. The county itself is the second largest in the state but has fewer than 17,000 inhabitants. During the court proceedings it seemed as though all of them had flocked to Independence. I remember Crockett saying one morning, "Jesus, there just ain’t no place to hide.” Everywhere we went, we were hounded by reporters. Crockett told us to keep quiet and let things blow over a little. But that didn’t happen. It just got more intense. Finally one morning while we were drinking coffee in a waiting room outside the courthouse, Crockett said it was time we told some of the story to the press. “Look at it this way,” he said. “Old Charlie always wanted his story told…we might as well tell it. It ain’t all pretty, but it needs to be told; people should know what the hell went on…what can happen to the mind. Most people ain’t gonna believe it anyway, but eventually there’s gonna be a lot said about it…hell, there’s gonna be books written about it.” Another of Crockett’s motives, though he didn’t express it at the time, was money. We were stone broke. We couldn’t go back to the mine; police had made Golar Wash a restricted area. Meanwhile, foreign correspondents were clamoring for information. The more we refused to talk, the more they wanted “to make a deal” for our story. Two days before leaving Independence, we agreed to meet in L.A. and give it to them. Around the middle of November, at approximately the same time Sadie was at Sybil Brand Penitentiary for Woman telling her story to Ronnie Howard, Juan, Brooks, Crockett, and I met with reporters (Don Dornan, Iver Davis, and Jerry Le Blanc) in Sherman Oaks and told them what we knew about the Manson Family—including the murder of Gary Hinman and what we’d heard regarding Shorty’s death. The interviews lasted five days and resulted in the publication of articles in both Spain and Germany as well as a book (which we did not agree to) that was later released, called Five to Die. We were paid eleven hundred dollars each for our information. Afterward Crockett, Brooks, and I went to Shoshone, while Juan remained in L.A. It was a scary time for us. Word had it that Charlie had issued more threats; most of the Family, including Clem and Bruce, had been released from Inyo County and were back in L.A. living at Spahn’s. Our own living conditions in the cave were by no means pleasant. Without electricity or water we were forced to use candles and to transport water a mile up the mountain from Shoshone in five-gallon containers. Since Golar Canyon was off limits, we could not go to the mine and we had to find work in Shoshone. I managed to get hired washing dishes in the Shoshone Café and also worked with Brooks and Crockett doing town maintenance for the Charles Brown Company; we worked our asses off; did everything—trimmed trees, painted buildings, laid concrete, dug ditches, pumped cesspools. In late November we moved out of the cave and rented a house on the main highway across the street from the high-school football field. It was a small place: two bedrooms, a tiny narrow kitchen, and a fair-sized living room. There was also a small fireplace, which became essential as weather turned colder in winter. In front of it, Crockett set up his table, and at night after work, while we practiced our music, he spent hours playing solitaire. Around Christmastime, Juan Flynn moved in with us. By then Charlie, Sadie, and Leslie had been charged with murder and indicted. Katie and Tex were still out of the state. Juan brought us further news; others associated with the Manson Family had reportedly been killed. One of them was Joel Dean Pugh, Sandra Good’s ex-husband; the other, a young man I’d met two months before, John Philip Haught, better known as Zero. Shoshone was far from mellow for any of us. People didn’t take to ex-Manson Family members living in their midst, particularly after the story in the L.A. Times: SUSAN ATKINS’ STORY OF TWO NIGHTS OF MURDER. Notices were posted advising that people keep their children, particularly their young daughters, under lock and key while we were in town. Petitions were circulated to have us removed; letters were sent tot he district attorney. Being glared at, ignored, and verbally berated became a part of our daily existence, and while, in time, it lessened somewhat, it never stopped completely. The only saving grace was that Don Ward, one of the few people who sought to understand the dynamics of the Manson family, became our friend and to some extent served as a buffer between us and the public at large. Sometime around Christmas, shortly after Charlie had been granted the right to defend himself, I felt the urge to go to L.A. and see the Family. I don’t know if it was a programmed response, an implant Charlie had made months before—curiosity, guilt, or a perverse sense of my own confusion. I don’t know what it was. But I did miss the Family and still considered many of its members my friends. When I told Crockett, he said it didn’t surprise him. He said it would take a long time to get free of Charlie’s programs and my ties to the Family, and that I wouldn’t ever do it by avoiding the issue. I’d read the newspaper accounts. I’d listened to Juan. I could well imagine the paranoia at Spahn’s. But I wanted to extricate some meaning from all the horror and carnage, to step back into the nightmare and find something worth salvaging. When I asked Juan if he’d heard anything about Snake, he said he had. “They sent her to mental hospital.” The first thing I did when I got to L.A. was call Patton State Hospital. They said Dianne Lake was there but that I couldn’t see her. Afterward I went directly to the Los Angeles county jail to see Charlie. The meeting was arranged by Charlie’s lawyer, Daye Shinn, who escorted me to the small glass-enclosed room where we both waited. Moments later, Charlie came in – all smiles – clean-shaven and wearing his blue-jumpsuit prison garb. “Hey, brother… hey… where the hell you been?” He gave me a hug and grinned at Daye Shinn. “This is the man I been waiting for,” he said. “How’s things, Charlie?” He shrugged. “I’m just here for Christmas.” He winked at Daye Shinn. “I