aroma of packing houses.
Slade was familiar with the bay town’s colorful history, the present town being on the approximate site of Linnville, which was destroyed by enraged Comanches. Burning with anger over the slaughter of their leaders in the Council House fight in San Antonio, an army of five hundred Indians had laid waste to Victoria and marched on Linnville. The residents, believing them to be Mexican traders, took no precautions until it was too late. But before the town was completely surrounded, they realized what was up and took refuge in a big lighter out on the bay beyond arrow shot. The Indians stole everything they could pack away and burned what they couldn’t, loaded their loot on fifteen hundred captured horses and departed. Later on, Port Lavaca, “Port of the Cow,” rose on the ruins of Linnville.
The town was still a rather important place of entry, but the currents and tides of Matagorda Bay were already slowly choking the channel with silt and destroying the deep water facilities. Port Lavaca would know an era of stagnation until the development of oil and exploitation of recreation facilities would cause it to boom again.
However, it was still plenty lively and still making history when Walt Slade rode in late that beautiful afternoon.
After locating a suitable stable for his horse and making sure all his needs were provided for, Slade headed for the sheriff’s office, hoping that official would be in.
Sheriff Neale Ross was in, dozing comfortably in an armchair, his feet propped on his desk. Looked like he didn’t have a care in the world, but in fact he had plenty.
The sheriff slowly opened one eye as Slade entered. Then the other snapped open, and his boots hit the floor with a thud.
“Slade!” he shouted. “Where in tarnation did you come from?”
“Over west,” Slade replied, grinning at the sheriff’s astonishment.
Ross surged to his feet and held out a big paw. They shook solemnly.
“Have a chair,” he said. “Make yourself comfortable. Hey, what’s the matter? Your head’s tied up.”
“Leaned against the hot end of a passing slug,” Slade answered cheerfully. “Just a scratch.”
The sheriff shook his own red head resignedly.
“All right, where are the bodies,” he sighed. “I’ll go pack ’em in.”
“I wish I knew,” Slade said.
“Now what the devil do you mean by that?” demanded Ross.
“Sit down, Neale, and I’ll tell you about it,” Slade replied, and proceeded to do so.
The sheriff swore whole-heartedly as the tale progressed. “The men of steel, eh?” he growled. “And you actually saw them?”
“Yes, I saw them,” Slade admitted. “Were wearing what looked like armor, all right, but it wasn’t very good armor —didn’t offer much protection against a .45. But the lead they threw at me certainly wasn’t medieval—it was plumb up to date. I wish I had gotten a close look at what they were wearing, but for a while I wasn’t in much shape to do any looking, and when the rest of the bunch showed up, I figured odds of eight to one were a bit lopsided, even if I had been up to snuff, which I certainly was not.”
“So I imagine,” nodded the sheriff. Suddenly he grinned.
“So!” he chuckled. “I write to McNelty asking for a troop to restore order and he sends me El Halcón, the notorious owlhoot. Oh, well, guess it might be worse. Just suppose there were two El Halcóns. That would be a real calamity, the way trouble always shows up when there’s just one of you around. And I’ve got enough as it is.”
“Neale, what is going on here?” Slade asked. The sheriff proceeded to enlighten him to the best of his ability.
Like Slade the night before, Sheriff Ross had for some time been trailing “ghosts.” At least according to quite a few folks—Ross himself did not think so. He considered it strange and contrary to experience for ghosts to throw hot lead and steal sheep and cows. Which was just what they had been doing, as he wrote Captain McNelty.
In the section there were many sheep ranches, owned chiefly by Texas citizens of Mexican descent or other citizens of out-and-out Indian blood. Embodied in the beliefs of these folks were legends and traditions dealing with the armor-clad men of Spain who had once conquered and overrun the country. As is customary with legendary figures, the men of steel were endowed with awesome and mystical attributes. Strange tales were told beside lonely campfires of the things they did. And the story went on and became a prophecy believed in by many, that, though long vanished from the scene, they would come again in due time and once again rule the land. The simple herders and peones of the region believed the stories. So did some not so simple Texas cowhands who should have known better.
Cattle are not the only things in the West that are widelooped. Sheep are worth money, also. They are easy to handle, much easier indeed than obstreperous longhorns; and there are markets for woollies, to those who know where to look for them.
So Sheriff Ross was not particularly surprised when a report came to him that the herders of the section were losing sheep. But he was surprised when more and more reports came in. What was worse, several flock owners had been killed while endeavoring to protect their woollies. Sheriff Ross swore in some special deputies and did his best to run down the wide-loopers. Without success. He found that he was up against a stone wall of fear and superstition on the part of the people he was trying to protect.
He swore in wrathful disgust at the whispers running through the section that the men of steel were once again riding the wastelands. Weird stories were told of men in shining cuirasses and helmets riding through the filtered moonlight of a stormy sky—men it was death to meet, who snatched up herds of sheep and cattle and swept them away into the clouds, never to be seen again.
But the bodies the ghostly riders left behind were plain to be seen, and were found to be punctured by very prosaic and matter-of-fact bullet holes.
Would ghosts use powder and lead to do their killing, he demanded. All too often he was met by an eloquent shoulder shrug and a muttered quién sabe? Who knows?
But where do the sheep go, he was asked. And the cows that have been lifted, too. Not to the north, that is certain. Not across seventy miles of desert to the Rio Grande. An expressive glance to the clouds overhead. Profanity from the sheriff.
However, the sheriff figured he had the answer to the question. Sheep can be transported via ship, and so can cattle. A ship stands in at night. The critters are loaded and away they go to Mexico, or some place else where somebody is waiting to buy them.
“No ships have been seen.” To that one the sheriff did not have the answer. He was forced to admit that, so far as he knew, it was true.
What irritated Ross most was his inability to obtain reliable information. The herders wouldn’t talk. They were brave, hardy men who feared no purely physical dangers. But they shook with terror at the shadows in their own minds. To them the ghostly riders were real and were not of honest flesh and blood.
Finally, in despair, Sheriff Ross wrote to Captain McNelty asking for help. The result: El Halcón, who did not believe in ghosts and in whom the Mexican peones and pastores did believe.
“So that’s how the
