Range Ghost

by Bradford Scott

The Panhandle is poised for violence as one spread after another loses cattle to mysterious rustlers. Walt Slade, the hawk of the Texas Rangers, drifts quietly into Amarillo. That wild and woolly frontier town is more dangerous than a she-grizzly. Slade finds the killer thieves like a desert further away whenever he looks.

180 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 2005

Reviews

[Robert Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well, this being the third of the Walt Slade books I’ve read, the formula is becoming much more evident, and so at least it was what I was expecting. Unfortunately, this one was light on the Scooby-doo aspects I loved in Gunslick, but it did still have Walt Slade sussing out a mystery, which led to one of my favorite themes/sequences found in Westerns in the second third of the book: that of man versus the savage land, the hero surviving the landscape itself. Thus, it's my favorite part of this book. In this section, Slade is seeking the secret source of water that the rustlers need to drive their beef-booty across the alkaline desert, potentially getting his horse and himself dead if they can’t find the hidden water. Spoiler: they do.

The clever devices used in these books by the bad guys were a little disappointing this time, a shotgun rigged to a doorknob of the sheriff’s office while Slade and the sheriff were confabbing, and a noose dropped from a tree branch over Slade’s neck, but of course Walt Slade figures it out just in time due to it being fall and a few leaves drop alerting him. So, the bad guys in this one focus on assassination as their criminal acumen. Seen that afore in Westerns.

The mystery element in this one runs the full gamut of the story, taking the entire book for Slade to solve, though it was a little convoluted. The main bad guy, Tobar Shaw, is having his gang rustling cows and robbing ranchers of their loan money, which he set up in the first place, and railroad pay-cars to force down the realty values and force the ranchers to sell their land to him. Though he’s careful to stay in the background and remains understated until Slade gets on his trail. Somehow, Shaw's also knowledgeable in geology to the point that he knows that the land sits above a massive reserve of oil. Although Slade does guess at this motive and nails it so…

Not to say I didn’t like this one, it’s just not my favorite of the three I’ve read so far. It is exactly what I expected, although one surprise is that the main villain gets away in the end, with Slade only recovering two-thirds of the stolen money. However, that also rendered the ending unsatisfying. My main complaint about this story is that it is just a bit too predictable, except for the mildly disappointing ending. Would I recommend this one? Well, I would recommend Border Blood or Gunslick over this one, but if you can pick it up for a song, go for it. It has writing of a quality equal to the previous two and is a perfectly decent pulp western balanced on a mystery, though the story is a predictable one.

[Ron · Rating 2 out of 5]

I have good memories of these books from my childhood.

I've been re-reading these as I find them.

I was really disappointed with this book.

I finally gave up on skimmed to the ending - disappointing.

Not the best book in the series and I wondered if it was a ghost written book.

👇👇👇 Spoiler 👇👇👇

Walt shows up and a big deal made that he is allegedly a gunslinger.

Yet he hangs out with the sheriff and no one seems to question this.

Who knows that he's a Ranger?

Why do people respect this so Called gunslinger and take his word for things.

[Doug · Rating 3 out of 5]

A new printing of a 1960's book...a G-rated western, singing cowboy included. Full of "heck-fire" and all the "blankety-blanks" you can handle. Not really my cup of red-eye, but I drank it anyway.

[Jeff Dickison · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just a fair to middlin' western with two much concarned supposed western lingo. Story is about a Texas Ranger stopping cattle rustling in the Amarillo area. Ends with a look towards a sequel.