always come home for Christmas.” Charlie lit a cigarette and pulled the ashtray in front of him. “Lot to do,” he said. “The girls need your help, you know… all this legal shit to attend to. They got a place on Chandler Street in Van Nuys. Got the scene going at Spahn’s too. We’re getting the album out. You got to help them out, keep things together.” Listening to Charlie rap, you’d have thought he was free. He spoke as though nothing had changed and that being in prison for murder was merely a temporary inconvenience. He was, in fact, excellent in spirits. Overnight, he’d become an internationally known figure; he’d made the cover of Life magazine. There was also a small yet vocal segment of radicals who were calling him a hero. My impulse was to ask him about the Tate-La Bianca murders, but with Daye Shinn sitting beside me I remained silent. “What you been doing?” he finally asked me. Before I could reply, he went on. “You still with Crockett?” I nodded. “Hey, tell me something… does he try? I mean, psychic energy… You know, does he try, or does it just happen? I mean, I sit in my cell and put all my attention on the bars to make them dissolve… but they won’t do it, you know. They won’t do it because I try.” I told Charlie that Crockett didn’t try. I realized even then how dangerous a game I was playing. You can’t be on all sides at once. Yet that’s what I was doing. I was with Crockett. I was also with those who sought to prosecute Charles Manson. Along with Brooks and Juan I had told the D.A. and the other cops all I knew about the Family. Yet when Charlie asked what I’d said to the law, I didn’t lie. “We’re just telling your story, Charlie… you know… just tellin’ it like it is, ‘cause your story has to be told… the true story.” “Dig it,” Charlie quipped, glancing at Shimm. “The truth will set you free… even Crockett will tell you that.” What struck me then, and continued to amaze me during subsequent visits with Charlie, was his preoccupation with Crockett. Invariably he would ask about my relationship to him, and if he had taught me anything I might pass along. I told Charlie that if I could think of anything I’d let him know. After leaving the jail, I drove directly to Spahn’s Ranch in a battered Chevy pickup I’d borrowed from a friend of Juan’s. As I wound my way up Santa Susana Pass in second gear, I’d flashed on all the journeys I’d made on that road with Charlie and the family; of the day Brenda and Snake had first taken me there. All that had transpired since then seemed beyond comprehension. I felt apprehensive as I turned into the driveway. On the surface, things hadn’t changed. George and Pearl were still there; so was Randy. Gypsy and Squeaky continued to minister to George’s needs. The wranglers worked; the tourists came and went. So did the law. The paranoia Juan spoke about was all too apparent. Driving up to the boardwalk was almost eerie. Squeaky, Brenda, Sandy, and Clem were standing by the saloon when I pulled in. While Clem, as usual, was pretty spaced-out, the girls seemed alert and animated. They greeted me with open arms. “Charlie said you’d be back,” Brenda said beaming. I spent the afternoon at Spahn’s. I saw George and Pearl, then took a walk up to the outlaw shacks. I watched the wranglers herding horses toward the corral. I though of the first summer at Spahn’s, when things had been good. I thought of Shorty Shea. That night I went with the Family, or what remained of it – Squeaky, Brenda, Gypsy, Sandy, Clem, and a kid named Kevin – to the Chandler Street house in Van Buys. On the way, Squeaky told me about the trial; about Leslie, Katie, and Sadie. She said things were working out well; that Charlie would handle his own defense and that he would get off. She also said that the album was being but in wax and would soon be released. The Chandler Street house was a two-bedroom, two-bath structure in the center of an upper-middle-class residential area in Van Nuys. The property was surrounded by a thick hedge on one side and a chain-link fence on the other; there was an outdoor patio in the back, where we convened to discuss legal matters, entertain reporters, and play music. The living room was cluttered with amplifiers, and musical instruments, but was otherwise orderly. At that time the Family had three vehicles, two of which were parked out in front of the house – a late-model Volkswagen van (belonging to another new guy named Mark Ross) and an old Studebaker sedan. There was also a pickup truck, which was kept at Spahn’s. My return to the Family changed the nature of things immediately. If the girls harbored any suspicions as to my loyalty, they didn’t show it. I was needed. The Manson Family was based on male leadership; Charlie’s absence had created a real void, a void Clem (and later Bruce Davis) would never be able to fill, nor the young recruits like Kevin and Mark, who began hanging around after the arrests. Unconsciously I fell into the role at once. While Squeaky continued to brief me on all the legal issues – who needed what, which lawyers had to be fired or hired – I began instituting my own programs, a return to the original philosophy of being unified in love and music. It was completely insane. Charlie was on trial for mass murder. Deep down, I was coming to believe he was guilty of those murders. Yet, there I was, working with the girls on Charlie’s behalf in court, while trying to regain some semblance of what the Family had once been. All of which seemed fine with Charlie, since the image he was then trying to project to the public was that of the enlightened hippie guru who had become the victim of a degenerate society. When I called Crockett and told him I was moving in with the Family, there was a long and pregnant silence on his end. Crockett never gave advice. He didn’t then. He merely quoted something from the Bible: “Fools go where angels fear to tread.” To this day I don’t know just what forces were impelling me. I was later accused of being a spy for the police, but this was never the case. In part, it was the fulfillment of my role in the Family. Charlie had said, “I am you and you are me.” That