The Legend of Red Ghost

It was 1883 at a lonely ranch near Eagle Creek in southeastern Arizona. The Apache wars were drawing to a close, but isolated ranches and farmhouses kept watch for renegades.

Two men rode out in the early morning to check on the livestock.  Their wives remained at the ranch with the children. About midmorning, one of the women went down to the spring to fetch a bucket of water while the other remained in the house with the children.

Suddenly one of the dogs began to bark ferociously. The woman inside the house heard a terrifying scream. Looking out the window, she saw a huge, reddish-hued beast run by with a devilish-looking creature strapped on its back.

The frightened woman barricaded herself in the house and waited anxiously for the men to return. That night they found the body of the other woman, trampled to death. 

They found tracks -  cloven hoof prints much larger than those of a horse, along with long strands of reddish hair.

A few days later, prospectors near Clifton were awakened by the sound of thundering hoofs and ear-piercing screams. Their tent collapsed, and the men clawed their way out  just in time to see a gigantic creature run off in the moonlight. The next day, they too, found huge cloven-hoofed prints and long, red strands of hair clinging to the brush.

More stories popped up.  One man claimed he saw the beast kill and eat a grizzly bear. Another insisted he had chased the Red Ghost, only to have it disappear before his eyes.

About a year later, a cowboy near Phoenix came upon the Red Ghost eating grass in a corral. He built a fast loop in his rope and tossed it over the beast’s head. Suddenly it turned and charged. The cowboy’s horse tried to dodge, but to no avail. Horse and rider went down, and as the camel galloped off in a cloud of dust, the astonished cowboy recognized the skeletal remains of a man lashed to its back.

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The U.S. Army introduced camels to the Southwest back in the 1850s, using them as beasts of burden while surveying a road across northern Arizona.  The Civil War interrupted the great camel experiment, and most were sold at auction.  It is believed this is how the Red Ghost got to Arizona.

Stories of the Red Ghost grew to legendary proportions. The creature made its last appear­ance in Eastern AZ ten years after the first sighting. 

A rancher awoke one morning and saw the huge animal casually grazing in his garden. He shot it with his rifle and the camel dropped dead. 

The animal’s back was heavily scarred from rawhide strips that had been used to tie down the body of a man. Some of the leather strands had cut into the camel’s flesh. How the human body came to be attached to the back of the camel remains a mystery.