Free Range Ghost by Bradford Scott

commented Fletcher.
    “I figure you’ve got something there, John,” Carter conceded.
    When he got an opportunity to talk with him alone, Slade informed the sheriff of his discovery that one of the wideloopers was a member of the trio that attempted to take his life in the lake-front saloon.
    “So that sidewinder got what was coming to him fast,” Carter exclaimed with satisfaction.
    “Yes, and I consider it confirms my belief that the bunch, well or ganized, shrewd and capable, is working out of Amarillo, with somebody of good repute heading it,” Slade said.
    “I’ve a notion you’re right,” the sheriff agreed.
    But he was as puzzled as El Halcon over the riddle of how cattle were run across the “waterless” desert.
    “It just don’t make sense,” he declared. “How do the hellions do it?”
    “I don’t know,” Slade admitted frankly, “but I intend to find out. I’ve got a couple of theories I am going to put to work. Once down in the southwest part of the state I found water on a desert where there was not supposed to be any. It was on top of what everybody considered to be a big sand dune, which in reality was a rocky hillock sheathed by wind-drifted sand over the course of ages. On top of the hillock was a wide indenture or cup that was fed by springs deep down in the earth. But I’m ready to swear there is no such formation on this desert.
    “However, there evidently is water somewhere between here and the New Mexico hills. Lots ofthings in this great sparsely inhabited land that are supposed not to exist. I doubted it before, but now I’ll be willing to put credence in the claim of oldtimers that the Indians knew where to find water out there. And if they could find it, why can’t I?”
    “If it’s there, you’ll find it,” Carter predicted confidently. “Let’s go in, Pedro’s yelpin’ to come and get it.”
    Dinner in the big dining room was a gala affair. After pipes and cigarettes were smoked, old Keith announced—
    “Gents, now we’re going to have some music. In front, everybody!”
    Quickly the living room was crowded. Old Keith motioned to Jerry’s grand piano.
    “Ladies and—lady, rather—and gents, the singingest man in the whole dadburned Southwest will favor us with a tune or two. Go to it, Slade!”
    With a smile and a nod, Slade sat down on the stool. His slender fingers drew booming chords from the really fine instrument. Then he sang, sang in a voice deep and powerful as the flooded Canadian thundering in its sunken gorge, sweetly melodious as the winds whispering through the cedars on a dreamy summer night. Songs of the horse and the lonely rangeland, and the men who loved both. Songs of the turbulent towns with their flow and rush of life, filled with their laughter, their anger, blood and death.
    And as the great metallic baritone-bass pealed its magic under the low ceiling, something of it all passed through the minds of the entranced listeners, and many a thought of lonely men turned elsewhere as he concluded with a hauntingly beautiful love song of his own composition; and Jerry Norman’s beautiful eyes were not the only ones that were misty.
    The piano crashed its vibrating chords, and was still. Slade flashed the irresistible smile of El Halcon at his audience and left the stool. And old Keith repeated what had been said before—
    “Why the devil does he ever have to shoot anybody? All he needs to do is sing to them and owlhoots turn into little harmless puppy dogs!”
    “Ai,” murmured old Pedro, the cook. “He sings as sang the Heavenly Host. But when he sings, some evil one will weep!”
    Prophetic words.

Chapter Seven
    As he and Carter and the deputy started for town, leading the grimly burdened mules, Fletcher following with the retrieved cows, Slade turned and gazed westward to where loomed Tucumcari, the mountains that looked like the breasts of a sleeping woman, and Mt. Capulin, the last of the active volcanoes of the southwestern United