statement was always more applicable to me than to anyone else. He had also said, “Someday you’ll be taking over.” Too, I may have been motivated by a sense of guilt for having deserted the Family, but just Charlie, but everyone. I wanted to get back to what we once had. Perhaps with Charlie gone there was a chance. But I knew that this was a false hope. Charlie was never gone from the minds of his followers. Though there were times when I realized how much danger I was in, I could not let go. That is the power of programming, and what this book is about. When I saw Juan in L.A. several days later and told him what was happening, he said I was crazy. “Seem to me like you try and commit suicide.” By that time, Crockett, Brooks, and I had all made statements to the D.A.’s investigators. This information, I knew, would be turned over to Charlie once a motion for discovery was made by the defense, which means that all evidence of the prosecution – documents, reports, interviews, everything – has to be submitted to the defense for examination. Charlie would see at once that my testimony against him was some of the most damaging, particularly what he had told me about killing Shorty Shea. Even so, there was a part of me which believed that Charlie would realize the wisdom of his own words: “The truth will set you free,” and that by telling the truth I was doing him a favor. Admitting this now is not easy; admitting to being a fool never is. But it was not merely a question of judgement; it was, in large part, the result of a process in which I had been locked up for more than a year and which left me completely fragmented; the power of programming, hypnosis, call it what you will. I was telling the truth. But I was telling it differently to different people; to Crockett; to the police; to the Family. In the face of all the horror – the real truth – I turned my head. It was not a question of personality, character or reason; it was like being a victim to a destiny I had to trust. I did know one thing; it couldn’t go on indefinitely. For the next few weeks I met with Charlie, discussed strategy, helped the girls secure new lawyers; I spoke to Sadie and Leslie and conveyed Charlie’s messages. Meanwhile, at the Chandler Street house I reinstituted therapy sessions and love therapy and began indoctrinating the new guys in the arts of sex. For a time I did become Charlie in a way that I never had before. Perhaps unconsciously I was proving that I could do in the Family what Charlie had done in the beginning; and by doing it, that it wasn’t such a great achievement. In some sense this would invalidate Charlie or at least prove to me that the programs I had accepted were not so important. Perhaps I was trying to free myself by walking a tightrope in front of Charlie’s nose, playing his game even better than he had played it. By the end of January 1970 the only thing I hadn’t done was to make love to Squeaky (Charlie’s number-one girl). I sensed that some of the other girls were generating pressure in that direction. Only at night did my anxieties really surface. I began suffering from acute insomnia. When I did sleep, I’d invariably have nightmares. I fell into a habit (both at Spahn’s and sometimes at the Chandler Street house) of walking all night, alone. Only through total exhaustion could I relieve some of the tension. But I couldn’t go on living like that, and I knew it. One morning (the day after I’d been told that Charlie had warned the girls to “Watch Paul!”), I returned from Spahn’s following an all-night hike. Though totally thrashed, I borrowed Mark Ross’s camper and drove it out to Topanga Canyon. I felt the need to see the ocean. Near the base of the canyon, just before it enters the coast highway, I stopped to buy a cup of coffee. As I pulled into the parking place, I saw I guy get out of his van and trot across the street toward the gas station. He looked familiar, but I wasn’t sure. I rolled down my window and shouted. “Hey, Charlie… Black Beard Charlie!” -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 22 Juan Flynn had difficulty sleeping at night. He knew too much. Charlie had told him “things,” When we asked him what “things,” Juan remained evasive, preferring to keep his knowledge to himself, thinking perhaps as I had, that by disclosing such information he would only spread fear. Juan suspected Charlie of many things, but he wanted to be sure; he was like that—the kind of person who comes to his own conclusions. I always admired Juan for that quality. We all did. Also, having a six-foot-five Vietnam vet on our side was reassuring. Still, Juan’s insomnia permitted only intermittent rest, and he spent hours with a shotgun sitting on a hillside outside the ranch house—“on patrol,” Crockett used to call it. We were staying in the bunkhouse then, the four of us on cots in one small room. At night we’d play bridge and games of concentration. Sometimes Juan talked about his Panamanian mother, who “knew voodoo.” “She have, my mother, strong powers to keep thee spirits under control. One day I walk out in thee street in front of my home and find a dagger stock in thee ground and my mother she tell me not to touch, that eet keep away thee locura…how do you say…craziness.” Following my episode with Charlie in the canyon, Juan put his shotgun on nails above his bunk. By that time Crockett had convinced him to try to sleep. “We got a psychic umbrella around the ranch…it’s there. Soon as anyone enters that area, we’ll wake up…ain’t no way Charlie’s gonna sneak up on us.” One night about two o’clock he tried it. We were all asleep, bundled up in sleeping bags. The nights had turned cold; we had a small wood-buring stove set up in one corner. I was awakened by Juan thrashing around in bed, talking in his sleep. Crockett and Posten were also awakened; we lay there watching and listening to Juan. “You…son of a beech…” he muttered. “You motherfocker….Ah…ah…okay… okay. I got you, you! I got you! Hah! No, no, you ain’t getting away. There I’m in your lung. Now…burn. I’m burning real good…Sisss…” Juan’s legs flailed inside the sleeping bag, his body dangling over the