Range Ghost

by Bradford Scott

  The old Hartsook spread was long from north to south but narrow east to west, reaching to the edge of the desert and the New Mexico Territorial Line.

  With the dying moon drifting westward he sighted the desert in the distance, glittering in the silvery glow. He continued until he reached a straggle of brush near the desert’s edge. Here he turned south until he came to a little stream that flowed from the rangeland to soon lose itself in the thirsty sands. Drawing rein, he got the rig off Shadow and turned the big black loose to graze. Then he rolled up in his blanket and with his saddle for a pillow was soon fast asleep.

  With the first tremulous rose in the east that heralded the dawn he was awake. Over a small fire of dry wood he cooked his breakfast—fried eggs and bacon and a bucket of coffee, which, with a bunch of bread, made a satisfying meal for a hungry man. Shadow did very well with a helpin’ of oats from a saddle pouch.

  After smoking a cigarette, Slade boiled another bucket of coffee, with which he filled a canteen. Two more canteens were filled with water for Shadow.

  “Now we’re all set to take a chance on that burned-over section of hell,” he told the horse. “Unless my memory fails me, and I don’t think it does, there are a couple more small creeks within the next few miles to the south, both flowing into the desert and sinking into the sands. That water must go somewhere and unless it penetrates deep into the earth, which I consider improbable in this geological terrain, it very likely reaches the surface again, although probably in a manner not easy to find. Well, our first chore is over here on this side of the desert, so let’s go, horse, and keep your eyes peeled.”

  Mounting, he rode very slowly along the straggle of brush that edged the desert, surveying every inch of the ground with the greatest care. What he sought was very apt to be pretty well hidden from the casual observer, but he was confident that he would find it. If he didn’t, his whole theory fell to the ground and he’d have to try and figure something else.

  With the sun mounting higher, he rode on, passing one small creek, then another. He had covered a few miles but knew he was still on Tobar Shaw’s Bradded H range when he found it, neatly concealed but discernible to sharp eyes that knew what to look for, like those of the Indians for whose guidance it was placed.

  Chapter Nine

  Upright in the ground amid the brush was the bleached shoulder bone of a huge buffalo. The enormous fan-shaped bone was about eighteen inches long and nearly a foot wide at the larger end. On the smooth white surface pictures were daubed in red, yellow and green mineral paint. They showed an Indian wigwam or tepi, beside which stood several Indians, the small pictures surprisingly accurate as to detail. One appeared to be cooking over a fire. Another was drinking from a horn cup. Two more were approaching the camp from the east, and scattered about were several head of cattle.

  To Walt Slade the message was as clear as it had been to those who were guided by it many years before. Where the camp was made, far out on the desert, there was water. Just where, the message did not show—which was to be expected. But to those who, unfamiliar with the area, came later, it was “writing” as plain as any utilized by white men. As plain as the ancient Egyptians’ hieroglyphics, who also employed pictures to convey their thoughts to others.

  For a long time, Slade studied the pictures, hoping to hit on some clue that would indicate the exact location of the water, but failed to do so. The best he could hope for was the general direction in which it lay. He had a very good idea how to determine that.

  Squatting down, he sighted carefully over the top of the blade, raised his eyes to the shadowy hills far, far to the west, back to the bone again, and got his bearings, the course he should follow, in relation to certain landmarks supplied by the hill formation. Straightening up, he gazed westward over the pitiless waste of sand and alkali now shimmering with heat. He knew well what that desolation could do, bewildering the brain and choking the throat, deceiving the hapless wanderer with mirages of rippling streams and lakes where none existed until he succumbed to gabbling delirium and death. That was the desert, and did he not find water somewhere near the middle of it, he might well never live to reach those distant hills.

