Old Buck's Ghost Still Roams New Mexico

Here is a humorous, intriguing, and supposedly true tale. Frank Benton tells this story about New Mexico Senator Stephen W. Dorsey. It took place in northern New Mexico and the time period is not known.

A certain Englishman was interested in buying cattle from Senator Dorsey. Being a careful man, the Englishman refused to take Dorsey's figures regarding the number of cattle Dorsey had on hand and insisted on personally counting them.

"Jack," Dorsey told his ranch foreman, "I want you to find me a small mountain around which a herd of cattle can be circled several times in one day. This mountain must have a kind of natural stand where men can get a good count of the cattle stringing by, but where they can't possibly get a view of what is going on outside."

Having ridden Dorsey's range for a considerable number of years, the foreman had no trouble in locating just the perfect mountain. They stationed the Englishman and his bookkeepers on the mountain's side where the canyon opened. There he could make his tallies.

Jack Hill and the other range hands separated the cattle into two groups - each containing about 500 head. They kept the groups about a mile apart. When everyone was positioned and ready, the cowboys drove the first group into the canyon to be counted. This group was hardly out of sight before the second group entered.

While the second group entered the canyon, the cowboys rapidly drove the first herd around to the other side of the mountain. When the second group arrived, the counting began again.

This went on all morning. The cowboys drove in one group just as the other group left, and the Englishman kept on counting. About noon, the men all decided to take a break. During the break, Dorsey's foreman told the Englishman the cowboys were still holding the bulk of the herd back in the hills, waiting to be counted.

Three hours later, the cattle were hungry, thirsty, and footsore. It was estimated each steer had traveled about thirty miles that day just circling the mountain. Several began to drop by the wayside and lie down. One steer was a bobtailed, lop horned, old yellow steer with a game leg.

"There is more bloody, blasted, lop horned, bobtailed, yellow, crippled brutes than anything else, it seems," the Englishman spoke up at one point, having noticed the same steer during its numerous trips around the mountain.

Dorsey, worried that the Englishman would soon discover his trick, called Jack aside. He told Jack to be sure and cut that steer out of the herd on the next time around.

Jack cut him out and ran the steer off several yards. But the old yellow bull, known to the ranch hands as 'Buck', just limped back down into the canyon and rejoined the herd.

Again, Dorsey called Jack aside and told him to get rid of that steer. This time they ran the bull off further. About half an hour later, here came Buck, meandering back into the canyon.

Dorsey then told the Englishman there was only one more herd to count and signaled Jack to ride around and stop the endless circle.

Once more having run Buck off, the last herd was brought by. Sure enough, there was old Buck staggering along with the rest.

That night, several of the ranch hands heard Senator Dorsey groaning in his sleep. One of them awoke the Senator to see what was the matter. Dorsey told them he'd been having a nightmare about that blasted bull - Buck.

The Senator insisted they ride out to the canyon and see about the bull. Sure enough, there in the New Mexican moonlight, old Buck was still staggering around and around the mountain.

It was nearly a week later when they again heard about Buck. One of the cowboys, riding by that area of the ranch, noticed the big bull lying dead along the well-worn path he'd traveled so many times.

"No one ever rides that way on moonlight nights now," Frank Benton tells us in his tale. "The cowboys have a tradition that during each full moon old Buck's ghost still limps down the canyon."