edge of the bunk at both ends. Finally his foot struck the shotgun and it fell on top of him. When he opened his eyes, I was looking straight at him from my bed just adjacent to his. Across the room, Crockett lay there wide-awake on his bunk. Brooks was already sitting up. “What’s going on, Juan?” “I got him,” Juan muttered. “It’s Charlie, ain’t it…he sneaking up on us out there.” “Yeah, but I got him good…I burned in there…in his lung.” “It’s Charlie and somebody else,” Crockett said. “I got him,” Juan repeated, his voice still groggy. “Yeah, but he’s still coming,” I said. Crockett sat up. “He may be comin’, but by the time he gets here, he’s gonna be so wiped out he won’t be able to do much.” Juan slipped out of the bag and climbed down from the bed. He picked up the shotgun and checked the chamber before setting the weapon on top of the bunk. Then he walked to the door and went out onto the porch. Seconds later we heard him. “Hi Charlie…what you looking for?” Charlie’s response was unintelligible. Then we heard Juan. “And you too, Clem, you sneaky motherfocker…I know you’re out there. And you, Bruce, cabron!” Charlie followed Juan inside the bunkhouse. Charlie was white. He looked totally disoriented. Crockett grinned, lit a cigarette, and offered one to Charlie. “Kind o’ late for a social call, ain’t it?” Charlie wore buckskins and carried a leather thong over his shoulder. “One of these nights I’m gonna sneak up on you motherfuckers,” he said evenly, forcing a grin, still trying to regain his composure. “And when I do…” “Now, that’s impossible, Charlie,” Crockett said. “Ain’t no such thing as sneakin’ up on people. You know it and I know it…all that sneakin’ up is just make-believe, somethin’ people do to keep up a little intrigue in their lives.” “Yeah,” I added. “You taught us too well.” Charlie grinned, and some of the color returned to his face. “Yeah, well…you folks just sleep tight.” He turned and walked out the door, and Juan called after him, “Hey, Charlie…thee next time, cabron, there ain’t gonna be no next time!” Two nights later we all woke up simultaneously. “Charlie,” Brooks said. “Creepy-crawly.” “Son of a beech!” “He don’t give up, does he?” Crockett sat up and reached for his shirt. I put on my pants, then hopped back up on the bunk—Juan’s shotgun was under my sleeping bag. I tossed it to Juan. We were all sitting up and Crockett was smoking a cigarette when Cahrlie pushed the door open and came crawling in on his hands and knees. “Hi, Charlie,” I said. “Buenas noches, cabron.” “Lose somethin’, Charlie?” Charlie was utterly humilated, but he didn’t lose his composure. “One of these nights…” he said. Then he got up and walked out of the bunkhouse. We heard him say something to Tex and Bruce, and I went to the window and watched as they walked to the gate. Crockett got to his feet and stretched. “Let’s head down to the main house and make some coffee. ‘Bout time we had a little powwow.” It was clear that we had pushed Charlie to his limit. Up until then, the rules of the game had dictated a certain bizarre etiquette that we’d all adhered to. But Charlie’s karma was turning; it had started to turn from the day he met Crockett. Charlie could not get to Crockett. Charlie needed the paranoia of the city to work his fear tactics; in the desert Crockett was on home ground, amid surroundings which were a part of his consciousness. Before, there were no doubts; Charlie’s belief in his “destiny” had been reinforced by an entire Family of followers. Two months had passed since the Tate-La Bianca murders, and still the law had nothing on him. They’d busted him for stolen vehicles but could not hold him. This made Charlie strong, made Helter-Skelter even more of a reality. It validated Charlie’s power. The fact that people had actually gone out and committed murder for him was proof of that power; proof that his revolution, despite all odds, was meant to be, and that he was beyond the law. Then Crockett appeared and the Family began to disintegrate. Charlie sought to beat Crockett at his own game, but without success. He could not discredit the man. Maybe Charlie was wrong. Maybe Crockett actually had more knowledge than he did; if that were the case, then perhaps Charlie had created a myth; he had killed for nothing. Maybe Helter-Skelter wasn’t real. That’s when Charlie began to doubt himself, and that’s when his karma turned and he grew desperate. Though we didn’t know it at the time, Charlie’s rampages in the desert began to reflect his frustrations; just days before his nocturnal visits to us, he and Clem and Tex set fire to a construction site and several pieces of large earthmoving equipment—a sure way to bring the Man down on him. Crockett had sensed the dangers but had no intention of letting someone drive him away from the canyon. He had also been curious to play out his hand with Charlie. Until that night. “Seems to me,” he said, once we were seated around the table with our coffee, “that things are getting’ a little out of hand. What’s nice about bein’ here is the peace of mind…but there don’t seem much of that left…more like the city up here now. Old Charlie brought his Helter-Skelter with him. But I hate like hell to pull…just when we’re having success with our prospectin’ and findin’ that yeller stuff.” Juan picked up his shotgun and walked to the door. “I don’t stay,” he said. “I’m going back.” He walked out onto the porch. We took our coffee and joined him, sitting on the steps. The night was cold, studded with stars, but there was enough light to see the craggy spine of the Panamints cutting sharply across the sky. “We’ll give it one more week,” Crockett said. “Make one more supply run. We can’t stay too much longer, ‘cause the cops are gonna swarm this place. I can feel it.” The following morning Juan and I set out for Las Vegas. The trip took six hours; most of it was made in silence. Several times I tried to engage Juan in conversation, but he wasn’t in the mood to talk; he said only that he planned to return to Spahn’s and to pick up his back pay from George. After that, he confessed, he didn’t know what he was going to do. “Maybe