  However, his horse was strong, well fed and rested, and Slade was not unfamiliar with the dangers and hardships of a desert. Would be safer to wait until the comparative cool of night, but that would greatly lessen his chances of hitting on the hidden water which was his goal. He decided to risk it. If he had misread the implied direction of the desert signboard, the blade bone, he could perish miserably, for there was nothing else to guide him. The desert was trackless. Always as the dark closed down, a wind would rise, shifting the sands, quickly erasing any hoofprints of horses or cattle passing across its surface. But he believed the bone dependable. Anyhow, he’d gamble on it being so.

  The desert was white, with the awful whiteness of dessication and death, glaring under the sun, flinging forth its warning and its threat, as desolate and uninviting a region as El Halcon had ever viewed, as solemn and quiet and as alien to man as the star-studded midnight sky, grim, relentless, waiting.

  And yet, it was not without a beauty all its own—the terrible beauty of the wastelands with their utter silence and their utter peace, ageless, everlasting, cradled in the lap of eternity, setting at naught the futile strivings and the petty ambitions of mankind. Slade sensed this as he mounted and sent Shadow forward.

  Soon he was out on the true desert and almost instantly the heat seemed to double, triple, quadruple. It poured down from the blazing sun overhead, beat upward from the burning sands beneath, like unto the breath of a furnace. Slade felt as if it were sucking the very blood out of his veins.

  However, one can get used to most anything, in a degree, and after that first devil’s blast, the effect was modified. He narrowed his eyes to the glare, rendered dazzling by the hot air that danced over the surface of the desert as over a red-hot stove, breathed slowly and deeply and relaxed. And after a disgusted snort or two, Shadow appeared to make out very well.

  The desert was not totally flat. Here and there were low sand dunes. Nor was it utterly devoid of vegetation. Occasional straggles of mesquite broke the white monotony, its tremendous root system evidently able to suck up enough moisture in time of rain to allow it to exist. And as he forged on and on, he encountered infrequent dry washes, through which water must have flowed during heavy downpours. These interested him, for they appeared to substantiate, slightly, the theory he had formed as to the existence, if it did exist, of the hidden water to which the Indian signboard pointed.

  From time to time he took a sip of his coffee, now heated to about the temperature of a man’s blood. Each time he dismounted and poured water into his cupped hands for Shadow, enough for a couple of swallows. Shadow sucked up the fluid greedily and asked for more, but his rider vetoed the request.

  “May have to make last what we’ve got to the other side of this scorched griddle, or back the way we came, whichever seems advisable,” he warned. “Besides, too much can make you sick, as you know well as I do.”

  Shadow snorted general disagreement to the jobation which did not seem to impress him much, but let it go at that.

  The sun crossed the zenith and slid down the western sky, and El Halcon began to grow anxious. He reckoned he was just about midway the desert, and he didn’t like the look of the southwestern sky, which hinted at wind, and wind raising the sand and alkali in blinding clouds could be deadly. The hills seemed no nearer than when he started out in their direction.

  “We should hit it soon, if we’re going to hit it at all,” he muttered. “This is getting a mite serious.”

  It was, for the blazing heat and the eternal glare were beginning to have their effect. His tongue was swelling, his eyes seemed filmed, and there was a singing in his ears—warning signs that heat prostration or sunstroke might well be in the offing, and not too far off, either.

  Then he saw something that quickened his pulses and cleared his be
fogged mind. Directly ahead and no great distance away was a long and wide dry wash along the edges of which grew a more abundant than average stand of mesquite. And without apparent reason, Shadow quickened his pace a little.

  “Do you smell it, feller?” Slade asked. “If you do, it’s more than I can.”

  The sides of the wash, which was much narrower at the bottom than at the top, sloped downward at a fairly steep angle, but he discovered a place where sure-footed Shadow could negotiate the descent.

  Once at the bottom of the wash, things improved a bit, for there were places where the rushing water of flood times had hollowed out the lower banks until wide overhangs provided a grateful shade.

  Under one he dismounted, loosened the cinches a bit and gave the horse a little more of the precious water. Then he sat down with his back against the bank and rolled and smoked a cigarette, after a couple of sips from his coffee canteen.

