As the story goes, a military commander lashed a camel-shy soldier to the back of a camel and sent him off to learn how to ride. Depending on who is telling the story, the soldier either died from starvation, or embarrassment, and the camel rode around Arizona for the next thirty years with a skeleton on his back. Since the camel was rust colored, the legend of Red Ghost began. Supposedly, Red Ghost was shot dead in the 1890s while poaching from an Arizona backyard garden and he still had the rope burns on his hide. Frankly, I’m getting heart burn just telling the story.

True West March/April 2025
In This Issue:
Western Books & Movies
More In This Issue
- Truth Be Known
- What Has Taught Me: Deb Goodrich
- Earp, Cowboy Songs & Prairie Hygiene
- Trails of the Old West
- The Frontier Characters of South Dakota
- The Bowie Knife
- The Kindled Flame 1835
- King of the Scatterguns
- Selling the Mythic West and the Real West
- A Gut Punch Turns into a Miracle Reprieve
- The Beginnings of the Bird Cage
- Frontier Colossus