when you and Brooks and Crockett find a good mine, I come and work with you…but I don’t come back to Barker Ranch…no more.” I let Juan out on the outskirts of Las Vegas. While he hitchhiked south towards Baker, I drove on into town. It took three days to get supplies, round up parts for my BSA, and deliver a couple of messages for Crockett. By noon on the fourth day I was on my way back. Like Juan, I too thought of leaving. Charlie’s terror tactics, even though they had backfired, had transformed our quiet productive scene into a perverse kind of torture. I had gained a certain satisfaction in seeing Charlie’s interaction with Crockett, since it reinforced my withdrawal from the Family and served to convince me I had made a wise decision. But I knew Charlie couldn’t and wouldn’t be pushed much further; his own credibility was on the line. There was too much at stake. Had I known just how much, I would never have returned that afternoon. By the time I parked the truck at Barker’s, it was too late to carry in the supplies, so I left everything and hiked back up to the ranch. When I got there, all the lights in the ranch house were on. I saw Snake and Squeaky walking up the path to the house. Two dirt bikes were parked at the gate, and three or four dune buggies beyond the bunkhouse. Clem and Bruce Davis were sitting beside Brenda when I entered the gate. I saw Sadie coming down the road from the Meyers place with Ouisch and Kitty Lutesinger, one of Bobby’s old girlfriends. As I reached the porch, I spotted two of the girls getting out of the bus, followed by Tex and Bill Vance, who had driven a new dune buggy up the back route by way of Furnace Creek. My heart was pounding as I walked into the house. Charlie sat at the table across from Snake. Katie was cutting Snake’s hair. Snake smiled, but she looked ghostly. She laughed nervously when I sat down. “Glad you’re back, brother,” Charlie said, getting to his feet and stretching his arms over his head. “Where’s Brooks and Crockett?” “Don’t know.” Charlie walked past me to the door. “But I got to dig a couple of graves before it gets dark.” He let the door slam as he walked out. Fear, rage, utter desperation commingled inside me. Tex came in with a shotgun and sat down at the table. Then Squeaky, Sandy, and Brenda entered the house. All had short, uneven, recently cut hair. The sound of the scissors slicing through Snake’s hair sent chills down my back. Bruce came in and sat down across from me. His face was red and puffy; some of the sores on his arms had healed, but new ones had erupted on his neck, just under his chin. “Where’s that Panamanian piggie?” he rasped. Before I could respond, Charlie called to him from the porch and he walked out. I got up, went into the bathroom, and closed the door. I had to compose myself. I had to face Charlie without blowing it. I heard him and Bruce walk past the house. I heard Bruce’s coarse pneumatic laugh as I started to take a piss. Then I heard Charlie speaking to Phil Simms, an ex-con and friend of Charlie’s who had apparently just arrived. “How’s your wife, Jean?” Charlie wanted to know. “Real pain in the ass at the moment… you know how women are.” “Well,” Charlie blurted, his voice hard and without a trace of humor, “why don’t you bring her up here and we’ll throw her down a mine shaft. Then you can move in with us.” I didn’t wait for Phil’s reply, but went back into the living room. Katie, Stephanie, and Cappy were in the kitchen preparing a meal. Cappy said, “Hi, Paul,” as I passed the kitchen doorway and took a seat by the table, just as Charlie and Bruce walked in from the porch and sat down. In addition to Charlie and Bruce, there were two other males seated at the table – a kid they called Zero, and a part-time wrangler from Spahn’s named Larry Jones; there were also two new girls, introduced to me as Beth and Shelly. With his Family slowly disintegrating around him, Charlie felt the need of recruiting additional followers. But I paid little attention to any of them. All my focus was on Charlie. He grinned at me. “Let’s make a little music.” His eyes were dancing. I knew it was test time, and sensed, as I held his gaze, that what lay in the balance was everything. While he tuned the guitar, he told me that the tapes we’d made at Spahn’s were set to be recorded and that an LP record would soon be released; he said it was long overdue but that our hard work would pay off. I put all my attention on Charlie, on the music. I listened to the sounds he made on the guitar. Then he sang, and I sang with him, and it was like one sound. Afterward he came over and put his arm around me. “You’re finally back, huh… where you belong… It’s about time.” We ate a huge meal together that night; then the girls moved the table and chairs and brought in mattresses and laid them on the floor; Tex built a fire and we all gathered around Charlie to make music. I sensed that it was all a means of showing me that the Family was still unified, that the love was still there, that we were still one. But going through the motions was not enough. The people sitting around me, Snake on my left, Brenda on my right, then Katie, Sadie, Stephanie, Ouisch, Cappy, Tex, Kitty, Bill Vance, Crazy Patty, Sandy, Clem, and Squeaky – seemed lifeless. With their close-cropped hair, the girls looked like a gaggle of militant dikes. There was no feeling, there was only a strange, depraved momentum set in motion by Charlie. When I looked at Snake, I felt sick inside; her eyes were glassy, lusterless; she looked insane. When Charlie made a joke, everyone laughed, yet the laughter was soulless and without joy. At times I found the girls looking at me as though I were a stranger, or perhaps someone they had seen before but could not quite remember. Still, there was a connection, however vague and nostalgic, and I felt it. I also felt Charlie’s attention on me, particularly after he began to play the guitar. Like the others, I went through the motions. We were getting ready to drop acid when Bruce Davis came stumbling into the room to announce that the truck was stuck in the wash. Charlie flew into a rage. “Motherfucker!” he