  He smoked slowly, resting, relaxing until his pulses were back to normal and his eyes had cleared. Pinching out the butt and casting it aside, he examined the bottom of the wash. It was of hard-packed sand, much firmer than that of the surrounding desert, a phenomenon the discovery of which filled him with satisfaction.

  “Horse,” he said, “I believe it’s going to work out. I once before encountered something similar. Yes, I believe we’ll hit it. Let’s see, now.”

  Moving to the edge of the slope he studied the ground with great care. His feeling of satisfaction increased when he found, hugging the ground, a film of green, a scattering of tiny plants of the algae family, related to pond scum, plants that could not exist without moisture—which meant the existence of water they could tap.

  But where was the water? Nowhere was there a drop in sight, only the endless, weird expanse of sand and alkali. Slade straightened up, walked to where Shadow stood looking expectant, tightened the cinches and mounted.

  “Now, feller, it’s up to you,” he said. “A bunch of cows could do it faster and easier, but I believe you can handle the chore.”

  Moving out onto the bottom of the wash, he headed the horse down it for a little distance, turned him and made a return trip. Shadow stepped out briskly, almost eagerly, it seemed, apparently knowing just what was expected of him and how to do it.

  Back and forth he plodded, back and forth, back and forth. Slowly the hard-packed sand began to sink under the steady beat of his hoofs, until he was moving in a narrow shallow trench. The pitiless sun poured down its burning rays. They flashed back from the sands. But Shadow never hesitated, back and forth, back and forth. Now the hard-packed sand was growing a trifle mushy. A few more minutes and little sparkles were oozing up into the trench, back and forth, back and forth. Now the gallant horse was pounding his hoofs through a film of what was undoubtedly water, back and forth, back and forth! Now the water was over his hoofs. Once released, it surged upward swiftly until it was ankle deep. A little more and Slade called a halt. The trench was filled to the brim with clear, sparkling, and cool water.

  “Help yourself,” he invited.

  Shadow plunged his nose in and drank and drank. Slade dismounted and had a long swig himself. Then, while Shadow desisted for a spell, before drinking some more, he filled the water canteens to the brim, drank the last of his coffee and replaced it with water. Stoppering the canteens, he tucked them into the saddle pouches.

  “Come, feller,” he said. Shadow followed him to the shade of the overhang. Slade emptied the remainder of the oats onto the ground, drew a couple of slices of bread with bacon between them, and man and horse enjoyed a satisfying meal.

  “Where did the water come from?” El Halcon replied to a hypothetical question from Shadow. “Geologically speaking the explanation is quite simple. Down there under the sand is a cup-shaped ledge of rock, something in the nature of a trough, scoured out by the action of water untold ages ago, for all this section was once a great inland sea or lake. Rain water seeps through the sand into the rock trough. Of course it cannot permeate the stone, but it does hold up the hard-packed sand, the bottom of the layer being also impervious to water. Perhaps also there is water seepage from those small creeks we encountered over on the rangeland. There the water remains. Under the pounding of your hoofs, a portion of the sand layer sinks, the water filters through and reaches the surface. Before long it will sink again and no trace of it will be left. Long ago the Indians discovered it and figured how to obtain it. Somebody else also understands the geological formation and its possibilities. Who? That I don’t know, yet, and I wish I did. But it is a simple explanation of how a bunch of cows can be run across the desert to the New Mexico hills and market. The cattle are allowed to rest here under the overhang—I’ve already noticed very faint traces of hoof marks the wind-driven sand of evening hasn’t totally obliterated, under that further overhang, which is more shallow than this one. Didn’t pay much attention to them, didn’t even mention them to you, for I knew just what to look for already. Get the idea?”

  Shadow snorted his understanding and nosed up the few remaining oats.

  “Well, we found it, but I’m hanged if I know what to do with it,” his master added. “We could intercept a stolen herd here, but I’m not at all sure it would do much good. We’ve got to learn who is the head of the outfit, somebody who was either able to piece together old Indian legends or has the geological knowledge necessary to understand this unusual but by no means isolated phenomenon. Somebody who perhaps has in mind something more outstanding than widelooping and robbery which may but be the means to an end.”