shouted. “Can’t you do anything without someone holding your hand! I might as well send a girl to drive the truck! We got to drop off that gasoline and get supplies!” “I can get the truck out, Charlie,” I said. Charlie’s eyes found mine. He got to his feet and walked across the room muttering to himself. “Yeah,” he said finally. “Why don’t ya do that. Deliver them gas drums and pick up supplies, then come back here. You go too,” he said to Bruce. “Make sure everything gets back safe and sound – everything!” Bruce nodded. Charlie was taking a chance, yet he probably saw it as an opportunity to teach Bruce a lesson while testing me at the same time. In a way, it was a continuation of the power games he had been playing with Crockett. With Crockett gone, he may have considered his position stronger. He knew that Bruce, having assumed my position within the Family, would keep a close eye on me. Charlie went into the bedroom and came out with a wad of folded bills, which he laid in my hand. “Here’s three hundred bucks. Buy some camping gear and a couple of parachutes, then play the slot machines for me… okay?” I interpreted this gesture as a vote of confidence, and as a means of castigating Bruce. Less than a week before, I had been on Charlie’s shit list. Now he was entrusting me with money and responsibility for supplies. He was also, he believed, securing an implied agreement from me – to return. My plan at that point was simple: to get the truck unstuck, get to Vegas, and start looking for Brooks and Crockett. I had a growing sense that they were safe. I wasn’t that worried about Bruce Davis. Charlie walked with us down to the gate, Bruce on one side, me on the other. For a long moment we stood in silence looking down the road that leads to Golar Wash. Charlie lit a cigarette and exhaled into the chill night air. I was aware of a low rumbling sound that seemed to seep up out of the canyon, the same psychic vibration that preceded Charlie’s arrival at Barker’s just weeks before. I had an impulse to ask Charlie and Bruce if they heard the sound, but thought better of it. Even then I knew what the sound was. It was a sound Brooks and Crockett and I had heard a week earlier. The sound of the Man closing in. As I stood beside Charlie listening to his final instructions to Bruce, I recalled the words he had spoken to me at Gresham Street over six months before. “You know, once Helter-Skelter comes down, I’ll be going back to the joint. After that, it’ll be up to you.” It was after three A.M. by the time we got the truck out and drove it to the base of the wash. I told Bruce to stop while I lifted my BSA out of the pickup. Without a word he helped me load it onto the flatbed. Then we headed out across the valley toward Ballarat, to deliver Charlie’s gas drums and continue on to Las Vegas. Bruce did a lot of talking on that trip. He told me about going to London and studying Scientology; he told me Helter-Skelter would stun the world. He also told me something I’d heard before; how hard it had been to kill Shorty Shea. Once we got to Vegas, I ditched Bruce long enough to make a phone call to Shoshone. I spoke to Don Ward. When I asked if he knew where Crockett and Posten were, he said, “Maybe, but we got to talk to make sure who you are…” The next day I unloaded my bike and drove it to Shoshone. Brooks Posten and Paul Crockett were in Don Ward’s office when I got there. The following morning, the Barker ranch was busted. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Chapter 21 In late August, while Charlie’s dune buggies roared across the Panamint Valley, police in L.A. sought leads in the Tate-La Bianca killings. Roman Polanski offered $25,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of those respnsible for the Cielo Drive slaughter. Meanwhile, motives for the Tate and the La Bianca murders were being postulated by polic, detectives, newscasters, and Hollywood celebrities. Famed psychic Peter Hurkos, after a visit to the Tate residence, claimed that three people, all of them homicidal maniacs under the influence of massive LSD doses, had committed the crime during a black-magic ritual. Truman Capote, author of In Cold Blood, appeared on the Johnny Carson show to state that in all likelihood the Tate murders had been committed by one man who had been “triggered” into a state of acute paranoia. By the end of September, authorities confessed they had “little to go on.” No connection between the Tate, La Bianca, and Hinman murders had been established; odd, since the word “pig” or “piggie” had been written in blood at all three murder locations. “Pig” was the word Charlie had used to describe Stanley Berry when he told Crockett (the afternoon I left with Stanley for Las Vegas), “I think I’ll chop up that piggie and find a good hole to dump him in.” Crockett ignored the remark and went about his business, not realizing that slowly we were helping to push Charlie Mahnson to his karmic turning point. Near the end of September, Manson was making numerous forays into Death Valley, looking for caves, exploring the terrain, choosing strategic hideouts in which to store his burgeoning supplies – still searching for the mystical (hole” in the desert where the Family could go to wait out the ravages of Helter-Skelter and make “a new beginning.” Traveling in caravans of three to five dune buggies, he led these expeditions for days at a time, leaving Clem and Bruce and a few girls behind to watch the Meyers ranch in his absence. At one point Charlie asked me to search for “the hole” by diving with scua gear into Devil’s Hole, a vast, murky water-filled cavern just across the Nevada border. Only months before, two professional divers had gone into Devil’s Hole and had never come up. I said no thanks. Still, I was playing both ends against the middle. I had accepted favors from the Family—playing music with them, made love to Snake, and at times had listened to Charlie’s Helter-Skelter rap, still half-believing it was true. I didn’t want to do this; more, it was like an unconscious reflex born of habit. It was also as Crockett had said, “foolish” –a game I was playing that was rooted in conditioning and based in part on my fear of completely severing ties with the Family, even after I sensed there was nothing left to salvage. Accepting this was to admit I had been a fool, a dupe, just another of Charlie’s pawns; which I had. Describing my feelings is not easy, since they changed often and there were many levels and much confusion. Inside, I told myself, “They did not kill Shorty.” I’d seen him less than a month before. I’d waved and he’d waved back. Charlie was merely trying to manipulate my fears. It was easy to say, “Yeah, we had to kill Shorty.” But where was the proof? Charlie was always boasting of his macho exploits, but I had never actually seen him so much as step on a bug. Yet, deeper down, I sense it was true. I’d felt it. At that point I still had no idea how deeply programmed I was, how much work it would take to free myself. Early one morning sometime around the first of October, Charlie spotted me on the hillside and hiked up to where I stood surveying the valley while sipping a cup of hot coffee. He reminded me that a year had passed since we had first come to the Barker Ranch as a Family. He told me he was taking an expedition over to the Saline Valley and asked if I’d take the younger girls—Snake, Kitty, Ouisch, Sherry, Barbara, and Patty—up to the Lotus Mine to “hide out” for a few days while he was gone. Charlie frequently moved his “young loves” to different locations, calling it “survival training.” Yet part of it, I knew, was his paranoia that if left alone at the Meyers ranch they would be vulnerable to outside influences. “You don’t have to go all the way with them or nothin’, just show them how to get up there—that’s a pretty tricky trail, you know, and they’ve never been up there.” “I don’t mind, Charlie,” I said. An hour later I met the girls at the head of Golar Wash and we started for the Lotus, a defunct gold mine located about midway up Golar Canyon at the top of the mountain, a strategic spot from which to survey the entire valley. The climb from the base of the wash to the mine and the small stone dwelling beside it followed a steep, twisting trail, replete with switchbacks and spots where the footing was treacherous. Halfway up, Sherry and Barbara announced they had left their packs and canteens at the bottom of the trail and went back to get them, and I continued on to the mine with the girls. After helping them make camp, I hiked down the quebrada and back four miles to the Barker ranch. Later that afternoon when Crockett, Brooks, and I went down to retrieve supplies from the foot of the wash, Sherry and Barbara Hoyt suddenly appeared from behind a rock, claiming they wanted to hike out of the valley and go back to L.A. “We’re afraid of Charlie,” Barbara declared. Crockett listened while they confessed their fears. His face expressionless, his eyes scanning the alluvial fan that stretched twenty-three miles toward Ballarat; he reached over and felt the canteen Barbara had strapped to her waist. “Getting dark,” he said. “Might as well go up with us, think this out.” That night we sat around the table drinking coffee and listening to Barbara and Sherry. Both girls were relative latecomers to the Family. Barbara arriving at Gresham Street at a time when Helter-Skelter was in its incipient stages; they had not been exposed to the in-depth indoctrination of some of the original girls, whose loyalty to Charlie was never in question. Barbara’s voice was high-pitched and agitated. “Charlie says we’re free, that there are no rules, but we’re not free. He says we can do what we want, but we can’t. He said about two weeks ago that if we tried to leave he’d poke out eyes out with sticks. He—“ All we want is to go to Ballarat,” Sherry added. “From there we can get to L.A.” After the girls had gone to sleep, I discussed it with Crockett and decided that I would take them to the base of the canyon, drive down the gorge in the power wagon, and leave them at the edge of the valley. “Give ‘em enough water and tell ‘em to keep a steady pace…they won’t have no toruble…we’ll feed ‘em a good breakfast in the mornin’.” At noon the next day I dropped them off at the edge of the canyon, then headed back in the power wagon. I drove slowly, bouncing and weaving along the valley floor, avoiding eroded gullies and boulders. The sun blazed off the hood of the car, casting a blinding reflection. To cut the glare I put on a pair of dark glasses that were lying on the dashboard; it was well over 120 degrees in the shade, the air bone-dry. Sherry and Barbara would have to go slowly in the heat, but they had enough water and I knew from experience that barring unforeseen circumstances, they would make it with little problem. I was nearing a point just south of Halfway House Spring, a particularly rocky stretch of ground, almost directly beneath the Lotus Mine, when something distracted me. I looked to my left just as Charlie’s head appeared above the rocks in the gully, where he’d been filling his canteen. At the very instant our eyes met, the left rear tire popped, the echo reverberating against the walls of the canyon. It was as if all the pressure generated by our gaze had caused the blowout. I sat stunned, listening to the hiss of escaping air as Charlie scrambled toward me over the rocks. He was shirtless and had Snake’s binoculars around his neck. I knew at once he’d been watching me from the Lotus Mine. He had a shit-eating grin on his face as he approached me, dusting off his buckskins with his hands. He took the hat he was wearing and held it out as though appraising it, then looked at me. “Thought you were headed out to Saline?” “Just wanted to check on the girls,” he said evenly. He leaned against the fender of the truck and put his hat back on. “Hey brother,” he drawled, “you wouldn’t lie to me, would you?” “No.” “You didn’t take Barbara and Sherry down the canyon, did ya?” I looked Charlie dead in the eye. “No.” Charlie grinned. We both knew I lied, yet for some reason he reacted as though I had said yes, as though my lie had been programmed by him. That was Charlie’s way. When things went against