  Slowly the water sank back out of sight, and as it sank, the liquified sands rose. The wind-drift would finish the chore and soon there would be left no sign of Shadow’s industrious plodding. Slade watched the water vanish and remarked reflectively—

  “There is a vast subterranean watershed beneath all this section. Some day folks will realize its potentialities and take advantage of them. Artesian wells will replace the primitive windmill and Amarillo and other towns will be relieved of water shortage. Okay, horse, I guess we’d better be moving in some direction.”

  For a few minutes he debated the advisability of staying in the shade of the overhang until after nightfall. It would be far the wiser course, but he was anxious to get back to Amarillo as quickly as possible, even after studying the ominous southwest.

  Down there were higher dunes, misty with distance, and from their crests flung forth long and broad streamers that glinted in the sun, like to the banners of an advancing army. That, Slade knew, meant wind, and getting caught in a wind storm out on the desert was nothing to joke about. However, he decided to risk it. Giving Shadow another drink, and taking a couple of swallows himself, he mounted and turned east through the blaze of the sunshine, the sands whispering under his mount’s hoofs, the only sound to break the deathly silence of the wastelands.

  “Yes,” he concluded for Shadow’s benefi t, who didn’t appear particularly interested, “some day there will be garden spots where now is only desolation, the desert lands will blossom and folks yet unborn will find prosperity and happiness. Worth working for, horse. Let’s go, the sun’s crawling west and it’ll be a bit cooler after a while, I hope.”

  Chapter Ten

  Shadow stepped out briskly, despite the heat, knowing very well he was homeward bound to his comfortable stall and oats. His rider kept casting anxious glances toward the southwest. Now the far distant sand hills had vanished and there the desert was a strange purplish-blue, an unearthly and sinister shade. The wind was strengthening and lifting the sands to form a smoky veil shot with lurid flickers like to lightning behind a cloud. Slade began to regret that he had left the comparative safety of the sheltering overhang in the dry wash. Looked very much like they were going to be caught by a desert storm. The heat seemed to be, if anything, increasing and the air had a creamy feel that made breathing a labored effort.

  On and on forged the tall black horse, pitting his superb strength and endurance against the grim,
imponderable forces of nature at its worst. From time to time, Slade halted to give him a little water and a chance to catch his breath, then on and on toward where the hospitable rangeland lay somewhere beyond the ever retreating horizon.

  Everything considered, they were making good time, but that threatening dust cloud in the southwest was traveling just a little faster. Slade figured they had covered perhaps two-thirds the distance they had to go and the sun was low in the west when the storm struck.

  Instantly the heat increased. The air was filled with flying yellow shadows, the wind-driven sand beat against horse and rider like a living thing of utter malevolence. Unsuspected flecks of gravel were raised from the desert floor to sting the flesh like spent bullets. One minute the sky was utterly shrouded, then the sun was visible, a weird magenta color, like to the full moon seen through haze, to vanish again as the dust cloud thickened and the eerie yellow shadows swooped down.

  Leaning forward in the saddle, his hatbrim drawn low, his neckerchief over his nose and mouth, Slade endured the torment as best he could. He knew his horse’s struggle was exhausting, but there was nothing to do but keep going and hope to outdistance the storm. To halt would be fatal.

  His mind began to cloud, crawling with spectral elements that gnawed at his brain like illusive maggots, vanished but to return again to their ghostly attack. Then gradually their torture was replaced by a deep and drowsy happiness that stole over him on treacherous little cat-feet. The forerunner to the dark borderland of desert madness that would quickly deliver him to death. Barely in time he sensed his deadly danger. He fl ung back his head, slapped his cheeks with one hand after the other, hard, stinging blows that jolted him back to normalcy. He straightened in the saddle, grimly faced the beat of the wind; he’d whip the damned thing yet.