him, he often acted as though he had programmed it, so that no matter what was said, he was in control. “Well,” he said, “you want to drive me down there so we can pick them up?” “Got a flat…no jack.” “How ‘bout walkin’ with me?” “I gotta get back to the ranch…get this truck fixed.” He gave me a long, hard look. “Guess I’ll have to get them myself.” With that he turned and trotted down the wash. Frightened and confused, I scrambled up the wash. Sherry and Barbara had a three-mile start on Charlie, but they didn’t know he was after them, and we’d told them to conserve energy and go slow. Had the car been running, we’d have caught them in twenty minutes. I figured they had a fifty-fifty chance of making it. If he did catch them, I didn’t know what he’d do. But it wouldn’t be pleasant. For the first time I was really scared. Up until then, my actions had all been open and aboveboard insofar as Charlie was concerned; there was still the implication in the game we were playing that I might be won back to the fold, that Charlie might still invalidate Crockett. But helping his girls escape – I couldn’t have crossed him in a more blatant fashion. I had an impulse to go back and find him. I felt like a condemned man, sensing that unless I confronted him right away, I’d never be able to face him. But I wanted to talk to Crockett. “I think you’re right,” Crockett said after listening to what had happened. “Better go back and meet him… tell him straightaway. That lie puts you on the run, and the longer you got it hangin’ over ya, the more it’s gonna wear ya down.” I filled a canteen and put on my boots. Crockett went out on the porch with me. “What you can do,” he said, “is process yourself on the way down there so there’s minimum tension when you meet him. You just imagine everything that could possibly happen when you see him, everything, as vividly as you can…all while you’re walkin’; that way you run all the excess tension and energy off the actual confrontation, so it’s cleaner. See what I’m drivin’ at?” “Yeah, I see.” “I t ain’t like you imagine they’re gonna happen…it’s just takin’ the tension off the possibilities, like makin’ them pictures go away, so you don’t bring them up when you get there…you just do it.” I knew Charlie had eight or nine miles on me, but I took off anyway. It was dusk by the time I reached the base of the canyon and started out across the valley. I must have gone at least ten miles when I realized the futility of trying to catch Charlie at night. I knew, too, that if I remained in the valley he might not see me when he returned to Golar Canyon. It was bitter cold and pitch dark when I reached the base of the valley, wondering how I could ever stay warm through the night. Just moments later I stumbled through a clump of brush and my foot struck something soft. I reached down, to find a sleeping bag—brand-new and still encased in cellophane wrapper, probably dropped during one of the supply runs. It was uncanny, but no more freaky than the flat tire earlier in the day. I was dumbfounded as I pondered the workings of fate while hiking back to the mouth of the wash. By then I was totally exhausted. I laid my bag down in the middle of the trail (at a spot where Charlie could not help but see me), and despite my apprehension, fell asleep almost at once. About midmorning the next day, Tex, Bruce, and Brenda came bounding up the wash in a bright red Toyota. They stopped just five feet from me and honked, jolting me from sleep. They’d been staying at the hot springs. When I asked where Charlie was, they said he was behind them a few miles in another dune buggy. “Are Sherry and Barbara with him?” “Naw…why?” Barbara asked. “Just wondered.” I got out of the sleeping bag and started rolling it up. “You need a ride back up?” Go to talk to Charlie.” For the next hour I waited, still processing all the confrontation possibilities in my mind. I was apprehensive but in control. It must have been close to noon when Charlie finally rumbled into view about twenty yards from where I sat hunched against the cool wall of the canyon. The moment he spotted me, he stopped the buggy and leaped out with a forty-five pistol in his hand. “You motherfucker,” he shouted, “I should blow your head off!” /my heart was thudding, but I didn’t panic. Charlie’s eyes were bloodshot, his face windburned and dry. He pushed the barrel into my chest. “You ready to die?” he bellowed. I held my breath, but didn’t flinch, then said, “Sure, go ahead…I fucked up, maybe I deserve it.” “I’d be doin’ you a favor!” “Maybe so.” Then he thrust the gun at me and I took it. “Maybe you ought to kill me…see what it’s like!” “No, Charlie, you know I don’t want to do that.” “How ‘bout if I just cut you a little!” He pulled out his knife and shoved the point against my throat. I took a step back. “Well, then, you cut me!” He offered me the knife and I shook my head.” “You know what I ought to do…I ought to kill that fucking old man…he talked those girls into leaving.” “No, he didn’t. All they wanted was food and water. They were leaving anyway.” “Well, he put discontent in their heads…Get in!” Charlie pointed toward the dune buggy, and we both climbed in. He laid the forty-five in the back and fired up the engine. “I caught up with those girls in Ballarat,” he said, without looking at me. “They wouldn’t talk…I gave them twenty bucks and sent them back to Spahn’s” Moments later, Charlie was laughing. He put his arm around me. “Nothin’s changed, you know, between you and me. What goes round comes round; we’re still brothers, and no redneck piggie miner is gonna change that. ‘Cause one day he’s gonna wake up and find that he just ain’t here.” Near the top of the canyon we came up behind Juan and Brooks hiking toward the ranch. Charlie stopped and they climbed in. “Where you been, Juan? Seems like I hardly see you anymore.” Juan didn’t reply, but he held Charlie’s gaze through a rearview mirror. Charlie pulled up at the gate and stopped. We all piled out. “Say hello to that old man for me,” he said. Then he lurched forward in a swirl of dust, and we headed into the yard as Crockett came down to meet us.